Shot in the Heart - Mikal Gilmore [91]
THEN, SOMETHING SEEMED to change in Gary. His cottage and school reports improved steadily, and he seemed more receptive to counseling efforts. In June 1956, Gary’s therapist wrote: “Counselor has seen Gary regularly and he has used the time well to discuss his problems in relationship to his own feelings of fear and anger. He expresses a great deal of fear about any personal relationships and seems to be afraid both of what he might do and is afraid of what might be done to him. He still seems to have a compulsive personality makeup in that he feels compelled to behave as he does. He has expressed a feeling of rejection from the family, particularly the father, has been hurt by the father both physically and mentally. Gary has talked of his early life of moving around and has reported a great number of fights and aggressive activity.”
In general, the school’s officials felt Gary had turned an important corner, and that it was now time for him to apply his new perspective to the real-life demands of living and working with society and his family. In the summer, Gary’s counselor initiated a parole program which Gary helped shape. He would return to live at our home, and he would enroll as a sophomore at Portland’s Franklin High School. He would also agree to seek part-time work, to avoid contact with anybody with a delinquent record, and to refrain from any illegal activities. In addition, Gary agreed to see a therapist on a weekly basis at the University of Portland Psychological Service Clinic. “Gary appeared to be very anxious to continue such a plan,” Gary’s counselor wrote, “and he expressed an interest in paying for the services himself, as he did not want to burden his father with any more expenses. It was felt he would continue with his therapy … and benefit greatly thereby.”
On September 1, Gary was paroled from MacLaren’s Reform School for Boys and returned to our home.
“I never saw Gary again after that,” Duane said. “I got paroled myself and went into the service. A short time later, I got my girlfriend pregnant and I decided I had to tell all my old friends good-bye. I knew if I continued to hang around them, the marriage had no chance. I grew up real fast at that point. I would read in the paper about a lot of the guys I knew up there. A lot of them went on to prison for one reason or another, and a lot of them died hard deaths. Then, bang, one day there’s poor Gary on the front page, asking Utah to kill him. I was living in California, working in the Bay area representing a paper mill, on the morning that they executed him. I just didn’t think that they would ever do it, that somehow or another somebody would intercede. What Gary did was wrong, there’s no question about it, but my God, we keep Mansonites alive, and that type. There are so many that are worse that had nowhere near the redeeming value that Gary had, the potential.
“I wished many times, when I was watching Gary in the news, going through his pathetic Don Quixote routine, that I could just go up there and put my arm around him and say, ‘Goddamnit, Gary, cool it—quit humiliating these sons of bitches, they’ll kill you if you don’t. For once in your life bow to it. If you just give them what they want, tell them you’re sorry and beg for forgiveness, you’ll live.’ I am firmly convinced that if Gary had admitted he was up against a higher power that he could not beat, they would have found it in their hearts to spare him somehow. He just challenged the wrong people. I remember telling my wife, ‘Those goddamn Mormons have God on their side and they don’t question their right to carry out God’s edicts as they see it.’ That kind of religious fervor is scary.”
Before he left my place that day, Duane had a final thought he wanted to share. “It must be painful for you to hear some of these