The Executioner's Song (29 page)

                The trailer was furnished with a couple of old things her parents gave them, and they had a little lawn. Max also planted a small garden out to the side. Every day he'd water his tomatoes. Maybe there were a hundred trailers in the court, and all kinds of neighbors. Most were their own age with children, and nice enough. There several couples they went to church with.

He had a construction job promised for the summer, but when it was not yet ready after school, they went up to his dad's farm for a few weeks and Max dug ditches, fed cattle, branded them, planted crops, helped irrigate. It was good to see him physically relaxed instead of worn out from studying.

                When they went back to Provo, the man who had promised the construction job to Max said that it had gone instead to the son of one of the men working there already. That job would have paid $6.50 an hour.

                Max had a temper and knew how to keep it under control but this got him truly upset. It was the first time Colleen saw Max depressed. She had to do a lot of talking to turn his mood around. Finally, he said, "Okay, I'll start thinking about another job," and went to the University employment office, but it was late to look for summer work and he only found a listing for Sinclair gas station attendant at $2.75 an hour.

                It was a self-service station on a back street in Orem. His work was limited to giving out change, cleaning windows, and taking care of the restrooms from three in the afternoon until eleven at night.

                The pay, of course, was a lot less than they had counted on, yet for all of June and the first weeks of July he worked without complaint and came home hot and tired. All the same, he was beginning to make friends with some of the customers and the manager liked him. They worshipped in the same Ward.

                Two weeks after the Fourth of July, Max and Colleen were asked to give a talk in church. Max spoke of how there were too few people in this world who were really honest. He gave a powerful speech on the importance of being honest. It made all the difference between being able to build on a real foundation or not being able to. Colleen's talk that Sunday was on joy, on the joy she experienced when she met Max, and when they married, and when they had their baby. Afterward, on the way home, he gave her a big hug, and a lot of fine feelings came over her and she said, "We're really beginning to live and love each other more than ever." They went to bed with a real good understanding.

                Monday morning, Max was excited about getting some shelves finished for Monica, and spent the morning hammering and sawing and drilling. Colleen had a lot of things to do, the wash, the ironing, fixing dinner. Usually they ate in plenty of time before Max went off to work at 3 P.M., but today they were a little rushed because Max wanted to get the shelves done first. He kept calling her into the bed room to mark his progress and Monica was also watching. Max was bending over and hammering, listening to the radio, in his Levi's, feeling comfortable and good. Finally he said, "I'm ready to put them up, come help me." She went in and they got them installed quickly, then he kind of backed away, gave a sigh, said, "Well, that's done."

                They ate. Being a little late, Max was in a hurry to finish.. He was never late to anything, and usually ready one minute before her. So, as soon as he swallowed dinner, he walked down the hall, grabbed some things he needed, and started to walk out the door while she was still sitting at the table. Only then did he realize he hadn't kissed her good-bye and so he turned around, and kind of grinned and said, "Well, I'll meet you halfway."

                She walked around the table and he gave her a kiss, and a really good hug and looked into her eyes, things were just going well, and Colleen said, "I'll see you tonight." He said, "Okay," went out, got in the car and drove off.

                He was a very conscientious driver, never broke the speed limit or anything. Fifty-five miles an hour all the time. In her mind, she saw him driving down the road that way. He would be moving along the Interstate at just such a speed until he went around a slow graded turn and disappeared from sight and left her mind free to think of one and then another of the small things she must do that day.

Chapter 13

THE WHITE TRUCK

About the time Max Jensen was starting work at the Sinclair gas station, Gary Gilmore was in the showroom in V.J. Motors on State Street, about a mile away, coming to terms with Val Conlin about the truck. There wasn't going to be a co-signer, after all. Gary was going to turn over his Mustang on which he'd already paid close to $400 (if you gave him credit for the battery and ignored the windshield) and he would produce another $400 in two days, cash. Then he would come up with another $600 by the fourth of August. Val would let him make the transfer now and he could sign the papers tonight.

                Rusty Christiansen could hear them talking, and had to smile. She had come in to work part-time on the books, reconcile Val's bank account, get license plates, and, in general, help. She knew some of the ropes by now.

                Rusty's unspoken opinion was that the truck had to be disgustingly overpriced. It was selling for $1,700 and with interest would come to $2,300. Val probably hadn't paid a thousand for that carcass.

                Now he would have the Mustang to resell, plus a thousand in cash by the first week of August. Otherwise, he would repossess the truck.

                He wasn't taking that big a chance. Gary could sure have found something better for the money than this white Angel with 100,000 miles on her. He had fallen in love with a paint job.

                Now, Rusty watched Conlin tell Gilmore one more time that he, Val, had an extra set of keys with which to make sure Gary would walk if the money wasn't there. It was the same pep talk. Val would make a good coach for a team of mental defectives. "Get the money, Gary," said Val as the truck drove away.

                Sterling was taken for a ride and Gary was talking pretty proud. His new engine had a lot more power than the Mustang. For sure the acceleration was better. Gary didn't abuse it, though. Drove it like a Cadillac. Trundled it for a while. Then they went tooling up the highway.

                It was moving toward dark when Kathryne saw him. Some of her family had come over that day. The cherry trees were ripe in the yard, and her mother and a couple of her brothers and sisters were still out with the kids picking fruit, while Kathryne's friend Pat was with her in the kitchen. At that point, Gary came to the back door and said, "Could I talk to you outside?" Kathryne invited him in but he kept saying, "I have to talk to you outside. It's important."

                She went and took a look at his truck, oohed and ahhhed. He looked odd to Kathryne, not drunk, exactly, but he made a point of telling her how sober he was. In fact, she couldn't smell alcohol on his breath. He did seem odd, however. She said, no, she hadn't seen Nicole. He said, "As far as I'm concerned, she can go to hell." Then he looked at Kathryne like some nut in him was being tightened right off the threads, and said, "She can get fucked."

                That really shocked Kathryne. She could hardly believe Gary would use such words for Nicole. Then he looked at her in that way he had of getting into every little thought you might like to keep to yourself, and said, "Kathryne, I want my gun back." "Gary," she managed to answer, "I don't like to give it to you. Not the way you're acting." He said, "I'm in trouble. I gotta have it. I've got all the guns back now but three. A cop knows, you see, that I done the robbery."

                She had the feeling Gary was making it up. "This cop told me if I get the guns back to the store, nothing will happen."

                Kathryne said, "Gary, why don't you come back tomorrow and pick it up when you're sober."

                He said, "I'm not drinking, and I'm not going to get in trouble. Moreover, if I want to use a gun"—he pulled his jacket open—"this little baby takes care of it all." That was one pistol she recognized. A real German Luger stuck in his pants. "In addition," he said, "I got a sackful." At that point he opened the truck door, and a burlap bag tipped over. By the clanking it sounded like it held half a dozen more guns.

                Kathryne said to herself, What does it matter? She took the Special out from under the mattress and gave it to him, and stood with Gary in the twilight trying to calm him down. He was so angry.

                Then, April came running out of the house. She was close to hysterical. "Where's Pat?" she asked, "where's Pat?" "She's gone, April," Kathryne said. "Oh," cried April, "Pat promised to take me down to K-Mart to get my guitar string."

                At this point, Gary said, "I'll run you over." Quickly, Kathryne told her, "You don't need to go," but April jumped into the truck, and Kathryne barely had time to repeat, "Gary, she don't need to go," when he replied, "That's all right. I'll bring her back." They were gone.

                It was in this moment that Kathryne realized she didn't know Gary's last name. Knew him as Gary, just Gary.

                They sat in the kitchen among all the boxes of cherries they'd picked. Kathryne wasn't about to call the cops. If the police stopped Gary, he might open up on them. Instead, she waited till Pat got back and went out with her to look for the white truck. They drove till one or two in the morning, going up and down roads. No way they were going to find him, it seemed.

                April moved in close, turned on the radio, said, "It's hard to get along if you have to wait too long. The rooms get narrow and very often there is a dog." She began to shiver as she thought of the dog. "Every day," she said, "is the same. It's all one day," and nodded her head.

                "You have to get them used up."

                "That's right," he said.

                Just before he arrived, she had been lying in the grass, watching others pick cherries. She was playing the guitar with the broken string. It came over her that grandmother was going to die if she didn't fix the string. April was letting her soul run wild as she played, and thought of Jimi Hendrix and Otis Redding dead and that made her start thinking hard about the diseases. The bugs, spiders and flies bring it in, and the fevers give a humming sound until they are amused, then they make a noise like a breaking string. Death would certainly come to Grandma if she didn't fix the string. That was her thought in the grass. As she looked up, there was a dog in front of her.

                This dog started crying. It sounded like a man crying his heart out. The recollection of the tragedy of that sound got April nodding full force in Gary's truck. She didn't like such feelings. When she nodded that way, she might just as well have been galloping on a horse. Her head was certainly being snapped each step the horse came down. It got her to the point where her personal motor turned on again as if Satan was running her body, and pulling in all the people who usually floated around as personalities from Mars and Venus. The black man was staring at her with his cold black eye, and the white man had started acting like he was ecstasy in the worst way the entire galaxy. The guitar needed a new string to attract more harmonious spirits. "I," said April to Gary, "am the one swinging on the string." She nodded, careful not to do it so hard that the galloping horse would snap her neck.

                "Look," she said, "my grandma's washing machine is next to the sewer. That's why those people are floating around. I hate filth." She could feel her mouth twisting from her nostrils to the lips. "Oh, Gary, I'm cotton-mouthed," she said, "I need Midol. Can you get me a toothbrush?" She could feel him patting her. He said he would get her what she needed.

                It was crucial to put it across to people that you didn't go to a store and pull things from the counter, but took a good look at the object you were going to buy and inquired of it. There were all sorts of answers: the object could say, "Go away," or "Please steal me." It could even ask to be bought. The objects had as much concern about themselves as anyone else. Gary just went plink, plink, plunk, got her Midol, got her toothbrush, got her the hell out of there. He wasn't drinking beer. Boy, he was uptight.

                Now they were driving in Pleasant Grove again. "I don't want to go home. I want to stay out all night," she said.

                "That's cool," he said.

                Julie had to stay in the hospital one more night, so Craig Taylor was still alone. He was just putting the kids to sleep, when Gary knocked on the door and introduced this girl as Nicole's sister, April. They looked odd. Not drunk, but the girl was in bad shape. Paranoid. She couldn't sit down. Walked around Craig like he was a barrel or something.

                Gary came out of the bathroom, and asked did he still have the gun. Craig said, Yeah. Gary asked to borrow it back. Plus a few shells. "Oh, yeah," said Craig. "Well, it's yours, I'll give it to you."

                Added, "Why do you want it?" Gary didn't give any answer. Finally he said, "I'd like it." Craig didn't exactly have a good feeling as he passed the shells. Gary seemed awful emotionless. "Gary, I can't refuse you," Craig said, "it's your gun," but he took a good last look. It was a gold-trigger Browning Automatic with a black metal barrel, nice wood handle.