The Executioner's Song (7 page)

                It turned out, however, that Gary did not have much experience applicable here. He was good at painting but they didn't do much sign-painting, just covered machinery with a paint gun. "Still," said Spencer, "you impress me as intelligent. I figure you can learn." He would put Gary on at $3.50 an hour. The government had a program for ex-cons and would pay half of this salary. Next day, he would start. Eight to five with breaks for coffee and lunch.

                It was seven miles and more from Vern's home in Provo to the shop in Lindon, seven miles along State Street with all the one-story buildings. The first morning Vern drove him there. After that, Gary left at 6 to be sure of getting to work by 8 A.M. in case he wasn't able to find a hitch. Once, after catching a ride right off, he came in at 6:30, an hour and a half early. Other times it was not so fast. Once, a dawn cloudburst came in off the mountains, and he had to walk in the rain. At night he would often trudge home without a ride. It was a lot of traveling to get to a shop that was hardly more than a big shed with nothing to see but trucks and heavy equipment parked all over a muddy yard.

                He was real quiet those first few days on the job. It was obvious he didn't know what to do. If they gave him a board to plane, he just waited after he cleaned it off. They had to tell him to turn the plank over and plane the other side. One time the foreman, Craig Taylor, a medium-size fellow with big arms and shoulders, discovered that Gary had been working an electric drill for fifteen minutes with no results. Couldn't get the hole started.

                Craig told him he had been running the drill on reverse. Gary shrugged, "I didn't know these things had a reverse," he said.

                So the word Spence McGrath got about him was that he was all right, but knew no more than a kid out of high school. Polygrinders and sanders and paint guns all had to be explained. He was also a loner. Brought his lunch in a brown paper bag and took it himself the first few days. Just sat on a piece of machinery off to the side and ate the food in all the presence of his own thoughts. Nobody knew what he was thinking.

                Night was different. Gary was out just about every night.

                Rikki was getting a little in awe of him. He knew be didn't want to mess with Gary. At the poker game, Gary told them about the Idaho fellow he left in a hospital after a fight.

                Now, Gary also told everybody about this black dude he killed in jail who had been trying to make a nice white kid his punk. The kid asked Gary for help, so he and another buddy got ahold of some pipes. They had to. The convict they were taking on was a bad nigger, and had been a professional fighter, but they caught him on a stairway and beat him half to death with the pipes. Then they put him in his cell and stabbed him with a homemade knife 57 times.

                Rikki thought the story was talk. By telling it to everybody, Gary was just trying to make himself look big. Still, that didn't leave Rikki feeling comfortable. Any fellow that wanted to live on such a story could hardly back down if he started to lean on you, and you pushed back.

                There were times Gary seemed almost simple, however. Running after the girls in Rikki's GTO, Gary sure hadn't learned much. Rikki kept trying to explain how you talk to girls, soft and easy like Sterling Baker, instead of big and mean, but Gary said he wouldn't play those games. It wasn't no trick for Rikki to get a couple of girls to pull over and talk awhile, but Gary was sure to scare them off.

                One night, Rikki started idling next to a pickup with three girls. The truck was on Rikki's left and he just talked through the open window until they could feel he was all right and good looking enough. Then the girls cut down a dark street, and he followed and parked behind. The girl driving came over to talk to Gary, and Rikki got out and walked up to their truck. He was talking nice to the other two girls about moving over to their place for a party, but not a couple of minutes gone, the driver came back looking scared. She said, "You ought to do something with that guy you've got along." She got into her truck fast and took off.

                "What happened?"

                "Well, I came right out and asked her for it," he said, 'It's been a long time and I'd like some right now!' " Gilmore shook his head. "I've had enough. Why don't we just grab a couple of bitches and rape them?"

                Rikki chose his words carefully. "Gary, that's something I just couldn't go for."

                They drove around until Gary said he knew a girl named Margie Quinn. "Real nice." Now, he wanted to go to her place, only to her place. She lived on the second floor of a two-story building with several apartments on each landing. Looked like a small motel.

                Gary pounded on her door for ten minutes. Finally, Marge's sister came to answer. She opened just a crack, and whispered, "Marge has gone to bed."

                "Tell her I'm here."

                "She's gone to bed."

                "Just tell her I'm here, and she'll get up."

                "She needs her sleep." The door closed.

                "Cunt," Gary shouted.

                Then he got mad. On the way down the stairs, said to Rikki, "Let's tip her car."

                Rikki was pretty drunk himself. It sounded like it might be kind of fun. Rikki had never tipped a car.

                She was just a little old foreign job, but heavy. Put their backs into it, and gave what they had, but couldn't do more than rock her. So Gary grabbed a tire iron out of the GTO's trunk, ran up to Marge Quinn's car and busted the windshield out.

                The sound of glass breaking scared Rikki enough to go flying over to his car. It was only as he took off that Gary opened the door on the run, and jumped in. Rikki had to laugh at how Gary would have busted all her windows if they hadn't got moving.

                They decided to visit Sterling. On the way, Gary said, "Help me rob a bank?"

                "That's something I never done."

                A bank was easy, Gary said. He knew how to do it. He would cut Rikki in for 15 percent if Rikki would sit in his car and drive it off when he came out. Rikki, he said, would make a good getaway man.

                Gary said, "You wouldn't have to come into the bank."

                "I couldn't do it."

                Gary got inflamed. "You're not supposed to be afraid of anything."

                "I wouldn't do it, Gary."

                They went the rest of the way to Sterling's house in silence.

                Once there, Gary cooled enough to get working on an acceptable story in case Marge Quinn called the cops. They could say they drove up to Salt Lake for the night and didn't get back till morning. The sister had them mixed up with two other guys.

                Friday morning, Marge found the window smashed. Gary did it, was the first thing to come to mind, but she hoped it wasn't true. The neighbor downstairs said, "Yeah, that really loud car with those two drunk guys, they pulled up right next to your car. I don't know what happened after that."

                She let it go. It was one more unhappiness at the bottom of things.

                The same morning, Gary called up Brenda. He told her he would be getting his pay that night.
His first paycheck from Spence McGrath. "Hey, I want to treat you guys."

                They decided to go to a movie. It was a flick he had seen before. _One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest_. He had watched them film it down the road from the penitentiary, watched it right from his cell window. Besides, he told her, he had even been sent over to that very mental institution a couple of times from the prison. Just like Jack Nicholson in the film. Brought him in the same way, with handcuffs and leg irons.

                Since the movie was at the Una Theatre in Provo, Brenda and Johnny drove over from Orem and by the time they picked him up at Vern and Ida's, Gary had had about four or five beers to celebrate his paycheck.

                In the truck, he smoked a joint. Made him happier than hell. By the time they covered the few blocks to the theatre he was giggling. Brenda said to herself: This is going to be a disastrous evening.

                Soon as the movie went on, Gary started to give a running commentary. He said, "You see that broad? She really works in the hospital. But the guy next to her is a phony. Just an actor. Hey!" Gary told the movie theatre at large.

                After a while, his language got to be God forbid! "Look at that fucker over there," he said. "I know that fucker."

                Brenda could have died. No pain. "Gary—there are people trying to hear the show. Will you shut up?" "Am I offensive?" "You're loud."

                He spun around in his seat and asked the people behind, "Am I being loud? Am I bothering you folks?"

                Brenda slammed her elbow into his ribs.

                Johnny got up and moved over a space or two.

                "Where's Johnny going?" asked Gary. "Does he have to take a piss?" More people started to move.

                Johnny slid down in his seat until no one could see his head. Gary's narration of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest continued. "Son of a bitch," he shouted, "that's just the way it was."

                From the rear rows, people were saying, "Down in front. Shhh!" Brenda grabbed him by the shirttail. "You're obnoxious."

                "I'm sorry." In a big whisper, he said, "I'll hold it down." But his voice came out in a roar.

                "Gary, all kidding aside, you're really making me feel like a turd sitting here."

                "All right, I'll be good." He put his feet up on the back of the chair in front and started rocking it. The woman who was sitting there had probably been holding out on every impulse to change her seat, but now she gave up, and moved away.

                "What'd you do that for?"

                "My God, Brenda, do you have to ride herd all the time?"

                "You made that poor lady move."

                "Her hair was in my way."

                "Then sit up straighter."

                "Not comfortable sitting up straight."

                Going back to Vern's, Gary looked pretty smug. Brenda and Johnny didn't go in with him.

                "What's the matter?" asked Gary. "Don't you like me anymore."

                "Right now? I think you are the most insensitive human being I've ever known."

                "Brenda, I am not insensitive," said Gary, "to being called insensitive."

                He whistled all the way up the steps.

                At breakfast, his mood was fine. He saw Vern watching him eat and said, "I guess you think I gobble like a pig, kinda quick."

                Vern said, "Yeah, I noticed that."

                Gary said, "Well, in prison you learn to eat in a hurry. You've got fifteen minutes to get your food, sit down and swallow it. Sometimes you just don't get it."

                "Did you manage to get it?" asked Vern.

                "Yeah, I worked in the kitchen for a while. My job was to make the salad. Took five hours to make that much salad. I can't touch the stuff now."

                "That's fine," said Vern, "you don't need to eat it."

                "You're a pretty strong fellow, Vern, aren't you?"

                "Just the champ."

                "Let's arm wrestle," said Gary. Vern shook his head, but Ida said go ahead, arm wrestle him.

                "Yeah, come on," said Gary. He squinted at Vern: "You think you can take me?"

                Vern said, "I don't have to think. I can take you."

                "Well, I feel pretty strong today, Vern. What makes you think you can beat me?"

                "I'm gonna make up my mind," Vern said, "and I think I can do it."

                "Try it."

                "Well," Vern said, "you eat your breakfast first."

                They got into it before the table was cleared. Vern kept eating his breakfast with his left hand, and arm wrestled with the other.

                "Son of a bitch," Gary said, "for an old bastard you're pretty strong."

                Vern said. "You're doing pitiful. It's a good thing you finished your breakfast. I wouldn't even give it to you now."

                When he got Gary's arm halfway over, Vern set down his fork, picked up a few toothpicks and held them in his left hand. He said, "Okay, my friend, any time you want to say uncle, just quit. If you don't, I'm going to jam your hand right on these toothpicks."

                Gary was straining with every muscle. He started giving karate yells. He even got half out of his seat, but it didn't make much difference. Vern got him down on the point of the toothpicks. Gary quit.