Chapter 9

IN TROUBLE WITH THE LAW

1

Kathryne was getting quite an impression of Gary. It began one day around lunchtime when he came knocking on her door. It startled her. He was so covered with insulating material that he looked like a man who had clawed his way out of the earth.

He had dropped by, he told her, to take a look at the room she wanted done. Kathryne just about remembered that the time Nicole had brought him over to meet her, there was a conversation about insulating the back room. Fine, Kathryne told him now, fine. She wanted to get rid of Gary fast.

Well, he took the look and said he’d have to talk to a boy who worked with him. Then they’d give the estimate. Kathryne said that was real nice. Sure enough, he was back that same afternoon with a kid of eighteen who figured the job at $60. She said she’d think about it.

Three days later, at lunchtime, there was Gary in the doorway again. Talking fast. Said, I thought I’d come and have a beer with you. Got some beer? Gee, she didn’t, said Kathryne, just coffee. Well, he told her, I’ll come in anyway. Got something to eat?

She said she could make him a sandwich. That was okay. He would run down and get a six-pack. Kathryne just looked at her kid sister Kathy.

Ten minutes later, he was back with the beer. While she fixed the sandwiches, he started talking. What a conversation. If the first time he came to her house he never opened his mouth, now, right off, he told Kathryne and Kathy that he had stolen the six-pack. Wanted to know if they might need cigarettes. No, she said, she had plenty. How about beer? he inquired. Seldom drink it, very seldom.

The day before he had gone in the store, he said, picked up a case, walked out, and was setting it in his trunk when a kid not old enough to drink asked if Gary would buy him a case, and handed over five bucks. Gary started to laugh. “I walked in, picked up the kid’s beer, walked out, gave it to him, and took off with the cash.”

They were careful to laugh. Weren’t you afraid? they asked. No, said Gary, act like you own the place.

He started telling stories. One after another. They couldn’t believe him. Told of tattooing a man named Fungoo, and taking a fake photograph of a pervert named Skeezix, then there was a fellow he hit over the head with a hammer, and he stabbed a nigger 57 times. He’d look at them carefully, say, Now did you understand that? His voice got gruff.

They would put on a smile. Gary, the ladies would say, that’s something else, you know. They got themselves to laugh. Kathryne didn’t know if she was more afraid for Nicole or herself. About the time he’d stayed an hour and a half, she asked if he wouldn’t be late getting back to work.

To hell with the job, said Gary. If they didn’t like it over at the job, they knew what they could do. Then he told about a friend of his who gave it to the manager of a supermarket with a hot curling iron.

All the while, he watched them real close. He had to see their reaction. They felt they better have a reaction.

Weren’t you afraid, Gary? they would ask. Didn’t you think somebody would catch you?

He did a lot of boasting. Sounded like he was banging along in a boat from rock to rock. When he left, he thanked them for being so sociable.

2

Nicole heard about the lunch. There was a piece of him, she decided, that liked to tell crazy stories to grown-ups. It must have gotten locked in at the age of eight.

Then she thought of the night up in the hills behind the nuthouse when she wondered if he was a magnet to evil spirits. Maybe he had to act that nasty to keep things off. The idea didn’t cheer her. He could get meaner and meaner if that was the truth.

Around midnight, Nicole was feeling awfully cooped up with Gary. She found herself thinking of Barrett. It kept working away in her. There had also been a letter from Kip that afternoon but she kept thinking about Barrett and Rosebeth.

She hadn’t even wanted to open Kip’s letter, and when she did, he wrote that he wanted her to come back. The letter left her feeling crowded. It was like the past was coming back. Hampton, of all people, was going around with her sister April. Everybody, Nicole decided, was fucking with her head.

All the while she was having these thoughts, Gary had been sitting at her feet. Now he had to pick this moment to look up with all the light of love shining in his eyes. “Baby,” he said, “I really love you all the way and forever.” She looked back. “Yeah,” she said, “and so do seven other motherfuckers.”

Gary hit her. It was the first time, and he hit her hard. She didn’t feel the pain so much as the shock and then the disappointment. It always ended the same way. They hit you when they felt like it.

Soon enough, he apologized. He kept apologizing. But it did no good. She had been hit so fucking many times. The kids were in bed, and she looked at Gary and said, “I want to die.” It was how she felt. He kept trying to make up. Finally, she told him that she had felt like dying before but never did anything about it. Tonight, she wouldn’t mind.

Gary got a knife and held the point to her stomach. He asked her if she still wanted to die.

It was frightening that she wasn’t more afraid. After a few minutes, she finally said, “No, I don’t,” but she had been tempted. After he put the knife away, she even felt trapped. She couldn’t believe the size of the bad feeling that came down on her then.

They had one more marathon. Up all night about whether to fuck. In the middle, around midnight, he took off. Not too long later, he came in with a bunch of boxes. There was a pistol in every box.

She got over it a little. She had to. The guns hung around.

3

Sterling Baker had a birthday party the last Sunday afternoon in June, and the party went on in Sterling’s apartment and out in the backyard, fifteen or twenty good people. A lot brought bottles. Nicole had cutoffs on, and a halter top, and knew she was looking good. Gary was sure showing her off. A couple of dudes began to tell Gary what a hot lady he had. Gary would say, “Know it,” and grab her by both breasts, or pull her into his lap.

Well, it was Sterling’s birthday, and Nicole still had this little crush on her cousin. So Nicole started kidding him about a birthday kiss and Sterling said he’d take her up on it. She asked Gary if it was okay. He gave her a look, but she went and sat on Sterling’s lap anyway. Gave him a long kiss that would tell a lot about her.

When she opened her eyes, Gary was sitting with no expression on his face. He said, “Had enough?”

They were keeping a keg of beer out in the back. The fellow upstairs had also invited his friends, and one of them was a guy called Jimmy, a Chicano. He picked up a pair of sunglasses that Sterling had laid on the roof of a broken-down old car out in the back lot while he was tapping a keg. Nicole figured maybe Jimmy didn’t know. Just picked them up. Only thing, the glasses were a present from Gary to Sterling.

Gary came on strong. “I want them glasses back,” he told Jimmy, “they’re mine.” Jimmy got kind of upset and left. Nicole started shrieking. “You’re fucking up the party,” she shouted at Gary. “All this horseshit over a stupid pair of glasses.”

Jimmy came back to the party with a couple of friends. As soon as he walked in the yard, Gary was on his feet and heading toward him. They were throwing fists before you could stop it.

Maybe Gary was too drunk, but Jimmy split his eye with the first punch. Blood was running all over Gary’s face. He got hit again and went down to his knees, got back up and started swinging.

About that time, everybody broke the fight up. Sterling walked Jimmy around the front of the house and got him to leave. Just as Jimmy was walking off, Gary came up holding a gear knob that he’d taken off the beat-up car in the backyard. Sterling stepped in front of him. “Gary, you’re through with that, you’re not going to hit him,” he said. Just talking in a normal tone of voice. But he had a big fellow standing next to him to back what was said. Nicole got Gary out and took him home.

She hated to see her man have his ass whipped. Especially when he started it. She thought he was a fool all the way. A cheater, too. Like when he arm wrestled her brother.

He wanted to go back and find Jimmy. By keeping her mouth shut about how disappointed she was in his fighting, she managed to get him to Spanish Fork. She had hardly ever known a guy who hated to lose a rumble as much as Gary. That softened her feelings somewhat. After all, he had taken a beating from a very tough dude, and hadn’t quit.

After she washed him off, Nicole discovered that the cut was bad. So she took him next door to her neighbor Elaine, who had just gotten through taking this emergency course on being an ambulance driver and Elaine said he definitely needed stitches. Nicole started to worry. She had heard that oxygen in the air could enter a cut near the eye, go right to the brain, and kill you. So she did take him to the doctor. Through the rest of the night she kept ice packs on his face and babied him, and kind of enjoyed it, considering how things had been lately. In the morning, when he tried to blow his nose, his cheeks blew up right around his glands and sinuses.

4

Spencer said, “Gary, it doesn’t make much sense putting your body up to be abused.”

“They can’t hurt me,” said Gary.

“Oh, no? Your eye is cut and it’s turning black, and you’ve got a lump on your forehead and he gave you a good one on the nose. Don’t stand there and put that stuff on me, Gary. I just can’t believe you keep getting the best of these deals.”

Gary said, “I sure did, you know.”

Spencer said, “What’s going to happen one night is some little guy about five foot six”—which was around Spencer’s height—“is going to stuff a mudhole right in the middle of your face. Because that’s what happens. A guy doesn’t have to be seven feet tall to be mean.”

“I’m Gary Gilmore,” Gilmore said, “and they can’t hurt me.”

In the evening, driving around with Nicole and Sunny and Peabody, he stopped at V.J. Motors to talk to Val Conlin about the truck. Even got to take it out for an hour. Gary was that happy up high behind the wheel with something like a real motor in front of them. All the while she could feel him thinking of the guns. They were shining like $$$ in his eyes.

When he got back, he talked to Val about the size of a down payment. Nicole was hardly listening. It was boring to sit in the showroom with all the freaks and deadbeats who were waiting to get some piece of a car. One girl was wearing a turban and had a big swipe of eyeshadow under each eye, and her blouse just about pulling out of her belt. She said to Nicole, “You have very beautiful eyes.” “Thank you,” said Nicole.

Gary kept repeating himself like a record with a scratch. “I don’t want that Mustang,” he said to Val.

“Then let’s get closer to the truck, buddy. We’re not near it. Come in with a co-signer or with money.”

Gary stalked away. Nicole hardly had time to gather the kids and follow. Outside the showroom, Gary was swearing like Val had never heard him swear before. Through the showroom window Val could see the Mustang, and it wouldn’t start. Gary sat there pounding the wheel as hard as he could.

“Jesus,” said Harper, “this time, he is really hot.”

“I don’t give a shit,” said Val, and walked through the people sitting around with their debts on different cars. Yeah, I’m right on top of the mountain, thought Val, and went outside and said to Gary, “What’s the matter?”

“This son of a bitch,” said Gary, “this goddamn car.”

“Well, now, hold it. Let’s get some jumper cables, we’ll get it started,” and, of course Val did, just needed the boost, and Gary took off in a spray of gravel like he had a switch to his hind end.

By the following night, Gary had a guy who would sell the guns. But they had to meet him. That meant carrying the guns in the car. Gary didn’t have a license and her Mustang still had last year’s license plates. Both cars had the crappy kind of look a State Trooper would pull over for nothing. So they had quite an argument before they finally put the pistols in her trunk and started out. They brought the kids along. The kids might be insurance against a State Trooper waving them over for too little.

On the other hand, Sunny and Jeremy made her awfully aware of his driving tonight. That definitely got Nicole nervous. He finally swung into the Long Horn Cafe, a taco joint between Orem and Pleasant Grove, to make a phone call. Only he couldn’t get ahold of the guy who was to peddle the guns. Gary was getting more and more upset. It looked like the evening was going to get totally squandered. A sweet early summer night.

He came back out of the Long Horn and looked in the car for another phone number, then started tearing pages out of the book. By the time he finally found the number, his guy was out. Sunny and Jeremy were beginning to make a lot of noise. Next thing she knew, Gary spun out of the Long Horn and headed back toward Orem. He was going 80. She was petrified for the kids. Told him to pull over.

He slammed to the shoulder. A screeching halt. He turned around, and started spanking the kids. They hadn’t even been making a sound the last minute. Too scared of the speed.

She started hitting Gary right there, hit him with her fists as hard as she could, hollered for him to let her out of the car. He grabbed her hands to hold her down, and then the kids started screaming. Gary wouldn’t let her out. Then this really dumb-looking guy walked by. She must have sounded as if Gary was killing her, but the fucker just stopped and said, “Anything wrong?” Then walked on.

Nicole wouldn’t stop hollering. Gary finally wedged her into the space between the bucket seats and got his hand over her mouth. She was trying not to pass out. He had his other hand on her throat to hold her down. She couldn’t breathe. He told her then that he would let her go if she promised to be quiet and go home. Nicole mumbled, Okay. It was the best she could get out. The moment he let go, she started yelling. When his hand came back to her mouth, she bit real hard into the flesh near his thumb. Tasted the blood.

Somehow, she didn’t know how, she got out of the car. She couldn’t remember later if he let her go, or if she just got away. Maybe he let her go. She ran across the street to the middle of the highway divider, a kid in each hand, and started walking. She would hitchhike.

Gary began to follow on foot. At first he let her try to bum a ride, but a car almost stopped for her, and so Gary tried to pull her back to the Mustang. She wouldn’t budge. He got smart and tried to yank one of the kids away. She wouldn’t let loose, hung on with all she had. Between them, it must have been stretching the kids. Finally a pickup truck pulled over and a couple of guys came over with a chick.

The girl happened to be an old friend Nicole hadn’t seen in a year. Pepper, her first girl friend ever. Yet, Nicole couldn’t even think of the last name, she was that upset.

Gary said, “Get out of here, this is a family matter.” Pepper looked at Gary, just as tall as she could be, and said, “We know Nicole, and you ain’t family.” That was all of it. Gary let go and walked up the street toward her car. Nicole got the kids into the truck with Pepper, and they took off. The moment she remembered how once she had wanted everything to be good for Gary, she started crying. Nicole couldn’t help it. She cried a lot.

5

He got back into her Mustang, drove down to Grand Central Supermarket, picked up a tape deck off the shelf, and started to walk out. At the door, a security guard took one look at his black eye and asked for a receipt.

“Get fucked,” said Gary and threw the carton into the guard’s arms. Then he ran to the parking lot, jumped in Nicole’s car, backed up, and slammed into a car behind him. He careened out of the space he was in, banged another car, and took off.

He zipped through Provo and got out on the back highway to Springville. There he stopped at The Whip. In the parking lot, he hid the pistol boxes under an oil drum, entered the bar, went to the men’s room, put Nicole’s car keys in the tank over the toilet, and came out to have a beer. While he waited, he called Gary Weston to come and pick him up.

Sirens came along the highway and wound down outside the door of The Whip. Two cops came in, and wanted to know who owned the blue Mustang. They asked everybody. Took down the name on every I.D. The revolving lights of their car kept flaring through the window of the bar. After they took off, Gary left with Gary Weston. Nicole’s car, however, stayed behind. The cops had impounded it.

It must have been eleven o’clock. Brenda woke up to hear him knocking on the door. There was Johnny asleep, same as every night, on the couch. He had been there since eight. When she first met Johnny he had been a Class B state champion of archery and had a short pointed beard. Out on the archery range, he looked as handsome as Robin Hood. Today, if dear John didn’t get his ten hours of sleep, he couldn’t function. Now, Brenda recollected herself falling asleep bored to death.

“I had a hassle,” Gary said.

“A hassle.”

“I took a tape deck in Grand Central and walked out. The guard stopped me, so I threw it at the guy.”

“Then what did you do?”

“I hit a car.” He told the rest of it.

He looked so tired, so sad and his beat-up face was such a holy mess that she couldn’t stay too angry. Johnny was up and stirring. His expression said the reason he liked to sleep was because it kept him from hearing news such as this.

“Brenda, I need fifty bucks bad,” Gary said. “I want to go to Canada.”

He had it figured out. “You explain to the police that Nicole had nothing to do with it. That way, they’ll let her have the car back.”

“You’re a man,” Brenda said. “Go down, and get the car yourself.”

“You won’t help me?”

“I’ll help you write a confession. I’ll see it’s delivered.”

“Brenda, there’s a lot of loudspeakers in the back of the car. I ripped them off in a drive-in movie.”

“How many?”

“Five or six.”

“Just to be doing something,” said Brenda. “Like a little kid.”

Gary nodded. There was the sorrow in his eyes of knowing he would never see Canada.

“You have to turn yourself in to Mont Court in the morning,” said Brenda.

“Cousin, keep on my ass about it, will you?” said Gary.

6

Nicole spent the night at her great-grandmother’s house where he would never think of looking for her. In the morning, she went back to her mother’s, and Gary called not long after, and said he was coming over. Nicole was scared. She put in a call to the police, and, in fact, was talking to the dispatcher when Gary walked in. So she said into the phone, “Man, get them out here as fast as you can.”

She didn’t know if Gary had come to drag her away. But he just stood at the kitchen sink. She told him to go away and leave her alone, and he just kept looking at her. He had a look as if everything inside him hurt, man, really hurt. Then he said, “You fight as good as you fuck.”

She was trying hard not to smile, but, in fact, it made her a little less afraid of him. He came over and put his hands on her shoulders. Again, she told him to leave. To her surprise, he turned around and went. He practically passed the cops as they were coming in.

By afternoon, she regretted not letting him stay. She was really afraid he would not come back. A voice in her head kept sounding like an echo in a tunnel. It said, “I love him, I love him.”

He showed up after work with a carton of cigarettes and a rose. She couldn’t help but smile. She went on the porch to meet him, and he handed her a letter.

After she read the letter, they sat on the porch for a while. Didn’t say too much. Then Nicole went in and got the kids, picked up their diapers, and left with him.

On the way, he told her what had happened at Grand Central. By the time they reached Spanish Fork, he got his nerve up and put in a call to Mont Court, who said it was too close to evening to do anything. First thing next day, Court would pick him up and drive him over to the Orem Police. Gary and Nicole slept with their arms around each other. It would be their last night together for they did not know how long.

7

The Lieutenant of Detectives in the Orem Police Department was a pleasant-looking man of average size with a big face, bald head, and a crown of yellow-reddish hair. He wore eyeglasses. His name was Gerald Nielsen and he was a good Mormon who grew up on a ranch and was an Elder of the Church. He was sitting in his office when the dispatcher called and said, “There’s a fellow out here wants to turn himself in.” That was an event which might happen from time to time, but it wasn’t common. The Lieutenant went out to meet him. A fellow could lose his courage during the time it took to walk from Reception to Nielsen’s office.

It was early in the morning and the man looked like he hadn’t slept too well. “I’m Gary Gilmore,” he said. “I want to talk to somebody.” He was wearing dark glasses and his eyes were black and his nose was swollen. They had hardly said hello before Gilmore mentioned that he had been in a fight. Considering the number of stitches, you would have supposed it was a car accident.

When they got back to his office, Gerald Nielsen poured him a cup of coffee out of the pot they kept for prisoners—a different expense account—and then they sat there without talking for a little while.

“I stole a tape deck at Grand Central,” Gilmore began, “and as I was leaving, I bumped another car. The car I was driving belongs to a friend of mine and they ended up impounding it. I thought about running to Canada, but my girl friend told me to stand up to what I have coming.” He said it with his battered face.

“That’s all that’s involved?” asked Nielsen.

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m wondering why you’re so nervous about it.”

“I just got out of prison.”

While they were waiting for the police report of the episode at Grand Central to be brought in, Gilmore recounted how many years he had been in prison. As he spoke, Nielsen got the impression more and more that Gilmore would never have shown up this morning if his parole officer had not driven him to the door.

Gilmore muttered, “Boy, I have a hard time when I drink.”

The report came in and the events were as Gilmore described. Nielsen called Mont Court who verified that he had brought Gary over. Since Court had had time to get back from Orem to his office in Provo, Nielsen could see that Gilmore waited more than a few minutes before getting up nerve to announce himself.

Now, he stared at Nielsen through his dark glasses, and said, “I just don’t want to go back, you know.”

“Well,” said Nielsen, “they don’t usually return people to prison for misdemeanors.”

“They don’t?”

“That’s a fact of life.” It concerned Nielsen a little that the fellow was sufficiently scared, in fact paranoid, to think a misdemeanor was going to terminate his parole. A man with Gilmore’s experience ought to know better. The Lieutenant looked one more time at the reports and decided he wouldn’t book him. He didn’t yet have all the facts in the Complaint, and it would amount to holding the man. That would be counterproductive to the effort Gilmore had made to come in and confess. So Nielsen said, “I’m sure they’ll charge you, and there’ll be a Complaint filed. But, for now, why don’t you go ahead and go to work?” When Gilmore looked confused, Nielsen added, “Have them give you a long lunch hour tomorrow. That’ll allow you time to appear before the Judge. I’ll tell the officer to have the papers ready.”

“You mean you’re not going to lock me up?”

“I don’t want to jeopardize your job.”

“Well, okay, you know,” Gilmore was certainly surprised. He sat there for a minute. “Could I make a phone call?” he asked next. “I don’t have a ride.”

“You bet.”

He made a couple of calls but couldn’t reach anybody. “Maybe,” he said, “I ought to go to Provo and get that car out of impound. I’ll hitch a ride.”

“Well,” said Nielsen, “I’m going there now. I’ll give you the ride.”

Nielsen drove him to the Provo Police Department, took him to the proper window, and left. Gilmore began to make arrangements to get Nicole’s car out. There were complications. The drive-in speakers had been discovered. Since they had not been listed when the car was first impounded, but only on the next day, there was no legal basis for adding stolen speakers to the Complaint. Anyone at The Whip, for instance, could have put them in the trunk.

8

Three hours after he kissed her good-bye and left in Mont Court’s car, Gary came driving up to the house in her blue Mustang. He was bright-eyed and talking a streak. Told her they had to get down to court fast. It was a real opportunity. The police Complaint, he had learned, wasn’t going to be ready until tomorrow.

If he went over now, he explained to Nicole, there would be no cop around to go into detail over what he had done. He was only up for petty theft. The Judge wouldn’t know if it was a dollar or ninety-nine dollars. Besides, he’d also heard the regular Judge was on vacation. There was only a Pro Tem, that is, just a regular lawyer standing in, not a real Judge. He wouldn’t know that much. It was made to order. On a misdemeanor, with no prosecutor and no cop to read the Complaint, it could be like coming to pay a traffic ticket.

Even with Gary’s explanation, she was surprised by the Judge. He didn’t look more than 30. He was a small man with a large head, and he said aloud that he didn’t know anything about the case. Gary kept talking to him as smoothly as a salesman making the deal. He was careful to throw in a “sir” now and then.

Nicole wasn’t so sure it was working. The Judge had the expression of a man who was not getting a particularly good feeling. One uptight Mormon. When Gary asked what the penalties might be on a plea of Guilty, the Judge said he would make no promises. As a Class B misdemeanor, it could amount to 90 days in jail and $299 for the fine.

She began to wonder. When Gary said, “Your Honor, I think I’m going to enter a plea of Guilty,” the Judge asked if he was on drugs or drunk. Did he realize he was waiving his right to a trial and to counsel? The language sounded awful, but by the flat way the young Judge laid it down and Gary nodded, she hoped it was routine.

Then the Judge said he wanted a presentence investigation through the Probation and Parole Department. Now Gary had to explain he already had a local officer. Nicole thought Gary was hanging himself for sure. The Judge frowned and said he would give him until five o’clock to post bail of $100. Otherwise, he could report to the county jail.

Gary said he didn’t have any hope of getting that much money before five o’clock. Wouldn’t the Judge give him a release if his probation officer vouched for him? The Judge said, “I’m a firm believer that people should not be punished because of lack of funds. Since you walked in of your own accord, I will consider your request. Let your probation officer call me.”

Gary came out of the phone booth smiling. Court was pleased he’d turned himself in, so it looked like they wouldn’t have to worry for a month. Of course, there would be a presentence investigation, and then he would have to appear on July 24 for sentencing, but maybe it would cool off by then. They walked out of the courtroom together.

Now, after all that had happened, after the fight with the Chicano, and the terrible night on the highway, after two days of being apart and knowing the fear of being separated for a lot more than that, they were together again. For a day and a night everything was better than if they had never been apart. It was as if somebody had hidden sparklers inside her heart in that place where she had expected to find nothing. God, she loved him while his face was mending.