Chapter 22

TROTH

1

Gary was so quiet over the next few days that it got ominous. Cahoon decided he was too morbid and needed company, so he moved over a prisoner named Gibbs from the main tank. They had both done so much time, they might get along.

Cahoon noticed that soon as he shut the bars, they started a conversation in jail talk. It was that gibberish talk. Use a word like figger to say nigger. Show the other fellow how many years you put in by carrying on a whole conversation. Cahoon didn’t try to get it all. If they said lady from Bristol, that meant pistol, and he would have to get concerned, but Gilmore was talking of ones and twos, and those were shoes. “Yeah,” said Gilmore to Gibbs, “A nice pair to go with my fleas and ants.”

“You still got to think,” said Gibbs, “of your bunny and boat.”

“Fuck the goat,” said Gilmore, “let me stroll in with a dickery dick.”

“That’s right, it could juice the chick.”

Cahoon left. They were just doing time. He thought they made a cute couple. Both had Fu Manchu goatees. It was just that Gilmore was a lot bigger than Gibbs. Like cat and mouse. Hell, like cat and rat.

2

There were only three things in the world Gibbs could honestly say he had any feeling for: children, kittens, and money. Been on his own since he was 14. When 17, he wrote and cashed $17,000 worth of checks in a month and bought himself a new car. Always had new cars.

By the time he was 14, Gilmore said, he’d broken into 50 houses. Maybe more.

First time Gibbs went to prison out here, he was behind a 2 ½-million-dollar forgery. He took, Gibbs said, 21 counts. Next time he went back was when he blew up a cop’s car in Salt Lake. Captain Haywood’s car.

Gave him 15 years when he was 22, Gilmore said. Did them at Oregon and Marion. Gibbs nodded. Marion had the credentials. Flattened 11 years consecutively, Gilmore told him. Probably 4 years altogether in Solitary. Gilmore showed real pedigree.

He was in for rubber rafts, Gibbs told him. Stole forty of them in two weeks out of J.C. Penney’s in Utah Valley, Salt Lake Valley, $139 apiece. Chain saws same way. Made two or three hundred bucks a day. Just couldn’t manage his money, that’s all.

My problem, too, allowed Gilmore. He had also done a little boosting at J.C. Penney’s.

“Yeah,” said Gibbs, “the only difference between you and me is when I do it, I have two shoulder men to run interference. If they come after, my big boys say, ‘What are you chasing this guy for?’ ”

Gibbs could recognize that Gilmore didn’t know any heavies out of Salt Lake. Didn’t know the Barbaro brothers, Len Rails, Ron Clout, Mardu, or Gus Latagapolos. “You’re talking heavies, then,” said Gibbs.

Gilmore spoke of the Aryan Brotherhood and his connections there. Gibbs could recognize some heavy names out of Oregon and Atlanta, Leavenworth and Marion. Not legends, but still heavies. Gilmore carried himself like he was well regarded. Of course, Murder One gives a man standing. When they ask you, “What do you get for killing?” the answer is “self-satisfaction.” Clears the mind.

His ring, Gibbs told Gilmore, had done outboard motors, inboard motors, house trailers, and trailer homes. Don’t get nervous when they see you carrying the stuff. They had a laugh over this. “Half a million dollars’ worth,” said Gibbs, “going right down the Interstate.”

3

“If you get out before me,” said Gilmore, “can you bring back some hacksaw blades?”

“Anybody would, I probably would,” said Gibbs. In fact, thought Gibbs, he might. He had as much loyalty in one direction as in the other. He was the man in the old saying. “You got blue eyes, one blew north, one blew south.” Except it was Gilmore had the blue eyes. He liked Gilmore. A lot of class.

“Hey,” said Gilmore, “if you could figure a way to get me out of here, I’d pull any job you want. Just keep enough money for me and my old lady to leave the country, and I’ll give you the rest.”

“If I wanted out of this jail,” said Gibbs, “I’d have people come take me out.”

“Well, around here, I don’t know people,” said Gilmore.

“If anybody would, I would,” repeated Gibbs.

The cell they were in was divided into two parts, a small dining area with a table and benches, and to the back, away from the bars, a toilet, a sink, a shower, and six bunks. On the other side of the bars was a corridor that led to the next tank. That was used as the women’s cell. When no women were there, it was the pen for drunks. Their first night, they had a drunk next door who kept yelling.

Gilmore answered as if he were the jailer. “What do you want?” he bellowed. The drunk said he had to make a phone call. Had to get bond. Gilmore told him no Judge would give it. Why, the little boy he had hit in the trailer court died. What little boy, said the drunk? Those are your charges: drunk driving, auto homicide, hit and run. Gibbs loved it. The drunk believed Gilmore. Spent the rest of the night crying to himself, instead of yelling for the jailer.

Gilmore began to do his exercises. That was something, he told Gibbs, he did every night. Had to, in order to tire himself out enough to get a little sleep.

He did a hundred sit-ups, took a break, then did jumping jacks, clapping his hands over his head. Gibbs lay on his bunk and smoked and lost count. Gilmore must have done two or three hundred. Then he took another break and tried push-ups but could only get to twenty-five. His left hand was still weak, he explained.

Then he stood on his head for ten minutes. What’s the purpose of that, asked Gibbs. Oh, said Gilmore, it gets the blood circulating in your head, good for your hair. He wanted, Gilmore added, to try to keep as much youthfulness in appearance as possible. Gibbs nodded. Every con he knew, including himself, had a complex about age. What the hell, the youthful years were all lost. “My personal opinion,” Gibbs said, “is that you are a young-looking person for 35 years old. I am five years younger, and look five years older than you.”

“It’s your coffin nails,” said Gilmore, sniffing the smoke. He had picked a top bunk as far away as possible from Gibbs, who was sleeping in the bottom bed across.

“You don’t smoke?” said Gibbs.

“I don’t believe in supporting any habit you have to pay for,” said Gary. “Not if you spend your time in lockup. They had a cell in Isolation named after me.”

The drunk in the next tank was whimpering piteously. Gilmore said, “Yeah, the Gary M. Gilmore Room,” and they both laughed. Listening to the drunk cry was as comfortable as lying in bed on a summer night hearing trees rustle. Yes, Gilmore told him, he had put in so much time in Segregation that he almost never earned money from a prison job. And there sure wasn’t money coming from outside. Any luxuries allowed in the can, he had learned to do without. “Besides,” he said, “smoking is bad for your health. Of course, speaking of health…” He looked at Gibbs.

Speaking of health, he expected the death sentence.

“A good lawyer could get you Second Degree. They parole Second Degree in Utah in six years. Six years, you’re on the street.”

“I can’t afford a good lawyer,” said Gilmore. “The State pays for my lawyers.” He looked down at Gibbs from his bunk and said, “My lawyers work for the same people that are going to sentence me.”

4

“They keep taking me,” said Gilmore, “to be interviewed by psychiatrists. Shit, they come up with the stupidest questions. Why, they ask, did I park my car to the side of the gas station? ‘If I parked in front,’ I said to them, ‘you’d ask me why I didn’t park to the side.’ ” He snorted at that. “I could put on an act, have them saying, ‘Yeah, he’s crazy,’ but I won’t.”

Gibbs understood. That offended a true man’s idea of himself.

“I am telling them that the killings were unreal. That I saw everything through a veil of water.” Now they could hear the drunk moaning again. “ ‘It was like I was in a movie,’ I say to them, ‘and I couldn’t stop the movie.’ ”

“Is that how it came down?” asked Gibbs.

“Shit, no,” said Gilmore. “I walked in on Benny Bushnell and I said to that fat son of a bitch, ‘Your money, son, and your life.’ ”

They both cracked. It was funny as hell. Right there in the middle of the night, in this hot fucking two-bit asshole jail, with the drunk slobbering in his shit and counting his sins, they couldn’t stop laughing. “Pipe down in there,” said Gilmore to the drunk. “Save your crying for the Judge.” The drunk was one wet sorrow. Like a puppy first night in a new house. “Hell,” said Gilmore, “the morning after I killed Jensen, I called up the gas station and asked them if they had any job openings.” Again they cracked.

Gilmore, tonight, would break off his arm if he could make a good joke. Cut off his head and hand it to you, if his mouth would spit nails. “What’s your last best request when they’re hanging you?” he asked, and answered, “Use a rubber rope.” Pretended to be bouncing on the end, he put his face in a scowl, and said, “Guess I’ll be hanging around for a while.”

Gibbs thought he’d piss his pants. “What,” asked Gilmore, “is your last request when they put you in the gas chamber?” He waited. Gibbs wheezed. “Why,” Gilmore said, “ask them for laughing gas.”

“That is enough,” said Gibbs, “to choke you up.”

For that matter, he was almost strangling on his own phlegm. Smoking gave him a dozen oysters every meal. The kid with the phlegm-pot. Gilmore asked, “What do you say to the firing squad?”

“I,” said Gibbs, “ask them for a bullet-proof vest.” They laughed back and forth like an animal going in circles and getting weak. “Yeah,” said Gibbs, “I heard that one.”

Gilmore had a quality Gibbs could recognize. He accommodated. Gibbs believed he, himself, could always get near somebody—just use the side that was like them. Gilmore did the same. Around each other tonight, they were like boiler-plated farts. Filthy devils.

No sooner did he think this, than Gilmore got serious. “Hey,” he said to Gibbs, “they’re figuring to give me the death penalty, but I have an answer for them. I’m going to check into the State of Utah’s hole card. I’m going to make them do it. Then we’ll see if they have as many guts as I do.”

Gibbs couldn’t decide if the guy was a bullshitter. He couldn’t visualize doing something like that.

“Yes,” said Gilmore, “I’ll tell them to do it without a hood. Do it at night if it’s outside, or in a dark room with tracer bullets. That way I can see those babies coming!”

The drunk was screaming, “I didn’t mean to kill the little boy, oh Judge, I’ll never drive again.”

“Knock it off,” shouted Gilmore.

Yeah, he said to Gibbs, the only legitimate fear a man in his position could have while facing the firing squad was that one of the marksmen might be a friend or relative of one of the victims. “Then,” said Gilmore, “they might shoot at my head. I don’t like that. I have perfect twenty-twenty, and I want to donate my eyes.”

This guy was a roulette wheel, decided Gibbs. Just depended which number came up. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life,” said Gilmore from the upper bunk, “and a great many errors in judgment the last couple of months, but this I will say, Gibbs. I am in my element now. I have never misjudged a person who has done time.”

“I hope you have a favorable impression of me.”

“I believe you are a good convict,” said Gilmore.

On that high praise, no higher praise, they went to sleep. It was three in the morning. They would bullshit until three every morning.

5

Next night, they put a girl in the same tank where the drunk had been. She was also crying and Gary hollered over, Hey, sister, it can’t be all that bad. She immediately quieted down.

Gary found out her name was Connie, and when she inquired if he had a cigarette, Gibbs slid a pack down the hallway to her cell and Connie thanked them.

They kept trying to talk but you had to holler loud, so Gary wrote a note and slid it over. Told her he was rather handsome, liked young girls, western music, and yodeling. Especially, he liked to yodel. She wrote back that she’d seen his picture in the newspaper and agreed he was good looking. Thanked him for being kind, and asked if he would yodel.

“Well, Tex,” said Gibbs, “crank up.” Gary could no more yodel than Gibbs could knit. So Gary just hollered over shucks he was lying, couldn’t oo-lay, oo-lay-oo to save his butt. All three began to laugh. They had a good night sending notes back and forth. In the morning, she got out. Gary’s depression was back.

6

Gibbs had a habit of waking up in the middle of the night for a cigarette. There, in the endless wee hours, he lit up and lay back to do some quiet thinking about his private situation. All of a sudden, Gary said, “You actually did it, didn’t you, Gibbs?” He replied carefully, “Did what?” Gary said, “You actually lit that motherfucker, didn’t you?”

In the morning, Gary said, “You talk in your sleep, Gibbs. You say a few words and then you start playing with your teeth. Sounds like you got a dice game going on down there.” Gibbs got a little paranoid. He wasn’t altogether happy about saying things in his sleep. If it was the wrong thing, Gilmore might decide to separate his heart from his lungs.

All that day, Gary’s depression got worse, and the next night about 3 A.M., when Gibbs woke up again, Gary said, “Are you okay?” Gibbs replied, “I think so. I’m not sure.” Made a point of trying to laugh even though he was gasping and coughing from his cigarette. “You going to be all right, man?” asked Gilmore, “need an iron lung maybe?”

Gibbs was silent. He was just trying to control his wheezes. Out of the silence, Gilmore said, “In the morning, we’ll tell the guard we can’t get along. That way he’ll move you.”

“Oh, yeah?” said Gibbs.

“Yeah,” said Gilmore, “I think I’m going to hang it up. If I do, you’re better off out of here. They might just try to drop a murder rap on you.” He nodded. “They’re going to be a mite disappointed if they don’t receive the self-satisfaction of trying me on my two hot ones.”

Gibbs nodded. “If that’s what you want,” he said, “I’ll go so far as spitting at the guard or throwing something, and take the hole.” “Yeah,” said Gary, “I appreciate that. I really might have to ask you to leave tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” said Gibbs, “I’ll do it.”

In the morning, however, Gilmore said to hold off. He wanted to see if word would come from Nicole that day. In the afternoon, sure enough, a letter did arrive. He read it and said, “ ’Never mind. I’ve decided to wait.” Gibbs couldn’t get over how jubilant he was.

Gary spent the afternoon going through her old mail, picking up this one and that one, finally he said, “Here’s one to read if you like.” Gibbs noticed it had little spots of blood on the pages. He felt embarrassed and just skim-read it, but couldn’t help taking notice of one part where Nicole said, “how warm and nice it felt, my life being drained from my body.”

Gibbs was careful not to say anything or show any emotion, but to himself he thought, “She’s either the most sincere broad I ever heard of, or one of the dingiest, ding-a-ling chicks in the world.” Gilmore said, “What do you think?” Gibbs replied, “I can’t really say because I’ve never been in your position, but evidently she’s dedicated to you.”

Now that Gilmore was out of his depression, Gibbs decided to keep him out of it, and started talking about how easy it would be to escape. Just get a hacksaw blade. The jail was old and the bars didn’t have a stainless steel core inside. In fact you could see where somebody had already cut a couple and they’d had to weld them back in place.

Gary decided to send word to Nicole to tell Sterling Baker. He could do the job right at the shoe repair. Gibbs said you had to separate the outer sole from the base, insert two blades, then carefully restitch the shoe by hand, using the same holes. Any shoemaker could do it.

Gary approved of the idea one hundred percent. Started a letter to Nicole explaining how to go about it. Since he didn’t want any jailer to look over what was written, he gave it to Mike Esplin to mail for him after the lawyer dropped by to discuss his case.

Once again she decided she had never been loving him more. His sexy letters got her so excited, it was playing hell with her decision to be true. “You’re so full of bullshit,” she said on her next visit, “I bet you can’t even get a hard-on, and here you are writing things like this.” He just grinned back. She was loving him.

Nicole spoke of the hacksaw blades. She had tried a little hardware store and asked for carbon steel. The old guy behind the counter saw she didn’t know the size and didn’t seem to care ’cause she bought the two kinds in stock. He gave her a funny look, and said, “Who are you trying to break out of jail?” She had a hard time keeping a straight face.

Now, she had taken the blades over to Sterling. He wasn’t, she told Gary, too enthused. First, he said he would, then decided he’d have to think about it. A couple of days had gone by. He was still thinking.

7

Gilmore owned the best sense of hearing Gibbs had ever come across. If there was a case of a man with bionic ears, it was Gary Gilmore. While it was at least ninety feet from their cell out to the front office, ninety feet of turning down three different halls and walkways, nonetheless Gilmore could listen to them book somebody, and tell you the name and the charge. It sure kept him from sleeping. Gibbs had noticed that Gilmore would only average two to three hours out of the twenty-four. He didn’t seem to need more.

Cahoon would have breakfast at 6:30, and Gibbs would still be in a drowse, but Gary would be up and eating. Then he would write a letter to Nicole, or read one of his books. He did this in the morning while it was peaceful through the jail.

From time to time Gilmore would speak of how unusual it was to find a man who had done as much time as Gibbs and didn’t like to read. Gibbs figured he had gotten through three books in his life: The Godfather, The Green Felt Jungle, Vendetta. Now, Gary handed him The Reincarnation of Peter Proud. Said it would give Gibbs a clue to the hereafter. Gibbs read it to make Gilmore feel good, but that didn’t turn him into no believer in reincarnation.

They got into a discussion about Charlie Manson. Manson had psychic powers, Gilmore explained. “I know he made Squeaky Fromme take a shot at President Ford.”

“You actually believe such stuff?” asked Gibbs.

“Yeah,” Gilmore said, “you can control people with your mind.”

Gibbs felt apologetic. “I don’t believe in nothing I just can’t see.”

“Well,” Gary said, “Manson put her up to it.”

“How?” asked Gibbs. “They didn’t let Manson have a visit from the girl.”

“No,” Gilmore said, “Manson was using psychic powers.”

Gibbs didn’t see it.

Later that evening, Gilmore was heating water for coffee. They would roll toilet paper into a doughnut shape and light the middle. It produced a steady flame that lasted long enough to get the water to boil. Their heating pot was made out of a Dixie cup with the aluminum foil from their baked potatoes wrapped around it. For a handle, they tied the ends of a piece of string to two holes on the rim, and held the cup above the flame.

Gibbs was lying on his bunk watching Gary do this when he had the thought: “I’d sure laugh if the string broke.” Just then, the string did catch fire, the cup fell, the water spilled. Gibbs let it out. He laughed so hard he rolled up in his bunk like a potato bug, and pop-popped a string of farts. Gilmore looked at him with disgust, then threw the cup, string and all, into the toilet.

“You are,” said Gilmore to Gibbs, “the fartingest motherfucker I ever saw.”

“I,” said Gibbs, “can fart at will.” He laughed his ass off at the remark and gave another. Always laughed like a maniac after a fart.

“Well,” said Gilmore, “they don’t stink. I’ll say that for you.”

“I’ve always been a toot-tooting son of a bitch.”

“Why don’t you save ’em for a week,” said Gilmore, “and make an album?”

After Gibbs caught his breath, he told him. “Hey, Gary, I wasn’t being ignorant about your misfortune. It’s just I was thinking it was going to happen. Right before it did.”

Gary lit up. “That,” he said, “is psychic powers.” Gibbs wanted to say, It will take more than a broken string to give me religion, but he kept his mouth shut.

Still, Gibbs did have a kid sister living in Provo who was married to a fellow named Gilmore. When Gibbs heard of Gilmore’s arrest, meaning Gary’s, he wondered at first if it was his brother-in-law, whom he had never met.

Gary, hearing that, said, “Did you ever think how much we have in common? Maybe we were meant to meet.” Gibbs thought, “Here we go with reincarnation again.”

Gary made a list: they had both spent a lot of time in prison, Gibbs in Utah and Wyoming, himself in Oregon and Illinois. Prior to prison, they had each gone to Reform School. Both were considered hard-core convicts. Both had done a lot of time in Maximum Security. Both had been shot in the left hand whilst in the commission of a crime. Neither of them cared for their fathers. Both fathers were heavy drinkers and dead now. Gilmore and Gibbs both loved their mothers, who were religious Mormons and lived in small trailer courts. Neither Gilmore nor Gibbs had anything to do with the rest of each immediate family. On top of that, the first two letters on both their last names were “GI” although neither had ever seen the armed services. Their first experience with drugs was in the early ’60s and they both used the same drug, Ritalin, a rare type of speed not in common use.

“Had enough?” Gilmore asked.

“Hit me,” said Gibbs.

Well, Gary would point out that prior to their arrests, they had both been living with 20-year-old divorcées. Each of them had met the girl through her cousin. Each of the girls had two children. The first was a 5-year-old daughter, brunette, whose name started with an S. Each girl had a 3-year-old son by another marriage. Both little boys were blonds and their names started with a J. Both Nicole and Gibbs’s girlfriend had mothers whose first name was Kathryne. And each of them had moved in right after he met the girl.

After comparing these coincidences, Gibbs did stop and think. He even started to wonder. Maybe there was sense in what Gary was saying.

Of course, Gary hadn’t hit the difference. Gibbs’s girl was nothing to look at, and Nicole was beautiful. After Gibbs saw the way she put herself out for Gary, he decided she must also be beautiful inside. Why, when she didn’t have money for stamps, she would hitchhike down to the jail to bring Gary a letter. If they needed coffee, Tang, writing paper, pens, whatever, Gibbs had only to tell the jailer to release money from his account and Nicole would go right out and buy the things and bring them back.

One time, making up the list, Gibbs asked if there was anything that had not been mentioned, and Gary said, “Do you like that instant hot chocolate?” “Yeah,” Gibbs replied, “it’s all right.” Actually he preferred cold drinks like Tang but said, “Have Nicole get a carton of those packets of hot chocolate.” He could see how embarrassed Gary was to want something or need it. Got all choked up. “Gibbs,” Gary said now, “you are one of the best sons of bitches I ever met in twenty years of lockup. Mark my words, somehow, someday, you’ll be repaid for being so good to others.”

Gibbs could see that Gilmore was really looking for some way to repay these favors. He even began to speak of fixing Gibbs’s teeth, which rattled in his sleep. “Well,” said Gibbs, feeling uncomfortable, “I like to play with them.” He had a full upper plate, but he had sure broken it in two. Shortly before he came to the slammer, he had been driving along in his Eldorado, drunk as a skunk, got sick and had to puke. Too lazy to stop. What the hell, he was doing 80 on the Interstate. He just opened the window, heaved, and must have gone another 100 yards before he realized his teeth had gone out with the cakes. Slammed to a stop on the shoulder and ran back in the dark, until he found a stream of vomit. The false teeth were in two pieces in the middle of it.

Now he played with them. Made a clickety-click sound like castanets. Sometimes Gibbs would poke the whole job out at people just to watch their expression when his front teeth split apart in front of them.

He wouldn’t kid this way around Gary, however. Gilmore was too self-conscious about his own teeth. It even took him a couple of days to get around to telling how he worked in the dental lab at Oregon State. If Nicole could buy a kit in a pharmacy, Gilmore could repair his denture. Gibbs released the money right off.

After her visit, she sent back a box of Denture-Weld, which contained a bottle of liquid, tube of powder base, eyedropper, plastic cup, a stick to stir it all, sandpaper, and instructions. Gilmore threw the instructions aside and went to work. In fifteen minutes the teeth were back together and fit like new. It made Gibbs worry. With his plate fixed, Gilmore might be able to hear the words he was saying while asleep. Gibbs just hoped those words wouldn’t embarrass him.

Later that night, Gilmore sat up and began to work at little adjustments on his own plates. Gary was really looking for a privacy trip with those teeth. In the silence of the night, Gibbs pretended to be sleeping and watched Gary, intent and alone at his work, old as his age and more, his lips fallen in on his gums.

The four trustees were petty criminals just serving a little county jail time. So they were all deathly afraid of Gilmore when they came back at mealtime. They would stand as far as they could from the slot in the door when they slid their trays through. A man could hardly reach out and grab you through that little space, but the trustees had a lot of caution. They had heard the jailers talk of how Gilmore made his victims get down on the floor, then, splat! Anytime a fellow in one of the other tanks started a tough-guy role, the jailers would now tell him to quit or he could go live with Gilmore. That man, they would point out, did not have a hell of a lot to lose by killing another man.

They took Gibbs out of the cell one day to let Gary be alone with a psychiatrist, and the jailer took Gibbs to the kitchen for coffee. The trustees couldn’t be nice enough. Fixed Gibbs a sandwich, the works. Finally one of them asked why he was out of his cell. “Oh,” Gibbs said, giving a wink to the jailer, “we’re being pulled one at a time for a shakedown. Gary will be here just as soon as I go back.” Gibbs had never seen four guys wash trays so fast. They planned to be done for sure before The Great Gilmore arrived.

Just then the jailer had to walk to the front office to answer the phone. Soon as he did, Gibbs took every package of punch he could see on the table, stuffed them in his pants, said to the trustees, “If one of you punks say a word about this, you’ll hate it.”

Soon as the jailer took him back, Gibbs started unloading his stolen goods. Gary said the nut doctor was going to recommend that he was sane and competent to stand trial. “What do you expect?” said Gilmore. “He’s paid by the same people who pay my lawyers. The State of Utah. I can’t win for losing.” Then he said, “What are we waiting for? Let’s mix up that punch before the Man comes looking.” So they got busy and made up a gallon.