Free The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer Page B

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 FIRST MONTH
     
    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 ff 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 ff Pdkki would sit in his cm” 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 any thing.”
    “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 sis ter 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 thingsl
     
    The same morning, Gary called up Brenda. He would be. getting his treatPaY thatyounight.guys,,,HiShe firSttold cheCkher, from Spence McGrath. “Hey, I want to
     
    58 p>
    THE EXECUTIONER’S SONG
     
    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