The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer Read Free Book Online

of saying, “Cristie, I love you,” or “Keep it UP, Nick,” they were printing stuff like “Fuck the Easter Bunny.” Brenda exclaimed, “You can’t hide those.”
    “Well,” said Gary with a big grin, “guess we got to eat ‘em.” He and Johnny had a feast of mislabeled hard-boiled eggs.
     
    They spent the rest of the evening drawing maps-Take so many steps; Look under a rock; You can read the next clue only in a mirror; etc. — they were up half the night putting candy, eggs and treats all over the yard.
     
    Brenda had a good time watching Gary climb around in the tree-which was wet for that matter. They were having a wet Easter. Here he was looming through the branches, hiding goodies, and getting soaked right through.
    Then he put jelly beans all over his room, especially on the shelf
     
    36 THE EXECUTIONER’S SONGp>
    above his couch, so that when the kids got up next morning, they would have to romp over him to get the candies.
    Little Tony, who was only four, walked across the front of Gary’s chest, up on his face, mashed his nose, and slipped off, squashing his ear. Gary was laughing his head off..
    The morning went like that. It was a good morning. When it cleared up a little, they played horseshoes and Johnny and Gary got along fine.
    In the kitchen, Brenda said to him, “Hey, Gary, you see this
    Revere Ware pan? Your mother gave it to me.”
    “Oh?”
    “Yes,” Brenda told him, “it was a wedding gift when I first got married.”
    Gary said, “Boy, that thing ought to be beat up by now.”
    Brenda said, “Don’t get funny.”
    It seemed the moment for Brenda to ask Gary if he’d been to see
    Mont Court. Gary said he had.
    “Did you like him?”
    “Yeah,” he said, “pretty good egg.”
    “Gary,” Brenda said, “you work with him and he’l] work back with you.”
    Gary gave a smile. He said a lot of men had been put in charge over him. People who worked in prison, and people who worked for the prison system. He didn’t really know anyone who’d been particu-laxly willing to work with him.
    Dinner didn’t turn out as Brenda had hoped. She’d invited Vern and Ida, and Howard and Toni with their kids, and of course she and Johnny had their own brood present including Johnny’s son, Kenny, by a previous marriage. Counting all the noses, they came to thirteen, and they made jokes about that. The main dish was spaghetti Italian style, promised to Gary the way Brenda’s Sicilian grandfather used to make it, with mushrooms and peppers and onions and oregano and garlic bread. She had some hot cross buns for dessert with a white X of icing on the top and plenty of coffee, and would have enjoyed the meal if it hadn’t been for how tense Gary looked.
    Everybody was jabbering back and forth. It was not a quiet meal, but Gary was a little out of it. Occasionally, somebody would ask a polite question of him, or he would say something like, “Boy, this is better grub than what they had at Marion,” but kept his head down as he ate, and hid his silence by swallowing food in a hurry.
    Brenda came to the glum conclusion that Gary was an atrocious eater. Too bad. Table manners were one of her hang-ups. She couldn’t stand to see a man shoveling and slobbering at the table.
     
    From his letters she had expected him to be very much of a gen tleman. Now she decided she should have known his manners would be common. In prison, they didn’t eat with napkins and place set tings. Still, it got to her. Gary had long artist’s fingers, small at the tips, nice-looking hands like a pianist might have, but he gripped his fork with his fist and bulldozed it in.
     
    He was, however, sitting at the end of the table by the refriger ator and so the fluorescent light over the sink was shining on his face. It lit up his eyes. Brenda said, “Wow, you’ve got the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen.”
    He didn’t like that very well. He said, “They’re green.” Brenda looked him back, “They’re not