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

green, they’re blue.” This went back and forth. Finally, Brenda said, “Okay, when you’re mad, they’re green; when you’re not, they’re blue. Right now, they’re blue. Do you feel blue?”
    Gary said, “Shut up and eat.”
     
    After Vern and Ida and Howard and Toni and the children left, and Johnny had gone to sleep, Brenda sat around with Gary having a cup of coffee. “Did you have a good time?” she asked.
    “Oh, yeah,” said Gary. Then he shrugged, “I felt out of place. I have nothing to talk about.”
    She said, “Boy, I wish we could get over that hump.”
    “Come on,” he said, “who wants to hear about prison?”
    Brenda said, “I’m just afraid of bringing back bad memories. Would you rather we didn’t walk so lightly around the subject?”
    Gary said, “Yeah.”
     
    He told her a couple of prison stories, God, they were crude. Gary could tell an awfully gross story. It seems there was this old boy
     
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    38 THE EXECUTIONER’S SONGp>
    Skeezix, who could perform fellatio on himself. He was proud of that. Nobody else in OSP could.
    “OSP?” asked Brenda.
    “Oregon State Penitentiary.”
    Gary had taken a small cardboard box, painted it black, and put a tiny hole in it so it looked as if it were one of those lensless pinpoint cameras. He told Skeezix he had film in the box, and it would take a picture through the pinhole. Everybody gathered around to watch Gary take a picture of the fellow going down on himself. Skeezix was so dumb he was still waiting for the photo to come back.
    On finishing his story, Gary went off laughing so hard, Brenda thought he’d sling his spaghetti around the room. She was awful glad when he wheezed into silence and fixed her with his eye as if to say, “Now, do you see my conversational problem?”
     
    Rikki Baker was one of the regulars in Sterling Baker’s poker ses sions. Although not heavy for his size, he was tall, very tall, maybe six-five. Gary fixed on him early. He was the only fellow in the game taller than Gary. They kind of got along.
    Rikki was Sterling’s cousin, and had heard about Gary before he even got out of Marion. Although Rikki had been trained by the Navy to be a diesel mechanic, he didn’t get enough experience to qualify for a real job when he got out, and so had to take what came along in the way of day labor or construction. When nothing else was avail able, Rikki put in time at Vern’s shop and Sterling taught him leather work. So Rikki happened to be around when Vern was speaking about this nephew in prison who was getting out soon. Later, Rikki met Gary at the shop, but the guy only seemed like a new worker, uncertain of himself, that’s all. It was only when he saw him playing cards that he realized Gary was one hell of a relative.
    Sure had a different personality at poker than he did in the shop. Rikki could see right off that Gary wasn’t too honest. He had a lot of habits that were just bad manners. Like he would lean over to see what a fellow had in his hand, and was a real lawyer about rules,
    always interpreting them in his favor. He also kept putting down the other players because they didn’t know the poker rules that con victs used. Since it was tencent ante, quarter raise, a pot could go to $io.oo. Gary’s interest in poker was obviously the money. He was making no friends.
    After that evening, a couple of Sterling’s buddies said they were going to stop coming over. Sterling told them, Fine with me. He was certainly being loyal to Gary. Yet when Rikki was alone with him, Sterling started to put Gary down. Rikki went along. There wasn’t too much they would take from him, they agreed. Still, Rikki had a funny feeling about the man. Didn’t want to make an enemy of him for too little. He figured if Gary gave trouble, he wouldn’t be afraid to just right-out fight him, but he was a little uneasy of what Gary might pull from his pocket.
    They agreed, however, that they also felt sorry for him. Gary had