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

walked off." Gary nodded, studying their reactions. "They took Bill up to Portland for brain surgery. He was pretty fucked-up."
                    "What happened to you?" asked Ruth Ann.
                    "There was two or three snitches in the TV room and they saw me do it and told the Warden. But the snitches were afraid to stand up in Court. So the Warden just kept me in the hole for four months. When I got out, this buddy of mine gave me a little toy hammer to wear on a chain, and nicknamed me Hammersmith."
                    Gary told this story in a Texas accent, very even voice. He was kind of informing Sterling that he had a code. It went: Be loyal to your friends.
                    Gary now asked Ruth Ann if she knew any girls who would go out with him.
                    She didn't, offhand.

  
    Chapter 3
    THE FIRST MONTH
     
    Gary went back to visit with Brenda and Johnny for Easter weekend. After the kids went to sleep, they spent Saturday night coloring Easter eggs around the table, and Gary had a fine time and drew beautiful pictures and wrote the names of the kids in Gothic script, and in three-dimensional letters so that, small as they were on the Easter egg, they still appeared to be cut out of stone.
                    After a while, Johnny and Gary began to giggle together. They were still painting eggs, but instead 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 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'll 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 particularly willing to work with him.
                    Dinner didn't turn out as Brenda had hoped. She'd invited Vern and Ida, and Howard and