908 Comfort Zone

Thinking about books that kick you out of your comfort zone. The book that did it for me was Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song (1979), about the life of Gary Gilmore.

Gilmore is the guy who wouldn't defend himself against a murder-during-robbery charge, insisted that he be executed immediately with no appeals, and, against the preferences of Utah, insisted that he be executed by firing squad.

The Wikipedia entry for him implies that he never attempted to reform after getting out of prison (a robbery conviction), but Mailer's book describes his attempts to "do it right". He wanted to have all the good things that right living brought others. However, things never seemed to work out for him.

I read the book in 1979 or 1980. I was 35 or 36 then, and I was not particularly naive, not sheltered. But the book was a revelation to me. I found it very disturbing. It shook me. Maybe I was more sheltered than I thought. I never knew that there were people who think like Gary Gilmore thought. To know that there were people out there who think like him, whose thinking is so foreign to me, frightened me more than any horror movie could have.

I guess my father being an Air Force officer, and being raised in a military family, I was raised among intelligent middle-class people. My high school classmates weren't for the most part middle class, but they were old-style central European stock mountain folk, with old-fashioned values. In college, and later working for The Company, again it was all intelligent middle-class people. Yeah, some of them weren't nice, and some were downright crazy, but at least they all knew the rules, and "how things work". We all had pretty much the same understanding.

Maybe today, with exposure to courtroom shows, Jerry Springer and his ilk, we see more of "the other side", and maybe if I were 35 and reading the book now, maybe I wouldn't be so shocked.

Gary Gilmore never understood why he couldn't succeed in "regular" life. He looked around at other people, friends, relatives, and saw that they had homes, TVs, cars, jobs they liked, all the things he wanted but couldn't have. His conclusion was that other people had luck that he didn't have. That other people gave each other "breaks", but that no one would give him a break. It angered him that he was (in his mind) treated differently.

It was very long ago, so I can't think of any specifics to him, so I'll give some made up "fer'zamples". He gets a job, and one day he doesn't feel like going in. He doesn't have a phone, so he doesn't call in either. He gets fired. In his mind, the boss didn't give him a break. Others had been working there for years, and obviously they must feel like not going in sometimes, but they don't get fired. And his not calling in isn't his fault because, hey!, he doesn't have a phone! What do people want from him?

He gets a good deal on a car. He runs out of money (having lost another job, maybe?), and so misses some payments. The car gets repossessed. He gets angry because how could anyone expect him to make the payments when he has no money? Again, they didn't give him a break. Got turned down for a loan because of rotten credit? Again, they won't give him a break.

When he looked at the success of other people, he didn't see commitment or responsibility - he saw luck and breaks. He didn't understand commitment and responsibility, the relationship between actions and consequences. He felt entitled to the same things everyone else had, and felt that "the man" was denying him those things for some reason he couldn't figure out. He felt that he was being singled out for unfair treatment.

Actually, I guess the book wouldn't have the same effect on me now. Roman teaches morning GED classes, older kids and young adults required by the county to attend, and those kids all seem to think like Gilmore. It frustrates Roman to no end, because there doesn't seem to be any way to get through to them. I listen to his frustrations, and sympathize with him, but I don't know how to fix it, either.