- - - - - - - - - - T A B L E++T A L K When does "tough love" cross the line and become abuse? Join the debate in Table Talk
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The mother of all years
- - - - - - - - - - R E C E N T L Y The Forgiven (Part 1)
Time for One Thing
Cyberspace: The final dating frontier
The mother of all years
Family myths, family realities
- - - - - - - - - - Mamafesto
| THE FORGIVEN | PAGE 2 OF 2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Now, Norton says, old friends in her Kansas town think she's a "fanatic and weirdo," and cross the street when they see her. Her friendship with BK -- she says she is his only friend -- has also led to acrimony between her and her sister, not uncommon when one family member forgives a killer whom the rest of the family wants dead. "My sister is a very vindictive, hateful person, and she's not a Christian," says Norton. "I'm not telling you that to put her down. That whole courtroom was filled with people like that; the sentiment in that courtroom and that town was to fry the bastard." "I don't think any of us who have given forgiveness haven't risked losing some relationship with our family," says Ron Gillihan, a self-described "button-down three-piece executive" from Florida who has written an unpublished book about his friendship with the man who murdered his son called "Side by Side." "I think our families love us, but they don't understand it." Gayle says her daughter was initially upset at her relationship with her other daughter's killer, Douglas Mickey, but has come to understand it. "She never said anything to me, but her husband finally said, 'How can you visit him when it hurts Elizabeth so much?' I had no idea that it hurt her for me to go, but the fact was that I was going to go anyway. I don't need to ask permission from my children to go visit a friend, regardless of who that friend might be. But she has since begun to really admire and respect what I do," says Gayle. In November, Gayle went with Norton to visit Knighton at McAlester prison in Oklahoma -- she had been given permission to visit his cellmate, Jerry. "It's an underground prison, just like a tomb," says Norton. "They get out of their cell one hour a day if the guards feel like allowing them to have a shower or go to the yard. If you and another person go and stay in your bathroom for 24 hours, you'll get a little bit of an idea of what it's like. I'm not saying they shouldn't be punished," Norton continues, "but the punishment is the death penalty, so I don't understand why they're allowed to torture them for years and years before they execute them." Gayle wrote about the visit in a characteristically chipper letter that she sent to all the men she has befriended in San Quentin. "Jerry is BK's cellie. He just turned 21, the crime was committed when he was 16 years old. I am about to meet a new friend. Jerry was very nervous about meeting me. He turned out to be a handsome, fun and intelligent young man. We talked about his family and we talked about books we have both read. We exchanged redneck jokes. The glass on Jerry's side became fogged up due to lack of air and he had to wipe it off several times. That drab dreary dungeon became a warm and magical place for two hours."
In line at the first checkpoint, Gayle introduces a beautifully dressed woman as an inmate's lawyer; later, on the way in, she tells me the woman is also his girlfriend. The death row visiting room reeks of microwave popcorn and is crammed full of inmates, their families, friends and lawyers. Gayle greets several of them and points out paintings on the wall that were done by a prisoners she knows. In one corner, Richard Ramirez -- better known as the Night Stalker, who terrorized Southern California in the 1980s with a reign of sexual torture and murder -- holds hands with his wife, a mousy woman in pink and white. Younger inmates run around the room, talking to each other and scarfing vending machine snacks. Older white prisoners sit huddled with their mothers. Gayle points out a one-way mirror. Behind it, she tells me, is a guard with a gun. When Scott comes out, Gayle hugs him, and then he hugs me. She knows what kind of candy bar he wants -- a Hershey's with almonds. He is thin, with a sparse goatee and mustache and a tiny tear tattooed under his left eye. He high-fives some of the younger prisoners. Gayle is also visiting another inmate, a Native American man in his 60s named Ray Allen, whom Gayle calls by his Cherokee name, Running Bear. "Gayle is Godsent," Allen tells me. "She has been such a joy. I don't know where she gets her energy. We try to hold on to all the people that's honest and friendly because I don't think most people care whether I live or die." Scott calls Gayle "MAW," which he says stands for "mystical angelic woman." "I'm not the monster that society would like me to be," says Scott. "But a lot of people in here haven't forgiven themselves, haven't accepted that they're responsible." I ask him whether he ever worries those inmates who haven't reformed might take advantage of Gayle. "If I found out someone was taking advantage of Gayle, I'd have to get on their ass because she's like a mother to me," he says. Then, a few beats later, he adds sheepishly, "I didn't mean to sound violent or anything." Scott asks me if I have a boyfriend and then if my boyfriend would be willing to visit him. "I need all the friends I can get," he says with a small smile. I try to talk to Scott about forgiveness and reconciliation, but he keeps going off on tangents about Egyptian spirituality and Afrocentrism. He wears an ankh around his neck that Gayle gave him. "I cherish it," he says. In a letter to me later, however, Scott elaborated on forgiveness a little more. "No, I have never spoken to the victim's family and to be totally honest with you I could not do it!" he wrote. "Because I have acquired a consciousness and I know I would break down emotionally. I know I would feel their pain. I feel it every day that I awaken, yet my family has pain as well." The letter continued, "I did feel uncomfortable at first, Aba coming to visit me -- But when she enlightened me about her and [Mickey's] communication, I became at ease."
After about three hours in the claustrophic room, Gayle and I step out
onto the grounds of San Quentin to a jarring sight: a lovely view of San
Francisco Bay, with palm trees swaying over the water. Gayle remarks how
sad it is that none of the men will ever see it. "They could put some
windows in the visiting room," she says ruefully. "The men regard that
room as their living room. They could make it so nice for them if they
wanted to."
Michelle Goldberg is an editorial assistant at Salon. Could you ever forgive your child's killer? What do you think of the people who do? Discuss this story in Table Talk. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
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Gayle seems oddly in her element in death row visiting rooms. Though
she does not want me to write to Mickey, who she says is a very private
person, she does give me the address of one of the other men she visits on San Quentin's death row,
a former gang member from Los Angeles named James Scott. One morning in
December, I go with her to visit Scott at the prison. When she picks
me up, the "Dead Man Walking" soundtrack is playing on her car stereo.