by Tim Sandlin
Julie must have been wearing a lot of makeup because she glowed nicely, almost primly. Her blond hair was piled on top of her head, which made her seem taller than ever. With her hair up, Julie’s long neck and high cheekbones gave her a fancy woman look, the exact opposite of me in wrinkled orange coveralls that hung down in the butt. It was hard to conceive of a lie coming out of that sweet mouth.
“How long were you with Mr. Palamino?” the lawyer asked.
“Six years that we lived together, plus two since we separated.”
I blew her a kiss.
“You mean you never divorced?”
“No.”
“During your time with Mr. Palamino, did he ever exhibit any signs of antisocial or paranoid behavior?”
“He thought the phone was bugged.” It was. “He thought his mother spied on us through a telescope.” She did. “At one time he claimed the editors of Rolling Stone magazine were out to get him. He sent them a number of threatening letters.” That was an exaggeration. I sent one letter.
“Did Mr. Palamino ever threaten anyone else?”
“Himself. He wrote hundreds of suicide notes. They were all over the house. And one period when we were traveling he decided the Kentucky Fried Chicken had saltpeter in it. He burned down all the Kentucky Fried Chicken billboards in South Texas.”
I jumped up. “That’s a lie. Two. I burned down two billboards, and according to Esquire, one of the secret ingredients is saltpeter.”
The judge banged his gavel and shouted, “Sit down.”
Robin pulled at my arm. “Shut up, Kelly. You’ll only make it worse.”
“But it’s a lie. Esquire knows.”
Julie kept going. “I was terrified. I tried to stick by Kelly, but his paranoia and senseless rages got so bad I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to leave.”
I swear to God, tears formed in Julie’s eyes. She had makeup, a long neck, and tears. Even I believed her. It’s a wonder the judge didn’t have me hanged on the spot.
Robin turned to me. “I decided to take you up on your offer.”
“Go for it.”
I don’t know why I call John Hart’s lawyers city slickers just because they were dressed for the cover of GQ. Robin wore the same three-piece costume—only he came off more like a teenager pretending to be legitimate. He must have been nervous about his first cross-examination. His voice quavered as he spoke.
“Mrs. Palamino—your name is Mrs. Palamino, isn’t it?”
“I’ve kept my maiden name, Julie Deere.”
“You married Mr. Palamino, but kept the name Deere?”
“Lots of women do that now.”
“In your testimony, Mrs. Palamino, you said that you and Kelly never obtained a divorce.”
“That’s right.”
“You didn’t say the two of you ever married each other.”
Julie stared at Robin, then at me.
“Are you married to Kelly Palamino?”
Julie gave me a look of intense hatred.
“I asked, are you married to Kelly Palamino?”
Julie nodded.
“I didn’t hear you, Mrs. Palamino, or is it Miss Deere?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, I’m married to Kelly Palamino.”
I applauded. The judge banged his gavel. One of Hart’s lawyers leaped to his feet and objected. He called Robin’s questions “immaterial.”
Robin spoke to the surfer. “These questions are quite material, Your Honor. This woman signed a complaint claiming she is my client’s legal wife. I have a right to establish whether or not she is indeed his legal wife.”
I liked the way he emphasized indeed. Sounded like a pubescent Perry Mason. The surfer overruled the objection. Julie tossed back her head and gave Robin a look of superior contempt—the nasty kind of contempt that can only be pulled off by a tall, severe blond with her hair in a bun.
“Of course I’m Kelly’s legal wife.”
“Where were the two of you married?”
“Victoria, Texas.”
I hooted.
“On what date?”
“June 16, 1972.”
I laughed aloud. John Hart growled at me again.
Robin leaned an immaculate hand on the witness stand. “Can you prove that you and Kelly are married?”
Julie turned her ice-cold eyes from Robin to me. I gave her my cutest smile.
“Yes,” she said.
“How?”
Julie signaled one of Hart’s lawyers, who brought her a stiff sheet of paper. “Here.” Julie handed the paper to the judge, who read it and handed it to Robin.
Robin grinned, brought it over to me, and said, “I can look my new baby in the eye.”
It was a marriage license, dated June 16, 1972, Victoria County, Texas, issued to Kelly Palamino and Julie Deere. It was stamped with the seal of Texas.
She’d carried it around all these years. I looked at her, glaring down from the stand. This Julie really was the same woman who married me and laughed and rolled with me in a Houston motel room on our honeymoon.
“I’m not crazy after all,” I said to her.
“Yes, you are.”
***
I can’t be certain, but I’m almost sure, that the last time Julie and I made love, the day before she left me, we both simultaneously faked orgasms. I know I did.
***
The rest of the testimony was just dirt on the grave. John Hart told about my hang-gliding escapade and breaking into his son’s house. He claimed I threatened him in the bank that day. He said he had received several abusive anonymous phone calls that he was sure were from me, and he accused me of throwing a chunk of concrete through the bank door. John said he was afraid to go out at night for fear I might “try something.”
Gene came up next. Silently I asked God to give Gene a dose of colon cancer. After listing an armload of qualifications, the gay shrink called me a “paranoid schizophrenic, a second-degree psychotic, a latent homosexual, and an obsessive violent.” He said I was just the type to “climb a tower with a rifle and start plugging strangers.”
The judge seemed spellbound by every word. I imagined that Gene and the surfer were lovers who would slip off to a small café during the lunch break and hold hands under the table while staring into each other’s eyes and sipping zinfandel wine. It made a nauseating fantasy.
Robin didn’t cross-examine either witness. He sat next to me, giving no indication that he heard what was being said. Leaning his chin on one hand, he drew several models of what appeared to be a crib on a yellow lined notebook.
When it came time for our defense, I leaned over and whispered, “Put me on the stand.”
He looked up from his drawing. “I’ve already done what you asked. I’m absolved, remember.”
“Just get me up there. You don’t have to say a word.”
Robin’s eyebrows drew together, forming a little lump at the top of his nose. “I don’t want John Hart mad at me.”
“John Hart won’t get mad at you.”
He studied me a moment, then stood up. “I call Kelly Palamino to the stand.”
***
Left hand on the King James version of Truth, right hand in a modified Heil Hitler, I repeated after the man and sat in the wooden chair, facing everyone but the judge. Breathing deeply, I gazed out at my gathered enemies.
Julie had the tan kid-judge convinced I was a mass murderer searching for a mass. Nothing I said would make any difference, so I had nothing to lose. A man with nothing to lose is a dangerous man.
Turning to the judge, I said, “I watched the Broken Hart Ranch for two weeks, and on three separate occasions I saw John Hart have sex with a hog.”
In unison, practically in harmony, the three lawye
rs shouted, “I object.” John Hart was up, screaming, “I’ll kill you, you punk.”
I pointed a finger at him. “Deny it, pigfucker.”
I turned back to the judge. “You want paranoid psychosis, I’ll give you paranoid psychosis. John Hart wants to crucify me. He owns those lawyers, he owns that psychiatrist, he owns that deputy sheriff back there, and he owns you.”
As I said “he owns you,” I stood up, reached across the rail, and thumped the judge on the chest. Thump.
The judge would have been less surprised had I pulled a knife and slit his throat. Prisoners don’t thump judges, at least not in Wyoming.
Many hands grabbed me and pulled me out of the witness stand. John Hart was bitter—vicious. Robin, my own lawyer, struck me in the back of the head. The surfer judge banged his gavel and shouted and generally tried to reassert his authority, but once a man has been thumped, there isn’t much he can do to reclaim his dignity.
“Court is adjourned for lunch,” he shouted. “I will dispose of the prisoner at two o’clock. Take him back to his cell.”
I didn’t like the way he said dispose.
***
The deputy treated me roughly on the way back to Cell Two. He opened the door, shoved me in, and slammed the door behind me.
“What happened?” Luke asked.
I ran across the cell, climbed on the bars in front of the window, and screamed—I mean I really screamed.
“I want my psychiatrist.”
Then I smashed my head against the bars. There is a spot just above the hairline that I found accidentally one summer when I dived into an air conditioner. If you hit that spot, cut it, the head will gush blood like a stuck pig. It’s not too painful. When I hit the air conditioner, I didn’t even know I was hurt until the blood covered my glasses and I couldn’t see.
The first smash on the bars wasn’t hard enough—not convincing. The second smash, I almost knocked myself out.
“Lizbeth,” I howled. Bang, I hit the spot. Blood sprayed out onto the bars and the window beyond.
Luke ran to the door and pounded with his fist. Jimmy didn’t move.
“Lizbeth!” I smashed myself again, then fell back onto the floor, streaming blood.
The cell door swung open and people crowded in. First the deputy. He pushed past Luke and knelt over me. “Oh my God.”
“Where’s my psychiatrist?” I shouted, kicking the deputy in the face. He fell back. I writhed around, wishing I had some Alka-Seltzers in my mouth to make foam.
Lizbeth shoved her way through the crowd, manhandling the deputy out of the way. Leaning over, she held my face firmly between her hands. Lizbeth bent low and said quietly, “You’re faking, Kelly.”
I flailed around and screamed.
“You didn’t even break your glasses,” she whispered. “Suicidal face-smashers break their glasses.”
“Get me out of here,” I mumbled. No one heard except maybe Jimmy. I yelled, “Mama, let me die.”
“I don’t know what you’re up to,” Lizbeth said quietly. She turned to the deputy. “Call an ambulance.” She swung back to me. “It’s all right, Kelly,” she said for all to hear. “We’ll take care of you.”
“Let me die, I want to die.”
Lizbeth held my head in her lap and we waited. Someone handed her a bandanna which she pressed against my spurting gash.
By then, a good-sized crowd had formed at the cell door—secretaries, receptionists, off-duty cops. I heard Julie’s voice asking, “What happened?”
“He tried to kill himself,” a secretary answered.
“What, again?”
In the confusion, Luke tried to sneak out and got caught.
The ambulance finally arrived and two orderlies loaded me onto a stretcher. I moaned and groaned and bled and begged for morphine.
Jimmy’s face appeared before me. He smiled for the first time since I’d come to the cell. “Tell her I love her,” he said.
“What’s that mean?” Lizbeth asked.
I screamed and writhed.
They carried me out of the jail and down the stairs. People lined both sides of the halls, peering at me as we passed. I was a bloody float in a narrow parade.
The orderlies threw me in the back of the ambulance. As one of them ran around to the driver’s door, Lizbeth and the deputy jumped in after me. Lights flashing, siren howling, we took off for the hospital.
***
Moaning and mumbling, I opened my eyes to assess the situation. It was one of those big van ambulances where the stretcher is strapped to the wall directly behind the driver and everyone can stand up or sit down or whatever they want. Lizbeth sat next to my head, then the deputy, then the orderly down at my feet. The driver couldn’t see me.
Raising one slippered foot, I kicked the orderly in the stomach. I screamed. I wailed and hollered. My feet kicked like a two-year-old having a tantrum. Only my hands didn’t move.
The deputy lunged for my legs, holding them down with both arms. “Hold the cocksucker still!” he shouted at the orderly.
The next step was simple. Anyone could have done it. I reached up and slipped the deputy’s revolver out of its holster. Pointing it at his left ear, I said, “Stick ’em up, honky.”
He stuck ’em up.
The orderly and Lizbeth froze.
“Stop this ambulance,” I shouted, but because of the siren or his concentration on traffic, the driver didn’t hear me. I fired a bullet through the windshield.
“Stop this fucking ambulance.”
He pulled over to the curb and stopped. The revolver made a lot of noise going off. I think it scared us all, because no one moved for a moment.
“Cut the siren.”
The driver cut the siren.
“Now turn around and head back the way we came.”
“They’re going to wonder what happened if we don’t get to the hospital soon,” the orderly said. He looked real pale. The deputy didn’t appear to be breathing.
“It’ll take a few minutes for anyone to get suspicious,” I said. “Turn this thing around and drive to the Broken Hart Ranch.”
Lizbeth chose that moment to turn brave on me. Holding out her right hand, she said, “Give me the gun, Kelly.”
I looked at her hand. This was an unexpected twist. “I’ll shoot you.”
“Kelly, I’ve listened to you for hundreds of hours of therapy. I’ve seen your Rorschach, MMPI, thematic apperception profile, and house-tree-person results. You are incapable of killing anyone.”
“Want to bet?”
“Besides, you’d collapse if you had to go three weeks without seeing me.”
“You also know I don’t plan that far ahead.”
She hesitated a second, then moved her hand closer to the revolver. “Give me the gun, Kelly. You’re not going to shoot anybody.”
“Would you stake your professional reputation on that?”
“Yes.”
Firmly, with my left hand, I cocked the hammer, CLICK-CLICK. “Would you stake your life?”
Lizbeth faltered. She looked down at the revolver, then back at me. “No, I guess not.”
All together, the driver, the orderly, and the deputy exhaled. Some people will bluff an open gun barrel, but no one can stand up to a firm cock.
“Let’s go,” I said.
***
Fourth of July weekend in Jackson Hole is like a Rocky Mountain Mardi Gras. Three-fourths of Utah invades the valley to drink themselves sloppy. Motorcycle gangs hold conventions. Cowboys vomit and pass out on the streets. Two hundred thousand tourists pass through the center of town.
Everyone in the ambulance was tense, and creeping through the throngs at four miles an hour did not help.
“Hell,” I said. “Turn on the siren and blast through the crowd.”
We blasted—almost ran down a few slow ones—but we made it past the town square and onto the highway toward the Broken Hart. Once in the clear, I had him leave the lights and siren on. That risked picking up a police escort, but I was in a hurry and someone at the sheriff’s office or the hospital would figure things out soon anyway.
The deputy seemed to be coming back to life. I half expected him to try something. I mean, he didn’t have a lot to lose himself. Disarmament by a delirious prisoner would not sit well on his record.
Risking a look out the window, I saw the Tetons standing off in the north. It would be nice to get back in them. Jail was no place for a free spirit like me. So far, everything had worked. Lizbeth had come through. Now, if Cora Ann delivered the message and if Colette bought it…a lot of ifs for a guy in a funny orange suit with blood-matted hair and a loaded revolver.
Nothing to do but relax and see who was waiting at the Broken Hart. My three hostages watched me closely, not talking, but paying strict attention to every move. The power was neat. Testing the weight of the revolver in my hand, I decided to get one of my own.
***
Lights flashing, siren screaming, we wailed under the front gate of the ranch and up the drive past the big house, grinding to a halt in front of the bunkhouse.
Colette stood next to the cottonwood tree, holding the reins of two saddled horses.
Danny stood beside her.
I jerked open the back doors of the ambulance and sprinted across the lawn to Colette. “Let’s go,” I said.
Danny held one of Colette’s hands. He was pleading. “I love you, Colette. I can’t live without you. Please don’t leave me.”
Colette looked at him sadly. “I don’t know.”
I took the reins of one horse—not Dixie, the other one—and sprang on his back. Far down the road, toward town, I heard approaching sirens.
“Let’s go,” I said.
Colette looked from Danny to me and back to Danny. I pulled the reins tight, backing the horse up two steps.
“Colette,” I said, “choose your life.”
Colette lifted her hand and touched Danny’s cheek. “I’m sorry.” With a single flowing motion, she mounted Dixie.
We whirled the horses and galloped up the jeep trail next to the creek. Behind us, the sirens pulled into the ranch drive.
