Dolores Claiborne

by Stephen King

  After I took the bedpan out from under her that cleaning day noon and saw it was as dry as a bone, I says to her, "Don't you think you could do something if you tried a little bit harder, Vera?"

  "Oh Dolores," she says back, looking up at me with her filmy blue eyes just as innocent as Mary's little lamb, "I've already tried as hard as I can--I tried so hard it hurt me. I guess I am just constipated. "

  I agreed with her right off. "I guess you are, and if it doesn't clear up soon, dear, I'll just have to feed you a whole box of Ex-Lax to dynamite you loose. "

  "Oh, I think it'll take care of itself in time," she said, and give me one of her smiles. She didn't have any teeth by then, accourse, and she couldn't wear her lower plate unless she was sittin up in her chair, in case she might cough and pull it down her throat and choke on it. When she smiled, her face looked like an old piece of tree-trunk with a punky knothole in it. "You know me, Dolores--I believe in letting nature take her course."

  "I know you, all right," I kind of muttered, turnin away.

  "What did you say, dear?" she asks back, so sweet you'd've thought sugar wouldn't melt in her mouth.

  "I said I can't just stand around here waitin for you to go number two," I said. "I got housework. It's cleaning day, you know."

  "Oh, is it?" she says back, just as if she hadn't known what day it was from the first second she woke up that morning. "Then you go on, Dolores. If I feel the need to move my bowels, I'll call you."

  I bet you will, I was thinkin, about five minutes after it happens. But I didn't say it; I just went on back downstairs.

  I got the vacuum cleaner out of the kitchen closet, took it into the parlor, and plugged it in. I didn't start it up right away, though; I spent a few minutes dusting first. I had gotten so I could depend on my instincts by then, and I was waiting for somethin inside to tell me the time was right.

  When that thing spoke up and said it was, I hollered to Susy and Shawna that I was going to vacuum the parlor. I yelled loud enough so I imagine half the people down in the village heard me right along with the Queen Mother upstairs. I started the Kirby, then went to the foot of the stairs. I didn't give it long that day; thirty or forty seconds was all. I figured she had to be hangin on by a thread. So up I went, two stairs at a time, and what do you think?

  Nothin!

  Not ... one ... thing.

  Except.

  Except the way she was lookin at me, that was. Just as calm and as sweet as you please.

  "Did you forget somethin, Dolores?" she coos.

  "Ayuh," I says back, "I forgot to quit this job five years ago. Let's just stop it, Vera."

  "Stop what, dear?" she asks, kinda flutterin her eyelashes, like she didn't have the slightest idear what I could be talkin about.

  "Let's quit evens, is what I mean. Just tell me straight out--do you need the bedpan or not?"

  "I don't," she says in her best, most totally honest voice. "I told you that!" And just smiled at me. She didn't say a word, but she didn't have to. Her face did all the talkin that needed to be done. I got you, Dolores, it was sayin. I got you good.

  But I wasn't done. I knew she was holdin onto one gut-buster of a b.m., and I knew there'd be hell to pay if she got a good start before I could get the bedpan under her. So I went downstairs and stood by that vacuum, and I waited five minutes, and then I ran up again. Only that time she didn't smile at me when I came in. That time she was lyin on her side, fast asleep ... or that was what I thought. I really did. She fooled me good and proper, and you know what they say--fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

  When I went back down the second time, I really did vacuum the parlor. When the job was done, I put the Kirby away and went back to check on her. She was sittin up in bed, wide awake, covers thrown back, her rubber pants pushed down to her big old flabby knees and her diapers undone. Had she made a mess? Great God! The bed was full of shit, she was covered with shit, there was shit on the rug, on the wheelchair, on the walls. There was even shit on the curtains. It looked like she musta taken up a handful and flang it, the way kids'll fling mud at each other when they're swimmin in a cowpond.

  Was I mad! Mad enough to spit!

  "Oh, Vera! Oh, you dirty BITCH!" I screamed at her. I never killed her, Andy, but if I was gonna, I would've done it that day, when I saw that mess and smelled that room. I wanted to kill her, all right; no use lyin about that. And she just looked at me with that foozled expression she got when her mind was playing tricks on her ... but I could see the devil dancin in her eyes, and I knew well enough who the trick had been played on that time. Fool me twice, shame on me.

  "Who's that?" she asked. "Brenda, is that you, dear? Have the cows got out again?"

  "You know there ain't been a cow within three mile of here since 1955!" I hollered. I came across the room, takin great big strides, and that was a mistake, because one of my loafers come down on a turd and I damn near went spang on my back. If I had done, I guess I really might have killed her; I wouldn't have been able to stop myself. Right then I was ready to plow fire and reap brimstone.

  "I dooon't," she says, tryin to sound like the poor old pitiful lady she really was on a lot of days. "I dooo-ooon't! I can't see, and my stomach is so upset. I think I'm going to be whoopsy. Is it you, Dolores?"

  "Coss it's me, you old bat!" I said, still hollerin at the top of my lungs. "I could just kill you!"

  I imagine by then Susy Proulx and Shawna Wyndham were standin at the foot of the stairs, gettin an earful, and I imagine you've already talked to em and that they've got me halfway to hung. No need to tell me one way or the other, Andy; awful open, your face is.

  Vera seen she wasn't fooling me a bit, at least not anymore, so she gave up tryin to make me believe she'd gone into one of her bad times and got mad herself in self-defense. I think maybe I scared her a little, too. Lookin back on it, I scared myself--but Andy, if you'd seen that room! It looked like dinnertime in hell.

  "I guess you'll do it, too!" she yelled back at me. "Someday you really will, you ugly, bad-natured old harridan! You'll kill me just like you killed your husband!"

  "No, ma'am," I said. "Not exactly. When I get ready to settle your hash, I won't bother makin it look like an accident--I'll just shove you out the window, and there'll be one less smelly bitch in the world."

  I grabbed her around the middle and h'isted her up like I was Superwoman. I felt it in my back that night, I can tell you, and by the next morning I could hardly walk, I was in such pain. I went to that chiropractor in Machias and he did something to it that made it feel a little better, but it ain't never really been right since that day. Right then I didn't feel a thing, though. I pulled her out of that bed of hers like I was a pissed-off little girl and she was the Raggedy Ann doll I was gonna take it out on. She started to tremble all over, and just knowing that she really was scared helped me catch hold of my temper again, but I'd be a dirty liar if I didn't say I was glad she was scared.

  "Oooouuu!" she screams. "Ooouuuu, doooon't! Don't take me over to the window! Don't you throw me out, don't you dare! Put me down! You're hurrrting me, Dolores! OOOUUUUU PUT ME DOOOWWWWN!"

  "Oh quitcha yappin," I says, and drops her into her wheelchair hard enough to rattle her teeth ... if she'd had any teeth to rattle, that is. "Lookit the mess you made. And don't try to tell me you can't see it, either, because I know you can. Just look!"

  "I'm sorry, Dolores," she says. She started to blubber, but I saw that mean little light dancing way down in her eyes. I saw it the way you can sometimes see fish in clear water when you get up on your knees in a boat and look over the side. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make a mess, I was just trying to help." That's what she always said when she shit the bed and then squooshed around in it a little ... although that day was the first time she ever decided to fingerpaint with it as well. I was just tryin to help, Dolores--Jesus wept.

  "Sit there and shut up," I said. "If you really don't want a fast ride over to that window and a
n even faster one down to the rock garden, you best mind what I say." And those girls down there at the foot of the stairs, I have no doubt at all, listenin to every word we was sayin. But right then I was too goddam mad to think about anythin like that.

  She had enough sense to shut up like I told her, but she looked satisfied, and why not? She'd done what she set out to do--this time it was her who'd won the battle, and made it clear as windowglass that the war wasn't over, not by a long chalk. I went to work, cleaning and settin the place to rights again. It took the best part of two hours, and by the time I was done, my back was singin "Ave Maria."

  I told you about the sheets, how that was, and I could see by your faces that you understood some of that. It's harder to understand about her messes. I mean, shit don't cross my eyes. I been wipin it up all my life and the sight of it never crossed my eyes. It don't smell like a flower-garden, accourse, and you have to be careful of it because it carries disease just like snot and spit and spilled blood, but it warshes off, you know. Anyone who's ever had a baby knows that shit warshes off. So that wasn't what made it so bad.

  I think it was that she was so mean about it. So sly about it. She bided her time, and when she got a chance, she made the worst mess she could, and she did it just as fast as she could, because she knew I wouldn't give her long. She did that nasty thing on purpose, do you see what I'm gettin at? As far as her fogged-in brain would let her, she planned it out, and that weighed on my heart and darkened my outlook while I was cleanin up after her. While I was strippin the bed; while I was takin the shitty mattress pad and the shitty sheets and the shitty pillowslips down to the laundry chute; while I was scrubbin the floor, and the walls, and the windowpanes; while I was takin down the curtains and puttin up fresh ones; while I was makin her bed again; while I was grittin my teeth n tryin to keep my back locked in place while I cleaned her up n got a fresh nightgown on her n then hossed her outta the chair and back into bed again (and her not helpin a bit but just lollin there in my arms, dead weight, although I know damn well that was one of the days when she could have helped, if she'd wanted to); while I was warshin the floor; while I was warshin off her goddam wheelchair, and really havin t'scrub by then because the stuff was dried on--while I was doin all that, my heart was low and my outlook was darkened. She knew it, too.

  She knew it and it made her happy.

  When I went home that night I took some Anacin-3 for my aching back and then I went to bed and I curled up in a little ball even though that hurt my back, too, and I cried and cried and cried. It seemed like I couldn't stop. Never--at least since the old business with Joe--have I felt so downhearted and hopeless. Or so friggin old.

  That was the second way she had of bein a bitch--by bein mean.

  What say, Frank? Did she do it again?

  You're damned tooting. She did it again the next week, and the week after that. It wasn't as bad as that first adventure either time, partly because she wasn't able to save up such a dividend, but mostly because I was prepared for it. I went to bed crying again after the second time it happened, though, and as I lay there in bed feeling that misery way down low in my back, I made up my mind to quit. I didn't know what'd happen to her or who would take care of her, but right then I didn't care a fiddlyfuck. As far as I was concerned, she could starve to death layin in her own shitty bed.

  I was still crying when I fell off to sleep, because the idear of quittin--of her gettin the best of me --made me feel worse'n ever, but when I woke up, I felt good. I guess it's true how a person's mind doesn't go to sleep even if a person thinks it does; it just goes on thinkin, and sometimes it does an even better job when the person in charge isn't there to frig it up with the usual run of chatter that goes on in a body's head--chores to do, what to have for lunch, what to watch on TV, things like that. It must be true, because the reason I felt so good was that I woke up knowin how she was foolin me. The only reason I hadn't seen it before was because I was apt to underestimate her--ayuh, even me, and I knew how sly she could be from time to time. And once I understood the trick, I knew what to do about it.

  It hurt me to know I'd have to trust one of the Thursday girls to vacuum the Aubusson--and the idear of Shawna Wyndham doin it gave me what my grampa used to call the shiverin hits. You know how gormy she is, Andy--all the Wyndhams are gormy, accourse, but she's got the rest of em beat seven ways to downtown. It's like she grows bumps right out of her body to knock things over with when she goes by em. It ain't her fault, it's somethin in the blood, but I couldn't bear thinkin of Shawna chargin around in the parlor, with all of Vera's carnival glass and Tiffany just beggin to be knocked over.

  Still, I had to do somethin--fool me twice, shame on me--and luckily there was Susy to fall back on. She wa'ant no ballerina, but it was her vacuumed the Aubusson for the next year, and she never broke a thing. She's a good girl, Frank, and I can't tell you how glad I was to get that weddin announcement from her, even if the fella was from away. How are they doin? What do you hear?

  Well, that's fine. Fine. I'm glad for her. I don't s'pose she's got a bun in the oven yet, does she? These days it seems like folks wait until they're almost ready for the old folks' home before they--

  Yes, Andy, I will! I just wish you'd remember it's my life I'm talkin about here--my goddam life! So why don't you just flop back in that big old chair of yours and put your feet up and relax? If you keep pushin that way, you're gonna give y'self a rupture.

  Anyway, Frank, you give her my best, and tell her she just about saved Dolores Claiborne's life in the summer of '91. You c'n give her the inside story about the Thursday shitstorms n how I stopped em. I never told em exactly what was goin on; all they knew for sure was that I was buttin heads with Her Royal Majesty. I see now I was ashamed to tell em what was goin on. I guess I don't like gettin beat any more than Vera did.

  It was the sound of the vacuum, you see. That was what I realized when I woke up that mornin. I told you there was nothin wrong with her ears, and it was the sound of the vacuum that told her if I was really doin the parlor or standin at the foot of the stairs, on my mark. When a vacuum cleaner is sittin in one spot, it only makes one sound, you see. Just zooooooo, like that. But when you're vacuumin a rug, it makes two sounds, and they go up and down in waves. WHOOP, that's when you push it out. And zoop, that's when you pull it back to you for another stroke. WHOOP-zoop, WHOOP-zoop, WHOOP-zoop.

  Quit scratchin your head, you two, and look at the smile Nancy's wearin. All a body'd have to do to know which of you has spent some time runnin a vacuum cleaner is look at your faces. If you really feel like it's that important, Andy, try it for yourself. You'll hear it right off, though I imagine Maria' d just about drop dead if she came in and saw you vacuumin the livin-room rug.

  What I realized that mornin was that she'd stopped just listenin for when the vacuum cleaner started runnin, because she'd realized that wasn't good enough anymore. She was listenin to see if the sound went up and down like it does when a vacuum's actually workin. She wouldn't pull her dirty little trick until she heard that WHOOP-zoop wave.

  I was crazy to try out my new idear, but I couldn't right away, because she went into one of her bad times right about then, and for quite awhile she just did her business in the bedpan or peed a little in her diapers if she had to. And I started to get scared that this would be the time she wouldn't come back out of it. I know that sounds funny, since she was so much easier to mind when she was confused in her thinkin, but when a person gets a good idear like that, they kinda want to take it for a test-drive. And you know, I felt somethin for that bitch besides wanting to throttle her. After knowin her over forty years, it'd be goddam strange if I didn't. She knitted me an afghan once, you know--this was long before she got really bad, but it's still on my bed, and it's some warm on those February nights when the wind plays up nasty.

  Then, about a month or a month and a half after I woke up with my idear, she started to come around again. She'd watch Jeopardy on the little bedroom TV a
nd rag the contestants if they didn't know who was President durin the Spanish-American War or who played Melanie in Gone With the Wind. She started all her old globber about how her kids might come n visit her before Labor Day. And, accourse, she pestered to be put in her chair so she could watch me hang the sheets and make sure I used six pins and not just four.

  Then there come a Thursday when I pulled the bedpan out from under her at noon dry as a bone and empty as a car salesman's promises. I can't tell you how pleased I was to see that empty bedpan. Here we go, you sly old fox, I thought. Now ain't we gonna see. I went downstairs and called Susy Proulx into the parlor.

  "I want you to vacuum in here today, Susy," I told her.

  "Okay, Missus Claiborne," she said. That's what both of them called me, Andy--what most people on the island call me, s'far's that goes. I never made an issue of it at church or anywhere else, but that's how it is. It's like they think I was married to a fella named Claiborne at some point in my checkered past ... or maybe I just want to believe most of em don't remember Joe, although I guess there's plenty who do. It don't matter too much, one way or the other, in the end; I guess I am entitled to believe what I want to believe. I was the one married to the bastard, after all.

  "I don't mind," she goes on, "but why are you whisperin?"

  "Never mind," I said, "just keep your own voice down. And don't you break anything in here, Susan Emma Proulx--don't you dare. "

  Well, she blushed just as red as the side of the volunteer fire truck; it was actually sorta comical. "How'd you know my middle name was Emma?"

  "None of your beeswax," I says. "I've spent donkey's years on Little Tall, and there's no end to the things I know, and the people I know em about. You just be careful of your elbows around the furniture and Missus God's carnival glass vases, especially when you're backin up, and you won't have a thing to worry about."

  "I'll be extra careful," she said.

  I turned the Kirby on for her, and then I stepped into the hall, cupped my hands around my mouth, and hollered: "Susy! Shawna! I'm gonna vacuum the parlor now!"