Pop. 1280

by Jim Thompson

  The women hovered around Myra, trying to soothe her and talk to her. Myra kept bawling and shaking her head, not answering when they asked her what the matter was. The men looked at me, and kept asking me what I’d done to Myra. And it was just one of those situations where the truth won’t do and a lie’s no help. Which fortunately there ain’t many of in this vale of tears.

  The men grabbed ahold of me and began to bat me around. One of the women said she was going to call the police, but the men said no, they’d take care of me themselves. They’d give me what I deserved, they said, and there were plenty of men in the neighborhood to help ’em.

  Well, I couldn’t really blame ’em for thinking what they did. I’d’ve probably thought the same thing in their place, what with Myra bawling and her clothes being messed up, and me not being in very good shape neither. They figured I’d raped her, and when a fella rapes a gal in this part of the country, he hardly ever gets to the jail. Or, if he does, he don’t stay there very long.

  I figure sometimes that maybe that’s why we don’t make as much progress as other parts of the nation. People lose so much time from their jobs in lynching other people, and they spend so much money on rope and kerosene and getting likkered-up in advance and other essentials, that there ain’t an awful lot of money or man-hours left for practical purposes.

  Howsoever, it sure looked like I was about to be the guest of honor at a necktie party, when Myra decided to speak up.

  “I’m s-sure Mr. Corey didn’t mean to do wrong,” she said, looking around teary-eyed. “He’s really a fine man, I’m sure, and he didn’t mean to do wrong, did you, Mr. Corey?”

  “No, ma’am, I sure didn’t,” I said, running my finger around my collar. “I positively didn’t mean nothing like that, and that’s a fact.”

  “Then why did you do it?” a man frowned at me. “This is hardly something that a person does accidentally.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that,” I said. “I wouldn’t say you’re wrong, but I ain’t sure you’re right either.”

  He started to take a swing at me. I ducked but another fella caught me by the shoulder and flung me toward the door. I went down on my knees and someone kicked me, and some others jerked me to my feet again, not being very gentle about it, and then everyone was hustling me out of the room and trying to sock me at the same time.

  Myra said, “Wait! Please wait! It’s all a mistake.”

  They slowed down a little, and someone said, “Now, don’t upset yourself, Miss Myra. This skunk isn’t worth it.”

  “But he wants to marry me! We were going to get married tonight!”

  Everyone was pretty surprised, including me, and they were puzzled too, which I wasn’t. It looked like I’d sold my pottage for a mess of afterbirth, as the saying is. I’d been chasing females all my life, not paying no mind to the fact that whatever’s got tail at one end has teeth at the other, and now I was getting chomped on.

  “That right, Corey?” A fella nudged me. “You and Miss Myra getting married?”

  “Well,” I said. “Well, it’s like this, or at least that’s the way I see it. I mean, uh—”

  “Oh, he’s so bashful!” Myra laughed. “And he gets excited so easily! That’s what happened when—” She looked down at herself, blushing and brushing at her mussed-up clothes. “He got so excited when I said yes, I’d marry him, that—that—”

  The women put their arms around her and kissed her.

  The men slapped me on the back, and began shaking my hands. They said they were sorry they’d misunderstood the situation; and doggone it, couldn’t a woman get a man in a heck of a lot of trouble without even halfway trying?

  “Why, we might have had you strung up by the neck, Corey, if Miss Myra hadn’t set things straight! Now, wouldn’t that have been a fine state of affairs?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That would have been a good joke on me. But looky, fellas. About this marriage business—”

  “A wonderful institution, Corey. And you’re getting a wonderful woman.”

  “And I’m getting a wonderful man!” Myra jumped up and threw her arms around me. “We’re getting married right tonight, because Mr. Corey just can’t wait, and you’re all invited to the wedding!”

  It just happened that there was a preacher right up in the next block, so that’s where we went—where everyone else went, I should say—and I got took. Myra dragged me along, with her arm hooked through mine; and those other folks brought up the rear, laughing and joking and slapping me on the back, and crowding on my heels so that I couldn’t slow down.

  I tried to sort of hang back, and they thought that was funny as all-heck. They thought the expression on my face was funny, and they practically went into hysterics when I said something like what was the god-danged hurry, and maybe we ought to think this over for a while.

  It reminded me of one of those ceremonies you read about in ancient histories. You know. There’s this big procession, with everyone laughing and carrying on and having themselves a heck of a time, and up at the head of it is this fella that’s going to get sacrificed to the gods. He knows he’ll get his ass carved up with a meat axe as soon as they stop throwing roses at him, so he sure ain’t in no hurry to get to the altar. He can’t get out of the deal, but neither can he put his heart into it. And the more he protests, the more people laugh at him.

  So…

  So that’s what it reminded me of. A fella getting sacrificed for something that just ain’t worth it.

  But I guess a lot of marriages strike me the same way. Everything for show and nothing for real. Everything for public and nothing for private.

  And that night, after me and Myra were in bed—I guess a lot of marriages turn out like that, too. Bawling and accusations and mean talk: the woman taking it out on the man because he was too stupid to get away from her.

  Or maybe I’m just kind of sour…

  13

  I got my horse and buggy out of the livery stable, and drove back to the courthouse. Myra was jumping on me, wanting to know what had took me so long, almost as soon as I was inside the door. And I said I’d had quite a time getting things straightened out with Amy.

  “I don’t see why,” Myra said. “She seemed calm enough when she left here.”

  “Well, there’s quite a few things you don’t see,” I said. “Like why you should keep Lennie in at night so we wouldn’t have messes like this.”

  “Now, don’t you start in on Lennie!”

  “I tell you what I’d like to start,” I said. “I’d like to start home with Rose, so maybe we could all get to bed sometime tonight.”

  Rose said yes, she really should be going, and she thanked Myra for the dinner and hugged her and kissed her good night. I went on downstairs ahead of her, before I got into another argument, and she came running down after a minute of two and got into the buggy.

  “Ugh!” she said, scrubbing at her mouth. “Every time I kiss that old bitch I want to wash out my mouth.”

  “You ought to watch that cussing, Rose,” I said. “It’s liable to slip out sometime when you don’t mean it to.”

  “Yeah, I guess I should, goddam it,” she said. “It’s Tom’s fault, the dirty son-of-a-bitch, but I’m sure as hell going to do my best to stop it.”

  “That’s my girl,” I said. “I can see you ain’t going to have no trouble.”

  We were outside of town by now, and Rose moved over in the seat to snuggle up against me. She kissed me on the back of my neck and she put a hand inside my pocket and sort of wiggled it around; and then she kind of moved away a little, and gave me a funny look.

  “What’s the matter, Nick?”

  “What?” I said. “How’s that, Rose?”

  “I said, what’s wrong with you?”

  “Why, nothing,” I said. “Course I’m kind of tired and wore out from all the excitement tonight, but there ain’t nothing really wrong.”

  She stared at me, not saying anything. She turned around in the
seat, facing straight ahead, and we rode in silence for a while. At last she spoke, in a voice so low I could hardly hear it, asking me a question. I went cold all over, and then I said, “For gosh’s sake! What a thing to say! You know Amy Mason ain’t that kind of woman, Rose! Everyone knows she ain’t.”

  “What the hell you mean she’s not that kind?” Rose snapped. “You mean she’s too goddam good to go to bed with you, but I’m not?”

  “I mean, I just ain’t hardly acquainted with the woman!” I said. “I barely know her to tip my hat to.”

  “You were gone long enough tonight to get acquainted!”

  “Aw, naw, I wasn’t honey,” I said. “It just seemed like a long time to you, like it did to me. You know. Because we were just waitin’ to get together tonight, and it seemed like a heck of a long wait. Why, honey, I was just itchin’ and achin’ for you from the minute you showed up today.”

  “Well…” She moved over a little in the seat.

  “Why, for gosh’s sake,” I said. “What for would I want with Amy Mason when I got you? Why, it just don’t make sense, now does it? There just ain’t no comparison between the two of you!”

  Rose came all the way over in the seat. She leaned her head against my shoulder, and said she was sorry, but I had acted kind of strange, and it did make her so goddam mad the way some men were.

  “That goddam Tom, for example! The son-of-a-bitch just wouldn’t leave me alone until I gave in to him; and then he goes out and screws everything that can’t outrun him!”

  “Tsk, tsk,” I said. “I just can’t understand fellas like that.”

  Rose squeezed me and kissed me on the ear. She gave me a little nibble on the ear, and whispered to me. Talking about what-all she was going to do to me when we got to her house.

  “Myra wants you to stay a while, and make sure I’m all right. Isn’t that nice, mm? We can take our time, just you and me together for hours and hours. And, honey, we won’t waste a minute of it!”

  “Oh, boy,” I said.

  “It’ll be like it never was before, darling!” She shivered against me. “Oh, honey, I’m going to be something special for you tonight!”

  “Goll-ee,” I said. “Goody, gosh-dang.”

  She went on whispering and shivering against me, saying that this was one night I’d never forget. I said I bet I wouldn’t neither, and I meant every word of it. Because the way I was feeling, as hollow as a tree-bark whistle and like my back was broken in six places, there wasn’t going to be no party when we got to Rose’s house. Which meant that she’d know she’d been right about Amy. Which also meant that she’d probably take that gun she’d got today and shoot me right through the offendin’ part. And with a memento like that, I sure wouldn’t forget the night.

  I tried to think of some way of stalling her. I looked up at the sky, which was clouding over again for a rain, and I saw a streak or two of lightning, and I thought, well, maybe a bolt would strike me, cold-cocking me for the night, so that Rose would excuse me. Then I thought, well, maybe the horse would run away and throw me into a bob-wire fence, and Rose would have to let me off then, too. Or maybe a water moccasin would climb up in the buggy and fang me. Or—

  But nothing like that happened. A fella never gets lucky that way when he really needs to.

  We reached the farm. I drove on into the barn, wondering how much it would handicap a fella having a hole where I was going to have one. It seemed to me it would mess him up pretty bad in the things he needed to do most, and I climbed down from the buggy, feeling mighty glum.

  I helped Rose down, giving her a smack on the bottom by way of habit. Then, I bent down behind the splashboard to unhitch the singletree, and the horse was fidgeting and switching his tail and I was saying, “Sooo, boy, soo, now.” And then I thought of an idea.

  I gave the horse a goose and made him jump. I drove my shoulder against the splashboard, making a heck of a racket like the horse had kicked it. Then I jumped out in the clear again, groaning and clutching myself.

  Rose came running up, clinging to me by one arm as I staggered around doubled over. “Oh, honey! Darling! Did that goddam nag kick you?”

  “Right in the you-know-what,” I groaned. “I never had nothin’ hurt so bad in my life.”

  “Goddam him to hell, anyway! I’ll get a pitchfork and gut the brindle bastard!”

  “Naw, don’t do nothin’ like that,” I said. “The horse didn’t go to do it. Just help me get him hitched up again, so’s I can get home.”

  “Home? You’re not going anywhere in your condition,” she said. “I’m taking you in the house, and don’t you argue about it.”

  I said, but, looky, now, it wasn’t necessary to go to all that trouble. “I’ll just go home and lay down with some cold towels on it, and—”

  “You’ll lie down here, and we’ll see about the towels after I see what the damage is. It might be you need something else.”

  “But, looky, looky here, now, honey,” I said. “It’s kind of private, a thing like that. It ain’t hardly something a woman should deal with.”

  “Since when?” Rose said. “Now, come on and stop arguing with me. Just lean on me and we’ll go real slow.”

  I did what she said. There just wasn’t anything else I could do.

  We got to the house. She helped me back into the bedroom, made me lay down on the bed and started taking off my clothes. I told her she didn’t need to take them all off, because the pain was just in the part that my pants covered. She said it wasn’t any trouble at all, and I could relax better if I was all undressed instead of partways, and to stop butting into her business.

  I said that it was my business that got hurt, and she said, well, my business was her business, and right now she was running the store.

  She leaned down over the place where I was hurt, or supposed to be hurt, turning the lamp this way and that so that she could make a proper inspection.

  “Hmmm,” she said. “I don’t see any bruises, honey. No breaks in the skin.”

  I said, well, it sure hurt, that’s all I knew. “Of course a fella don’t have to get hit very hard in that area to make him hurt to beat heck.”

  She said, “Let’s see, now, you tell me here it hurts. Does it hurt there, or here, or here—”

  She was awful gentle, so gentle that it wouldn’t have hurt me in any of the places even if I had been hurt. I told her that maybe she’d better be a little more firm about it so I could make sure of where the pain was. So she pushed and pressed a little harder, asking if it hurt there or here and so on. And I let out an “Ooh” or an “Aah” now and then. But what I was feeling wasn’t pain.

  It didn’t matter anymore about Amy; me being with her that night, I mean. I was as ready and rarin’ as I’d ever been, and, of course, Rose wasn’t long in noticing the fact.

  “Hey, now!” she said. “Just what’s going on here, mister?”

  “What does it look like?” I said.

  “It looks to me like a big business recovery.”

  “Well, god-dang, gee-whillikins!” I said. “And right after a severe blow to the economy! You reckon we ought to celebrate the occasion?”

  “What the hell you think?” she said. “Just let me get these goddam clothes off!”

  I snoozed a little while afterwards. No more than fifteen minutes, probably, because I’d rested quite a bit that day and wasn’t really tired.

  I came awake with Rose’s hand biting into my arm, her voice a scary whisper. “Nick!, Nick, wake up! Someone’s outside!”

  “What?” I mumbled, starting to roll over on my side again. “Well, leave ’em out there. Sure don’t want ’em in here.”

  “Nick! They’re on the porch, Nick! What—who do you suppose it—”

  “I don’t hear nothin’,” I said. “Maybe it’s just the wind.”

  “No, it—listen! There it is again!”

  I heard it then; faint, careful footsteps, like someone moving on tiptoe. And along with them, a dull dra
ggy sound, as if something heavy was being dragged up on the stoop.

  “N-Nick. What do you think we’d better do, Nick?”

  I swung my legs off the bed, and said I’d get my gun and have a look. She started to nod, and then she put out her hand and stopped me.

  “No, honey, it won’t look right your being here this time of night. Not with the lights all off and your horse put away.”

  “But I’ll just take a little peek out,” I said. “I won’t show myself to no one.”

  “You might have to. You just stay here and keep quiet, and I’ll go.”

  She slid quietly out of bed, and trotted into the other room, making no more noise than a shadow. I was pretty nervy, naturally, wondering who or what was up on the porch and what it might have to do with me and Rose. But the way she was taking things, sort of keeping out in front and leaving me in the background, was a big comfort. I thought about Myra’s idea of Rose as someone meek and mild and ready to jump at her own shadow, and I almost laughed out loud. Rose could whip her weight in bobcats if she took a notion. She’d maybe let Tom get the best of her, but that just wasn’t no way a fair match.

  I heard the click of the key in the outside door.

  I sat up, kind of poised on the edge of the bed, ready to move if she called to me.

  I waited, holding my breath for quiet. There was another click, as Rose unlatched the screen, and then a rusty squeak as she pushed it open. Then…

  It was a small house, like I’ve said. But from where I was to where she was was still quite a piece—maybe thirty feet or more. Yet that far away, I heard it. The gasp; the scared-crazy sound of her breath sucking in.

  And then she screamed. Screamed and cussed in a way I don’t ever want to hear again.

  “N-Nick! Nick! The son-of-a-bitch is back! That goddam Tom’s back!”

  14

  I grabbed for my pants, but the legs were twisted and the way Rose was carrying on, I didn’t have no time to fool with ’em. Pants weren’t what I needed anyway, with that god-danged Tom back. So I snatched up my gun, which I sure as heck did need, and ran for the door.