Punish the Sinners

by John Saul

  “Here’s to Saint Peter Balsam,” he said, and raised his glass.

  Margo did not go home that night.

  10

  The rest of the week passed slowly in Neilsville, almost as if the town were waiting for a signal, something to tell it that a crisis had passed. The signal did not come. Judy Nelson was very much on their minds.

  By Saturday her dosest friends, Penny Anderson, Karen Morton, and Janet Connally, had all been to visit Judy, first separately, and then together. They had seen that she was not dying; indeed, she seemed to them to be in fine shape—she questioned them about classes, wanted to know what work she’d missed, and made them promise to fill her in on all the details of the party on Saturday that she would not be able to attend.

  The subject all her friends wanted to talk about was carefully avoided. No one wanted to be the first to bring it up, and Judy herself didn’t mention it. But the bandages on her wrists kept it at the front of all their minds.

  Since that first day, Peter Balsam had resolved to make no further mention of Judy Nelson’s attempt on her own life. For the moment, he told himself, it was better to let it drop. He was sure he had gotten his point across in the few minutes before the Monsignor had suddenly appeared. Balsam had kept a careful eye on the class, particularly on Judy’s friends, with the intention of talking privately with any who seemed overly disturbed by the incident. But they all seemed to be doing fine. Every evening he was seeing Margo, and that helped. Monsignor Vernon had apparently forgotten the stormy session earlier in the week, for he treated Balsam the same way he had from the beginning, with a formal cordiality that induced a certain respect but no warmth.

  Harriet Morton, Karen’s mother, had considered canceling her daughter’s party, but after consulting with Leona Anderson had decided to let it continue as scheduled. After all, it was only going to be the girls, and they probably needed the diversion. Canceling the party, she and Leona had decided, would only draw attention to a situation best ignored. Now she glanced impatiently at her watch.

  “Karen?” she called up the stairs. She reached in her purse and fished for her keys, keeping one eye on the stairs as she waited for her daughter to come down. She heard Karen moving around on the floor above, and called again. “Karen! I have to go now. Will you come down here?”

  “Coming,” Karen called, and a moment later appeared on the stairs.

  “Now, is everything all set for the party?” Harriet asked anxiously. Karen shrugged.

  “Not yet Penny’s coming over early to help me. Can I use your punchbowl?”

  Harriet sighed. “You’d better wash it first.”

  Karen looked as though having to wash the bowl might well dissuade her from using it “Then don’t wash it,” Harriet said. “You can all get dust poisoning, if there is such a thing.” The two of them laughed, and Harriet realized with a rush how much she loved her daughter. She gave Karen a quick squeeze and a kiss, and hurried out the door. “Have a good time,” she called over her shoulder, “and I’ll see you all later.”

  “By then it’ll all be over,” Karen said, waving. It had better be, she thought with a twinge of guilt. No telling what might happen if her mother came home and found the boys there. She closed the door after her mother, and went back upstairs, where she continued working on the dress that Judy Nelson had intended to wear that night Just a few alterations, and it would fit Karen perfectly.

  An hour later, as she bit off the last thread, Karen heard the doorbell. “It’s unlocked,” she called down the stairs, and a moment later heard Penny Anderson’s voice.

  “Hi! Are you upstairs?”

  “Come on up. I just finished my dress for tonight, and you can tell me if it fits right.”

  A minute after that Penny appeared in the doorway, and gasped at the sight of the black dress Karen was proudly holding up.

  “Where did you get it?” Penny breathed. “It’s beautiful. But it must have cost a fortune!”

  “It’s Judy’s, really,” Karen told her. “She wasn’t supposed to buy it, but we snuck it over here so her mother wouldn’t find out. She was going to return it to the store on Monday, so I just—” She hesitated, then blurted out the truth. “Well, I took it in at the hips a little, since now she won’t be wearing it at all. Do you think the store will notice?” She offered the dress to Penny for inspection.

  Penny looked at the new seams critically. “If they don’t look at it too closely,” she decided. “The new seams are perfect Of course, you can still see where the old ones were. But why should they even look? Put it on.”

  Karen slipped into the dress and modeled it for Penny.

  “It’s great,” said Penny. “Really sexy. I wish I had a figure like yours.”

  “Be glad you don’t,” Karen said. “Nothing fits me right, and I always look like some …” She trailed the sentence off, unwilling to use the word “tramp.”

  “Not in that dress, you don’t,” Penny assured her. “And you know what? I’ll bet if you take off that makeup, and just let your hair fall, you’ll look really great.”

  Together, the two girls began experimenting with Karen’s hair and face. Half an hour later they surveyed the results in the mirror, and Penny giggled. “You know what? You look just like Judy always wanted to look. If she could just see you in that dress she’d die!” Then she realized what she’d said, and the two girls stared at each other.

  “Why do you suppose she did it?” Karen asked. “Have you asked her?”

  Penny shook her head. “I don’t think I want to know. It’s creepy, if you ask me. And it must have hurt like crazy.”

  “I don’t know,” Karen mused. “I guess if you’re feeling so bad you want to die, you don’t care.”

  Penny shuddered a little. “I don’t think I could do it. I couldn’t stand the pain.” Then she smiled. “But I could sure stand to get the treatment Judy’s getting. All she does is lie there in bed, and get waited on hand and foot, while she watches television all day.”

  “Yeah,” Karen said slowly. “But suppose she’d died? What do you suppose that would be like?”

  “Don’t you ever think about it?” Penny asked her. “I think about it all the time. I like to picture my own funeral sometimes.”

  The thought had never occurred to Karen. Now she saw a picture in her mind’s eye. “That could be kind of neat,” she said. “I think I’d want a very small funeral. Just you and Janet and Judy, and my mother. And Jim, of course. It would be horrible for him, and he’d probably throw himself on my coffin.” The prospect pleased her—a devastated Jim Mulvey, his own life forever destroyed by the untimely death of the girl he had hoped to marry, prostrated on the casket, crying openly over his loss.

  “My funeral would be much more dignified,” Penny said. “Of course, everyone would be there, and there’d be masses of flowers. And my parents would be in the front row. I don’t think they’d cry. Instead, they’d be helping everyone else get through it. You know how my mother is; she’d be trying to take the attitude that life goes on, but of course inside she’d be a wreck. And it would kill Daddy, though he wouldn’t let anyone know it They’d probably be dead themselves within a year. After all, what would they have left to live for?” Then, as the dramatic image of her parents wasting away with unexpressed grief faded, Penny snickered. “Can you imagine Marilyn Crane’s funeral?” she giggled. “Three faded roses, and everyone there to make sure she was dead.”

  “Who’d even care if she was dead?” Karen said flippantly. She began taking off the black dress. “We’d better get started, or well never be ready by the time everyone shows up.” She hung the dress up carefully, and pulled on a pair of jeans. “Come on,” she said. “You can help me wash the punchbowl.”

  An hour and a half later, the party was in full swing, except that so far, none of the boys had arrived. Then, as Karen and Penny were joking about having spiked the punch (they hadn’t) the front door opened, and Janet Connally arrived. With her was Jeff
Bremmer.

  “Jeff was helping me out with a science project this afternoon, so I invited him along,” Janet explained. Jeff looked around the room, and saw that he was the only male in sight.

  “I don’t know,” he said uncertainly. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Penny said. ‘ “Everyone else is coming. Someone had to be first. Just don’t tell anyone you were here. Karen’s mother thinks this is a hen party.”

  Now Jeff was really unnerved. “I think I’d better go,” he said. But a moment later a car pulled up in front of the house, and Jim Mulvey and Lyle Crandall appeared at the door. Suddenly, Jeff felt better about the party.

  “Hey,” Jim Mulvey said, whistling at Karen. “Now that’s what I call a dress.”

  “You like it? It’s the one Judy was supposed to wear tonight.”

  “Looks better on you,” Jim assured her. Then he winked. “I got some beer here. Can I put it in the ice box?” When Karen looked uncertain, he reached out and squeezed her around the waist. “Come on,” he said. “It’s only a little beer. Us guys get thirsty.” He pulled out a can of Olympia and held it up in Lyle Crandall’s direction. “Want one, Crandall?”

  “Sure,” Lyle said. “And give me one for Jeff.” Jim Mulvey tossed him another can and Lyle opened both of them. “Try this on for size, Jeff,” he said, handing him the can.

  Jeff considered the possibility of giving it back. Then he changed his mind. He held the can up to his lips, and the bitter fluid choked him. He flushed a deep red as the other two boys laughed at him.

  “So what’s been coming down?” Jim Mulvey asked of nobody in particular as he popped the tab on his own beer.

  “We were talking about Judy Nelson,” a voice said from somewhere in the background. “And killing yourself in general.”

  There was a wave of laughter through the room. Judy Nelson had become something to joke about

  “The guy next door killed himself years ago,” Lyle Grandall put in.

  “You’re kidding,” Jim said “Who was that?”

  “I can’t remember their names anymore, and his wife moved away right after it happened.”

  “What’d he do?”

  Lyle laughed and began to tell the story but Janet Connally cut him off.

  “Ugh,” she said with a shudder. “That’s horrible. Let’s talk about something else.”

  “I think it’s interesting,” Jim Mulvey grinned. “If you were going to kill yourself, how would you do it?”

  Suddenly they were all talking about the best way to commit suicide. Pills, it was decided, were best, and after that gassing oneself. The more painful ways were discarded, as either too scary or too messy. And then, when they had exhausted that subject, they turned to speculating upon who in their classes were the most likely candidates for a suicide. No one mentioned any of the people at the party. If anybody noticed, nobody commented on it. When they were done, they agreed that if anybody at St Francis Xavier’s was actually going to kill himself, it should be Marilyn Crane. As Jim Mulvey put it, “She should do herself a favor.” Everyone laughed, and someone suggested that Marilyn could even invent a new method—she could bore herself to death. Everyone laughed at that, too, except Jeff. He felt sorry for Marilyn, and decided that coming to the party had been a mistake. He argued with himself about leaving, but in the end he went to the refrigerator and helped himself to another beer. By the time it was half drunk, he felt mudi better about everything.

  Just before nine o’clock, the telephone rang. Karen motioned for quiet before she picked up the receiver, then, after she had spoken into the phone, waved to everybody. “It’s all right,” she cried. “It’s Judy.” As the party resumed, Karen chatted with Judy Nelson. When she finally hung up, she waved again, until she had everyone’s attention.

  “Judy has a wonderful idea,” she said. Then she began explaining what Judy’s wonderful idea was.

  At exactly nine o’clock the telephone rang at the Crane home. Geraldine Grane picked it up, and was pleasantly surprised when a voice asked for Marilyn.

  “For me?” Marilyn said curiously, coming into the room. “Who is it?”

  “Don’t know.” Geraldine shrugged. She handed the phone to Marilyn, and sat back down in the chair she had vacated when the phone rang. She picked up the book she had been reading, but didn’t open it Instead, she listened to Marilyn’s side of the conversation.

  “I don’t think so,” Marilyn was saying. “It’s getting awfully late, and I think I’d better stay home.” There was a silence, then: “No, really—I’m not feeling well. Thanks anyway.” Then she hung up the phone and started out of the room.

  “Who was that, dear?” her mother said.

  “No one.”

  “Don’t be silly. It was someone. Who was it?”

  “Karen Morton,” Marilyn said. She made another attempt to get out of the room, but again her mother stopped her.

  “Well, what did she want?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Marilyn, she must have wanted something. It sounded like she wanted you to go somewhere. Where?”

  “Over to her house.”

  “Really?” Geraldine was elated. Marilyn was rarely invited to go anywhere, and almost never by people her own age, except that nice Jeff Bremmer. “What for?”

  “She said it was a party. A come-as-you-are party. They want me to come.”

  “Why that sounds wonderful,” Geraldine said enthusiastically. She remembered going to that kind of party herself, years ago, and it had been lots of fun. People had shown up in the most ridiculous outfits.

  “Well, I’m not going,” Marilyn said quietly.

  Geraldine decided to take the bull by the horns. It was time Marilyn started mixing with the other children, she thought. “Of course you’re going,” she said. “Why on earth shouldn’t you?”

  “It’s late,” Marilyn said. ‘It’s nine o’clock, and I want to go to early Mass tomorrow.”

  “You can go to a later one, and sleep in,” Geraldine replied.

  “But Mother, look at me. Pm a mess.”

  “That’s what makes come-as-you-are parties fun,” Geraldine said, more sharply than she had meant “Now put on your coat and I’ll take you right over to Karen’s.”

  Marilyn surveyed herself in the mirror. She had been about to go to bed with a book, and she was wearing a flannel nightgown and an old pink bathrobe that she had insisted not be given to the Goodwill. Her hair was in curlers, and her face was covered with cream.

  “I don’t want to go,” she insisted. But Geraldine was adamant She brushed Marilyn’s objections aside and packed her into the car.

  Five minutes later, with a coat covering her bathrobe, and slippers on her feet, Marilyn Crane was deposited in front of the Morton house. Without giving her daughter time to voice any more objections, Geraldine Crane drove away. She was sure that finally her ugly-duckling daughter was going to be accepted by the flock. Marilyn, sure that the flock was playing a trick on her, moved slowly up the walk to the door. The house seemed dark, suspiciously quiet She reached out, and tentatively rang the bell.

  At ten-thirty Saturday night, Harriet Morton glanced around the diner where she and one other waitress had spent the evening with very little to do. Only two tables were occupied, and they were both in the other girl’s station. And something was nagging at her. She had a feeling that she should be at home. She glanced at the clock, then heard the voice of the other waitress behind her. “Why don’t you call it a night?” Millie was saying. “You’ve been jumpy as a cat all night, and it’s not as if I can’t handle it by myself.” It was a tempting offer, but Harriet thought about the tips she might miss. Millie read her mind. “Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll punch you out when I leave, and we’ll split any tips that come into your station between now and closing. Which, if we’re lucky, should come to about twelve and a half cents each. Go home, will you? I can tell you’re worried about something.”


  “It’s probably silly,” Harriet replied. “It’s just that Karen’s having a party tonight, and it’s the first time I’ve ever let her have one when I wasn’t there.”

  “Afraid it’s turned into an orgy?” Millie grinned. “Go on, take off. I’ll handle the mob.” She looked sourly at the two lone diners who were poking unenthusiastically at the mess of potatoes and gravy that was billed as “real home cooking.”

  Five minutes later Harriet was in her car, and ten minutes after that she was pulling into the driveway. From the outside, the party seemed to be over—the house was dark. And then, as she closed the car door, she heard the music. Soft music, not the loud rock she had expected. She tried the door. Unlocked. As she snapped on the lights, she heard the sounds of scuffling in the living room. And there they were.

  Harriet surveyed the guilty-looking teen-agers who were scattered around the living room trying to look as though they hadn’t been caught—except that their clothes were mussed and the girls’ makeup had somehow transferred itself to the boys’ faces. Well, it was bound to happen someday, Harriet told herself. They are growing up. She steeled herself to give them the lecture she knew her husband would have given them, had he been alive. Of all the kids, it was her own daughter who was staring at her with the most resentment The others looked properly ashamed; Karen, however, looked mad. It didn’t occur to Harriet that Karen’s anger was not so much directed at Harriet for the lecture she was giving, as at the fact that Karen was afraid of what the other kids might say when it was over. Karen could see her stock slipping. Her mother, she had always said, let her do what she wanted. Now the truth was coming out. Harriet Morton was just as strict as all the rest of the mothers of Neilsville.

  Karen whispered into Jim Mulvey’s ear. “Well sneak out when this is all over with,” she said softly. “Then maybe we can finish what we started.” Jim felt a sudden tightness in his groin. Was it really finally going to happen? All of a sudden he was a little fait afraid.