The Book of Ruth

by Jane Hamilton

  Ruby’s cheeks were still pink. He helped Justy by ripping his meat into tiny pieces. I had to heave a sigh to celebrate arriving at this comfortable resting place, May and Ruby and me. I wanted to lean back and declare, “This is perfect.” Ruby was saying, “Pass them spuds,” while May told about her favorite subject—how one of the girls in choir had a baby without a husband. Sunday was always our best meal, because as I said, church makes you feel as if you’ve done something for your spirit. It makes you feel like you’re a brand-new person, your past history erased, except good deeds. We were doing everything by the book, being miniature disciples, eating politely, and sharing the news. May finished her meal first and lit a cigarette, and we all patted our stomachs. I laughed about how chubby I was going to get, eating pancakes and now Sunday dinner. Ruby looked up at me suddenly, remembering. He understood that I was speaking only to him about how enormous I was going to be in a few months’ time. We didn’t feel like breaking the news about our baby to May yet. We wanted to keep it a secret, only for ourselves.

  We were sitting still, breathing deeply, savoring the smells and taste of the roast when Justy said, “I want one of them cookies down the basement.”

  He knew they were down there because Ruby showed him the stack in the freezer. May makes about thirty different kinds of cookies and gives them to the church needy basket each Christmas, as if we can afford pecans and candied cherries and twenty-pound sacks of sugar. She starts in October and practically every day she’s punching out candy canes and angels, or gingerbread boys with raisin eyes, Santas with frosting beards! If she feels like going overboard she’ll make peanut brittle and white chocolate candies. None of the goodies ever see the light of day in our house. If we’re lucky on Christmas Eve she’ll dole out any broken pieces. She says she doesn’t see why we can’t make a sacrifice, but I think she does it so the church won’t think we’re the poor.

  May said to Justy, “You can’t have any, sweetheart, they’re not good for you.”

  I wiped Justy’s mouth, told him to blow his nose on the tissue. “There’s too much sugar in them, Justin,” I said. “They ain’t going to make your muscles grow big and strong. You can have some more fruit salad, how about that? Would you like fruit salad?”

  “I want cookies,” he whined at me. “I want a candy-cane cookie. My daddy showed me where they’re at.”

  May laughed, leaning over to Justy. “Look at your daddy’s teeth, baby pie. You want teeth like that? All rotten? Look at how some of them ain’t even there no more. They got so rotten they just plain fell out.”

  Ruby stood up and untied Justy’s bib. “Sure, Justy,” he said, like he had all the time in the world. “You can have a cookie. One little cookie ain’t going to hurt you. If your stingy old grandma can stand to give up one for her grandson, you can have a cookie.”

  “Am I a stingy old grandma, Justy?” May asked. Justy whimpered; he didn’t have the right answer. She pushed her chair back and stood up. She said, right in Ruby’s face, “No, Justy, I paid for your daddy when he was in the hospital. He jumped in the river in December. He thought it was July. His brain was flipping around in his head, sweetie. Grandma paid his bill. I ain’t going to feed you sugar—it ain’t good for you. Your poor daddy don’t know better. He’d feed you trash all day long if I wasn’t here, and we’d have to go to the doctor.”

  “Stop it, you two,” I yelled. My voice came out so shrill they stopped in their quarrelsome tracks. “Ruby,” I said, “Ma’s saving the cookies for the church, you know that. Justy can have salad or a banana but he’s not going to have cookies.”

  “I WANT COOKIES,” Justy cried, banging his spoon on the table.

  May started gathering up the plates. She said, “You want Justy to have black holes in his mouth like you, Ruby? You’re not moving away, Justy, because your daddy wouldn’t take care of you for a second. He’d let you starve in the mornings while he banged up—”

  “Sure, Justy,” Ruby said. “You run down to the basement and get us, you and me, your own daddy, some cookies. You just pull the chair over and open the freezer like I showed you how and take a bag out. We’ll have all we want.” To me, through his clenched mouth he spit, “I’m the master of the house.”

  May snickered, slapped her thigh, and said her usual line. “That’s a good one, that’s about the best joke I heard this year. All your brains are in your ass, Ruby,” she added, in addition to other words too low to repeat, and the whole time she wrung the dish towel in her hands with the bulk of her strength. Her red knuckles turned white. The skin was so dry and taut I had the urge to say, “Be careful, Ma, your skin is going to tear.”

  Ruby whispered something to her that made her stop and screw up her face before he went into the living room to pace. We could feel the vibrations, back and forth, back and forth. I smacked the salt shaker so all the salt poured out on the table. It piled up white and clean.

  Justy came through the door, looking like a fat angel, so glad to have sweets, clutching two plastic bags in his chubby hands, one filled with pecan balls and the other with peanut brittle. He ran into the living room to give one to Ruby, as if a person could eat a whole bag of the treats himself in one sitting. He started gobbling up his own, in the corner, afraid that we were going to snatch it away. May yelled at me—I didn’t hear the words distinctly; they were hysterical and ran together. I heard the sharp sounds of t’s and k’s when she grabbed my arm, when she yanked me from my chair and carried me by my dress sleeve into the living room. The fabric ripped. I heard it go, right in my ear. It was Daisy’s dress, ripped beyond repair by May’s fingernails. I couldn’t get it straight. I couldn’t see anything through my tears. I couldn’t recall who I was hating. I heard the rip of the dress, or was it skin coming apart, ancient knuckles tearing?

  “It’s hurting,” I wailed. “It’s hurting, hurting.” I tore at space with my fingers, wanting to wreck something. I wanted to gouge out eyes because we were having such a nice, nice day and suddenly it was a regular nightmare, May dragging me by the sleeve. We came at Ruby like wildcats, screaming and clawing.

  He was ready. He stood in the middle of the room waiting for us. I yelled at Ruby, I pulled out May’s hair, I screamed, “WE WAS HAVING SUCH A NICE DAY”—over and over I yelled, and I got some of his hair too. It didn’t matter to me which head I grabbed for. Justy stared at us from the couch. His cookies tumbled to the floor.

  I swear when I looked into Ruby’s eyes they were the yellow of a sky right before a fierce summer storm. He looked at me without seeing my face. He saw absolutely nothing but the blazing fire in his own mind. Perhaps I have it wrong and in Ruby’s eyes there was only the reflection of my blind stare. We clawed at him; we clawed and snarled until Ruby grabbed the broom, the broom that was May’s dancing partner sometimes. I had always thought it was a friendly object. He started to whack me with the handle. He whacked my face and my arms, coming down on me so that I put my hands on top of my head. After a few clumsy strokes I could see him looking around for something better. He stuck the handle at my neck to pin me to the wall, and while he was still holding on he grabbed the poker from the fireplace. It’s short and thin and comes to a sharp point. Then he tossed the broom aside and came at me fresh. The power in that old poker was marvelous. I wondered in slow motion how a skull could tolerate the blows. Was my poor head going to topple off my shoulders and go spinning down the hall to the kitchen, look for some dog food? Ruby pushed me to the sofa and beat at my fingers and my wrists as if he’d been wielding a stick all his life—I leaned down, over my lap, to hide and he struck the back of my neck and my shoulders. He jabbed at my ear, tried to spear straight through the brains. I couldn’t do anything but sit cowering and screeching. Every time I looked out, tried to speak, he punished me. The poker came flying across my face, back and forth, the sharp end making its cuts, engraving my cheeks and lips. It was moving so fast, like the wind, that I couldn’t see it going back and forth. Ruby was conducting wi
ld music in his head. He had to snort to accompany himself, dance on his toes, and smile at the beauty.

  “STOP,” I shrieked into my lap. I thought I saw May reach for the telephone, but Ruby knocked it out of her hands before she even dialed. He came back to hit me some more, before I could get away. He beat me like I was struggling, when in fact I sat still and limp, waiting for each stroke. I knew he was going to split me in half, down my back, and my brains would spill out onto the floor, spill out and slither into corners like mercury. With my face down on my thighs I sank my teeth into my own leg when my ear felt like it was cut off.

  May cried out, desperate cries. I couldn’t hear the words because there was warm blood, thick, oozing in the crawl spaces of my head. She threw platters and urns at Ruby. They went hurtling through the air, bouncing off his rear end, like in comedies. One bowl hit me in the head; her aim is not perfect. I saw silver stars rise up from nowhere and spin in circles and then disappear. Ruby didn’t like the feel of saucepans one bit. He went after her into the kitchen, waving the poker around and around his head as if he were about to make a perfect lasso throw. She didn’t know what she had set in motion. She didn’t realize what was left when she made for the kitchen.

  I ran, my broken hands trailing behind me like caught fish. I knew my hair was plastered to my bloody skull. I ran out the front door and I stood panting, leaning against the house, tasting the blood in my mouth, thinking the words, “You shall not die but live. The dung heap shall smile.” It occurred to me, I’m the dung heap, and someday I’m going to laugh my head off. I heard the future metallic laugh while I stood there, one huge fresh wound, my brain and heart thudding, those organs so close to the surface of my body I was sure I could just reach in, take my heart out, pat it a little, make it feel better. I didn’t think anything but the dung-heap words, plus the sentences clattering around in my head, phrases the Rev says: “His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns. His eyes were as a flame of fire. We shall not die but live.”

  I’m not sure how long I stood on the porch. I was merely trying to breathe the air and watch the grass come into focus. Perhaps it was one thousand years of standing. Perhaps I was Queen Nefertiti seeing her kingdom fall. I kept hearing, “His eyes were as a flame of fire,” until suddenly it came to me, not the words, but the thought: it’s such an easy thing to do, to kill. Killing is the easiest thing in the world.

  I walked back into the house. The rugs were messed up and the phone was on the floor and there was no noise. Then I heard the operator saying so politely, “Please hang up your telephone. This is a recording from Stillwater, Illinois.” She probably said, “Have a nice day.” The TV minister talked to me, his great lips making long ovals and hideous smiles. He was probably on a new subject, like how wonderful corn chips taste. I stood looking at him and a chill came into my heart, thinking of Ruby pounding at every living thing he saw. I thought of Justy cut into three pieces. My feet started to move me all over the house in search of my boy. I didn’t feel my hands any more. I couldn’t see anything on account of tears again, blinding my damn eyes.

  Justy was halfway down the basement stairs, sitting, pitching the potatoes one by one down the stairs. Then I heard Ruby below; I heard him laugh and say, “Who wants to be lunch?”

  I kept on going down the stairs. It was dark and cold. Way over by the washer in the red glow of the light that means the drier is on, I saw Ruby. I saw Ruby banging at May like he was waiting so patiently for her eyes to pop out and roll around the floor. He growled softly at her, saying, “Don’t call my birdiehouses dumb. Don’t say I’m a moron for building them birdiehouses.” He whacked her one blow for every sentence, coming down on her head and then across her face. “Don’t say my teeth are rotten. Don’t say I ain’t good for nothin’.” He hit her in quiet for a while, concentrating on his blows, and then he said, “We’ll feed you to the snakes. I’ve been praying for you for so long, praying for the evil spirit in you to get washed out. I prayed long enough, baby pie. I can’t pray one minute longer, it just don’t do a bit of good.”

  With her neck breaking she couldn’t say a thing. Her narrow eyes were wider than they had ever been in her life.

  I stood by watching. My feet couldn’t pick themselves up to move. It seemed as if we had always been there, in the basement, me standing and Ruby with May. We had always been there, standing still. Ruby lifted his poker way over his head and then he came down on May with all his strength. She’s tall but he was filled with special strength and speed. He seemed to be the ideal height to smash her with a stick. Plus he had a kitchen knife he used now and again, when he remembered it in his hand, for detail work. She couldn’t move an inch since her head was on crooked. Her body was striped with flesh and blood; there was a patch of skin stuck to her skirt. He had her up against the wall where she waited, useless, for each of his blows. She tried to say words but her tongue hung out of her mouth. It must have gotten disconnected. She couldn’t pull it in. She was trying awfully hard to make sounds; they were coming out low and terrible. Her noises said, “Now I’m nothing. I am nothing.”

  He came at her even after she collapsed to the floor. When I heard her head thump on the cement I ran to her.

  “Get lost,” Ruby hissed. He poked me off in the belly with the flat end of the poker. He poked me back into the corner. He wasn’t finished with his task. He went after her neck. There was still throbbing in the blood vessels. He strangled the breathing out of her with his hands. We heard the choking come up from way down inside her. We heard the rattle. It didn’t take more than a minute or two—it isn’t hard to do, if you can stand the retching. Her eyes were wide, seeing everything and understanding nothing. The Rev’s words echoed all over the basement. “We shall not die but live.” The words came screaming out of the walls, even the dark light bulbs were talking. There was dead May on the floor in her church clothes and her apron. There were no more vital signs to her, except the fresh blood drying. “WE SHALL NOT DIE BUT LIVE” blinked like beer signs all over the ceiling and Ruby laughed, wheezing, like it was hilarious and he thought of it himself. He kicked her gently, and chuckled and burped, until he remembered me.

  I was saying to Justy, “Shoo upstairs, Justin.” He had this look on his face like the time he saw Santa in Coast to Coast buying nails. I wanted to take Ruby in my arms but I felt the stick coming down on my head. I screamed for Justy to go upstairs. I was too confused: here I have pity for Ruby and he’s clobbering me. My head was knocking so hard I felt like it was a basketball and someone was dribbling it down the court. Ruby probably had it in mind to undo my tongue too, stop my language permanently.

  “Please, Ruby, quit it, we’ll run away, me and you, we’ll take Justy, we’ll escape down to Florida,” but he didn’t hear one word I said. He beat at the air trying to get me. Up the basement stairs and out the back door and around the chicken shed—we didn’t notice the cold. I couldn’t run too well because my head was on the verge of falling off. When Ruby caught me he pinned me to the fence, and with one arm holding my hand and the other working the poker, he stabbed at me, and slashed. He thought I was clods of dirt in the garden he had to loosen up. What woke him was Justin, on the porch, screaming, “DADDY!” and when Ruby grabbed my breast to squeeze it dead he remembered the baby in me and he stopped. He squinted into the sunshine with his yellow eyes, and then looked at me, at the breath coming out of my mouth. He remembered the days when we had Justy on the couch and the way he sang so sweetly to him. He lost interest in killing, seeing it’s such an easy thing to do. He dropped his poker and walked inside. I leaned on the fence crying, not with tears, but with my voice.

  Twenty-one

  ALTHOUGH the police tried to get me to say precisely, I don’t know how long I stood there. Finally I walked over to Miss Finch’s house. A family by the name of Peterson lives there now. I walked into the Petersons’ house and Mrs. Peterson, a dyed red beehive on her head and a lavender dotted swiss apron around
her waist, looked at me once, grabbed my arm, and made me speak of my affliction: the Christmas cookies and the poker. I continued to feel the poker making dents in a person’s flesh, slashes, portholes for blood, torrents of blood. I described what the poker did, beating brains to pulp so they looked like rotten watermelon, nothing left to salvage. She called the sheriff and the deputies came as they always do, slowly, but with a great deal of agitation. They have stars pinned to their chests and huge thick waists with belts full of bullets. I recognized one of them from Trim ’N Tidy, Walt, who always talked about how he loved to eat baby beef ribs. Policemen look like they’d never die.

  I see myself with perfect clarity, walking into the house after the policemen. I almost put my hands over my head, automatically, like the caught people do on Hawaii Five-O. Then I remember we aren’t on television. Ruby sits in the armchair, watching a show and drinking milk from the carton, and when he notices the police he points to the basement door. He’s watching a Laurel and Hardy movie; the big fat man is making the thin one cry uncontrollably. I have the feeling I’m at a museum, in a display full of dummies doing their prehistoric tasks. I’m blissfully constructed of papier-mache, with thick smiling lips molded onto my face.

  Justy is in the back yard, by some holy miracle. Mrs. Peterson finds him covering his face in the cold grass, trying to make his eyes useless. I go out and take him from her, by another miracle. My body must be operating on automatic pilot. I hold him with the power of my biceps—my flapping hands aren’t doing anything for support—and then I kiss him gingerly, only my lips don’t realize they’re touching flesh. Justy stares into my face. His mouth stays wide open. “Take him,” I try to say to Mrs. Peterson, right before my arms give out. I’m having trouble forming the words. I ask her to call up this friend of mine, Daisy. I can’t think what her last name is. I keep choking, “Daisy,” and “Aunt Sid, get Aunt Sid.”