by Roy Scranton
Just goes to show you never know how things’ll turn out.
Anyway that day he drug all em out to the outhouse and we cleaned up the blood all on the floor, but there’s still this thick smell a blood all over so I got some a Ma’s perfume and sprinkled it all on the floor. Then after that we took Marion’s money and went over by Hutson’s Grocery and got some Pepsi-Cola and a big bag a tater chips, and we came back and watched some more TV till we falled asleep. I remember waking up in the night and seeing the station gone off and the TV screen just static, filling up the room with a gray and ghostly light, and for a minute I forgot what happened and I looked around like we was gonna get caught cuz Charlie was laying curled up on me, then I membered that they was all dead and in the outhouse and I was scared for a minute cuz a dead body’s got something in it that’ll scare you if you think about it too long, then I thought how brave Charlie was shooting my ma in the face like that and I thought, here’s a good man’ll protect me in all the perils a life to come.
We had Nig our black dog and a new collie puppy what we named Kim, and we had two parakeets, too, and we got ice cream and candy and chips and more soda pop, and we stayed there in that house like it was a honeymoon, we played gin rummy and watched The Thin Man and Abbott and Costello on TV, and Charlie practiced his knife throwin. It a been perfect, we din’t have nobody tell us do this or that, we din’t have nobody in our business or telling us what’s what, we just talked all about our dreams and hopes, and we talked about how we’d get out to Montana or maybe Washington, Charlie had a uncle out Washington way said he’d give us some land to build our home and future on, Charlie went on and on about what it meant for a man to have some space and freedom, just a little space to call his own and not be beholden to these sumbitches who’re always at you and telling you what to do, he just wanted a cabin in the mountains where the air was clean, and we’d have some horses and chickens and goats, and he’d ranch out cattle and chop wood and I’d take care of the farm and kids, just like the olden days, just like it was supposed to be. He done made himself out to be some kinda rebel in the news, fore they fried him, he made hisself out just like he wanted to be famous and have a big name, and it’s true he talked about how they’d all talk about Charlie Starkweather, no mistakin that, he wanted people to know his name and know he was trouble from the word go, but that was just him all acting up the big sheriff, cuz I swear all he wanted was to be let alone, just have his space and be free and let alone, just have somewheres just for us, someplace we could call our own out on the frontier, out West somewheres, someplace what belonged to us and us alone, and we talked up all about what kinda wood we’d use for the cabin and what the names of our chickens would be and what we’d name our little ones, we talked it all up and it a been perfect that week in the house exceptin that people kept coming by, and we had a tell em stay away Ma’s sick, we all had the five-day flu is what we said, me at the door and Charlie hidden back in the house so’s they wouldn’t see him, and asides from the people bothering us there was Charlie and his damned little thing, him always working it up and wanting to put it in me, and I told him not till we’s married just a inch, and he said we’s married now in the eyes of God, he says, and I says I don’t want no baby yet till we get to Montana, so he says if he puts it in my mouth it don’t make no babies at all so I said that’s dirty and you’re a dirty dog, but I milked him off with my hand, which was dirty but better than when he put it in me, even just a inch, which always burned like a devil, and he’d be kissing on me and grabbing at me, but I din’t want nothing to do with it and I hated it and hated him just like I hated Marion, just like I hated being touched all the time, I never took my clothes off and I hated him touching me and wanting me to do it all the time, but it made him so pleased with hisself I couldn’t say no so I milked him off, and then him and me was both happy cuz he got his and I din’t have to let him put it in me where it hurt and make no babies, and I never had a take my clothes off cuz he was the dirty one who did the dirty things, he was the bad one who wanted a do nasty things, not me, it weren’t me that wanted none of it I just hated it, hated it and hated him for what he done. I hated him then and I do today and I did when he did them other women, too, and I hated them for doin it with him, I wanted to kill em all, them and him and Marion all dead and stabbed and I’d stab em in the neck and in their nasties and in their belly and stab em till they couldn’t never do it no more, ain’t no reason why people should ever do it cept having babies and that’s a big mean joke from God, it’s our sin and burden, that we gotta be dirty animals what make babies, and I shouldn’t even be talking about it now, not to you and not ever.
Suzie looked down at Abelard sleeping, then out the window, then back at the notebook. She wondered what exactly had happened to Caril, and how close she had to go to keep her real and breathing. Caril didn’t really want to remember anything, she didn’t want to know, and that was part of what she was getting into, that was part of the conceit here, because in real life Caril had said she was innocent the whole time. In real life Caril said “I don’t remember what went on in that house.”
“What do you mean, Caril?” she was asked.
“I don’t remember it at all.”
“You don’t remember it at all?”
“I don’t remember it at all.”
“What do you mean, you don’t remember it at all?”
“I don’t remember what went on.”
“Can you remember what you told me, when you talked to me?”
“I don’t remember.”
But she did. We do.
You remember, don’t you? You remember what happened?
I member them days we lived like kings and queens exceptin for people coming by all the time. Barbara and her stupid husband Bob Von Busch kept coming by, then Bob and Charlie’s brother called the police, who come by then left. All them people coming by was making us nervous, specially them police on Saturday night, and we had a nice big day on Sunday cuz nobody came by but then Monday my granny Pansy come by and wouldn’t leave, she kep on shouting and trying to open the door, and I tole her you gotta go away granny we got the five-day flu but she wouldn’t listen, then she said “I know you got that Charlie in there and you’re doing something, and I’m coming back here with the police.”
Well that was the end a our beautiful honeymoon and we left. Charlie took Marion’s pistol and a shotgun wrapped up in a blue blanket and I took my red swim bag what I could fit some things in, and we each took a knife and I took some old pitchers of me and Barbara and friends a mine what I wouldn’t never see again and it made me kinda sad lookin at them pitchers thinkin how I din’t even get to say goodbye or have Christmas but how it was all cuz I was gonna spend my future with Charlie in the woods and we’d be happy and safe all by ourselves, how we’d get to start over and have a whole new life a freedom.
Anyways before getting on the road we had to go get Charlie’s car and change a bad tire, then we went to Crest I think it was where we got gas and some maps, and then we went to the garage he rented so he could get some spare tires cuz he said we might need em. Charlie loved his car but it was having problems then, that one tire had a bad rim on it and he had a bad transmission too, so he says to me we gotta stop somewhere and get it fixed. The tire was wobblin too much to drive on so we went to Dale’s or Tate’s, one of em first I don’t member which, where we got the transmission packed, and I sat in the car and drank a Pepsi while the guy worked on it, then we left but din’t get the tire fixed so we went to the other one, whether it was Tate’s or Dale’s, where we got the rim fixed. There we got some bullets and gloves and more maps, and they had a burger joint I went in to buy us some hamburgers, and the woman in there was givin me nasty looks and I thought how bout we kill you too, you old hag? We just got our hamburgers and left though, and I caught Charlie makin eyes at that hussy behind the counter when we was leavin so I shoved him and he shoved me back, the
n we got in the car and et our hamburgers what tasted like dog food. I tole Charlie we should go back and shoot em in their face for serving garbage like that.
We din’t have no plan yet and Charlie said you don’t jump without havin a plan, that’s the way it’s done, so he said first fore we head out West we’d best go to Meyer’s, Gus Meyer being this old coot Charlie knowed what had a farm and some land where Charlie liked to go hunt, and Charlie thought we’d go and camp out and figger up a plan so we drove on down to Meyer’s place but the road was all muddy and slushy from the snow on Friday and as we went on it got worse and worse and the car was skiddin and slippin and finally it got stuck out by the old schoolhouse what been blown down by a tornado, where there was still a storm cellar down underground, where we killed Bob Jensen and Carol King, I stabbed that bitch in her nastiness good. That’s what you get for messin with my man, you little hussy, that’s what you get. I stabbed her in her nastiness where Charlie done it to her and I killed her again and again.
But that’s later and you better wait for it, for now it was just us being stuck and trying to dig out the car, then we went and got in the cellar to try and warm up, and I tole Charlie I’d kill him myself if he didn’t figger something out.
And he says, “Whyn’t you kill me then?”
And I says, “Whyn’t you figger something out?”
Then he tosses a gun at me and I catch it but almost drop it cuz its cold and hurts my hands and I say, ow you stupid shit, and Charlie says, “Why’nt you kill me, then, if you’re gone do it?”
Well I gave him back the gun and said quit being a dummy. He snorted, then kicked the car tire, then said we’d best go ask Gus Meyer for help. So we walked down to Gus Meyer’s and his dog was barking as we come up and he come out on the porch a see us and Charlie says we need help getting our car unstuck, then Meyer went back inside and Charlie went up the steps and shot him right in the back, and shot his dog too, but that dog he just winged and it run off. We done went in the house then, leaving the old man in the hallway, and I sat in the kitchen warming up while Charlie went around ransackin the place cuz he said Meyer had a bunch of money hidden somewhere, but then all he come back with was two guns and a hunnerd dollars and a jacket and two pairs a socks and two pairs a gloves.
I ast him “What you doing with two pairs a socks, you dummy?”
“I got one for you and one for me” he says.
“I don’t need no dead man’s socks” I tell him.
“Well I ain’t gone pass up some nice new socks” he says “specially when the ones I got are half rotted.”
Then he set right down and put that old man’s socks on, both pairs one over the other, on account of it being cold he says. I just shook my head. A hunnerd dollars is one thing but a pair of socks is pretty mean to go stealin from a dead man. Then Charlie says how he’s hungry so he gets up and looks in the fridge, what din’t have much in it but some Jell-O, so he et some Jell-O and some cookies he found and I had some too, then we went upstairs and took a nap.
Charlie been thinkin a that dog he shot, Meyer’s dog, and how it gone off all wounded, and he said we better go fine it or somebody a know something was wrong at old Meyer’s. So I sighed and tole him he always thought of stuff when it’s too late, like maybe oncet he could come up with a plan ahead a time maybe, and he said “You din’t do much better, Miss Know-It-All” and I says “Pshaw. I ain’t the one goin around shootin people’s dogs.”
“Well, let’s go fine it” he said, so we went out and all up through the mud lookin for this dog, and we found it out in the old man’s pasture and it was lying on its side breathing shallow, bleeding and just lying there, its ribs coming up and down, the hole where Charlie shot it dark red and chunky, just like the Jell-O he et. I said “Charlie you better shoot him” and he says “That dog’s already dead” so we stood there for a minute lookin at it in the cold, then turned around and went back to the house. Charlie covered Meyer up with a blanket and collected all his loot, then we went back to the car up the muddy road.
I think when you tell somebody a story you oughtn’t to stop and say how the sky was so-and-so, or the flowers were gold and blue and wavin all in the wind, you oughta just get on with it and say what happened and who to, but there’s times when what it looked like is just what it was and you can’t know nothing about it unless you see it, and that day in Nebraska was a cold January day with thin blue light all across the sky and the earth muddy brown and gray, dirt all mixed with snow and ice and old rotted wheat, and out where we was the flat just went on forever like you was in a frozen white sea dirty with the floating bits and bobs of a wrecked old sailin ship. In the wintertime you look at Nebraska and it’s sure enough the loneliest, most godforsaken spot on earth, like there ain’t nobody lives there and nobody in a right mind who’d want to.
Anyways, Charlie and me went back to his car and worked it and after a couple hours we finally got it outta the rut but Charlie that dummy stripped the reverse gear getting it out. Then we drove back out to the road but Charlie was talking to me about what the police would do when they found out, like what he knowed from shows about how they did their dragnets, and he weren’t paying attention to the road and just at the spot where Meyer’s lane hit the main road Charlie durned stuck the car again. And I says “Charlie Starkweather, I swear you’re the worse driver I ever seen.”
“I’ll show you some driving” he said. “It’s this durnd mud.”
So we got out and was trying to unstick the car again, which was near impossible this time on account a him strippin the reverse, then a farmer pulls up in his Ford truck and asks us if we need help and we says yes, so he tows us outta the ditch and Charlie gives him two dollars and says thanks, mister, then we get back in the car. So Charlie just sat there for a minute and I says “What?” And he says “I think maybe we just lay low at Meyer’s for a couple days.”
Well I says “I don’t like being in there with that dead old man in the hallway.”
“I’ll haul him out to the yard if you want” he tells me. “I just think if the police are after us then it’s best we lay low for a couple days.”
But I ask him can’t we go to Washington or Montana?
“We will” he says, and I shoulda known better he was lying to me, the dirty sumbitch, “but I think it’s best if we hole up somewheres for a couple days and wait out the search, so’s they don’t catch us on the highway. Then we can go, after all the noise dies down.”
“Let’s go then” I says, so we drove back down the lane to Meyer’s place and made it all the way this time without getting stuck at all on account a Charlie being real careful. Oncet we got there, though, we got outta the car and walked up and Charlie looked in the window in the door and saw how the blanket he put on the old man weren’t there no more, and he turned right around and said “We gotta go” and I says “How come?” and he says “They knowed we was here” and I felt a fright go through me like the shivers and we got in the car and drove right off. He said he knowed a shortcut to Tate’s where we could go and fix the transmission so we head off down another dirt road and I ask him what he saw and he says “Somebody took the blanket off him” and I thought that’s smart, there, catching that. I din’t want to stay there anyway. I had a bad feeling about the place and I told him so.
Turned out his shortcut weren’t no shortcut at all but a dead end, so he circled round in a field and headed back out the road and we drove out to Tate’s. The man on at Tate’s said he couldn’t fix the reverse less we left it till tomorrow, so we just bought some more bullets and another map. We got back in the car and Charlie says to me “I was thinking about the Meyer place and I’s thinking maybe it’s the wind blew off that blanket. I don’t think nobody been there. I think it’s the wind.”
“I don’t want to go back there, Charlie” I tole him.
And he says “I tole you we should hole up somewheres. It’
s the best place to do it, and we can lay low till the dragnet passes. And I think it’s just the wind what blowed that blanket off. Ain’t nobody been there.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea” I says.
“You’re just scared of the dead body” he says “and we gotta hole up. We don’t wanna get caught in no dragnet.”
So I frowned at him, so’s he’d know I didn’t think it’s such a good idea, but as we went on and got closer and closer down the muddy lane the thought of what we’d find there got worser and worser for me, till finally I saw how there’d be police and ghosts and my parents all waiting for us, waiting to catch us down and I says “Charlie, stop. We can’t go. I got a premonition.”
“A what?” he says.
“A premonition a evil” I tole him. “We can’t go there or that’s it.”
“What kind a premonition?”
“A premonition a evil! I sense danger. We gotta go on to Montana, Charlie. I can feel it.”
He stopped the car and set there looking at the sky getting dark and hunched over the wheel thinking, and finally he saw things my way and turned around in the field, but when we come back onto the road Charlie hit a ditch and stuck the car again. He cursed and hit the steering wheel.
