by Jim Thompson
“Sure enough?” I said. “Is that a fact?”
I laid my cigar down on an ashtray, leaned back on the pillow and closed my eyes. A chair creaked and squeaked real loud, and I heard Howard say, “Now Jeff”—and there was a sound like he’d sort of stumbled.
I opened my eyes again. Jeff Plummer was standing over me.
He was smiling down at me with his lips and there was a .45 in his hand, and the hammer was thumbed back.
“You right sure you ain’t coming with us?” he said. “You don’t reckon you could change your mind?”
The way he sounded I knew he hoped I wouldn’t change it. He was just begging, waiting for me to say no. And I reckoned I wouldn’t say all of even a short word like that before I was past saying anything.
I got up and began to dress.
22
If I’d known that Rothman’s lawyer friend, Billy Boy Walker, was tied up in the East and was having trouble getting away, I might have felt different. I might have cracked up right off. But, on the other hand, I don’t think I would have. I had a feeling that I was speeding fast down a one-way trail, that I was almost to the place I had to get to. I was almost there and moving fast, so why hop off and try to run ahead? It wouldn’t have made a particle of sense, and you know I don’t do things that don’t make sense. You know it or you will know it.
That first day and that night, I spent in one of the “quiet” cells, but the next morning they put me on ice, down in the cooler where I’d—where Johnnie Pappas had died. They—
How’s that? Well, sure they can do it to you. They can do anything they’re big enough to do and you’re little enough to take. They don’t book you. No one knows where you are, and you’ve got no one on the outside that can get you out. It’s not legal, but I found out long ago that the place where the law is apt to be abused most is right around a courthouse.
Yeah, they can do it all right.
So I was saying. I spent the first day and night in one of the quiet cells, and most of the time I was trying to kid myself. I couldn’t face up to the truth yet, so I tried to play like there was a way around it. You know. Those kid games?
You’ve done something pretty bad or you want something bad, and you think, well, if I can just do such and such I can fix it. If I can count down from a thousand backwards by three and a third or recite the Gettysburg Address in pig-latin while I’m touching my little toes with my big ones, everything will be all right.
I’d play those games and their kin-kind, doing real impossible things in my imagination. I’d trot all the way from Central City to San Angelo without stopping. Or they’d grease the pipeline across the Pecos River, and I’d hop across it on one foot with my eyes blindfolded and an anvil around my neck. I’d really get to sweating and panting sometimes. My feet’d be all achy and blistered from pounding that San Angelo Highway, and that old anvil would keep swinging and dragging at me, trying to pull me off into the Pecos; and finally I’d win through, just plumb worn out. And—and I’d have to do something still harder.
Well, then they moved me down into the cooler where Johnnie Pappas had died, and pretty soon I saw why they hadn’t put me there right away. They’d had a little work to do on it first. I don’t know just how they’d rigged the stunt—only that that unused light-socket in the ceiling was part of it. But I was stretched out on the bunk, fixing to shinny up the water tower without using my hands, when all at once I heard Johnnie’s voice:
“Hello, you lovely people. I’m certainly having a fine time and I wish you were here. See you soon.”
Yes, it was Johnnie, speaking in that sharp smart-alecky way he used a lot. I jumped up from the bunk and started turning around and looking up and down and sideways. And here his voice came again:
“Hello, you lovely people. I’m certainly having a fine time and I wish you were here. See you soon.”
He kept saying the same thing over and over, about fifteen seconds between times, and, hell, as soon as I had a couple minutes to think, I knew what it was all about. It was one of those little four-bit voice recordings, like you’ve just about got time to sneeze on before it’s used up. Johnnie’d sent it to his folks the time he visited the Dallas Fair. He’d mentioned it to me when he told me about the trip—and I’d remembered because I liked Johnnie and would remember. He’d mentioned it, apologizing for not sending me some word. But he’d lost all his dough in some kind of wheel game and had to hitchhike back to Central City.
“Hello, you lovely people…”
I wondered what kind of story they’d given the Greek, because I was pretty sure he wouldn’t have let ’em have it if he’d known what it was going to be used for. He knew how I felt about Johnnie and how Johnnie’d felt about me.
They kept playing that record over and over, from maybe five in the morning until midnight; I don’t know just what the hours were because they’d taken away my watch. It didn’t even stop when they brought me food and water twice a day.
I’d lie and listen to it, or sit and listen. And every once in a while, when I could remember to do it, I’d jump up and pace around the cell. I’d pretend like it was bothering the hell out of me, which of course it didn’t at all. Why would it? But I wanted ’em to think it did, so they wouldn’t turn it off. And I guess I must have pretended pretty good, because they played it for three days and part of a fourth. Until it wore out, I reckon.
After that there wasn’t much but silence, nothing but those faraway sounds like the factory whistles which weren’t any real company for a man.
They’d taken away my cigars and matches, of course, and I fidgeted around quite a bit the first day, thinking I wanted a smoke. Yeah, thinking, because I didn’t actually want one. I’d been smoking cigars for—well—around eleven years; ever since my eighteenth birthday when Dad had said I was getting to be a man, so he hoped I’d act like one and smoke cigars and not go around with a coffin-nail in my mouth. So I’d smoked cigars, from then on, never admitting to myself that I didn’t like them. But now I could admit it. I had to, and I did.
When life attains a crisis, man’s focus narrows. Nice lines, huh? I could talk that way all the time if I wanted to. The world becomes a stage of immediate concern, swept free of illusion. I used to could talk that way all the time.
No one had pushed me around or even tried to question me since the morning they’d locked me up. No one, at all. And I’d tried to tell myself that that was a good sign. They didn’t have any evidence; I’d got their goats, so they’d put me on ice, just like they’d done with plenty of other guys. And pretty soon they’d simmer down and let me go of their own accord, or Billy Boy Walker’d show up and they’d have to let me out…that’s what I’d told myself and it made sense—all my reasoning does. But it was top-of-the-cliff sense, not the kind you make when you’re down near the tag-end of the rope.
They hadn’t tried to beat the truth out of me or talk it out of me for a couple of reasons. First of all, they were pretty sure it wouldn’t do any good. You can’t stamp on a man’s corns when he’s got his feet cut off. Second—the second reason was—they didn’t think they had to.
They had evidence.
They’d had it right from the beginning.
Why hadn’t they sprung it on me? Well, there were a couple of reasons behind that, too. For one thing, they weren’t sure that it was evidence because they weren’t sure about me. I’d thrown them off the track with Johnnie Pappas. For another thing, they couldn’t use it—it wasn’t in shape to be used.
But now they were sure of what I’d done, though they probably weren’t too clear as to why I’d done it. And that evidence would be ready to be used before long. And I didn’t reckon they’d let go of me until it was ready. Conway was determined to get me, and they’d gone too far to back down.
I thought back to the day Bob Maples and I had gone to Fort Worth, and how Conway hadn’t invited us on the trip but had got busy ordering us around the minute we’d landed. You see? What could be cle
arer? He’d tipped his hand on me right there.
Then, Bob had come back to the hotel, and he was all upset about something Conway had said to him, ordered him to do. And he wouldn’t tell me what it was. He just talked on and on about how long he’d known me and what a swell guy I was, and…Hell, don’t you see? Don’t you get it?
I’d let it go by me because I had to. I couldn’t let myself face the facts. But I reckon you’ve known the truth all along.
Then, I’d brought Bob home on the train and he’d been babbling drunk, and he’d gotten sore about some of my kidding. So he’d snapped back at me, giving me a tip on where I stood at the same time. He’d said—what was it?—“It’s always lightest just before the dark.…”
He’d been sore and drunk so he’d come out with that. He was telling me in so many words that I might not be sitting nearly as pretty as I thought I was. And he was certainly right about that—but I think he’d got his words twisted a little. He was saying ’em to be sarcastic, but they happen to be the truth. At least it seemed so to me.
It is lightest just before the dark. Whatever a man is up against, it makes him feel better to know that he is up against it. That’s the way it seemed to me, anyhow, and I ought to know.
Once I’d admitted the truth about that piece of evidence, it was easy to admit other things. I could stop inventing reasons for what I’d done, stop believing in the reasons I’d invented, and see the truth. And it sure wasn’t hard to see. When you’re climbing up a cliff or just holding on for dear life, you keep your eyes closed. You know you’ll get dizzy and fall if you don’t. But after you fall down to the bottom, you open ’em again. And you can see just where you started from, and trace every foot of your trail up that cliff.
Mine had started back with the housekeeper; with Dad finding out about us. All kids pull some pretty sorry stunts, particularly if an older person edges ’em along, so it hadn’t needed to mean a thing. But Dad had made it mean something. I’d been made to feel that I’d done something that couldn’t ever be forgiven—that would always lie between him and me, the only kin I had. And there wasn’t anything I could do or say that would change things. I had a burden of fear and shame put on me that I could never get shed of.
She was gone, and I couldn’t strike back at her, yes, kill her, for what I’d been made to feel she’d done to me. But that was all right. She was the first woman I’d ever known; she was woman to me; and all womankind bore her face. So I could strike back at any of them, any female, the ones it would be safest to strike at, and it would be the same as striking at her. And I did that, I started striking out…and Mike Dean took the blame.
Dad tightened the reins on me after that. I could hardly be out of his sight an hour without his checking up on me. So years passed and I didn’t strike out again, and I was able to distinguish between women and the woman. Dad slacked off on the reins a little; I seemed to be normal. But every now and then I’d catch myself in that dead-pan kidding, trying to ease the terrific pressure that was building up inside of me. And even without that I knew—though I wouldn’t recognize the fact—that I wasn’t all right.
If I could have got away somewhere, where I wouldn’t have been constantly reminded of what had happened and I’d had something I wanted to do—something to occupy my mind—it might have been different. But I couldn’t get away, and there wasn’t anything here I wanted to do. So nothing had changed; I was still looking for her. And any woman who’d done what she had would be her.
I’d kept pushing Amy away from me down through the years, not because I didn’t love her but because I did. I was afraid of what might happen between us. I was afraid of what I’d do…what I finally did.
I could admit, now, that I’d never had any real cause to think that Amy would make trouble for me. She had too much pride; she’d have hurt herself too much; and, anyway, she loved me.
I’d never had any real cause, either, to be afraid that Joyce would make trouble. She was too smart to try to, from what I’d seen of her. But if she had been sore enough to try—if she’d been mad enough so’s she just didn’t give a damn—she wouldn’t have got anywhere. After all, she was just a whore and I was old family, quality; and she wouldn’t have opened her mouth more than twice before she was run out of town.
No, I hadn’t been afraid of her starting talk. I hadn’t been afraid that if I kept on with her I’d lose control of myself. I’d never had any control even before I met her. No control—only luck. Because anyone who reminded me of the burden I carried, anyone who did what that first her had done, would get killed.…
Anyone. Amy. Joyce. Any woman who, even for a moment, became her.
I’d kill them.
I’d keep trying until I did kill them.
Elmer Conway had had to suffer, too, on her account. Mike had taken the blame for me, and then he’d been killed. So, along with the burden, I had a terrible debt to him that I couldn’t pay. I could never repay him for what he’d done for me. The only thing I could do was what I did…try to settle the score with Chester Conway.
That was my main reason for killing Elmer, but it wasn’t the only one. The Conways were part of the circle, the town, that ringed me in; the smug ones, the hypocrites, the holier-than-thou guys—all the stinkers I had to face day in and day out. I had to grin and smile and be pleasant to them; and maybe there are people like that everywhere, but when you can’t get away from them, when they keep pushing themselves at you, and you can’t get away, never, never, get away…
Well.
The bum. The few others I’d struck out at. I don’t know—I’m not really sure about them.
They were all people who didn’t have to stay here. People who took what was handed them because they didn’t have enough pride or guts to strike back. So maybe that was it. Maybe I think that the guy who won’t fight when he can and should deserves the worst you can toss at him.
Maybe. I’m not sure of all the details. All I can do is give you the general picture; and not even the experts could do more than that.
I’ve read a lot of stuff by a guy—name of Kraepelin, I believe—and I can’t remember all of it, of course, or even the gist of all of it. But I remember the high points of some, the most important stuff, and I think it goes something like this:
“…difficult to study because so seldom detected. The condition usually begins around the period of puberty, and is often precipitated by a severe shock. The subject suffers from strong feelings of guilt…combined with a sense of frustration and persecution…which increase as he grows older; yet there are rarely if ever any surface signs of…disturbance. On the contrary, his behavior appears to be entirely logical. He reasons soundly, even shrewdly. He is completely aware of what he does and why he does it.…”
That was written about a disease, or a condition, rather, called dementia praecox. Schizophrenia, paranoid type. Acute, recurrent, advanced.
Incurable.
It was written, you might say, about—
But I reckon you know, don’t you?
23
I was in jail eight days, but no one questioned me and they didn’t pull any more stunts like that voice recording. I kind of looked for them to do the last because they couldn’t be positive about that piece of evidence they had—about my reaction to it, that is. They weren’t certain that it would make me put the finger on myself. And even if they had been certain, I knew they’d a lot rather I cracked up and confessed of my own accord. If I did that they could probably send me to the chair. The other way—if they used their evidence—they couldn’t.
But I reckon they weren’t set up right at the jail for any more stunts or maybe they couldn’t get ahold of the equipment they needed. At any rate, they didn’t pull any more. And on the eighth day, around eleven o’clock at night, they transferred me to the insane asylum.
They put me in a pretty good room—better’n any I’d seen the time I’d had to take a poor guy there years before—and left me alone. But I took one loo
k around and I knew I was being watched through those little slots high up on the walls. They wouldn’t have left me in a room with cigarette tobacco and matches and a drinking glass and water pitcher unless someone was watching me.
I wondered how far they’d let me go if I started to cut my throat or wrap myself in a sheet and set fire to it, but I didn’t wonder very long. It was late, and I was pretty well worn out after sleeping on that bunk in the cooler. I smoked a couple of hand-rolled cigarettes, putting the butts out real careful. Then with the lights still burning—there wasn’t any switch for me to turn ’em off—I stretched out on the bed and went to sleep.
About seven in the morning, a husky-looking nurse came in with a couple of young guys in white jackets. And she took my temperature and pulse while they stood and waited. Then, she left and the two attendants took me down the hall to a shower room, and watched while I took a bath. They didn’t act particularly tough or unpleasant, but they didn’t say a word more than they needed to. I didn’t say anything.
I finished my shower and put my short-tailed nightgown back on. We went back to my room, and one of ’em made up my bed while the other went after my breakfast. The scrambled eggs tasted pretty flat, and it didn’t help my appetite any to have them cleaning up the room, emptying the enamel night-can and so on. But I ate almost everything and drank all of the weak lukewarm coffee. They were through cleaning by the time I’d finished. They left, locking me in again.
I smoked a hand-rolled cigarette, and it tasted good.
I wondered—no I didn’t, either. I didn’t need to wonder what it would be like to spend your whole life like this. Not a tenth as good as this probably, because I was something pretty special right now. Right now I was a hideout; I’d been kidnapped, actually. And there was always a chance that there’d be a hell of a stink raised. But if that hadn’t been the case, if I’d been committed—well, I’d still be something special, in a different way. I’d be worse off than anyone in the place.
