The Death of Sweet Mister

by Daniel Woodrell

  “You got to aim more,” I said.

  “I might aim upside your head.”

  “Don’t be a sore loser, Granny.”

  “I ain’t lost yet, fatty.”

  She had to call the way for Carl to drive because he did not know every house on the route. She would call out, “This one,” and me or her would throw the paper and Carl would keep the score tallied for us. The houses were of all types except the poorest sort of houses like ours where it seemed the news was of no concern to hardly anybody. Some of the richer houses had fabulous deep tangles of bushes and shit framing their front porches and stray papers could get lost in such fabulous tangles. When throws like that happened I had to get out and hunt the paper. I had to burrow however deep into the bushes the paper had fallen. Some bush needles didn’t feel nice on my skin, and some scratched, but none drew blood so it flowed.

  I’d come back scratched and say, “Throw straight, Granny. Or don’t throw.”

  “If I was as big a sissy as you, boy, I wouldn’t let on.”

  I don’t know how many papers we threw but it seemed a full load. Folks were out watering lawns and nodded at us. Kids smacked plastic balls with fat plastic bats. Women crouched in flower beds and stirred the dirt with trowels. At some houses the sounds of supper being cooked carried to the street and reached me.

  At the end of the route Carl called out the score.

  “Well, you oughta be able to beat your old granny,” she said.

  “I did, too.”

  Carl drove on into the cemetery and up to the house. He hit the brakes and turned the radio low. The house was open to the screen door but no vehicle sat out front.

  “You oughta be able to.”

  “I am.”

  “It’d be pretty god-awful sad if you couldn’t beat me.”

  “But I can, Granny. I did. And I’ll do it more next time.”

  Carl had started singing with a song on the radio but looked back at me and laughed a couple of times.

  She said, “Why don’t you get on out? You get on out now, and run to your momma. See if Momma’s got a cookie for you.”

  “I believe I will. Later, Carl.”

  Somebody bleeding had whirled and whirled in the kitchen. Dishes had crashed about and made a mess. The blood had whirled odd spots and streaks onto the stove, the walls, the floor, the ceiling. The kind of plates we had that could be broken were busted on the floor. The radio played olden rhyming rock’n roll songs. A leg was gone from the table and the table bent over, the top touched to the floor like it kneeled to beg.

  Our habit had got to be that whenever Jimmy Vin came calling I sat on the roof of the shed to keep a watch out. I never could be all the way sure which exact vehicle I needed to spot, which set of wheels spelled doom. I watched for Red in every car, every truck, looking for that oiled bump of hair, those big arms.

  I pulled my blade out.

  Other times Jimmy Vin scooped us into the T-bird and off we went to places he enjoyed. Him and her laughed together a bunch. They smiled and smiled except when something made her nervous and she ducked. He enjoyed food and we went to places to eat, mainly. One place on the lake had noodles that were like tubes, and slices of a sausage I never had before in tomato sauce. Me and Glenda loved the food so much, smacked and smacked our lips, until he finally said, “Too light on the garlic. A little too much sugar in the sauce. Otherwise, pretty fair.”

  Water gurgled in the sink. Some streaks of blood seemed to yet be moving down the sides of things. That music played that I never did care to hear and I turned it off.

  He always had been happy to spend and spending put that glow in her eyes. He never looked at the amounts on menus, just the choices. He often asked for extra touches from the kitchen for his food. “Something as simple as a slice of Bermuda onion added to a burger makes the burger two stars better.” The tips he left caused waitresses to follow us clear out to the parking lot wishing us well.

  Hands had posted bloody signs along the wall and into the hall. The signs were smeared. Her room was down the hall. Her room with the bed was down the hall.

  They right away started kissing in front of me.

  I flicked the blade open and creeped along.

  A sheet from the bed had landed in the hall.

  There were certain things he wanted his way. He wanted her hair worked over and puffed into that hard round style, a hair helmet, plenty of spray. He thought lots of makeup looked better than less. “I guess my tastes are set,” he said. “You are a doll.”

  Clumps of long raven hair lay on the sheet, clumps like a cat fight leaves in a corner.

  The man wore neckties awful regular for around here.

  She took to bringing him up in talk when we were alone.

  “Don’t you think he’d make a good daddy?”

  “I don’t care much for daddies. Daddies stink.”

  The bedroom didn’t look that bad except for the things tipped over. I eased into the room and looked for the bodies. I figured there’d be bodies. I never had figured I’d be the one who’d have to find the bodies.

  This other time, I hunkered on the T-bird hood and kept the watch for them and did not hear too much mumbling and thumping from the house. The sky was in that gray mood, that gray mood on a hot day that might mean rain is on the way, rain and nasty weather, or maybe nothing is coming except more gray on a hot hot afternoon. When a breeze kicked up birds went for cover in the cemetery trees. Those two had their arms over each other as they strolled outside. When he drove off she switched her hugs back to me. Now she had hugs for me. I wiggled from her hugs and shoved her arms away.

  “Oh, Shug, do you hate me? Say you don’t hate me.”

  “Quit it, Glenda.”

  “Say it. Say it for me, hon.”

  “Do I seem like I hate you?”

  “But you could. You could hate me, and I want to know.”

  “I don’t fuckin’ hate you!”

  I pulled the screen door open and stood there, one foot in the house, my eyes raised to the gray windy sky.

  “You didn’t need to yell it.”

  I let the door slap behind me, then turned and faced her with the screen between us.

  “Button your shirt straight.”

  The bodies weren’t in the bedroom. So I checked the TV room where it seemed nothing at all had happened.

  The table leg had landed behind the fridge. I picked it up. Blood and skin stuck to the heavy end. I carried the table leg to the john and stood over the tiny pond. I used my blade to scrape the table leg. It was a sliver of meat ripped loose from some part of a person. Maybe a lip. Maybe a ear. Almost a eyelid but probably not. The meat looked sad with no face to frame it. The skin came off like goo and as the goo hit the water I flushed.

  Back in the kitchen I saw the sink had a boot in it.

  Water gurgled over the boot. The boot had white eagle wings.

  I about collapsed.

  I rinsed the table leg in the sink. I raised the table from where it kneeled and put the leg back where it belonged so the table could stand. I got the broom and a mop and a bucket of water and a sponge. I started sweeping the broken dishes. I picked up the dishes that weren’t broken. I had almost swept the floor clean when I saw the black skillet under a chair. Strange stuff clung to the skillet and I bent for a look. I plucked the strip of meat off the skillet with my fingers pinched and spotted hairs growing from it.

  The hairs were red.

  I went back to the john and the hairs waved and waved as they swirled down.

  I followed the blood around the kitchen with a sponge. The blood had in some places splashed out pictures. Mostly faces or maps. I rubbed and rubbed and rubbed. I stood on the stove to scrub swipes of blood that had spurted to the ceiling. I found drops to scrub all over. They got into the strangest places. I rubbed and swept and rubbed and mopped. Then I went to work on the blood signs posted in the hall.

  At the sink I tipped the water from the boot and the w
ater poured out bloody. I scrubbed all around the sink. I carried the boot into the yard and over to the shed. I climbed to the dark rafters of the shed and stuck the boot in the farthest dark place.

  I put everything away. I made myself a baloney and mayonnaise sandwich for supper. I sat in front of the TV and watched whatever it was that was on. I watched a long time. I found some chip crumbs in a bag and ate them.

  She came in while I was watching a show. I heard her walk all about the house. I heard her feet moving in the hall. I heard her in the kitchen. I didn’t make a sound.

  I knew she stood in the doorway watching me a long time before she spoke.

  “What’s goin’ on, Shug?”

  “I already ate.”

  Not long after that she still stood there looking and he joined her and she said, “He already ate.”

  “He did, did he?”

  “What’d you find to eat?”

  I turned to look at them and he had a blue bulge popped out on his forehead. A fat black lump had risen under his left eye and made the eye squinch. His nostrils had that crust left by bloody noses. She looked shook up and pale and her hair did not lay calmly on her head. They both had dirty sections at their knees and filthy hands.

  “Baloney.”

  He pointed into the kitchen and gave her a big-eyed confused look and she shrugged at him two or three times.

  “Baloney?” she said. “That’s all? Well, then, I’ll bet you’re ready for your snack, aren’t you, hon?”

  I turned my face back to the TV. I watched whatever was on. Some show.

  “I could use a snack.”

  NORMAL DAYS spun with a different wobble for a while. Sometimes I thought the house shivered. The regular things happened but they did not seem so regular, and things that weren’t regular butted in on each day. A house that shivered threw everything off. Jimmy Vin stayed away and left her alone with her thoughts and she stayed drunk. Each day she started out expecting him, trying to smile, waiting, more and more fidgety, but he would not show. Before lunch she’d take her silvery thermos into the bedroom and lay there and now and then ask me did I see the Thunderbird circling around.

  “No. Quit askin’.”

  The cemetery gave me something to do. Plots with weeds I never had kneeled down and pulled got snatched baldheaded practically. Some of the oldest white markers in the olden stretch of cemetery ground had fallen before my time and been propped back up by piles of smaller flat rocks. Most of the headstones were propped up tilted. I studied on the smaller flat rocks and how they were stacked, then built fresh piles that shoved the markers up more straight. I built the piles my own way, just so. The names still could not be read but the blurred headstones stood prouder. On some days I kicked the piles away so everything fell, then built the headstones up straight all over again.

  “Quit askin’.”

  I wondered if Red was laid in the dirt and worms were already eating the soft parts of him. Eyeballs, lips, ears, tongue. Armies of worms gobbling his soft parts. Worms wiggling in and out of his meat. Or were the worms still crawling their way underground towards him? Was he buried deep wrapped in something stout that slowed the march of the gobbling worms? Or could be him and her had just pulled over above a steep ravine and rolled him down into the scrub oak and trash weeds so he’d come to rest in the open air where the big snorty hungry animals sniffed over to him and chewed the best meat of him away first. And when the big animals had gorged full, the worms would march in wiggling for the leavings on his bones.

  “Goddammit, no! Quit askin’.”

  THE FIRST person to miss Red and say so was Basil. Basil had been stuck for most of a week in the town jail because of a petty deed he did not care to talk about, and a day after they let him out he fell by our house when Glenda was in a weaving way and staggered around the kitchen drunk as hell. She opened all the drawers for a look but never found what she thought she hunted and let the drawers hang open. She muttered pieces of several sentences and bounced from the walls. She had not tended to her grooming much for days, or changed shirts, and looked about as far from good as she ever could.

  He said, “Poor gal—she’s missin’ him bad as me.”

  “She’s drunk.”

  The time was sunset and the sky was finger-painted with swirls of three or four colors, but the big splashes were pink.

  “She’s hurtin’, Shug. Really hurtin’.”

  “She didn’t eat no supper.”

  Glenda soon staggered right up to us but went past like we were stumps and weaved her way on into the TV room. We watched as she reached the old gray couch and flopped out flat.

  “She’s hurtin’ too bad to eat.”

  Basil stood there with his hands on his hips, giving sad little shakes of his head. He wore a starchy white shirt and black pants like for churchgoing and had shaved. His hair was cut tidy and combed. He had driven over in a rackety white Mustang that needed a tune-up to put the pistons in step with each other again.

  I said, “You look all freshened up from jail.”

  “I turned me a new leaf in there.” Basil grinned sort of bashful, then nodded. “I set my brain to doin’ jumpin’ jacks and shit. Made it run laps, do a few chin-ups. I’ve got to get thinkin’ right—I’ve even swore off dope.”

  “You have? Since when?”

  “Tomorrow’s gonna make two days. That’s not countin’ the six days in jail. You can’t fairly count them.”

  “Huh-uh,” I went. “You can’t.” Glenda was asleep with her chin down and her mouth sagged open. Her breaths honked through her nose. “Swore off for good?”

  “Swore off ’til I find my partner. I ain’t become no square citizen just yet. I ain’t sayin’ that. But I can’t hunt Red if I’m fucked up constantly to where my brain’s stuck in low gear.”

  “I imagine he’s drifted off somewhere scallybippin’.”

  “Well now, Red might sure ’nough go out scallybippin’ for a couple of weeks without tellin’ her, but not without tellin’ me.” Basil took a smoke pack from his shirt pocket and tapped cigs loose for us both. He had a hefty gray lighter that clanged open and threw a big flame. “Red ain’t pulled nothin’ much important without me there to take his back since about seventh grade, man. Since your age.”

  There were laughing voices in the bone orchard. Kids with dogs chased other kids and dogs over grave-humps and around tombstones and in amongst the old resting trees. They ran each other down in the twilight and tagged to make somebody else It. The dogs chased any kid who ran. Over the way a mother called and called for her kid to come in now, your daddy says right now, it’s getting dark. The kids laughed louder than the mother’s call.

  I said, “Things ain’t goin’ good around here.”

  He even smelled like a new and different Basil. He smelled of soap and aftershave and I think baby powder. His ear hairs had been clipped.

  “Red take much with him?”

  “Got me.”

  “Let’s look.”

  Basil moved on down the hall to the bedroom and looked in at the mess. Her underwear laid on the floor where he could see. Dirty clothes and dirty dishes sat around. Ashtrays were full to the rim. Smells had begun to rally in there. Nobody changed the sheets lately and sweat and spilled stuff had created patterns.

  “Jesus, kid—your momma is fallin’ all apart.”

  “It’s not goin’ good.”

  “Ain’t love a motherfucker? She’s in pieces. Crushed to pieces. Makes me want to cry, man.”

  I shuffled back towards the TV room and he came along. He dealt us each new smokes and threw the flame. He sighed every time he blew out. The sputter of Glenda’s lips grew louder. A couple of times she shook up from the couch like a line was hooked to her chest and getting jerked.

  “I best roll her on her face,” I said. “Make sure she won’t drown there on the couch.”

  “Ugh. Pew! I’ll leave you to it, ol’ son. I reckon I gotta be somewhere else—best get you a bucket.�
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  “Got one under the sink.”

  He moved to the screen door and I shadowed him. His eyes looked around pretty sharp. He even stood with better posture now.

  “Basil, I’ve got to say, that is really somethin’ about you quittin’ dope.”

  “It is, ain’t it? It is really somethin’. Course, not havin’ any on hand is a big, big help.”

  Those kids and dogs were yet out there scurrying across the dead, making their happy sounds. Fireflies hung flashing in the air and thumb bats swooped to eat them.

  “I better go get her on her face.”

  “Sure as hell sounds like it, kid.”

  I fetched the trash bucket and rolled Glenda over. Her mouth was stuck together by dry spit and her sticky lips split apart slow. Her eyelids trembled but did not open. When the jerks and sputters started I slid her head to the edge and held the bucket beneath her chin. Each heave made her bounce on the couch. She heaved and heaved. All she held down in her did soon come up and out and I caught each mouthful in the trash bucket and tried and tried and tried not to see any sights I couldn’t forget.

  OUT BESIDE those tombstones under that hot sun only the fake flowers lasted. The fake flowers turned lighter-colored as they baked but stayed somewhat stiff atop paling green stems. Actual real true flowers strangled in such heat, choked, shriveled up limp and twisted, and soon came to look like garbage heaped ugly on the graves.

  I rolled the wheelbarrow all along the cemetery rows, looking at the popular graves, the graves with piled bouquets, and raked up the ruined flowers that were due to be burned. This was before lunch. The sun had not nearly got to full strength and a slow breeze came and went. I rolled the wheelbarrow straight past the forgotten dead as no flowers gathered on them. The forgotten dead were not all from long ago, while some of the most popular dead had been gone a hundred years or better but still knew folks who came around to see them with bunches of flowers.

  The fire barrel stood out behind the tractor shed. It was a big rusty thing. I started with burning paper, then dropped in handfuls of summer-white grass, twigs, and limbs. The fire built fast and was soon ready for business. The flames jumped up high and wiggling from the barrel. I pitched flowers on the fire. I tossed the ruined true flowers and some of the fakes that were past faking they were flowers and started being plastic trash. The true flowers stunted the flames and the fakes fed them.