The Death of Sweet Mister

by Daniel Woodrell

  When I returned to the fire rolling another load Glenda sat there on a house chair holding her silvery thermos. She wore a blue dress that was meant to be worn of an evening to somewhere swank and lively. Her feet were bare. Her hair looked to be a little bit brushed.

  “I do believe your muscles are startin’ to show, hon.”

  “Are they?”

  “Up there high on your arms. You’ve got nice strong shoulders.”

  I tipped the wheelbarrow load of ruined flowers at her feet. She touched the heap with her toes. She picked up something with yellow petals.

  “You reckon this was a rose?”

  “Burn those while I fetch more.”

  Next time I fed the fire a few limbs before I fed it more flowers. I got the flames to snap and jump way up from the barrel. She and me both stood there tossing in flowers.

  She said, “When you see the judge you can put it off on Red. You can put it all on him.”

  Some of the flowers came with ribbons that said things on them. “Blessed Forever,” “Sleeping in His Arms,” “Beloved.” I dangled a ribbon into the fire and held it as the flames ate towards my fingers.

  “Won’t that get the law to come snoopin’ around lookin’ for him? Askin’ people stuff?”

  “Oh, God.” She sat down hard and the chair groaned. I heard the thermos open. “I am so stupid anymore. I am so stupid. Stupid in every direction.”

  As the ribbon burned to the size of a stamp I let it fall into the barrel. She made noises sitting there, noises that go with worries, or maybe fright.

  She said, “There won’t be any money anymore.”

  I guess I rolled on out and about the graves gathering another load. I took my time rolling up and down the ranks. Three or four customers came around laying fresh flowers as I went along. I kept clear of them and dawdled. I took so much time dawdling she came out barefoot across the bone orchard to join me. She sidled close and threw an arm around my shoulders.

  “I’m about to get right again, Shug. Believe me. I’m just about to put myself back together the way I was.”

  “When?”

  “A certain day is goin’ to come.”

  “What certain day?”

  “Hon, hon, hon—it’s not a certain certain day. It’s one of these days.”

  “You’re boiled.”

  A cop car screamed past on the hard road, cherry-top churning in daylight, leading two unmarked cars over the hill and into something.

  I rolled the next batch of trash flowers back to the fire barrel and she followed. The dry white grass felt like whisker stubble underfoot and made a scratchy sound when stepped on. She followed me quietly and when we reached the barrel, I told her, “Go on, sit in your chair. Sit.”

  “Your muscles,” she said. “Just there your muscles shined, hon. They showed good.”

  The fire burned on until far past time for lunch. The fire, too, got hungry and limp and fell down to a low tired flame. The smoke grew too thin to mark a trail in the air, but the smoke had already worked into my hair and clothes so the smell from the fire barrel came along to anywhere I stood. My hands purely stunk.

  “You know, you can go on in.”

  “No, hon. Huh-uh. I feel better helpin’.”

  For quite a while it went like that. It went like that until we both saw the Thunderbird turning into our long curled drive through the cemetery. She became still on her chair, a rock, her eyes locked on the green green color and white-ringed tires. The shine from the sun made the car glow extra. Jimmy Vin drove towards us at a low speed, his head stiff on his neck, eyes forward, both hands on the wheel. He parked beside the shed facing the barrel.

  He sat there and she sat where she sat and they both stared. Her face did not move. Her face did not show a single ripple. Her eyes seemed not to blink. Neither of them smiled or melted or sang out.

  I stirred the fire with a stick.

  Next time I looked he was standing beside his car. She stood, too. She stood a little slumped, but she stood. He took the first step, then stopped. She tried a step his way and stopped. Their stares held and held and held, then broke, and both came loose and ran together. Their meat smacked together to make a smooching sound. They stood hugged together next to the fire barrel without trying any words, only little purrs and sniffles and gulps. His hands flowed around feeling of her.

  She said the first words: “I had just about got over you.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  His return and a night of sleep knocked her parts back together. Once knocked back together she looked around and faced it that household things had not been getting done and the house had become a stinking mess. Lots of little things hadn’t been done, and dishes and laundry, big things, had been piled high instead of done.

  Glenda woke early that morning and seemed to have been rearranged in her sleep into someone peppy.

  “Coffee. Coffee first, my sweet, then we’ll get after all this mess.”

  Dishes stood in splayed stacks around the sink. Peas and macaroni and bread crusts had gathered in the drain and dammed the water so it rose greasy and topped with food bits to the crest of the sink. The faucet could not be turned on without causing a flood.

  “You have to root in the mess for a cup,” I said. “Find one, see, then take it to the bathtub to clean it.”

  “Yup. Yup. It seems it’s come to that.”

  The morning sun shined through a sky blown clear of clouds and dewdrops on the grass caught the early light to sparkle while birds fluttered about being loudmouthed and busy the way birds are at the start of a day. We drank coffee and looked out the screen at all this, and even the tombstones looked to have been buffed overnight.

  “Well, hon, I guess right off we need to empty the trash.”

  “There sure is plenty.”

  We carried the trash to the shed and I stomped the bags to fit into the cans. Stuff squeezed from the bags in drools as I stomped, and I had to scrape my shoes.

  “I said I’d get right. Didn’t I say it?”

  “You said it.”

  She dragged her bare feet along the grass and dew splattered on her skin until her feet shined. She wore shorts that were not too motherly. They fit on her mighty scenic. She had taken a white shirt of Red’s and knotted the tails above her belly button and rolled the sleeves above her elbows. Her smell was back as good as ever, which was great. She moved about real peppy, all limber and wiggly, that way of moving called sashay.

  She said, “Our house ain’t much, but I’ll let you in on something—I know it ain’t much.”

  “We should make the house just one color.”

  “No dough for paint.”

  I smacked her on the butt, a pretty crisp smack. Her mouth opened in the shape to say “Oh!” but didn’t say it. Her hands went back and rubbed the smacked spot on her butt. She gave me this look over her shoulder, mouth still shaped to say “Oh!” but not saying it, and rubbed her butt slower so the cloth shifted with each rub and the hem worked up a nudge higher on her rump.

  It seemed I heard a giggle.

  “Okay. Okay now, hon. I guess I do have a swat comin’ to me, the way I’ve been lately.”

  I bent to smack her butt another and she clenched so my hand came down on a nice firm round rump and the smack sound was cute.

  “Now, that’ll do! That’s enough.”

  The smack had sent her flinching onto tippy-toes, her whole body flexed taut, and this flinch posture drew those shorts higher. Those shorts were not too motherly to start with. The shorts rode higher on her ass, then stopped.

  I said, “Only teasin’.”

  Her fingers went back and pulled the shorts lower. She laughed then for sure. It was a clear and plain laugh. She swept her feet along raking through the dew and led back to the kitchen.

  “If I wash that means you dry.”

  “I dig,” I said.

  We went to work on the dirty dishes. Slosh and scrape and scrape and slosh, rinse and dry.
Thumbnails had to pry under some stains to chip them off certain dishes. She stood there at the sink scrubbing, leaning her weight from one leg to the other and back again. Now and then she danced a dance something like the twist. Dishwater splashed on the white shirt she wore and made spots you could kind of see through.

  I don’t know. I could not say exactly, but somehow the dish towel fell and both my hands flew to her ass. Both hands landed on her sweet sashaying rump in those short-shorts. She stood like a statue. She made a sound that was likely a gasp. Her skin felt so fine and curved as my hands slid up under the hem on those shorts. She did not move a twitch. She was a statue. My hands went higher and ran around front and creeped inside her panties and rubbed pussy hair. I guess my head simmered when I felt pussy hair.

  “No. No, Shug. No.”

  Her shorts were yanked down her legs, undies too, and I fell back a pace to look, and while I looked a wave of something new slapped me, slapped all thoughts from my head and only left me with heat. I sprang back onto her, tousled her pussy hair, pulled a finger through the damp strange furrow, felt her sag. My hands pulled free and climbed for a rough feel under her shirt. Both hands filled and I tried to spin her to get my lips on there, for titty-suck.

  That’s when she slumped to the floor and away from my hands. She landed with a thump. She sat on the floor, head down, raven hair fallen around her face. She sat that way for quite a spell. Slowly she worked her shorts on again.

  “What on earth are you doin’?”

  “Havin’ a feel of you.”

  She shoved up and stood and pushed me away.

  “This can’t happen. You can’t paw me, Shug. You can’t. They say it’s wrong, and… and you just can’t.”

  “Everybody else does.”

  She edged away to the tilted table. She did not sit but did light a smoke. Her shorts were not pulled up level and were slung low below her belly button so she still made a picture.

  “Everybody else does not.”

  We stood that way a good while without words.

  “I only wanted a feel of it. Like everybody else.”

  “You’re not everybody else.”

  “Should I mix you your tea? Huh?”

  “Good Lord, no. Take a cold bath. Take a long cold bath, then get outside. Mow or something. That’s it. Take a cold, cold bath, then get.”

  I was out in the cemetery on the tractor cruising about more than mowing and I heard a horn toot and looked to the hard road and saw Basil whipping past in the white Mustang. He gave me the finger the way friends do. He was going somewhere else in a hurry and I cruised on until I heard tires squeal to a stop. Slender smoke whiffs rose from the sudden tire tracks. The Mustang clanged gears and slammed backwards my way awful fast until the tires squealed to another stop. Basil flew out leaving the motor on and the door hanging open. He ran to the rock wall that surrounded the bone orchard and leaped over it.

  As he closed on me I switched the tractor off.

  He said, “Where in hell’d you get that shirt?”

  “This one?”

  “Where did you get that fuckin’ shirt?”

  “The house.”

  “The house?”

  “Up at the house.”

  “That is Red’s shirt, fat boy. Goddammit. Goddammit. Since when is it Red lets you wear his stuff?”

  “He don’t.”

  “I know he don’t. I do know that. Most generally he’d bust you in the fuckin’ mouth for even touchin’ his stuff. Whip your ass ’til butter squeezes from your ears.”

  “Would you not tell? Don’t tell Red.”

  He looked me over close like I was a test he knew he had to pass but he wasn’t sure yet what the question meant. I’d hardly ever seen him worked up into a mad. He kept clicking his tongue while studying on me.

  “I saw that shirt, I thought for a second you were Red.”

  “Got gas on mine.”

  “Yeah, well, somethin’ here stinks of a sudden. Do you have an idea where he is? Do you? Answer me.”

  “How the fuck would I? He don’t say boo to me most days. You know that’s so, too.”

  “This ain’t right.” He stood there slouched, his hands and feet moving from one posture to another without settling on any. He shook his head in all the postures. “I just wonder since when do you got the balls to wear his stuff? Is it since you know he won’t catch you? That’s what makes sense to me. You know he ain’t about to catch you.”

  “He won’t if you don’t tell. You don’t gotta snitch, you know.”

  He spun about and trotted to the wall and jumped over it and into the Mustang and peeled off. I knew he’d go to the house. I turned the tractor around that way, too, but he’d be there long before me.

  I pushed the old tractor as hard as I could. I pushed it hard over the old wrinkled ground. When I got close to the house I could see him yelling into the screen door. I could see his neck straining. I could not hear over the tractor noise. I figured she stood inside yelling back.

  Once I came near enough and stopped the tractor all I heard was him: “That proves somethin’ here stinks. You’d never tell me to stay away ’less you knew Red wasn’t about to show and change your tune. Not in a million fuckin’ years you wouldn’t.”

  He gave me a tough look while getting into his car, then drove fast down the rutted lane. Me and her stared at each other, stared through the screen door instead of saying what needed to be said, then she turned away inside the house and I wheeled the tractor around to go any other way and went.

  LATER ON I was laying in bed and found out I was moving. Found out all my tomorrows had been reshuffled. The sun still shined but was down to a glittering slit in the distance and I laid on top of the sheets, on my belly, watching the slit glitter and shrink. Him and her then came to the door, him behind, and stood there, him grinning, her not.

  She said, “Name a place you always wanted to go.”

  “Me? Norway.”

  “Somewhere closer.”

  “Norway’s for Vikings. That’s for me.”

  “Name closer places.”

  “Okay. Chicago, Illinois.”

  “Name New Orleans. Try New Orleans.”

  “What’s there?”

  He said, “Tino’s, bud. Tino’s is a restaurant in what they call the French Quarter down there. It’s a place where I’m just liable to be doin’ the cookin’ by next Monday.”

  “Remember King Creole, ho… Shug? That’s New Orleans.”

  “It is?”

  “Tino’s is just practically on Bour-bon Street. That’s the street everybody goes wild on. People from everywhere come there to get crazy. If you wanted to you could throw you an egg from Bourbon Street and probably come close to hittin’ Tino’s. It’s just spittin’ distance from The Dauphin.”

  “But why? Why go there?”

  “You know we best not stay here. Don’t act dumb.”

  “Fuck do I want with New Orleans?”

  “I don’t like that kind of talk in front of your mother. It’s wrong for a boy to use words like that.”

  “I’m afraid he was taught to sound that way.”

  “What would we have, a boat, or what?”

  “House. We’d have a house. They’ve got strange spooky houses. Olden foreign-style places with vines and big flowers.”

  “I’d get my own room?”

  “Sure. Sure you would.”

  “And listen, boy, the food down there’ll make you get swoony. You just walk down the street smellin’ it and you’ll get swoony. They’re flat famous for their food, and they ain’t famous for no good reason. The style of food down there is a wonderful challenge.”

  “Like what food?”

  “Like shrimp big as chicken drumsticks.”

  “I’ve never even had any shrimps.”

  “Well, you’ll be startin’ at the top. This’ll be the best shrimp you ever will have.”

  “Plus gumbo, Shug. French doughnuts. Pralines.”
r />   “And muffelettas.”

  “What the hell is one of them?”

  “It’s a sandwich they make. It’s big as a pie. They put everything good they can think of on ’em. Oysters, olives, salami, shrimp, whatever. Take you an hour and a half to eat a whole one.”

  “I don’t know about this. I don’t know.”

  “Well, I know, Shug. I know this has to be. We have got to go. We need to clear out and you do know it.”

  “When’ll this be?”

  “Soon as I get the call back from down there.”

  “Tino’s gonna call?”

  “Not Tino. Another fella I know. Tino’s gone.”

  “I’d get all that food and my own room?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “How ’bout a dog?”

  “I don’t know about dogs. Dogs are iffy. Their hair gets on my clothes. You know how I feel about that.”

  “King Creole,” I said. “King Creole. Tell me about that sandwich again. It’s called a what, now?”

  THE WIND blew rowdy and the white pillowcase flapped from my belt like one wing of a hurt bird flapping to raise me up the gutterpipe. A chisel sat in my ass pocket. That night there were beeves resting in the stockyard pens. I could see the pens from where I clung on the gutter. There’d been new wood laid to frame the doc’s window. The wood was painted a quiet red color to chime with the bricks. The beeves hunkered in the pens very calm waiting for daylight when the butcher knives would find them. They did not stir or bawl. I stood on the ledge by the window and pulled the chisel. I studied the world from that height for a minute. The world looked the same as I always saw, only I could see more of it at a time. All those beeves just hunkered there waiting. That one wing flapped from my belt. I just raised a foot this time and stomped at the glass, then stomped the leftover jagged pieces from the new wood frame. The glass crashed and tinkled. The ol’ doc was in a rough patch. The ol’ doc was not raking it in I don’t guess as he had tried to fix the old weak cabinets instead of buying the new strong kind. I went at them banging the chisel. They popped open with even fewer bangs than before. I filled the pillowcase until it showed a hefty lump, then tied it back onto my belt. I went to the gutterpipe and grabbed on and eased down. The white wing just hung on me then. No more flapping. The beeves would not stir even when I walked past them calling, “Moo! Moo! This way, dumbasses, this way. Moo! Moo!” I went mooing clear around the town square past closed stores along dark sidewalks over to the street nearby where that Patty person lived. The white Mustang sat parked there at the curb. I opened the car door and emptied dope in bottles and bottles and boxes onto the passenger seat, then ran. It wasn’t far to run but I let loose an awful stinky sweat from there to home.