The Nearly Complete Works, Volume 2

by Donald Harington

The awful dog slept a lot, and in the days ahead she watched for a chance when the man wasn’t around or not watching and she could snatch his razor and slash the dog’s throat. The man was spending a lot of time in his garden, so it would be easy to do it while he was out there if his back was turned or if she could find the dog sleeping somewhere where he couldn’t see her from the garden.

  Day after day, he tried to get her to help with the garden, but she would not. They had their first real fight about that. Usually the man tried to be nice to her, and he hadn’t lost his temper yet, and he hadn’t even been angry at her for wetting the bed, which had compelled her to apologize to him for the first and only time, saying she couldn’t help it and she didn’t mean to and she wouldn’t do it again, although she did do it again, every night of the nights ahead, until finally he made her sleep on what he called a “pallet”: just some quilts on some pillows on the floor. And she wet that pallet too, and he made her put it out each morning to dry and air in the sunshine.

  But they had a fight about the garden, because she didn’t want anything to do with it, and she came close to having to use her taekwondo on him.

  “Darn your little hide, you want to eat, don’t you?” he said. “And not just today but this summer and next fall and winter? It’s hard work to raise a little truck garden but it pays off in the long run.”

  “I hate veggies,” she said.

  “How come?”

  “Because they’re green! If I wanted to eat something green, I would eat grass or leaves.”

  “Shoot, I’m planting lots out there that’s not green. Maters aint green. Crookneck squash aint green. Taters aint green. Hell, corn aint green. Don’t you like corn on the cob? Roastin ears?”

  Come to think of it, she did, but it had never occurred to her that corn on the cob was something you could grow. It came from the store, like all the many other things that came from the store which they would never ever have again because they’d never go to the store again. Bananas, for example. She loved bananas, and liked them sliced on her Fruit Loops at breakfast. But she couldn’t even have any Fruit Loops because he hadn’t bought any, although he had Wheaties and Corn Chex, which didn’t taste very good with that powdered milk on them instead of cream.

  “If you could grow bananas in that garden, I’d help you plant them,” she said.

  “I’m sorry about the bananas,” he said. “But late this summer there will be pawpaws aplenty hereabouts, and a pawpaw is just as good as a banana if you develop a taste for it.”

  She had never seen a pawpaw and didn’t like the sound of it. She didn’t tell him that the main reason she wouldn’t work in the garden is that she had to watch for a chance to catch the dog sleeping and slash its throat. But there were other reasons. When he was out there working hard and sweating it made him smell bad, and she hated to get close to him. She had already told him his breath was bad but that wasn’t because of the garden work, it was because of his bad teeth and his cigarettes and all that whiskey he drank. She couldn’t imagine any woman wanting to be married to him, and she certainly wasn’t going to even pretend to be his wife. It was bad enough she had to be near him at the kitchen table and when they played their board games; she didn’t want to be near him in the garden. “You stink,” she said to him, more than once, and all he could say was that any day now they’d both have to get out the old washtub and have a bath. Or take a swim in the beaver pond when the water warmed up one of these days. She did not know how to swim; her mother had never allowed her to go swimming, for fear she’d drown. But the beaver pond was the only thing she liked in this whole world where she was trapped. In the days ahead when she missed her daily routine of getting up and taking a shower with Mommy and getting dressed and going to school, and she wondered if her classmates were really missing her and if they were even sorry that they had ever criticized her and called her names like “snot” and “pest” and “meany,” she thought of at least one advantage of being a prisoner in this wilderness: in school they had been studying mammals and rodents and beavers and she had even seen a film about the busy beaver, which fascinated her, and here she was actually in the presence of real live beavers! Wouldn’t she have a lot to tell in school if she could get back and tell it? She had studied up on the beaver so much that she recognized the dam the moment she saw it, and she knew that beavers come out only at night and thus she hadn’t seen any, but she hoped she could go back to the beaver pond sometime at night with the flashlight or a lantern to watch the beavers and maybe even make friends with them. Of course the man would have to go with her.

  “The least you could do,” the man whined, “since I’ve took the trouble to spade up all that there soil and plant the strawberries, is for you to help weed them and also pluck off the blossoms, because we can’t eat them this year but just get them ready to eat next year.”

  But she would not work in the strawberry patch. She couldn’t conceive of doing something now that wouldn’t have any benefit until a year from now, when she was sure she would no longer be here. If she couldn’t find her way out of this place, or if someone didn’t come and rescue her, she would be dead a year from now, either from being eaten by bears or wolves while trying to escape, or else, if it came down to that, she would just decide to stop living and figure out some way to die.

  “Help me mulch the sweet potaters?” he would whine. “Don’t you just love sweet potaters baked with marshmallers on top?”

  “I hate sweet potatoes,” she would say. And then she would say, “I’ll help you plant the marshmallows, though.”

  And he would look at her to see if she was kidding, and say, “We’ve got bags and bags of marshmallers.”

  In the days ahead he worked every day in that garden, and not once but twice she took his razor from the place where he kept it and unfolded it and went off looking for that dog. The first time the dog woke up and saw her coming with the razor and jumped up and ran off. The second time the dog stayed asleep and she was just about to slash its throat when the man came up behind her and snapped, “What are you doing with my razor?”

  “We don’t have any scissors. I need it to cut my paper dolls some clothes.”

  “You don’t have any paper dolls,” he said.

  “I need to cut some out of something.”

  “And you’ll slice your finger off. Give me that.” And he took the razor and hid it in a place where she couldn’t find it. So she had to think about other ways of getting rid of the dog.

  In the days ahead there was not much else to do. She had already spent so much time brooding and moping about her predicament that she had nothing else to think on the subject. There were no books to read, not even comic books. She had been addicted to comic books and being weaned from them so suddenly gave her real heartbreak. There was a stack of some kind of magazine called Police Gazette full of stories about murder and crime and evildoing, but she read one issue and lost interest. She was bored. There was no music to listen to or any way to play it, and all she could do was sing to herself. Worst of all, there was no television. If Sugrue Alan thought that he was going to deprive her of television for the rest of her life, he had another think coming to him.

  She reflected that the only other thing she liked about this place, besides the beaver pond, was the fact that she didn’t have to worry about burglars. All her life, one of her biggest fears had been that somebody would break in and rob them. Her father, when he had still lived with them, had tucked her in at bedtime every night and reassured her about her fears that they would be poor or that he would leave her or that they would be robbed. He had left her, so she was right about that one fear. But way up here on this mountain they were so far away from everybody that no burglar would ever find them. For whatever comfort that was worth. Yet even though they were so far away, she knew that there were other people somewhere out there. At night when it was dark and still and she sat out on the porch and listened very carefully, above the sounds of the frogs (“peepers�
� the man called them), she could sometimes hear, far away, the sound of a truck shifting gears, or, sometimes, what seemed to be a gunshot. And sometimes the sound of airplanes far overhead. So there were people out there. Would she ever see them again?

  As the days dragged by she tried to alleviate her boredom by making believe that she was in school and that Miss Moore was giving her a lesson which she had to learn. But such make-believe only got her to first recess, and there was nowhere to go, because the other girls and boys were out in the yard barefoot and she couldn’t stand being barefoot.

  She missed her jump rope. She wondered if, among all the things he had got for her, there might be a jump rope somewhere. Was he saving it for her birthday in September? She went into the storeroom where the boxes were stacked to the ceiling and the sacks and packages were stacked on top of them, and she wondered what-all was waiting for her in there. She couldn’t open anything. Finally she came right out and asked him if he had a jump rope in there anywhere and he wasn’t sure what she meant. “For skipping, you know?” she said. He had lots of rope, and showed it to her, but most of it would have made a good lariat or lasso or noose but not a jump rope.

  In the days ahead, with nothing better to do, she practiced her taekwondo moves, getting her feet and hands into their best maneuvers. The dog watched, and she knew that if she wanted to she could kick the dog up under the throat with a chagi that would snap its neck and kill it.

  “What in tarnation are you up to?” he wanted to know.

  “It’s martial arts,” she said. “I’m practicing, and when I get good enough, I’m going to protect myself against you.”

  “I aint done nothing to ye,” he protested. “For one thing I’m just too blame tard. I’m too tard to lift a finger against ye.” And he went out to his blamed garden to get himself more tard. They ate out of cans at every meal because he was too blame tard to work in the kitchen. He kept promising that he’d kill a chicken and fry it and he kept promising to show her how to bake bread and cakes and everything, but he hadn’t yet.

  Eventually, because she had absolutely nothing better to do, she approached him in the garden and said, “Okay, what do you want me to do?”

  “When?” he said.

  “Now,” she said. “Here.” And she spread her hands to indicate the garden. If she didn’t stand too close to him, and practiced holding her breath, she could stand him.

  “It’s time to plant the beans, I reckon,” he said. “And if you don’t like green snaps, we could plant a few yellow snaps.”

  She didn’t know what a snap was, but she followed his directions and together they planted two rows of beans, yellow for her and green for him. It wasn’t very hard. Then they planted shell beans and pinto beans and kidney beans.

  And when they were all finished he said, “Let’s run over to the pond for a dip.” She didn’t know what a dip was, but she followed him when he fetched towels and a bar of Palmolive soap from the house and they hiked to the beaver pond. The dog followed them, but she didn’t mind too much. When they arrived at the pond, the man took off all his clothes and jumped in. She had to turn her head aside during the few seconds between his removing his underpants and his submersion in the water. She caught just a glimpse of this thing, the very first time she’d ever seen one.

  “It’s just a mite chilly,” he said. “Come on in.”

  “I can’t swim,” she said.

  “You don’t have to swim. It’s shaller enough to wade in, over yonder.”

  “No,” she said. She was not going to take off her clothes even if the afternoon was almost hot.

  “Suit yourself,” he said. He gave himself a bath with the soap, which she was glad to see. No, not see, because she tried not to watch, but she was glad that he was getting himself clean for the first time since she’d known him. He looked funny, suntanned on his arms and face but still white on the other parts, including his fat belly. While he was exposing himself, she strolled down where the dam was and searched for any sign of the beavers, but she knew that they’d built what was called a “lodge,” and they were sleeping all day in the lodge unless the man’s jumping into the water had waked them up.

  When he was finished and dried himself off and had his clothes back on, and didn’t stink so much, he said to her, “If you’d like to go over there where it’s shaller and give yourself a bath, I won’t watch.”

  She really needed a bath. “Take your dog,” she said, and she waited until they had wandered off out of sight, and then she removed her jeans and shirt and, taking a look around to see if even the beavers were watching, she pulled off her panties and she stepped into the shallow water with the bar of soap. But it was cold! She quickly stepped out of the water, shivering. She took a deep breath and stuck one foot back in and got it wet enough that she could rub some of the soap on it. She liked the clean smell of the Palmolive. She reached her hand down and got a handful of water and rubbed it on her upper body, and soaped a bit. Bit by bit she got accustomed to the cold water and managed to reach the point where she could splash enough of it on herself to get the soap off. If her mother had been here she would have made Robin wash her hair, or have washed it for her, and Robin would have had to say, “But, Mommy…” which was something she said nearly every day of her life but had not had to say for a long time now, and this made her smile. She missed her mother so much but did not miss having to say “But, Mommy…” all the time. Then she toweled herself dry and dressed again. He came out of the woods with the dog and they went home.

  “Looks to be some rain coming up maybe,” he observed. “We sure could use it.”

  He declared that it was time they had a real supper and he wanted to show her how. He led her out into the yard. He picked up the axe in one hand and with the other hand he grabbed a passing chicken by the neck. The dog yelped. “Bitch, hush, I aint about to harm you,” he said, and swung the axe and chopped off the chicken’s head but it didn’t kill the chicken, who went on flopping headless around all over the yard, while Robin screamed and the dog whined and whimpered, and off in the distance it began to thunder. After a while the chicken stopped its headless dance and lay trembling, and the man said to her, “Quit your squealing and help me pluck it.” He showed her how to pull the feathers off the chicken, and then he took a butcher knife and cut the chicken up into pieces and showed her how to dredge it with flour and fry it properly. She felt really sick to her stomach.

  He had to eat most of it himself. Or several pieces, and said he’d keep the leftovers in the springhouse. Then he toasted her with Hawaiian Punch and said, “Since it’s our first real honest-to-God supper together, don’t you think it’s time you told me your name?”

  She didn’t want to tell him her name but she knew he’d pester it out of her eventually. “Wobbin,” she said.

  “Robin, huh?” he said. “That’s a right perty name. Glad to know you, Robin.” And he offered his hand. She took it and gave it a little shake.

  By bedtime the thunder was booming, and she could hear the rain falling on the roof and all around. It grew steadily harder. One of her teeth had been working itself loose for many days and she reached into her mouth and wobbled it and pulled it and finally got it out. She put it under her pillow on the pallet for the Tooth Fairy to find.

  Then the lightning bolts started hitting all around, and the thunder sounded like it was coming in the front door, right into the house. It was terrible. She had never seen such lightning nor heard such thunder. Was this the end of the world? The whole house would disappear with her and him and everything. She was shaking uncontrollably. Between peals of thunder she could hear that damned dog whimpering horribly outside the front door, and finally she heard the man get up from his bed on the davenport and open the door for the dog. She didn’t want the dog in the house but almost felt sorry for the poor thing, having to endure such a thunderstorm as this. She felt sorry for herself. She even felt sorry for Sugrue Alan and wondered if he too was just a little bit sca
red. Anybody in their right mind would be terrified in a storm like this. But maybe he didn’t have a right mind.

  The next horrendous flash of light and peal of thunder lifted her right up from the pallet as if it had hit her. It was unbearable. She ran from the bedroom into the living room, desperate to be comforted and hugged. He was there on the davenport waiting for her.

  The next morning she knew only two things: one, that she had spent the rest of the night cuddled against him on the davenport, and two, that she had had a long uncomfortable dream about finding herself at school in her pajamas.

  Chapter fifteen

  Mr. Purvis was kind enough to set up an area in a corner of the warehouse room, screened behind the cereals and the condiments, where she could go for privacy when she felt an uncontrollable need to cry. Or she thought it was a kindness at first, until Liz, one of the other checkers, told her that Mr. Purvis simply didn’t want her using the employee’s lounge for her crying.

  The attacks came on her suddenly, triggered by almost anything, such as a customer coming through the aisle with a little girl, and sometimes Karen couldn’t make it to the warehouse corner before she broke down. Sometimes the tears started streaming down her face while she was ringing up the items on the counter, and this disturbed the customers, although many of them recognized her because they’d seen her on television several times, and if they recognized her they’d say something sympathetic while she signaled for Liz to come and take over so she could run to the warehouse room.

  The first uncontrolled fit of crying had of course occurred at the roller rink itself, that terrible place, that goddamned place which, one of these nights, she was going to set on fire and burn to the ground (although every day various people left bouquets of fresh flowers on that little balcony). The second fit had hit her not long afterward when she’d been required to find a good recent photograph of Robin for the officers, and she didn’t know whether she was crying simply at the sight of Robin’s face in the photo or out of embarrassment at the realization that she had so very few pictures of her daughter; neither Billy nor she had ever owned a camera.