WHERE TROUBLE SLEEPS

by Clyde Edgerton

  Cats were all over the place, some rubbing up against his leg and some backing off, watching him. Mr. Three-Legs. "Well, look at you, Mr. Three-Legs." The rain blew in, a light spray. He pulled the lightbulb string in the middle of the room, walked back over and closed the door. He'd tracked in yellow mud.

  Little .410 shotgun leaning in the corner. He wondered if it was loaded, picked it up, unbreeched it. Damn. Loaded. He breeched it and put it back, then decided to steal the shell for the hell of it, for a surprise next time they went to shoot a chicken.

  The room looked about like he expected: couch, couple of big soft chairs, very lived-in, chest of drawers, a place to cook, icebox, narrow flight of stairs up to the store part. In the bedroom, the bed all made up, two valleys in the mattress like there might be two invisible old women lying there asleep.

  Back in the sitting room, he got right to work: pulled open the top drawer to the chest of drawers, kicked a cat. The place smelled like cats.

  The lightning flashed a double flash. Silence. Thunder boomed, tumbled and rumbled and tumbled. The rain beat hard on the tin roof, against the windowpane, let up, beat harder, then let up again.

  Stephen watched the men across the way. One turned up his bottle and drank several long swallows of beer. He was probably letting it gurgle. It was raining too hard to tell for sure. Stephen turned up his Big Top, but he kept his mouth tight on the opening. He was afraid to relax and drink that other way. He might spill it all over.

  The men stood around and talked to each other, laughed like they were talking nasty, bent over at the waist, stepped back, stood up straight, and turned up their beer bottles. Stephen could see them silent behind moving sheets of rain.

  He stood up, held his Big Top down by his side loosely like they did, as if about to drop it. He said, "A cow has great big titties." Something kind of dirty. Something one of them might say.

  Inside the grocery store, Harvey reached into the drink box and pulled out a Coke from standing cold water, opened it in the opener, got a BC powder from the wall behind the cash register, held the V-shaped paper to his mouth, turned it up, took a long swig of Coke, opened the cash register, dropped in a quarter and took out a dime. There was a business predictability about this store he liked for his brother to be in charge of. You buy goods, you sell goods, you make some money. You do a good job and you get more and more customers. It was the kind of work that would help Steve settle down some, now that the war was over and he was back home. It was what he needed. Harvey himself wouldn't have minded running the grocery full-time, but it was going to work out best with him just helping out until Steve got himself settled down, maybe married. Harvey's own regular job at Liggett & Myers was right for him. Nine to five. This grocery store with a little luck could offer security for Steve. Harvey knew his mama and papa would be much more satisfied in life if Steve settled down.

  Bea had been sitting for a while with Mae and Dorothea in the church office, when she realized she'd forgotten her pocketbook. The church janitor, Andrew, drove her right up under the shelter that was over the front door of the store and let her out. She opened the store's front door at about the same time something slammed down below. A dresser drawer it sounded like. She caught her breath. Somebody rummaging around down there? It ran all over her. Somebody had picked this time, knowing they'd be gone. Some coward thief, somebody that had made fun of her and Mae for leaving during thunderstorms, she bet. Some coward.

  Umstead kept going at it, now in the pantry looking through everything with a lid or in a bag, just making a great big mess, flour and cornmeal and rice all in the floor. He remembered his grandma's pantry, the big glass jars of flour and cornmeal and rice, the keg of molasses and how she had tied him up by his thumbs for stealing molasses, and how she would rock him to sleep sometimes.

  Bea blaine had long ago driven two big nails in the staircase wall—to hold the big shotgun, the 12-gauge, always loaded. She had figured that's the only place it would do them any good in case they were in one part of the building, up or down, and a robber in the other. So on the way downstairs, leaving Andrew out in her car with the motor running, Bea calmly pulled the shotgun down off the wall—the same shotgun she used on mercy cats on an occasional New Year's Eve. Mae always said use the .410, but Bea liked sure results.

  She stood on the second step from the bottom and aimed down those thirty-four-inch double barrels into the pantry at the center of a yellow shirt back. "Come out of there," she said.

  Jack Umstead looked over his shoulder with calmness, an assurance that all would be well. He was, however, not expecting to be looking up the double barrels of a 12-gauge shotgun. He'd already thought in a flash—when he heard her voice—that he'd just walk out, and if she got in the way, simply push her down, walk to his car, and drive on out of there. He never ran. You should always look like you were supposed to be doing exactly what you were doing. But he hadn't counted on a gun, here. Like this.

  He said, "You better put that down."

  "No sir. You pick up that broom and that dustpan in there and you get up ever bit of that flour and stuff outen that pantry floor. Dump it in that trash can in there. You lowlife pond scum."

  Aw hell, she was plenty mad and he didn't want to sweep no floor. He hadn't swept a floor in so long he couldn't remember. He reached for the broom, thought about flinging it at her—while ducking and rolling for the door. He started sweeping, his back to her. He figured maybe he'd sweep up a full dustpan of flour, get a little closer to her, and throw it in her face. That's what he'd do.

  "You remind me of my grandma," he said, holding the dustpan full of flour and rice, looking at her.

  "Is that right? Well, you ain't no kin to me. And somebody didn't whip you enough. If you got spanked every day of your life then you wouldn't a turned out like you have. I thought from the beginning something was wrong with you."

  "Miss Bea?" said a voice from the stairs.

  She heard Andrew coming down the steps one at a time, very slowly, dropping one foot, then the other.

  "I was wondering," said Andrew, "where you—oh, my goodness gracious."

  "Sit down, Andrew. Sit down right there on the steps. I caught this chicken-thief red-handed." She lowered the shotgun to waist level. Her arms were getting tired and shaking a little bit.

  The no-count looked at her.

  "Don't get no ideas," she said. She made a little push motion with the gun. "I'll shoot a hole in you big enough to stick my arm through."

  He could walk toward her and simply take the gun. He could, on the other hand, just walk out and leave her standing there. Or he could kill them both. There was an ice pick stuck in the wall by the stairs. He could stab her, shoot him, pull off his pants, or some combination, and it would look like they killed each other.

  "What are we going to do when I finish cleaning up this floor?" he asked. He wanted bad now to get on the road before any authorities got involved. He did not want to deal with any authorities.

  "I'm going to let you clean up the rest of this mess you've made. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Look at that bedroom."

  Now she was off the stairs, down on the level floor, a couple of steps closer.

  "You want me to call the sheriff, Miss Bea?" asked the Andrew man.

  "No, Andrew, we don't need the sheriff. I got a better idea. We're going to take him out back after he finishes cleaning up his mess and let him dig his grave."

  He tried to kind of laugh it off, but his voice refused him. Something had taken over this skinny old woman. She was moving now like she wadn't so old, after all.

  "But, ah, Miss Mae said for us to come straight back and not to stop nowhere."

  "Listen, that thing could go off," said Umstead. "If you're going to shoot me, I ain't going to clean up in here. Let's just get it over with." He raised his hands and smiled a little bit for the first time.

  "Let me tell you what we do on New Year's Eve sometimes," she said, narrowing her slitty eyes. "We take
the one or two mercy cats, ones that's lived out their time, and we take them out there in that gully where you tracked in all that mud from, and we shoot them in the head and then bury them. That's what I'm fixing to do with you, except I ain't got no hole dug. Yet. And I'll tell you this: It's not no pretty sight."

  "Well," said Jack Umstead. He looked to Andrew. Andrew's face was blank. He turned back to the pantry, placed the dustpan full of flour and rice on the middle shelf just inside the pantry door. He could throw it in her face when he made a run for it, or when she got closer to him. She was a tad too far away to make a move, yet. He'd wait. One time he worked for a man in Greenville, Mississippi, who had a big sign on his office wall that said wait.

  "Miss Bea," said Andrew, "I don't think you ought to shoot him. We need to call Sheriff Frazier."

  "You," she said to Umstead. "You reach back in that pantry and you empty that dustpan in that trash can in there."

  He was going to have to figure out something else. She was smart. He emptied the dustpan. He would probably end up just walking out. But he needed some insurance—he needed to make her feel sorry for him. "You need to know I've been saved, Miss Blaine. Wednesday night. I repented. I've had a real hard life. I could show you some scars, and then just this Wednesday night I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal saviour right down here at the church, and this here today is a consequence of some backsliding. Everybody backslides. Don't you go to church down there?"

  "I don't go to church. I'm a Methodist."

  "Well see, the boys over at Train's dared me to come in here and steal a little something. Just a prank. Just a old boy's prank. And the truth is, I'm a true Christian now. That's the truth. So help me God. And I'll tell you something else. I could use a drink of water."

  "We're going outside now."

  Mrs. Taggart was trying to remember the last time she had a bath. Could she wait another day or two? / Mrs. Louise Perry was standing in front of her new refrigerator. It was making funny noises. That was the second time in two days. Somebody said Wilma Morgan had unplugged one to keep it quiet.

  In the gully, in the rain, Jack Umstead placed the point of the shovel against the yellow mud. The point disappeared. Two little rivers of rainwater ran down the side of his face. He placed his foot on the shovel and pushed it on down into the mud. It sank to its shaft. He shoveled mud—a loud sucking sound. The hole filled back in by half, mud running in like lava. He shoveled again. My God, there was a ... wet matted fur, ass-end of a cat. This had gone far enough.

  The old bitch was standing on a little mound covered with pinestraw about, what, fifteen feet away, getting wet herself, though the rain had eased up considerably, now just a drizzle. Something had come over her and it didn't look good. Some green leaves blew across the ground—a gust of wind that made him remember duck hunting, which made him remember the name for a group of crows: a murder of crows. The storm had shook loose some green leaves. This would turn out okay. It was just a little more complicated than he'd counted on. That Andrew. Why the hell didn't he go get somebody? Three cats were coming down there, moving slowly like they knew something was going to happen.

  "You're going to catch your death of cold out here," he told her.

  She was holding the shotgun level at her waist. "You dig." She lifted the shotgun to her shoulder, aimed right at his face. "Andrew, how about this?" she said.

  The rain eased up some more, then stopped. The thunder was far away. The wind was still.

  He'd just have to go ahead and call her bluff.

  "I don't think I can dig anymore," he said. He stood in the mud looking at her one open eye beyond the BB and the little V between the double zeroes of the gun barrels. She was steady and god-awful. She might as well be a man.

  "You're going to have to shoot me now," he said. He estimated the distance between them. "I'm not going to die the fool. I'll be glad for you to shoot me, but I ain't dying the fool. So you just go ahead and shoot me now. Dear God, oh dear God above," he said, looking up. He raised one hand, leaned on the shovel. "Forgive me all my sins. Bless me and keep me and all the poor forgotten souls on this earth." At that instant the sun came out. "See," he said. "See that. God heard me. You saw that. It was just like a miracle. For God so loved the world—"

  "You look like a man," she said. "You look like a man."

  "—believeth in him should not perish but have ..."

  At the grocery store, Stephen asked his daddy if he could go ahead over to the Blaines'. Miss Bea had told him he could shoot a chicken that afternoon, and the rain was over, and she'd already come home. His daddy told him to remember to keep it on safety until he pulled the trigger.

  Stephen found the door open to the upstairs store part, but nobody in there, so he walked back outside, down, and | around to the back, where he came upon a scene: the gypsy man, soaking wet, with yellow mud on his trouser legs, digging a big hole, and Miss Bea aiming a big, different kind of shotgun at him. A double-barrel. She looked kind of wet, too. Why were they wet?

  "Well, hey, son," said Miss Bea. "You stand right there. This Mr. Jones here turns out to be a common thief. He's already robbed us inside, now he's out here digging for more."

  "Listen, Budrow," said the gypsy man. His voice sounded dry and kind of high. "Bring me that four-ten from inside right now. I'm going to shoot a chicken for Miss Blaine here. She's just playing a—"

  "Andrew," said Miss Bea, "get that four-ten. Little Steve, son, you stay where you are."

  "Ah, Miss Bea," said Andrew, "I don't think—"

  Umstead saw that for the first time the 12-gauge was not pointing at him, and as he made his charge, he thought of that lovely lonely Toomey woman. Good enough to eat. She loved him, he bet. She had—

  ka-bloom!

  The sun broke through even brighter, bright enough to hurt Stephen's eyes. The gypsy man had slipped in the mud and reached for the ground just before the explosion went right into the top of his head. He was on the ground, blood, his arm twitching. And then: ka-bloom! again. She'd been aiming right down the barrels. As he lay on the ground, still, the blood and hair let go little whiffs of smoke.

  The first blast scared the hell out of the cats. Always did. They couldn't get it straight in their knowledge when a bad noise was coming. There was no warning smell or sound or single thing to warn them so they could scat. It plain bothered them. They ran for cover, then boom—again!

  "What the hell?" "That sounded like a twelve-gauge." "Sure did. And they already back after the storm?" "What the hell they doing shooting chickens with a twelve-gauge?"

  Miss bea was sitting on the ground. The gypsy man was lying on the ground with blood and something white flowing out, and those little whiffs of smoke. The cats had gone running off. Miss Bea was sitting down looking off in the trees and Andrew was leaving. Stephen felt the asthma coming. He turned and ran, his chest tightening. Bottle caps under his feet in the grocery store parking lot. Inside, he told his daddy and Uncle Steve and they both walked very fast over toward the Blaine sisters' store. He looked both ways, ran across the road. Nobody was outside over there. He walked into the dark inside. He felt something wonderful and scary. Mr. Blake and Mr. Luke were sitting in chairs, and over behind the candy counter was Mr. Train in his wheelchair.

  "What's the matter, son?"

  "Miss Bea, she just shot the gypsy man."

  "What!?"

  Mr. Blake stood.

  Stephen would have to go tell Cheryl because she and the gypsy man were going to get married so she could wear a white dress. They had that secret together. He looked on the wall and there was the naked woman wearing a cowboy hat and cowboy boots. She had great big smooth naked titties and a big smile on her face. He kept looking. He needed to go tell Cheryl. Then he had to tell his mama. He was going to have to cross the road again.

  "Where's he at?" asked Mr. Train.

  "Down at the chicken pen."

  "Is he just wounded or did she shoot him good?"

  "She shot
him good. In the head." Stephen had seen it in the movies, but never with the blood and the other like that. He looked at the woman on the wall again. He took his eyes away. He had accepted Jesus as his saviour. It was wrong to look. He had to hurry to Cheryl. They had that secret.

  Mr. Luke and Mr. Blake walked out past him.

  "Was she shooting a chicken?" asked Mr. Train.

  "She was shooting him."

  "On purpose?"

  "Yessir."

  "Why?"

  "I don't know. He run at her with a shovel."

  "Damn."

  Mr. Train wheeled over to the telephone.

  Stephen headed for the grill—for Cheryl. When he walked through the door he saw her behind the counter setting a cup of coffee on the counter for a man in a ball cap.

  Cheryl looked at him. "What's wrong, Stephen?"

  "Miss Bea just shot the gypsy man."

  Cheryl came out from behind the counter, walked over to Stephen, knelt down in front of him. "What? She did what?"

  "She shot the gypsy man in the top of the head."

  "The gypsy man? Oh Lord. Stephen. Are you sure? Is he hurt bad?"

  "He looked like he was dead."

  "Oh, my God. Where is he?"

  "Down at the chicken pen."