by W. L. Heath
For more than a week he stayed off the street behind the hotel, walking scrupulously down the square and going half a block out of his way to get home. During that time he saw Miss Benson only once, and she was in a car then, so his eyes were not tempted. But he could not for-get, and finally, on one particularly sultry, sinful Thursday night, he told his wife he’d left some work at the bank, and he set out with no other thought in mind than to see Miss Benson again without her clothes on. I’ll do it just this once, he told himself, and then maybe I’ll get over this vulgar infatuation. I’ll go and I’ll look at her, naked if possible, and that will purge me. I’ll disgust myself, and then I’ll be over it for good.
He walked down the little street behind the hotel that Thursday night and when he saw Miss Benson’s window, he stepped into the shadows to wait. It was a long wait too because this time she was sitting fully dressed under a bridge lamp, reading as if she had no intention of ever going to bed. Ironically, she was eating a bunch of grapes – the one fruit Harry Reeves detested. But Harry was patient, he had come to purge himself, and at last his vigil was rewarded. Standing there in the shadows, his pulse pounding and his breath coming in hot, shallow gasps, he saw Miss Benson in her most intimate nakedness. She was a little knock-kneed, and for some reason he could not name, that fired him to a frenzy of desire. He stumbled home feeling sick and debilitated, and tears filled his eyes. He knew his trouble was not over. It had only begun. He had not been purged at all. The very next day he bought the black baseball cap and the sneakers, surrendering himself utterly to sin and vileness.
Now, as he stood behind a tree on Barker Street waiting for Miss Benson’s light to come on, he wondered for the hundredth time why in God’s name she didn’t pull down the shade and release him from this bondage. Why, he thought, doesn’t she stop me? All she has to do is draw the shade and then I must be cured. If I knew, positively knew that I couldn’t see her I’d be all right. It’s this knowing I can that overpowers me. It’s lying there and knowing that all I have to do is come down here and wait.
In his dozen-odd trips to the street behind the hotel, Reeves had seen Miss Benson draw the shade only twice, and on one of those occasions it was not pulled all the way down. Her failure to take that simple precaution seemed to him a symptom of loose-minded indifference – a lewd indifference. It wasn’t that she didn’t think to do it. She just didn’t care. The nights were hot, and with the shades up it was a little cooler, so she left them up. If someone saw her undressed, well, the hell with it. That was her attitude. Actually, there were no buildings directly behind the hotel, only vacant lots and back yards, and therefore a small likelihood that someone would see her. But still, she mainly just didn’t care. Because she must realize the chance that someone could come along the back street and see her. No, she just didn’t care, that was it. Like the knock-knees, this regardlessness only served to heighten Reeves’ desire – and he didn’t know why.
He looked at his watch again and moaned. It was after midnight and still no sign of her. She’s out with that Kelley again, he thought. No telling where they go or what they do. God in heaven, I do envy that man. He probably does anything he wants to her. Think of that. Think of those naked legs, think of them kissing like that, and oh my God just think. He shook his head. I’m insane, all right. I belong in an institution, locked up somewhere away from decent people that have decent thoughts. I’ll kill myself. That’s what I ought to do is kill myself. I’m not fit to live. His eyes filled with tears.
Look at me, he thought. I cry all the time. I’m an emotional wreck. I’m not myself any more, not myself at all. They ought to send me away somewhere. Really. I’m not fooling anybody, either. Why don’t I admit it? I’ll bet a thousand dollars everybody in town is talking about me – how I follow her in the street. For all I know, someone may have seen me down here peeping on her. Those men at the filling station, I bet they just sit there and laugh at me. Oh, I’m crazy, all right. I’m completely out of my mind and I’d be better off dead. If my mother could see me now. I’ll pay for it, too. God is testing me, and I haven’t the strength to face the test. I wish they’d send me away and forget about me. I wish someone would run over me with a car. I wish I was dead. He cried and sniffled and blew his nose.
Suddenly he saw a flicker of lightning in the southwest, and then, a moment later, heard the threatening mutter of thunder. Now look what’s happening, he thought. A storm is coming up and here I am. What if the thunder wakes Mildred and she realizes I’m not at home? What excuse can I tell her? I went out for a walk because I couldn’t sleep? She’d never believe a lie like that. I think she’s suspicious anyway. She’s seen the way I’ve lost weight and how nervous I’ve become. Oh Lord, please don’t let it rain. Don’t make me go home yet. I’ve waited so long. Send her to me. Let her come home now and let that light turn on up there and let me see, see, see …
In room 201 it was quiet, except for Preacher’s thin, sibilant snoring and the occasional rustling of the window shade as the breeze pushed it out and let it fall again against the window. The window of that room faced north and the lightning flashes were visible only as pale reflections against the sky.
“Harp, you awake?” Dill whispered.
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry I blew up about the car.”
“It’s okay. I didn’t take it to heart.”
“Well, I shouldn’t have blew up, anyway.”
“Forget it.”
Dill rolled over and inched up to the edge of his bed. “I cain’t sleep, can you? Listen at that bastard snoring.”
“I wish he’d turn on his stomach,” Harper said. “It’s when you sleep on your back that makes you snore.”
“Think we could turn him?”
“No, we’d just wake him up.”
“I doubt it. Honest to God, that guy’s just a little too cool to suit me. Listen at that, will you? Sleeping like a baby and I can’t shut my eyes. We ought to screw that thing in his ear and let him help us listen.”
“You’re not scared, are you?”
“Naw, just nervous. You know how it is. You’re awake too.”
“I’ve got a headache,” Harper said.
They listened to Preacher’s snoring and Dill gave a long weary sigh. “I tell you that guy gets me, Harp. I’m awful afraid we made a mistake bringing him along.”
“No, we didn’t. We need him. And you know why.”
“I know, but still, don’t he kinda give you the creeps sometimes? That voice of his.”
Harper said nothing.
“They named him right, all right. Preacher. He looks like a damn preacher. That’s what gives me the creeps. He looks like a damn undertaker.”
“Look at that,” Harper said. “You see that lightning?”
“Yeah, I been noticing it for half an hour. Seems to be a storm coming up.”
“Maybe not.”
“I wish it would. Cool things off. I’m sweating like a pig. Couldn’t you use a little cool air?”
“It would help, that’s a fact.”
“I hope it rains like a bastard,” Dill said.
Harper rolled over to face him. He was sleeping in his underwear and lying on top of the covers. Dill could see his gold wrist watch in the faint light from the window.
“You know,” Harper said, “I hadn’t thought about it before, but a rainy day might be a break for us.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, you know how it is when it rains. Visibility is cut down. Everybody’s windshield gets rain on it and people stay indoors more. We’re not as likely to have somebody get a good look at us.”
“Hell, everybody in town has already seen us.”
“No, I mean leaving the bank. Which way we went, and that sort of thing.”
“Maybe so,” Dill said. “I mainly just need some cool air. I haven’t been able to draw my breath hardly since we hit this place. But you know something? I don’t believe it bothers that Preach a bit. Nothi
ng bothers that guy, does it?”
“Not much.”
“I think he’s nuts, Harp. No crap. I never run across one like him before. I mean he’s really mean, that sucker is.”
“He’s a cold fish, all right.”
“He’s mean. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw a wet mattress.”
Harper laughed. He was lighting a cigarette. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Long as he’s on our side we’re all right.”
There was a long silence, punctuated by Preacher’s snoring. Dill rubbed his feet together and sighed again nervously. He wanted to talk.
“Talk about mean, though, there’s nothing in this world as mean as a goddam mean-ass woman, you know that? I been lying here thinking, all the things that’s happened to me over women. They can ruin you, you know that? And mean? A man cain’t come anywhere near a woman when comes to being plain low-down.”
Harper said nothing. He didn’t want to get Dill started.
“I had me a wife once. You remember Paralee, don’t you? When we lived in K.C.?”
“Yeah, I met her once.”
“Now, there was a woman for you. When I first married her I thought I’d made a haul. She was on the skinny side, of course, but I always liked them a little that way. I thought I was in clover for a while there, even took a job and went straight over her.”
He raised himself on one elbow and looked at Harper in the dark.
“You know what that broad did? Ran off with a goddam wop. No crap. She left me for a wop.”
He lay back again and looked up at the ceiling.
“To tell you the truth though, I was about halfway glad to see her go by that time. She had a lot of little habits that used to get on my nerves. I don’t look it, but I’m a nervous sort of a guy, and sometimes she would really get on your nerves. All of them are that way. You live with one awhile and you find out. Paralee, she had a habit of going around all day in a housecoat. She practically lived in the damn thing. I was running book for Blackie Johnson out there then, and I used to come in home around four or five in the afternoon and find her still laying around there in a housecoat. She was lazy, was what it was. After breakfast the first thing she’d do was fall up there on her butt on the couch, and many’s the time I’d come home and still find the breakfast dishes on the table. Things like that.”
“Yeah,” Harper said.
“But the worse thing was the way she always had this cold. All winter long with a cold. Sniff, sniff, sniff. You ever see a woman like that? I swear to God, even when I think of her now, I can hear that sniffing going on. Then about every two weeks she’d give the damn thing to me, of course, and here we’d go. I swear I never got as tired of anything in my life as I did of those colds she used to have. Whenever I still see somebody with a cold I always think, uh-oh, Paralee. It’s the first thing that pops in my head. She was the world champion when it came to a goddam cold. A little thing like that don’t sound like much, but it can get you down after so long a time.”
“Sure it can,” Harper said. He was smoking, not listening.
“Then there was something else – and this will hand you a laugh, but I’ll tell you it wasn’t funny at the time. You see, I’m a guy who likes his vegetables cooked fairly dry. That’s why I don’t go for this Southern-fried business – too greasy. I like my vegetables just boiled or steamed or something like that, but not all this grease. Well, Paralee was a grease maniac. Everything she cooked had to be floating in goddam grease. I know this sounds silly, but a little thing like that can work on you after a while. Every day the same thing: vegetables floating in a lot of grease. Grease running all over your plate, getting on your bread and your meat and every damn thing. Well, I tried to be patient, see? I’d say to her, ‘Look, honey, I don’t go for all this grease on my food. How about when you dip up my beans, take and drain off about half of that juice.’ All right. Next meal, same goddam thing. Just one great big pool of grease. Bread, meat, potatoes, everything, drowned in it.”
Harper closed his eyes and silently shook with laughter. He could see that, all right. Dill trying to be patient over the grease.
“Then there was this brother she had,” Dill went on. “You hear a lot of jokes and all about brother-in-laws, but it’s a fact, some of them can get to be a real pain. This character was a hotshot, or so he thought. He was only about nineteen or twenty, but he knew it all, see? Oh, he was wise. He had him one of these Olds convertibles and he had it all rigged up with spotlights and sun shades and a million other gadgets. He used to look like a goddam appliance store coming down the road in it. No crap. I can see him now. Even inside he had it all rigged up. You couldn’t hardly see through the windshield for all these fuzzy dolls and things that he had won at a fair somewhere. He had them hanging on strings all over the windshield, and all that stuff jittering around in front of your eyes when you were trying to drive. I never drove it but once though. But he thought it was great. He had a lot of wise talk and he used to slay the women, he thought. He used to bring these little pimply-faced girls around from the bowling alley and snow them under with a lot of big talk. But the thing that really used to kill me was the way Paralee couldn’t see through him. Loan him money any time he asked for it. I kicked his tail out, finally, and in a way that was what broke us up, although I think she was already fooling around with the wop. I don’t know. He was a barber.”
“Who, the brother?”
“No, the wop.”
The storm woke Shelley when it broke, and when he switched on the light beside the bed, Helen woke up too.
“What’s the matter, Shelley, are we having a storm?”
“Yeah, a little thundershower, I guess. I thought I better check the windows.”
“See about the kids too, will you?”
He got up and walked barefoot through the dark rooms, feeling the window sills to see if it was raining in, and pulling down most of the windows on the south side where the wind was hitting the house. It had rained in a good bit in the kitchen. There was water all along the shelf above the sink, and he even felt some on the linoleum, cold and unpleasant to his bare feet. Now and then there would be a flash of lightning that showed the curtains ballooning at the windows, and then a long rending sound of thunder, like the splitting of some tremendous green oak board, followed by a heavy concussion. The wind was blowing hard too, lashing the rain over the roof. As he went back to the bedroom he heard the lid fly off the garbage can and go rattling across the yard.
“There went the garbage can,” Helen said. “We’re having a pretty bad storm, aren’t we?”
She was looking at him over her shoulder with the sheet pulled up to her chin – looking sleepy and alarmed at the same time.
“It’s not too bad. Just a thunderstorm. I imagine the farmers are glad to see it.”
They were silent for a while, listening.
“How long has it been since we had rain?” Helen said. “It seems like a year ago.”
“The second week of June was the last rain you could call a rain. And this is what? July seventh or eighth.”
“Eighth. I know because I wrote the grocery check today. Listen to that wind.”
“Well, it ought to cool things off awhile anyway.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed and reached for his cigarettes on the night table.
“You going to smoke?”
“Yeah, I’m wide awake now. Want one?”
“No thanks.”
They listened to the storm. The thunder crashed and lightning flickered, making brilliant stripes in the Venetian blind.
“Some wind, all right,” Shelley said. “I wonder if it’ll blow down Parker’s TV aerial again.”
“I wonder. It looks to me like they’d all blow down, the way they run them up there so high on those skinny little poles. We ought to have us a TV, Shelley.”
“Yeah, I know it. I’m going to talk to Harry about one the first chance I get.”
“The kids would love it s
o.”
“It’s educational too, in a way. Just so you don’t let it interfere with their school work.”
They listened again to the commotion of wind and rain. Helen rolled over and reached behind him for the cigarettes.
“I was just thinking,” she said, “how times have changed, just within my memory. Television, for instance. Lord, when I was a kid nobody ever heard of television, and now practically every house you see has a TV antenna sticking up over the roof.”
“What about jet planes?”
“Yeah, and not to mention atom bombs and hydrogen bombs. But Lord, look at us, sitting up here at one o’clock in the morning talking about jet planes and atom bombs like it was the middle of the day. I’m wide awake now, though. The storm, I guess.”
“It’s slackening off already,” Shelley said. “Notice that wind? It’s slackened off a lot.”
Helen sat up in bed and pulled her knees up, tucking the sheet around them. “There’s something about a storm, isn’t there? I like to be in bed when there’s a storm.”
“I just thought of something,” Shelley said. “This is liable to knock out my fishing trip tomorrow.”
“Oh, it probably won’t rain long.”
“I don’t know. I’ve seen it set in like this and rain a solid week after a drought.”
“Well, I hope not. Listen. Was that Jimmy?”