“Her body was bruised and scratched and appeared, by my best medical expertise, to have been beaten both before and after she was raped,” the coroner told the judge. “Please speak to the jury, Doctor,” the judge said. “Well as I said just now, she had bruises and lacerations around her pelvic region, thighs, abdomen, buttocks, breasts and neck, her head suffered several severe concussive blows with a blunt instrument such as a jack iron or baseball bat and she seemed, according to my post-mortem examination, to have been savagely beaten both before and after she was sexually attacked—beaten till she was either dead or left for dead but if left for dead then in a condition bordering very close to what we define as clinically dead.” I never told the jurors that Jenny and I didn’t make love. I never said I didn’t have any idea she was a minor. I even told them about that ridiculous age test I gave her and how more and more during the ride to the river I thought she was sixteen instead of twenty-one. I told them everything. I told them I only shoved her in self-defense and she lost her footing and that the whole bad scene of name-calling and branch-wielding and then the accident and death had actually started because Jenny didn’t think I was a good lover. But I still didn’t shove her for that, I swore. I only did it because she was going to come at me with a rock.
“You don’t seem to want to do anything,” Jenny said, both of us snuggled up comfy and warm at the water’s edge under my bedroll. “You’re not even excited.” “You checked?” I said. “I don’t have to check but will if you’re too numb to know it natural yourself.” She pulled the bedroll off us and looked. “Nothing. Is it because you’re impotent or hate girls?” “Maybe I don’t feel like it tonight. Let me for now lie quiet and look at the stars and feel good with everything about life and just hold you for a while. I like it here, Jenny. It’s a very nice place you brought me to and I’ll always be thankful for that. I’ve never seen the sun go down like that ever. Did you see the way it lit up and colored the sky and made the clouds almost seem like cotton balls on fire? It was like a religious scene in a movie where the whole heavens open up and the organ music begins. Or something like such. Words can’t come close to the experiencing of it and I never knew that better than now.” “Don’t you like me?” she said. “Sure I like you, but that doesn’t have to be important to you now, does it?” “You’re damn right it does. And if I’m going to lay with a guy then I want him to like me or I can’t do it.” “Then don’t do it. Let’s be truthful and open about it. If we do it then we do it only because we want to and if we both want to do it then it’ll be fun and beautiful and good. And now I just don’t want to do it.” She said “You know, I’m convinced now there’s something definitely peculiar about you. I think you’re maybe a fruit who gets his kicks by setting up girls for sex so he can put them down when he gets them there, just to make them feel frustrated and like dirty evil females. That’s you all over.” “Have it your own way,” I said. “That isn’t my way—it’s yours. You’re the dirty evil unnatural man, not me the woman. I’m natural. I’m natural because I want to make love.” So mechanically we began to make love. I did all the things I usually do when starting but Jenny did much more than that. She really went into a frenzy, panting and screaming and tearing away with her hands at both our bodies and getting me kind of excited though not that excited but still excited enough to make me want to continue beyond the point where I was planning to say “You see, I was right before: nothing. I just don’t feel like it tonight, though you can’t say I didn’t at least try.” I couldn’t imagine what she’d do if she really loved some man who really loved her. Maybe nothing very much. But she howled and kicked and rolled us all over the ground, which no doubt accounted for the bruises and lacerations she didn’t get in her tree-stump fall, and moved herself like no girl I’d ever been with. She kept yelling “Motorcycle man, oh my Mr. Motorcycle Man, oh I really dig dig dig dig my Mr. Motorcycle Man.” She didn’t taste from alcohol so for all I know she might have been on drugs. The coroner said no when questioned about it by my lawyer, but maybe he hadn’t looked and was only covering up himself to keep his lifetime job. Or maybe she just liked men better than any girl I’d ever known or heard about. She was like out of a dime novel when they sold for a quarter and I used to read them under my covers by flashlight when I was a kid and my folks were asleep. Or like the girls on detective and true romance magazines with the title in first person underneath about them being uncontrollable or incurable nymphomaniacs. Because whatever I did for Jenny or she for herself was never enough, though I didn’t worry about that much. I figured that in the morning, after we rested and I drove her home, I’d start out West on my bike, very early. Jenny wasn’t someone to stay around for because first of all she wouldn’t let me have my thoughts and peaceful moments, and secondly she probably wouldn’t want me to stay around.
“I heard her screaming—or a girl’s voice screaming—at approximately nine at night at River’s Point on July 26th of this year,” Mr. Stevenson Smith said on the stand. “My boy was with me at the time. We were looking for our dog, Peacock, who that same afternoon jumped out of the car window when Jimmy and I were fishing. And when we heard that poor girl screaming like she was being maliciously raped—” “Objection, Your Honor.” “I mean viciously raped.” “Objection, Your Honor.” “When we heard a girl screaming—is that all right?” “That’s fine, Mr. Smith,” the judge said. “Well Jimmy got so scared he ran back into the woods. I wanted to run and see what the screaming was about, but I also didn’t want Jimmy disappearing like Peacock did, so I went after the boy. I found him back in the car, doors locked and windows up tight, and with the car keys in the glove compartment. I had to tell him through the side vent to calm down for I wanted to see what the trouble was with that screaming voice. Coaxing him to calm down took a while because he’s a very emotional boy, very sensitive, and when he heard that screaming he, like me, didn’t know what to think. He said ‘No, don’t go, poppa.’ I said ‘I have to go, Jimmy. Some lady might be in trouble, so I’ve got to help.’ He said ‘Please don’t go, Poppa, I don’t want to be left alone.’ So I told him ‘Then unlock the door, Jimmy, and come with me.’” “Get to the point, Mr. Smith.” “The point is that I eventually did go back, though without Jimmy, and by this time the girl was no longer screaming. Nobody was screaming. Everything was quiet. And there she was on the grass without any clothes on and her hair combed back nice and tight and her head smashed in and blood all over the ground and her and bruised so bad I wanted to throw up. I felt if I’d have got there a half-minute sooner I could’ve saved that girl. I could’ve, you know, if my son wasn’t so emotional, so sensitive. It upset him so much he’s now taking pills to stay reasonably in control of himself.” “Thank you, Mr. Smith. Does the State have any further witnesses?” It had none. They already paraded about fifteen against me. There wasn’t anyone to say anything good about me. Just letters from my hometown that my lawyer read in court saying what a pleasant child I was when I was three and five and eight and ten but nobody had anything good to say about me after that. “A very slow worker”—an ex-boss. “Never liked to take orders”—another ex-boss. “Intelligent but with proclivities toward temper tantrums and occasional furious rages”—a grade-school teacher. “Too self-assured with no self-restraint.”—a junior-high-school teacher. “Kind of creepy and slimy most times but definitely not like a murderer”—the girl I was once engaged to. “Showed tremendous potential in the beginning, but once he got involved with motorcycles I just gave up on him”—my high-school football coach. “Unstable”—my mother. “Though do have pity on him,” she said from a thousand miles away, “as he’s my only child and I have no one else for support.” Except for the hundred thousand dollar insurance policy my dad left and which she refused to give me a cent of when I was accepted into college. “Guilty”—the jury. “Hanged till you are dead”—the judge. “They’ll never hang you because the state law is unconstitutional”—my lawyer. That was three years ago. I’m still i
n the death cellblock and there are no windows in my cell and I’m never allowed out in the sunlight and I never get any real earth to walk on and there are ten other men here who are also waiting to see how the Supreme Court deals with my case, since each of their death sentences will be affected by the decision. None of them is very hopeful. And if the court does decide the state’s execution law is constitutional, then I’ll be the first to go. None of these men likes to talk about the sun and stars and galaxies with me. They say “What’s the difference?” They say “So what, a star’s a star.” They’re interested in our men walking on the moon though—very proud that fellow human beings from our own country can do that. They like to watch it each time it happens on television and also all kinds of television movies and soap operas and ball games and a few of the funnier commercials—but that’s all. They actually don’t like to discuss anything with me—they think it might be bad luck. So I mostly talk to myself. I say “Let me out.” I plead “I didn’t do anything wrong to justify being here.” I shout “All I did was shove a girl. Lots of men have shoved girls and they’re not in prison. She fell back over her own foot and so in a sense killed herself. She already came at me once with a branch. She was going to come at me with a rock. Now who would stand still and let his head get hit by a rock? Would you stand still? And you there, would you stand still? Oh knock it off. Because none of you would. You say so, you might think so, but all of you would have probably done worse than me. You probably would have beaten her up. And then maybe raped her after you knocked her unconscious to the ground.” And I think about the sunsets I haven’t seen these past three years. And that last holy sunset I saw with Jenny Lou. My traveling would probably be over by now, I think. I’d probably be married—and maybe with a baby—to a girl I loved very much and who didn’t always interfere with my quietest thoughts.
“You can take your rest period,” guard Vernon says, coming into my cell with guard Simms, both of them armed. They walk me to the adjoining six-by-six-foot outdoor space. I look up at the other suns—the stars. It’s a clear night. The Big and Little Dippers are easily recognizable. Even the Andromeda galaxy can be seen. I’ve read all the prison astronomy books several times. I can identify every star formation on both sides of the equator, every significant star. I can make out planets. I can tell exactly what day of the year it is by how the stars are arranged. I could guide myself across any continent or body of water and come to the point a few thousand miles away I originally intended to get to just by following the stars. I could do all that. I learned all that here by myself. This outdoor cell is surrounded by walls several feet above my reach and on top of these walls are electric wires and there are lights all around my yard making the stars tonight a little tough to see and the two guards sit in the yard while I stand and if I stop for a second they always tell me to keep moving, now keep it moving, but the view is still something. My lawyer says the court ruling should come on my test case in a minimum of two years. He’s very hopeful the state’s mandatory death penalty law will be declared unconstitutional and that with a few years off for good behavior and a governor’s pardon I ought to be out of here by the time I’m sixty-five.
THE FORMER WORLD’S GREATEST RAW GREEN PEA EATER
He hadn’t spoken to her in ten years when he decided to call.
“Hello.”
“Miriam?”
“Yes, this is Miriam Cabell, who is it?”
“Miriam Cabell now—I didn’t know. What ever happened to Miriam Livin?”
“If you don’t mind who is this please?”
“And Miriam Berman?”
“I asked who this is. Now for the last time—”
“Arnie.”
“Who?”
“Arnie—well, guess.”
“I’m in no good mood for games now, really. And if it’s just some crank—well my husband handles all those calls.”
“Then Arnie Spear—satisfied, Mrs. Cabell?”
“Arnie Spear? Wait a minute, not Arnie X.Y.Z. Spear?”
“The very same, Madame.”
“Arnie Spear the famous sonnet writer and lover of tin lizzies and hopeless causes and the world’s greatest raw green pea eater?”
“Well I don’t want to brag, but—”
“Oh God, Arnie, how in the world did you get my number?”
“I’m fine, thank you—have a little pain in my ego, perhaps, but how are you?”
“No I’m serious—how’d you get it?”
“I met Gladys Pemkin coming out of a movie the other night. She told me.”
“How is Gladys?”
“Fine, I suspect. Haven’t you seen her recently?”
“I’ve been running around so much these days I don’t see anyone anymore. In fact, the last time with Gladys must’ve been a good year ago.”
“Your name,” he said, “—Cabell? That’s your new husband, isn’t it?”
“Fairly new. We’ve been married two years now—or close to two. A lovely man—I wonder if you knew him.”
“Don’t think so. You happy, Miriam?”
“Happy? Why, was I ever really unhappy? But maybe I should toss this same ticklish nonsense back to you. How about it?”
“I’m happy. Very happy, I suppose. Really doing pretty well these days.”
“I’m glad.”
“What ever happened to Livin—your last?”
“That bastard? Listen, Arnie, I signed a treaty with myself never to mention his name or even think of him, so help me out, will you?”
“What happens if you break the treaty?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean if let’s say we suddenly begin talking about him. Do you declare war on yourself and sort of battle it out until one or the other side has won?”
“I don’t understand. That was a figure of speech. And why would you want to talk about Livin when you never knew him? Anyway, tell me how Gladys looks. Last time I saw her it seemed she’d been drinking it up pretty heavily or at least on pills all day long.”
“She seemed fine. A little tired, perhaps, but not much different than the last time I saw her—which was with you, remember?”
“No, when was that?”
“I don’t know. About ten years ago or so.”
“I can only remember old events if I’m able to place in my mind where I was at the time. Where was I?”
“In this tiny coffee shop on Madison and Fifty-eighth. The Roundtree I think it was called.”
“No I don’t recall any such place.”
“It folded four years ago. I know because for a few months I had a magazine-editing job in the area and used to walk by the shop daily. And then one day it was suddenly empty of everything except a sawhorse and there was a For Rent sign in front. Now it’s a beauty shop.”
“Wait a minute. Not some incredibly garish beauty shop? With lots of pink and blue wigs on these wood heads in the window and with a refreshment counter in front for serving hot tea and cookies?”
“I think that’s the one.”
“Do you know, I once went there to have my hair set—isn’t that strange? It’s not a very good place, which is why I only went once. They dry all your roots out.”
“Well that’s where we last saw one another. The place has always been particularly meaningful to me—almost as a starting point in a new phase of my life. Because if it wasn’t for what you told me there that morning, I doubt whether I ever would’ve become so immediately conscious of my hang ups then to flee the city, as I did, and get this fine job out of town.”
“Excuse me, Arnie. You’re on that beauty shop still?”
“Don’t you remember? We met there for coffee—when it was still a coffee shop. It was an extremely emotional scene for me then—holding your hand, and both of us unbelievably serious and me trying to work up enough courage to finally propose to you. You very mercifully cut me off before I was able to make a big ass out of myself and told me, and very perceptively I thought, what a shell
of an existence I was leading at the time and how, instead of trying to write fiction about a world I didn’t know, I should get a job and see what the world was about. I was so despondent after that—”
“Yes. Now I remember.”
“Remember how torn up I was? I was a kid then, granted, but it was very bad, extremely crushing.”
“Yes. I hated that last scene.”
“So after that, I quit school two days later and got a cubreporter slot on the Dallas paper my brother was on then, just so I could be away from you and the city and all. And later, I went to Washington for several local Texas papers and then the correspondent jobs overseas seemed to pour in, none of which I feasibly could have taken if I were married or seriously attached at the time.”
“Then things have worked out in their own way, right?”
“I suppose you might say so.”
“And you’ve also seen a lot of the world, am I right? I mean, Europe and such?”
“Europe, Central America, Rio and Havana and once even a year’s stint in Manila as a stringer for one of the TV networks. I’ve had a good time.”
“I’m glad.”
“I’ve been very fortunate for a guy who never had a thought of going into journalism—very.”
“It really sounds like it. There can’t be anything more exciting than traveling, I think. Besides the fact of also making money from it.”
“Even then, it’s not as if I’ve had everything I exactly wanted—like the wife and kids I always spoke about.”
“That’s right. You used to speak about them a lot.”
“Or the home. The even relatively permanent home with some grounds I could putter around with on weekends, for basically I’m a family and fireplace man and I’d be a self-deluding idiot to deny it. But I’ve been quite lucky all in all.”
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