The Bachman Books

open house every night, just as soon as she gets back from the beerjoint. With her as practicing apprentice.' She smiled sickly at Grace, a smile that was supposed to convey a superficial, cutting sympathy, and instead only inscribed her own pitiful empty terror. Grace was still looking at me inquiringly.

'Irma?' I asked politely. 'Can I have your attention, Irma?'

And when she looked at me, I saw fully what was happening. Her eyes had a glittery yet opaque sheen. Her face was flushed of cheek but waxy of brow. She looked like something you might send your kid out wearing for Halloween. She was blowing up. The whole thing had offended whatever shrieking albino bat it was that passed for her soul. She was ready to go straight up to heaven or dive-bomb down into hell.

'Good,' I said when both of them were looking at me. 'Now. We have to keep order here. I'm sure you understand that. Without order, what do you have? The jungle. And the best way to keep order is to settle our difficulties in a civilized way. '

'Hear, hear!' Harmon Jackson said.

I got up, went to the blackboard, and took a piece of chalk from the ledge. Then I drew a large circle on the tiled floor, perhaps five feet through the middle. I kept a close eye on Ted Jones while I did it, too. Then I went back to the desk and sat down.

I gestured to the circle. 'Please, girls.'

Grace came forward quickly, precious and perfect. Her complexion was smooth and fair.

Irma sat stony.

'Irma, ' I said. 'Now, Irma. You've made accusations, you know.'

Irma looked faintly surprised, as if the idea of accusations had exploded an entirely new train of thought in her mind. She nodded and rose from her seat with one hand cupped demurely over her mouth, as if to stifle a tiny, coquettish giggle. She stepped mincingly up the aisle and into the circle, standing as far away from Grace as was possible, eyes cast demurely down, hands linked together at her waist. She looked ready to sing 'Granada' on The Gong Show.

I thought randomly: Her father sells cars, doesn't he?

'Very good,' I said. 'Now, as has been hinted at in church, in school, and even on Howdy Doody, a single step outside the circle means death. Understood?'

They understood that. They all understood it. This is not the same as comprehension, but it was good enough. When you stop to think, the whole idea of comprehension has a faintly archaic taste, like the sound of forgotten tongues or a look into a Victorian camera obscura. We Americans are much higher on simple understanding. It makes it easier to read the billboards when you're heading into town on the expressway at plus-fifty. To comprehend, the mental jaws have to gape wide enough to make the tendons creak. Understanding, however, can be purchased on every paperback-book rack in America.

'Now, ' I said. 'I would like a minimum of physical violence here. We already have enough of that to think about. I think your mouths and your open hands will be sufficient, girls. I will be the judge. Accepted?'

They nodded.

I reached into my back pocket and brought out my red bandanna. I had bought it at the Ben Franklin five-and- dime downtown, and a couple of times I had worn it to school knotted around my neck, very continental, but I had gotten tired of the effect and put it to work as a snot rag. Bourgeois to the core, that's me.

'When I drop it, you go at it. First lick to you, Grace, as you seem to be the defendant. '

Grace nodded brightly. There were roses in her cheeks. That's what my mother always says about someone who has high color.

Irma Bates just looked demurely at my red bandanna.

'Stop it!' Ted Jones snapped. 'You said you weren't going to hurt anyone, Charlie. Now, stop it!' His eyes looked desperate. 'Just stop it!'

For no reason I could fathom, Don Lordi laughed crazily.

'She started it, Ted Jones,' Sylvia Ragan said heatedly. 'If some Ethiopian jug-diddler called my mother a whore-'

'Whore, dirty whore,' Irma agreed demurely.

' . . . I'd claw her fuggin' eyes out!'

'You're crazy!' Ted bellowed at her, his face the color of old brick. 'We could stop him! If we all got together, we could-'

'Shut up, Ted,' Dick Keene said. 'Okay?'

Ted looked around, saw he had neither support nor sympathy, and shut up. His eyes were dark and full of crazy hate. I was glad it was a good long run between his desk and Mrs. Underwood's. I could shoot him in the foot if I had to.

'Ready, girls?'

Grace Stanner grinned a healthy, gutsy grin. 'All ready.'

Irma nodded. She was a big girl, standing with her legs apart and her head slightly lowered. Her hair was a dirty blond color, done in round curls that looked like toilet-paper rolls.

I dropped my bandanna. It was on.

Grace stood thinking about it. I could almost see her realizing how deep it could be, wondering maybe how far in over her head she wanted to get. In that instant I loved her. No . . . I loved them both.

'You're a fat, bigmouth bitch,' Grace said, looking Irma in the eye. 'You stink. I mean that. Your body stinks. You're a louse.'