The Kill-Off

so clean you couldn't raise a smudge on your finger. After that, I'd take a little kindling splinter and tip it with the blacking, and get down in all the little cracks and curlycues.

We didn't do any farm work on Saturdays, except for just the milking and feeding, of course. So when I was through, I'd roll back the doors to the living room, and Mama and Papa and Lily would come in.

Mama would take a look, and kind of throw up her hands. She'd say, why, I just can't believe my eyes; if I didn't know better I'd think it was a new stove! And Papa would shake his head and say, I couldn't fool him, it was a new stove. I'd gone out and snuck one in from somewhere, and no one could tell him different. So, well, I'd have to take and show him that it was really just the same old stove, and…

Lily hardly ever said anything.

I used to wonder about it, wanting to ask her why but somehow kind of shy about doing it. And one time when I'd saved up a lot of nickels-I got a nickel every time I polished the stove-I took them all and bought her a big red hair-ribbon. I brought it home from town inside my blouse, not telling anyone about it. That night, when she was out in the kitchen alone doing dishes, I gave it to her. She looked at it, and then she looked at me smiling at her. Then she doused it down in the dishwater, and threw it into the slop pail. I watched it sink down under the scummy surface, and I didn't know quite what to do. What to say. I didn't feel much like smiling any more, but I was kind of afraid to stop. I was kind of, well, just afraid. Mama and Papa always said if you were nice to others, why they would be nice to you. But I'd done the nicest thing I knew how, I thought. So all I could think of was that Mama and Papa must be wrong, or maybe I didn't know what was nice and what wasn't. What was bad and what was good. And for a minute I felt all scared and bewildered and lost. Well, though, Lily grabbed me up in her arms suddenly, and hugged me and kissed me. She said she'd just been joking, and she was just mixed-up and absent- minded and not thinking what she was doing. So… everything turned out all right.

I never said anything to Mama or Papa about it. I even lied to Mama and said I'd lost all my nickels when she asked me what had happened to them. That was about the only time I can ever remember her scolding me, or Papa saying anything real sharp to me-because she felt he had to be told about it. But I still didn't tell about the ribbon. I knew they'd be terribly upset and sad if they knew what Lily had done, and I'd've cut off my tongue before I told them. It's funny how-

Dammit, it's not funny! There's nothing funny about it. And why the hell does it have to be that way?

Why is it when you feel so much one way, you have to act just the opposite? So much the opposite?

Why can't people leave you alone, why can't you leave them alone, why can't you just all live together and be the way you are? Knowing that it's all right with the others however you are, because however they are is all right with you.

I wandered through the house, drinking and thinking. Feeling happy and sad. I went up the stairs, and into my little room under the eaves. Dusk was coming on, filling the room with shadows. I could see things like they had been, almost without closing my eyes. It all came back to me…

The checked calico curtains at the windows. The circular rag rug. The bookcase made out of a fruitbox. The high, quilted bed. The picture above it-a picture of a boy and his mother, titled His Best Girl. The little rocking chair…

The chair was still there. Lily hadn't mentioned moving it, and I kind of didn't like to. I hesitated, and then I tried to sit down in it.

I was a lot too big for it, of course, because San- because Mama and Papa had given it to me the Christmas I was seven. I kept squeezing and pushing, though, and finally the arms cracked and split off, and I went down on the seat. That was pretty small for me too, but I could sit on it all right. I could even rock a little if I was careful. So I sat there, rocking back and forth, my knees almost touching my chin. And for a while I was back to the days that had been, and I was what I had been in those days.

Then some rats scurried across the attic, and I started and sighed and stood up. I stood staring blankly out the window, wondering what the hell I'd better do.

Dammit all, what was I going to say to Luane? She'd just start screaming and crying the minute I opened my mouth, and I'd wind up making a fool of myself like Lily says I always do. It wouldn't do any good to ask her for a retraction, because I wouldn't be able to make myself heard in the first place and in the second place she'd know there wasn't a damned thing 1 could do. She'd know I wouldn't take her into court. Trials cost money, and voters don't want money spent unless it has to be. And they sure wouldn't see it as having to be in this case. They might be sore at her. They might want her to catch it in the neck. But using county money to do it just wouldn't go down with them. Besides that-besides, dammit, I couldn't bring her to trial. I didn't dare do it.

She was Kossmeyer's client. He'd fight for her to the last ditch, regardless of what he thought of her personally. He'd fight-one of the best trial lawyers in the country would be fighting me-he'd put me on the witness stand and mimic me and get everyone to laughing, and shoot questions faster than I could think. And-

I took a drink. I took a couple more right behind it. My shoulders sort of braced up, and I thought, well who the hell is Kossmeyer, anyway? He ain't so goddamned much.

I took another drink, and another one. I let out a belch.

He-Kossmeyer-he didn't really know anything. He was just a fast talker. More of an actor, a clown, than he was a lawyer. No good outside of a courtroom where he couldn't pull any of his tricks.

Outside of a courtroom, where he had to deal strictly in facts, he'd be no good at all. I could make a fool out of him-with the right kind of facts. It would be all over the county, all over the state, how Hank Williams had shown Kossmeyer what was what.

Maybe…

Oh, hell. I just couldn't talk to Luane. She wouldn't listen to me, and-damn her, she ought to be made to! To listen or else. And what, by God, could she do about it if she was? What could Kossmeyer do about it? You'd have your facts all ready, you know. So you'd just smile very sweetly, and say, why there must be some mistake. The poor woman must have gone completely out of her mind. Why, I've been right here at home with my sister all evening. And Lily would swear that I had been, and-

God Almighty! What was I thinking about? I couldn't do anything like-like that! I wouldn't any more think of-of-hurting anyone than I would of flying. So…

But they kept hurting me, didn't they? They wouldn't leave me alone, would they?

And if I didn't do something, what would I tell Lily?

Could I get away with lying to her again? If I could- give her a real good story and make it sound convincing- why, that would give me some time, and maybe I could think of something to do. Or maybe I wouldn't have to do anything at all. You know how it is. Lots of times if you can put something off long enough, it just kind of takes care of itself.

But I sure hated to try lying to Lily. Remembering the way she acted this morning, it almost made me shiver to think about lying to her.

And why should I have to, anyway? Why not do the other as long as it was perfectly safe?

God, I didn't know what to do! I knew what I ought and wanted to do, but actually doing it was something else.

I looked at the whiskey bottle. It was only a third full. I lifted it to my mouth, and started gulping. I took three long gulps, stopped a second for breath, and took three more gulps. I coughed, swayed a little on my feet, and let the bottle drop from my fingers.