Come Destroy Me (16 page)

He felt good. He was no longer confused. He might as well go. What did all this matter to him? Gibberish!

He said, “See you around, Jill!” He stood with his arms akimbo. Let her
see
the goddamn sweat marks under his arms!

She did not turn around. She said, “Good afternoon, Charles Wright.”

“Good afternoon,” Charlie said lightly.

He went from the kitchen to the hall to the screen door. The door banged behind him. As he went down the porch steps he began to whistle that song Ray Bolger had danced to. He took his time walking down Deel. He remembered the name of the movie that song was from. It was “Where’s Charley?”

Take your time.

He would. He was in no hurry.

H
E DECIDED HE WOULD GO
. He would go to Jake’s and get a soda. It was nothing he had to do immediately. He could walk around for a while, for the love of Pete.

The only thing he didn’t understand was what he had been like before. Years before. One damn year ago, what had he been like? He used to read a lot. Ski. Talk to his mother.

Miss Jill Latham. She did it all, and there was shame curling through him, winding up in his entrails like a cobra. If he could only know it was over now.

You said that before.

This time it is over. I won’t face her again, think of her again. This time it really is over.
Sure?
No.

Keep walking. Walk. Walk. Walk. Wear out your legs.

Charlie walked around blocks and down and up side streets. He knew he could never think about it again if he could know he never had to come face to face with her. Yet he panicked when he thought of never seeing her again. He was too good for her, he told himself that, but it did no good.

How do things come to be? You think there is no scheme to things and yet things come to be that are strange. It is the way in the whole world like a web entangling everyone. A month ago you are a nice kid who reads in the library, and now, thirty days later, you are a dirty person. You are dirty and crazy and no one in the whole city of Azrael, in the whole state of Vermont, in all of the states and in the continent would believe what you are. What has come to be.

She was like you, too. Together you changed, reacted on one another, and made a mess. A God-awful mess.

Nuts! She was always screwy.

Keep out of this, I warn you.

Don’t be so hell-bent dramatic. Get a soda or something.

There was no one he could go to. He had no one. Once he had had the image of her. It made him think of the part in the Bible about the beautiful image with feet part of iron, part of clay. Where was it from? It didn’t matter. The idol fell, for iron and clay did not mix. Jill and gin? No, she was loony even without the gin. She was all clay. He knew where it was from. Daniel.

He walked faster without paying much attention to where he went. He had to walk it out of him. He had to forget himself, forget what he had done. He had not done a goddamn thing. Why did he feel lousy?

When Charlie got to Jake’s he went in and sat on a stool. He paid a quarter for a cherry soda. Jake was sitting behind the counter reading the sports page of the newspaper, scratching his bald head absently. The fans were going, and some kids in a back booth were singing to the music from the jukebox. Charlie watched the red liquid come up in the straw and he blew in and out on the straw, delaying his taste of the soda.

He simply didn’t think about much at all now. Not about anything important. The cherry soda made him think of a cherry tree that was in back of the bungalow on Conrad Street. When he was a kid he used to climb up in it and think. He remembered the time he was sitting way up in the top when the blossoms were new and it was spring, and in school his class was learning the alphabet. He was just a tyke. He had trouble with the alphabet because he could never go beyond the letter F. A was for apple, ? was for brother, C was for candy, D was for day, E was for eat, and F was for father. That time in the cherry tree he worried about it. It was funny that he could remember it now.

That made him think of the story about George Washington cutting down the cherry tree. He took an ax to it, young Washington did, and
wham!
Curtains for the goddamn cherry tree.

Charlie had to laugh at the clever way his mind worked. He bet nobody in the whole creepy world had his sense of humor. He was a regular clown, that’s all.

He sipped the soda slowly and it was too warm. There was about a teaspoon of ice cream in the thing. He glared at Jake but he didn’t say anything. He just thought, You fat dirty slob, you can’t even make a soda. You big fat dirty slob. He imagined what Jake would look like undressed. God!

Jake felt his eyes on him and he looked up and grinned in a lopsided way, as though he were asking Charlie if Charlie wanted anything else. Charlie said, “It’s a scorcher today.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. He looked back at his paper and he said, “See your sister?” and turned a page.

“Evie?”

“Yeah, she just left a couple minutes ago.”

“I wasn’t here,” Charlie said. Jake was a stupid rhinoceros!

“Yeah, just left a couple minutes ago,” Jake said.

“Who with?”

“Jim Prince.”

Charlie said, “Oh.”

His straw made a noise in the bottom of the soda glass. He swung himself off the stool and walked out the door. It was hot in the street. Who the hell cared what Evie did or said or thought? Russel Lofton must have told her he was going to get married to old gin-pot!

Charlie, Charlie, don’t let it hurt you, son. Don’t let it!

I got news for you. It’s painless.

Don’t give in, boy. Fifty years from now you’ll never know the difference.

You don’t seem to understand that I’m perfectly O.K. right now. Outlook — optimistic.

Charlie turned off Broad and walked toward the movie theater. It was air-conditioned. That was the only reason he was going to the stinking moving pictures. Next thing you knew his mother would buy a lousy television set and stick it right in the living room and lie around and watch movies all day. It was the trend of the times.

It was an old movie. He’d seen it. Gary Cooper strutting around in tight pants and the song yelling do not desert me oh my darling all over the place.

Charlie sat down in the back row and watched. He couldn’t help it, he felt like crying. If anyone walked in and saw him blubbering in the back row of the Majestic they’d think he was off his stick!

You tried so hard. You’re young and sweet and you tried so damn hard, kid!

I didn’t understand.

You still don’t. No one would. You won’t forget right away, but someday you’ll laugh at it.

I thought I loved her. I thought it was going to be beautiful. You know how I felt. God, I never felt that way. I didn’t mean to shake her. I was scared.

First she was all over you. Those fingers of hers. Then when you tried to kiss her she went cold.

I know it.

It wasn’t your fault.

She said I was just a dumb clumsy kid!

She didn’t say that at all!

Yes, she did.

You’re imagining that. She didn’t say it.
I swear on my eyesight.

Charlie looked back at the picture. The song was all about being a man, about not being a coward and being a man. It was such a lousy stunt that Gary Cooper was pulling. Running around out in Hollywood, California, U.S.A., with his sunglasses and big cars pretending he was a lousy cowboy.

Then Charlie had a crackpot idea that it never happened. The whole thing never happened. He hadn’t even seen her that day. If he
had
seen her, why wasn’t he drunk? He drank all that icky gin and his gut must be full of it. So why wasn’t he drunk? It was all folly. God, he couldn’t even tell the difference between fact and fiction any more, he was so squirrely.

He watched the movie carefully. He wondered what all those men and women did when they weren’t making movies. Oh, he knew! Sure, he knew.

The movie was almost over. He had come in toward the end. He looked around the theatre to see who he would be sitting under bright lights with during the intermission. A dart of heat went up in his stomach. Four rows away Evie was sitting beside Jim Prince and he had his long arm wrapped around her shoulder. They were all but necking. God, the things a kid was exposed to! At every turn!

Charlie got up immediately and walked out of the movie house. He’d be damned if he’d speak to them. It was hot as hell and he’d go home and take a cold shower and talk to his mother.

Well, go the right way.

There’s no hurry.

Where you going?

Not where
you
think I’m going.

Charlie, get a
grip
on yourself!

It’s broad daylight.

What’s that got to do with it?

Why don’t you go back and see the rest of the lousy movie? They’ll let you in. You’re invisible.

Grinning, Charlie put his hands in his pockets and walked along slowly. Everybody was at the lake swimming. He could swim if he wanted to learn, but why the hell should he? Even Merrill Watkins could swim. That midget! Charlie wondered when Merrill would be home. They couldn’t be friends any more. Too much water under the bridge for that.

There was one thing about Azrael, you could be left alone. Just make everyone hate you and you could be left the hell alone. Charlie knew full well he didn’t have a friend in the entire town. There was no one he wanted for a friend.

Her name is Jill.

His I.Q. was too high for friends. He was a brain.

Her name is Jill.

All right, all right, all the sneaky thoughts that wanted to pester him
could,
but he wasn’t going to pay any attention to them. They were automatic. Habit. It’d all stop soon.

Charlie walked and walked. He circled streets and went up one side and down the other. What if he was near Deel? It was a small town, wasn’t it?

His hands were fists. He was soaked with sweat.

What the hell did Gary Cooper know?

Her name is Jill.

Charlie felt the sledge hammer in his brain. Gee whiz, gee whiz, I’m sick, he thought. I’m not well. I want to lie on the grass and hold my head. Aw, Mom, I’m sick. Your kid’s sick. Don’t you have time, Mom? Don’t you have time for your kid who’s sick?

He’d find Mom. She’d help. If he hurried, she’d help. He tried to run but it made his head hurt more and he slowed down and said, “Easy, boy, easy there, sonny,” to himself. She’d have time for him. Nobody ever said she didn’t. She’d been taking care of him all his life and she was good. Ah, God, she was a good mom.

It was as though he had walked a very long, long way. A journey, really. As though he had taken a journey. When he saw the house, the headache eased. He walked right toward it. The sun was going down. It was still there but it was going down. Not really. It was broad daylight. Charlie kept walking. He had to make it. His knuckles were white. His shirt was soaked with sweat. The hammer came back, tapping gently.

The driveway was gravel. His shoes sounded heavy on the gravel. He walked around to the back of the house and he kept thinking, Please have time, Mom, for your kid. Your kid is sick. Let Lofton get dinner somewhere else, Mom.

There was a light in the kitchen. The steps leading to the back porch led directly into the kitchen. For a moment he stood there looking toward the light and the steps. Then he walked up the steps slowly, his jaw tight to keep his lips from quivering, his eyes blazing.

The screen door was open. He saw three things. He saw a coffeepot on the stove. He saw a loaf of bread on the table with a long silver knife beside it. And he saw Miss Jill Latham.

P
ATROLMAN ED WYATT
was standing on the corner of Broad and Allen, mopping his brow. It was four-thirty in the afternoon and he was off at five. He thought he might take the wife and kids out to Green Lake for a swim, grab a fish fry, then drive over to the Sloan County Fair after. A little excitement for a muggy Saturday night at the end of July.

When he saw the boy coming toward him, he did not recognize him, but the boy waved and Ed waved back. The boy had on blue cord pants, a white shirt, and brown shoes. He was holding his hand to his chest, covering it with his other hand, and when he got closer, Ed recognized Em Wright’s kid. He saw the dark stain on the kid’s shirt, and the blood on the kid’s hand.

“Badly hurt, fellow?” he asked.

“Cut my hand,” Charlie Wright answered. He looked at the policeman directly, his eyes earnest and friendly. He said, “I guess it’s pretty deep.”

“Let’s see.” Wyatt looked down and saw a small slash on the back of the kid’s hand near the knuckle. It wasn’t a serious slash but Wyatt said, “Better take care of it right away.

“Yes,” Charlie Wright answered.

“Maybe down at Kelley’s Pharmacy they’ll have a bandage,” Wyatt said. He began to walk along with the boy. “Your name’s Chuck, isn’t it?”

“Charlie,” Charlie told him. “Charlie Wright.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen you around the Gazette…. How’d you do it?”

“I just killed someone,” Charlie said. “Miss Latham. Runs the Red Clover Bookshop. You know. I just killed Miss Latham,” Charlie repeated, “with a knife.”

Wyatt gripped the boy’s arm, stared at him. Charlie Wright met his glance. There was still that expression of amiability, innocent sincerity. Wyatt said, “What!”

“Yes,” Charlie said. “Back at her house. Deel Street.”