John was jarred; it wasn't right that Dave should use such a word in front of the boy, but he decided to let it pass. Dave's gaze had clouded over.
The front door opened and Julie Ann peeked out. She was a tall, fragile-looking woman with curly brown hair and soft pale blue eyes. She smiled—grimaced, John thought—and said with tense good cheer, "John Creekmore! What brings you uptown? Billy, you takin' care of your daddy today? Step on in and let me offer you a cup of hot coffee, John."
"No, thank you. Billy and I've got to get on back. ..."
"Please," Julie Ann whispered. Her eyes were luminous with tears. She motioned with a quick tilt of her head. "Just one cup of coffee." She opened the door wider and raised her voice: "Will? Billy Creekmore's here!"
"KEEP YOUR DAMNED VOICE DOWN, WOMAN!" Dave thundered, twisting around in his chair; he plastered one hand against his forehead. "I'LL STROP YOU! I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL!"
John, Billy, and Julie Ann formed a frozen triangle around the man. From within the house Billy could hear little Katy sobbing in a back room, and tentatively Will called out, "Mom?" Julie Ann's grin hung by one lip, and she stood as if motion might cause Dave to explode. Dave abruptly looked away, dug into a back pocket, and brought out a bottle of Bayer aspirin; he unscrewed the cap and tilted the bottle to his lips, then crunched noisily.
"Strop you," he whispered, to no one in particular His eyes bulged above dark blue circles. "Strop the livin' shit out of you. . . ."
John pushed Billy toward the door, and they entered the house. As Julie Ann closed the door, Dave said mockingly, "Gonna talk about the old man again, aren't you? You dirty bitch. ..." And then Julie Ann shut the door, and her husband's curses were muffled, indistinct ravings.
2
The house was dark and oppressively hot, one of the few in Hawthorne that had the luxury of a coal-fed furnace. John saw splinters of glass twinkling in the grayish green carpet; a broken chair sagged in a corner, and there were two empty bottles of Bayer on a lamptable. A framed print of Jesus at the Last Supper hung crookedly on one wall, and opposite it was a stuffed and mounted large-mouth bass, painted in garish blue and silver. In addition to the furnace heat, raw pinewood crackled and hissed in the fireplace, sending plumes of smoke up the chimney and scenting the room with pine sap.
"Excuse the mess." Julie Ann was trembling but trying to keep a desperate smile on her face. "We've . . . had some trouble here today. Billy, Will's in his room if you want to go on back."
"Can I?" he asked his father, and when John nodded he rocketed down a corridor to the small room Will shared with his little sister. He knew the house by heart because he'd spent the night several times; the last time, he and Will had explored the forest together in search of lions, and when Katy had tagged along they'd let her carry their stick-guns for them, but she had to do as they told her and call them "Bwana," a word Will had learned from a Jungle Jim comic book. This time, though, the house seemed different; it was darker and quieter, and might have been scary, Billy thought, if he hadn't known his father was up in the front room.
As Billy entered, Will looked up from the plastic Civil War soldiers he'd arranged on the floor. Will was the same age as Billy, a small thin boy with unruly brown hair plagued with cowlicks, and he wore brown-framed glasses held together in the center with Scotch tape. On the other bed, his sister lay curled up in a ball, her face against the pillow. "I'm Robert E. Lee!" Will announced, his sallow, rather sad-eyed face brightening at the approach of his friend. "You can be General Grant!"
"I'm not a Yankee!" Billy objected, but within another minute he was commanding the bluecoats in a daring attack up Dead-man's Hill.
In the front room, John sat down on a rumpled sofa and watched as Julie Ann paced before him, stopped to peer out the window, then paced again. She said in a tense whisper, "He killed Boo, John. He beat Boo to death with that baseball bat and then he hung him in a tree with fishin' line. I tried to fight him, but he was too strong and . . ." Tears brimmed from her swollen eyes; John quickly averted his gaze to a little clock sitting on the mantel. It was ten minutes before five, and he wished he'd never offered to take Billy for a walk. "He was just too strong," she said, and made a terrible choking sound as she swallowed. "Boo . . . died so hard. ..."
John shifted uneasily. "Well, why'd he do it? What's wrong with him?"
She pressed a finger to her lips and stared fearfully at the door. She held her breath until she'd looked out the window again and seen her husband still sitting there in the cold chewing on another aspirin. "The children don't know about Boo," Julie Ann said. "It happened this mornin', while they were at school. I hid Boo in the woods—God, it was awful!—and they think he's just roamed off somewhere like he does. Dave didn't go to the garage today, didn't even call in sick. He woke up yesterday with one of his headaches, the worst he's ever had, and he didn't get a wink of sleep last night. Neither did I." She put a hand to her mouth and chewed on the knuckles; a cheap but sentimental wedding ring with tiny diamonds in the shape of a heart twinkled merrily in the orange firelight. "Today it ... it was the worst it's ever been. Ever. He screamed and threw things; first he couldn't get hot enough, then he had to get outside in the cool air. He said he was going to kill me, John." Her eyes were wide and terrified. "He said he knew all the things I'd done behind his back. But I swear I never did a thing, I swear it on a stack of Bi—"
"Just calm down, now," John whispered, glancing quickly at the door "Take it easy. Why don't you call Doc Scott?"
"No! I can't! I tried to this morning, but he ... he said he'd do to me what he did to Boo, and . . ." A sob welled from her throat. "I'm afraid! Dave's gotten mean before, and I never let on to anybody; but he's never been this bad! He's like somebody I don't even know! You should've heard him yell at Katy just a little while ago, and he eats those aspirins like candy and they never do no good!"
“Well” ― John looked at Jilie Ann's agonized expression and felt a long stupid grin stretch his face―”everything'll be all right. You'll see. Doc'll know what to do for Dave's headaches . . . .”
"No!" she shouted, and John winced. She stopped, frozen, while they both thought they heard Dave's chair scraping across the porch. "Doc Scott said he had a damned sinus infection! That old man ain't got good sense anymore, and you know it! Why, he almost let your own wife just linger and . . ." She blinked, unwilling to say the next word. Die is a terrible word, she thought, a word that should not be spoken out loud when talking about a person.
"Yeah, I guess so. But those headaches need lookin' after. Maybe you could talk him into goin' up to the Fayette hospital?"
The woman shook her head forlornly. "I've tried. He says there's nothin' wrong, and he don't want to spend the money on foolishness. I don't know what to do!"
John cleared his throat nervously and then rose to his feet, avoiding her stare. "Guess I'd better get Billy. We've been out too long as it is." He started to walk back through the hallway, but Julie Ann's arm shot out and grasped his wrist tightly. He looked up, startled.
"I'm afraid," she whispered, a tear trickling down her face. "I don't have anywhere to go, and I can't stay here another night!"
"I can't ..."