She was leaning back on one elbow, her legs drawn up under her. She lifted her eyes and gave me a long, slow look. She didn't answer.
"Well-well, maybe we don't have to," I said. "Gosh, Elizabeth, I don't know-I don't know what to do or what not to do. I never have known."
"I know I'm terribly difficult," she said. "No, I mean it. But I do hope you understand my intentions were good."
"Oh, sure," I said. "I understand."
"I'm afraid you don't," she said and laughed, "but we'll not argue about it. It's no longer important now. I hope it will never become important again."
"Tell me something," I said. "About what we were going to do. Did you feel like I did-like you wouldn't want to have other people around you any more? Like you'd be ashamed, not for yourself but for them?"
"Well-"
"I guess I'm not sure of what I mean myself," I said. "It wasn't the idea of breaking the law or not going to heaven. I didn't really see how we were doing anything very wrong. If it was someone you knew it would be different. If it was someone that was, well, respectable and a valued citizen and all that, it would be different. But when it's not-Well, if you can sacrifice-If three people can have happiness and go ahead and amount to something just by someone-someone that doesn't stand a show of being anyone or doing anything- getting out of the way, why-"
"I'll tell you why you felt as you did," said Elizabeth. "It was too simple."
"No, that wasn't-" I hesitated. "I don't think I get you, Elizabeth."
"We're strong people, Joe. Stronger at least than many. Without being too flattering we can say that we have good minds, good bodies, a good financial position."
"Not good enough."
"There's room for improvement," said Elizabeth. "There usually is. And there comes a time when the improvement seems imperative. So what do we superior people do? How do we exercise our fine talents in the emergency? We don't. We don't use them at all. We do something that the first man could have done much better. Something that anyone could do. We-we push over someone who is more trusting or less strong than we are."
"Well," I said, "it was the only thing we could think of."
"Yes, Joe. It was the only thing we could think of."
I frowned, and I suppose she thought I was getting mad.
"You go to sleep now, dear," she said. "We'll talk more later."
She got up and pulled down the shades, and turned off the light. She came back and bent over me, her face flushed, looking more like a little girl than ever.
"Think you can sleep, Joe?" she said.
And before I could answer, she lay down by my side and pulled my head against her breast.
We lay there for a longtime. Long enough to give me every chance in the world. And I could feel her growing stiffer and older by the minute.
She didn't get mad.
She just acted sorry and sort of resigned. She moved away from me, and stood up.
"When was it, Joe?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," I said.
"Was it before you came here-to me?"
"Hell," I said, "you knew how it was all along. You've known about it for months."
"I didn't know until now, Joe. But that isn't the point. I'd have sworn this would be one time when, as you'd put it, you'd pass up a bet. If it wasn't, well, then there'll never be such a time. You've got nothing to share with me. There's nothing I can do for you."
As she started for the door I said, "Well, what do you want to do? Do you still want to go through with it?"
"By all means," she said. "I've changed my mind about its being too simple for us."
I let her go. I'd gone a little goofy when I thought she was in danger. But I should have known we couldn't patch things up. I still wasn't hot for the killing-who would be?-but if that was the only way to lead a happy, decent life, why…
9
If you're like I am you've probably spotted a thousand couples during your lifetime that made you wonder why and how the hell they ever got together. And if you're like I used to be you probably lay it to liquor or shotguns.
Not that I can tell you why I married Elizabeth or she married me. Not exactly. But I can tell you this. We both knew exactly what we were getting, barring a few points, and we went right ahead and made the grab anyway.
And looking back it all seems perfectly natural.
That first rainy night when I drove her home in the film truck she got out, fumbled in her purse, and handed me fifty cents.
"No, I want you to take that, Joe," she said, when I sort of began to stutter. "It would have cost me much more than that to take a cab."
"But-but look here, Miss Barclay-"
"Good night, Joe. Be careful of the flower beds when you drive out."
I told her what she could do with her flower beds and four-bit pieces. I told her she could walk in mud up to her ears before I gave her another ride. I-
But I was ten miles down the road when I did it. At the time I couldn't think of any more to say than I can now when she ties me into knots. Not as much, maybe, because I hadn't had any practice.
My next run-in with her was a Sunday, about two weeks later. I was still sore, or thought I was; but when she motioned me over to the box office I went running, like a dog running for a bone.
"Come around to the door," she said, "you're in the way of the patrons there." And I went around. Then, she said, "I want you to do an errand for me, Joe." And I said, "Well-well, thank you."
"A whole row of seats has broken down," she went on. "I want you to go over to the Methodist Church and pick up thirty of their folding chairs. I've already called about them."
I gulped and got started so fast I didn't really understand what she'd told me. I heard it, you know, but I didn't understand it. And when I did, or thought I did, I still couldn't believe it.
I got the chairs after some pretty chilly looks from the parson, and took them back and set them up. By that time I was so late on the route that a couple of hours more wouldn't make any difference, so I found a little engine trouble, and I'd just got it fixed when the show closed for the night. So I drove her home again.
She didn't hand me fifty cents that night. She said something about not having any change-I knew she had a five-pound sack full-and that she'd pay me some other time.
"I'll settle cheap," I said, bracing myself. "Tell me-I mean, can I ask you a question?"
"Certainly you may."
"Were those chairs you got tonight-were they some you'd loaned to the church?"
"No. I thought I mentioned they were theirs."
"You mean," I said, "you borrowed thirty chairs from a church for a picture show on Sunday night?" She frowned a little, then her face cleared. "You mean they might have been using them? Oh, but I knew they wouldn't be. That church never has anything approaching a crowd on Sunday night."
"Well," I said, "well, that makes everything just dandy."
I found out later that her old man, her grandfather rather, had donated the sites for most of the churches in town, so I guess she felt like they owed her a few favors and they apparently felt the same way.
Jesus, what a hell of a way to collect! It was like asking to sleep with a man's wife because he owed you five dollars.
After that, after I really began to notice things, to do something besides set the film cans in the lobby and beat it, I saw her head for one jam after another. And instead of pointing my nose the other way, I'd jump in and try to give her a straight steer.
She had trouble spelled all over her. She'd always have it. And I knew it, and I didn't want it any different-then.
You don't buy a twenty-three-jewel watch and hope to turn it into an alarm clock. I didn't have any idea of ever changing her.
The funniest deal came up one night over some color film.
She was using Simplex projectors with nine hundred-watt Mazdas, and the way the stuff came out on the screen was pretty God- awful. Most of the time you could tell the men from the women characters but they all looked like they'd been brawling in a jelly closet.