I thought back to the day Bob Maples and I had gone to Fort Worth, and how Conway hadn't invited us on the trip but had got busy ordering us around the minute we'd landed. You see? What could be clearer? He'd tipped his hand on me right there.
Then, Bob had come back to the hotel, and he was all upset about something Conway had said to him, ordered him to do. And he wouldn't tell me what it was. He just talked on and on about how long he'd known me and what a swell guy I was, and… Hell, don't you see? Don't you get it?
I'd let it go by me because I had to. I couldn't let myself face the facts. But I reckon you've known the truth all along.
Then, I'd brought Bob home on the train and he'd been babbling drunk, and he'd gotten sore about some of my kidding. So he'd snapped back at me, giving me a tip on where I stood at the same time. He'd said-what was it? — "It's always lightest just before the dark…"
He'd been sore and drunk so he'd come out with that. He was telling me in so many words that I might not be sitting nearly as pretty as I thought I was. And he was certainly right about that-but I think he'd got his words twisted a little. He was saying 'em to be sarcastic, but they happen to be the truth. At least it seemed so to me.
It is lightest just before the dark. Whatever a man is up against, it makes him feel better to know that he is up against it. That's the way it seemed to me, anyhow, and I ought to know.
Once I'd admitted the truth about that piece of evidence, it was easy to admit other things. I could stop inventing reasons for what I'd done, stop believing in the reasons I'd invented, and see the truth. And it sure wasn't hard to see. When you're climbing up a cliff or just holding on for dear life, you keep your eyes closed. You know you'll get dizzy and fall if you don't. But after you fall down to the bottom, you open 'em again. And you can see just where you started from, and trace every foot of your trail up that cliff.
Mine had started back with the housekeeper; with Dad finding out about us. All kids pull some pretty sorry stunts, particularly if an older person edges 'em along, so it hadn't needed to mean a thing. But Dad had made it mean something. I'd been made to feel that I'd done something that couldn't ever be forgiven-that would always lie between him and me, the only kin I had. And there wasn't anything I could do or say that would change things. I had a burden of fear and shame put on me that I could never get shed of.
She was gone, and I couldn't strike back at her, yes, kill her, for what I'd been made to feel she'd done to me. But that was all right. She was the first woman I'd ever known; she was woman to me; and all womankind bore her face. So I could strike back at any of them, any female, the ones it would be safest to strike at, and it would be the same as striking at her. And I did that, I started striking out… and Mike Dean took the blame.
Dad tightened the reins on me after that. I could hardly be out of his sight an hour without his checking up on me. So years passed and I didn't strike out again, and I was able to distinguish between women and the woman. Dad slacked off on the reins a little; I seemed to be normal. But every now and then I'd catch myself in that deadpan kidding, trying to ease the terrific pressure that was building up inside of me. And even without that I knew- though I wouldn't recognize the fact-that I wasn't all right.
If I could have got away somewhere, where I wouldn't have been constantly reminded of what had happened and I'd had something I wanted to do-something to occupy my mind-it might have been different. But I couldn't get away, and there wasn't anything here I wanted to do. So nothing had changed; I was still looking for her. And any woman who'd done what she had would be her.
I'd kept pushing Amy away from me down through the years, not because I didn't love her but because I did. I was afraid of what might happen between us. I was afraid of what I'd do… what I finally did.
I could admit, now, that I'd never had any real cause to think that Amy would make trouble for me. She had too much pride; she'd have hurt herself too much; and, anyway, she loved me.
I'd never had any real cause, either, to be afraid that Joyce would make trouble. She was too smart to try to, from what I'd seen of her. But if she had been sore enough to try-if she'd been mad enough so's she just didn't give a damn-she wouldn't have got anywhere. After all, she was just a whore and I was old family, quality; and she wouldn't have opened her mouth more than twice before she was run out of town.
No, I hadn't been afraid of her starting talk. I hadn't been afraid that if I kept on with her I'd lose control of myself. I'd never had any control even before I met her. No control-only luck. Because anyone who reminded me of the burden I carried, anyone who did what that first her had done, would get killed…
Anyone. Amy. Joyce. Any woman who, even for a moment, became her.
I'd kill them.
I'd keep trying until I did kill them.
Elmer Conway had had to suffer, too, on her account. Mike had taken the blame for me, and then he'd been killed. So, along with the burden, I had a terrible debt to him that I couldn't pay. I could never repay him for what he'd done for me. The only thing I could do was what I did… try to settle the score with Chester Conway.
That was my main reason for killing Elmer, but it wasn't the only one. The Conways were part of the circle, the town, that ringed me in; the smug ones, the hypocrites, the holier-than-thou guys-all the stinkers I had to face day in and day out. I had to grin and smile and be pleasant to them; and maybe there are people like that everywhere, but when you can't get away from them, when they keep pushing themselves at you, and you can't get away, never, never, get away.
Well.
The bum. The few others I'd struck out at. I don't know-I'm not really sure about them.
They were all people who didn't have to stay here. People who took what was handed them because they didn't have enough pride or guts to strike back. So maybe that was it. Maybe I think that the guy who won't fight when he can and should deserves the worst you can toss at him.
Maybe. I'm not sure of all the details. All I can do is give you the general picture; and not even the experts could do more than that.
I've read a lot of stuff by a guy-name of Kraepelin, I believe-and I can't remember all of it, of course, or even the gist of all of it. But I remember the high points of some, the most important stuff, and I think it goes something like this:
"… difficult to study because so seldom detected. The condition usually begins around the period of puberty, and is often precipitated by a severe shock. The subject suffers from strong feelings of guilt… combined with a sense of frustration and persecution… which increase as he grows older; yet there are rarely if ever any surface signs of… disturbance. On the contrary, his behavior appears to be entirely logical. He reasons soundly, even shrewdly. He is completely aware of what he does and why he does it…"
That was written about a disease, or a condition, rather, called dementia praecox. Schizophrenia, paranoid type. Acute, recurrent, advanced.
Incurable.
It was written, you might say, about- But I reckon you know, don't you?
23
I was in jail eight days, but no one questioned me and they didn't pull any more Stunts like that voice recording. I kind of looked for them to do the last because they couldn't be positive about that piece of evidence they had-about my reaction to it, that is. They weren't certain that it would make me put the finger on myself. And even if they had been certain, I knew they'd a lot rather I cracked up and confessed of my own accord. If I did that they could probably send me to the chair. The other way-if they used their evidence-they couldn't.