James Cain - The Butterfly

It made a lump come in my throat, but I went down to the truck and got in and drove to town. When I got near the White Horse I parked, and went to a window and looked in. She was there, like I knew she would be, dancing with a man I had never seen, and plenty drunk, by her looks. I rubbed my hands on my coat, to wipe off the sweat, and went inside. I didn’t pay any attention to her. I went to a booth and sat down. When a waiter came I ordered a drink and when he brought it I took a sip. Pretty soon I could feel her standing beside me. “Well this is quite a surprise.”

“Oh. Hello, Kady.”

“What are you doing here, Jess?”

“Just having me a corn and Coca-Cola.”

“Since when did you take a drink?”

“Sometimes you need it.”

“When, for instance?”

“Like when you expect to give a girl away, at her wedding, and she runs out on you and leaves you holding the bag there at the church and don’t even come around to tell you why, then you feel like you could drink quite a little.”

“You were at the church?”

“If you were eloping, why couldn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t elope.”

“All right then, get married somewhere else.”

“Does it look like I got married?”

I cut out the thick talk then and really looked at her, and made her sit down across the table from me, and ordered her a drink.

“Kady, we got our lines crossed somehow. I been sick all afternoon, that you would just go off and leave me after all we’d been to each other, but if you didn’t get married, it don’t square up with what I thought. What happened?”

“We’ll begin with what happened to you.”

“Nothing happened to me.”

“You were to follow us in to town in the truck, and instead of that you just disappeared and I can’t get it out of my head that you doing that has some connection with what happened to me.”

“Didn’t you see me wigwag?”

“I didn’t see anything.”

“I went down to get myself a flower to put in my buttonhole from the woods across the creek, and I slipped on a stone and got mud on my shoe. If it was some other time I’d have given it a brush and a grease, but for your wedding I wanted a shine. But when I got back to the house Liza Minden was there, and I knew if she ever saw me I’d be an hour getting her to go, so I went inside and went to the window, where I was behind her and you could see me, and wigwagged at you I was going to town now, instead of later.”

“If you did, I didn’t notice it.”

“You were looking right at me, and nodded.”

“Why did you take the gun?”

“Just in case.”

“Case of what?”

“After what they did yesterday at the funeral how did I know what they might try? It didn’t cost anything to pitch the gun on the truck, so I did. It’s still there.”

“... Did you see Wash?”

“It’s like I told you. I went in to get a shine, and where I got it was a barber shop. I had me a haircut too, and by then it was getting on to one o’clock. I supposed he had started by then, so I went on around to the church to wait for you and him and Jane, when you got there. Nobody was there, but I didn’t think anything of it, and sat down. I waited quite a while before I began to get worried. Then I went around to his hotel and asked for him.”

“When was that?”

“About two o’clock.”

“What did they tell you?”

“That he’d left, with a lady and gentleman.”

By her face, I knew that stead of not believing what I was saying, she was believing it. I shut up then, and talked when she talked to me, for fear I’d overplay it.

“You thought that was me?”

“I thought I wasn’t good enough for you.”

“It was his mother and father.”

“I still don’t know what happened.”

“He just didn’t come.”

“Why not?”

“Do I know?”

“He just walked out on you?”

“I know what happened. Of course I do. They talked it over one last time, his father and that awful mother he’s got, and changed their minds once more.”

“Hasn’t he got a mind of his own?”

“He thinks she’s wonderful.”

We each drank our drink, and had a couple more, and she sat there with a sour little smile on her face, looking into her glass. “Funny life, isn’t it, Jess?”

“Treats you funny all right.”

“Who gives a damn?”

“I don’t like to hear you cuss.”

“Come on, let’s dance.”

“I never danced.”

“I’ll teach you.”

But I didn’t need much teaching, because all we did was stand in the middle of the floor in each other’s arms and swing in time to the music and touch our faces together and sometimes walk around a little bit. She had a hot place around her mouth that crept out until her whole cheek felt like she had fever. I inched her along till we were next to the side door and then I lifted her so we were dancing on the parking lot outside and then instead of our cheeks rubbing it was our mouths.

“Jess, let’s go to a hotel.”

“I’d be afraid.”

“What of?”

“We’d have to say we’re man and wife.”

“Well? You ashamed of me?”

“I hear if they suspicion you at all, like if the man’s a lot older than the girl, they ask you for your certificate. And we haven’t one.”

“You’re a funny guy, Jess.”

“What’s so funny about me?”

“You’re the same old Sunday-go-to-meeting, that thinks we all the time got to be fighting something, and yet you’ve got to pretend it’s something else.”

“No, I’ve changed.”

“Your kisses have.”

“And I have. Honest.”

“And it’s only that you’re scared?”

“We don’t have to be, though.”

“How do we fix it that we’re not?”

“We could get married.”

She gave a whoop, and laughed so hard I thought she’d fall down and I’d have to carry her to the truck. “Jess, you ought to get drunk oftener, so it wouldn’t do such funny things to you. They won’t let us, don’t you know that?”

“Why not? We could say, ‘no relation.’ ”

“Not here, we couldn’t. Everybody knows me, from the drinks I’ve served in this honky tonk. And they know you, from that trial we had, with a big bunch looking at you, and specially all the newspaper and courthouse people looking at you.”

“All right, then, we’ll go to Gilroy.”

“Don’t they make you tell a whole lot of stuff about who your father and mother were and where you were born and all that? Who would I say?”

“... Well, how about saying Moke?”

“What?”

For just that long she sobered up, while she looked at me with the kind of fire in her eye a cat gets in front of a light.

“Listen, Jess, I don’t say I wouldn’t do some crazy things to get you in my arms, because to me you look awful pretty. But don’t ever ask me to say that, and don’t you even think it. Do you hear me? It was bad enough, having him around my own mother, but having to say I was any part of him would be more than I could stand. I asked you, do you hear me?”

“I hear you.”

“What you sulking about?”

“Nothing.”

“Do you want me?”

“I’m crazy for you.”

“Do you want me bad enough, that if I went down there and held your hand in front of some preacher, you would take me, and not have any more foolish talk about fighting things and hollering hallelujah for fear the devil’s going to get you for it?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then couldn’t I make up some names?”

Our mouths came together hot this time, and I thought my heart would pump out of my chest from knowing I wouldn’t have to give her up any more and at last she was mine.