James Cain - The Butterfly

“That money’s what I want.”

“Then watch it, it don’t get too weak.”

“Then anyway we can have music.”

She had a little radio up there by then, and turned it on, and I didn’t mind, as it would be a long day, watching that stream off the end of the pin.

“And a drink.”

“What?”

“What we making the stuff for?”

“You mean this?”

“Sure.”

She climbed up, got a bottle of Coca-Cola out of the basin the spring ran into, and the tin cup we kept there. When she came down she poured from the jar to the cup, dumped some Coca-Cola in, and handed it to me.

“Taste it, it’s good.”

Now nobody could live their life in mountain country without learning plenty about whisky, but that was the first time I ever tasted it. It tasted like Coca-Cola at first, but then I began to feel good, and wanted another swallow. She had the cup by then, taking a swig, and then was when I knocked it out of her hand.

“There’s to be no drinking in this.”

“I’ll have a drink if I want to.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Will you kindly tell me why?”

“We got work to do for one thing. I get careless with this fire, so it’s too hot, this whole thing could explode so easy you wouldn’t believe it. And later, when it’s dark, we’ve only just begun. We’ve got to lower this spent mash down, so we can feed it to the hogs and not have it all over the place, and we can’t do that or anything if we’re up here drunk. And we’ll get drunk, if we take enough of it. They all do. I’ve seen them. And besides, it’s wrong.”

“You believe all you hear in church?”

“I believe what I feel.”

“For God’s sake.”

Because by then I loved her so much I wanted to be weak, and do what she meant we should do, but my love made me strong too, so I knew I wouldn’t do it. With liquor in me, though, I didn’t know what I would do, or what she could make me do. “You heard me, Kady? That’s one thing we don’t do.”

“I heard you.”

And there came the night when we drove into Carbon City with our first hundred quarts, packed in every bag and sack and poke I could find, and yet all you could hear was glass, rattling louder even than the truck. I thought I would die, and when she left me, after I parked by the railroad, everything from the chirp of crickets to the clank of yard signals just gave me the shivers. After a long time she was back, with a café man, and he had a flashlight, so I wanted to holler at him, and tell him to put it out. But we had it set that she’d do the talking, so I sat there and wiped off sweat. They talked along, and he put the light on a bottle for color, then did some tasting and handed it back. “It might not be so bad, sister, except it’s all full of caramel.”

“O.K. I’ll take it up the street.”

“Can’t you taste it?”

“What would I be tasting it for? I made it, dumbbell. That color’s charcoal, that I burned in the keg myself, as anybody would know except maybe a jerk that hadn’t seen good booze for so long he’s forgot what it’s like. But it’s all right, and no hard feelings. I’ll just take it where they know what it means to have some hundred ten proof in the house that makes blended stuff taste like something, and kick a little bit too.”

“What do you mean, hundred ten proof?”

“Get your tester.”

“Mine’s broke.”

“Then I brought one.”

She got out the hydrometer and let him take a reading. “If you think that gauge is loaded, try a slug yourself.”

He took a swig, while she stood there looking at him so sinful it made me sick to think she was any part of me. Then he took another, and you could see it take hold. “What are you asking for it?”

“Ten dollars a gallon.”

“I’ll give you four.”

“Oh, I’m going up the street.”

“No, wait a minute, let’s talk.”

They closed at six, and I ran them to the alley back of his place, where he went in and got the money and had the bottles carried in. Then she jumped in beside me.

“Come on, Jess, let’s celebrate.”

“What do you call celebrating?”

“Just going somewhere, having a good time.”

“What was the idea, looking at him like that?”

“Well my goodness, I was selling him booze.”

“What else were you selling him?”

“The way you talk.”

We drove under a bridge, then came to a café called the White Horse and stopped. I had never been in a place like that, but I no sooner saw it than I knew it was the kind of place I’d been hearing about all my life, and that it was bad. The lights were low, and on one side was a bar, on the other side booths, and in the middle a place where couples were dancing to slow music that came out of a box at one end, with lights in it. The crowd no sooner saw Kady than they began to yell, and come to find out it was where she used to work. I didn’t thank her when she said she’d brought her old man, and I didn’t offer to shake anybody’s hand. We sat down in a booth and I told the girl two Coca-Colas. “Make mine a rum coke.”

“Two Coca-Colas.”

“Listen, Jess, I want a drink.”

“We’re going home.”

“If you don’t like it here, you can go home, and I’ll stay, and I’m quite sure somebody will take me in for the night.”

So anything that meant she might leave me, that got me, and I shut up. But I was swelling up thick inside.

In the next booth was a girl and two men, that were mine guards from the way they talked, and when one of them and the girl left, the other one got up and asked Kady to dance. She went off with him, and they went to the music box, and their heads were together while they dropped in their nickel. Then they danced, and when the tune was almost over they danced by the box, stopped, and dropped more money in, at least a dozen nickels, one right after the other. Then when a tune stopped, it would be only a few seconds before another one started, but during that time they didn’t stop dancing. They stood there, swinging to the music that wasn’t playing any more, and then when it started again they’d go off. About the third tune, they made signs to the bartender, and he made them drinks that they picked up as they went around, and sipped, and left on the bar. About the tenth tune they were dancing with their faces up against each other, and had forgot their drink. Then they stopped and stood there whispering. Then she came over and picked up her handbag. “I won’t be long, Jess.”

“Where you going?”

“Just for a walk. Get a little air.”

“You’re coming home.”

“Sure. Soon we’ll go.”

“We’re going now.”

The man walked over and stepped between us. “Listen, pop, take it easy why don’t you? — so we don’t have any trouble.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“You’re Kady’s father, so she says.”

“And I’m taking her home.”

“Not unless she wants to go, pop. Now the way she tells me, she feels like taking a walk, and that’s what we’re going to do. So sit down. Don’t get excited. Have yourself a drink, and when her and me get back you’re taking her home. But not before.”

He put on his hat, one of those black felts turned down on one side like a mountain gunman wears, and looked me in the eye. He was tall and thin, and I could have broke him in two, but that gun was what I kept thinking about. A mine guard is never without it, and he knows how to use it, and he will use it. I could feel the blood pounding in my neck, but I sat down. He turned to his booth and sat down.

While we were having that, she had said something to him about the ladies’ room, and gone back there. I sat with my throat pounding heavier all the time, until a door back there opened, and she started walking up to his booth. I don’t remember thinking anything about it. But when she was almost to him, I grabbed that booth partition, and pulled, and it crashed down, and there he was, sprawling at my feet. I was on him even before she screamed, and when that gun came out of his pocket, I had it. I brought it down on his head, he crumpled, I aimed, and pulled the trigger. But I had forgot the safety catch, and before I could snap it off, they grabbed me.