Joe Lansdale - Sunset and Sawdust

Wasn’t she didn’t want folks there because they might see her drunk. She didn’t want them because they might interrupt her drinking. Or she might have to put clothes on, being as she liked to drink naked, though she was prone to wearing one shoe from time to time. She once told Henry it made her feel closer to nature doing her drinking that way. Like maybe at birth everyone was squirted out with a birthday suit and a fifth of whisky, and one shoe.

Henry didn’t like seeing his wife naked. She had been sweet when young, a lean-limbed woman with a peach between her legs. Now, when she sat, or when she stood for that matter, she looked like a pile of something, and the peach between her legs had become a rotten persimmon.

Still, he preferred her drunk. Kept her out of touch. Back when she was in touch, she always seemed on the verge of a hysterical fit or a case of the vapors. Always on him about some damn woman he was giving the eye, or about his own drinking, which was minimal to hers, or about his clothes, or how his hair had gone gray, as if he could help it, and did he have to carve the bunions off his feet with a pocketknife.

The alcohol had burned all that out of her.

She quit complaining.

She hadn’t even complained when she heard her kin, Jones, had been shot by his wife. She was so far gone she just said, “Who?” Didn’t attend the funeral. Stayed home naked and drunk, wearing that one shoe, scratching her back and no telling what else, with a stretched-out wire coat hanger.

Henry hoped his wife didn’t have a lot of world time left. Hoped the time she did have she would stay drunk. Drinking all the time, he figured she was doing bad things to her liver. You can’t live long with a bad liver. He’d always heard that, and he was counting on it. He had noticed a kind of yellow look to her complexion of late, and thought it might be due to some kind of jaundice from drinking. Then again, it could be from irregular bathing. The rolls of fat certainly held the odor, and sometimes when she moved, it was like shaking out a huge rug that had been wadded and mildewed.

But now the meeting was on Henry’s mind. Not a pleasant matter, but more pleasant than thinking about his wife. He hadn’t pushed the matter of the meeting before because of Jones. Didn’t want to replace Pete too quick, as if he had never mattered. Not with Jones being a prominent person at the mill and in the camp, and his wife being someone who owned a large portion of the mill. That wouldn’t be smart.

But now it was time, and Henry, along with the elders, decided to pursue the matter.

Jones was at his desk in the Big Saw House. His desk was not far from the saw, and Jones stuck cotton in his left ear, which faced the saw, to pacify the noise. At the end of the day, when the saw was turned off, it took an hour to stop hearing the grind of it.

When the elders came in, Jones turned his right ear toward them, listened carefully, nodded, went back to his paperwork. The elders, who had brought the proposition to him, this business about a new constable and how the camp needed to decide on someone and vote, stood for a while waiting for Jones to respond, until they realized he was no longer paying attention and had forgotten they were there.

Quietly, Henry and the others went out, shaking their heads.

Out of earshot, Henry said, “He’s popped his top.”

They hadn’t been gone fifteen minutes when Jones finished up the last of his paperwork, some lumber orders for a town in Oklahoma, got up and wandered over to where the great circular saw was cutting pine with a loud buzz and a spray of sawdust and splinters.

Jones watched it whirl and cut for a long time. Watched as men loaded logs on the conveyor and the logs were split by the saw and they fell to each side and were moved along to be planed and prepared. He thought about Sunset, thought about Marilyn and Karen, but mostly he thought about Pete. It was on a day like this, hot and lazy, when the blood ran slow, that he had liked to take Pete fishing.

Jones wished Pete were alive so they could go fishing now. He would throw down everything if he could go fishing one more time with his son.

Jones was glad now that Sunset had shown no interest in him. He had hoped at some point she would let him into her pants. He thought his boy had made a mistake marrying Sunset, coming from the background she had, though he could understand why he would want to, way she looked, those long sleek legs, that fiery red hair, those fine, high titties. He thought maybe she would give it up for him the way she had for his son, but she didn’t. Surprised him by taking her wedding vows seriously.

Now, all things considered, he was glad she had resisted him. He didn’t like to think he might have taken pleasure from the pink little wound of a woman who killed his son.

In the last couple of days, he had gone from being sharp with grief to being dull with it. He felt like something small trapped in a corked bottle, a moth beating against the glass while the air was breathed up.

When a new pine log rolled onto the conveyor belt, Jones carefully removed the cotton from his left ear and climbed on top of the log and lay down on his back as if to nap, head toward the saw. He lay there and felt the hard bark through his shirt, listened to the saw whine. It made his eardrums throb, but he did nothing to protect them. He found he was pushing his head hard against the log, trying to see the blade by looking back, but he couldn’t see it. He finally closed his eyes and the sound of the saw grew, became so loud he thought his eardrums would burst. He heard a man yell and heard men running toward him and he felt the log beneath him start to split as it went into the saw and he felt sawdust on his face and he knew he had won and that the great teeth of the saw would give him rest before the men could reach him.

By the time it was realized what he was doing, Jones was in the saw. The mew of the saw on skull and meat sounded different from the way it sounded when a log was cut, and unlike a log, it didn’t cut smooth. The blade caught Jones’ skull and whipped him around, snapping his neck. The lower part of his body swung into the blade. The saw teeth got hold of his khakis and snatched them off and wadded them up. The saw jammed, spraying Jones all over the Big Saw House. The saw screeched and wobbled and started to come loose, then someone who was thinking jumped for the switch and cut it off. When the saw died the air was so still it hurt the men’s ears as much as the whine of the blade had.

Zack, who worked with a great hook on a long pole to feed the logs onto the conveyor belt, saw it happen. For years after, he said a man’s sap sprayed even worse than a fresh pine log. He helped get what was left of Jones out of the saw with his hook and his bare hands. Later, he got the job of cleaning and re-oiling the saw. He found Jones’ wedding ring caught up on one of the teeth. It was hooked there as if it had been placed carefully for safekeeping while Jones washed his hands or wiped his ass.

Zack thought about giving it to Mrs. Jones, then thought it might be better to take it into town and sell it. But if someone found out he sold the ring, it could go bad for him. So he put the ring in one of Jones’ boots after removing what was left of ankle and foot. Interestingly enough, both boots were in good shape. No cuts or tears. Just bloody inside.

Later that night, at home, Zack thought about the beating Pete had given him and the way Jones had made him carry the body back. He thought about the ring again and wished he had kept it.

A week later, when Zack found a chunk of Jones, possibly a testicle, under a log fragment in the mill house, he kicked it around a while before using a stick to toss it out to the one-eyed stray cat that hung around the mill.