Joe Lansdale - Sunset and Sawdust

When they laid him out on the cooling board in the parlor, his head had turned and the flattened-out load from the bullet rolled out of his mouth and fell bloody on the floor.

She could still see it in her mind’s eye, hear it as it snapped against the floor.

As she lay there, she realized another thing, and it pained her to think it, but she knew it was true, and she had known it for a long time.

Pete had it coming.

He was just like his father. For years now, Jones, which was what Marilyn called her husband, had considered his word gold, even if it was sometimes tin.

Pete was the same.

Jones had blacked her eye more than once-punched her all over, for that matter. Kicked her. Slapped her. And he had raped her. She had never thought of it as rape until now. She thought that was just his way, and the way of a husband.

But now she thought about what Sunset had said and what she had done and she knew it was not just the way of a husband, and if it was, it was a bad way.

She lay for a moment feeling the sweat on her lower back stick to the sheets, thought about how much better it was on the sleeping porch and wondered why they had not slept there tonight. She sat up in bed and looked at Jones. He had not bothered to take her tonight, but that was because of Pete. He didn’t have any lead in his pencil because of it.

Tomorrow, she knew he would hit her. A way to take out what happened to Pete on her. And he would find a way to make it her fault. He always said, “See what you made me do?”

Marilyn got up quietly, padded in her bare feet to the dresser drawer, pulled out a big Singer sewing machine needle, crept quietly into the parlor and looked at her boy lying there.

She had cleaned him up and put some of his father’s clothes on him, had even managed to push his eye back in place and close his lids and cover the hole where the bullet had gone in with candle wax.

For a moment she stood looking at him. She reached out and pushed at his hair to make it look the way it did when it was combed. Then she went outside and looked under the porch. She found what she wanted. Her husband’s fishing tackle box. She got some heavy fishing line out of the box and went back inside. She threaded the sewing machine needle in the dark by touch, went to the bedroom and very carefully removed the blanket from the bed, took to sewing the sheet to the mattress with Jones between them.

She was patient about it, silent and deliberate. When she finished, she had Jones sewed in tight with only his head exposed. She put the needle away, went outside and got the yard rake.

The rake had never been used except to scratch the ground to make it smooth, and now that she thought about that, it seemed silly. She raked the dirt sometimes to keep from going mad, listening to the whine of the saw, the sound of men and mules and clanking machinery, while anticipating her next beating.

Back in the bedroom she studied Jones for a while, then raising the rake, she brought it down hard on his head, trying to imagine she was standing in a watermelon patch busting a melon.

Jones came awake with the first whack, yelled, and she hit him again. His head turned toward her and she hit him once more, this time putting all her weight behind it. He tried to get up but the sewed sheet and mattress held him.

“You’ve hit me the last time,” she said.

“You’re crazy, woman.”

“Been crazy till now.”

She began beating him from head to toe. She beat him until she was too tired to beat him. She rested and he cussed, and she went at it again. Had she been stronger she would have killed him, but she wasn’t that strong and she didn’t spend enough time on the head. She beat at his big body, grunting with every blow, the sound of the strikes echoing through the house like a dusty rug being thrashed.

When she wore out the second time, she went out of there, and when she came back, she had her husband’s double-barrel shotgun.

Jones’ face was red. He was bleeding from his ears and nose and the sheet was spotted with blood.

“You ain’t right, woman,” he said. “You ain’t right on account of Pete.”

She pointed the shotgun at him. “I ought to just go on and shoot you.”

There was something about seeing him over the barrel of the gun, the smell of gun oil in her nostrils, that made her want to pull the trigger.

“What’s got into you?”

“I let you into me, and that gave us Pete. And I let you teach him how to treat women by letting you treat me way you did. Sunset killed him cause she had to.”

“You can’t mean that.”

“She killed him for the reason I ought to done killed you. I ought to not let you treat me this way. Pete might not have been like he was, I hadn’t let you hit on me.”

She cocked back the hammers on the shotgun.

“Now don’t do nothing you’ll regret, Marilyn.”

“I already got plenty regrets.”

She went away, came back with a knife in one hand, the shotgun in the other.

“Now, honey, easy with that,” Jones said.

“Don’t call me honey. Don’t never call me that.”

She cut the sheet with one quick run of the knife, stepped back, flung the knife onto the floor and pointed the shotgun at him.

“Get up. Put your clothes on, take your shoes and socks with you. Don’t come back ’cept to get the rest of your clothes. And don’t make it tonight.”

Jones sat on the edge of the bed. His body was marked with red striping and he was bleeding from numerous wounds. There was a bruise over his right eye that looked like a grease smear.

“You can’t throw me out of my own house.”

“I can shoot you all over it. I can do that. Shoot you here. Shoot you over there. I can handle guns. You know that.”

“You wouldn’t do that, hon-”

“Don’t you dare say it. Put on your pants. Sight of you naked makes me sick.”

Jones took a deep breath and gathered up his pants, stepped into them, pulled on his shirt. He started to put on his socks.

“Do what I told you. Take them socks and shoes with you. Don’t stop for nothing else, or you’ll stop forever.”

“What about Pete?”

“He ain’t going nowhere.”

“The funeral.”

“You’ll hear about it. Come if you want. But don’t never plan on coming back here.”

“It’s my house.”

“It’s as much my house as yours. I earned it, putting up with you. Besides, my daddy owned the mill, and now I own the mill, not you. I’m the one with money.”

“You’re just upset.”

“I’m upset, all right. But I ain’t just upset. I’m real upset.”

“It’ll pass.”

“I don’t think it will, Mr. Jones. I didn’t know I had it wrong until today. Until Sunset killed Pete. I wanted to kill her right then, but it’s you I want to kill now.”

He looked at her as if he might see someone other than who he expected, but finally determined that it was indeed his wife.

He gathered up his socks and shoes.

“I tell you, you’re gonna live to regret this.”

“I ain’t taking another whipping from you.”

“A wife is obedient to her husband.”

“I ain’t your wife no more.”

“In the eyes of God you are.”

“Then he better turn his head.” She put the shotgun to her shoulder, sighted down the barrels.

“Be careful. That gun’s got a hair trigger.”

Jones got up and left the room and she followed him.

“Don’t stop at nothing,” she said.

“I’m gonna look at Pete. You can shoot me if you want. But I’m gonna look at my son.”

“Then look.”

He pulled the dangling string, which turned on the overhead light, stopped by the cooling board, reached out and touched Pete’s face. Before he went out the door he turned, said, “You and that little gal are gonna pay. James Wilson Jones does not forget.”