Katherine Dunn - Attic

There are no blue uniforms here. The Sheriff wears tan cavalry twill and a brown tie and rich brown leather holster and cream-color stetson with a brown leather band — stars not shields — boots not shoes — and his great gut hangs all the way over his belt in front — little arrows sewn into the seams of his shirt. When he stands with his back to us he is as wide as three men and his ass is flat all the way to his neck and his trousers tailored with a brown stripe down each leg. One old spade deputy — the token on duty in the kitchen where all the trusties are spades they don’t get pale here. Johnsoninthekitchen is his name. He stands near Rose at mealtimes with his brown skull shining through a fringe of gray wool, his kind old face spilling around a spatula nose. Cigarettes and candy because he thinks it’s his baby or she’s pretty or his wife died three years ago or all the uglies and others. She laughs at him upstairs smoking Camels.

Dorothy is back. The door opens and she walks in. Her head is down. Her hair hides her face. She has a handkerchief in both hands and the hands are flat against her face. She steps in — one step — two steps — the door closes — then fast to 3 cell where she falls into a bunk and shakes with the handkerchief flat under her hands across her face. The lines of her body are all round — round arms above the round belly — and legs curled tight and round in front of her — the knuckles of her hands are red. The bone at her ankle is red. The wet drips from the soles of her shoes onto the brown wool blanket. Everyone except Blendina goes into 3 cell or stands in front of it looking in. Rose and Jean sit down on the bunk on either side of Dorothy. They put their arms around her and stroke her softly. Kathy crouches on the floor in front of her. “What happened honey? What did those mothers do to you? How’s Mac?”

“Mac? Mac he he…he…” Dorothy shakes harder all over — the hard edges of her shoes click against each other. “The old man said I stopped him on the street and lured him into the alley — led him along the dark alley so Mac could jump him and take the money — and they would have let us off on probation but it came out I had a record so they gave me three years and Mac one and he jumped up and said you bitch you slut if it hadn’t been for you I’d be on the streets!” Dorothy’s mouth shows beneath the handkerchief. It hangs away from the gums on the side she is lying on. The clear spittle runs down onto the blanket. Jean’s lips go all the way in. Her jaw is tight. She stands up and pushes out of the cell. She walks out to the far side of the bull pen and walks from the windows to the john and back with her lips tight. She stops and looks at 3 cell. Her lips peel back. Her teeth show hard together. Her right hand makes a fist. It lifts almost to her chin and then comes down fast into her left palm near her waist. There is a loud slapping sound. This happens again. Her lips pop out and pull back and down at the corners. “And they wonder why I hate men!”

I can see it — in the courtroom. He’s probably not much, Dorothy’s man Mac. Dorothy’s not much but she can’t afford to be anything but kind.

Joyce is making yarn octopi. Lavender and yellow, they lie on her bunk braided and tied. She says she’s seventeen and has a baby boy and was living with two guys at once and turning tricks and her old man is a rich Mexican oil man and he sends her letters begging her to come back to him and her mother fucks the judge so she’s going to get released in the custody of her husband and she’s here for bad checks she brought me the Sheriff’s card and afterward when the white A was on my face she said they had had to knock some sense into her too her face is fat and round as a putty moon with dark brown pinpoint freckles. My freckles are dark gold with soft spreading edges.

It was the Greenbriar that day. All across the country if we saw another we’d say “Hsst on a Greenbriar” and the first to say it won. It had rained all night and the cold was deep in the wind. We drove across the bridge and out to Leavenworth dropping people on the way. I was the last. The highway went through a cut in the hills. The north hill was green with a red and white buffed colonial private girls’ school on top — St. Mary’s. The south hill had a blank-walled prison or factory. Between in the valley, on the south side of the highway was the settlement. All black houses in tall dead trees. A mud road turned off the highway and went down. The first house was on the left. There were two boards on bricks in front of the door but the top board was about two feet below the door sill. There was a round neon sign in the window neon red — CARLING. The tar paper peeled around gray tacks. The mud lay even from the road to beyond the house so you couldn’t tell where the road stopped and the yard began. The kind of very wet gray mud that swallows footprints into rain pocks so you can’t tell whether crowds have been passing or nobody. There were no lights anywhere. There were no people in sight up and down the road or by the houses.

I went to the two boards — stood on the second and rapped on the door very sprightly. After a while it opened. There was a tall man with his shoulders hanging in front of him. His belt was high in back and low in front and his belly pressed at it. Gray, all gray but his black face smooth and thick — like a politician’s hiding bones — the bandanna gray on his head like my mother’s when she scrubbed floors or Aunt Jemima. I remember her on the radio when I sat under the table with the long cloth like a pale tent all around.

Hi! I just came over to see ya for a while!

“Come in”—so slow and tired his voice and so slow and low his head when I climbed up into the room. You see I’m in a contest where we get points for having people vote for us my teeth showing all the time we have to get fifty thousand votes and I’ve been working night and day and today’s the last day and I only need twenty more points to win and if I do I get (show the card with the jet on it) a trip to Paris, London or Rome. The house is one room. On the opposite side from the door is a very old cracked dried-up bar. There is a round wood table in the middle of the room. Two backless kitchen chairs are near the table. There are boards nailed to the walls behind the bar for shelves but there is nothing on them. One unopened bottle of Budweiser sits on the shelf. A bulb hangs on a wire from the ceiling everything is gray dusty or muddy. The tar paper on the outside is wrinkling in between the two-by-fours. He bends slowly and places one of the broken-backed chairs up to the table for me. He walks all the way around the table and sits on the other chair and leans forward clasping his hands and resting his arms on the table all the way up to the elbow. Standing at the bar is someone else but his face is too black to see.

The man at the table looks at me gently, listening. And all you have to do to vote for me is look at this list of magazines and pick out your favorites hand him the card. He takes out an old steel wire spectacle frame with the top half of one lens still in place. He stretches the temples delicately over each ear with both hands and lowers the bridge until his left eye is looking through the piece of glass. He lifts the card with the list in huge heavy hands like my second stepfather’s with the nails pink and flat and black at the ends and his hands are black on top and pink at the palms and all the way to the tips of the finger bellies. He holds the card close up to the left eye and closes his right eye and looks at it for a long time. Then he clears his throat, slowly and uncomfortably and says “I like this here huntin magazine.” I have the order blank all ready how do you spell your last name sir? What’s the address here? “L-U-K-E just Mogul Flats just me Mogul Flats.” And would you like the six-year subscription or the eight-year subscription? His breath comes up slow from far away and he looks down through the empty frames at his hands. “Do I got to take a sascription to vote for you Miss?” That’s the way you vote for me Mister Luke and gee look here by choosing Hunting you’ve given me three whole points and I only have seventeen more to go and I win that trip to Paris ’cause that’s where I’m choosin to go Mister Luke, Paris, France. Isn’t it exciting Mister Luke? The long breath comes again as though all the air would come out and not go in again any more. “How much do this sascription cost?” Why it figures out Mister Luke to just twelve cents an issue and you know that’s much cheaper than you could buy it at a newsstand this is a special offer just for this contest and I sure thank you Mister Luke sir for your help in this would it be all right if I sent you a postcard from Paris, France, Mister Luke? Would you sign your name right here Mister Luke? He takes the pen and writes very carefully L-U-K-E. Now for the six-year subscription that’s twelve dollars Mister Luke but I just take six of it with me now and you send the rest in later. “Girl, Girl, Girl, I only got two dollars.” Oh I see Mister Luke well for the two-year subscription it’s only four dollars now and I just take two with me now to show you voted for me and you send the other two whenever it’s convenient and I send in your order and the first two dollars so you don’t have to bother with that and I want to thank you again Mister Luke for helping me out this way It’s something I’ve been working for for a long time Mister Luke You’re sure it would be all right if I sent you that postcard from Paris, France, Mister Luke. He pulls himself slowly to his feet using all his hands and arms on the table and moves to the bar. He lifts the unopened bottle of Budweiser and picks up two paper bills folded neatly in half. They are almost black and patched together with dry yellowed tape. He brings them to me on his open hand with the fingers and thumb flat like when a horse eats from your hand. I take it and oh thank you Mister Luke here’s your receipt and you send this form in with the second payment and then your magazines will start coming in the mail goodbye now Mister Luke and thanks again I’m out the door and prancing through the mud very proud and excited I made a sale.