James Purdy: In a Shallow Grave

I sat down then under a little scrub pine, and waited for old Sol to sink like an immense egg yolk into the black skillet of clouds.

Then I heard the pine needles move and Quintus was kneeling down by me, his book in his hand, and went on reading to me. I was too stunned by this mutiny on the part of both my hired men to say a word but sort of eavesdropped you might say on what he was reading, and the thought that neither he nor I really understood what the book was saying sort of struck me funny, though that was the whole point of choosing this kind of book. I required reading that would not make too much sense and would keep down the terrible pain that rises up from my lower guts and is followed by dizziness and lightheadedness, but I think Quintus loved to read things which didn’t have any meaning or relevance to him either, but anyhow he read a sentence that late afternoon that kind of left a lasting impression on me, if not him:

“It is a remarkable fact that the three chief natural elements, water, air, and fire, have neither taste, smell nor any flavor whatsoever.”

“Read that once again, Quints,” I commanded him. But Quintus went right on with the next sentence, informing me,

“In the meantime we find that there are ten kinds of flavors, sweet, luscious, unctuous, bitter, rough, acrid, sharp, harsh, acid and salt.

“My day’s work is up!” Quintus said, looking at an old pocket watch.

“Do you know something, Quints?” I began. “I think Daventry is . . . is . . . is . . .”

Quintus took off his store glasses and blinked at me.

“What do you think, Quintus?” I said finally, looking off into the now dark west.

“I think you think,” he began in a kind of sassing way, “I think you think they sweet on one another without they having had any time yet for even getting acquainted.”

And then gazing at me with his big almond-shaped eyes, he began nodding again and again at me until at last irritated with this repeated movement I took hold of his head in both my hands and held it quiet like I was stopping the pendulum of a clock.

I don’t know what time Daventry came home that night, I had drifted out to dreamland, I was dreaming about a black woman who had come in to make me a pan of rice, and she was having trouble getting little brown specks out of it which she said had to be removed before she could serve it to me.

Then gradually out of this dream I felt the warmth of a human presence next to me, and not opening my eyes for fear—well, yes, just for fear—I gradually moved my fin­gers, which by the way had burst open again owing to my injuries, revealing, if one cared to look, the bones, anyhow my fingers moved over and found a hand on my coverlet, and the hand closed over my fingers. I did not need to open my eyes to know it was Daventry.

“There is something troubling me,” he began, “and I got to confide to somebody. Will you hear me out?”

“You’ve made love to the Widow Rance, haven’t you?” I whispered, but for some reason I let him go on holding my hand, though his powerful grip hurt the flesh.

“Oh, are you raving. That ain’t what is on my mind, Garnet, at all.”

“But I can tell by the way you paused there is something between you two.”

“Well, she did kiss me good night.” His voice was sultry and distempered as he got this out.

“You see,” I cried, throwing off his grasp, but he took my hand again in his and held it.

“I can’t ever love again, Garnet,” he started up again. “So be easy. I got to get this confession off my chest mean­while.”

“You don’t love the Widow Rance?”

“No, of course not. How could I love anybody after what I done, and after what may happen to me?”

“Why don’t you love her when she is so luscious beauti­ful?” I wondered, working myself up.

“Listen here, Garnet. When I was in Utah, I had this terrible fight with two men come up to me one night be­hind the Ebenezer Baptist Church, which adjoins my father’s sheep ranch. They jumped me, Garnet, with knives. I think they mistook me for somebody else. They didn’t want my money. They simply said,‘ The world isn’t big enough for us with you in it . . .’ Garnet, are you listening to me?”

“Just tell me outright you didn’t have the Widow Rance tonight.” I leaned up on one elbow.

“Oh, Garnet, God Awmighty, how could I love any­body when I’ve got this heavy burden?”

“Did you lose your teeth in this fight?” I questioned on. He nodded or maybe he shook his head, though it was so dark it was more by the way the air moved as he whirled his long head of hair than by my seeing him do so.

“Well, then, what happened behind this church?” I pursued the subject dispiritedly.

“I killed both of them, Garnet. But I didn’t know I had it in me to kill. I killed them so thorough, don’t you see? Like a executioner, trained and true.”

“But if it was your life or theirs, Daventry . . .” He had laid his head now down over my chest, and went on like this. “Maybe,” he began again, “I was brought up too religious, I don’t know, yes of course you’re right I killed in self-defense, didn’t I? But when I laid them out there on the ground killed with their own knives—I stood a long time over their bodies, and I will never get over it, not if I live to . . .”

“If you’re that religious will you swear on the Holy Bible you did not enjoy her body tonight, Daventry?”

He shook so with sobs then and he was laying across me like I was his last refuge that for a minute I did not realize what was happening. For the first time since I had been ruined and stained like mulberry wine, another human being had forgot how horrible I am, and was touching me and hugging me and asking for comfort, forgetting how I look like some abortion or night-goblin, though as I told you before, in the dark somehow I am sort of good-looking again.

I raised him up and got out of bed to get the Bible, and when I came back I lit the lamp, and held the book open for him. Even when the lamp came on, though, he did not seem to see me as nauseous this time, he put his hand on the book and swore he had not touched the body of the Widow Rance. I did not ask him if he would later.

He slept sort of on my chest all night, but waking every now and again to tell me he could not bear the weight of having killed these two young men.

“Well, what about me?” I finally cried, and raised his head up and looked at him in the eyes.

“Well,” he whimpered, waiting.

“I have killed over a hundred.”

“I see,” he sobbed. “But they’re not coming after you for it, on account of you was sent to do it in line with your duty as a soldier.”

“They’re not coming after you either,” I said firmly. I put my hand in his hair, and it was sopping wet with sweat. His tears also had wet my nightshirt through and through.

“God will come for me though,” he said at last, and those words froze my spine. My jaw trembled, and I felt cold all over.

I smoothed his hair, and finally, well, since he was the only one who had dared touch me, for the doc had done it oh so gingerly, for it was like touching the insides of a man, so that the doc had said once (I guess more in pity than revulsion), “ Well, Garnet, you look like an open anatomy chart, one can see all your veins and arteries moving with their blood. ”

“Daventry,” I began after a long silence, and the words I spoke coming in fact as a considerable surprise to myself, “if the Widow wants you, you can let her have you . . . I won’t be jealous.”

“I couldn’t. I couldn’t. You know that I can’t.”

“Yes, you can,” I comforted him. “You are my only friend. Maybe God sent you to me . . . Daventry, you killed in self-defense, and that was way back in Utah. What sort of men was they, by the way?”