William Gay: I Hate To See That Evening Sun Go Down: Collected Stories

Choat did not even skip a beat in his flailing. He fetched Ludie a blow or two and turned his attention back to the girl. She was on her knees with her arms locked about her head and face and the old man could see by moonlight her naked back laced with thick red welts.

Hold it, Meecham yelled. He had the window raised and the pistol barrel resting on the sill. He raised it pointed into the yard.

Choat whirled, the hose hanging limply at the end of his arm. He looked confused for a moment, as if he couldn’t fathom where he was or what he was doing with the hose or why somebody was pointing a two-foot pistol at him.

You nosy bastard. I might of knowed you’d put into this.

I’m tired of watchin you beat folks, Meecham said. That’s a child there, not a dumb brute. You raise that hose one more time and if what passes for a brain in you is big enough to hit then I aim to lay a slug in it.

You ain’t got the balls, Choat said.

Meecham lowered the pistol and fired and when the bullet thocked into the ground a little divot of earth flew and showered Choat’s bare feet. Choat dropped the hose and stepped abruptly back.

I aim to law you too, first thing in the mornin. There’s bound to be laws about beatin young girls with garden hoses.

Choat opened his mouth to speak. Then he closed it. Finally he said, You’ll regret this, Meecham. You’ll be sorry ever day of your life you shot towards me.

Meecham waved the pistol barrel. Get this circus out of my yard so a man can get some sleep.

THE NEXT DAY was a veritable beehive of activity on the Choat place. In the morning the old man drove into town. He was back before noon seated on a Coke crate in the shade of the catalpa like a spectator awaiting the onset of some bizarre show.

Shortly after noon a white service truck with SOUTH CENTRAL BELL on the side drove into the yard and a man with a toolbox got out and went into the house. Meecham guessed they were having the phone hooked up and he was pleased at this for once he was back in his own house he might have need for a telephone.

Then in midafternoon a dusty Plymouth from the sheriff’s department pulled up and a deputy in cop’s khaki got out with a folded paper in his hand. He went up the steps. Choat explaining, making expansive hand gestures. How this was all just some misunderstanding. All this in silent pantomime. Finally he gave up and got in the car and the deputy slammed the door and they drove away.

Almost immediately Ludie and the girl followed in the Choat car. None of them looked at him. It was quiet the balance of the day until just before dark when the Choat family returned. Choat himself was driving. He got out with a six-pack of beer under his arm. He unlocked the trunk and took out a red five-gallon can and lifting one-sided with its weight strode to the porch. When he set the can on the porch he turned and gave Meecham a look so malevolent the old man expected tree leaves to char and the grass around him to burst into flame. Choat turned and trudged on to the house.

MEECHAM THAT NIGHT had difficulty in falling asleep. He’d found an old man’s sleep chancy at best but tonight he had begun thinking about Ellen and try as he might he could not get his mind off her. He remembered when they were young, when they couldn’t keep their hands off each other and the nights were veined with heat. The way he wore Aqua Velva shaving lotion to this day because she had liked the smell of it when they were going together. Then the swift inevitable squandering of days and the last time he saw her alive.

It was on a Saturday and they were getting ready to go to town. He was in a hurry to get to a cattle sale and she kept dragging around. Trying to decide this dress, that dress, something. I just don’t know which one to wear.

Well, you best be for wearin one of them, Meecham said. I’m goin out to the truck and if you’re not there in five minutes I’m gone and you’ll have the rest of the day to make up your mind.

He had laid his pocket watch in the seat beside him and when five minutes were gone he cranked the truck. He saw her hand pull aside the kitchen curtain, her face lean palely to the glass. Then he drove away.

He’d done such things a thousand times with no payoff but this time the cards fell wrong. When he returned she was dead on the kitchen floor with one glazed eye studying the linoleum as if there was some profound message encoded there.

When finally he slept he dreamed of her, strange tortured fever dreams a madman might have. He was in the undertaker’s office and they were discussing arrangements. Backhoe fees, the price of caskets. They were sitting on opposite sides of a limed oak desk and the undertaker was backlit so starkly his vulpine face was in shadow, just the sinister suggestion of a face. The light gleamed off his brilliantined hair. Curving horns grew out of his skull like bull’s horns and his yellow eyes seemed to be watching Meecham out of thick summer bracken.

Of course, there’s an option we haven’t considered, the undertaker said. We could animate her.

Animate her?

Of course. It’s a fairly expensive process but it’s done frequently. The motor functions would be somewhat impaired and the speech a little slurred, but it’s immeasurably preferable to the grave. As I said, it’s done regularly, mostly for decorative purposes.

Then animate her, Meecham cried. He was hit by a wave of joy, an exalted relief so strong it made him lightheaded. He would not have to give Ellen up at all, an animated Ellen was immeasurably preferable to the grave.

Then it’s settled, the hollow voice said out of the bracken.

Meecham dreamed he turned over and his arm lay across the animated Ellen and he abruptly awoke.

Animate her, he was saying aloud. He was crying, tears were streaming down his cheeks, he could taste them hot and salty in his throat.

The dog was lying on the edge of the old man’s pillow. Its fierce little teeth were bared and its eyes bulbous and its tongue swollen and distended. There was a piece of plowline knotted around its neck and the covers were tucked neatly about its chin.

Jesus Christ, Meecham said. He jerked backward, forgetting the cot was scooted against the wall, and slammed the back of his head against the window frame. He sat rubbing his head for a moment then he crawled over the foot of the bed and fumbled his pocketknife out of his pants.

He cut the plowline and sat massaging the dog’s chest. The body was still warm and limp but it quickly became obvious the dog was not going to take another breath. Meecham was seized with enormous sorrow. He had killed the dog as surely as if he had knotted the plowline himself. If he had left well enough alone the dog would still be fighting over scraps in Thurl Chessor’s front yard.

He laid the dog on the floor and got the pistol out of the night table and cocked it and went through the house making sure Choat was not hidden somewhere watching. Hoping all the time that he was. The house was empty. By the time he had replaced the pistol and made his morning coffee on the hot plate he had come to see things in a different light. He was still going to make Choat pay but he had come to see Nipper as more than a dog. Nipper was a sacrificed pawn in a game that he and Choat were playing, and Choat had simply upped the ante.

THERE WAS NO TAXIDERMIST in Ackerman’s Field that Meecham could locate but he heard of one in Waynesboro and so drove there. As deer season was still months away this was a slow season for taxidermy, but the process was more involved than he had thought and he had to stay overnight in a motel. The bill for preparing and mounting the dog was one hundred and seventy-five dollars but the old man counted it out with a willing hand. He knew he was spending money like a furloughed sailor but he figured every nickel he threw away would be a nickel that Paul could not get his pale manicured hands on. In fact the old man wished that Paul could have been with him. He would love to tell Paul that he had paid a taxidermist a hundred and seventy-five dollars to stuff a ten-dollar dog for no other reason than to aggravate Lonzo Choat.