William Gay - Little Sister Death

She was silent. What Binder had said was true, and Corrie knew it, yet she continued to watch the girl with a kind of annoyed perplexity.

Maybe she saw your picture on the jacket of your novel, Ruthie said.

I doubt it, Binder said lightly. I think it only sold two copies in Tennessee, and they were both sold in Blount County.

Mention of Binder’s book, especially by Ruthie, did not set well with Vern. That looks like a girl I was talking to a minute ago, he said. She may be looking at me.

She may well be, Binder said, grateful to Vern for what must have been the first time in his life. However inadvertent it had been, Vern had taken the pressure off him, but the question was suddenly moot, for the girl turned and walked out into the night.

How about stepping out for a nip? Vern asked Binder.

Not right now, Binder said.

Vern was restless. The three of them seemed to confine him. He was soon up and drifting again, greeting people, shaking hands, like a host to a monstrous party. A rawboned young man in a denim suit asked Corrie to dance. When she smilingly declined he glanced halfquestioningly across the table and Ruthie arose a little unsteadily and took his arm and followed him to the dance floor.

What time is it? Binder asked.

Nearly ten, Corrie said, glancing at her wrist. Binder was instantly sorry he had asked. It had been a long summer. Corrie had patiently been ignored by him while he was writing, and Ruthie’s promised visit and David’s promise to take her to the Labor Day dance had helped her pass time through the sweltering summer. This was supposed to be more than a dance — it was a much-anticipated event. Now they both seemed to be turning sour for no reason.

Hey, you want to dance?

Not right this minute. We better sit here and keep an eye on Ruthie. She’s getting high, I think.

When Ruthie returned, she and Corrie went off to find a ladies’ room. Binder’s head hurt worse. He watched Corrie’s small dark form become swallowed in the crowd. He took four aspirin from a tin and swallowed them with Coke. When he glanced toward the door the flaxenhaired girl was there again, watching him with calm level eyes. He looked away. There was an eerie familiarity about her, as if she were a creation from his fantasies, from his dreams — or worse, he suddenly thought, fearing madness, from the book he was writing. The face was placid and smooth, seemed touched with the remnants of a lost, corrupt sweetness, a doomed innocence, and he knew irrevocably that he wanted her more than he had ever wanted anything. The book, Corrie, life itself.

She was gone before Corrie got back.

Ruthie wants you to go outside and look for Vern, Corrie told him. We didn’t see him anywhere.

Likely he just went outside for a drink, Binder said. I didn’t come here to babysit, he said to himself. Or did I?

He got up, moved through sweating shuffling couples into the night. The people were beginning to oppress him, to smother him, and outside the door he paused and breathed deeply, smelling the sere scent of Indian summer, becoming conscious of the wall of nightsounds beyond manmade noises, the crying whippoorwills and owls somewhere from a nightlocked hollow.

Vern wasn’t in the car. There was a bottle in the front seat. Binder unscrewed the cap and drank, the brandy rushing down his throat like hot sweet fire. Binder looked about. Couples strolled armlinked in the dark, the night seemed alive with them. Beyond the glassed-in cars he could hear their murmuring voices, their faces floating together weightlessly like hungry creatures underwater or in a dream. He could hear a girl’s protesting laughter from beyond the wall of pinewoods. As he turned back toward the building he heard a man’s voice with an undercurrent of threat in it, felt simultaneously a hand on his arm. He stopped.

Hey, the blond girl said. She released his arm, reached a hand up to touch his beard.

Goddammit, Cissie, get over here, a man’s voice said, and turning Binder saw between two parked cars a curious tableau: Vern leant backward across the hood of an orange Firebird, lying there unmoving and lax as if he had fallen asleep in this curious position. There were two men across from him, one draped against a truck door, arms crossed, the other facing Vern, standing almost between his feet. He was the redfaced man in the cowboy hat. He had an open knife in his hand. The girl drifted toward them.

Binder walked back to the car and unlocked the trunk. All he could find was a jack handle. He took it up and went back toward the Firebird, swinging the length of steel in his hands.

What’s going on? Binder asked.

The man in the cowboy hat looked at him levelly. Nothing that concerns you very much, he said.

That’s my brother-in-law.

What kin are you to that tire spud you got there?

Binder looked at it. There was an icy weight of panic at the pit of his stomach, and for a moment he’d forgotten the tire iron. He could feel the heavy dew cold through his sneakers.

Just close friends, he said.

Your friend here is all mouth and beltbuckle, the man said. I was just standin here wonderin what his insides was like.

What’s your quarrel with him?

Why don’t you ast him?

What the hell did you do, Vern?

Vern’s voice sounded thick and peculiar. I never did a goddamned thing, he said. He raised a hand to wipe his mouth. There in the dark the smear of blood looked like ink.

He was foolin with my little sister was what he was doin. He had her out there in his big car feedin her whiskey.

I was talking to her was all I was doin.

Talkin, hell. He had his hand up her dress between her legs. I’m fixin to amputate that hand too, with no more deadenin than what he’s already got in him.

Binder wondered vaguely about the law. Would there be anybody here? A constable, guard? Probably a bouncer was all, and with his luck this probably was the bouncer.

Look, Binder said. I don’t know anything about this, but he didn’t mean any harm. Let him up and he’ll apologize to your sister and I’ll get him in the car and away from here.

You want me to give him to you?

Yes.

All right, which piece do you want first? What are you anyway, his fucking lawyer?

Damn it, I’m trying to be as polite as I know how. I told you he’s harmless.

Harmless, hell. Look at my little sister. She’s simple. She ain’t right in the head. She’s like a kid, and him comin on to her like that, I’d a got there five minutes later he’d be needin a undertaker stead of a lawyer.

He’s drinking, all he saw was a pretty girl.

I never meant any harm, Vern said.

The man stepped back. He closed the knife and lowered it. All right, he said. I want his sorry ass gone. You get him in that slick black car and haul him someplace out of my sight.

Vern straightened, slid off the car hood to the ground. His cowboy shirt had ridden up out of his jeans. He stood tucking it carefully into his belt. He looked as if he might say something.

Just go on and open your mouth one time, the man in the cowboy hat said. He looked at Binder. I ain’t afraid of your goddamned tire spud, either.

Vern sidled away around the front of the car toward Binder. The man in the cowboy hat was watching them contemptuously. Jesus, he said. A hippie and the rhinestone cowboy. What’ll wash up on Sinkin next?

At the car Binder opened the door and waited for Vern to get in. Vern stood stubbornly clinging to the door handle.

You want to get your ass in? I’ll go get Corrie and Ruthie.

You told that son of a bitch I was harmless. The hell I am. I’m not harmless.

All right, Binder said tightly. I apologize. You’re not harmless. You’re a terror among men, and folks tremble at your footsteps. Now, you want to get in?