21

It was Sunday morning. Early-early Sunday morning. Way off somewhere in the country, I could hear a rooster crowing, but I figured he was probably just dumb—or doing it for exercise, because it was at least an hour before dawn.

Yes, sir, it was plumb quiet, and not a creature was stirring, you might say. Except for me, shifting my buttocks a little on the bed now and then so’s I would stay comfortable. And except for Rose.

She was out in the kitchen, it sounded like, fixing herself a cup of coffee. Then there was a clatteryclash, and I reckoned she must have thrown the cup against the wall, and then I heard a mumbled string of words that had to be curses.

I yawned and stretched. I sure was needing some sleep, but I guess I’m always in need of sheep like I’m always in need of food. Because my labors were mighty ones—oh’ Hercules didn’t know what hard work was—and what is there to do but eat and sleep? And when you’re eatin’ and sleepin’ you don’t have to fret about things that you can’t do nothing about. And what else is there to do but laugh an’ joke. . . how else can you bear up under the unbearable?

It was a cinch that cryin’ didn’t do no good. I’d tried that before in my agony—I’d cried out as loud as a fella could cry—an’ it hadn’t done no good at all.

I yawned and stretched again.

Sunday in Pottsville, I thought. Sunday in Pottsville, an’ my sweetheart is going to leave me, and I hope it don’t grieve me. My eyes plumb deceive me, an’ no one’ll believe me.

And I thought, god-dang it, Nick, if you didn’t already have your work cut out for you, you could be a poet. The poet laureate of Potts County, by dang, and you could make up poems about piss tinkling in pots and jaybirds with the bots and assholes tying knots and . . .

Rose came in, and stood beside my bed.

She looked down at me, biting her lip, her face twisted like a handful of clay that a baby has played with.

“I just want to tell you one thing, Nick Corey,” she said. “And don’t think you’re not getting off lucky, because I’d be doing a hot more than talk to you if I could. I’d see you swinging by your neck, you dirty bastard. I’d tell about you killing Tom, and goddam you, I’d laugh my head off when they strung you up, an’—an’—”

“I thought you were just going to tell me one thing,” I said. “Seems to me like that’s about a dozen.”

“Screw you! I’m not going to tell you what I was going to say because I’m a decent woman. But if I wasn’t, you know what I’d say? You know what I’d do to you, you rotten son-of-a-bitch? I’d heist a leg and pee in your ear until it washed out that stinking pile of crap you call brains!”