A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

paper had a penchant for covering murders in detail. A man had tried to break in to his ex-girlfriend's family's house. When the father and brother chased after him, they happened to leave open the heavy front door, which gave him access after he eluded them. He got in, and the girl hid in a bedroom. Then she came out, apparently hoping to calm him down, and he grabbed her and dragged her into another bedroom and slammed the door.

    When the family and the police managed to get that door open (a matter of seconds) they found him stabbing her with a long knife. The police shot him in the head.

    I said, "The paper went into a lot of detail."

    Ty said, "Yes, but there were just so many things about it that didn't have to be. I keep rewriting it in my head. Remembering to lock the door behind you, for one.

    "In a city," said Jess, "the door would have locked behind them automatically."

    Ty said, "Anyone could be that father. Anyone could just react by trying to chase the guy, thinking you could do it. Being that mad."

    I said, "It was like the movies, where somebody just throws off all his enemies with superhuman strength. Isn't there some drug that gives you that kind of strength?"

    Jess said, "Yeah, adrenaline."

    Ty leaned back against the railing. "I just couldn't shake the images all day yesterday. Today, too. What they must have seen when they opened the bedroom door."

    We mulled this over. I looked atJess once, wondering if we seemed naive to be so interested in something like a murder. In cities they had murders all the time. I said, "I wonder what she thought she was doing, going out to meet him.

    Jess stood up and stretched out his arms. I could hear his shoulders crack. He said, "I'm sure she thought he couldn't really want to hurt her."

    I stood up. "What a way to end a pleasant evening." Ty looked a little sheepish, and Jess smiled. He said, "Things come up.

    After brief good nights, I went into the house, and it was true, there was a privilege to perfunctory farewells-we would resume our conversation tomorrow or the next day. When Ty came in from his bedtime check, he said what I was thinking-"Actually, it would be more fun to have Jess closer than my old place."

    "If he were actually farming, there probably wouldn't be all that much time or energy for socializing."

    "We'll see."

    THE NEXT NIGHT, Jess showed up again, this time on his own, after supper, then Rose called to tell me she would make breakfast for Daddy, since she was leaving early anyway to go pick up Linda and Pammy down in West Branch, which was about a four-hour drive. I did not ask her if she felt well enough to drive all that way, because she wouldn't have told me the truth, and would have been annoyed. I did suggest that she and Pete come over. We talked about playing cards, poker maybe, or bridge, with one person sitting out, but then Rose had an idea, and showed up with an old Monopoly game, and that's how the tournament started, the Million Dollar World Series of Monopoly, that lasted two weeks or so and that none of us could keep away from, in spite of all the work to be done.

    We gathered every night and played at least a little. One night, Ty even dozed off at the table, but when he woke up, he made two or three more moves and bought Pacific Avenue before going up to bed.

    I wonder if there is anyone who isn't perked up by the sight of a Monopoly board, all the colors, all the bits and pieces, all the possibilities. Jess was the race car, Rose was the shoe, Ty was the dog, and I was the thimble. Pete was torn between the wheelbarrow, which he had won with twice, and the mounted horseman, which had more zip, though with that one he had lost twice. Pete was determined to win. It was Pete, actually, who proposed adding the scores of the games, throwing in bonuses for certain strategies and pieces of luck, and shooting for a million dollars of Monopoly money. There would be a prize, too, a hundred dollars, if we all put twenty into