I’m sorry, but I have to get going.”
“We were just with the parents.” He was still smiling, but now the smile expressed great sad meretricious gravity.
My God, how could he think that I had not heard of that?
“Oh, yes.”
“So you do know about it? You have heard?”
“I don’t know what I’ve heard. I’ll be going now.”
For the first time, his wife spoke. “You’d be wise to keep going until you get back where you came from, Miles. We don’t think much of you around here. You left too many bad memories.” Her husband kept that grave, falsely humble smile on his face.
“So write me another blank letter,” I said, and left them. I recrossed the street and stepped over the nodding drunk into Freebo’s Bar. After a few drinks consumed while listening to a half-audible Michael Moose compete with the mumbled conversation of men who conspicuously avoided catching my eye, I had a few more drinks and attracted a little attention by dismembering Maccabee’s book on the bar, at first ripping out one page at a time and then seizing handfuls of paper and tearing them out. When the barman came up to object I told him, “I wrote this book and I just decided it’s terrible.” I shredded the cover so that he could not read Maccabee’s name. “Can’t a man even tear up his own book in this bar?”
“Maybe you’d better go, Mr. Teagarden,” the bartender said. “You can come back tomorrow.” I hadn’t realized that he knew my name.
“Can tear up my own book if I want to, can’t I?”
“Look, Mr. Teagarden,” he said. “Another girl was murdered last night. Her name was Jenny Strand. We all knew that girl. We’re all a little upset around here.”
It happened like this:
A girl of thirteen, Jenny Strand, had been to the Arden cinema with four of her friends to see a Woody Allenmovie,
Love and Death
. Her parents had forbidden her to see it: they did not want their daughter to receive her sex education from Hollywood, and the title made them uneasy. She was an only daughter among three boys, and while her father thought the boys could pick things up for themselves, he wanted Jenny to be taught in some way that would preserve her innocence. He thought his wife should be responsible: she was waiting for Pastor Bertilsson to suggest something.
Because of the death of Gwen Olson, they had been unusually protective when Jenny said that she wanted to see a friend, Jo Slavitt, after dinner.—Be back by ten, her father said.—Sure, she agreed. The picture would be over an hour before that. Their objections were silly, and she had no intention of being restricted by anyone’s silliness.
It did not bother her that she and Gwen Olson had looked enough alike to be taken, in a larger town—one where everyone’s family was not known—for sisters. Jenny had never been able to see the resemblance, though several teachers had mentioned it. She was not flattered. Gwen Olson had been a year younger, a farm girl, in another set. A tramp had killed her—everybody said that. You still saw tramps, bums, gypsies, whatever they were, hanging around town a day or two and then going wherever they went. Gwen Olson had been dumb enough to go wandering alone by the river at night, out of the sight of the town.
She met Jo at her house and they walked five blocks in sunshine to the theater. The other girls were waiting. The five of them sat in the last row, ritually eating candy.—My parents think this is a dirty movie, she whisperedto Jo Slavitt. Jo put her hand to her mouth, pretending to be shocked. In fact they all thought the movie was boring.
When it was over, they stood on the sidewalk, empty of comment. As always, there was nowhere to go. They began to drift up Main Street toward the river.
—I get scared just thinking about Gwen, said Marilyn Hicks, a girl with thin fair hair and braces on her teeth.
—So don’t think about her, snapped Jenny. It was a typical Marilyn Hicks comment.
—What do you
“We were just with the parents.” He was still smiling, but now the smile expressed great sad meretricious gravity.
My God, how could he think that I had not heard of that?
“Oh, yes.”
“So you do know about it? You have heard?”
“I don’t know what I’ve heard. I’ll be going now.”
For the first time, his wife spoke. “You’d be wise to keep going until you get back where you came from, Miles. We don’t think much of you around here. You left too many bad memories.” Her husband kept that grave, falsely humble smile on his face.
“So write me another blank letter,” I said, and left them. I recrossed the street and stepped over the nodding drunk into Freebo’s Bar. After a few drinks consumed while listening to a half-audible Michael Moose compete with the mumbled conversation of men who conspicuously avoided catching my eye, I had a few more drinks and attracted a little attention by dismembering Maccabee’s book on the bar, at first ripping out one page at a time and then seizing handfuls of paper and tearing them out. When the barman came up to object I told him, “I wrote this book and I just decided it’s terrible.” I shredded the cover so that he could not read Maccabee’s name. “Can’t a man even tear up his own book in this bar?”
“Maybe you’d better go, Mr. Teagarden,” the bartender said. “You can come back tomorrow.” I hadn’t realized that he knew my name.
“Can tear up my own book if I want to, can’t I?”
“Look, Mr. Teagarden,” he said. “Another girl was murdered last night. Her name was Jenny Strand. We all knew that girl. We’re all a little upset around here.”
It happened like this:
A girl of thirteen, Jenny Strand, had been to the Arden cinema with four of her friends to see a Woody Allenmovie,
Love and Death
. Her parents had forbidden her to see it: they did not want their daughter to receive her sex education from Hollywood, and the title made them uneasy. She was an only daughter among three boys, and while her father thought the boys could pick things up for themselves, he wanted Jenny to be taught in some way that would preserve her innocence. He thought his wife should be responsible: she was waiting for Pastor Bertilsson to suggest something.
Because of the death of Gwen Olson, they had been unusually protective when Jenny said that she wanted to see a friend, Jo Slavitt, after dinner.—Be back by ten, her father said.—Sure, she agreed. The picture would be over an hour before that. Their objections were silly, and she had no intention of being restricted by anyone’s silliness.
It did not bother her that she and Gwen Olson had looked enough alike to be taken, in a larger town—one where everyone’s family was not known—for sisters. Jenny had never been able to see the resemblance, though several teachers had mentioned it. She was not flattered. Gwen Olson had been a year younger, a farm girl, in another set. A tramp had killed her—everybody said that. You still saw tramps, bums, gypsies, whatever they were, hanging around town a day or two and then going wherever they went. Gwen Olson had been dumb enough to go wandering alone by the river at night, out of the sight of the town.
She met Jo at her house and they walked five blocks in sunshine to the theater. The other girls were waiting. The five of them sat in the last row, ritually eating candy.—My parents think this is a dirty movie, she whisperedto Jo Slavitt. Jo put her hand to her mouth, pretending to be shocked. In fact they all thought the movie was boring.
When it was over, they stood on the sidewalk, empty of comment. As always, there was nowhere to go. They began to drift up Main Street toward the river.
—I get scared just thinking about Gwen, said Marilyn Hicks, a girl with thin fair hair and braces on her teeth.
—So don’t think about her, snapped Jenny. It was a typical Marilyn Hicks comment.
—What do you
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