dull red curve was stamped LITTLE GIANT .
Jewell, watching Mernelle sprint up the hill toward the spring with a child’s demonic strength, heard a thick crumpling sound and looked around. Mrs. Nipple was half gone, one leg sunk to the hip in the rotten floor, the other bent like a grasshopper’s, the muscles foldedtight. She hung onto the edge of the sink with one hand, the other clenching the knife. Frightful shrieks came from below.
‘Pull me up, I’m standin’ on him!’ shouted Mrs. Nipple, but before Jewell could reach her, Mrs. Nipple, the pump and the sink descended on Rollo.
‘The little son of a bitch is bruised up pretty bad but he’ll make it,’ said Dub at the supper table. ‘You’d think he’d of been squashed flat with that load comin’ down on him, but it seems like everything fell slow, settled, instead of fell, and the old lady sort of squatted as she landed, so he come out of it pretty good. The old lady’s worse off than him. She got rusty nails in her like a pincushion. They tried to keep her in the hospital for a day or two, but she wouldn’t have it.’
‘When I think how all that rot was layin’ there under that proud housekeepin’,’ said Jewell. ‘There’s a lesson in it.’ Her glasses, lenses spotted and dull, lay on the table. She rubbed at the bridge of her nose where the flesh-colored rests had pinched two red ovals.
‘How’d he get under there, anyway?’ asked Mernelle, remembering the crying and keening, Mrs. Nipple lying in the back of Ronnie’s car with her bloody knees showing at the window, the baby howling in the front seat in Doris’s lap and Ronnie shouting, ‘Get out of the way’ as he skidded down the lane.
‘Crawled under. They figure he went in under the porch steps, farther in under the porch to a narrow place where he couldn’t get turned around, so, since nobody never learned him to crawl backwards, he had to keep goin’ and the last stop on the line was the water pipe under the summer kitchen. Just remember Mernelle, always learn your babies to crawl backwards.’
‘Don’t talk so smart about babies and crawlin’. I remember when you crawled all the way on down to the road through the mud, over a mile, and too dumb to come back,’ said Jewell.
‘No,’ said Dub. Too dumb to keep goin’.’
11
Tickweed
RONNIE, RED-EYED FROM the funeral, leaned over and put the china dog in the center of the table as in a place of honor. The port-wine mark that stained his chin was deep in color, as though he’d rested it in a dish of crushed blackberries.
‘When she see she was goin’,’ he said to Mernelle, mumbling through swollen lips, ‘she said she wanted you to have this. Said that your dog was on the right track sniffin’ at the porch steps. It might of all turned out different if somebody had paid attention to that dog, she said.’ He pushed the dog again with his forefinger, then turned and went out to his car.
Loyal’s alarm clock on the windowsill clacked. They all lookedat the china dog. Its vapid face and impossible pink gloss accused. Mrs. Nipple, silently declaring, if only you had noticed what the dog was trying to show I’d be alive today and not buried in a closed casket because of blood poisoning that turned my face black.
‘I doubt that dog was sniffin’ anything but where some other dog pissed,’ said Mink. He patted Mernelle’s hand twice, the first time she could remember an affectionate gesture from him since the time she was coming down with mumps and was too dizzy and feverish to walk and he carried her up the stairs to her bed. Jewell shoved the dog behind some empty jars in the pantry.
In the afternoon Mernelle walked over toward the Nipples’ place. There was a field at the lower part of their farm where the old house had stood before it burned down. A few coreopsis had escaped from the flower garden and spread unchecked for thirty years until they covered three or four acres of poor land. Mrs. Nipple
Jewell, watching Mernelle sprint up the hill toward the spring with a child’s demonic strength, heard a thick crumpling sound and looked around. Mrs. Nipple was half gone, one leg sunk to the hip in the rotten floor, the other bent like a grasshopper’s, the muscles foldedtight. She hung onto the edge of the sink with one hand, the other clenching the knife. Frightful shrieks came from below.
‘Pull me up, I’m standin’ on him!’ shouted Mrs. Nipple, but before Jewell could reach her, Mrs. Nipple, the pump and the sink descended on Rollo.
‘The little son of a bitch is bruised up pretty bad but he’ll make it,’ said Dub at the supper table. ‘You’d think he’d of been squashed flat with that load comin’ down on him, but it seems like everything fell slow, settled, instead of fell, and the old lady sort of squatted as she landed, so he come out of it pretty good. The old lady’s worse off than him. She got rusty nails in her like a pincushion. They tried to keep her in the hospital for a day or two, but she wouldn’t have it.’
‘When I think how all that rot was layin’ there under that proud housekeepin’,’ said Jewell. ‘There’s a lesson in it.’ Her glasses, lenses spotted and dull, lay on the table. She rubbed at the bridge of her nose where the flesh-colored rests had pinched two red ovals.
‘How’d he get under there, anyway?’ asked Mernelle, remembering the crying and keening, Mrs. Nipple lying in the back of Ronnie’s car with her bloody knees showing at the window, the baby howling in the front seat in Doris’s lap and Ronnie shouting, ‘Get out of the way’ as he skidded down the lane.
‘Crawled under. They figure he went in under the porch steps, farther in under the porch to a narrow place where he couldn’t get turned around, so, since nobody never learned him to crawl backwards, he had to keep goin’ and the last stop on the line was the water pipe under the summer kitchen. Just remember Mernelle, always learn your babies to crawl backwards.’
‘Don’t talk so smart about babies and crawlin’. I remember when you crawled all the way on down to the road through the mud, over a mile, and too dumb to come back,’ said Jewell.
‘No,’ said Dub. Too dumb to keep goin’.’
11
Tickweed
RONNIE, RED-EYED FROM the funeral, leaned over and put the china dog in the center of the table as in a place of honor. The port-wine mark that stained his chin was deep in color, as though he’d rested it in a dish of crushed blackberries.
‘When she see she was goin’,’ he said to Mernelle, mumbling through swollen lips, ‘she said she wanted you to have this. Said that your dog was on the right track sniffin’ at the porch steps. It might of all turned out different if somebody had paid attention to that dog, she said.’ He pushed the dog again with his forefinger, then turned and went out to his car.
Loyal’s alarm clock on the windowsill clacked. They all lookedat the china dog. Its vapid face and impossible pink gloss accused. Mrs. Nipple, silently declaring, if only you had noticed what the dog was trying to show I’d be alive today and not buried in a closed casket because of blood poisoning that turned my face black.
‘I doubt that dog was sniffin’ anything but where some other dog pissed,’ said Mink. He patted Mernelle’s hand twice, the first time she could remember an affectionate gesture from him since the time she was coming down with mumps and was too dizzy and feverish to walk and he carried her up the stairs to her bed. Jewell shoved the dog behind some empty jars in the pantry.
In the afternoon Mernelle walked over toward the Nipples’ place. There was a field at the lower part of their farm where the old house had stood before it burned down. A few coreopsis had escaped from the flower garden and spread unchecked for thirty years until they covered three or four acres of poor land. Mrs. Nipple
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