The Kind One by Tom Epperson Page A

I don’t say that in a boastful way. I think cream cheese is a ghastly stuff, don’t you? The Van der Ebs have unleashed a horror upon the earth, and we must certainly pay for it, if not here then in the Hereafter. Amen.”
    “You’re here with your mother?”
    “
And
father. They’re inside, listening to the Girl You Wont Forget. You know, Sally what’s-her-name.” She finished off the last few drops of champagne, then set the glass down on the balustrade. It immediately tipped over, and I caught it, as she reached in her purse and pulled out a silver cigarette case. I was sorry I didn’t have matches because I would have liked to have lit her cigarette because however drunk and sort of loony she was she was disturbingly beautiful.
    “This is my graduation present, you see,” she said as smoke drifted out of her lightly lipsticked mouth. “This here trip. To Sunny California. I’m a Rumson girl, I was voted ‘Best All-Around Woman’ in the Class of ’34, but now I have to decide what to do with the rest of my life. I’m considering writing an obscure and unpublishable book. Applying Freudian methods of analysis to the masterpieces of American literature.
Moby-Dick
speaks for itself naturally, but what of that sunny innocent boys’ book
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
? It’s not what it seems. Think, for instance, about Tom getting lost with Becky Thatcher in the cave. The entrance to the cave is the vagina. The cave itself represents the dark, unplumbed mysteries of sex. Injun Joe, of course, is Tom Sawyer’s id. The episode is about repression. Injun Joe must die so that Becky Thatcher may remain a virgin.”
    She blew smoke past my ear.
    “How many men have you killed?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “I’m getting goosebumps. Why do you limp? Were you shot in the leg?”
    “No.”
    “I didn’t mean to offend you. I think a limp in a man is awfully attractive. I have an uncle who came home limping from the Great War, and I adore him dreadfully. A limp means, I have been through something difficult, but I am still walking. I am indomitable.
    “You keep looking at my lips. What does that mean?”
    Wondering if I was taking advantage of a crazy person, I leaned down and kissed her.
    She tasted like champagne and cigarettes. She had a lively tongue, and her hands went under my coat and rubbed my chest, and tugged at my tie, and then she whispered: “Officially I’m still a virgin, but that doesn’t mean I’m not quite a creative girl.” I was mulling over what she might mean when with the deftness and speed of a pick-pocket she snatched my gun out of my shoulder holster and then holding it in both hands pointed it at me as she crouched down and backed away giggling uncontrollably.
    “Janet!” I said. “Be careful with that!”
    “It’s so heavy! It’s like a brick!”
    The necking couple was staring at Janet in alarm. The guy said: “That’s not a real gun, is it?”
    There was a flash and a bang, and I heard the bullet whistle past my ear. The necking girl screamed. Janet dropped the gun and it clattered on the terrace. She stared down at it in shock; then she clapped her hand over her mouth and cried: “Oh my God!”
    I quickly moved to pick up the gun and reholster it. The neckers hurried off hand in hand in a huff. A smell of gunpowder hung in the air. Janet’s hand stayed over her mouth, trying to stifle hysterical laughter.
    The French doors opened and Darla came out. She eyed Janet and me like a mother who’s just come in a room where two kids have obviously just committed some rowdy act but she can’t figure out what.
    “What’s so funny?”
    “You didn’t hear it?” I said.
    “Hear what?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Nucky told me you were out here.”
    “Nucky!” snorted Janet.
    Darla looked at Janet with puzzlement and distaste. “Who are you?”
    Janet sighed, and wiped away a tear just under her eye. “‘She wiped away a tear of laughter.’ I’m sorry. I plead guilty to