The Kill-Off (8 page)

I cannot say why, exactly, but I am confident of one thing. It was not a matter of resentment.

I did not blame him, an innocent child, for my own tragic and irremediable error.

If I could lay the whole truth before him, I might be able to make him understand. But naturally I cannot do that. It is impossible for him to be absolutely sure of the truth. He may guess and suspect and think, but he cannot
know.
He can only know if I admit it, so of course I never will.

Probably, he wouldn’t understand, anyway. He wouldn’t allow himself to. He is too selfish, too filled with self-pity—yes, despite his arrogant manner. If he understood, he could not play the martyr. He would have no justification for his vileness and viciousness—assuming, that is, that it could be justified. For certainly, whatever I may or may not have done, such conduct could never be justified.

I don’t know how such a—a
creature
could be my son.

I don’t know what to do about him.

I have no control over him whatsoever. I can’t—and he knows I can’t—appeal to the authorities for help. And, no, it isn’t because of the scandalous, fiendish lies he would tell. I can be hurt by scandal, of course; in fact, I have been hurt. But not greatly. I am too thoroughly entrenched here. Everyone knows too well where Dr. James Ashton stands, and what he stands for.

I have not taken the stringent measures (which I doubtless should have) because I love him. I can’t cause him hurt, regardless of how much he deserves it. Also, as you may have surmised, I am afraid of him.

It is a hideous thing to live in terror of one’s own son, but I do. I try to keep it concealed, to carry on, to maintain some semblance of father-and-son relationship, but it is becoming increasingly difficult. I am terrified of him, more and more every day. And he is very well aware of the fact. I have the frightful feeling at times that he can read my mind. At times, I am almost sure that he can. He seems to know what I am going to do even before I know it myself. Nonsensical as it sounds, he
does
know. So, I have not taken the steps which I doubtless should have. I have avoided seriously contemplating such steps. He would kill me before I could carry them out.

He is capable of it. He has threatened to—to kill both Hattie and me.

To be fair to him, if that is the right word, he has made no such threats recently. There were occasions recently when I was hopeful that he might be coming to his senses. But…

About three weeks ago, I thought I saw signs that he was losing interest in that degrading yard work. He was leaving later in the mornings, returning earlier at night. He apparently felt—I thought—that he had cheapened me all he could by doing such work, and was now on the point of dropping it.

I asked him to do so. “Not on my account,” I said. “I know it’s useless to appeal to you on those grounds. Just do it for yourself. Just think of what it looks like for a boy of your background, and intelligence to—”

“I’m considering it,” he said. “I may possibly do it, if you don’t urge me to it.”

“Well, that’s fine,” I said. For, God pity me, there was some comfort—a relative lot—in even such an insolent, heartless reply as that. “You don’t have to do that kind of work, or any work. I’ll be delighted to give you any money that you need.”

“Don’t be offensive,” he said. “Don’t bother me.”

He said it quite mildly. I felt considerably encouraged.

Then, I came home the following night to find every drawer, every cabinet, in my office had been opened and rummaged through. No, he hadn’t broken them open. He had simply picked all the locks.

Now, he was seated in my chair, his feet up on my desk, absently smoking a cigarette.

I was so angry that for a moment I forgot my terror. I told him that he had better explain himself, and promptly, or he would have serious cause to regret it.

“Where is the stuff?” he said. “In your safety-deposit box?”

“It’s where you’ll never—what stuff?” I said. “I’ve warned you, Bobbie, you—”

“I had an idea it was,” he nodded. “Well, it looks like I’ll just have to buy some.”

He got up and started to leave. I grabbed him and whirled him around. “You rotten, filthy scum!” I said. “I’ll tell you what you’ll do, and what will happen to you if you don’t! You’ll—”

“Let go of me,” he said.

“I’ll let go of you! I’ll drag you straight down to the courthouse! I’ll—”

I let go of him suddenly. The fiendish sadistic whelp had crushed his cigarette into my wrist.

“Don’t ever do anything like that again,” he said calmly. “Do you understand me, father?”

“Bobbie…son,” I said. “For God’s sake, what do you want? What are you trying to do? That—that girl—”

“Don’t interfere with me,” he said.

He drove into the city the next day. He has made one other trip in since then. For what purpose, I needn’t explain.

How he manages it I don’t know. How a seventeen-year-old boy in a strange city can promptly locate a narcotics peddler and make a purchase, I don’t know.

Perhaps he doesn’t buy it. God—and I know I’m being ridiculous—he may make it! I have an insane notion that he could, if he wanted to. Anything that is mean and vicious, rotten, cruel, filthy, senseless…!

He is still doing the yard work, of course. Degrading himself, playing the flunkey, to buy dope for her.

If I could discover his motive, I might be able to do something. But what possible motive could he have? The girl is completely undesirable. As intelligent and handsome as he is, he could have his way with virtually any girl in town, without the deadly risk he is running. For it is a deadly one. It would be so, even without the complication of narcotics. Pete has only to find them together—in a certain way—and that will be the end.

Pete will kill him. Pete might even kill me.

I have almost driven myself crazy wondering what to do, but I can think of nothing. I can only wait, go on as I always have and wait—watch helplessly while doom approaches.

And Luane is responsible. Bobbie was always somewhat peculiar, withdrawn, but except for that sluttish old hypochondriac it would never have happened.

I broke with her last week. I may have to tolerate him, but I do not have to put up with her.

I told her there was nothing at all wrong with her, that I would not under any circumstances visit her again, that if she wanted a doctor she would have to call another (the nearest is twenty miles away). Then I walked out, leaving her to whine and complain to her own filthy self.

I should have done that long ago. I forbore only because it might seem that I was bothered by her slander, and thus lend weight to it.

Bobbie seemed pleased when I mentioned the matter casually at the dinner table.

“That was very wise of you,” he said. “I’d expected you to do it sooner.”

“Well,” I said, “as a matter of fact, I had been con—”

“But, no, I can see that this way is better,” he said. “It eliminates you pretty conclusively from the potential list of suspects. Now, if you’d cut her off sooner, let it be known that you were no longer going near her place
before
you established that you held no grudge against her…”

“Stop it!” I said. “What are you talking about, anyway? I refuse to listen to any more such nonsense!”

“Why, of course.” He winked at me, grinning. “It isn’t very discreet, is it? And we don’t need to talk, do we, dear father?”

I have been wondering lately if he is really my son. Wondering idly, wishfully perhaps, but still speculating on the matter. After all, if she would hop into bed with me so quickly, why not with another? How do I know what she was doing during the hours when I was away from the house? Obviously, she was of not much account. A woman who would behave as shamelessly as she did, tempting me until I could withstand it no longer, playing upon my kindness and sense of honor…

Well, never mind. He is my son. I know it. And I would be the last man in the world to attempt to evade my responsibilities. But that changes nothing, as far as she is concerned.

She had better not complain to me any more about Bobbie’s abuse. Not one word. Or I personally will give her something to complain about. I would send her packing if I dared to, which regrettably I don’t. It would look bad, as though the scandal had hit home. It would look like I was afraid—on the run.

So things stand; to this sorry, unbearable state I have come. Chained to a Negro woman—and I am
not
responsible to her. Inflicted with a son who—who—well, at least he isn’t a Negro. Not really. If a Negro was only one-sixteenth white, would you call him a white man? Well, it’s the same proposition. It’s—

It’s unbearable. Maddening. Completely unjust.

I don’t know what I would do without the comfort of Hank Williams’ friendship. I spend much of my free time with him, and he spends much of his with me. We understand each other. He admires and respects me. He is glad that I have gotten ahead, even though his own success has been somewhat modest. True, he seems unaware that he hasn’t gotten on—he seems to have forgotten that he ever talked of being senator or governor. But, no matter. He is my friend, and he has proved it in many ways. If he wishes to be a little smug, boastful, I can bear with it easily. Never in any way do I let on that his “success” wears a striking resemblance to failure.

We were talking the other night about our early days here. And he, as he is wont to do, passed some remark as to his progress since then. I said that his was a career to be proud of, that very few lawyers had risen so high in so brief a time. He beamed and smirked; and then with that earnest warmth which only he is capable of, he said that he owed his success to me.

“Well,” I said. “I’ve certainly boosted you whenever I could, but I’m afraid I—”

“Remember our first talk together? The day I was drawing up those papers for you?”

“Why, yes,” I said. “Of course I remember. You set me straight here, saw that—”

“Sure! Uh-hah. You sly old rascal you!” He threw back his head, and laughed. “I set
you
straight. A country bumpkin, a small town lawyer, set a big city doctor straight. He told
him
how to get on in the world!”

I didn’t say anything. I was too bewildered. For I had told him nothing that day. Nothing until I had pretty well ascertained his own feelings.

“Oh, I understood you, all right!” he laughed. “Naturally, you couldn’t come straight out with it; you had to spar around a little, make sure of how I felt first. But…”

He winked at me, grinning. I stared at him, feeling my hands tighten on the arms of my chair; then, as the murderous hatred drained out of me, feeling them slowly relax and grow limp.

He had done me no injury. His intelligence, his moral stamina, that vaguely concrete thing called character—all had been stunted at the outset. Perhaps they would have amounted to little, regardless; perhaps environment and heredity would have dwarfed them, without the withering assistance of our long-ago, initial conversation.

At any rate, he had not harmed me; he had not changed me one whit from what I essentially was. Others, doubtless, many others, but not me.

If anything, it was the other way around.

He was frowning slightly, looking a little uncomfortable and puzzled. He repeated his phrase about my having had to spar around with him, until I was sure of how he felt.

“And how did you feel, Hank?” I said. “Basically—deep down in your heart?”

“Oh, well,” he shrugged. “You don’t need to ask that, Jim. You know how I stand on those things.”

“But back then,” I insisted, “right back in the beginning. Tell me, Hank. I really want to know.”

“We-el—” He hesitated, and spread his hands. “You know, Jim. About like most people, I guess. A lot of people, anyway. Kind of on the fence, and wishing I could stay there. But knowing I had to jump one way or the other, and knowing I was pretty well stuck on the side I jumped to. I—well, you know what I mean, Jim. It’s kind of hard to put into words.”

“I see,” I said. “I hoped…I mean, I thought that was probably the way you felt.”

“Well,” he said; and, after a moment, again, “Well.”

He studied me a trifle nervously; then, unable to read my expression, he gave out with that bluffly amiable, give-me-approval laugh of his.

It was a hearty laugh, but one that he was ready to immediately modulate. His face was flushed with high good humor: a mask of good-fellowish hilarity which could, at the wink of an eye, with practiced effortlessness, become the essence of gravity, sobriety, seriousness.

I laughed along with him. With him, and at myself. Our laughter filled the room, flowed out through the windows into the night; echoing and reechoing, sending endless ripples on and on through the darkness. It remained with us, the laughter, and it departed from us. Floating out across the town, across hill and dale, across field and stream, across mountain and prairie, across the night-lost farm houses, the hamlets and villages and towns, the bustling, tower-twinkling cities. Across—around—the world, and back again.

We laughed, and the whole world laughed.

Or should I say jeered?

Suddenly I got up and went to the window. Stood there unseeing, though my eyes were wider than they had ever been, my back turned to him.

And where there had been uproar, there was now silence. Almost absolute silence.

He could not stand that, of course. After almost twenty years, it dawned on me that he could not. Whenever there is silence, he must fill it. With something. With anything. So, after he had regained his guffaw-drained breath, after he had achieved a self-satisfactory evaluation of my mood, he spoke again. Went back to the subject of our conversation.

“Well, anyway, Jim. As I was saying, I’m eternally grateful to you. I hate to think what might have happened if we hadn’t had that talk.”

I winced, unable to answer him for a moment. Immediately his voice tightened, notched upward with anxiety.

“Jim…Jim? Don’t you look at it that way, too, Jim? Don’t you kind of hate to think—”

“Oh, yes—” I found my voice. “Yes, indeed, Hank. On the other hand…”