Read Online Kiss The Girls and Make Them Die by Charles Runyon - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Charles Runyon
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Tweedledum. She was into nursery rhymes, the kind that have a moral.
Georgy Porgy, puddin’ and pie, kissed the girls and made them cry
. This was to get us to eat our Cream of Wheat, as I recall. But I would always get lost in wondering what kind of freak George was to go around kissing girls, which seemed kind of useless to me at that age. In later years I wondered what kind of girls these were who cried, but then I figured he must’ve been doing something else to ‘em which the person who made up the poem hadn’t observed. I neveractually found out how you made a girl cry by kissing her, but it always sorta teased my mind …
“Before the bathroom was built we shared a galvanized tin washtub behind the big pot-bellied stove in the living room. The heat had stained the wallpaper yellowish-brown, and cracked and split it until it looked
diseased
. Dad sat in the old rocking chair with his belt undone at the waist, sock feet up on the hassock, heavy shoulders bulging out of the arms of his undershirt. You could call it ivory but it was more like deadfish white. And because it was hard to heat water on the old wood cookstove—Mama had only this one five-gallon stewpot, covered with black-and-white pebbled enamel—you ever surf? Never mind, it has nothing to do with the story, just thought I’d ask—anyway we bathed together because of this problem …”
Danny strips off his shirt and pants, hanging them on the chair behind the stove. Debra is already in the tub. She’s darker of complexion than him, noticeably feminine only in the delicate cast of her features. Her shoulders are thin, the little aereoles on her chest no larger than dimes, the nipples irregular little bumps like grapenuts. Danny dips out a handful of cold water and throws it on her back. She shrieks, Dad rustles his paper and growls, “Goddamn it, Danny, you’re gonna get a whack!” And Debra, her lips peeled back in a savage snarl, reaches out and grabs his little spout and yanks, hard—
“Well, these were the happy years. They ended pretty suddenly when we were ten. Mama went out to an Eastern Star meeting one night and a drunk ran head-on into her car. We got to the hospital in time to see them pull the sheet over her head. The man who killed her was there in the receiving room, his pants leg was torn and one ear was covered with a bandage, he was dribbling and drooling and saying; Jeez, i din’ see her she pulled over on my side’—And Dad was lookin at him like he was a dead fish. I didn’t see the first blow, it’s like when you get a break in the film, all of a sudden wham, the guywas flying out of his chair and across the receiving room, then he’s sliding down against the wall and Dad’s movin in and again, Wham! his jaw slewed sideways and then a couple ambulance drivers and cops got hold of him …
“They asked Dad if he would’ve killed the man and he just sort of slid his eyes to one side and smiled with the corner of his mouth. They tried the guy for manslaughter and I think he got six months suspended. I didn’t understand all this at the time, I remember Debra wouldn’t eat, and one night at the supper table she started something about what Mama had told her that day. And Dad turned pale and got us all in the car and drove us up to the graveyard. I remember it quite clearly, there was the wind blowing softly in the old section where the slabs were tilted out of plumb. I thought Mama would be happier there, but she was in the new section where people paid their rental and got the grass mowed over their corpses. Myself I’d just as soon have the grass long …
“Anyway Dad made Debra read the name on the stone, and she did, and then he said she’s dead, you’re never gonna see her again, and he got down and picked up a handful of dirt and said. This is what she’s turning into, Dirt. And Debra looked up at him with her stony face and said:
‘She isn’t.’
Well I knew what she meant, there was a hunk of meat
Georgy Porgy, puddin’ and pie, kissed the girls and made them cry
. This was to get us to eat our Cream of Wheat, as I recall. But I would always get lost in wondering what kind of freak George was to go around kissing girls, which seemed kind of useless to me at that age. In later years I wondered what kind of girls these were who cried, but then I figured he must’ve been doing something else to ‘em which the person who made up the poem hadn’t observed. I neveractually found out how you made a girl cry by kissing her, but it always sorta teased my mind …
“Before the bathroom was built we shared a galvanized tin washtub behind the big pot-bellied stove in the living room. The heat had stained the wallpaper yellowish-brown, and cracked and split it until it looked
diseased
. Dad sat in the old rocking chair with his belt undone at the waist, sock feet up on the hassock, heavy shoulders bulging out of the arms of his undershirt. You could call it ivory but it was more like deadfish white. And because it was hard to heat water on the old wood cookstove—Mama had only this one five-gallon stewpot, covered with black-and-white pebbled enamel—you ever surf? Never mind, it has nothing to do with the story, just thought I’d ask—anyway we bathed together because of this problem …”
Danny strips off his shirt and pants, hanging them on the chair behind the stove. Debra is already in the tub. She’s darker of complexion than him, noticeably feminine only in the delicate cast of her features. Her shoulders are thin, the little aereoles on her chest no larger than dimes, the nipples irregular little bumps like grapenuts. Danny dips out a handful of cold water and throws it on her back. She shrieks, Dad rustles his paper and growls, “Goddamn it, Danny, you’re gonna get a whack!” And Debra, her lips peeled back in a savage snarl, reaches out and grabs his little spout and yanks, hard—
“Well, these were the happy years. They ended pretty suddenly when we were ten. Mama went out to an Eastern Star meeting one night and a drunk ran head-on into her car. We got to the hospital in time to see them pull the sheet over her head. The man who killed her was there in the receiving room, his pants leg was torn and one ear was covered with a bandage, he was dribbling and drooling and saying; Jeez, i din’ see her she pulled over on my side’—And Dad was lookin at him like he was a dead fish. I didn’t see the first blow, it’s like when you get a break in the film, all of a sudden wham, the guywas flying out of his chair and across the receiving room, then he’s sliding down against the wall and Dad’s movin in and again, Wham! his jaw slewed sideways and then a couple ambulance drivers and cops got hold of him …
“They asked Dad if he would’ve killed the man and he just sort of slid his eyes to one side and smiled with the corner of his mouth. They tried the guy for manslaughter and I think he got six months suspended. I didn’t understand all this at the time, I remember Debra wouldn’t eat, and one night at the supper table she started something about what Mama had told her that day. And Dad turned pale and got us all in the car and drove us up to the graveyard. I remember it quite clearly, there was the wind blowing softly in the old section where the slabs were tilted out of plumb. I thought Mama would be happier there, but she was in the new section where people paid their rental and got the grass mowed over their corpses. Myself I’d just as soon have the grass long …
“Anyway Dad made Debra read the name on the stone, and she did, and then he said she’s dead, you’re never gonna see her again, and he got down and picked up a handful of dirt and said. This is what she’s turning into, Dirt. And Debra looked up at him with her stony face and said:
‘She isn’t.’
Well I knew what she meant, there was a hunk of meat
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