Episode 23 The Strangers

Transcript

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This is episode 23 of Ed Falco On The Air. In this episode, I'll be reading Stay Gone Days, a short story by Steve Yarbrough. Stay Gone Days was first published in the Michigan Quarterly Review and later included in Mississippi History. Yarbrough's short story collection from the University of Missouri Press. In the past few episodes, I've been trying to answer the question, where do the ideas for stories come from? And in short, I'm arguing that the ideas expressed in stories arise And that those ideas are grounded in the writer's experiences, thoughts, dreams, concerns, obsessions, fears, anxieties, passions, etc. As a matter of practical advice to a writer struggling with what to write, Or even with what to write about. I've suggested starting with a problem, situation, or conflict of interest, imagining characters facing that problem, situation, or conflict, and then paying attention to the choices they make in response to those problems, situations, or conflicts. In other words, if you pay attention to your characters and how they act within the context of the world they live in and the problems they're facing, that's where you'll find your ideas. Writing for Writers It's often a way of figuring out what they believe and maybe even who they are. I'm reading Yarborough's Stay Gone Days in this episode because he does such an exemplary job of creating and following his central character, Emmy, as she faces a problem. The problem is not complicated. Emmy is being blackmailed by an old boyfriend for something she did a long time ago when they were both in high school. Yarbrough has written extensively over the years about the role race plays in the history of the South, particularly in his home state of Mississippi. That, it seems to me, is the deep source of much of his writing. But what he has to say in Stay Gone Days about the role of race in the South, his ideas about that issue, they emerge through the wholly believable choices his characters make in response to the conflict they're facing. Stay Gone Days by Steve Yarborough. She'd just sacked a woman's groceries and told her to have a nice evening when she saw him. He was wearing an old surplus army jacket, faded jeans with ragged cuffs, and a pair of thick soled work shoes. He'd shaved off his beard. He'd cut his hair, too, and it looked as if he'd recently bathed. She wondered whose bathtub he'd used, and wondered if, before he'd left, he'd cleaned her out. Had he found the loose tile in the bathroom wall where she kept her mother's necklace? The soup bowl where she hid her grocery money? He'd been cleaning Emmy out for almost 15 years. She'd given him money she'd been saving for her kids Christmas presents, money she'd set aside to pay her car insurance, her light bill, the doctor. Her husband had never noticed. And neither had anyone else, because she always recovered her losses by stealing. She checked up most evenings at the Piggly Wiggly. And the man who owned the store would never have suspected her of theft. Nobody thought she was low down enough to steal. And the truth was, she did have her ethics. She took only as much as Tom took from her. Not one penny more, sometimes a lot less. She promised herself she'd pay it back one day. For a while, she charted his comings and goings to see if she could find any patterns. She noted his appearances on the same pocket calendars she used to keep track of her menstrual cycle. Black ink for her periods, red for the days he robbed her. It was a year or two before she decided the colors should be reversed. Another year or two before she understood how appropriate the original choice was. By then, she'd given up trying to predict when he'd come again. He would come. Again. And again. He pulled a cart loose and strolled down the first aisle, over by the dairy section. She could see him in one of the big, round mirrors her boss had attached to the wall in each corner. It was a quarter till seven. The store was empty except for him and her and two stock boys who were in the back room sweeping up and incinerating boxes. She watched him pick up a block of cheese, examine it, and stick it in his jacket pocket. Then he looked over his shoulder at the mirror and waved. It didn't take him long to do his shopping. When he rode the cart up to the register, it held two packages of weenies, a couple of bags of potato chips, a six pack of beer, and a jar of instant coffee. He pulled a Milky Way out of his coat pocket, stripped the paper off, and took a bite. I heard a good joke the other day about Jesse Jackson and a candy bar, he said. Want to hear it? No, you can just hold on till you come across somebody who appreciates stuff like that. It's real original, I'll bet. He nodded at the cart. Don't bother to ring that stuff up, he said. You can just go ahead and sag it. It wouldn't all fit in my coat pockets. She looked out the front window. This was a weeknight, so downtown Indianola was deserted. The store didn't do much business after six o'clock. But you never knew who might be looking at you. You never knew who was out there in the dark. Or what they might have in their minds. Why don't you just pay for it, she said. It's not going to cost more than about ten dollars, so you can add that amount to whatever you aim to hit me up for. Sweetheart, I don't have ten dollars, she said. I had ten dollars. You think I'd be here? You think I like having to beg? From you? I wouldn't exactly call what you do begging, she said. I'm going to act like I'm punching the register, and then I want you to act like you're handing me some money. He stuck his hand across the counter, grabbed her wrist and held it. Jesus, she said, glancing first at the windows and then at one of the mirrors. Any minute the stock boys could come up front and clock out. Hey. His features froze into that expression she often dreamed about, the one that made her wonder if he was less than flesh and blood. You just sacked this shit. You can deliver me my groceries when you get through closing up. I'm driving an old Ford Galaxy. It's parked behind the store, right down next to the bayou. She could picture it there. A car with dented fenders, a cracked windshield, a rusty spot on the roof where the paint had peeled off. The backseat would be cluttered with beer cans, dirty underwear, a soiled pillow he slept on in a hundred different rest stops from here to California, from here to Maine and back. It would be parked in the shadows, near a tree or a bush, as far away as he could get from the closest source of light. Of course it's parked behind the store, she said. Where the hell else would it be? It's 1976, springtime. She's sitting next to him in Hannah Taylor's class at the academy. The school is called an academy, but it's not military or particularly academic. It's a school for white kids whose parents have a fair amount of money. Hers don't, and neither do his. They're both here on scholarship, though their scholarships have nothing to do with scholarship. He has his scholarship because of his right arm, which can whip a football through the air 70 or 80 yards. She has hers because a group of concerned citizens believe it's an outright scandal for white girls to attend the public school with black boys. They've established a special fund, it pays the tuition for girls like her. He wears his jacket letter to school every day, and when he gets hot and pulls it off, he's usually wearing his football jersey underneath. The jacket is red and grey, and there's a white I. A. stenciled onto the felt material right above his heart. There's a state championship patch on one shoulder, an all conference patch on the other. Ole Miss would have signed him up to play football next fall, but he doesn't have the C average the SEC requires. His hair is dark and long, the fashion of the times. He's put on weight since football season ended. It's all the senior parties, she guesses. Sometimes they have kegs. At least, that's what they say. Hannah Taylor at her desk, looking at snapshots the editor of the school paper wants to put in this week's edition. It's supposed to be a journalism class, but it's really just an hour of daily chaos. Some people nap, their heads down on their desks, a few serious students catch up on their homework or read, and so do a few of the ones like her, the ones that are always in trouble in almost all their classes, no matter how many hours they spend with the books. Others gather in groups of two or three, leaning toward one another and whispering about something. Emmy has no idea what. Some only show up for a minute or two each day at the beginning of the class. Hannah writes passes for anyone who asks, without even demanding they tell her where they're going. Everything qualifies as an assignment. A lot of people leave in their cars and come back in an hour, red eyed and funny smelling. Tom leans toward her. She smells his aftershave. Old spice, she'd bet. The same stuff her father uses. You know, Taylor's getting divorced, he whispers. She's always aware of him when he's there at her side, and she always hopes he'll speak to her. Every week or two, he does. Most days though, he's one of the first to disappear. She's seen him leave with several different girls. She takes her eyes off the algebra book she's been staring at. Yeah, she whispers. How come? He looks up the aisle at Hannah. She's 30, short, and freckled. She has big suntanned breasts that are always on display. She wears low cut blouses and likes to lean over when boys stand near her desk. You haven't heard, Tom says. And he gets tired of hearing, you haven't heard. Sometimes she thinks people speak to her just so they can breathe that annoying question. She belongs only to the group of those who don't belong, who haven't heard, who don't even know they don't know until someone who does know points it out. She's pretty, but pretty's too little. Her clothes are wrong, her hair is wrong. She lives with her father in a rented house. Her mother left home a year ago. No, she says, I haven't heard. Her husband caught her with Coach Carlisle. She almost says, caught her doing what? Not because she doesn't know, but because she wants to hear him say it, to see what words he'd choose. She believed he'd be matter of fact, offhand, making it he'd say, or getting down. She says, where'd he catch her? Out behind the country club. In the cotton field? It had soybeans planted in it last year. He looks at his watch. You wanna go smoke a joint there? I got my pickup. Hannah writes him a pass, glancing up long enough for it to register that Emmy Fowler's finally asking that she's leaving school with Tom Cole. She nods at Emmy, and for a moment, Emmy's afraid Hannah will say something stupid to memorialize the moment. Go for it, maybe, or good for you. Instead, she says, Emmy, you'll be back for your next class, okay? Don't you stay gone forever, as if Tom himself is hopeless and might as well stay gone. The pickup is a blue GMC, a model from the late 60s. There are three or four hoes in the back, a burlap sack half full of cottonseed, a dirty black raincoat, a football. Once they're out of the lot, he pops a tape into the stereo, and the raspy voice of Wailing Jennings fills the cab. You like him, Tom says. Not too much. How come? I don't know. My daddy likes him. I hear he's an asshole. My daddy? He laughs. Waylon Jennings, I meant. Actually, I hear your daddy's an asshole, too. Her father has a certain reputation. Sometimes he drinks too much at the VFW, and when he does, he likes to start fights. He's not exactly George Foreman. She's seen him come home with black eyes, fat lips, torn clothes. One night last year, he came home without his shoes. Whoever had beaten him up that night pulled them off him and refused to give them back. Who told you that, she says. Hell if I know, it's just one of those things you know. He turns into the field behind the country club and they bump along the turn rail. The trucks shocks groan, the hoes clatter against the tailgate. Have you ever been out here, he says. No, was I supposed to be? It's one of those places folks go. Well, I guess I'm going here now. I've been out here with Taylor. Hannah Taylor? Yeah. He grins at the windshield, and I'll tell you something, Emmy. Coach Carlisle's welcome to her. He drives all the way to the end of the turn rail. There's a strip of woods here about a quarter of a mile wide. Lots of wet undergrowth, a few swampy patches. He pulls the truck into the bushes, shuts off the engine, and shoves open the door. Come on, he says. She opens her door and steps out. The ground is spongy, she feels moisture seeping into her shoes. They're her mother's shoes. A pair she left in the laundry room when she moved. Twice now, she's phoned and asked for them. Emmy claims she can't find them. The shoes are plain black ones. A cheap pair her mother probably brought at Fred's or Cost Plus. And Emmy doesn't even like them. She just wants to keep something of her mother's. When her mother left She took something from Emmy, the knowledge that whatever else she lacked, she had two parents who lived under the same roof like everybody else's. They walk into the woods a hundred yards or so. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a joint. I rolled three or four of these this morning, he says. Smoked one in the john between first and second period. It's expensive, isn't it, pot? Thirty bucks an ounce. Where'd you get the money? From little girls like you. They pay me to bring them out to the woods and let them rub my muscles. You don't get it from girls like me. I got about seventy five cents in my purse. He strikes a match, cups his hands, blows a cloud of sweet smoke at her. I'm just kidding, he says. He passes her the joint. I work some with my daddy, and I got a couple of other things going on. Good for you, she says. She inhales once, coughs. I don't have diddly going on. You got some things going for you, though. Yeah, like what? He blushes. The redness rising in his cheeks takes her by surprise. She knows she'll have to touch him. Her hand is already in motion. He twists his face away, but her fingertips graze his cheek. It's stubbly. She hears static. I've been watching you, he says, staring hard into the woods. Lordy, I've been checking up on you for a long time. You're the only one who has. I guess I got the best eye. His hands grope under her blouse. The lit joint falls from her fingers. He pushes her up against a tree. She feels the rough bark at her back, cool air on her belly, her breasts. Then they're on the ground. It lasts a long time. She sees his flushed face against a backdrop of branches, new green leaves, scattered fragments of the sky. She hears it happening to her. Here's her hips slap the ground as he drives her. I want to stay here, she hears herself say. I want to stay here forever. The noises he makes are not words. Afterwards, he crawls around on all fours looking for the joint. God damn, he says, holding it up, it's a little bitty half assed nub. She's sitting on her skirt, it's dirty and damp, her blouse is dirty too and one button is missing. I can't go back to school, she says, you'll have to take me home. Bullshit, you're not going home today. Where am I going? You and me? Ride. Ride where? Where don't matter. They drive down 49, on into Humphreys County. Then he turns off onto one gravel road and then another. A couple of times he reaches across the seat and squeezes her hand. This seems like a good sign to her. The last time she had a boyfriend, way back in 7th grade, he liked to squeeze her hand too. They used to stand together behind the gym at lunch, her hand locked in his, the two of them whispering about who was and wasn't failing. Very often, both of them were. Now he's failing in Texas, or at least he was the last time she heard from him, three years ago last Christmas. He moved to Houston with his parents before his eighth grade year. While they drive, Tom talks. He tells her he actually will go to Ole Miss. He'll just have to spend one year at MDJC, the junior college over in Moorhead. Once he gets his grades up, he'll be eligible to play in the SEC. And he assures her he'll start the first year he's in Oxford. They intend to revamp their offense for him. They'll go to a pro, and make use of his arm. She can tell he really believes everything will work out. And she envies him for his optimism. Optimism is a word she knows. But Optimism doesn't know Emmy. He stops the truck in front of a crossroads store. She can tell from looking at it that it's owned and run by blacks. Posters on the porch advertise appearances by the Four Tops, Bobby Blue Bland, B. B. King, and James Brown. Royal Crown Cola says a sign shaped like a bottle cap. A knee high thermostat hangs next to the door. There are no other trucks or cars parked out front. No trucks or cars as far as she can see. I'm gonna go in and get us a six pack, he says. You just cool your fanny right here. He takes a long time. She sees him through the window. He's standing at the counter, running his mouth at a middle aged black man who sticks the beer into a paper bag, takes Tom's money, makes change, and hands it back. As far as she can tell, the man never says a word. He was a sulky one, Tom tells her when he gets in. He pulls the beer out, pops the top, and hands it to her. He opens one for himself and drinks most of it in two or three swallows. My granddaddy, he says, cranking up. He would have known what to do with one like that. They ride and drink and he tells her a story. He says that back in the fifties, his grandfather on his mother's side used to own some land between Moorhead and Inverness. He raised cotton and soybeans. Two black families lived on the farm. The men drove tractors for him. The women and the kids chopped cotton and picked it. One day, Tom says, Grandpa went to Greenwood and bought a set of tires for Grandma's car. Some automotive shop over there had a bunch of them on sale. He didn't have them put on, though, because the tires on the car were still in pretty good shape. He left them in his smokehouse, stacked up along the wall. Two or three days later, he went out there one morning, and somebody had broken the lock off and gone inside. All four of the tires were long gone. He says his grandfather went and got his 38 and climbed into his pickup truck, and drove down the road to the place where one of the black families lived. He knew one of the kids in that family had seen him unloading the tires. He tucked the pistol into his belt. and walked up on the porch. He never even had to search the place. The tires were piled up right next to the window. He could see them through a gap in the curtains. Then listen to what happened next, Tom says. He hurls the first empty beer can out the window at a shop sign. Grandpa went over to the door and pushed it open, and the dude was lying up in the bed with his wife, just sleeping like he had the clearest conscience in Sunflower County. Grandpa sticks the barrel in his ear and says, Come on, Willie B. You're going to a dance. Willie B opens his eyes and says, Please, Mr. Curtis, sir, don't shoot that gun at me. Them old bullets cost more than Willie B's worth. Tom pounds the wheel with his palm. Can you beat that? Grandpa thought it was so goddamn funny, he didn't even take him out and scare him a little worse, which was all he aimed to do anyhow. Emmy doesn't laugh. She never laughs at these kinds of stories, though she often wishes they tickled her, since they seem to tickle everybody else. Her inability to find them funny is one more fence between her and the local world. Tom fails to notice that the story didn't score. He pulls another beer out and opens it and sucks the can empty. Then he opens another one and drains it quickly too. Until it gets dark. That's what they do. They ride, they drive, they smoke another joint, and he talks about himself. She's not used to dope and beer. Her brain is full of fog, her back and legs hurt. The muscles in her face have grown lax, and her tongue feels twice its normal size. The second time he takes her It's as if it's happening to someone else. As if it's another girl lying on the truck seat, a girl who knows what to do with her legs in tight spaces, who knows what to whisper, how to move. It's ten o'clock when they start driving again. They head back toward 49. And when they come to the crossroads where he brought his first six pack, he stops and stares at the store. It's still open. There's a light on inside. Through the window, they see a storekeeper, a woman this time. She's watching a tiny TV that stands on the counter. Tom pulls past the store about fifty yards or so, stops the truck on the side of the road. You know what, he says? I think I better grab another six. Getting out, he shrugs off his leather jacket. He's wearing nothing but a t shirt underneath. She says, you'll be cold. No way, you've warmed me up plenty today. Before leaving, he reaches across the seat and squeezes her knee. She sits there thinking that sometimes it's nice to have a father who doesn't give a damn. If he gave a damn, she'd have some explaining to do. As it is, she could probably just tell him goodnight and go to bed. He may not even notice she's been gone. Hearing a door slam, she looks out the window. Thomas running toward her through the darkness, slapping his hip and yelling. Richard Petty. Eehaws. Dale answers. When he opens the door, she sees he's wearing sunglasses. She doesn't know where they've come from or why he has them on. He jumps in and cranks up, pulls the sunglasses off. The tires heave up a hailstorm of gravel, black clouds of dust and exhaust. What was that about, she says. What did you do? Had a little fun. His cheeks look green and the dashboard glow. He reaches into his right pocket and pulls out a wad of bills. Count them, he says. Time to check up. She counts the bills quickly, stacking the ones in one pile, the fives and tens in another. Eighty three dollars, she says. She lays the money on the seat near his leg. Damn, he says. His eyes move back and forth between the road and the rearview mirror. Tell me how they make that much money selling two or three six packs a day and a few tubes of afrosheen. They're bound to have a little something nasty going on. I bet I just performed public service. Why'd she give it all to you, she says, the storekeeper. You just go in and ask for it? He reaches between his legs then, and she sees the gun for the first time. Sees the gleaming barrel, the cylinder, the hammer that looks about as large as her thumb. Wouldn't you give it to me, he says. It's 1976. Springtime. The spring that lasts forever. At breakfast, her husband always liked to read the Greenville paper. It was the Deltas only daily, and it carried lots of job ads. He worked at Modern Industries, the only factory in town. The plant was non union, the salaries were low, the benefits poor. He kept hoping he'd find something better, but he never complained about what he had. He'd moved to Mississippi because the factory he used to work at in Ohio had closed down, and he couldn't find work anywhere else in the state. He was almost 40 now, going bald and getting a bit wide around the waist, but his appearance troubled him more than it troubled her. I need to lose a few pounds, he'd say, every week or so. She'd just smile and tell him not to worry. And for another few days he wouldn't. Westinghouse is opening a plant over in Greenville, he told her. He folded the paper. They say it'll hire about 200 folks right off, another 120 within two years. I may put in an application. Sounds fine to me, she said. She poured a bowl full of beaten eggs into a hot skillet. Every morning, the four of them ate a whole carton. She hated washing the skillet the eggs had been cooked in. There were little white glazes you had to scrub and scrub. But she always looked forward to breakfast with Henry and the kids. Breakfast was a time when she totaled everything up. When she reminded herself that her life, for all its red ink, had somehow ended up in the black. Only she and one other person knew how little she deserved what she had. This morning the girls were wagering a good natured quarrel at the table about a teacher they had in common. The woman who taught math to both 6th and 7th grades. Joanie said. My problem with her is I think she ought to go out for football. I think she'd make a good daddy, what do you call the player that lines up on the center? Nose guard, Henry said. She'd make a good nose guard. That's awful, Lynn said. She sipped the watered down coffee Emmy gave them at breakfast. She had her mother's eyes and nose and Joanie did too. If all you saw were their faces, they looked a lot like Emmy had looked when she was their age. But that was where the resemblance ended. Emmy made sure their clothes were up to date, and she took them to the beauty shop every few months and had their hair trimmed by somebody who knew what she was doing. You just talk bad about Mrs. Timms, Lynn told Joni now, because she's tough in class. Mama, did you like tough teachers, Joni asked. I don't think I ever had one. You never had one? Well, I guess I probably had some, but maybe they just weren't tough on me. They liked you too much. No, she said. They didn't like me much at all. They considered me dumb and hopeless. Both girls looked at her as if they thought she was joking. Henry didn't bother looking up at all. He spread some jam onto a biscuit and said, Of course they liked her. Can you imagine anybody not liking her? I can't, Joanie said. Lynn said, Me neither. Their adoration was too heavy for her to bear right now. As soon as she could, she excused herself. She went into the bathroom and sat down on the rim of the tub. She considered taking another bath. She'd taken one last night and another before breakfast, but she still felt dirty, felt like a film of filth was clinging to her skin. Last night, when she'd walked into the parking lot behind the store, she'd found his car right where he said it would be. He was sitting in the front seat, smoking a cigarette. She walked up to the door on the driver's side, but he wouldn't roll down his window. He gestured at the other door. She started to walk around the front of the car, then changed her mind and walked behind it. He reached across the seat and opened the door for her. Get in, he said. She set the sack of stuff down on the seat and stood there. What for? Why don't you just tell me how much you want? Want's not the word. Needs the subject we're here to discuss. She wondered what would happen if she turned and walked away. She'd asked herself that question again and again. Of all the possible answers, only one gave her comfort. He might walk out of her life forever. The others were too awful to think about. Okay, she said, hearing the quiver in her voice. Let's you and me talk need. Like either one of us has the faintest notion what need is. She pushed the groceries across the seat and sat down. He puffed on a cigarette, then stabbed it out in the ashtray. When'd they open up the movie theater, he said. You think I know? You think I pay attention to stuff like that? You got kids. I figure they like to do the normal stuff kids do, and go into a movie's one of them. My kids don't go anywhere at night. Yeah, well, neither did I when I was their age. And neither did you, either. You reckon maybe that was one of our problems? I don't think too much about what our problems used to be. I think a lot about what my problems are already. You're the biggest one. I'm kind of surprised to hear you say so. I'd figure your conscience was your number one problem, and I was number two. But maybe your conscience wouldn't bother you too much if I didn't show up from time to time. Think of me as your reminder. You know what, you're really crazy. His hand shot through the air so fast she scarcely saw it. He grabbed a hunk of her coat and jerked her toward him. She smelled whiskey on his breath, smelled stale sweat and cigarettes. She shut her eyes so she wouldn't have to look into his. She didn't want to see the light of waste and failure burning there. I've seen your house, he said. It's little and ugly. He let go of her coat. She slumped back against the seat. You own it though, don't you? We've got a mortgage, she said. She still hadn't opened her eyes. I got a mortgage too. I own a good piece of you. Yes, she said, you sure God do. He reached into the sack, pulled a beer out and opened it. She glanced at her watch. It was already 7. 30. She would have to get away and go home. I'll tell you what, he said. I got something going out west. This is the last time I'll have to ask you for anything. I'm fixing to start leaving you alone. You'll never do it. You may think you will, but you won't. It makes me feel irate when you say that. I feel irate. It's the truth. I need 2, 000. You may as well attach a six zero, she said. I couldn't come up with that if I pawned everything I owned. There's a safe in the store. I saw it in the office. I don't have a key to it. It's a combination safe. And you know the combination, don't you? She didn't answer. Of course you do, he said. You just take the money out. You're the last one to leave a lot of nights. Tell everybody some mean ass fellow banged in at the closing time and stuck a gun in your face. It could happen. I know it could. The owner trusts you, he went on. And the cops will too. Hell, everybody trusts Emmy. She's only got one or two lines next to her name in the academy yearbook because she was one of those girls nobody paid much mind to except for one guy that went a little wild for her tits. But, Emmy, she's as honest as they come. She's not one to sneak and cheat. He leaned toward her and ran his palm along her cheek. You used to be something, he said. Now I bet you're something else. No, she said, I'm nothing. That's a damn lie, honey, he whispered. He began to nuzzle her neck. She sat there rigid, scared to say stop, afraid that if she did, he'd send her home with a busted nose. She didn't fear the pain itself. It was having to explain it that scared her. I'll tell you what you are, he said, nipping at her ear. You're a husband, two kids, a house, and a reputation. I don't need that money for a couple of days, but I can't wait any longer than that. When he let her out, she drove home and took her bath. Now, sitting on the edge of the tub, she rejected the notion of taking yet another one. It wouldn't do what the first two hadn't. It wouldn't make her feel clean. She dropped the girls off at school, then stopped by the post office to pick up the store's mail. After that, she drove down the street to the Piggly Wiggly and parked in front of it. Employees weren't supposed to park out front, but her boss wouldn't say a word to her about it if he happened to notice her car. He'd figure she had a good reason, and he'd be right. She didn't want Tom to catch her behind the store by herself. What she told him last night was the truth. There was no way in the world she could get 2, 000 unless she really did take the money from the safe and walk outside and hand it to him. If she did that, she might as well just keep on walking down the street to the police station and turn herself in. Covering up a hundred here and there was one thing. This was altogether something else. Even if she got away with it the first time, sooner or later, he'd try to hit her hard again, and she wouldn't fool anybody then. She spent the day as she always did. She phoned in orders to the warehouse, she walked the aisles and checked the shelves to make sure everything was fronted. She did her stint at the register, sacking groceries and urging everyone to have a nice day. All the while, she kept waiting for him to walk in. Last night, he'd administered the injection. Today, he'd stopped by to witness the serum's effects. He didn't come. And the more she thought about it, the more it made sense that he wouldn't. He'd let the poison have time to travel through her. He'd wait till he could cut her and draw something besides blood. He'd wait till she was empty of herself. She finished checking up and she carried the leather satchel with the day's receipts next door to the bank and put it in the after hours depository. Then she started walking toward her car, but her legs wouldn't stop when they got there. She walked on down the street, past the drug store and the newspaper office, past the hardware and the Methodist church. When she walked into the station, she saw a bunch of broken street signs propped up against the wall, two or three stolen bikes and a pair of muddy shoes. Each item wore a tag, with the date it had been recovered printed on it. The waiting room was otherwise empty. She went up to the dispatcher's window and asked to see the chief. He was standing in the hallway, getting ready to go home. She knew him. He and his wife shopped at the store. He was the first black chief the town had ever had. Hire me, he said. One thumb locked around a belt loop. What you up to this evening? I need to talk to you. Anything wrong at the store? No, she said. But there's something wrong with me. Something's been wrong a long time. They start leaving the school together every day during Hannah Taylor's class. Most days they drive out into the woods and smoke a joint, and he makes love to her. And then they go back. They hang around together in the hallways between periods, standing close to each other and whispering. They sit together at lunch and always at the same table, the one directly underneath the basketball goal. But some days, when they leave school, they just stay gone. They ride the highways from one end of the delta to the other. They ride the back roads, too. Once, they rode as far as Jackson. Another time, they even crossed the river. They call these days the stay gone days. On stay gone days, they drink a lot of beer and smoke a lot of dope and make love three or four times. They do it on the ground, in the back of the pickup. They do it in the seedy motels in towns like Anguilla, Tutwiler, Lake Village, places where you can rent a room for eight dollars, where they never check IDs or demand your license plate number. They do it once on top of the levy. Here's something, he tells her, while his hands roam her body. I'd climb an oak to get to you. The next day, they drink a six pack and smoke two joints. And she shimmies up a tree and makes him prove it. She goes to school less and less, but her grades actually improve. At first this puzzles her. With all the drinking and smoking she's been doing, her mind should be anything but clear. Yet it seems clearer than it's ever been. After a while, she thinks she knows why. What she gets from Tom is the main thing she's lacked. It's called attention, and it's given her a little bit of faith in herself, a little bit of faith that she matters. He's opened her up. What's outside has started pouring in. She makes a C plus on a biology test, a B minus in algebra. She pulls a straight B in world history. She notices things now she's never noticed before. The floor tiles in her bedroom are all beige, except for one green one near the baseboard. The clock on the front of the bank doesn't work. There's a faint scar on Hannah Taylor's chin. And Coach Taylor's left eye wanders. She also notices things about the stores Tom robs. They're always at least 20 miles from Indianola, usually more. And they're always outside Sunflower County. They're always in the country. They're always small, usually run down. And there's never a dog around. Black people always run them. He robs them at night. If it's a cool night, and he's wearing his leather jacket, he pulls it off before he goes in. Sometimes he puts on the black raincoat that he carries in the back of the truck. He keeps the shades in his pocket and sets them on his nose as he nears the door. He keeps the pistol tucked under his belt. He never tells her when he's going to hit a place. But she knows anyway. He talks a lot before he does it. Talks for hours, telling her how he aims to burn up the SEC. It won't be long before she sees him on television. He starts drinking beer at a crazy pace, popping one can after another. She's amazed he can still drive. She seriously doubts whether or not he could get out of the store alive if anybody ever offered resistance. He's already admitted he'd never use the gun. He'd run if someone challenged him. One night, they're driving around up in Clippin County, and he's running his mouth and draining bud cans as fast as she can hand them to him. She says, You already picked a place out? He laughs. You mean I'm getting predictable? You are to me, long as I'm not to them. Somebody's liable to shoot you one night. They're liable to pull a shotgun out from under the counter and use you to add some color to the place. Would you ache, he says, if I became a mural on the wall? I'd flat out die, she says. She means it. She can't imagine living like she used to. And she can't imagine she'd want to be with anyone else, or that anyone else would ever come along. She and Tom haven't talked about what'll happen next month after graduation, but she intends to enroll at the junior college too. She'll get a job in a store, take one or two courses, and see as much of him as their schedules permit. It'll never happen, he says. You don't know. I do too. Imagine you're Leroy, or Essie Mae, or whoever. Would you risk getting shot trying to keep a white boy from making off with 50? When you know that even if you shoot him before he shoots you, you got a white sheriff to deal with, and then a white judge and a mostly white jury? Times have changed, she says. Not that much. So that's why you always rob black folks? That's one reason. What's the other? His chest swells noticeably beneath the leather jacket. Hell, white folks know me, he says. They see me play ball against their teams. He drinks two or three more beers, then turns onto a gravel road they drove down earlier today. It's narrow. Mounds of dirt lie in the ruts where the tractor tires have slung mud. Off to the right, in somebody's field, she sees a set of running lights. It's been a cool spring, and this is a cool night. She's got her window rolled up. David Allen Coe is singing on the stereo. It's a song about a guy who comes back from the war, and he's thinking about a German girl, his pretty fräulein, who he left on the banks of the old river Rhine. She shuts her eyes and imagines the German girl. She sees her walking down the street in some little German town. Her country is in ruins, and so is she. An ocean lies between her and what she needs. He's left, and she knows he won't come back. Tom stops the truck. Opening her eyes, she sees the store through the windshield, through the paste of splattered insects and field dust. It's about sixty yards away. It looks like it was once a tenant shack. It's built two or three inches off the ground. It's got a tin roof, a sagging porch. There's a light pole in front of it. A single bulb burning, insects swarming in the glow. A gas pump is standing in the store yard too, but Johnson Grass has grown up around it. Inside, there's probably just a soft drink box with cokes and beer floating in water that by now is up to room temperature. There'll be a candy counter too, and it'll have a glass front. So you can see the M& M's, Hershey Bars, Milky Ways, and Cracker Jacks. A plastic cookie jar will be standing on top of it. And next to the cookie jar, there'll be a jar of dill pickles. The cash register will be nearby, on top of another counter. And God only knows what's underneath. She shivers. I wish you'd quit this, she says. Beer and dope's not free. Maybe we should just get jobs. This is the line of work that suits me. This, and throwing footballs. He turns the truck around, puts it in park, and opens the door. He reaches under the end of the seat and takes out the pistol. It's a 38, he's told her. The same one his grandfather once pointed at a man named Willie B. I've been in there before, he says. It's run by a dude that's about 70 years old. I'll be back in a minute and a half. He pulls off the leather jacket and shoves it behind the seat. Looking through the back glass, watching him start off toward this door, she's struck by the feeling that something's not right. She tries to think what it could be. He's got the dark glasses. She saw him pick them up. He's got the pistol. He took off the leather jacket. He enters the ring of light, walks past the gasoline pump. It's then that she notices the white jersey. It's the one the team wears in road games. It's got a big red 7 on the front, and on back a conference championship patch on each shoulder. His name is stenciled on the back in red letters. He's forgotten to put the raincoat over it. For three or four crucial seconds, she freezes. Then she releases the door latch and jumps out. He's on the porch, opening the door with one hand, holding the pistol with the other. She intends to yell his name, but what comes out is a whisper. Running toward the store, she tries again. She's at the foot of the steps when he steps out the door. He's holding a few bills in one hand. What, he says, the color draining from his face. The jersey, she says, trying this time to whisper. But what comes out is now a yell. It's got your damn name on it. In that instant, she sees him for the first time as he is. His cheeks go slack. His hands begin to tremble. The sunglasses look from her to the door, then back at her again. He takes a step toward her, then stops. She knows, without being told, that this is what happens when he has to take a test. He can't commit himself to an answer. If he held a football in his hand instead of a 38, he would have reached a decision a long time ago. He was made for something less than real life. He won't pass his course at MDJC. He'll never play ball for Ole Miss. He'll never keep a steady job or own a house, though she suspects he'll break into a few. If he fathers a child, the child will never know him, and the child will be the fortunate one. When he makes up his mind, nobody can stop him. She tries. She calls his name again, but he's already turning. He pulls open the door, and his right hand explodes. This is what she said as she sat there across the desk. His dark face impassive, a pen in hand, several sheets on the legal pad already filled with facts that would separate her from everyone she loved. He came the first time when we were closing. I hadn't seen him for three years. I was 21. I'd been married to Henry for a year and a half. Joni was a baby. She had jaundice. He followed me out to my car. I'd parked it out back like we were told. It was February. It had just snowed. He wasn't wearing a coat, just a flannel shirt. I'm cold, he said. He hugged himself like he thought he had to prove it. I said, why don't you wear your leather jacket? He told me he'd sold it. He said, things have worked out real well for you. He said, I wish things had worked out like that for me, too. He said, I'm not sure you deserve it, but then nobody does. He asked me to loan him a hundred dollars. I said no. He said, you know, I could make you awfully unhappy. I could tell your husband stuff he wouldn't want to know. It's all stuff you may have forgotten. But I hadn't forgotten any of it then, and I haven't forgotten it now. I remember what I saw when I looked in the door of that little country store. The man must have come out from behind the counter. He was lying stretched out on the floor. He was wearing old khakis, a dingy shirt, and a pair of suspenders. But the thing that caught my eye was his spectacles. They were lying on the counter next to the cash register. The lenses were half an inch thick. I wondered if he had them on when Tom walked in. I wondered if he had seen those red letters. On the way home Tom said, what are you sniffling about? He said, if you don't shut up, I may hit you. He said, he was just a useless old man and just a worthless one at that. And I said, What are we? What are we just? That was episode 23, featuring Steve Yarbrough's short story Stay Gone Days. Yarbrough's many published works include the novels The Unmade World, The Realm of Last Chances, Safe from the Neighbors, The End of California, Prisoners of War, Visible Spirits, and The Oxygen Man, as well as the short story collections Veneer. Mississippi history and family men. He's the recipient of numerous awards, including the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction, the California Book Award and the Richard Wright Award and the Robert Penn Warren Award in Fiction from the Southern Review. Steve has also been a finalist for the Penn Faulkner Award. and is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. I'm Ed Falco, and I hope you'll come back next Monday for Episode 24, which will leave only one final episode to follow before the end of Season 1. If you have a question you'd like me to answer in one of the final two episodes of the season, you can email me directly at falco. ed at gmail. com. In any event, thanks for listening, and do come back next Monday for Episode 24.