With Shuddering Fall

  “He was your father,” Karen said.

  He drove faster. The hard clay road rushed by beneath them. “Was he my father?” Shar said.

  Karen said nothing. They had passed over the creek and she had forgotten to look down it—to look for Rule’s shanty, which was visible in wintertime from the road. “For all I know Herz could of been my father,” Shar said flippantly. “Your old man got around a lot thirty years ago—did you know that?”

  “What are you saying?” Karen whispered. “Are you—”

  “Nothing,” said Shar. “The old hermit bastard was my father all right. I got his goddam look. Just an accident, though that he was my father. Or any of my kin—those bastards off somewheres, cousins, uncles—nothing to me. An accident I got born. You think my father and that slut he had were thinking of me when they—”

  Karen stared at him. She could not believe her ears. Shar glanced at her and in the same voice said, “Which way do I turn now? To the left?” Without waiting for Karen’s answer he swerved to the left. They were on a better road now. Now that they were driving, Shar seemed a different person. His sullenness had vanished; he apparently wanted to talk. Karen was confused by his manner. More than ever he seemed a stranger, not only to her but to the world to which she was accustomed. “Do you smoke?” said Shar. He had lit a cigarette. Karen shook her head. “What’s your name? Karen? Karen, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you were the baby. Let’s see. I remember you some. A passel of kids your father got over there. He wore out three women with it. Or was it four?”

  Karen stared at the road. “Three or four, not counting some others,” Shar said. “My mother too, so they say. She was a real country bitch—She went off somewhere and left me with Rule. I guess I can’t remember her, except the stories people told me.” If he sensed Karen’s disgust he gave no indication of it. He hardly glanced at her. The sun had appeared, glaring white. Its queer frozen light seemed to Karen somehow ominous. “Will you reach in the glove compartment for me?”

  “Here?”

  “Reach in there and get out my sunglasses, will you?” He waited for her to open it. “There they are.” He took them from her and shook them open. “It keeps the sun off. I can’t always see so—”

  “Be careful,” Karen said without thinking.

  He glanced at her. She could see his teeth behind his slow curving lips. “I’m always careful,” he said. He put on the sunglasses. “That’s why I’m still here. . . . I’m not sure how you go about it,” he said, “I mean the old man’s death. I never had a dead person on my hands before. I s’pose they got laws for what to do and undertakers and a cemetery to buy into. Are all cemeteries with churches? I can’t remember.”

  “You don’t have to worry about it,” Karen said.

  “What?”

  “My father will see to it,” Karen said.

  Shar stared at her. Karen met his gaze evenly. “He will? Where will he bury him?”

  “In our cemetery.”

  “Why?”

  “He said he would,” Karen said.

  “He ain’t kin of yours, is he?”

  “No,” said Karen. “But he’ll see to it.”

  IN TOWN SHAR PARKED BY the sheriff’s office, though the place looked closed; it was too early. Karen sat by herself, shivering, and watched Shar go up to the building and rap mechanically at the door. The air inside the car bothered her—smoke from Shar’s cigarette—and she opened the window. The fresh air stung her eyes and awakened her to the knowledge that she should not be here. “This was a mistake,” Karen whispered aloud, though she had no idea how she knew it was a mistake. She felt entrapped in a dream.

  Shar came back. “I don’t know where the hell they are,” he said. He leaned in the window. “I got some other things to do. You want to come with me?”

  “Where?”

  “Out here. Get out. I’m going down there to buy something.”

  “No,” said Karen. “I’ll wait here.”

  He pulled his sunglasses down a little and looked at her. His eyes had little flecks of red in them, streaks of blood. She thought with surprise that he was a handsome man. “You want to sit here by yourself?” he said.

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “I’m going down the street. I might find the sheriff.”

  Karen sat without moving. “Well,” Shar said, straightening, “do what you like. It wasn’t your father, though.”

  He went away. About Karen the smooth gleaming inside of the car prodded at her vision: expanses of chrome, gaudy and useless, dials, gauges, handles, little knobs, buttons to press. Something about the clean hard shininess of the car made her start to cry. What had Jack said of her? People thought she was queer in the head. True. Perhaps true. It had been insane of her to come here; indeed, she could not think why she had come. In fifteen minutes she would be home, though. . . .

  The walks in town were strewn with hay. The main street was all there was, really, to the town—it was made up of old high buildings of red brick and frame buildings with big glass fronts. Because it was so early few people were on the street. But some distance away, at the cross street where the high school was, someone was walking. Karen thought that perhaps she ought to go to Albert’s apartment; he would help her. But she could not think why she needed help, or what she could say to him. Tears streamed over her cheeks; she tasted salt. She did not even know what she was crying about. She did not think it was for Rule.

  When she looked around a few minutes later, she happened to see Shar standing on the sidewalk watching her. She only happened to see him; he had made no sound at all. She had the idea he had been there for a while.

  He held a bulky paper bag in the crook of one arm and was eating a candy bar with a gaudy red wrapper. They looked at each other without expression. Finally Shar came around to the other side of the car and got in. He put the package in the back on the floor. He chewed the candy slowly and deliberately, as if he were not tasting it. “Do you like to cry?” he said. He started the car. He drove down the road, jolting at the potholes and bumps. Karen tensed herself against the ride, and against the chilly oppressive fear that had begun to take over: a nearly wild fear of not reaching home, a fear of reaching home and her father as if she had done something wrong. She wanted to ask Shar about the sheriff but could not. She leaned against the open window, crying, oddly ashamed; she did not know what was wrong. “Do you like to cry?” Shar said again. Karen did not look around. Her hair had begun to streak out in the cold wind. “I heard a song back there,” Shar said, “the drug store where I got this.” His spirits were buoyant; he seemed in a way pleased at her confusion. “The same tune over and over so it gets stuck in your head. Listen—” And she felt him touch her shoulder. He said softly in a pushing, tuneless voice:

  “The more she looked, the more she mourned,

  Till she fell to the ground a-crying.

  Saying take me up and carry me home

  For I am now . . .

  “Like that. You know how that goes?” he said.

  When Karen did not reply, he said nothing for a while. They were in the country now. Shar hummed to himself. He drove faster than before and seemed to know the way without asking her, without even hesitating. Karen was lulled by the rush of gray scenery, by the chill persistent wind against her face; she felt almost sleepy, as if sleep were something she could escape to. In a while she would achieve it: home again, home in her room, in her bed. They would not expect her to attend the funeral, if there was one, to see the old man’s coffin lowered into the ground—they would understand. Her father would understand. He would understand too that the events of the last few days had frightened her, unsettled her, that she needed rest and sleep, protection from them.

  Shar said suddenly, “Why don’t you look at me?”

  She felt his fingers against her shoulder, prodding at her. “Here,” he said. “What the hell is it to you if somebody died? It’s better off for him tha
t he’s dead, don’t you know that?”

  “Please,” said Karen.

  “Don’t you know that?” He pulled her around so that she could look at him, but Karen stared sightlessly before her at the road. She felt sleepy and dazed by the morning and the speed at which they traveled, and by Shar’s hand on her shoulder—still and heavy and warm. “You drive too fast,” she murmured.

  “Why do you cry?” Shar said. “Because of that old bastard?” He pushed at the accelerator, watching her; Karen felt the car pick up speed at once. “Are you afraid of me? What are you afraid of? Of death?” He steered with one hand and with the other held Karen’s shoulder. There was something unreal about the situation; Karen could not quite accept it. She stared at the hypnotic rushing of the clay road beneath them. “If I wanted to I could kill us both now,” Shar said conversationally. “All I would need to do is swerve the car off the road—crash it into those trees—that would be the end. All there is to it. Didn’t know you primped in mirrors and your mother suffered to have you so it could end like that—did you? Did you?”

  He let up on the accelerator. Karen closed her sore eyes as if in prayer, but she did not pray; she did not think of it. “Why don’t you look at me?” said Shar. “You haven’t seen me for a long time and won’t again. Don’t you like me?”

  He braked the car suddenly and turned off the road. Karen looked around in terror. They drove lurching along a lane—bare branches swept toward them, scraping viciously against the roof of the car. Shar stopped the car. Everything was silent. It had happened so quickly that Karen did not know what to say. Shar leaned back and looked at her. “Don’t you like me?” he said.

  “What are you doing?” Karen said faintly.

  “Here,” said Shar. He took her hand. Karen watched in fascination as he drew her hand to him and put it on his thigh. She could not understand what was happening. The sense of unreality pushed away fear, disgust, or anger—she only stared at him. “This is a good time for it,” said Shar. “All right? I’ll make it fast.” But his hard, casual calmness was belied by a sudden shivering that crossed over him as he pressed Karen’s hand against his body. “Oh, God,” said Shar.

  Karen pulled away from him. “What are you doing?” she said. Her voice was thin and childish. She felt the tears would help her, but she could not cry. “I don’t want to be here,” she said, “I don’t want—”

  “I seen you with that back-country bastard,” Shar said. “Do you think he’s better than I am?”

  Karen shook her head uncomprehendingly. “I have to be home,” she said. “I don’t know what—what’s happening—I—”

  “I seen you with that bastard,” Shar said tightly. “Who do you think you’re fooling?”

  Everything was still. Karen did not even think of trying to get out of the car. “Your father is dead,” she whispered.

  “Why did you come with me then?” said Shar.

  “Come with you? You said—”

  “What? What did I say?”

  “My father told you I should. You said—”

  “I said nothing. The hell with that.”

  “You told me so!” Karen whispered. For an instant she doubted everything; she must surely be going insane. “You told me my father wanted—”

  “No,” said Shar. “Your old man never said anything. He told me to call the sheriff. To call him from your telephone.”

  “No, no,” said Karen, closing her eyes. “No.”

  “The hell with all that,” said Shar. “We’re here now. I’ll be careful—I got something to use. Come on,” he said. But he did not touch her. He waited. “I’ll be good,” he said, trying to keep down his anger, trying to speak evenly and hypnotically. “I’ll open you up for that bastard. Come on. Come on.”

  Karen stared before her. They waited a while, as if their minds were blank. She could think of nothing.

  After a few minutes Shar relaxed. “All right,” he said. His voice was carefully empty. He started the car and backed it around to the road. Once on the road he drove fast again: sharp curves, dips, twists of the road, now a rock before them, now a great pothole. This time Karen almost liked the speed. Shar said nothing for a while but then, as if he could not help himself and did so reluctantly, he touched her shoulder again. She stared at him in terror. “I s’pose he never even did anything to you,” he said. Karen could not understand what he meant. “You’re just a kid. You ought to of been my age when I was around here.” He spoke softly, but there was a coarse, stern edge to his voice and the corners of his lips kept wanting to ease upward into a kind of grimace. Karen watched him. “It’s a goddam shame I got to leave here today,” he said, as if to himself.

  She felt his fingers at the back of her neck: just punishment, he would strangle her, punishment for the wrong she had done. He tightened his grip and she felt herself being drawn back slowly. For the moment her shame and guilt might be transformed into pain, concentrated into physical pain; that way she could bear it. Yet in spite of herself she cried out. Her scream surprised and pleased Shar, who did not release her. “What’s that?” he said. “Look around at me. Little girl. Baby of the family. Look at me instead of out there—you keep looking there, waiting for us to crash! Or are you looking for home? You’ll be there in a minute. . . . What the hell do I care about you,” he said angrily. He muttered to himself. But he did not release her. “A goddam little bitch like you, to get me going. Just a little bitch. The hell with it. I don’t need you. I’m going back today; the hell with it. It’s the same with all women. I don’t—” Yet he did not let go of her. His fingers gripped her neck, played with it; she felt his nails digging into her skin.

  Then Karen saw that they were heading up to the bridge. Almost home! Almost home! Hysteria seized her. She could see the house now, on the other side. Later she was unable to say what happened, but she remembered screaming: “You can’t do this—not here—it’s too close to—You can’t—What have I done, what have I done—my fault—” They were up on the bridge now; the floor thumped beneath them vigorously. Karen felt Shar’s arm slide about her shoulders and pull her against him, as if he could not help himself. She pushed against him, screaming. In her mind they were guilty, shameful; the ease of death about which Shar had spoken only a while ago seized her imagination, and she felt that both she and Shar must be punished. She pushed madly against him and took hold of the steering wheel. “Not here, not here,” Shar said. Karen pulled at the wheel, leaning against Shar, her hair whipped into her eyes, and she felt the car rushing off the bridge and onto the road again, she felt Shar’s fist strike her jaw and the clean swerve of the car beneath them, the tires screeching, shuddering, the road jerking off to their left—they were clear of the bridge now, she thought with savage regret—she felt the sudden terrific slamming of guard rails against the car and the groaning surrender of the car itself, spun helplessly off the road.

  5

  When Herz and one of his men made their way along the creek bank and emerged through a dense thicket, they saw Shar’s automobile smashed through the guard posts and at rest, head first, down the fifteen-foot hill from the road. Herz cried out, but his words were lost in the roar of the creek. The hired man, a bald, slow-faced old man, listened gaping to Herz’s snatched words. Both men ran stumbling forward. They had been in the hermit’s shanty when the crash had occurred, and Herz could still hear the ominous sound of squealing brakes. When he saw Karen appear, miraculously, by the side of the car, he stopped dead in the brittle grass.

  “Karen!” he said.

  Shar came stumbling from around the back of the car, his hand to his face. “Look what she did!” he shouted. His face was white, bleeding beneath one of his eyes. The bright blue automobile, dented and misshapen and sprinkled with broken glass, gave off a sharp odor of gasoline. “Look at it!” Shar cried. Karen had taken a step forward to come to her father, but had hesitated; and now she cringed back from Shar, who approached her with his hands uplifted as if he meant to te
ar her apart.

  Karen’s father reached her first. He began shaking her. He said nothing: veins on his forehead were swollen, outraged. When Shar shouted something at him he turned and pushed Shar back, his hand opened upon Shar’s chest. “You bastard!” Shar cried insanely. “What the hell are you doing?” His face was streaked with blood and Herz, distracted from his daughter to look at the man, felt in spite of his own anger that Shar might be dangerous—he might be a killer. “What is this?” Herz said. “What is Karen doing here?”

  “I don’t give a damn for it!” Shar cried, rushing at Herz. But he stopped before he met him and stood with his hands raised and clawlike, threshing the air. Behind Herz the hired man stood gaping in silence. “What? About her? Yes, she come along with me for a ride! The little bitch wanted to go for a ride! She was dying for it!”

  Karen’s father pulled her away from Shar. She stumbled with him down the hill, clinging to his arm; for an instant she even lay her head against his shoulder before he pushed her away. “You’re not hurt,” her father said. Karen could see the undisguised hatred in his face. “Get up to the house and stay there. I’ll see about you later.”

  “I—” said Karen.

  “Get up there. And you,” he said to Shar, trying to speak calmly, “you can get off my land. I don’t give a damn about you or your car or how you’re hurt—go hitch a ride! Goddam you, get out of here!”

  “Please,” said Karen, “I—”

  Shar ran to them and seized Herz’s arm. “What the hell are you talking about, you miserable old bastard?” he cried. His eyes were bloody and wild. “I got to get out of here? What? Here—you goddam old—”