Dolores Claiborne

    I put the plates and my empty soda bottle on the tray, scoochin down to do it, n before I could stand up, Joe done somethin he hadn't done in years: put one of his hands on the back of my neck n give me a kiss. I've had better; his breath was all booze n onion n salami and he hadn't shaved, but it was a kiss just the same, and nothing mean or half-assed or peckish about it. It was just a nice kiss, n I couldn't remember the last time he'd give me one. I closed my eyes n let him do it. I remember that-closin my eyes and feelin his lips on mine and the sun on my forehead. One was as warm n nice as the other.

    “That wa'ant half-bad, Dolores,” he said-high praise, comm from him.

    I had a second there when I kinda wavered-I ain't gonna sit here and say different. It was a second when it wasn't Joe puttin his hands all over Selena that I saw, but the way his forehead looked in study-hall back in 1945-how I saw that and wanted him to kiss me just the way he was kissin me now; how I thought, “If he kissed me I'd reach up and touch the skin there on his brow while he did it… see if it's as smooth as it looks.”

    I reached out my hand n touched it then, just like I'd dreamed of doin all those years before, when I'd been nothin but a green girl, and the minute I did, that inside eye opened wider” n ever. What it saw was how he'd go on if I let him go on-not just getfin what he wanted from Selena, or spendin the money he'd robbed out of his kids” bank accounts, but workin on em; belittlin Joe Junior for his good grades n his love of history; clappin Little Pete on the back whenever Pete called somebody a sheeny or said one of his classmates was lazy as a nigger; workin on em; always workin on em. He'd go on until they were broke or spoiled, if I let him, and in the end he'd die n leave us with nothin but bills and a hole to bury him in.

    Well, I had a hole for him, one thirty feet deep instead of just six, and lined with chunks of fieldstone instead of dirt. You bet I had a hole for him, and one kiss after three years or maybe even five wasn't gonna change it. Neither was touchin his forehead, which had been a lot more the cause of all my trouble than his pulin little dingus ever was but I touched it again, just the same; traced one finger over it and thought about how he kissed me on the patio of The Samoset Inn while the band played “Moonlight Cocktail,” and how I'd been able to smell his father's cologne on his cheeks when he did.

    Then I hardened my heart.

    “I'm glad,” I said, n picked up the tray again. “Why don't you see what you can make of those viewers and the reflector-boxes while I do up these few dishes?”

    “I don't give a fuck about anything that rich cunt gave you,” he says, “and I don't give a fuck about the goddam eclipse, either. I've seen dark before. It happens every goddam night.”

    “All right,” I says. “Suit yourself.”

    I got as far's the door and he says, “Maybe you n me can get up to dickens later on. What would you think about that, Dee?”

    “Maybe,” I says, all the time thinkin there was gonna be plenty of dickens, all right. Before it got dark for the second time that day, Joe St George was gonna get more dickens than he'd ever dreamed of.

    I kept my good weather eye on him while I was standin at the sink and doin up our few dishes. He hadn't done anything in bed but sleep, snore, n fart for years, and I think he knew as well's I did that the booze had as much to do with that as my ugly face… prob'ly more. I was scared that maybe the idear of gettin his ashes hauled later on would cause him to put the cap back on that bottle of Johnnie Walker, but no such bad luck. For Joe, fuckin (pardon my language, Nancy) was just a fancy, like kissin me had been. The bottle was a lot realer to him. The bottle was right there where he could touch it. He'd gotten one of the eclipse-viewers out of the bag and was holdin it up by the handle, turnin it this way n that, squintin at the sun through it. He reminded me of a thing I saw on TV once-a chimpanzee tryin to tune a radio. Then he put it down and poured himself another drink.

    When I came back out on the porch with my sewin basket, I saw he was already gettin that owly, red-around-the-eyes look he had when he was on his way from moderately tickled to thoroughly tanked. He looked at me pretty sharp just the same, no doubt wonderin if I was gonna bitch at him.

    “Don't mind me,” I says, sweet as sugar-pie, “I'm just gonna sit here and do a little mendin and wait for the eclipse to start. It's nice that the sun came out, isn't it?”

    “Christ, Dolores, you must think this is my birthday,” he says. His voice had started to get thick and furry.

    “Well-somethin like it, maybe,” I says, and began sewin up a rip in a pair of Little Pete's jeans.