Everyone had come. You’d think it was fireworks, you’d think they’d shot the president and had a parade. Tires and driving and people standing around, standing. Nobody knew anything. The men came in their big trucks and twirled about with their hard heads and the big ones, the long ones, those things. Like a big parade. They had them then, before, whenever it was. Daddy used to take everyone, and she’d sit up on his wiggle-waggle, way up, and watch. The big men with their long things, like other things, it got so you couldn’t tell them apart.
And some men were naked. Completely. They ran out like they were on fire, no cucumbers, just bare and running. The one man was like that. He was so poor, it was a disgrace.
“Well, I think that’s enough,” Lenore said, but no one was listening. Everyone seemed to think it was her fault. It was awful, she’d never heard such nonsense. People acting like elephants.
They weren’t going to blame it on her. Men running and hard heads arriving. It wasn’t fair. They take one look at you, if you’re over a certain time, that’s it, sorry! Well, Lenore thought, if they’re sorry, how do they think I feel? One little mistake. You get the code wrong and then the whole parade lands on you!
All gone. They didn’t excuse you so you had to excuse yourself. If they want to stay, that’s fine. But when you get to a certain time you say, “Thank you. Thank you so much. That was lovely. How very kind.” Shake hands with the young ones, too. Don’t speak down to them.
The hostess was very busy with the naked man. Well, that was their business. If that’s how people lived nowadays. Begging on the street instead of digging ditches, which is what Daddy did. Along with all the soupers. They ate bread in the line, accepted no cheese, they were very proud. They ate and they ate.
She meant to say thank you properly, that it had been lovely, but the fat man was crying on the ground, he was so drunk. He’d never seen a parade. He was that poor. Sometimes they would come to the door, the naked ones, and Daddy would hand them a shovel and tell them about the ditches. There were always onions in the cold storage. Once her brother had locked her in.
She tried to say goodbye to the hostess. She said, “Lovely. Just lovely,” and stuck out her hand, quite properly, but some people are brought up badly these days. They cling to naked men. Spoiled, battish little children. Blaming everything, everything on you.
“Well, I never shot the president,” Lenore said, and it was true. She remembered exactly where she was. She was walking past the TV appliance store, that one on the street, with the big sign. There it was. She was walking past when Walter Klondike came on in the window and everyone stopped. Cars, everyone, they just pulled over. People were weeping, just like now.
“Ffffghh,” Lenore said and she cleared her throat. These people had no idea.
“Mother, I’m going to take you back to Fallowfields. We’re going to go to a hotel. The house has burned down. Do you understand that? You’ve set fire to the house and burned us all down!”
“Well,” Lenore said. And she turned to go. You can’t just blurt it out if there’s no paste. But they take you by the wrist, that’s what they do. They put you in the back of the wagon. They don’t wait for your attorney. And Trevor still gone! That man! He was going to be furious. With the baby so young, no one should get away with such truck.
A long, noisy kerjangle to the prison. The baby screaming, Lenore trying to get to her, it was awful. Pleading, scratching at the door, but she was scuffed and roped, no one could escape. The fat man, the real murderer, riding with them. They’d brought him clothes. A guard’s uniform. My God, he was going to be in charge of her! Just awful. His face so white, hands zickering. No one would believe her. “I didn’t kill him! It wasn’t me!” she screamed.
“Mother, please, calm down!” the other guard said. Speeding the paddywack a hundred miles an hour. And the baby screaming. How could they put a baby in prison?
“Please. Please, for the love of God!” But there was the prison: the big glass doors, the cream cakes inside. Those frightened eyes.
“I demand a recount!” Lenore yelled. They can’t do it, just lock you up and throw away the tree.
But they can. They can and they do. They take you away when you were just passing the store, it wasn’t you. You saw it but you didn’t do it. But how can you fix them? They know from the pictures. It’s all been arranged. The warden tells you – she’s an enormous, frusty woman – she takes you under the arm and says, “Lenore, now, you’ve had a shock.”
She uses those words. She pulls you away from your baby. You’re never going to see her again. When it wasn’t your fault, you tell her again and again and she agrees with you but it doesn’t matter. She doesn’t understand. And now Trevor doesn’t know where she is, he’ll never think to call the referee. He won’t even realize till dinner and then he’ll be furious. He won’t care, he’ll just keep on in the sauce and buy new socks when the old ones get woollen.
“I didn’t do it,” Lenore said, weeping against the warden. “I was there but I didn’t do it, and now they’re throwing it all out.”
“No, they aren’t, Lenore,” the warden said, stupidly.
Lenore looked at her, turned her head, looked at all of them, tried, tried to understand why everything had turned so crimsy.
Ages later. The prison smelled of toilets and dying people. It looked vaguely familiar. That was the awful thing, like this terrible dream. And then it was a dream. They didn’t make things like this in real life. The smell. The green prison grass. And bars on the windows. Everyone out of their minds. Mumbling, old dead skin, dribble lips, awful white hair. Lurch and bent people. Smelling and toothless and dressed so old. There was the television. Everyone parked around it like cows.
Lenore started crying then, it was the only thing she could do. She fell on her knees and wept because of everything so gulch – her baby gone and Trevor hungry, waiting. For all that. It was so soon after the surgery, no wonder she made mistakes. Anybody would, it wasn’t fair.
“Lenore. Lenore!” They were saying her name. But just wait, she thought. They came for me, they’ll come for you. Put you with cows. Make you so weak and tired and the pills do you crimsy, nothing is right. Just wait. It won’t be long, she thought.