Morgan was sitting in the Arrow Catcher jail behind bars playing checkers with Webber Chisholm. The jail was a big room with a couple of jail cells, with the iron doors standing open. The marshal’s desk was on the far side of the room, along with the filing cabinets and a hat rack and gun case and small refrigerator that worked right about half the time. Webber kept a few cold drinks there, maybe a half a watermelon.
Morgan couldn’t stand the game of checkers. Move and jump and king, lord, checkers is a game for morons. The checkerboard was faded and limber as a dishrag and had a round stain where a Nu-Grape bottle had been set.
Chinese checkers was a different thing, altogether different matter. Chinese checkers took some skill, some intelligence. All them marbles, all them players, it was some strategy to it. Couldn’t just any idiot play Chinese checkers. It helped if you was a Chinaman, but it wasn’t necessary. Mr. Quong, down at the meat market, could whip the shit out of a white man, or colored either, in a game of Chinese checkers. For some strange reason you don’t meet a lot of colored folks who are skilled at Chinese checkers, nobody seems to know the reason why.
Webber said, “Can you jump over your own man?”
Morgan just looked at him.
Webber said, “I’m just asking.”
Morgan said, “That’s in Chinese checkers.”
The marshal said, “Say which?”
Morgan said, “I don’t want to play no more.”
The marshal said, “You don’t want to play no more?”
Morgan said, “You don’t half know how to play.”
The marshal said, “I’m a little rusty. You don’t never learn nothing if you don’t ask questions.”
Morgan said, “I still don’t want to play no more.”
The marshal started to put up the checkers, fold up the checkerboard. He thought about telling Morgan about the floater, the dead man in Roebuck, to make conversation, something besides checkers. He had just taken the call and heard about it himself, didn’t even have an i.d. yet. He hated to talk to the pore boy about any more dead folks, though.
The marshal said, “You ain’t the first one to complain about my checker playing.” He said, “You ought to seen how Mr. Quong acted when I played a game of Chinese with him one time down at the meat market.”
Morgan got up off his chair and flopped down on his steel bunk.
The marshal said, “Such a quiet and peaceable people, generally. They do eat a lot of garlic, however.”
Morgan said, “Throw me that pillow.”
The marshal tossed him a feather pillow from a stool on the other side of the room. He said, “That’s a clean pillow slip. Desiree puts on a fresh one every day, including weekends.” He pushed open the cell door with his foot and carried the checkers and board out to his desk and put them in a drawer. He picked up a straw broom and walked back into the cell and swept the floor. He pushed aside the few sticks of furniture in the cell, so he could sweep better. As long as Morgan was propped up in his bunk, he swept under there too. He said, “I hope you ain’t allergic.” He was kicking up a fair amount of dust.
There was a gentleman in the other cell, a familiar face in town, Monsieur Dublieux. He pronounced his name W. Sometimes he signed it that way. Monsieur Dublieux was tall and thin and had a pencil-line moustache and wore a filthy tuxedo every day. He owned the Arrow Theater and described himself as being in show business.
The Arrow Theater showed a picture show every night and had a drawing at the Saturday matinee. One time a boy named Sugar Mecklin won a fishing rod and hooked a big red chicken in his daddy’s chickenyard, like to scared his daddy and mama half to death. You never heard a sound like a chicken on a hook. It sounds like chicken all the way back to the beginning of chicken. Another time a boy name of Duncan won a motorsickle. Now that was an impressive first prize.
Sometimes Monsieur Dublieux brought in performers, a boomerang thrower, a classical piano player, a magician with steel rings and rabbits. Tex Ritter did a show one time, with a lariat and a big horse that took a great big, grassy-green dump on the little stage. All the children said, “Peeyew.” Hydro Raney said, “Pore thang.” He felt sorry for the horse. Hydro said, “He’s just got to be embarrassed.” Another time Mr. William Tell himself got up on the stage and did his Red Skelton routines. He told jokes. He pretended like he was selling a brand of whiskey called Old Factory Whistle. Three blasts and you were out for the day. It was funny, even if didn’t nobody know what a factory whistle was.
Webber said, “Monsieur, you need anything while I’m up?”
Monsieur Dublieux said, “Nothing for me, thank you.”
To the sharpshooter, Monsieur said, “Ever think about breaking into show business?”
Morgan ignored him.
He said, “I’ve heard about that sharpshooter act of yours.”
Morgan said, “I ain’t really studying breaking into show business, Monsieur.”
Monsieur Dublieux rolled back onto his steel bunk and covered his eyes with his arm. He said softly, “I could make you a star.”
Morgan did the same thing on his bunk, lay back and covered up his eyes with his arm.
All them lies about killing a Mexican—why did Morgan tell those lies? And stealing a truck? He never stole no truck. He paid good money for that raggedy old truck, oil-burner like it was. They was coming back to haunt him now, the lies. And shell casings from his pistol, found right there on the scene. Why, that fact alone looked incriminating as all get-out, under the circumstances. He lay there thinking: how did I get myself in this mess? He thought, I’ve been working to this mess all my life.
Webber Chisholm was moving around the office with his broom, real slow, in his big old elephant way. Morgan just lay there on his bunk, propped up against his doubled-over feather pillow. He took his arm from over his eyes and watched Webber. Webber swept the floor of Monsieur Dublieux’s cell, and then swept the floor of the main office. The pistol he carried on his hip was as big as an anvil. It flopped this way and that way on his hip as he swept. Morgan’s own pistol was somewhere in this office. In a desk drawer, maybe. Morgan was trying to think how he could get his hands on that pistol, it would make him feel a little better.
Monsieur Dublieux said, “Did you-all hear that rain the other night?”
Webber said, “Woo-ee.”
He said, “That was a rain and a half.”
Webber said, “You said that right.”
He said, “That kind of rain can wash the birds right out of the trees.”
Webber said, “Boy howdy.”
He said, “It can wash the graves right out of the ground.”
Webber said, “Boy howdy.”
Monsieur said, “One time up in St. Louis there was a big rain like that. Washed up a bunch of coffins out of a graveyard.”
Webber said, “Tell the truth.”
Monsieur said, “No, it is the truth.”
Webber said, “This sounds like one them stories the Prince of Darkness is all time telling.”
Monsieur said, “Well, this one’s the truth. A Western cowboy, all dressed up in chaps and spurs and six shooters and a ten-gallon hat—washed up out of a graveyard in St. Louis. Perfectly preserved. A bucktoothed cowboy.”
Webber said, “Bucktoothed?”
Monsieur said, “That’s it.”
Webber said, “What’s a bucktoothed Western cowboy doing in St. Louis?”
Monsieur Dublieux said, “You want to know where that cowboy is today? He’s in show business. He’s working out in California. I got him his first big break in show business.”
Webber said, “You broke a dead cowboy into show business?”
Monsieur said, “He’s with a traveling Wild West Show.”
“A bucktoothed cowboy?”
“That’s it.”
Webber said, “Seem like his big break come a little late.”
Monsieur said, “Perfectly preserved. Buckteeth. They set him up outside the tent in a leather saddle on a sawhorse. Tourists see it’s the authentic, gen-you-wine item, and they pay top dollar. Solid gold.”
Webber said, “I still can’t help but think he would have enjoyed his celebrity a little more if he was alive.”
Monsieur said, “They got him some new clothes, trimmed his fingernails and toenails, got him a shampoo and a haircut, put a coat of Shinola on them pointy-toed high-heeled boots, and he’s good as new.”
Webber said, “Well, I do say.”
Monsieur said, “They ought to of put braces on them teeth. It was too expensive. It’s a major capital outlay, I understand that. I can understand them wanting to economize.”
Webber said, “Him being dead.”
Monsieur said, “Still, you want to look your best.”
Morgan lifted up on one elbow and looked into the next cell at Monsieur Dublieux. Then he just lay back down on his steel bunk. He said, “Lord God Baby Jesus in golden heaven.”
After a while, Desiree Chisholm came in carrying three lunch boxes. She was bringing lunch to Webber and the prisoners. Webber brightened up when he saw her. He was scared he was going to dream about the dead cowboy. He wished Monsieur Dublieux hadn’t gone on about them buckteeth. That’s just the kind of detail that’s all time showing up in a dream. He said, “Hey, Desiree.”
She said, “Hey, Webber.”
Monsieur Dublieux also perked up as soon as Desiree entered the jail.
Desiree had been a cheerleader at Arrow Catcher High, when she was a girl. She got Peppiest Cheerleader in the yearbook her senior year. She also got Most Sincere. She was a little less peppy now, but just as sincere and pretty. Monsieur Dublieux had been trying to talk her into going into show business ever since she graduated from ACHS. He wanted to be her agent.
He said, “Desiree, how are you!”
She said, “Hey, Monsieur.” Then to everyone, she said, “There’s a chicken leg and some cold collards and a hunk of cornbread in these lunch boxes, if anybody’s hungry. Oh, and a carton of sweetmilk and a Hostess cupcake.”
Webber said, “You outdone yourself.”
She said, “I had a little extra time.”
She started to pass out lunch boxes.
Monsieur rubbed his hands together and waited for Webber to open up the cell and let her in with his lunch. He had a big smile for Desiree.
Morgan didn’t move. Something about the appearance of Desiree Chisholm here, and the marshal’s sappy love of her, and Monsieur’s pathetic, alcoholic fascination, struck Morgan to the heart with the meaninglessness of all human existence. We are all truly alone in this world, just as he had told Hydro that day out at William Tell. Even a father who sung songs to you didn’t change that one essential fact of life. Even a mama who all of a sudden one day said she loved you, even if you were a cold-blooded murderer. For the first time in his life, he believed he might be capable of testing Aunt Lily’s bizarre declaration. He could escape from this place. He could leave a trail of hair and eyeballs behind him.
Webber was fumbling with the cell keys. Then he remembered the cell doors weren’t even shut, let alone locked.
Webber said, “Well, I hope you boys are hungry.” Desiree went into the sharpshooter’s cell.
She said, “Hey, Morgan.”
He didn’t move, didn’t answer.
She said, “I’ll put your lunch box over here, in case you get hungry later on.” Before she left his cell, she said, “I heard about the eyewitness, Morgan. I’m sorry as I can be.” She turned then and walked out of the cell.
Monsieur Dublieux said, “Did you bring a lunch for yourself, Desiree? Here, please, share some of mine, if you’d like.” He brushed cornbread crumbs off the ruffled front of his shirt. He spread his napkin over the shiny material of his tuxedo pants.
Desiree said, “Naw, thanks, I ate before I came over. There’s some pepper sauce for the greens in Webber’s box. Y’all will have to share.”
Morgan sat up on the bunk.
Webber and Monsieur opened up their lunch boxes and started to unwrap their chicken legs from waxed paper.
Desiree said, “Oh, and there’s a hardboiled egg in there, too.”
The jail began to smell wonderful with the fragrances of the food.
After a while Morgan opened his lunch too. He wished he could turn it down, not eat it, say “No thank you,” but he was too hungry. That chicken smelled too good. Better than pigeon, that was for sure. He picked up a drumstick and took a little bite. Oh my God, it was so good, it was truly excellent. He sucked his fingers and closed his eyes. He thought of Ruthie. He hated himself for once imagining that they could be married, share a meal like this, a life.
The others talked for a while, about one thing and another. Morgan ate and kept quiet.
Somebody said, “Pass the pepper sauce.”
Morgan thought, I’ve got to get out of here. And yet even as he held this thought, he did not really even care whether he got out, just so long as these voices stopped, for a little while anyway, just so long as love and magic, or what passed for them, even show business, in the desperation of the struggle against all the reasons for suicide, just so long as they shut up for a while, for now, and did not continue to remind him of what he lost, or never had, or was fool enough to believe was possible in a lifetime such as his own—he could be satisfied with that, as little as that. He could shut these voices up. He could if he had his pistol.
He said, “How do you mean ‘eyewitness’?”
Desiree looked at him. She smiled her beautiful smile. She said, “Oh, you were able to eat a little something after all. Well, good. I’m glad to see you feeling better.”
Monsieur Dublieux took a bite of cornbread out of the hunk in his lunch box and brushed crumbs out of his pencil-line moustache. He chewed for a minute. He said, “Desiree, I was just thinking about the old days.”
Desiree was the cutest cheerleader on the squad, back in high school, and the tiniest, not even five feet tall. She was usually paired off with a girl named Barbara Ann, who was about Desiree’s same size, maybe a little taller. They were cute as buttons. Barbara Ann had red hair and freckles and big green eyes. People came to arrow-catching matches just to see Desiree and Barbara Ann.
Desiree said, “Now, don’t you get started on that again, Monsieur. I got me a career right here.” She put her arm around her husband’s big waist, as far as it would go, anyway.
Monsieur Dublieux said, “We could all be rich right now, me and you and Barbara Ann, if you had followed my advice.”
Desiree said, “Money can’t buy what I’ve got.”
Monsieur Dublieux looked at Webber Chisholm, big as a side of beef.
He said, “Well, I grant you that.”
Webber was pleased as he could be. He said, “Y’all are embarrassing me.”
Morgan said, “I was wondering about that eyewitness.”
Monsieur Dublieux said, “I still know a few people out on the coast, if you ever change your mind.” He said, “Same goes for you, Morgan. Don’t let an opportunity slip through your fingers like Desiree did.”
Morgan was thinking, That big pistol would slip right out. One second, and I’d be holding it in my hand.
Desiree said, “Stop now, Monsieur, I mean it.” But she couldn’t help being pleased.
They stopped talking for a while now. Morgan imagined a bullet hole in Webber Chisholm’s big chest. These were new thoughts, he was not comfortable with them. He was no killer, never had been. Still, he thought them. He did not push them away.
For now, everybody concentrated on the food, even Morgan. They passed the pepper sauce back and forth.
Monsieur Dublieux said, “Them was the days, all right.” He had finished eating his Hostess cupcake and was lying back on his bunk. He wasn’t talking to anybody in particular. He said, “Nobody cared about the arrow-catching team. The team stunk. They were awful. We didn’t have one white child in this town who could catch an arrow. The archers were almost as bad. They like to had to call an end to the sport before somebody got killed.”
Webber said, “One time when I was a boy, I was eating a Hostess cupcake and heard a mawking bird up in a walnut tree, tra-la-la-tweedly-dee-dee, you know, this was in Pap Mecklin’s backyard, that big old tree—and so I looked up in the tree, in the leaves, had my mouth wide open, looking for the bird, and you know what?—that durn mawking bird dropped a load of dooky right in my mouth.”
Desiree said, “Webber!”
Webber said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to seem indelicate. I just thought about that mawking bird when I took a bite of this here Hostess cupcake.”
Morgan said, “Tell me who the eyewitness was.”
Monsieur Dublieux said, “That little four-eyed fat boy.”
Morgan saw everything clearly now. Louis, the comic books, the revenge for falling in love with the boy’s mama. For the first time in his life, Morgan felt truly and utterly hopeless.
Desiree said, “Webber, me and Monsieur was just reminiscing about the old days and breaking into show business, and you have got to get started on bird dooky.”
Morgan felt giddy, light-headed, reckless. He got up off his bunk and walked over to the bars of his cell. He said, “That cream filling in the middle of a Hostess cupcake looks about like bird dooky.”
Webber said, “Well, see, that’s the way I figure it.”
Morgan saw Webber Chisholm collapse onto the floor and bust like a big watermelon. He saw him lying on the floor and puking up blood. He saw Desiree leaning over him. He saw her head explode like a cantaloupe. Anything was possible now.
He said, “Did you swallow it?”
Desiree cried, “You boys!”
Webber said, “Well, yeah—”
Morgan walked back over to his bunk.
He said, “Right.”
He put his head back down on his pillow. He thought he could do it.
He said, “I’ve eaten my share of birdshit.”
Webber said, “You know what I’m talking about, then. It ain’t got that much taste, and a little bit once in a while never hurt nobody.”
Monsieur Dublieux said, “Well, that’s good to know.”
Webber said, “Not if you chase it with a cupcake.”
Monsieur Dublieux said, “More people ought to know about this, Marshal. They ought to put it on the TV.”
Desiree said, “You don’t have to get sarcastic, Monsieur.”
Nobody talked for a while now.
Monsieur asked for a mirror and a basin of water. He needed to freshen up, he was getting out of jail later that afternoon.
Webber said, “Just use the facility, right down the hall there.”
Monsieur Dublieux was gone a little while. The others could hear the water running. They could hear him singing show tunes. He changed the words of “My Fair Lady.” He sang, “I’ve grown a costume on my face,” and this made Desiree laugh.
She said, “Monsieur is just the most charming and witty creature.”
Webber Chisholm gave his wife a look, like this.
Desiree gathered up the lunch boxes. She swept cornbread crumbs into her hand. She threw the waxed paper and egg shells and milk cartons into the trash. She said, “Does anybody need an extra napkin?” Monsieur went back into his cell and pulled the door shut behind him.
He said, “Guess what they named the bucktoothed cowboy.”
Morgan gave Monsieur an evil look, like this.
Webber said, “Anybody else need to use the facility before I lock up?” Speaking to Morgan.
Monsieur said, “Boy Howdy.”
Morgan just looked at him.
Monsieur said, “The name was my idea, Boy Howdy. Where do you think Cary Grant would have ever got with a name like Archie Leach? It’s the same with every actor and performer in the world. You got to have the right name.”
Desiree said, “What stage name would you have given me, Monsieur? If I hadn’t been so much in love?”
Morgan said, “You named a bucktoothed dead man Boy Howdy?”
Webber said, “Last chance—facility, anybody? Before I lock up the cells?”
Morgan said, “That ain’t very respectful of the dead, it don’t look like to me.”
Webber went on and locked Morgan’s cell door, too.
Monsieur Dublieux said, “That would have depended on many things, my dear.” Speaking to Desiree.
Morgan got up off his bunk and walked to the cell door. He wrapped his fingers around the bars.
Webber struggled with the keys and finally got the lock to click. The big pistol was swinging this way and that.
Desiree said, “Like what kind of things?”
Morgan said, “I’d be more respectful of the dead if I was you.”
Morgan eyed the gun butt. If he took it he would have to kill him. It would be an easy thing, taking it, snapping off a couple of quick shots.
Monsieur gave Desiree a big wink. He went back to an earlier subject. He spoke only to Desiree now. He said, “The crowds were big, anyway, at the arrow-catching events, remember? It didn’t matter if the team stunk like merde. The crowds didn’t care about the team. The crowds came to see the cheerleaders. They came to see you.”
Desiree lowered her eyes in pleasure. Webber lumbered on over to his desk and started pulling out some papers and looking at them.
Monsieur said, “They called, Desiree, they called, Barbara Ann. You made them believe they were not all alone in the world. You made them whisper in the grandstands, in urgent voices, you made them debate the meaning of life and death.”
Something about this conversation made Webber Chisholm uncomfortable. He put down his papers and paced the room. Desiree was remembering, too, the old days, the archers and the catchers, the green fields and the lights. Webber walked towards his wife and reached to touch her but she moved away. She said, “My stage name, Monsieur, what would it have been?”
Webber stood in front of Morgan’s cell, watching his wife. He was backed up to the bars. He was afraid of losing her to Hollywood.
Morgan eyed the pistol, huge, chrome plating and ivory grips. It was as big as a lard bucket, as big as a pay phone, brilliant as sunlight. It was just asking to be lifted from the holster. Morgan loosened his fingers on the cell bars. He dropped his arms to his side, very slow. He eased his hand through the cell bars and touched the ivory pistol grip of Webber’s big gun. Webber shifted his weight, and Morgan withdrew his hand.
Monsieur said, “Show us, Desiree.”
Desiree was a child again. Barbara Ann was there beside her, also a child. They wore white sweaters with a big AC on the front. They wore black pleated skirts and saddle oxfords and bobby socks. Their hair was pulled back in identical ponytails. Desiree pretended to wrap her arms around her friend. She pretended to lean into Barbara Ann’s embrace. She leaned and swayed. She sang, “I’ve got all my sisters with me.” Her voice was so sweet it broke hearts.
Monsieur Dublieux cried out, “Who needs an arrow-catching team!”
She sang, My guy’s an arrow-catching guy, he goes to Arrow High. She clapped her hands and kicked her foot up over her head.
Monsieur Dublieux cried out, “You’ve still got it, Desiree! You could still be a star!”
Webber fought back tears at the sight of her beauty, at the fear of loss.
Monsieur Dublieux saw dollar signs, bright lights, big city, lunch with the stars. He wolfed down the last of his cornbread and collard greens. Hollywood, the Great White Way, the Catskills.
Monsieur Dublieux was in love with her. He always had been, since she was a child. And she would never be a star. She didn’t have ambition. If she had ambition, Monsieur Dublieux could take her to the moon, to the Milky Way.
Morgan reached through the bars once more.
Desiree said, “Would you have given me your own name? Would I have become Desiree Dublieux?” She didn’t pronounce the name W. She gave it all the French she knew. “Would my name now be Dez-ah-ray Doob-lee-uhh?”
Morgan lifted the big pistol from the marshal’s holster.
Marshal Chisholm staggered away from the cellblock, gripped in pain and fear, though he did not even notice that his gun was gone from its place at his side. No one noticed.
Monsieur Dublieux leaped from his bunk. He grasped the bars of his cell. “Sacre Dieu!” he cried. “Dez-ah-ray Dub-lee-uhh! Toujours et toujours!”
Webber Chisholm collapsed backwards into the swivel chair at his desk. He let his head fall forward onto his ink blotter. He cried tears filled with heartbreak. He wept, “I ain’t worthy! Oh life, oh death!”
Morgan cocked the hammer of the big pistol.
The marshal looked up from his desk. He dried his tears, checked his sobs. He saw the pistol, looked straight down its barrel and saw a deep tunnel of darkness that reminded him of what life would be like without his wife.