Page 242 - What They Did to the Kid

230 Jack Fritscher

Jimmy shot himself for sure; said it could have been an accident, like
the coroner told his folks. It could have been an accident.”
“You always leave room for hope,” Mauve said. “I certainly
wouldn’t want it on my mind if one of my boys, or Edith there, went
off and shot their heads off on my account. Edith won’t have to shoot
her head off. Edith smokes cigarettes. Edith is my daughter-in-law,
Chuckie’s wife.”
“That poor man and woman have never been the same,” Walter
said.
“That’s sad,” I said. “There certainly is a great opportunity to
express social responsibility in the Catholic press.”
“Yes,” Lock said. “Our Misericordia Review has a circulation of
20,000 souls.”
“Think of that,” Mauve said.
“Jimmy’s parents never will be the same either,” Walt said.
“Always thinking they might have caused him to do it. Skippy here
don’t know why he did it.”
“He certainly doesn’t.” Edith said her first words.
They looked at her. A kind of fear flushed suddenly in their faces.
Chuckie, the man with the yellow skin, shifted slightly, touched her
arm, and said, “Now, Edie, honey.”
“Christamighty,” Edith said, “the Catholic press stinks.”
They stood in silence before her. Lock and I said nothing.
“Edith, please,” Mauve said, her white hands fluttering to her
powdered head. “I’ll have an attack.”
“Jesus will cure you and make you well.” She mocked the older
woman.
The two men, father and son, moved, each to his own wife.
“We’d best be going,” Lock said. “We’ve some things to do for
Rector Karg.”
“He’s such a lovely man,” Mauve said.
“Ordination Day is a busy day today.” I moved back, smiling.
“Nice to have met you.” Liar.
The five of them stood there, Walter and Mauve and Skippy and
Chuckie and Edith, caricatures of themselves, glaring. Skippy, the
boy with acne, turned rosy red. Only he nodded good-bye.

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