Dolores Claiborne - Stephen King [26]
He was grinnin at me like he couldn't believe what he was hearin. Why, I guess I'll just have to kill you, then, won't I?
I handed over the hatchet to him almost before the words were out of his mouth. It hadn't been in my mind to do it, but as soon as I seen him holdin it, I knew it was the only thing I coulda done.
Go on, I says. Just make the first one count so's I don't have to suffer.
He looked from me to the hatchet and then back to me again. The look of surprise on his face would have been comical if the business hadn't been so serious.
Then, once it's done, you better heat up that boiled dinner and help yourself to some more of it, I told him. Eat til you bust, because you'll be goin to jail and I ain't heard they serve anything good and home-cooked in jail. You'll be over in Belfast to start with, I guess. I bet they got one of those orange suits just your size.
Shut up, you cunt, he says.
I wouldn't, though. After that you'll most likely be in Shawshank, and I know they don't bring your meals hot to the table there. They don't let you out Friday nights to play poker with your beerjoint buddies, either. All I ask is that you do it quick and don't let the kids see the mess once it's over.
Then I closed my eyes. I was pretty sure he wouldn't do it, but bein pretty sure don't squeeze much water when it's your life on the line. That's one thing I found out that night. I stood there with my eyes shut, seem nothin but dark and wonderin what it'd feel like, having that hatchet come carvin through my nose n lips n teeth. I remember thinkin I'd most likely taste the wood-splinters on the blade before I died, and I remember bein glad I'd had it on the grindstone only two or three days before. If he was gonna kill me, I didn't want it to be with a dull hatchet.
Seemed like I stood there like that for about ten years. Then he said, kinda gruff and pissed off, Are you gonna get ready for bed or just stand there like Helen Keller havin a wet-dream?
I opened my eyes and saw he'd put the hatchet under his chair-I could just see the end of the handle stickin out from under the flounce. His newspaper was layin on top of his feet in a kind of tent. He bent over, picked it up, and shook it out-tryin to behave like it hadn't happened, none of it-but there was blood pourin down his cheek from his ear and his hands were tremblin just enough to make the pages of the paper rattle a tiny bit. He'd left his fingerprints in red on the front n back pages, too, and I made up my mind to burn the damned thing before he went to bed so the kids wouldn't see it and wonder what happened.
I'll be gettin into my nightgown soon enough, but we're gonna have an understandin on this first, Joe.
He looks up and says, all tight-lipped, You don't want to get too fresh, Dolores. That'd be a bad, bad mistake. You don't want to tease me.
I ain't teasin, I says. Your days of hittin me are over, that's all I want to say. If you ever do it again, one of us is goin to the hospital. Or to the morgue.
He looked at me for a long, long time, Andy, and I looked back at him. The hatchet was out of his hand and under the chair, but that didn't matter; I knew that if I dropped my eyes before he did, the punches in the neck and the hits in the back wouldn't never end. But at long last he looked down at his newspaper again and kinda muttered, Make yourself useful, woman. Bring me a towel for my head, if you can't do nothin else. I'm bleedin all over my goddam shirt.
That was the last time he ever hit me. He was a coward at heart, you see, although I never said the word out loud to him-not then and not ever. Doin that's about the most dangerous thing a person can do, I think, because a coward is more afraid of bein discovered than he is of anything else, even dyin.
Of course I knew he had a yellow streak in him; I never would have dared hit him upside the head with that cream-pitcher in the first place if I hadn't felt I had a pretty good chance of comm out on top. Besides, I realized somethin as I sat in that chair after he hit me, waitin