The Devil All the Time - Donald Ray Pollock [60]
Going back to the kitchen, he got a flashlight from the spoon drawer and made sure the door was locked. Then he went around closing all the curtains, ended up in the bedroom. He got down on his knees and reached under the bed for a shoe box. He carried the box into the living room and turned off all the lights and settled down on the couch in the darkness. Cold air blew in around the loose windows, and he drew Sandy’s blanket over his shoulders.
With the box on his lap, he closed his eyes and reached a hand under the cardboard lid. There were over two hundred photos inside, but he pulled just one out. He rubbed his thumb slowly over the slick paper, tried to divine which image it might be, a little thing he did to make it all last longer. After making his guess, he opened his eyes and flipped the flashlight on just for a second. Click, click. A tiny taste and he set that photo to the side, closed his eyes again, and took out another. Click, click. Bare backs and bloody holes and Sandy with her legs spread. Sometimes he went through the entire box without guessing a single one of them correctly.
Once he thought he heard a noise, a car door slam, footsteps on the back stairs. He got up and tiptoed from room to room with the pistol, peeking out the windows. Then he checked the door and returned to the couch. Time seemed to shift, speed up, slow down, move back and forth like a crazy dream he kept having over and over. One second he was standing in a muddy soybean field outside of Jasper, Indiana; and the next click of the flashlight took him to the bottom of a rocky ravine north of Sugar City, Colorado. Old voices crawled through his head like worms, some bitter with curses, others still pleading for mercy. By midnight, he’d traveled through a large portion of the Midwest, relived the last moments of twenty-four strange men. He remembered everything. It was as if he resurrected them every time he brought out the box, stirred them awake and allowed them to do their own kind of singing. One last click and he decided to call it a night.
After he returned the box to its hiding place under the bed, he switched the lights back on and wiped off the blanket as best he could with her washcloth. For the next couple of hours, he sat at the kitchen table cleaning the pistol and studying his road maps and waiting on Sandy to get off work. He always felt the need for her company after a bout with the box. She had told him about the paper mill man, and he thought about that for a while, what he’d do with the hook if they ever picked up a hitchhiker like that.
He’d forgotten how hungry he was until she walked in with two cold hamburgers slathered with mustard, three bottles of beer, and the evening newspaper. While he ate, she sat opposite him and carefully added up her tips, stacking the nickels, dimes, and quarters into small, neat piles, and he recalled the way he’d acted earlier about her stupid TV show. “You did pretty good tonight,” he said, when she finally finished counting.
“Not bad for a Wednesday, I guess,” she said with a tired smile. “So what did you do today?”
He shrugged. “Oh, cleaned out the fridge, sang a few songs.”
“You didn’t piss the old lady off again, did you?”
“Just kidding,” he said. “I got some new pictures to show you.”
“Which one is it?” she asked.
“The one had that bandanna tied around his head. They turned out pretty good.”
“Not tonight,” she said. “I’d never get to sleep.” Then she pushed half the change over to him. He scooped it up and dumped it in a coffee can he kept under the sink. They were always saving for the next junker, the next roll of film, the next trip. Opening the last beer, he poured her a glass. Then he got down on his knees in front of her and pulled her shoes