The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers [72]
Bill was in his room at the back. She didn’t want to talk with them. She stood around in the front hall and thought it over by herself.
Her Dad’s footsteps stopped. ‘It was deliberate,’ he said. ‘It’s not like the kid was just fooling with the gun and it went off by accident. Everybody who saw it said he took deliberate aim.’
‘I wonder when we’ll hear from Mrs. Wilson,’ her Mama said.
‘We’ll hear plenty, all right!’
‘I reckon we will.’
Now that the sun was down the night was cold again like November. The people came in from the front porch and sat in the living-room--but nobody lighted a fire. Mick’s sweater was hanging on the hat rack, so she put it on and stood with her shoulders bent over to keep warm. She thought about Bubber sitting out in the cold, dark tree house. He had really believed every word she said. But he sure deserved to worry some. He had nearly killed that Baby.
‘Mick, can’t you think of some place where Bubber might be?’ her Dad asked.
‘He’s in the neighborhood, I reckon.’
Her Dad walked up and down with the empty beer bottle in his hand. He walked like a blind man and there was sweat on his face. ‘The poor kid’s scared to come home. If we could find him I’d feel better. I’ve never laid a hand on Bubber. He oughtn’t be scared of me.’
She would wait until an hour and a half was gone. By that time he would be plenty sorry for what he did. She always could manage that Bubber and make him learn.
After a while there was a big excitement in the house. Her Dad telephoned again to the hospital to see how Baby was, and in a few minutes Mrs. Wilson called back. She said she wanted to have a talk with them and would come to the house.
Her Dad still walked up and down the front room like a blind man. He drank three more bottles of beer. ‘The way it all happened she can sue my britches off. All she could get would be the house outside of the mortgage. But the way it happened we don’t have any comeback at all.’
Suddenly Mick thought about something. Maybe they would really try Bubber in court and put him in a children’s jail.
Maybe Mrs. Wilson would send him to reform school. Maybe they would really do something terrible to Bubber. She wanted to go out to the tree house right away and sit with him and tell him not to worry. Bubber was always so thin and little and smart. She would kill anybody that tried to send that kid out of the family. She wanted to kiss him and bite him because she loved him so much.
But she couldn’t miss anything. Mrs. Wilson would be there in a few minutes and she had to know what was going on. Then she would run out and tell Bubber that all the things she said were lies. And he would really have learned the lesson he had coming to him.
A ten-cent taxicab drove up to the sidewalk. Everybody waited on the front porch, very quiet and scared. Mrs. Wilson got out of the taxi with Mister Brannon. She could hear her Dad grinding his teeth together in a nervous way as they came up the steps. They went into the front room and she followed along after them and stood in the doorway. Etta and Hazel and Bill and the boarders kept out of it.
‘I’ve come to talk over all this with you,’ Mrs. Wilson said.
The front room looked tacky and dirty and she saw Mister Brannon notice everything. The mashed celluloid doll and the beads and junk Ralph played with were scattered on the floor.
There was beer on her Dad’s workbench, and the pillows on the bed where her Dad and Mama slept were right gray.
Mrs. Wilson kept pulling the wedding ring on and off her finger. By the side of her Mister Brannon was very calm. He sat with his legs crossed. His jaws were blue-black and he looked like a gangster in the movies. He had always had this grudge against her. He always spoke to her in this rough voice different from the way he talked to other people. Was it because he knew about the time she and Bubber swiped a pack of chewing gum off his counter? She hated him.
‘It all boils down to this,’ said Mrs. Wilson. ‘Your kid shot my baby in the head on purpose.’
Mick stepped into the middle of the room. ‘No, he didn