Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 77, No. 7. Whole No. 454, June 17, 1981

Mr. Smith and Myrtle by Nedra Tyre

Copyright © 1947 by Nedra Tyre; renewed.

We are indebted to Edith Wyatt of Decatur, Georgia, for calling to our attention a remarkable book — Nedra Tyre’s RED WINE FIRST, published in 1947, and long out of print. The title of the book comes from Sean O’Casey’s THE SILVER TASSIE: “Red wine first, Jessie, to the passion and the power and the pain of life.”

“The people in [Nedra Tyre’s] book all talk to someone called a case worker... These, then, are conversations of persons who happened to be clients of social agencies sometime during the years 1940-45. They lived and died in three of the Southern states.”

The first of these stories — “sketches, conversations, whatever one wants to call them” — fully illustrates the quotation from Sean O’Casey...

I reckon what I done was years coming. Yet it looked like it was just all of a sudden. I keep telling myself it happened suddenlike and I was outa my mind, then I remember all the little things all my life long and I know they was just being packed one on top of the other and being shoved and pushed inside like a trunk or a suitcase that can’t hold no more.

They was just the two of us, me and Myrtle. Look like the Lord tried Hisself to make her pretty and me ugly. I was tall and gawky and you can’t see around my nose. I ain’t got much chin. Ain’t nothing right about me. And Myrtle, well, she was just about perfect. Black hair and a round smiling face. She had as pretty a figger as you could find and, Lord, from the time she was two every man she passed on the street was flirting with her. She didn’t care nothing for them, just grinned at them, said oh go on about your business, and they loved her even more. By the time she was eleven, she’d as soon tell a man to go to hell as to look at him straight.

I was three years older. I remember her fifteenth birthday, was the last time I ever tried to stay around the house when she was there with boys. They hovered over her and laughed with her and I just set there.

After that, as I say, I didn’t stay around her none, but I done a mighty funny thing. I’d stay in the kitchen and I’d hear all the fun going on and look like I couldn’t stand to be left out. What I done was to bore me a hole in the door and watch them. I reckon it wasn’t nice to spy on them like that but looked like I didn’t have no choice.

Mama and papa was always proud of Myrtle and the way she looked. Myrtle’d cry for things I had and mama’d say, give it to the baby, you’re a big girl now and ought not to want nothing like that to play with. You ain’t going to let your little sister cry, are you, just because you’re too stingy to give her that doll?

Papa got without work and it was up to me to earn what I could. Stopped school when I was in the sixth grade and went right to work in a department store in the stockroom. Well, I was there six years when it happened. Now understand, Mr. Smith wasn’t the handsomest man that ever lived and breathed and I wouldn’t try to make you believe it. Face was kinda like a rat’s, but he was just plain nice. Talked to me like he thought a awful lot of me. Every night I’d get down on my knees and thank God for letting Mr. Smith speak to me like I was a woman. I wanted to reach out my hand to Mr. Smith, to give him presents, to do everything to show him what it meant to me that he treated me like a woman. It was wonderful the first time he taken me to a movie — was wonderful of course every time after that — and helt my hand. For so long it had seemed to me that every girl alive had moren me and then there it was, everything handed to me on a silver platter.

Well, it went on like that for some time. He never said a word to me about love or nothing. I wanted him so much. It was all shining on my face, the way I loved him. I’d try to bring his name in the conversation, no matter where I was. I’d say, now Mr. Smith, the floorwalker up on the first floor, thinks it’s going to be a good year for the Republicans. Anything to keep his name before me, anything to hold onto my love.

Then one morning mama said to me, I know you love him. Lord, anybody could tell I loved him.

So one night I got my courage up and I invited him home to supper. Mama really done her best. She was a mighty good cook. It was real nice. Papa put on a tie and for oncet we got him to wear his falst teeth and we set around laughing and talking. Myrtle was out on a date. We had a mighty comfirtible evening. Papa setting there picking his falst teeth and mama settled in her rocking chair with her hands on her stomach, smiling.

In a little while papa started yawning and saying well come on maw let’s leave it to the young folks and we left the dining room and went on in the sitting room.

Mr. Smith and me set down on the sofa. Mr. Smith and me was all alone, first time I’d ever been alone with him, before we always went to the show together or to some place to eat with lots of people around. I felt as if I was looking at him for the first time. The floor lamp was lit way on the other side of the room and it was all just as nice as anybody’d ever want. I was trying not to be too bold and brazen.

Mr. Smith finely reached over to me same as if it was the most natural thing in the world and taken my hand. Then he just sorta drawed me over to him and kissed me.

I reckon they’s just some folks the Lord don’t want to have no pleasure. Here this wonderful thing come into my life. I shoulda known wasn’t meant for me.

After a while Mr. Smith said, well it’s getting late and you’ve got to get your beauty sleep. He got up and walked over to the console table and taken his hat off it. He just sorta waved and said thanks for a very nice evening and tell your mother that was just about the nicest apple pie I ever put in my mouth.

I heard him close the door and then I heard Myrtle come in the hall. I reckon she musta said something to him but I couldn’t hear their voices. Then she walked into the living room and said, well you’ve got a feller. I looked hard at her and I knowed she was adding in her mind though not coming out and saying it, well who’d a thought you coulda done it. She smiled a very funny smile. I never thought much about it. Not then.

After that, looked like Mr. Smith ignored me. Then about two weeks later there was Mr. Smith waiting in the living room when I come home and I said in a very surprised and funny way, well I declare, Mr. Smith, I wasn’t expecting to see you here. I was trying to be offhand. I said, it’s mighty nice of you to come by and there’s a good show on at the Capitol and I was wondering if you had in mind going to see it.

Well, he hummed and hawed and sorta spewed around and said he’d just dropped by to say hello. All the time his eyes was darting round same as if his mind was somewhere else. Right then and there Myrtle opened the door. She looked past me to Mr. Smith and she said, I’m sorry, Jack honey, for keeping you waiting like this but that damned Mr. Alton thinks he owns me body and soul just because he pays me fifteen dollars a week. I just couldn’t get away a minute sooner. She didn’t look at me not oncet except when she and Mr. Smith left out of the front door and then she give me a look like she used to give me when I’d handed over a doll to her because mama made me.

I wanted to die and my body to rot. I felt like a pore old meowing cat out in the rain.

I couldn’t stop thinking of Mr. Smith. At the store my eyes followed him every step he taken. I changed my lunch hour on account of between one and two he come downstairs and was near the stockroom, relieving the basemint floorwalker. He would say, hello Ruby, but never a word about walking in the park or a movie or nothing.

I used to haunt the streets trying to track him and Myrtle down. If I coulda just stood outside myself I reckon I coulda seen how foolish it all was, me a mourning over a man that had no use for me, when they was so many other men in the world.

I wanted Mr. Smith and I couldn’t hep myself. Even sleeping I couldn’t get him outa my mind. Wasn’t no other thought nowhere I could get holt of. And I’d come home every night to find him in the living room waiting for Myrtle. Didn’t even have the grace to meet her somewheres downtown.

Things kept on like that for some little time. Then I reckon it was about the prettiest spring night I ever seen. I couldn’t bear it inside and I went walking down the street. I taken my time about coming back. Well, when I finely got back home there was mama and papa in the living room and Mr. Smith and Myrtle, and mama saying now then Ruby where you been that you wasn’t home to get the most important news we’ve had anytime lately? Guess what, Mr. Smith and Myrtle is getting married.

Papa nudged me and said, well now you’ll be the next one Ruby, and then he whooped and hollered and showed all his gums. I just said to myself, I got my pride, I can’t break down here, so I said, well I’m sure I hope you’ll both be very happy. Myrtle said, we ain’t gonna have no fine wedding, we’re gonna drive out somewheres dost by and get married, then we’ll come home and you can have a good supper for us, mama. Why don’t you have fried chicken, always said nobody in the world can fry chicken like you.

I wish they’d been somebody I coulda talked to that week while they was waiting to be married. I’d think, oh God, this can’t be true, he’s my only love. I’d even try to think of things that would make me feel good like maybe Myrtle would jilt him or maybe she would get killed or just up and die, but then it was Saturday afternoon and time for them to drive away and I realized wasn’t nothing gonna take my misery from me. I was gonna have to face it without a single human being knowing what I was going through.

The neighbors come by to look at Myrtle before she and Mr. Smith left to be married, said they never seen nothing so pretty in their lives. I just set down in the sitting room after they left and I had about the spine-tingliest feeling anybody could ever have. There was somebody in my place that had no right to be there.

And then bless goodness they was back before you could say Jack Robinson, Mr. Smith saying well, it don’t take much time for you to get into these things but just let me see you try to get out of it. Myrtle laughed, said well talk for yourself, just don’t you let me see you trying no tricks. And Mr. Smith said, well you talk mighty sassy for a little old married woman.

I kep wanting them to leave and let me waller in my misery. I thought they’d go on a honeymoon.

But we eat the chicken supper mama had fixed and we set around for a while and Mr. Smith looked at Myrtle right sheepish and said well for a old married man I feel mighty tired and I guess we might as well turn in.

They had no intentions of leaving, they was going to sleep in the same house with me. Walls in that old house was paper-thin. I could hear them and I heard Mr. Smith say reckon they’re all asleep, and Myrtle said you bet they are and even if they’re not they’s some things that ought not to be put off no longer.

Then I never heard the like and it went on and on and I kep thinking I can’t stand it no longer. I couldn’t think of a thing but just that it’s gotta stop, they mighta had the common decency to go away, they got no business here they gotta stop. Then a wilder thought than that come and I wasn’t realizing what I was doing, I was just wild and crazy like a demon couldn’t nothing have stopped me, and I jumped outa bed and I run to the kitchen and I grabbed up a butcher knife and I went tearing into their room and they didn’t even notice me. I taken the butcher knife and I slit Mr. Smith’s throat.

Myrtle jumped up and shoved him away from her. She scrambled up somehow and tried to get to the door but I was too quick for her and I grabbed her around the neck and cut her throat. The blood spurted all over her nekkid body and onto my nightgown and I was laughing, and there was Mr. Smith groaning over there in the bed and flailing around like a chicken when it’s dying.

I remember he kep saying Ruby, Ruby, for God’s sake stop, and even then I believe he coulda roused me outa what I was doing if he had just said Ruby, you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re just unhappy because we’ve been thoughtless and I oughta realized how you musta felt, please forgive me. But he didn’t. He snarled at me, you ugly devil, damn your soul.

I seen then they wasn’t breathing any more, and then I done the queerest thing. I went into the bathroom. There wasn’t a drop of hot water, never was, but I filled the tub full of cold water and set down right then and there and washed all the blood offa me. Then I taken a fresh nightgown outa my top dresser drawer and put it on and I went to bed and to sleep.

That was the last good sleep I had in my life. I never had none since then, I can tell you. First thing I heard next morning was mama moaning and groaning and saying oh my darling baby what has happened to you, and then it all come back to me, and yet I couldn’t be sorry. I wouldn’t a turned my hand to bring the two of them back to life.

Well, I got up and went to the breakfast table. Mama and papa musta got up early and eat and tiptoed around not wanting to wake Mr. Smith and Myrtle. I eat right hearty and mama kep on moaning and papa said he’d call for the police and he’d take the life of the fiends that done such a horrible thing. I remember I taken the last sip of coffee in my cup and I said papa, well I guess you won’t have to look no farther for sure as you’re born I killed Myrtle and Mr. Smith.

Mama looked at me like I was a unholy thing and papa just opened that toothless mouth of his and for oncet nothing come out.

I don’t recollect much of what happened after that. They come and got me and locked me up and some newspapers sent folks to talk to me. One right nice lady come and I remember she talked to me mighty sweet, asting me how I felt and wondering if they was anything she could do for me. She talked on and on and finely she said well now, honey, you loved him yourself, didn’t you, and you just couldn’t bear to see your sister get him. I reckon that really was it I said.

And then next morning there was my pitcher on the front page and a story saying the murderess was jealous of her sister. That same lady bought me a nice dress for the trial and hired me a lawyer. I got right disgusted with it, couldn’t stand to see my name in the paper or my pitcher and that story that was signed with my name and didn’t have no more to do with me than if I was a jack rabbit.

I thought I was gonna smother at the trial in that black dress and with people shoving all around me and the smell of bananas and peanuts rising up and choking me. Come out in the paper people was lining up on the courthouse steps as early as four o’clock in the morning so they’d be sure to get a seat. Nobody in the world never paid me no attention before and here was the greatest hubbub in the world, men with their cameras and their light bulbs and lawyers shouting at one another ain’t so ’tis so too, and me up there trying to talk and getting all balled up and starting to cry.

Still I didn’t have no regrets about Myrtle and Mr. Smith but I was just hoping and hoping they’d hang me, anything to get me out of my misery.

Nights I’d wake up and hear the jailers talking, yes sir, they’d say, it’s the cruelest, most cold-blooded thing ever happened. By God, she just sliced them up and made mincemeat out of both of them.

Well, finely the jury come out and the foreman was a little bald-headed man and he said yes sir when the judge ast him if a verdik had been reached, he said that I had been judged inn-sane.

Next day the matron said we’re sending you to the inn-sane asylum. I guess they’ll teach you a thing or two down there.

So I went on down there to the asylum in a police car and I’ll never forget the sight of driving in there and seeing all them people hanging outside them barred winders reaching out into the air and they was others walking up and down on the grounds like they wasn’t thinking of nothing in particular and the funny way they blinked their eyes and the peculiar things they was doing running and chasing and yelling and giggling like children.

Night time was the worst when dreams would come to tarmint them and they’d screech and run and fight and you could hear the struggle some of the attindints was having with somebody they couldn’t control.

With all that howling and yelling and nobody to say a word to I knowed I’d go crazy too. Oncet I went up to somebody that looked like she had right good sense and was smiling at me and I thanked God they was somebody around not a idiot and I said good morning to her and the things she said back at me I can’t repeat.

I couldn’t stand that place. I kep praying that I’d die.

But I stayed there eleven years right in the middle of all that and I was sure I was losing my mind. I’d try hard not to. In the morning I’d say to myself first thing when I got up, now Ruby you gotta do something to hold on to what little you know. Didn’t allow us to use no pencils, nothing sharp we might hurt somebody with, but when time come for us to take a little outing I’d pick up a twig on the grounds and find a smooth place in the yard and I’d draw some figures and do a little adding and I’d say the multiplication tables up to seven, never learned no more, and I’d spell a few words.

Finely the years was gone and my hair was gray as a rat’s and I jumped at the least noise and whimpered along with the others. Something happened then. They added what they called the new wing and some more doctors and nurses come in and they moved me to a new ward and they was one right nice doctor would call me every now and then to his office. Then finely one of the attindints come to me, didn’t talk nice, said look here you ain’t inn-sane, you can’t clutter up this place no more.

Looks like not many of us can face our dreams coming true. Year after year that was my one thought, to get out of there, and right then I wanted to cling to it. Mama and pap hadn’t paid me no attention, never had a word from them in all those years. I didn’t have no home to go to. Wasn’t a living soul cared whether I was dead or alive, and finely I broke down and begged them to let me stay, but they wouldn’t.

So I come back up here and somehow that woman from the newspaper found out and come out and they taken a pitcher and right back in the paper I was. They printed a pitcher of me at the trial in that right pretty dress the woman had bought me, then they taken one of me in the asylum uniform, only thing I had to wear, and they entitled the pitcher the wages of sin, said I had paid, just look at the pitchers if you didn’t believe it.

Wherever I turned people said that’s her that killed her own blood sister and brother-in-law. I went everywheres trying to get honest work and nobody would do a thing for me. So I had to call on you all up at the relief office. I had to beg for charity. And all I have is what you all up there have give me.

And all I do all night between the catnaps which is all the sleep I get, and all I do in the daytime is think about that night I killed them and the way I useta love Mr. Smith before he taken up with Myrtle. I ast God to let my cold heart relent, but so far He hasn’t seen fit to do it because I don’t regret what I done. I just can’t.

Nothing in this world is ever gonna make me regret what I done to Myrtle and Mr. Smith.