The Best American Noir of the Century

1

Well, it looks like Burbie is going to get hung. And if he does; what he can lay it on is, he always figured he was so damn smart. You see, Burbie, he left town when he was about sixteen year old. He run away with one of them traveling shows, “East Lynne” I think it was, and he stayed away about ten years. And when he come back he thought he knowed a lot. Burbie, he’s got them watery blue eyes what kind of stick out from his face, and how he killed the time was to sit around and listen to the boys talk down at the poolroom or over at the barber shop or a couple other places where he hung out, and then wink at you like they was all making a fool of theirself or something and nobody didn’t know it but him.

But when you come right down to what Burbie had in his head, why, it wasn’t much. ‘Course, he generally always had a job, painting around or maybe helping out on a new house, like of that, but what he used to do was to play baseball with the high school team. And they had a big fight over it, ‘cause Burbie was so old nobody wouldn’t believe he went to the school, and them other teams was all the time putting up a squawk. So then he couldn’t play no more. And another thing he liked to do was sing at the entertainments. I reckon he liked that most of all, ‘cause he claimed that a whole lot of the time he was away he was on the stage, and I reckon maybe he was at that, ‘cause he was pretty good, specially when he dressed hisself up like a old-time Rube and come out and spoke a piece what he knowed.

Well, when he come back to town he seen Lida and it was a natural. ‘Cause Lida, she was just about the same kind of a thing for a woman as Burbie was for a man. She used to work in the store, selling dry goods to the men, and kind of making hats on the side. ‘Cepting only she didn’t stay on the dry goods side no more’n she had to. She was generally over where the boys was drinking Coca-Cola, and all the time carrying on about did they like it with ammonia or lemon, and could she have a swallow outen their glass. And what she had her mind on was the clothes she had on, and was she dated up for Sunday night. Them clothes was pretty snappy, and she made them herself. And I heard some of them say she wasn’t hard to date up, and after you done kept your date why maybe you wasn’t going to be disappointed. And why Lida married the old man I don’t know, lessen she got tired working at the store and too-ken a look at the big farm where he lived at, about two mile from town.

By the time Burbie got back she’d been married about a year and she was about due. So her and him commence meeting each other, out in the orchard back of the old man’s house. The old man would go to bed right after supper and then she’d sneak out and meet Burbie. And nobody wasn’t supposed to know nothing about it. Only everybody did, ‘cause Burbie, after he’d get back to town about eleven o’clock at night, he’d kind of slide into the poolroom and set down easy like. And then somebody’d say, “Yay, Burbie, where you been?” And Burbie, he’d kind of look around, and then he’d pick out somebody and wink at him, and that was how Burbie give it some good advertising.

So the way Burbie tells it, and he tells it plenty since he done got religion down to the jailhouse, it wasn’t long before him and Lida thought it would be a good idea to kill the old man. They figured he didn’t have long to live nohow, so he might as well go now as wait a couple of years. And another thing, the old man had kind of got hep that something was going on, and they figured if he throwed Lida out it wouldn’t be no easy job to get his money even if he died regular. And another thing, by that time the Klux was kind of talking around, so Burbie figured it would be better if him and Lida was to get married, else maybe he’d have to leave town again.

So that was how come he got Hutch in it. You see, he was afeared to kill the old man hisself and he wanted some help. And then he figured it would be pretty good if Lida wasn’t nowheres around and it would look like robbery. If it would’ve been me, I would’ve left Hutch out of it. ‘Cause Hutch, he was mean. He’d been away for a while too, but him going away, that wasn’t the same as Burbie going away. Hutch was sent. He was sent for ripping a mail sack while he was driving the mail wagon up from the station, and before he come back he done two years down to Atlanta.

But what I mean, he wasn’t only crooked, he was mean. He had a ugly look to him, like when he’d order hisself a couple of fried eggs over to the restaurant, and then set and eat them with his head humped down low and his arm curled around his plate like he thought somebody was going to steal it off him, and handle his knife with his thumb down near the tip, kind of like a nigger does a razor. Nobody didn’t have much to say to Hutch, and I reckon that’s why he ain’t heard nothing about Burbie and Lida, and et it all up what Burbie told him about the old man having a pot of money hid in the fireplace in the back room.

So one night early in March, Burbie and Hutch went out and done the job. Burbie he’d already got Lida out of the way. She’d let on she had to go to the city to buy some things, and she went away on No. 6, so everybody knowed she was gone. Hutch, he seen her go, and come running to Burbie saying now was a good time, which was just what Burbie wanted. ‘Cause her and Burbie had already put the money in the pot, so Hutch wouldn’t think it was no put-up job. Well, anyway, they put $23 in the pot, all changed into pennies and nickels and dimes so it would look like a big pile, and that was all the money Burbie had. It was kind of like you might say the savings of a lifetime.

And then Burbie and Hutch got in the horse and wagon what Hutch had, ‘cause Hutch was in the hauling business again, and they went out to the old man’s place. Only they went around the back way, and tied the horse back of the house so nobody couldn’t see it from the road, and knocked on the back door and made out like they was just coming through the place on their way back to town and had stopped by to get warmed up, ‘cause it was cold as hell. So the old man let them in and give them a drink of some hard cider what he had, and they got canned up a little more. They was already pretty canned, ‘cause they both of them had a pint of corn on their hip for to give them some nerve.

And then Hutch he got back of the old man and crowned him with a wrench what he had hid in his coat.

2

Well, next off Hutch gets sore as hell at Burbie ‘cause there ain’t no more’n $23 in the pot. He didn’t do nothing. He just set there, first looking at the money, what he had piled up on a table, and then looking at Burbie.

And then Burbie commences soft-soaping him. He says hope my die he thought there was a thousand dollars anyway in the pot, on account the old man being like he was. And he says hope my die it sure was a big surprise to him how little there was there. And he says hope my die it sure does make him feel bad, on account he’s the one had the idea first. And he says hope my die it’s all his fault and he’s going to let Hutch keep all the money, damn if he ain’t. He ain’t going to take none of it for his-self at all, on account of how bad he feels. And Hutch, he don’t say nothing at all, only look at Burbie and look at the money.

And right in the middle of while Burbie was talking, they heard a whole lot of hollering out in front of the house and somebody blowing a automobile horn. And Hutch jumps up and scoops the money and the wrench off the table in his pockets, and hides the pot back in the fireplace. And then he grabs the old man and him and Burbie carries him out the back door, hists him in the wagon, and drives off. And how they was to drive off without them people seeing them was because they come in the back way and that was the way they went. And them people in the automobile, they was a bunch of old folks from the Methodist church what knowed Lida was away and didn’t think so much of Lida nohow and come out to say hello. And when they come in and didn’t see nothing, they figured the old man had went in to town and so they went back.

Well, Hutch and Burbie was in a hell of a fix all right. ‘Cause there they was, driving along somewheres with the old man in the wagon and they didn’t have no more idea than a baldheaded coot where they was going or what they was going to do with him. So Burbie, he commence to whimper. But Hutch kept a-setting there, driving the horse, and he don’t say nothing.

So pretty soon they come to a place where they was building a piece of county road, and it was all tore up and a whole lot of toolboxes laying out on the side. So Hutch gets out and twists the lock off one of them with the wrench, and takes out a pick and a shovel and throws them in the wagon. And then he got in again and drove on for a while till he come to the Whooping Nannie woods, what some of them says has got a ghost in it on dark nights, and it’s about three miles from the old man’s farm. And Hutch turns in there and pretty soon he come to a kind of a clear place and he stopped. And then, first thing he’s said to Burbie, he says,

“Dig that grave!”

So Burbie dug the grave. He dug for two hours, until he got so damn tired he couldn’t hardly stand up. But he ain’t hardly made no hole at all. ‘Cause the ground is froze and even with the pick he couldn’t hardly make a dent in it scarcely. But anyhow Hutch stopped him and they throwed the old man in and covered him up. But after they got him covered up his head was sticking out. So Hutch beat the head down good as he could and piled the dirt up around it and they got in and drove off.

After they’d went a little ways, Hutch commence to cuss Burbie. Then he said Burbie’d been lying to him. But Burbie, he swears he ain’t been lying. And then Hutch says he was lying and with that he hit Burbie. And after he knocked Burbie down in the bottom of the wagon he kicked him and then pretty soon Burbie up and told him about Lida. And when Burbie got done telling him about Lida, Hutch turned the horse around. Burbie asked then what they was going back for and Hutch says they’re going back for to git a present for Lida. So they come back for to git a present for Lida. So they come back to the grave and Hutch made Burbie cut off the old man’s head with the shovel. It made Burbie sick, but Hutch made him stick at it, and after a while Burbie had it off. So Hutch throwed it in the wagon and they get in and start back to town once more.

Well, they wasn’t no more’n out of the woods before Hutch takes his-self a slug of corn and commence to holler. He kind of raved to hisself, all about how he was going to make Burbie put the head in a box and tie it up with a string and take it out to Lida for a present, so she’d get a nice surprise when she opened it. Soon as Lida comes back he says Burbie has got to do it, and then he’s going to kill Burbie. “I’ll kill you!” he says. “I’ll kill you, damn you! I’ll kill you!” And he says it kind of singsongy, over and over again.

And then he takes hisself another slug of corn and stands up and whoops. Then he beat on the horse with the whip and the horse commence to run. What I mean, he commence to gallop. And then Hutch hit him some more. And then he commence to screech as loud as he could. “Ride him, cowboy!” he hollers. “Going East! Here come old broadcuff down the road! Whe-e-e-e-e!” And sure enough, here they come down the road, the horse a-running hell to split, and Hutch a-hollering, and Burbie a-shivering, and the head a-rolling around in the bottom of the wagon, and bouncing up in the air when they hit a bump, and Burbie damn near dying every time it hit his feet.

3

After a while the horse got tired so it wouldn’t run no more, and they had to let him walk and Hutch set down and commence to grunt. So Burbie, he tries to figure out what the hell he’s going to do with the head. And pretty soon he remembers a creek what they got to cross, what they ain’t crossed on the way out ‘cause they come the back way. So he figures he’ll throw the head overboard when Hutch ain’t looking. So he done it. They come to the creek, and on the way down to the bridge there’s a little hill, and when the wagon tilted going down the hill the head rolled up between Burbie’s feet, and he held it there, and when they got in the middle of the bridge he reached down and heaved it overboard.

Next off, Hutch give a yell and drop down in the bottom of the wagon. ‘Cause what it sounded like was a pistol shot. You see, Burbie done forgot that it was a cold night and the creek done froze over. Not much, just a thin skim about a inch thick, but enough that when that head hit it, it cracked pretty loud in different directions. And that was what scared Hutch. So when he got up and seen the head setting out there on the ice in the moonlight, and got it straight what Burbie done, he let on he was going to kill Burbie right there. And he reached for the pick. And Burbie jumped out and run, and he didn’t never stop till he got home at the place where he lived at, and locked the door, and climbed in bed and pulled the covers over his head.

Well, the next morning a fellow come running into town and says there’s hell to pay down at the bridge. So we all went down there and first thing we seen was that head laying out there on the ice, kind of rolled over on one ear. And next thing we seen was Hutch’s horse and wagon tied to the bridge rail, and the horse damn near froze to death. And the next thing we seen was the hole in the ice where Hutch fell through. And the next thing we seen down on the bottom next to one of the bridge pilings, was Hutch.

So the first thing we went to work and done was to get the head. And believe me a head laying out on thin ice is a pretty damn hard thing to get, and what we had to do was to lasso it. And the next thing we done was to get Hutch. And after we fished him out he had the wrench and the $23 in his pockets and the pint of corn on his hip and he was stiff as a board. And near as I can figure out, what happened to him was that after Burbie run away he climbed down on the bridge piling and tried to reach the head and fell in.

But we didn’t know nothing about it then, and after we done got the head and the old man was gone and a couple of boys that afternoon found the body and not the head on it, and the pot was found, and them old people from the Methodist church done told their story and one thing and another, we figured out that Hutch done it, ‘specially on account he must have been drunk and he done time in the pen and all like of that, and nobody ain’t thought nothing about Burbie at all. They had the funeral and Lida cried like hell and everybody tried to figure out what Hutch wanted with the head and things went along thataway for three weeks.

Then one night down to the poolroom they was having it some more about the head, and one says one thing and one says another, and Benny Heath, what’s a kind of a constable around town, he started a long bum argument about how Hutch must of figured if they couldn’t find the head to the body they couldn’t prove no murder. So right in the middle of it Burbie kind of looked around like he always done and then he winked. And Benny Heath, he kept on a-talking, and after he got done Burbie kind of leaned over and commence to talk to him. And in a couple of minutes you couldn’t of heard a man catch his breath in that place, accounten they was all listening at Burbie.

I already told you Burbie was pretty good when it comes to giving a spiel at a entertainment. Well, this here was a kind of spiel too. Burbie act like he had it all learned by heart. His voice trimmled and ever couple of minutes he’d kind of cry and wipe his eyes and make out like he can’t say no more, and then he’d go on.

And the big idea was what a whole lot of hell he done raised in his life. Burbie said it was drink and women what done ruined him. He told about all the women what he knowed, and all the saloons he’s been in, and some of it was a lie ‘cause if all the saloons was as swell as he said they was they’d of throwed him out. And then he told about how sorry he was about the life he done led, and how hope my die he come home to his old hometown just to get out the devilment and settle down. And he told about Lida, and how she wouldn’t let him cut it out. And then he told how she done led him on till he got the idea to kill the old man. And then he told about how him and Hutch done it, and all about the money and the head and all the rest of it.

And what it sounded like was a piece what he knowed called “The Face on the Floor,” what was about a bum what drawed a picture on the barroom floor of the woman what done ruined him. Only the funny part was that Burbie wasn’t ashamed of hisself like he made out he was. You could see he was proud of hisself. He was proud of all them women and all the liquor he’d drunk and he was proud about Lida and he was proud about the old man and the head and being slick enough not to fall in the creek with Hutch. And after he got done he give a yelp and flopped down on the floor and I reckon maybe he thought he was going to die on the spot like the bum what drawed the face on the barroom floor, only he didn’t. He kind of lain there a couple of minutes till Benny got him up and put him in the car and tooken him off to jail.

So that’s where he’s at now, and he’s went to work and got religion down there, and all the people what comes to see him, why he sings hymns to them and then he speaks them his piece. And I hear tell he knows it pretty good by now and has got the crying down pat. And Lida, they got her down there too, only she won’t say nothing ‘cepting she done it same as Hutch and Burbie. So Burbie, he’s going to get hung, sure as hell. And if he hadn’t felt so smart, he would’ve been a free man yet.

Only I reckon he done been holding it all so long he just had to spill it.