I spit on your graves (2 page)

Alas, America, land of cockayne, is also the chosen land of puritans, of drunkards, and of those people who say "bear that well in mind"; and if in France, we strive to more originality, on the other side of the Atlantic, no anxiety is felt in exploiting unblushingly a formula which has proved its value. In all sincerity it is as good a way as any other of selling one's writings....

Boris Vian

-XIII-

I Spit on Your Graves

Nobody knew me at Buckton. That's why Clem picked the place; besides, even if I hadn't had a flat, I didn't have enough gas to go any farther north. Just about a gallon. I had a dollar, and Clem's letter, and that's all. There wasn't a thing worth a damn in my valise, so let's not mention it. Hold on: I did have in the bag the kid's little revolver, a miserable, cheap little .22 caliber pea-shooter. It was still in his pocket when the sheriff came to tell us to take the body away to bury it. I've got to say that I counted on Clem's letter more than on everything else. It ought to work, it just had to work. I looked at my hands on the steering wheel, at my fingers, my nails. Nobody would find anything wrong there. No risk on that score. Maybe I'd get away with it.

My brother Tom had known Clem at the University. Clem never treated him like he did the other students. He was glad to talk to him. They drank together, went out together in Clem's Cadillac. It was because of Clem that people put up with Tom. When he left to take his father's place at the head of his factory, Tom had to decide to leave too. He came back

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to US. He'd learned a lot and didn't have much trouble getting an appointment as a teacher in the new school. And then the business with the kid ruined everything. I could have been a hypocrite and kept my mouth shut, but not the kid. He didn't see anything wrong in it. So the girl's father and brother took care of him.

That's why my brother gave me the letter to Clem. I couldn't stay in that town any longer and he wrote to Clem to find me something.

Not too far away, so he could see me once in a while, but far enough so nobody would know me. He thought that with my face and my personality I wouldn't get into trouble. Maybe he was right, but I still couldn't forget the kid. Buckton Bookstore manager - that was my new job. I was to get into touch with the present manager and learn the job in three days. He was getting a new managership, a better one, and wanted to make a name for himself.

It was nice and sunny. The street's name had been changed to Pearl Harbor Street. Clem probably didn't know it. You could still see the old name on the signs. The store's number was 270. I stopped the Nash right in front of the door. The manager was sitting behind the register, copying some num-

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I Spit on Your Graves

bers into an account-book. He was about 40 years old, with hard blue eyes and light blond hair, as I noticed when I opened the door. I said hello.

"How do you do! Can I help you?"

"Yes, this letter is for you."

"Oh, so you're the one I'm supposed to break in here. Let's see the letter."

He took it, read it, turned it over, and gave it back to me.

"It isn't very complicated," he said. "There's the stock (he made a sweeping motion with his arm). The accounts will be straight tonight. As far as selling and advertising and everything else, follow the suggestions of the inspectors from the main office and the circulars you'll get."

"This is a chain-outlet?"

"Yes."

"O.K." I said, "What do you sell most of?"

"Oh, novels. Bad novels, but that isn't our affair. Religious books, pretty fair, and text-books too. Not many children's books, nor any serious stuff either. I never tried to build up that line."

"You mean that in your opinion religious books aren't serious?"

He licked his lips.

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Boris Vian

"Don't be saying I said something which I didn't say."

I laughed heartily

"No need to get mad, that's what I think too."

"In that case, let me give some advice. Don't let anybody else know it, and go to church every Sunday, cause otherwise you're not going to have many customers."

"Oh alright," I said, "so I'll go to church."

"Here," he said, handing me a sheet of paper, "Check that. It's the accounting for last month. It's pretty simple. You get all your books from the main office. All you've got to do is keep a record, in triplicate, of what you get and what you sell. They come to collect twice a month. You get paid by check, a commission on sales."

"Let me see it," I said.

I took the form and sat down on a low counter, cluttered up with books the customers had taken off the shelves and had been too rushed to put back.

"What's there for a guy to do in this town?" I asked him.

"Not a damn thing." There are the girls in the drug-store across the street, and you can get some Bourbon in Ricardo's, couple of blocks up the street."

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I Spit on Your Graves

I found him pleasant, with his brusque way of talking.

"How long have you been living here?"

"Five years," he said. "Still got five togo."

"And then?"

"You're too damn nosy."

"Don't blame me. Why'd you say you've got five more to go. I didn't ask you."

His mouth became less harsh, and he crinkled his eyes.

"I guess you're right. O.K., then-five more years and I quit."

"What are you going to do?"

"Write," he said. "Write best-sellers. Nothing but best-sellers. Historical novels; novels where colored men sleep with white women and don't get lynched; novels about pure young girls who manage to grow up unblemished by the vicious small-town life which surrounds them."

He chuckled.

"Yep, best-sellers. And then some very daring and original novels. It doesn't require much to be daring in this part of the world. All you've got to do is write about things everybody knows, and take a little trouble in doing it."

"You'll get there," I said.

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"Sure I'll get there. I've got six of 'em ready right now."

"Never tried to get them published?" "I'm not pals with any publisher, and I haven't got enough dough to pay for them myself."

"So what are you going to do?" "Well in five years I'll have the money." "I guess you'll make it," I told him. There was plenty of work from then on, in spite of the store's uncomplicated administrative arrangements. I had to bring the order lists up to date, and then Hansen, as the former manager was called, gave me all sorts of tips about the customers, a certain number of whom came regularly to see him and talk about books. About all they knew about literature they learned from the "Saturday Review" or from the book reviews of the paper published in the State capital, which had a circulation of about sixty thousand. For the time being I did no more than listen to them talk with Hansen, trying to remember their names and their faces, since in a bookstore, more than anywhere else, its damn important to greet the customer with "Good Morning, Mr. Soandso" as soon as he comes in the door.

Hansen fixed me up with a place to live

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I Spit on Your Graves

too. I took over the two rooms which he had been renting just above the drugstore across the street. He'd loaned me a couple of dollars, enough to stay at the hotel for three days, and he was considerate enough to invite me to eat with him an average of twice a day, thus keeping me from running up a big monetary debt with him, since I had no one else to borrow from. He was a nice guy. I was somewhat concerned about this plan of his to write best-sellers : you don't write best-sellers just like that, even if you do have dough. Maybe he did have talent. For his sake, I hoped so.

On the third day, he took me to Ricardo's to have a drink before lunch. It was ten o'clock, and he was leaving in the afternoon.

It was the last meal we were going to have together. After that I would have to handle the customers by myself, and the town too. I had to make good. Running into Hansen had been a stroke of luck. With my luck I might have lived a couple of days, peddling something or other, but this way I was getting off to a good start.

Ricardo's was the usual bar and grill, somewhat clean, thoroughly ugly. There was a funny combination of smells about the

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place, like doughnuts fried in onions, if that were possible. A character behind the bar was absorbed in a newspaper.

"What'll you have?" he asked, automatically.

"A couple of Bourbons," Hansen ordered, looking at me questioningly.

I nodded.

The barkeep gave us two big glasses with ice and straws.

"I always take it like that," Hansen apologized. "Don't drink it if you don't want to."

"Try anything once," I said.

If you've never drunk iced Bourbon with a straw, you can't imagine what an effect it has. Like a stream of fire on your palate. Sweet fire, something terrible.

"Good stuff!" I gasped.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I looked rather dazed. I hadn't been doing much drinking lately. Hansen broke into a laugh.

"Don't let it get you down. It won't take you long to get used to it, unfortunately I guess. As for me," he continued, "I guess I'll have to break in the bartender at the next bar I do my drinking at."

"I'm sorry you're leaving," I said.

I Spit on Your Graves

He laughed.

"If I stayed, you would have to leave. I think it's better that I go. More than five years - Christ, that's a long time."

He finished his drink with one long sip, and ordered another.

"You'll manage, alright." He looked me up and down. "You're O.K. There's something about you I can't put my finger on. Your voice."

I just smiled. He was too damn discerning.

"Your voice is too full. You don't happen to be a singer?"

"Oh, I sing sometimes, just for fun."

I hadn't been doing any more singing. 1 did before, before the business with the kid. I would sing to my own accompaniment on the guitar. I could sing some blues, and some old New Orleans songs, and some melodies I made up myself for the guitar, but I didn't feel like playing any more. What I needed was money. Lots of it. To carry out my plans.

"The women will all fall for you with that voice of yours," Hansen said.

I shrugged.

"Not interested?"

He gave me a hearty slap on the back.

"Just stroll over towards the drugstore. -9-

Boris Vian

You'll find them all there. They've got a club in this town. The bobby-soxers' club. You know the girls, - every last one of them with their flashy sox and sloppy sweaters. And they all write fan letters to Frank Sinatra. The drugstore is their hangout. You must have noticed. No, I guess not, you've kept yourself cooped up in the store every day."

I took another Bourbon for myself. It went down into my arms, my legs, my whole body.

Down there, we didn't have any bobby-soxers. I wouldn't have minded. Girls of fifteen, with little pointed breasts under their tight sweaters - they do it on purpose, the little witches. And their socks, bright yellow and red and green sox, sticking up out of their flat-heeled shoes. And flair skirts, and round knees. And always sitting on the ground with their legs spread so you could see their flesh undies. Yes, I liked their looks, the bobby-soxers.

Hansen was looking at me.

"They all will," he said. "You don't have to worry about a thing. They know lots of places to take you to."

"Don't be such a pig," I said.

"Oh, no," he said, "I meant places to take you dance and have a drink."

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I Spit on Your Graves

He smiled. It must have been all over my face that I was interested.

"They're funny' he said. "They'll come to see you in the store."

"What would they want there?" "Oh, they'll buy pictures of movie stars, and, quite by accident, of course, all the books on psychoanalysis. Medical books, I mean. They all seem to be studying medicine." "Alright," I muttered, "We'll see." And now I really had to appear indifferent, because Hansen turned to another subject. Then, when we had finished lunch, he went away about two in the afternoon. I was left alone in front of the store.

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Boris Vian II

I must have been there about two weeks when I began to feel bored. All that time I hadn't left the store. The sales were going fine. The advertising took care of everything in advance, and the books sold. Every week the main office sent, together with the books on consignment, a mass of illustrated leaflets and throwaways, and display material to be put in a good spot in the window, under the book in question or in full view. Most of the time, all I had to do was read the blurb on the jacket, open the book at four or five different spots to get a good idea of its contents, good enough, in any case, to give a spiel that would take in the average customer especially after the effect of the illustrated jacket, the folders, the picture of the author with the short biographical sketch. It costs a lot to put out a book, and all the dressing is for a good purpose - it shows clearly too that most people don't care about getting good books : what they really want is to have read the book recommended by their club, the book of the moment, and they don't give a rap about the contents.

I would get an enormous amount of

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certain books, with a note recommending a window display, and quantities of throw-away s. I put a pile of them next to the cash-register and slipped one into every book sold. Nobody refuses a book-circular on shiny paper, and the few blurbs they carry are just the ticket for the sort of readers you find in this town. The main office used this system for all books of a somewhat sexy nature, and they were usually all gone a few hours after I displayed them.

To tell the truth, I wasn't really bored. But I was beginning to get the hang of the routine in the place, and I had time to think about other things. That's what bothered me. Things were going too well.

The weather was nice. It was river, toward the end of summer. The dust hung in the air over the town. Down along the it must have been cool under the trees. I hadn't been out once since I'd come, and I didn't know anything about the surrounding country-side. I felt that I needed a change of air. But one thing really bothered me. I wanted a woman.