МОРФОЛОГИЯ 8 страницаBeam-walking was easier with a bucket in each hand for balance. When he reached his dust-marked X, he put the buckets down, peered at the chalk marks on the apron once more, nodded, and walked back to the platform. He thought about wiping the buckets on his last trip out to them-Kenny's prints would be on them, Don's and Steve's as well-but it was better not to. Maybe they would have a little surprise on Saturday morning. The thought made his lips quirk. The last item in the bag was a coil of jute twine. He walked back out to the buckets and tied the handles of both with running slipknots. He threaded the screw, then the pulley. He threw the uncoiling twine across to the loft, and then threaded that one. He probably would not have been amused to know that, in the gloom of the auditorium, covered and streaked with decades-old dust, gray kitties flying dreamily about his crow's-nest hair, he looked like a hunched, half-mad Rube Goldberg intent upon creating the better mousetrap. He piled the slack twine on top of a stack of crates within reach of the vent. He climbed down for the last time and dusted off his hands. The thing was done. He looked out the window, then wriggled through and thumped to the ground. He closed the window, reinserted his jimmy, and closed the lock as far as he could. Then he went back to his car. Chris said chances were good that Tommy Ross and the White bitch would be the ones under the buckets; she had been doing a little quiet promoting among her friends. That would be good, if it happened. But, for Billy, any of the others would be all right too. He was beginning to think that it would be all right if it was Chris herself. He drove away.
From My Name Is Susan Snell (p. 48):
Carrie went to see Tommy the day before the prom. She was waiting outside one of his classes and he said she looked really wretched, as if she thought he'd yell at her to stop hanging around and stop bugging him. She said she had to be in by eleven-thirty at the latest, or her momma would be worried. She said she wasn't going to spoil his time or anything, but it wouldn't be fair to worry her momma. Tommy suggested they stop at the Kelly Fruit after and grab a root beer and a burger. All the other kids would be going to Westover or Lewiston, and they would have the place to themselves. Carrie's face lit up, he said. She told him that would be fine. Just fine. This is the girl they keep calling a monster. I want you to keep that firmly in mind. The girl who could be satisfied with a hamburger and a dime root beer after her only school dance so her momma wouldn't be worried...
The first thing that struck Carrie when they walked in was Glamor. Not glamor but Glamor. Beautiful shadows rustled about in chiffon, lace, silk, satin. The air was redolent with the odor of flowers; the nose was constantly amazed by it. Girls in dresses with low backs, with scooped bodices showing actual cleavage, with Empire waists. Long skirts, pumps. Blinding white dinner jackets, cummerbunds, black shoes that had been Spit-shined. A few people were on the dance floor, not many yet, and in the soft revolving gloom they were wraiths without substance. She did not really want to see them as her classmates. She wanted them to be beautiful strangers. Tommy's hand was firm on her elbow. “The mural's nice,” he said. “Yes,” she agreed faintly. It had taken on a soft nether light under the orange spots, the boatman leaning with eternal indolence against his tiller while the sunset blazed around him and the buildings conspired together over urban waters. She knew with suddenness and ease that this moment would be with her always, within hand's reach of memory. She doubted if they all sensed it-they had seen the world-but even George was silent for a minute as they looked, and the scene, the smell, even the sound of the band playing a faintly recognizable movie theme, was locked forever in her, and she was at peace. Her soul knew a moment's calm, as if it had been uncrumpled and smoothed under an iron. “Viiiiiybes,” George yelled suddenly, and led Frieda out onto the floor. He began to do a sarcastic jitterbug to the old-timey big-band music, and someone catcalled over to him. George blabbered, leered, and went into a brief arms-crossed Cossack routine that nearly landed him on his butt. Carrie smiled. “George is funny,” she said. “Sure he is. He's a good guy. There are lots of good people around. Want to sit down?” “Yes, she said gratefully. He went back to the door and returned with Norma Watson, whose hair had been pulled into a huge, teased explosion for the affair. “It's on the other SIDE,” she said, and her bright gerbel's eyes picked Carrie up and down, looking for an exposed strap, an eruption of pimples, any news to carry back to the door when her errand was done. “That's a LOVELY dress, Carrie. Where did you EVER get it?” Carrie told her while Norma led them around the dance floor to their table. She exuded odors of Avon soap, Woolworth's perfume, and Juicy Fruit gum. There were two folding chairs at the table (looped and beribboned with the inevitable crepe paper), and the table itself was decked with crepe paper in the school colors. On top was a candle in a wine bottle, a dance program, a tiny gilded pencil, and two party favor-gondolas filled with Planters Mixed Nuts. “I can't get OVER it,” Norma was saying. “You look so DIFFERENT.” She cast an odd, furtive look at Carrie's face and it made her feel nervous. “You're positively GLOWING. What's your SECRET?” “I'm Don MacLean's secret lover,” Carrie said. Tommy sniggered and quickly smothered it. Norma's smile slipped a notch, and Carrie was amazed by her own wit-and audacity. That's what you looked like when the joke was on you. As though a bee had stung your rear end. Carrie found she liked Norma to look that way. It was distinctly unchristian. “Well, I have to get back,” she said. “Isn't it EXCITING, Tommy?” Her smile was sympathetic: wouldn't it be exciting if-? “Cold sweat is running down my thighs in rivers,” Tommy said gravely. Norma left with an odd, puzzled smile. It had not gone the way things were supposed to go. Everyone knew how things were supposed to go with Carrie. Tommy sniggered again. “Would you like to dance?” he asked. She didn't know how, but wasn't ready to admit to that yet. “Let's just sit down for a minute.” While he held out her chair, she saw the candle and asked Tommy if he would light it. He did. Their eyes met over its flame. He reached out and took her hand. And the band played on.
From The Shadow Exploded (pp. 133–34):
Perhaps a complete study of Carrie's mother will be undertaken someday, when the subject of Carrie herself becomes more academic. I myself might attempt it, if only to gain access to the Brigham family tree. It might be extremely interesting to know what odd occurrences one might come across two or three generations back.. And there is, of course, the knowledge that Carrie went home on Prom Night. Why? It is hard to tell just how sane Carrie's motives were by that time. She may have gone for absolution and forgiveness, or she may have gone for the express purpose of committing matricide. In any event, the physical evidence seems to indicate that Margaret White was waiting for her...
The house was completely silent. She was gone. At night. Gone. Margaret White walked slowly from her bedroom into the living room. First had come the flow of blood and the filthy fantasies the Devil sent with it. Then this hellish Power the Devil had given to her. It came at the time of the blood and the time of hair on the body, of course. Oh, she knew the Devil's Power. Her own grandmother had it. She had been able to light the fireplace without even stirring from her rocker by the window. It made her eyes glow with (thou shalt not suffer a witch to live) a kind of witch's light. And sometimes, at the supper table the sugar bowl would whirl madly like a dervish. Whenever it happened, Gram would cackle crazily and drool and make the sign of the Evil Eye all around her. Sometimes she panted like a dog on a hot day, and when she died of a heart attack at sixty-six, senile to the point of idiocy even at that early age, Carrie had not even been a year old. Margaret had gone into her bedroom not four weeks after Gram's funeral and there her girl-child had lain in her crib, laughing and gurgling, watching a bottle that was dangling in thin air over her head. Margaret had almost killed her then. Ralph had stopped her. She should not have let him stop her. Now Margaret White stood in the middle of the living room. Christ on Calvary looked down at her with his wounded, suffering, reproachful eyes. The Black Forest cuckoo clock ticked. It was ten minutes after eight. She had been able to feel, actually feel, the Devil's Power working in Carrie. It crawled all over you, lifting and pulling like evil, tickling little fingers. She had set out to do her duty again when Carrie was three, when she had caught her looking in sin at the Devil's slut in the next yard over. Then the stones had come, and she had weakened. And the power had risen again, after thirteen years. God was not mocked. First the blood, then the power, (you sign your name you sign it in blood) now a boy and dancing and he would take her to a roadhouse after, take her into the parking lot, take her into the back seat, take her— Blood, fresh blood. Blood was always at the root of it, and only blood could expiate it. She was a big woman with massive upper arms that had dwarfed her elbows to dimples, but her head was surprisingly small on the end of her strong, corded neck. It had once been a beautiful face. It was still beautiful in a weird, zealous way. But the eyes had taken on a strange, wandering cast, and the lines had deepened cruelly around the denying but oddly weak mouth. Her hair, which had been almost all black a year ago, was now almost white. The only way to kill sin, true black sin, was to drown it in the blood of (she must be sacrificed) a repentant heart. Surely God understood that, and had laid His finger upon her. Had not God Himself commanded Abraham to take his son Isaac up upon the mountain? She shuffled out into the kitchen in her old and splayed slippers, and opened the kitchen utensil drawer. The knife they used for carving was long and sharp and arched in the middle from constant honing. She sat down on the high stool by the counter, found the sliver of whetstone in its small aluminum dish, and began to scrub it along the gleaming edge of the blade with the apathetic, fixated attention of the damned. The Black Forest cuckoo clock ticked and ticked and finally the bird jumped out to call once and announce eight-thirty. In her mouth she tasted olives.
THE SENIOR CLASS PRESENTS SPRING BALL '79
May 27, 1979
Music by The Billy Bosnan Band Music by Josie and the Moonglows
ENTERTAINMENT “Cabaret”-Baton Twirling by Sandra Stenchfield “500 Miles” “Lemon Tree” “Mr. Tambourine Man” Folk Music by John Swithen and Maureen Cowan “The Street Where You Live” “Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head” “Bridge Over Troubled Waters Ewen High School Chorus
CHAPERONES Mr. Stephens, Miss Geer, Mr. and Mrs. Lublin, Miss Desjardin Coronation at 10:00 P. M. Remember, it's YOUR prom; make it one to remember always!
When he asked her the third time, Carrie had to admit that she didn't know how to dance. She didn't add that, now that the rock band had taken over for a half-hour set, she would feel out of place gyrating on the floor, (and sinful) yes, and sinful. Tommy nodded, then smiled. He leaned forward and told her that he hated to dance. Would she like to go around and visit some of the other tables? Trepidation rose thickly in her throat, but she nodded. Yes, that would be nice. He was seeing to her. She must see to him (even if he really did not expect it); that was part of the deal. And she felt dusted over with the enchantment of the evening. She was suddenly hopeful that no one would stick out a foot or slyly paste a kick-me-hard sign on her back or suddenly squirt water in her face from a novelty carnation and retreat cackling while everyone laughed and pointed and catcalled. And if there was enchantment, it was not divine but pagan (momma untie your apron strings i'm getting big) and she wanted it that way. “Look,” he said as they got up. Two or three stagehands were sliding the King and Queen thrones from the wings while Mr. Lavoic, the head custodian, directed them with hand motions toward preset marks on the apron. She thought they looked quite Arthurian, those thrones, dressed all in blinding white, strewn with real flowers as well as huge crepe banners. “They're beautiful,” she said. “You're beautiful,” Tommy said, and she became quite sure that nothing bad could happen this night-perhaps they themselves might even be voted King and Queen of the Prom. She smiled at her own folly. It was nine o'clock. “Carrie?” a voice said hesitantly. She had been so wrapped up in watching the band and the dance floor and the other tables that she hadn't seen anyone coming at all. Tommy had gone to get them punch. She turned around and saw Miss Desjardin. For a moment the two of them merely looked at each other, and the memory traveled between them, communicated (she saw me she saw me naked and screaming and bloody) without words or thought. It was in the eyes. Then Carrie said shyly: “You look very pretty, Miss Desjardin.” She did. She was dressed in a glimmering silver sheath, a perfect complement to her blonde hair, which was up. A simple pendant hung around her neck. She looked very young, young enough to be attending rather than chaperoning. “Thank you.” She hesitated, then put a gloved hand on Carrie's arm. “You are beautiful,” she said, and each word carried a peculiar emphasis. Carrie felt herself blushing again and dropped her eyes to the table. “It's awfully nice of you to say so. I know I'm not not really... but thank you anyway.” “It's true,” Desjardin said. “Carrie, anything that happened before... well, it's all forgotten. I wanted you to know that.” “I can't forget it,” Carrie said. She looked up. The words that rose to her lips were: I don't blame anyone any more. She bit them off. It was a lie. She blamed them all and always would, and she wanted more than anything else to be honest. “But it's over with. Now it's over with.” Miss Desjardin smiled, and her eyes seemed to catch and hold the soft mix of lights in an almost liquid sparkling. She looked across toward the dance floor, and Carrie followed her gaze. “I remember my own prom,” Desjardin said softly. “I was two inches taller than the boy I went with when I was in my heels. He gave me a corsage that clashed with my gown. The tailpipe was broken on his car and the engine made... oh, an awful racket. But it was magic. I don't know why. But I've never had a date like it, ever again.” She looked at Carrie. “Is it like that for you?” “It's very nice,” Carrie said. “And is that all?” “No. There's more. I couldn't tell it all. Not to anybody.” Desjardin smiled and squeezed her arm. “You'll never forget it,” she said. “Never.” “I think you're right.” “Have a lovely time, Carrie.” “Thank you. Tommy came up with two Dixie cups of punch as Desjardin left, walking around the dance floor toward the chaperones' table. “What did she want?” he asked, putting the Dixie cups down carefully. Carrie, looking after her, said: “I think she wanted to say she was sorry.”
Sue Snell sat quietly in the living room of her house, hemming a dress and listening to the Jefferson Airplane Long John Silver album. It was old and badly scratched, but soothing. Her mother and father had gone out for the evening. They knew what was going on, she was sure of that, but they had spared her the bumbling talks about how proud they were of Their Girl, or how glad they were that she was finally Growing Up. She was glad they had decided to leave her alone, because she was still uncomfortable about her own motives and afraid to examine them too deeply, lest she discover a jewel of selfishness glowing and winking at her from the black velvet of her subconscious. She had done it; that was enough; she was satisfied. (maybe he'll fall in love with her) She looked up as if someone had spoken from the hallway, a startled smile curving her lips. That would be a fairy-tale ending, all right. The Prince bends over the Sleeping Beauty, touches his lips to hers. Sue, I don't know how to tell you this but-The smile faded. Her period was late. Almost a week late. And she had always been as regular as an almanac. The record changer clicked; another record dropped down. In the sudden, brief silence, she heard something within her turn over. Perhaps only her soul. It was nine-fifteen.
Billy drove to the far end of the parking lot and pulled into a stall that faced the asphalt ramp leading to the highway. Chris started to get out and he jerked her back. His eyes glowed ferally in the dark. “What?” she said with angry nervousness. “They use a P. A. system to announce the King and Queen,” he said. “Then one of the bands will play the school song. That means they're sitting there in those thrones, on target.” “I know all that. Let go of me. You're hurting.” He squeezed her wrist tighter still and felt small bones grind. It gave him a grim pleasure. Still, she didn't cry out. She was pretty good. “You listen to me. I want you to know what you're getting into. Pull the rope when the song is playing. Pull it hard. There will be a little slack between the pulleys, but not much. When you pull it and feel those buckets go, run. You don't stick around to hear the screams or anything else. This is out of the cute-little-joke league. This is criminal assault, you know? They don't fine you. They put you in jail and throw the key over their shoulder.” It was an enormous speech for him. Her eyes only glared at him, full of defiant anger. “Dig it?” “Yes.” “All right. When the buckets go, I'm going to run. When I get to the car, I'm going to drive away. If you're there, you can come. If you're not, I'll leave you. If I leave you and you spill your guts, I'll kill you. Do you believe me?” “Yes. Take your fucking hand off me. He did. An unwilling shadow-grin touched his face. “Okay. It's going to be good.” They got out of the car. It was almost nine-thirty.
Vic Mooney, President of the Senior Class, was calling jovially into the mike: “All right, ladies and gentlemen. Take your seats, please. It's time for the voting. We're going to vote for the King and Queen.” “This contest insults women!” Myra Crewes called with uneasy good nature. “It insults men, too!” George Dawson called back, and there was general laughter. Myra was silent. She had made her token protest. “Take your seats, please!” Vic was smiling into the mike, smiling and blushing furiously, fingering a pimple on his chin. The huge Venetian boatman behind him looked dreamily over Vic's shoulder. “Time to vote.” Carrie and Tommy sat down. Tina Blake and Norma Watson were circulating mimeographed ballots, and when Norma dropped one at their table and breathed “Good LUCK!” Carrie picked up the ballot and studied it. Her mouth popped open. “Tommy, we're on here!” “Yeah, I saw that,” he said. “The school votes for single candidates and their dates get sort of shanghaied into it. Welcome aboard. Shall we decline?” She bit her lip and looked at him. “Do you want to decline?” “Hell, no,” he said cheerfully. “If you win, all you do is sit up there for the school song and one dance and wave a scepter and look like a goddam idiot. They take your picture for the yearbook so everyone can see you looked like a goddam idiot.” “Who do we vote for?” She looked doubtfully from the ballot to the tiny pencil by her boatful of nuts. “They're more your crowd than mine.” A little chuckle escaped her. “In fact, I don't really have a crowd.” He shrugged. “Let's vote for ourselves. To the devil with false modesty.” She laughed out loud, then clapped a hand over her mouth. The sound was almost entirely foreign to her. Before she could think, she circled their names, third from the top. The tiny pencil broke in her hand, and she gasped. A splinter had scratched the pad of one finger, and a small bead of blood welled. “You hurt yourself?” “No.” She smiled, but suddenly it was difficult to smile. The sight of the blood was distasteful to her. She blotted it away with her napkin. “But I broke the pencil and it was a souvenir. Stupid me.” “There's your boat,” he said, and pushed it toward her. “Toot, toot.” Her throat closed, and she felt sure she would weep and then be ashamed. She did not, but her eyes glimmered like prisms and she lowered her head so he would not see. The band was playing catchy fill-in music while the Honor Society ushers collected the folded-over ballots. They were taken to the chaperones' table by the door, where Vic and Mr. Stephens and the Lublins counted them. Miss Geer surveyed it all with grim gimlet eyes. Carrie felt an unwilling tension worm into her, tightening muscles in her stomach and back. She held Tommy's hand tightly. It was absurd, of course. No one was going to vote for them. The stallion, perhaps, but not when harnessed in tandem with a she-ox. It would be Frank and Jessica or maybe Don Farnham and Helen Shyres. Or-hell! Two piles were growing larger than the others. Mr. Stephens finished dividing the slips and all four of them took turns at counting the large piles, which looked about the same. They put their heads together, conferred, and counted once more. Mr. Stephens nodded, thumbed [he ballots once more like a man about to deal a hand of poker, and gave them back to Vic. He climbed back on stage and approached the mike. The Billv Bosnan Band played a flourish. Vic smiled nervously, harrumphed into the mike, and blinked at the sudden feedback whine. He nearly dropped the ballots to the floor, which was covered with heavy electrical cables, and somebody snickered. “We've sort of hit a snag,” Vic said artlessly. “Mr. Lublin says this is the first time in the history of the Spring Ball—” “How far does he go back?” someone behind Tommy grumbled. “Eighteen hundred?” “We've got a tie.” This got a murmur from the crowd. “Polka dots or striped?” George Dawson called, and there was some laughter. Vic gave a twitchy little smile and almost dropped the ballots again. “Sixty-three votes for Frank Grier and Jessica MacLean, and sixty-three votes for Thomas Ross and Carrie White.” This was followed by a moment of silence, and then sudden, swelling applause. Tommy looked across at his date. Her head was lowered, as if in shame, but he had a sudden feeling (carrie carrie carrie) not unlike the one he had had when he asked her to the prom. His mind felt as if something alien was moving in there, calling Carrie's name over and over again. As if-“Attention!” Vic was calling. “If I could have your attention, please.” The applause quieted. “We're going to have a run-off ballot. When the people passing out the slips of paper get to you, please write the couple you favor on it.” He left the mike, looking relieved. The ballots were circulated; they had been hastily torn from leftover prom programs. The band played unnoticed and people talked excitedly. “They weren't applauding for us,” Carrie said, looking up. The thing he had felt (or thought he had felt) was gone. “It couldn't have been for us. “Maybe it was for you. She looked at him, mute.
“What's taking it so long?” she hissed at him. “I heard them clap. Maybe that was it. If you fucked up—” The length of jute cord hung between them limply, untouched since Billy had poked a screwdriver through the vent and lifted it out. “Don't worry,” he said calmly. “They'll play the school song. They always do.” “But—” “Shut up. You talk too fucking much.” The tip of his cigarette winked peacefully in the dark. She shut. But (oh when this is over you're going to get it buddy maybe you'll go to bed with lover's nuts tonight) her mind ran furiously over his words, storing them. People did not speak to her in such a manner. Her father was a lawyer. It was seven minutes of ten.
He was holding the broken pencil in his hand, ready to write, when she touched his wrist lightly, tentatively. “Don't.. “What?” “Don't vote for us,” she said finally. He raised his eyebrows quizzically. “Why not? In for a penny, in for a pound. That's what my mother always says.” (mother) A picture rose in her mind instantly, her mother droning endless prayers to a towering, faceless, columnar God who prowled roadhouse parking lots with a sword of fire in one hand. Terror rose in her blackly, and she had to fight with all her spirit to hold it back. She could not explain her dread, her sense of premonition. She could only smile helplessly and repeat: “Don't. Please.” The Honor Society ushers were coming back, collecting folded slips. He hesitated a moment longer, then suddenly scrawled Tommy and Carrie on the ragged slip of paper. “For you,” he said. “Tonight you go first-class.” She could not reply, for the premonition was on her: her mother's face.
The knife slipped from the whetstone, and in an instant it had sliced the cup of her palm below the thumb. She looked at the cut. It bled slowly, thickly, from the open lips of the wound, running out of her hand and spotting the worn linoleum of the kitchen floor. Good, then. It was good. The blade had tasted flesh and let blood. She did not bandage it but tipped the flow over the cutting edge, letting the blood dull the blade's sharp glimmer. Then she began to sharpen again, heedless of the droplets which splattered her dress. If thine right eye offend thee, pluck it out. If it was a hard scripture, it was also sweet and good. A fitting scripture for those who lurked in the doorway shadows of one-night hotels and in the weeds behind bowling alleys. Pluck it out. (oh and the nasty music they play) Pluck z. t (the girls show their underwear how it sweats how it sweats blood) out. The Black Forest cuckoo clock began to strike ten and (cut her guts out on the floor) if thine right eye offend thee, pluck it out.
The dress was done and she could not watch the television or take out her books or call Nancy on the phone. There was nothing to do but sit on the sofa facing the blackness of the kitchen window and feel some nameless sort of fear growing in her like an infant coming to dreadful term. With a sigh she began to massage her arms absently. They were cold and prickly. It was twelve after ten and there was no reason, really no reason, to feel that the world was coming to an end.
The stacks were higher this time, but they still looked exactly the same. Again, three counts were taken to make sure. Then Vic Mooney went to the mike again. He paused a moment, relishing the blue feel of tension in the air, and then announced simply: “Tommy and Carrie win. By one vote.” Dead silence for a moment. Then applause filled the hall again, some of it not without satiric overtones. Carrie drew in a startled, smothered gasp, and Tommy again felt (but for only a second) that weird vertigo in his mind (carrie carrie carrie carrie) that seemed to blank out all thought but the name and image of this strange girl he was with. For a fleeting second he was literally scared shitless. Something fell on the floor with a clink, and at the same instant the candle between them whiffed out. Then Josie and the Moonglows were playing a rock version of “Pomp and Circumstance,” the ushers appeared at their table (almost magically; all this had been rehearsed meticulously by Miss Geer who, according to rumor, ate slow and clumsy ushers for lunch), a scepter wrapped in aluminum foil was thrust into Tommy's hand, a robe with a lush dog-fur collar was thrown over Carrie's shoulders, and they were being led down the center aisle by a boy and a girl in white blazers. The band blared. The audience applauded. Miss Geer looked vindicated. Tommy Ross was grinning bemusedly. They were ushered up the steps to the apron, led across to the thrones, and seated. Still the applause swelled. The sarcasm in it was lost now; it was honest and deep, a little frightening. Carrie was glad to sit down. It was all happening too fast. Her legs were trembling under her and suddenly, even with the comparatively high neck of her gown, her breasts
|
