IT WAS MIDNIGHT when McLendon drove up to his neat new house. It was trim and
fresh as a birdcage and almost as small, with its clean, green-and-white paint. He locked
the car and mounted the porch and entered. His wife rose from a chair beside the reading
lamp. McLendon stopped in the floor and stared at her until she looked down.
"Look at that clock," he said, lifting his arm, pointing.
She stood before him, her face lowered, a magazine in her hands. Her face was
pale, strained, and weary-looking.
"Haven't I told you about sitting up like this, waiting to see when I come in?"
"John," she said. She laid the magazine down. Poised on the balls of his feet, he
glared at her with his hot eyes, his sweating face.
"Didn't I tell you?" He went toward her. She looked up then. He caught her
shoulder. She stood passive, looking at him.
"Don't, John. I couldn't sleep... The heat; something. Please, John. You're hurting
me."
"Didn't I tell you?" He released her and half struck, half flung her across the chair,
and she lay there and watched him quietly as he left the room.
He went on through the house, ripping off his shirt, and on the dark, screened
porch at the rear he stood and mopped his head and shoulders with the shirt and flung it
away. He took the pistol from his hip and laid it on the table beside the bed, and sat on
the bed and removed his shoes, and rose and slipped his trousers off. He was sweating
again already, and he stooped and hunted furiously for the shirt. At last he found it and
wiped his body again, and, with his body pressed against the dusty screen, he stood
panting. There was no movement, no sound, not even an insect. The dark world seemed
to lie stricken beneath the cold moon and the lidless stars.