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Show 1,38 She sighed h e a v i l y . "I worry about your f a t h e r . But as for myself..." Her voice dropped to a shamed whisper "...sometimes I wish I was dead." I promised to v i s i t soon, knowing t h a t t h i s was not just another promise, knowing t h a t from now on I would v i s i t frequently, propelled by her need and by the growing ominousness t h a t u n t i l now I had kept at bay. I had argued with my apprehensions, t e l l i n g myself that Danny was r i g h t , I was paranoid as the r e s t of the family, caught in my own p e r s e c u t i o n complex. But now t h e r e were grounds for my fears; I f e l t almost r e s p o n s i b l e for the r e a l i t y of Ervil's t h r e a t s , as though I had invented a c h a r a c t e r for my short s t o r i e s and he had come to l i f e , shooting from the hip. How can I endure t h i s ? I thought, t w i s t i n g my fingers until the knuckles popped. It would be another Vietnam - or worse. In another week, another day, the sturdy, invinceable structure of people t h a t had spawned me and even now supported me with love from a d i s t a n c e could be blown i n t o nothing. I sank i n t o a k i t c h e n c h a i r and s t a r e d out the window at the bleak landscape, remembering the rumors and memories of the LeBaron family t h a t I had harbored since childhood. I had come to think of them i n expressions l i k e 'not in t h e i r right minds' or 'out of t h e i r minds' and to equate them with riflLent B i b l i c a l c h a r a c t e r s l i k e Cain and Nimrod and the brothers of Joseph. My mdther had often recounted the time when the* LeBarons visited cne of our meetings aid E r v i l had come forward to congratulate her on her piano playing. Ervil seemed sane enough, v e l l - g r o o m e d , a » * neatJJy-dressed and very a i t i c u l a t e. But h i s \ l d e s t b r o t h e r , BenSU stepped between "tWm, h a ir |