Robert Penn Warren
LOVE AND DEATH
IN JOHNTOWN, TENN.*
Old Jack Harrick, a big grizzled heavy-headed old man,
ruined and beautiful, is sitting in a wheel chair, dying of cancer. At
this moment he is wondering if he smells. There is no reason to
think that he does, but he is wondering. He is wondering this be–
cause his wife has just been in to speak to him, to bring him iced
tea against the hot June afternoon, and to lay her cheek against his,
and say, "John T.- dear John T." Perhaps he would be happy,
he thinks, if he did smell, but he does not know why he might be
happy if he could think she got his stink, which is not there anyway.
Now he thinks about dying, and how the body is nothing. It
is a hunk of filth and they fling it into a hole. But if he got to
smelling first and before they had any right to fling him in, that
would fix them. It would serve them right.
Then his eyes fill with tears, the terrible tears of an old man,
yet strong. He looks out the window. There is the white oak in the
yard, the remnants of rope yet hanging from it where he once put
up a swing for his boy. How long did it take a piece of rope-good
rope-to rot? There is the flower bed where his wife's nasturtiums
shine yellow and red beyond the uncut lawn this side of the paling
fence. He wishes he had fixed the fence, like she had asked him.
He begins to pray again. What he sees out the window, tree,
rope, fence, flowers-all swim in bright tears. He does not want
to smell. He wishes he had fixed the fence. He prays, but the words
mean nothing. He is simply saying over and over the grace his wife
*
This is an excerpt from Robert Penn Warren's forthcoming novel,
The Cave,
which will be published by Random House.
Copyright @1959 by Robert
Penn Warren.
