The Weather and Women Treat Me Fair by Percival Everett Page A

out and dropped them on some paper towels.
    “You wanna help me slaughter a hog?”
    “When?” I asked.
    “Saturday.”
    “I’ll help you.”
    “Good, we’ll hang him up then.”
    “I kind of like pigs,” I said. “They seem real smart. Not like sheep. Sheep are stupid.”
    “Well, maybe not stupid,” he said. “What they used to say about sheep was that they’re humble. Back in Bible times.”
    I attended to the turtle frying.
    “My papa killed a sheep once. He said once was enough. He said he cut its throat and it screamed and didn’t take its eyes off him. He said that sheep just looked at him till he died. Liked to made him cry.”
    “They do have sweet faces.”
    “Humble,” he said.
    “Humble.”
    We sat at the table and took our first bites. He looked up at me.
    “Damn good turtle,” he said.

The Bear as Symbol
     
    Dust settled around the pickup which had just skidded to a halt in front of Judd Carlton’s garage. Old Mitch Biter looked up from his perch, fanned at the settling particles, coughed a bit, and spat. Darnell Aimes climbed out of the cab and limped toward the men at the open garage door. He pointed west at the yellow-orange sky and said, “See that?”
    Mitch Biter spat again and mumbled, “Sun sets every day.”
    Darnell turned to observe his truck. “Can’t that baby move,” he said.
    “Sure does move,” said Mitch.
    Judd nodded, scratched at his mop of gray hair.
    “Got me a 351 Cleveland V-8 in that boy.”
    The men had heard it all before.
    “Jamie put it in there,” Darnell said and he fell silent.
    “Shame about Jamie,” mumbled Mitch.
    Darnell nodded. His son Jamie had died years earlier when the brakes of his semi failed on a stretch of mountain freeway in Idaho. He shook it off and turned to Judd. “You got a headlight switch for me?”
    “Came in today.” Judd stepped away into the garage and returned with the part. “Three bucks.”
    Darnell paid him and left, drove toward the colors in the sky which he liked so much. He whipped up the hill to his tiny house and spun the truck in tight circles, making doughnuts. “I’m strip-mining,” he shouted, then went into the house. He found his sister Clomer sitting in front of the television in the front room. He didn’t say anything to her, he just grabbed his .357 Magnum from the mantel and stepped out onto the porch where he sat on his rocker. The rocker was worn and squeaked a little when he moved it with a steady rhythm back and forth. His pistol was in his lap. Dusk turned slowly dark. He spent most of his hours in this position. On occasion he would fire at people who wandered into his vision. Then a sheriff’s deputy would reluctantly come to call.
    “They want to take my land from me,” Darnell would tell the deputy.
    “And who’s they?” the deputy would ask.
    Darnell would look at him like he was stupid and reply, “Why, the homosexuals.”
    The deputy would hold out his hand and ask for the gun which would lead Darnell to leveling the barrel at him and pulling back the hammer. The deputy would then leave.
    Darnell had never seen what he called a homosexual. Old man Wooster down the hill fancied boys all his life, but he “weren’t no homosexual, he were just funny. Harmless.” But homosexuals were not harmless. “They’re out to ruin this country. They’re after my land.” Jamie had on several occasions tried to explain to his father that old man Wooster was indeed a homosexual, but Darnell wouldn’t hear it. Jamie told him what Wooster did with certain other men. Darnell said, “Hell, Jamie, I know that. What fool don’t know that? But that don’t make old Wooster no homosexual.”
    His sister Clomer lived with him. Clomer had been married to Ricky Tellsy who had been more or less the town drunk of Coy, Arkansas. Ricky had been, up to the time of his death, the most educated person in town, having obtained a master’s and gone halfway through a doctoral program in sociology.