told her to kill me. She held the gun in her hand the longest time. I asked her for a sweet dead pact. She didn’t want. I said one of us had to die. She said no. I beat my head on the wall. She talked me out of it.” “Then what happened?” “That was months ago---after you left. She finally married one of the sailors, dumb sonofabitch has promised to kill me if he finds me; if necessary I shall have to defend myself and kill him and I’ll go to San Quentin, ’cause Jack one more rap of ANY kind and I go to San Quentin for life---that’ll be the end of me. Bad hand and all.” He showed me his hand. I hadn’t noticed in the excitement that he had really suffered a terrible accident with his hand. “I hit Louanne on the brow on Feb. 26 at six o’clock in the evening the last time we met and the last time we decided everything. Now listen to this: my thumb only deflected off her brow and she didn’t even have a bruise and in fact laughed, but my end, my thumb got infected and a poor-ass doctor made a bad job of fixing it and finally I had a touch of gangrene in it and they had to amputate a cunthair tip off the end.” He unwrapped the bandages and showed me. The flesh, about half an inch, was missing under the nail. “It got from worse to worse. I had to support Carolyn and Cathy Ann and had to work as fast as I could at Goodyear Tire Company hauling big hundred pound tires from the floor to the top of the cars. I could only use my good hand but I kept banging the bad one. I broke it and they reset it and stuck a pin in it and it’s getting all infected and swoled again. All these heebyjeebies!” he laughed “and I’ve never felt better and finer and happier with the world and to see little lovely children playing I the sun and I am so glad to see you my fine gone wonderful Jack and I know, I know everything will be all right.” He congratulated me on my thousand dollars, which was no more now. “We know life; now Jack, we’re growing older each of us little by little and are coming to know things. What you tell me about your family I understand well, I’ve always dug your feelings and now in fact you’re ready to hook up with a real great girl if you can only find her and cultivate her and make her mind your soul as I have tried so hard to do with these damned women of mine. Shit! shit! shit!” He yelled. And in the