Do Unto Others Read Free

are damned un-welcomehere. If you bother me, or anyone at the library again, I will press charges.”
    “You can’t punish me. You judge me not. Though God is judging
you.
” Her voice hardened, and it amazes me still that there could be so much spite in that frumpy form. “He’s judging you, Mr. Know-It-All Jordy Poteet. That’s why your mother is the way she is—”
    “You shut up!” I yelled. “Get out!” Dead silence in the stacks. Those dark, deadened eyes stared into mine. I fought back a sudden, primitive urge to spit in her face. Yes, I do have a bad temper and Beta saw she’d gone too far. She didn’t flinch away, but Ruth hustled her out into the spring beat. I could hear Beta protesting the whole way, threatening Ruth with various fundamentalist punishments. I could only imagine what special levels of Gehenna she reserved for me.
    I slumped into my chair. My hands shook. I was ten years younger and a foot taller than Beta Harcher, but her words rattled me more than her punch. I admit it: I could’ve throttled her—just for a moment—when she made that crack about my mother. Whack me with books all you like, but leave my family alone.
    The bleeding stopped, but I kept dabbing my nostrils with the tissue. The blue-haired crowd headed straight for me, gabbing with their henhouse tongues. The Eula Mae Quiffers examined me carefully and, assured that I was okay, offered their opinions on Beta.
    “She’s addled,” said one lady.
    “Poor dear just takes the Bible too literally,” opined a more pious woman who had not been battered with a book recently.
    “I can’t believe she struck you,” added another, disappointed that my nose was intact.
    “What a bitch,” Eula Mae commented. She’s the closest thing to a celebrity Mirabeau has—a romancenovelist known to her fans by the nom de plume Jocelyn Lushe. I have nothing against romances—I could probably use one in my life—but Eula Mae gets inordinate amounts of local adoration for her prose. I can only take so many heaving bosoms and smoldering loins per page, and Eula Mae isn’t big on setting limits.
    Mousy Tamma Hufnagel watched me carefully. “Miz Harcher’s upset about being kicked off the library board, Jordy. She’s just awful tetchy about civic morals. She means well.”
    “No, she doesn’t, Mrs. Hufnagel,” I answered. “She’s a lunatic and they’re usually not concerned with the public good.” I watched Ruth come back into the library, without Beta. “I could just kill that old biddy.”
    “Don’t you listen to Beta Harcher, Jordy.” Dorcas Witherspoon, one of my mother’s friends, took my hand. “She’s a bitter fool. She’s unhappy, so she wants everyone to be that way. We don’t care if you keep smutty books. You know all I read here is the Houston paper for ‘Hints from Heloise.”’
    “Please, ladies, I’m fine,” I assured them. I sighed. “I guess Mrs. Hufnagel’s right; Beta’s just mad she got kicked off the library board. She’ll just find someone else in Mirabeau to terrorize.”
    That, unfortunately, didn’t happen. The good Lord decided, I suppose, that He needed Beta Harcher at His right hand a far sight earlier than any of us reckoned.
      The rest of the afternoon passed without divine retribution for keeping D. H. Lawrence on the library shelves. At six I closed up and drove past the well-kept homes and fake antique light posts on Bluebonnet Street. Mirabeau is Texas old, founded in 1841 during the Republic days, but I figure the powers that be don’t think it looks quaint enough for antique buyers and cityfolks looking to move to the country. So they’ve started adding Dickensian touches such as Victorian light posts and wrought-iron benches on the major streets in town. We natives try not to mind.
    It doesn’t take more than ten minutes to get anywhere in Mirabeau, and getting home takes me all of two minutes. I veered left onto Lee Street, drove down a block to Blossom Street, and