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hadn’t thought of it that way.”
    “You will help me, won’t you?”
    “After the way you’ve helped me?”
    “How have I helped you, Duke?”
    “Treating me human.”
    “Everybody’s human.”
    “Not everybody remembers it. You and your brother and sister-in-law kind of helped with a pretty bad day. Say what it is and I’ll do it.”
    “ ... I want it done in the cottage. So I can shower off there, and in the big house leave nothing to show, like drops of blood on the rugs. In my bathroom are Band-Aids and things, and in my bedroom clothes. You bring it all to me here, and while you’re doing that, I’ll be figuring out what happened to me, and the rest of what has to be done to remove every last trace. Of my unfortunate mishap.”
    The big house, when at last I was in it, was just as nice inside as it was out, being furnished modern, in yellow maple, tan rugs, blue upholstery, and copper lamps. I found the stuff she said get, took it into the cottage, and lit the kerosene heater so her shower would be hot. The plumbing and stuff out there was interior, but not up-to-date like what was in the big house, which worked at the snap of a button. When I went out again, she said get the take-out, as it would have to do after all, and I could have it while the water was heating. So I ate while camped down beside her, there on the patio grass, and she said it would all be simple, just a matter of filling the hole, dumping some sawdust on, cutting the tree up in such a way that branches were piled on the sawdust and the stump fell on them. The power saw, she said, would plug right into the cottage and, except for a little shoveling, I wouldn’t be put to much trouble. When it was all done, she said I could pour on some gasoline, toss a match on top, and everything would go up in smoke, “down to the last twig.”
    Not quite a political job, at least as I sized it up, but if that’s what it took to please her, I meant to do it her way. I drank from my Thermos of coffee, told how my heart had stopped beating when I saw the death trap I’d dug, assuming there’d be a taproot when nothing was down there but dirt, and we both shivered to think of it, and relived each horrible moment. But whatever we said always led back to the fat. She kind of chanted it: “It’s glandular, glandular, I know it. There’s no cure, none at all, none, and I’ll never live to be thirty. I don’t complain, I speak no word of that kind. I do what I can, my small mite of good, so I leave this earth a little bit better than I found it. But can’t they leave me alone? Do they, do they all, do they every last one—have to talk? ”
    I was so flabbergasted, since I had supposed her middle-aged, maybe fifty or more, that I was a second late answering: “ ... Why—O.K., but don’t you talk.”
    “You told me to.”
    “Out there. Here now, take it easy.”
    Her face beaded up, as it did when flashes hit her, and I dried it off with a face towel, wrapping it on, then patting it soft. Then again, pretty soon, she was off: “And, Duke, talking’s not all they do. They laugh. That’s the worst, as it’s meant to be mean. And they turn away, or close their eyes, or make a face, as though you were a mess on the pavement. That cuts into your heart. Maybe they can’t help it, but you’d think they could if they tried. Why do they do things like that?”
    “People are funny.”
    “You didn’t.”
    “I don’t really know what you mean.”
    “That’s not true but it’s nice. It’s nice because it’s kind. Duke, I want you as my friend.”
    “Mrs. Val, can I say something?”
    “Please, Duke. What is it?”
    “I was in jail.”
    “I didn’t mention it.”
    “I spent a night there, and if you ever looked at the moon shining at you through bars, it puts a scar on your soul. And when you didn’t mention it, when you treated me human, it healed that scar—just a little. I’m proud to be your friend, and I want you for