The Postman Always Rings Twice Read Free

sat there. "I can't go on like this, Frank."
          "Me neither."
          "I can't stand it. And I've got to get drunk with you, Frank. You know what I mean? Drunk."
          "I know."
          "And I hate that Greek."
          "Why did you marry him? You never did tell me that."
          "I haven't told you anything."
          "We haven't wasted any time on talk."
          "I was working in a hash house. You spend two years in a Los Angeles hash house and you'll take the first guy that's got a gold watch."
          "When did you leave Iowa?"
          "Three years ago. I won a beauty contest. I won a high school beauty contest, in Des Moines. That's where I lived. The prize was a trip to Hollywood. I got off the Chief with fifteen guys taking my picture, and two weeks later I was in the hash house."
          "Didn't you go back?"
          "I wouldn't give them the satisfaction."
          "Did you get in movies?"
          "They gave me a test. It was all right in the face. But they talk, now. The pictures, I mean. And when I began to talk, up there on the screen, they knew me for what I was, and so did I. A cheap Des Moines trollop, that had as much chance in pictures as a monkey has. Not as much. A monkey, anyway, can make you laugh. All I did was make you sick."
          "And then?"
          "Then two years of guys pinching your leg and leaving nickel tips and asking how about a little party tonight. I went on some of them parties, Frank."
          "And then?"
          "You know what I mean about them parties?"
          "I know."
          "Then he came along. I took him, and so help me, I meant to stick by him. But I can't stand it any more. God, do I look like a little white bird?"
          "To me, you look more like a hell cat."
          "You know, don't you. That's one thing about you. I don't have to fool you all the time. And you're clean. You're not greasy. Frank, do you have any idea what that means? You're not greasy."
          "I can kind of imagine."
          "I don't think so. No man can know what that means to a woman. To have to be around somebody that's greasy and makes you sick at the stomach when he touches you. I'm not really such a hell cat, Frank. I just can't stand it any more."
          "What are you trying to do? Kid me?"
          "Oh, all right. I'm a hell cat, then. But I don't think I would be so bad. With somebody that wasn't greasy."
          "Cora, how about you and me going away?"
          "I've thought about it. I've thought about it a lot."
          "We'll ditch this Greek and blow. Just blow."
          "Where to?"
          "Anywhere. What do we care?"
          "Anywhere. Anywhere. You know where that is?"
          "All over. Anywhere we choose."
          "No it's not. It's the hash house."
          "I'm not talking about the hash house. I'm talking about the road. It's fun, Cora. And nobody knows it better than I do. I know every twist and turn it's got. And I know how to work it, too. Isn't that what we want? Just to be a pair of tramps, like we really are?"
          "You were a fine tramp. You didn't even have socks."
          "You liked me."
          "I loved you. I would love you without even a shirt. I would love you specially without a shirt, so I could feel how nice and hard your shoulders are."
          "Socking railroad detectives developed the muscles."
          "And you're hard all over. Big and tall and hard. And your hair is light. You're not a little soft greasy guy with black kinky hair that he puts bay rum on every night."
          "That must be a nice smell."
          "But it won't do, Frank. That road, it don't lead anywhere but to the hash house. The hash house for me, and some job like it for you. A lousy parking lot job, where you wear a smock. I'd cry if I saw you in a smock, Frank."
          "Well?"
          She sat there a long time,