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In the Hands of the Pigman
- The University of Alabama Press
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They lit out on foot, in wing tips, in oxfords—black & white, and oxblood brown—and sharp-toed boots of yellow buck with high tops and a fancy stitch—hurrying along the moon-bright road, following the markers of snowpatch in ditches and the vapors of the one of them ahead—hard breaths of men in suits and city shoes too thin-soled for a country thoroughfare, wrong for these parts. Pinstripe, worsted, herringbone. Sporting fedoras . Single file as they go, these three—over ruts and dips, over small stones heaved out by freeze along the road cut, the man in front clutching his suit coat closed one-handed at his throat, carrying in the other by its handle-grasps a satchel of the sort It remains unclear why the family dog, who often slept outside the nursery door, did not bark as the boy was taken from his crib, or why the Colonel and Mrs. Lindbergh did not hear the rungs of the ladder crack. Princeton Free Press April 9, 1932 In the Hands of the Pigman 20 Pamela Ryder that country doctors or burglars are thought to keep, or spinsters traveling by rail might set in their laps—but he is none of these. Nor are the other two behind him, rounding a bend and swinging widely with the burden that they tote between them: a ladder carried by its sidepiece, the rungs crudely cut. Faint blue marks of carpenter’s chalk. A hasty nail here and there piercing together boards of sapwood and yellow pine. Measured. Sawed. Tested for their weight, for their steps—now hard upon the frozen road, this lane newly made through old stands of oak and ash, hacked through to the house beyond. A fieldstone in the old style, whitewashed and double-storied—they can see it through woods wind-swept of leaves, as it is this time of year when what went cold and slow of heart before the first frost tunneled underground to wait out warmer weather now starts to stir. In burrows. Dens. Back rooms. In boardinghouses of longing and petty discontent, abode of bail jumpers, repeat offenders , wife-smackers. In cellars and speakeasies. In foul alleys slimed with the spittle of idlers and shirkers skilled at no trade but the swindle, the conspiracy to commit. Clever with the concealed weapon; handy with the shiv. Men who winter in custody, in lockups, in sorry apartments of single occupancy or in flats where wives wait up. Wrung hands and handkerchiefs. Accusations. Alibis. In rented rooms and in dismal kitchens. In the corridors of old hotels lacking bellhop or porter where the rooms are rosy each evening with the pulse of neon in the window , bleak by the light of day. Dwellings of ne’er-do-wells set loose upon these far wooded districts, this frozen country lane. They move on with the moon behind them and the last seep of sundown on the hills and drifts. Lacework of trees above the ridge. So still a day. One of them remembering a sky such the same as this but long ago, one late afternoon of sledding—yes, the same light, he thinks, one of them does, and those trees, too, [3.144.28.2] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 18:58 GMT) In the Hands of the Pigman 21 in silhouette, the same—Billy! That’s enough I said. Now I said. You get on in here William. Why you’re half-frozen and where is your other mitten?—and the other one remembering the buckets of mums and buckets of roses in the evening at the trolley stop. The people stepping down from the lighted cars in the early dusk and saying: Evening, evening, yes good evening, not so cold for nearly Christmas is it? And well I see you’ve got your boy with you tonight. Helping out and learning the business are you Bean? And people walking on past or stopping to buy. A bud for your lapel sir? A bouquet to take home to the little missus? Pass me two of those long stems there Bean. That’s it Bernard and put in a sprig of baby’s breath for the lady. Scent of spring and cut green things this winter’s eve. Fern wrapped in paper and carnations in bunches: the all-white ones and the ones with petals spattered red—candy-cane carnations is what he called them and sometimes he called them peppermint. But aren’t...