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NELCEDELIA / Martha Bennett Stiles for Carolyn Hammer ELBURN MCKINLEY MEECE ARRANGES the slats of his Venetian blinds and raises them precisely at eight as always, in spite of the sleepless night he has been put through. He rubs the dust off his fingers with one of the immaculate face towels from the perfectly square-edged stack on the counter beside his basin and drops the towel in the bin underneath. His fingers are as pink as a rabbit's nose. No fingernail is longer than another. Looking out through his plate glass window at the main street of Cotes, Kentucky, population eight hundred, Meece purses his lips. Three advertising posters are spoiling his window's symmetry. Their subjects, from left to right, are: a series of concerts to be held in Cotes High School Auditorium by the Gospel Lads; the Wolfe County Scout-O- Rama; the Cotes Rotary Club's Twelfth Annual "White Elephant" Auction. The one in the middle is the reason bleached patches appear on Meece's nostrils: the Boy Scout Jamb-O-Ree took place in June. Before he let the boys tape their poster there, they promised they would remove it immediately after the event, and clear every speck of tape off his window. Well, he is going to leave that poster right there, just leave it right there until they come around wanting to put up next year's. He won't have to say no, he won't have to say one word. Just point. Beyond the cluttering posters, Meece sees what pleases him still less. "Don't know what you need the pole for, Elburn, long as you got Pizalum," Meece's wife, Nelcedelia, has commented. "You could sell that pole to one of them antique stores in Lexington, get you a good price." Pizalum Civ, punctual as Elburn Meece himself, sits this morning as always on the bench in front of Meece's shop. "Pizalum shows up just as far down the street as that ol' stripey pole, and you ask anybody in Cotes where the barber's is at, he'll tell you it's where Pizalum sits and spits." Pizalum's daily companion on the public bench is late. Meece notes this bitterly, although ordinarily it would please him. Like Pizalum, Wall-eye Bailey has nothing to do but collect his black-lung checks and pass comments on Meece's customers (before and after) and anybody else who walks by. Meece is too familiar with life's unfairness to think that Wall-eye may have died in his sleep. Instead he suspects that The Missouri Review · 297 Wall-eye's unusual tardiness is evidence that word of Nelcedelia's lapse has already flashed through Cotes like flu. Wall-eye is Nelcedelia's double-cousin; he should be embarrassed, if he isn't. Meece doesn't have the luxury of hiding his face. He deserves his disgrace, he reflects still more bitterly, for being such a fool as to marry a Bailey. He had assumed that Nelcedelia would be grateful for the home he was giving her, would be thrilled to keep it nice. Baileys are thick as head lice from Cotes to West Virginia and not a one worth a cake of lye soap, not a one to be trusted or believed. Nelcedelia swore after the last time she would never touch another drop. Wall-eye must have heard about last night. Though it was midnight before the red pickup glided to a stop in front of Meece's house, plenty of neighbors were awake watching Johnny Carson. The pickup shut off its lights. Burning, Meece kept watch through his bedroom window: it was forty-five minutes before she sneaked unsteadily in and the pickup stole away, its headlights still extinguished. The last time, Meece had gone out—not to say anything, just to show Nelcedelia he was aware of her presence in the truck, to shame her into coming inside. Instead she had rolled down her window and cursed him, louder and louder, cackling and shrieking. Lights had come on up and down the street. Meece runs hot water into a bucket, adds soap, and goes out to give...

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