bill at the hardware, a bill with the oil company, a bill with the funeral home and do you want the icing on the goddam cake? He wa'ant a week in the ground before that rumpot Harry Doucette come over with a friggin IOU that said Joe owed him twenty dollars on a baseball bet!
He left me all that, but do you think he left me any goddam insurance money? Nossir! Although that might have been a blessin in disguise, the way things turned out. I guess I'll get to that part before I'm done, but all I'm trying to say now is that Joe St George really wa'ant a man at all; he was a goddam millstone I wore around my neck. Worse, really, because a millstone don't get drunk and then come home smellin of beer and wantin to throw a fuck into you at one in the morning. Wasn't none of that the reason why I killed the sonofawhore, but I guess it's as good a place as any to start.
An island's not a good place to kill anybody, I can tell you that. Seems like there's always someone around, itching to get his nose into your business just when you can least afford it. That's why I did it when I did, and I'll get to that, too. For now suffice it to say that I did it just about three years after Vera Donovan's husband died in a motor accident outside of Baltimore, which was where they lived when they wasn't summerin on Little Tall. Back in those days, most of Vera's screws were still nice and tight.
With Joe out of the pitcher and no money coming in, I was in a fix, I can tell you - I got an idear there's no one in the whole world feels as desperate as a woman on her own with kids dependin on her. I'd 'bout decided I'd better cross the reach and see if I couldn't get a job in Jonesport, checkin out groceries at the Shop n Save or waitressin in a restaurant, when that numb pussy all of a sudden decided she was gonna live on the island all year round. Most everyone thought she'd blown a fuse, but I wasn't all that surprised - by then she was spendin a lot of time up here, anyway.
The fella who worked for her in those days - I don't remember his name - but you know who I mean, Andy, that dumb hunky that always wore his pants tight enough to show the world he had balls as big as Mason jars - called me up and said The Missus (that's what he always called her, The Missus; my, wasn't he dumb) wanted to know if I'd come to work for her full-time as her housekeeper. Well, I'd done it summers for the family since 1950, and I s'pose it was natural enough for her to call me before she called anyone else, but at the time it seemed like the answer to all my prayers. I said yes right on the spot, and I worked for her right up until yest'y forenoon, when she went down the front stairs on her stupid empty head.
What was it her husband did, Andy? Made airplanes, didn't he?
Oh. Ayuh, I guess I did hear that, - but you know how people on the island talk. All I know for sure is that they was well-fixed, mighty well-fixed, and she got it all when he died. Except for what the government took, accourse, and I doubt if it got anywhere near as much as it was. probably owed. Michael Donovan was sharp as a tack. Sly, too. And although nobody would believe it from the way she was over the last ten years, Vera was as sly as he was... and she had her sly days right up until she died. I wonder if she knew what kind of a jam she'd be leavin me in if she did anything besides die in bed of a nice quiet heart-attack? I been down by East Head most of the day, sittin on those rickety stairs and thinkin about that. . . that and a few hundred other things. First I'd think no, a bowl of oatmeal has more brains than Vera Donovan had at the end, and then I'd remember how she was about the vacuum cleaner and I'd think maybe . . . yes, maybe...