Pop. 1280
Jim Thompson
Little, Brown and Company
New York Boston London
Foreword by Daniel Woodrell
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Foreword
By Daniel Woodrell
In Pop. 1280, our narrator, Nick Corey, introduces us to his essential attitude toward the world in the first short chapter. “…I was layin’ awake like that one night, tossing and turning and going plumb out of my mind, until finally I couldn’t stand it no longer. So I says to myself, ‘Nick Corey…you better come to a decision, Nick Corey, or you’re gonna wish you had.’
“So I thought and I thought, and then I thought some more. And finally I came to a decision.
I decided I didn’t know what the heck to do.’”
Sheriff Nick Corey is Jim Thompson’s greatest creation, and Thompson seemed to believe that as well, because he created him more than once. You might readily confuse Nick Corey with Lou Ford if you’ve read The Killer Inside Me. Both are pathological lawmen, who like to use banalities and platitudes to casually torture folks who aren’t sure how to react to them as authority figures and must grin and bear it, smiling awkwardly at comments that might or might not be intended to be received as comic. Both men are corrupt and dangerous, spiritually bereft and adrift in a meaningless world, habitues of the void. When one considers that Thompson’s own father was a sheriff, many dark angles of psychoanalytic interest are made available for contemplation, but I am not certain that much deep analysis is actually required to suss the crux of that relationship. An oft-repeated comment by Nick Corey, a comment central to his matter-of-fact but caustic acceptance of spiritual emptiness and corruption, is, “I ain’t sayin’ you’re wrong, but I cain’t say you’re right, either.”
Nick says that about every human act from murder to marriage. No one is capable of more bitterness and scorn than a scalded romantic, and Jim Thompson, the disillusioned leftist, was certainly that. America must have seemed very young when Thompson was born—Oklahoma wasn’t even a state until the following year. This area is still referred to by some academics as “a semi-arrested frontier culture”, but in his day you could pretty much drop the “semi-arrested.” Wild and woolly, hardscrabble, full of promise, pitiless and pious, Oklahoma was all of that, and it was deeply informed by southern culture. Pop. 1280, set in Texas, is so directly a southern novel, so clearly from that tradition, that it would stand high on the Southern Lit shelf (which means high on the Lit Shelf, period) if it were not so consistently misidentified as a work with its roots genre, and therefore arbitrarily reduced in stature. In this novel Thompson attacks just about all of the big ogres of American existence—poverty, racism, labor, social hypocrisy in general, and the relaxed enforcement of laws for those who have amassed gold, the brutal enforcement for those who haven’t. The vision is dark but the writing bizarrely hilarious, utilizing that strain of downhome joshing I love so well and learned at the knees of my old ones, the kind of humor that is funny and insulting simultaneously. This is, of course, in the oral tradition, and Thompson is expert in its usage—even those repetitions or awkwardly constructed phrases are, upon further reading, revealed to be brilliant motifs planted in the seemingly banal.
I do not care to spoil the pleasures of this novel for any readers, but will say that, this being Jim Thompson, the darkness begins to quickly gather, darkness that seeps from active wrongdoing and a citizenry’s cowed acceptance of wrongdoing, and no writer has ever been more cunning and potent in his depiction of the commonplace nature of evil. Thompson, when unleashed and at his best, could spook the souls of many of our anointed literary heroes deep underground while running their hides up a tree, and in Pop. 1280 he is unleashed and tearing it up righteously.
1
Well, sir, I should have been sitting pretty, just about as pretty as a man could sit. Here I was, the high sheriff of Potts County, and I was drawing almost two thousand dollars a year—not to mention what I could pick up on the side. On top of that, I had free living quarters on the second floor of the courthouse, just as nice a place as a man could ask for; and it even had a bathroom so that I didn’t have to bathe in a washtub or tramp outside to a privy, like most folks in town did. I guess you could say that Kingdom Come was really here as far as I was concerned. I had it made, and it looked like I could go on having it made—being high sheriff of Potts County—as long as I minded my own business and didn’t arrest no one unless I just couldn’t get out of it and they didn’t amount to nothin’.
And yet I was worried. I had so many troubles that I was worried plumb sick.
I’d sit down to a meal of maybe half a dozen pork chops and a few fried eggs and a pan of hot biscuits with grits and gravy, and I couldn’t eat it. Not all of it. I’d start worrying about those problems of mine, and the next thing you knew I was getting up from the table with food still left on my plate.
It was the same way with sleeping. You might say I didn’t really get no sleep at all. I’d climb in bed, thinking this was one night I was bound to sleep, but I wouldn’t. It’d be maybe twenty or thirty minutes before I could doze off. And then, no more than eight or nine hours later, I’d wake up. Wide awake. And I couldn’t go back to sleep, frazzled and wore out as I was.
Well, sir, I was layin’ awake like that one night, tossing and turning and going plumb out of my mind, until finally I couldn’t stand it no longer. So I says to myself, “Nick,” I says, “Nick Corey, these problems of yours are driving you plumb out of your mind, so you better think of something fast. You better come to a decision, Nick Corey, or you’re gonna wish you had.”
So I thought and I thought, and then I thought some more. And finally I came to a decision.
I decided I didn’t know what the heck to do.
2
I got out of bed that morning, and I shaved and took a bath, even if it was only Monday and I’d washed real good the Saturday before. Then, I put on my Sunday-go-to-meetin’ clothes, my new sixty-dollar Stetson and my seventy-dollar Justin boots and my four-dollar Levis. I stood in front of the mirror, checking myself over real good; making sure that I didn’t look like some old country boy. Because I was making a little trip to see a friend of mine. I was going to see Ken Lacey and get his advice about my problems. And I always try to look my best when I see Ken Lacey.
I had to pass Myra’s bedroom on the way downstairs, and she had her door open to catch the breeze, and without realizing that I was doing it, I stopped and looked in. Then I went in and looked at her some more. And then I eased toward the bed on tippy-toe and stood looking down at her, kind of licking my lips and feeling itchy.
I’ll tell you something about me. I’ll tell you for true. That’s one thing I never had no shortage of. I was hardly out of my shift—just a barefooted kid with my first pair of boughten britches—when the gals started flinging it at me. And the older I got, the more of ’em there were. I’d say to myself sometimes, “Nick,” I’d say, “Nick Corey, you’d better do something about these gals. You better start carrying you a switch and whip ’em off of you, or they’ll do you to death.” But I never did do nothing like that, because I just never could bear to hurt a gal. A gal cries at me a little, and right away I’m giving in to her.
Well, though, to get back to the subject, I never had no shortage of women and they were all real generous with me. Which maybe don’t seem to add up, the way I was staring at my wife, Myra. Licking my lips and feeling itchy all over. Because Myra was quite a bit older than I was and she looked every bit as mean as she was. And believe me, she was one danged mean woman. But the way it is with me, I’m kind of single-minded, I get to thinking about something, and I ca
n’t think of anything else. And maybe I wasn’t suffering any shortage, but you know how that is. I mean, it’s kind of like eating popcorn. The more you have the more you want.
She didn’t have a nightdress on, it being summer, and she’d kicked the sheet off. And she was kind of lying on her stomach, so that I couldn’t see her face, which made her look a lot better.
So I stood there, staring and steaming and itching, and finally I couldn’t stand it no longer and I started unbuttoning my shirt. “After all, Nick,” I says to myself, “after all, Nick Corey, this here woman is your wife, and you got certain rights.”
Well, I guess you know what happened. Or I guess you don’t know either. Because you don’t know Myra, which makes you about as lucky as a person can get. Anyways, she turned over on her back all of a sudden, and opened her eyes.
“And just what,” she said, “do you think you’re doing?”
I told her I was getting ready to take a trip over to the county where Ken Lacey was sheriff. I’d probably be gone until late that night, I said, and we’d probably get real lonesome for each other, so maybe we ought to get together first.
“Huh!” she said, almost spitting the word at me. “Do you think I’d want you, even if I was of a mind to have relations with a man?”
“Well,” I said. “I kind of thought maybe you might. I mean, I kind of hoped so. I mean, after all, why not?”
“Because I can hardly stand the sight of you, that’s why! Because you’re stupid!”
“Well,” I said. “I ain’t sure I can agree with you, Myra. I mean, I ain’t saying you’re wrong but I ain’t saying you’re right, either. Anyways, even if I am stupid, you can’t hardly fault me for it. They’s lots of stupid people in the world.”
“You’re not only stupid but you’re spineless,” she said. “You’re about the poorest excuse for nothing I ever laid eyes on!”
“Well, looky,” I said. “If you feel that way, why for did you marry me?”
“Listen to him! Listen to the beast!” she said. “As if he didn’t know why! As if he didn’t know that I had to marry him after he raped me!”
Well, that made me kind of sore, you know. She was always saying I’d raped her, and it always made me kind of sore. I couldn’t really argue about her saying I was stupid and spineless, because I probably ain’t real smart—who wants a smart sheriff?—and I figure it’s a lot nicer to turn your back on trouble than it is to look at it. I mean, what the heck, we all got trouble enough of our own without butting in on other people’s.
But when she said I was a rapist, that was something else. I mean, there just wasn’t a word of truth in it. Because it just didn’t make sense.
Why for would a fella like me rape a woman, when he had so many generous gals chasing him?
“Well, I’ll tell you about this rape business,” I said, getting kind of red in the face as I rebuttoned my shirt. “I ain’t saying you’re a liar, because that wouldn’t be polite. But I’ll tell you this, ma’am. If I loved liars, I’d hug you to death.”
Well, that really started her off. She started blubbering and bawling like a calf in a hail storm. And of course that woke up her half-witted brother, Lennie. So he came rushing in, blubbering and rolling his eyes and slobbering all over his chin.
“What you done to Myra?” he says, spraying spit for about twenty feet. “What you gone an’ done to her, Nick?”
I didn’t say anything, being busy dodging the spit. He went stumbling over to Myra, and she took him into her arms, glaring at me.
“You beast! Now look what you’ve done!”
I said, what the heck, I hadn’t done nothing. Far as I could see, Lennie was pretty near always bawling and slobbering. “About the only time he ain’t,” I said, “is when he’s sneaking around town, peeking into some woman’s window.”
“You—you bully!” she said. “Faulting poor Lennie for something he can’t help! You know he’s as innocent as a lamb!”
I said, “Yeah, well, maybe.” Because there wasn’t much else to say, and it was getting close to train time. I started toward the hall door, and she didn’t like that, me walking out without so much as a beg-pardon, so she blazed away at me again.
“You better watch your step, Mr. Nick Corey! You know what will happen if you don’t!”
I stopped and turned around. “What will happen?” I said.
“I’ll tell the people in this county the truth about you! We’ll see how long you’ll be sheriff then! After I tell them you raped me!”
“I’ll tell you right now what will happen,” I said. “I’d be run out of my job before I could say scat.”
“You certainly would! You’d better remember it, too!”
“I’ll remember,” I said, “an’ here’s something for you to remember. If I ain’t sheriff, then I got nothing to lose, have I? It don’t make a good gosh-damn about anything. And if I ain’t sheriff, you ain’t the sheriff’s wife. So where the heck will that leave you—you and your half-witted brother?”
Her eyes popped and she sucked in her breath with a gasp. It was the first time I’d spoken up to her for a long time, and it kind of took the starch out of her.
I gave her a meaningful nod, and went out the door. When I was about halfway down the stairs, she called to me.
She’d moved real fast, throwing on a robe and working up a smile. “Nick,” she said, kind of cocking her head to one side, “why don’t you come back for a few minutes, hmmm?”
“I guess not,” I said. “I’m kind of out of the mood.”
“We-el. Maybe, I could get you back in the mood. Hmmmm?”
I said I guessed not. Anyways, I had to catch a train, and I’d have to grab a bite to eat first.
“Nick,” she said, sort of nervous-like. “You—you wouldn’t do anything foolish, would you? Just because you’re angry with me.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” I told her. “No more’n you would, Myra.”
“Well. Have a nice day, dear.”
“The same to you ma ’am,” I said. And then I went on downstairs, into the courthouse proper, and out the front door.
I almost took a header as I came out into the dusky haze of early morning. Because the danged place was being painted, and the painters had left their ladders and cans scattered all over everywhere. Out on the sidewalk, I looked back to see what kind of progress they’d been making. The way it looked to me, they hadn’t made hardly any at all in the last two, three days—they were still working on the upper front floor—but that wasn’t none of my butt-in.
I could have painted the whole building myself in three days. But I wasn’t a county commissioner, and I didn’t have a painting contractor for a brother-in-law.
Some colored folks had a cook-shack down near the railway station, and I stopped there and ate a plate of corn bread and fried catfish. I was too upset to eat a real meal; too worried about my worries. So I just ate the one plateful, and then I bought another order with a cup of chicory to take on the train with me.
The train came and I got on. I got a seat next to the window, and began to eat. Trying to tell myself that I’d really got Myra told off this morning and that she’d be a lot easier to get along with from now on.
But I knew I was kidding myself.
We’d had showdowns like the one this morning a lot of times. She’d threaten what she was going to do to me, and I’d point out that she had plenty to lose herself. And then things would be a little better for a while—but not really better. Nothing that really mattered was any better.
It wasn’t, you see, because it wasn’t a fair stand-off between me and her.
She had the edge, and when things came to a showdown, she knew I’d back away.
Sure, she couldn’t lose me my job without being a loser herself. She’d have to leave town, her and her low-down half-wit of a brother, and it’d probably be a danged long time before she had it as nice as she had it with me. Probably she’d never have it as nice.
But
she could get by.
She’d have something.
But me…
All I’d ever done was sheriffin’. It was all I could do. Which was just another way of saying that all I could do was nothing. And if I wasn’t sheriff, I wouldn’t have nothing or be nothing.
It was a kind of hard fact to face—that I was just a nothing doing nothing. And that brought up something else for me to worry about. The worry that maybe I could lose my job without Myra saying or doing anything.
Because I’d begun to suspect lately that people weren’t quite satisfied with me. That they expected me to do a little something instead of just grinning and joking and looking the other way. And me, I just didn’t quite know what to do about it.
The train took a curve and began to follow the river a ways. By craning my neck, I could see the unpainted sheds of the town whorehouse and the two men—pimps—sprawled on the little wharf in front of the place. Those pimps had caused me a sight of trouble, a powerful sight of trouble. Only last week, they’d accidentally-on-purpose bumped me into the river, and a few days before they’d accidentally-on-purpose tripped me up in the mud. And the worst thing of all was the way they talked to me, calling me names and poking mean fun at me, and not showing me no respect at all like you’d naturally expect pimps to show a sheriff, even if he was shaking ’em down for a little money.
Something was going to have to be done about the pimps, I reckoned. Something plumb drastic.
I finished eating and went up to the men’s lounge. I washed my hands and face at the sink, nodding to the fella that was sittin’ on the long leather bench.
He wore a classy black-and-white checked suit, high-button shoes with spats and a white derby hat. He gave me a long slow look, letting his eyes linger for a moment on my pistol belt and gun. He didn’t smile or say anything.
I nodded at the paper he was reading. “What do you think about them Bullshevicks?” I said. “You reckon they’ll ever overthrow the Czar?”