With that, Johnny Loughlin turned the radio off. His teeth were clenched so tightly together that his jaws ached. He put the car into reverse and backed it out to face toward home. From the other end of the square another car came at him. Instinctively Johnny Loughlin wheeled far to the right. Almost at once the other car flew past, throttle open wide, making better than seventy miles an hour. Johnny Loughlin did not watch. He had had only a glimpse of the driver’s face, twisted with desperation.
Now there was a squeal of tires as the car went into the turn outside of town. Johnny Loughlin lit a cigarette. He felt ill. The other car would have ploughed into him— possibly. As he drove slowly out of the square he felt his stomach continuing to ache. Again on impulse, he turned the radio on. All news, all bulletins. There were bulletins from Berlin now. It was only a matter of time. He felt a crushing presentiment of grief at the prospect of the war. Only a small corner of his mind was still reasoning, still saying that it allcould pass, that what he felt would overcome everyone else. Yet the rest of him was still caught up in it, giddy at the chance to settle old scores. He did not even know where he would begin. It was as if a part of him was in every mob, running wild everywhere in the world. While he drove, he could see it, feel it, hear it, bursting in a shower of splintered glass.
Three blocks from his home he saw a car on fire, where it had smashed into a fence. People were throwing sand at it.
It was different on his own street. He could hear the shouting from around the corner. As he turned in he saw them running toward the center of the block, the people he knew. He stopped the car and got out and ran with them.
“Johnny! Is that you, Johnny?”
It was Marty Phillips, who had punched his wife less than an hour before. Nowhe was calm. He shoved through the crowd and grabbed Johnny Loughlin by the arms. “Johnny, listen to me! Stay away from your house! Listen to me!”
“What are you talking about?” Somebody grabbed him from behind; he tried to wrench free. Now he heard: a woman’s screams.
“Easy, fella! Take it easy!”
“She’s coming out!” someone cried from inside his own house.
The crowd backed up. The arms bound him tighter. A woman near him began to scream hysterically.
Cynthia ran out onto the front steps and stopped. Her housecoat, her hands, even her face, were covered with blood. In her hand was a pair of sewing shears. She shouted again, at no one, not even a word, as if she were lost in a forest and had really quit shouting.
A man appeared behind her, afraid to grab her. There was no color in him. Johnny Loughlin stopped struggling. In the momentary quiet the man’s voice carried on the soft morning air.
“They’re dead. She’s killed them both.”
There was a surge of strength from somewhere in Johnny Laughlin’s body, then it passed. He went slack, falling, while the voices close by rose in a groan, almost a howl, of anguish, acceptance and defeat.