That’s how it was. The end for Wilma. Evil wiped off the earth. And the end for him.
Ben unbuttoned his belt and pushed his pants and underwear down. He must die in a way bespeaking payment for the sin by which he’d lived. He put his hand on his limp manhood and stretched it out before him. With his other hand he hacked at it and at the sac beneath it.
Blood spurted. The pain was intense. Ben grimly sliced away his shame and his life. . . .
“Oh, my God!”
‘The sheriff stood in the doorway and fought to keep himself from vomiting at the sight of the blood-soaked abomination on the bed. He forced himself to move closer to the body to make sure Ben Malden was dead. He was. Then the sheriff noticed the note pinned to the pillow. He tore it off and read it, still not believing what he saw.
“I killed my daughter Wilma. Nobody else.” It was signed, “Ben Malden”.
Notes
[←1 ]
The People's Party, also known as the Populist Party or the Populists, was an agrarian-populist political party in the United States. For a few years, from 1892 to 1896, it played a major role as a left-wing force in American politics. It was merged into the Democratic Party in 1896; a small independent remnant survived until 1908. It drew support from angry farmers in the West and South. It was highly critical of banks and railroads
[←2 ]
William Jennings Bryan (March 19, 1860 – July 26, 1925) was an American orator and politician from Nebraska. Beginning in 1896, he emerged as a dominant force in the Democratic Party, standing three times as the party's nominee for President of the United States. He advocated for the enactment of Prohibition and he opposed Darwinism on religious and humanitarian grounds, most famously at the Scopes Trial in 1925 in Tennessee (an American legal case in July 1925 in which a substitute high school teacher, John T. Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which had made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school.). Bryan brought the Populists into the Democratic Party.
[←3 ]
BVD was a brand of men's underwear, which are commonly referred to as "BVDs." The brand was founded in 1876 and named after the three founders of the New York City firm Bradley, Voorhees & Day (thus "B.V.D.").The term came to be used, however incorrectly, for any underwear in the style popularized by BVD.
[←4 ]
Kewpie is a brand of dolls and figurines that were conceived as comic strip characters by cartoonist Rose O'Neill. The illustrated cartoons, appearing as baby cupid characters, began to gain popularity after the publication of O'Neill's comic strips in 1909, and O'Neill began to illustrate and sell paper doll versions of the Kewpies. The characters were first produced as bisque dolls (dolls made partially or wholly out of bisque porcelain, characterized by their realistic, skin-like matte finish) in Germany, beginning in 1912, and became extremely popular in the early 20th century.
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