Free Raney by Clyde Edgerton

never saw a drop of alcohol at home except in a bottle Uncle Nate brought in.
    I told Millie about Charles painting the living room and she thought it was funny about not being able to find any drapes to go with the old paint. She said Charles had a good "role model" for fixing up around the house because Bill, Dr. Shepherd, had always helped her. I thought about Daddy. He's never done anything, as far as I can remember, inside the house. He works outside, but not inside. I don't think Mama wants him working in the house. She certainly never lets anybody do anything in the kitchen.
    Charles won't do a thing outside but pull up crabgrass out of the sidewalk cracks once in a while. I don't know why he gets such a kick out of that. I think it's connected somehow to his strange ideas about germs. He buys these big jars of alcohol to clean the bathroom sink with. I've seen him through the bathroom door — through the crack. He'll scrub around the hole in the bottom of the sink with a ball of cotton soaked in alcohol. Lord knows where else he scrubs. I'll bet he goes through a bottle of alcohol every two weeks. I go in there some mornings and it smells like County Hospital. I started to ask Millie about that but I didn't. Maybe he got it from her. (It's funny what all you find out about your husband after you get married.)
    When they finished the meeting, Charles came back to the kitchen and showed me this letter they wrote with Charles's name signed. Charles asked me what I thought. I said if they all wrote it, why didn't they all sign it? This is the letter. Millie told him a couple of words to change.
     
    DEAR EDITOR:
    A state geologist has recently claimed that an area near the proposed Ferris-Jones nuclear power plant is ideal for a hazardous waste disposal site. One of the reasons given is the low population of the area. I suppose the reasoning is that if there are problems, then fewer people will suffer.
    It occurs to me that any reason to NOT put something in a highly populated area should also be a good reason NOT to put it in an area of low population.
    The sad fact is that problems of nuclear waste disposal are not solved. This generation should not be making decisions that will cause future generations to suffer horrible consequences.
    Charles Shepherd    
     
    Charles took off work Tuesday afternoon; we took his mama to the airport; and when we got back home we had a little talk which turned into a argument.
    I merely asked Charles why he has to be friends with these college professors and such — why he can't be friends with my friends. He went with me once to see Madora and her husband, Larry. And Sandra and Billy Ferrell have asked us over for supper twice and he wouldn't go either time. I know they won't ask us again.
    "These people think." he says.
    "Think?" I said. "Who don't think? Everybody thinks."
    "I mean think about something important, something beyond the confines of their own lives."
    "What is that supposed to mean?"
    "It means getting beyond Listre and Bethel. That's what it means. Raney, the way it works is this: small people talk about themselves; mediocre people talk about other people; and thinking people talk about ideas."
    "What does that have to do with anything?" I said. See, what happens is: Charles spouts out this stuff he's read in the library and expects the words to be formed in gold in my head. But I'm sorry.
    "It has to do with who I want to be friends with," says Charles. "Madora and — what's his name? — Larry are not interested in anything outside their kitchen, living room, and bedroom."
    "I'll have you know," I said, "that Madora and Larry go to Bethel Free Will Baptist Church. Don't tell me that Jesus Christ is only in their kitchen, living room, and bedroom."
    "The problem," says Charles, "the whole problem is just that: Jesus wouldn't have a kitchen, living room, and bedroom."
    "He would if he lived in Bethel." I tried to let that sink in. "No matter what your mama