Free Killer On A Hot Tin Roof by Livia J. Washburn Page A

she insisted that I come to live with her. She was very persistent.”
    I was glad to hear that he had somebody looking out for him, at least. Somebody besides Dr. Michael Frasier. Somebody who actually cared about him.
    Will asked, “How did Dr. Frasier find out about your story?”
    Frasier sighed. “You have to know everything, don’t you? Nobody’s willing to leave me anything for my presentation tomorrow.” Bitterly, he went on, “Go ahead and tell them, Howard. Tell them the whole thing.”
    “There’s no need to be like that, Michael,” Burleson said. “These nice folks asked. It wouldn’t be polite for me not to tell ‘em what they want to know.”
    Frasier scooted toward me, bumping his hip against mine in a mighty unwelcome manner. “Let me out,” he snapped. “I need a drink, and I don’t need to hear all this again.”
    Will and I got up so that Frasier could slide out of the booth. He went across the dim, narrow room to the bar while Will and I sat down again. I have to admit, it was a lot nicer there with Frasier gone.
    “You were going to tell us how you got involved with Dr. Frasier,” Tamara prompted.
    Burleson nodded. “Like everything else, it was fate, I suppose. The universe movin’ in an endless dance to music of it’s own makin'. You see, I was in a bookstore. I love bookstores, especially the ones with old books. I love to just stand there and take a deep breath and drink in the smells of paper and leather and dust. Even when it makes me sneeze, it’s worth it to experience that wonderful smell.”
    He looked around at us and smiled.
    “Ah, but you folks are young. You’re growin’ impatient with the natterin’s of a decrepit old man.”
    “Not at all,” Will said without hesitation. “Please go on, Mr. Burleson. We want to hear the rest of the story.”
    Tamara and I nodded to make sure Burleson understood.
    “Very well. I was in a bookstore"–he named the place, an antiquarian bookstore I had heard of but never visited–"and I was browsin’ through the selection when I saw another customer, a young man, lookin’ at a copy of
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
I don’t have any earthly idea what possessed me to do it, but suddenly I was seized with the impulse to speak to him, to tell him what he was really lookin’ at, to speak the truth to someone, anyone, after all those years…. So I said to him, I said,‘Despite what’s printed in that book, young man, I wrote that play, you know.’ ”
    “And that was Michael?” Tamara asked.
    “Indeed it was,” Burleson said. “And I must say, startin’ out, he was rather rude to me.”
    Tamara said, “Huh. I’m not surprised.”
    “He moved away as if I was botherin’ him and didn’t say anything. And again, I don’t really know what moved me to continue the conversation, but I said, ‘You don’t believe me.’
    “He looked at me then and said, ‘Of course I don’t believe you. Tennessee Williams wrote
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
‘
    “And I said, ‘He put his name on it, but I wrote it.’ I started telling him about how Tom and I met in Venice and then came back to New Orleans, and how Tom wrote that little story of his and then abandoned it, and how I picked up the gauntlet and wrote the true story of the Burleson family of Atlanta, Georgia. Only I used the name Tom came up with, Pollitt, and moved the settin’ so not everybody would know that I was writin’ about my own family. And by the time I’d told him all that, he was interested, mighty interested, whether he wanted to admit it or not. After that, I wound up tellin’ him everything. He came to believe me …” Burleson smiled. “And here we are, in this wonderful old place. I feel like I’ve come home at last, like this is where I was truly meant to be.” The old man’s mouth tightened. “Not in some cookie-cutter house in the suburbs where everybody looks alike and thinks alike. My granddaughter, bless her heart, does not provide an atmosphere