Carrie Chapter Five

She would not break this time.But of course she did break. It took sestet hours just she broke, weeping and c every last(predicate)ing momma to open the door and let her expose. The need to urinate was terrible. The Black Man grinned at her with his jackal m placeh, and his reddish eyes knew all in all the secrets of wo small-arm-blood.An hour by and by Carrie began to call, Momma let her out. Carrie scrabbled deadly for the skim offhroom.It was only now, three hours afterwards that, sitting hither with her head gesture everywhere the sewing machine a give care a penitent, that she remembered the fear in Mommas eyes and she thought she knew the reason why.There had been other times when Momma had kept her in the rigoroust for as eagle-eyed as a day at a stretch-when she stole that forty-nine-cent finger ring from Shubers cinque and Ten, the time she had found that picture of Flash Bobby Pickett chthonian Carries pillow and Carrie had erst fainted from the lack of food and the smell of her own waste. And she had never, never spoken punt as she had d unmatched today. Today she had even off verbalize the Eff Word. so far Momma had let her out almost as soon as she broke.There. The dress was d cardinal. She removed her feet from the treadle and held it up to look at it. It was long. And ugly. She hate it.She knew why Momma had let her out.Momma, may I go to crawl in?Yes. Momma did not look up from her doily.She folded the dress over her arm. She looked mass at the sewing machine. All at once the treadle mountain(p) itself. The needle began to dip up and down, catching the light in hard flashes. The bobbin whirred and jerked. The sidewheel spun.Mommas head jerked up, her eyes wide. The looped matrix at the edge of her doily, marvelously intricate yet at the same time as little and even, suddenly fell in disarray.Only clearing the thread, Carrie said softly.Go to bed, Momma said curtly, and the fear was back in her eyes.Yes,(she was af raid id intercept the closet door right off its hinges)Momma,(and i telephone i could i come back i could yes i think i could)From The buttocks Exploded (p. 58)Marg aret W run acrosse was born and raised in Motton, a thin town which borders Chamberlain and sends its tuition students to Chamberlains junior and ripened uplifted schools. Her parents were fairly flourishing they owned a prosperous night spot just after-school(prenominal) the Motton town limits called The Jolly Roadhouse. Margarets father, conjuration Brigham, was killed in a barroom dig incident in the summer of 1959.Margaret Brigham, who was then almost 30, began attending fundamentalist prayer meetings. Her mother had become involved with a new man (Harold Alison, whom she later married) and they both wanted Margaret out of the house-she believed her mother, Judith, and Harold Alison were living in fault and made her views noticen frequently. Judith Brigham expected her little girl to remain a periwinkle the rest of her life. In the more pungent phraseology of her soon-to-be stepfather, Margaret had a governance like the ass end of a gasoline truck and a body to match. He also referred to her as a little prayin Jesus.Margaret refuse to yield until 1960, when she met Ralph White at a revival meeting. In September of that course of study she left the Brigham. residence in Motton and moved to a small straight onward in Chamberlain Centre.The greetship of Margaret Brigham, and Ralph White terminated in marriage on March 23, 1962. On April 3, 1962, Margaret White was admitted briefly to Westover Doctors Hospital. nary(prenominal)e, she wouldnt tell us what was wrong, Harold Alison said. The one time we went to see her she told us we were living in badery even though we were hitched, and we were passing game to hell. She said God had put an invisible crisscross on our foreheads, but she could see it. Acted crazy as a bat in a henhouse, she did. Her mom tried to be nice, tried to pick up out what the head with her was. She got hysterical and started to rave intimately an angel with a sword who would walk th awkward the parking lots of roadhouses and cut down the wicked. We left.Judith Alison, however, had at least an idea of what superpower nonplus been wrong with her daughter she thought that Margaret had gone through a miscarriage. If so, the baby was conceived out of wedlock. assay of this would shed an interesting light on the character of Carries mother.In a long and rather hysterical letter to her mother dated dread 19, 1962, Margaret said that she and Ralph were living sinlessly, without the Curse of Intercourse. She urged Harold and Judith Alison to close their abode of wickedness and do likewise. It is, Margaret declares just about the end of her letter, the only sic way you &038 That Man can avoid the come down of Blood yet to come. Ralph &038 I, like Mary &038 Joseph, will neither know or polute sic each others flesh. If in that locatio n is issue, let it be Divine.Of course, the calendar tells us that Carrie was conceived later that same year The girls dressed quietly for their Monday morning stay One lyceum class, with no horseplay or little screaming catcalls, and no(prenominal) of them were very surprised when Miss Desjardin slammed open the locker-room and walked in. Her silver blab dangling between her small breasts, and if her shorts were the ones she had been wearing on Friday, no trace of Carries bloody handprint remained.The girls continued to dress sullenly, not looking at her.Arent you the bunch to send out for graduation, MissDesjardin said softly. When is it? A month? And the spring Ball even less than that. Most of you have your dates and gowns already, I bet. execute, youll be going with Tommy Ross. Helen, Roy Evarts. Chris, I imagine you can take your pick. Whos the golden guy?.Billy Nolan, Chris Hargensen said sullenly.Well, isnt he the lucky one? Desjardin remarked. What are you going to g ive him for a party favour, Chris, a bloody sanitary napkin? Or how about some used toilet makeup? I understand these things seem to be your sack these days.Chris went red. Im leaving. I dont have to comprehend to that.Desjardin had not been able to get the image of Carrie out of her nous all weekend, Carrie screaming, blubbering, a wet napkin plastered squarely in the affection of her pubic hair-and her own sick, angry reaction.And now, as Chris tried to storm out past her, she reached out and slammed her against a row of dented, olive-coloured lockers beside the inner door. Chriss eyes widened with shock disbelief. Then a kind of insane rage filled her face.You cant hit us she screamed. Youll get canned for this See if you dont, you bitchThe other girls winced and sucked breathing spell and stared at the floor. It was getting out of hand. Sue noticed out of the boxwood of her eye that Fern and Donna Thibodeau were holding reach.I dont really care, Hargensen, Desjardin said. If you or either of your girls think Im wearing my teacher hat right now, youre making a mischievous mistake. I just want you all to know that you did a malodourous thing on Friday. A really foul-smelling thing.Chris Hargensen was sneering at the floor. The rest of the girls were looking miserably at anything but their gym instructor. Sue found herself looking into the shower stall the scene of the crime and jerked her survey elsewhere. None of them had ever heard a teacher call anything shitty before.Did any of you stop to think that Carrie White has feelings? Do any of you ever stop to think? Sue? Fern? Helen? Jessica? Any of you? You think shes ugly. Well, youre all ugly. I saw it on Friday morning.Chris Hargensen was mumbling about her father being a lawyer.Shutup Desjardin yelled in her face. Chris recoiled so suddenly that her head struck the lockers buttocks her. She began to whine and rub her head.One more remark out of you, Desjardin said softly, and Ill throw you across the room. Want to find out if Im telling the true statement?Chris, who had apparently decided she was dealing with a mad-woman, said nothing.Desjardin put her hands on her hips. The office has decided on punishment for you girls. Not my punishment, Im gamey to say. My idea was three days suspension and refusal of your prom tickets.Several girls looked at each other and muttered unhappily.That would have hit you where you live, Desjardin continued, Unfortunately, Ewen is staffed completely by men in its administration wing. I dont believe they have any real origination of how utterly nasty what you did was. So. One weeks detention.Spontaneous sighs of relief.But. Its to be my detention. In the gym. And Im going to run you ragged.I wont come, Chris said. Her lips had thinned across her odontiasis.Thats up to you, Chris. Thats up to all of you. But punishment for skipping detention is going to be three days suspension and refusal of your prom tickets. Get the picture?No on e said anything.Right. interpolate up. And think about what I said.She left.Utter silence for a long and stricken moment. Then Chris Hargensen said with loud, hysterical stridencyShe cant get away with it She opened a door at random, pulled out a brace of sneakers and wandered them across the room. Im going to get her Goddammit Goddammit See if I dont If we all pose together we..Shut up, Chris, Sue said, and was shocked to hear a dead, adult lifelessness in her voice. Just shut up.This isnt over, Chris Hargensen said, unzipping her skirt with a rough jab and reaching for her fashionably frayed green gym shorts. This isnt over by a long way.And she was right.From The Shadow Exploded (pp. 60-6 1)In the horizon of this researcher, a great many of the people who have researched the Carrie White count either for the scientific journals or for the popular press have lay a mis taken emphasis on a relatively visionary search for incidents of telekinesis in the girls childhood. To strike a rough analogy, this is like spending years researching the early incidents of masturbation in a rapists childhood.The salient(ip) incident of the stones serves as a kind of red herring in this respect. Many researchers have adopted the erroneous belief that where there has been one incident, there must be others. To offer another analogy, this is like dispatching a crew of meteor watchers to Crater National Park because a enormous asteroid struck there two million years ago.To the better of my knowledge, there are no other recorded instances of TK in Carries childhood. If Carrie had not been an only child, we might have at least hearsay reports of piles of other minor occurrences.In the case of Andrea Kolintz (see Appendix II for a fuller history), we are told that, following a spanking for crawling out on the roof, The medicine locker flew open, bottles fell to the floor or seemed to hurl themselves across the bathroom, doors flew open and slammed shut, and at the cli max of the manifestation, a 300-pound stereo cabinet tipped over and records flew all over the living room, dive-bombing the occupants and shatter against the walls.Significantly, this report is from one of Andreas brothers, as quoted in the September 4, 1955, issue of spirit magazine. Life is hardly the most scholarly or unimpeachable source, but there is a great deal of other documentation, and I think that the point of familiar witnesship is served.In the case of Carrie White, the only witness to any possible prologue to the final climactic events was Margaret White, and she, of course is dead.Henry Grayle, principal of Ewen mellowed schooltime, had been expecting him all week, but Chris Hargensens father didnt show up until Friday-the day after Chris had skipped her detention period with the formidable Miss Desjardin.Yes, Miss Fish? He spoke formally into the intercom, although he could see the man in the outer(prenominal) office through his window, and certainly knew his f ace from pictures in the local paper.John Hargensen to see you, Mr Grayle.Send him in, please. Goddammit, Fish, do you have to dense so impress?Grayle was an irrepressible paper-clip-bender, napkin-ripper, corner-folder. For John Hargensen, the towns leading legal light, he was bringing up the heavy ammunition a whole box of heavy-duty clips in the middle of his desk blotter.Hargensen was a tall, impressive man with a selfconfident way of sorrowful and the kind of sure, mobile features that said this was a man superior at the game of one-step-ahead social interaction.He was wearing a brown Savile actors line suit with subtle glints of green and gold running through the meander that put Grayles local off-the-rack job to shame. His briefcase was thin, real leather, and bound with glittering stainless steel. The smile was faultless and full of many capped teeth a smile to make the hearts of lady jurors melt like butter in a warm skillet. His grip was major coalition all the wa y-firm, warm, long.Mr Grayle, Ive wanted to meet you for some time now.Im always bright to see interested parents, Grayle said with a dry smile. Thats why we have Parents Open House every October.Of course. Hargensen smiled, I imagine youre a concern man, and I have to be in court in xlv minutes from now. Shall we get down to specifics?Surely, Grayle dipped into his box of clips and began to mangle the number 1 one. I suspect you are here concerning the disciplinary action taken against your daughter Christine. You should be informed that school policy on the matter has been set. As a man concerned with the workings of justice yourself, you should garner that bending the rules is hardly possible or-Hargensen waved his hand impatiently. Apparently youre labouring under a misconception, Mr Grayle. I am here because my daughter was manhandled by your gym teacher, Miss Rhoda Desjardin. And verbally abused, Im afraid. I believe the term your Miss Desjardin used in connection with my daughter was shitty.Grayle sighed inwardly. Miss Desjardin has been reprimanded.John Hargensens smile cooled thirty degrees, Im afraid a reprimand will not be sufficient. I believe this has been the young, ah, ladys first year in a teaching readiness?Yes. We have found her to be eminently satisfactory.Apparently your definition of eminently satisfactory includes throwing students up against lockers and the ability to curse like a boater?Grayle fenced As a lawyer, you must be aware that this state acknowledges the schools backing to in loco parentis along with full responsibility, we succeed to full parental rights during school hours. If youre not familiar, Id advise you to check Monondock Consolidated School territory vs Cranepool or-Im familiar with the concept, Hargensen mid. Im also aware that neither the Cranepool case that you administrators are so fond of quoting or the Frick case cover anything remotely concerned with material or verbal abuse. There is, however, the ca se of School District No. 4 vs David. Are you familiar with it?Grayle was. George Kramer, the assistant principal of the consolidated high school in S.D. 14 was a poker buddy. George wasnt playing more poker any more. He was working for an insurance company after taking it upon himself to cut a students hair. The school district had ultimately give seven universal gravitational constant dollars in damages, or about a thousand bucks a snip.Grayle started on another paper clip.Lets not quote cases at each other, Mr Grayle, were busy men. I dont want a lot of unpleasantness. I dont want a mess. My daughter is at home, and she will stay there Monday and Tuesday. That will complete her threeday suspension. Thats all right. Another dismissive wave of the hand.(catch fido hefty boy heres a nice bone)Heres what I want, Hargensen continued. One, prom tickets for my daughter. A girls senior prom is important to her, and Chris is very distressed. Two, no contract renewal of the Desjardin w oman. Thats for me. I believe that if I cared to take the School Department to court, I could walk out with both her dismissal and a hefty damage resolving in my pocket. But I dont want to be vindictive.So court is the alternative if I dont agree to your demands?I understand that a School Committee hearing would precede that, but only as a formality. But yes, court would be the final result. Nasty for you.Another paper clip.For physical and verbal abuse, is that correct?Essentially.Mr Hargensen, are you aware that your daughter and about ten of her peers threw sanitary napkins at a girl who was having her first menstrual period? A girl who was under the impression that she was bleeding to conclusion?A faint frown creased Hargensens features, as if someone had spoken in a distant room. I hardly think such an allegement is at issue. I am speaking of actions following-Never mind, Grayle said. Never mind what you were speaking of. This girl, Carietta White, was called a dumb pudding and was told to plug it up and was subjected to heterogeneous obscene gestures. She has not been in school this week at all. Does that sound like physical and verbal abuse to you? It does to me.I dont intend, Hargensen said, to sit here and listen to a tissue of half-truths or your standard schoolmaster lecture, Mr Grayle, I know my daughter well enough to-Here, Grayle reached into the wire IN handbasket beside the blotter and tossed a sheaf of pink cards across the desk, I doubt very much if you know the daughter represented in these cards half so well as you think you do. If you did, you might realize that it was about time for a trip to the woodshed. Its time you snubbed her close before she does someone a major damage.You arent-