commune with her child even as she lies in the grave ?”
I t is early evening on a drizzly fall day, several years after the death of Augusta Gein. Her bachelor son, now in his mid-forties, has just returned home, having spent the afternoon performing an errand for his neighbors, Lester and Irene Hill, proprietors of a tiny country store in West Plainfield. The Hills purchase their provisions from a warehouse in Wisconsin Rapids, twenty-some miles from Plainfield, and Eddie, having very little else to do with his time, often volunteers to make the trip into the city when the Hills are too busy to pick up their supplies.
A cold gust of wind blows the rain across Eddie’s stubbled face as he moves across the sagging rear porch of his house, the warped, weatherworn boards creaking under his feet. He pushes open the door into the dank and lightless summer kitchen, letting his watery blue eyes grow accustomed to the dark. He listens for a moment to the mice as they scurry for the corners. Above his head, cobwebs tremble in the blackness between the ceiling and rafters. Nothing else in this place stirs. Apart from the rodents and spiders, Eddie is alone.
Moving carefully across the trash-littered floor—around decaying cartons of household junk, piles of moldering feed sacks, a couple of rank, mildewed mattresses—he steps to the heavy wooden door on the opposite wall of the shed, enters his kitchen, and puts a match to the oil lamp on the table. The lamp flickers to life beneath the kitchen window, clearly visible behind a curtain so motheaten and tattered that it is nearly transparent. Eddie gazes at the windowpanes, but the glass is coated with such a thick layer of grime that it gives back no reflection.
It is cold in the house, and Eddie keeps on his plaid flannel jacket and deerhunter’s cap as he prepares his evening meal. Throwing a few sticks of wood into his ancient cookstove, he gets a small fire going, just big enough to warm up his usual pork-and-beans supper. There’s no need for a pot. Eddie just takes an opener to the lid, then set the can right on the stovetop.
Reaching into his mouth, he removes the moist lump of Wrigley’s he has been chewing and carefully adds it to his gum collection, which he hoards in a one-pound Maxwell House coffee tin on a shelf, along with his other dustcoated treasures. A gas mask. A bunch of used medicine bottles. Three old radios (still workable, though of limited use in a house with no electricity). A boxful of plastic whistles, toy airplanes, and other breakfast-cereal premiums. A decomposing sponge rubber ball. Two sets of yellowed dentures. A wash basin full of sand. His special handmade bowls.
Eddie sticks a finger into the beans and, satisfied with their temperature, empties them into one of the bowls. He rummages through the jumble of unwashed utensils in his sink and comes up with a spoon. Then, carrying the spoon and bowl in one hand and his oil lamp in the other, he makes his way out of the kitchen.
The floor is so crowded with filth and debris—food scraps, rodent droppings, grimy rags, empty food cans and oatmeal containers, cardboard boxes overflowing with crime magazines, a half-empty sack of plaster, a stiffened horsehide buggy robe—that, even in the daytime, Eddie cannot negotiate it easily. Now, in the dim circle of light shed by his oil lamp, he cannot avoid stepping into an ash pile or knocking his shins against a rusted metal tub filled with bits of twine, tattered children’s clothes, and shards of broken china.
As he traverses the kitchen, his shadow slides across the items he has tacked onto one of the dingy, flaking walls. A dozen promotional calendars, a few dating back to the 1930s. An automobile reflector disk inscribed “Accidents Spoil Fun.” A card from the telephone company reading “In Case of Fire, Call 505.” (Eddie does not own a telephone.)
Then, passing beneath a pair of deer antlers, a rusty horseshoe, and a withered
I t is early evening on a drizzly fall day, several years after the death of Augusta Gein. Her bachelor son, now in his mid-forties, has just returned home, having spent the afternoon performing an errand for his neighbors, Lester and Irene Hill, proprietors of a tiny country store in West Plainfield. The Hills purchase their provisions from a warehouse in Wisconsin Rapids, twenty-some miles from Plainfield, and Eddie, having very little else to do with his time, often volunteers to make the trip into the city when the Hills are too busy to pick up their supplies.
A cold gust of wind blows the rain across Eddie’s stubbled face as he moves across the sagging rear porch of his house, the warped, weatherworn boards creaking under his feet. He pushes open the door into the dank and lightless summer kitchen, letting his watery blue eyes grow accustomed to the dark. He listens for a moment to the mice as they scurry for the corners. Above his head, cobwebs tremble in the blackness between the ceiling and rafters. Nothing else in this place stirs. Apart from the rodents and spiders, Eddie is alone.
Moving carefully across the trash-littered floor—around decaying cartons of household junk, piles of moldering feed sacks, a couple of rank, mildewed mattresses—he steps to the heavy wooden door on the opposite wall of the shed, enters his kitchen, and puts a match to the oil lamp on the table. The lamp flickers to life beneath the kitchen window, clearly visible behind a curtain so motheaten and tattered that it is nearly transparent. Eddie gazes at the windowpanes, but the glass is coated with such a thick layer of grime that it gives back no reflection.
It is cold in the house, and Eddie keeps on his plaid flannel jacket and deerhunter’s cap as he prepares his evening meal. Throwing a few sticks of wood into his ancient cookstove, he gets a small fire going, just big enough to warm up his usual pork-and-beans supper. There’s no need for a pot. Eddie just takes an opener to the lid, then set the can right on the stovetop.
Reaching into his mouth, he removes the moist lump of Wrigley’s he has been chewing and carefully adds it to his gum collection, which he hoards in a one-pound Maxwell House coffee tin on a shelf, along with his other dustcoated treasures. A gas mask. A bunch of used medicine bottles. Three old radios (still workable, though of limited use in a house with no electricity). A boxful of plastic whistles, toy airplanes, and other breakfast-cereal premiums. A decomposing sponge rubber ball. Two sets of yellowed dentures. A wash basin full of sand. His special handmade bowls.
Eddie sticks a finger into the beans and, satisfied with their temperature, empties them into one of the bowls. He rummages through the jumble of unwashed utensils in his sink and comes up with a spoon. Then, carrying the spoon and bowl in one hand and his oil lamp in the other, he makes his way out of the kitchen.
The floor is so crowded with filth and debris—food scraps, rodent droppings, grimy rags, empty food cans and oatmeal containers, cardboard boxes overflowing with crime magazines, a half-empty sack of plaster, a stiffened horsehide buggy robe—that, even in the daytime, Eddie cannot negotiate it easily. Now, in the dim circle of light shed by his oil lamp, he cannot avoid stepping into an ash pile or knocking his shins against a rusted metal tub filled with bits of twine, tattered children’s clothes, and shards of broken china.
As he traverses the kitchen, his shadow slides across the items he has tacked onto one of the dingy, flaking walls. A dozen promotional calendars, a few dating back to the 1930s. An automobile reflector disk inscribed “Accidents Spoil Fun.” A card from the telephone company reading “In Case of Fire, Call 505.” (Eddie does not own a telephone.)
Then, passing beneath a pair of deer antlers, a rusty horseshoe, and a withered
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