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Graffiti scratched on a desk of the Barker Street Grammar School in Chamberlain: Carrie White eats shit.
Carrie stood among them stolidly, a frog among swans.
She looked the part of the sacrificial goat, the constant butt, believer in left-handed monkey wrenches, perpetual foul-up, and she was.
“Miss Fish, could we have a dismissal slip here, please? Carrie Wright.” “White,” said Miss Desjardin. “White,” Morton agreed.
“Do you need a ride, Cassie?” he asked.
“I'm sure she'll be all right,” she said. “Carrie only has to go over to Carlin Street. The fresh air will do her good.” Morton gave the girl the yellow slip. “You can go now, Cassie,” he said magnanimously. “That's not my name!” she screamed suddenly.
The heavy ceramic ashtray on Morton's desk (it was Rodin's Thinker with his head turned into a receptacle for cigarette butts) suddenly toppled to the rug, as if to take cover from the force of her scream.
Graffiti scratched on a desk in Chamberlain Junior High School: Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, but Carrie White eats shit.
And didn't Momma say there would be a Day of Judgment (the name of that star shall be wormwood and they shall be scourged with scorpions) and an angel with a sword? If only it would be today and Jesus coming not with a lamb and a shepherd's crook, but with a boulder in each hand to crush the laughers and the snickerers, to root out the evil and destroy it screaming—a terrible Jesus of blood and righteousness.
Found written repeatedly on one page of a Ewen Consolidated High School notebook owned by Carrie White: Everybody's guessed/that baby can't be blessed/'til she finally sees that she's like all the rest. . . .*1
What did that sad, silly bitch ever do to you?”
“Shut up, Chris,” Sue said, and was shocked to hear a dead, adult lifelessness in her voice. “Just shut up.”
Jesus watches from the wall, But his face is cold as stone, And if he loves me As she tells me Why do I feel so all alone?
In the wake of two hundred deaths and the destruction of an entire town, it is so easy to forget one thing: We were kids. We were kids. We were kids trying to do our best. . . .
The low bird is not picked tenderly out of the dust by its fellows; rather, it is dispatched quickly and without mercy.”
She did not know if her gift had come from the lord of light or of darkness, and now, finally finding that she did not care which, she was overcome with an almost indescribable relief, as if a huge weight, long carried, had slipped from her shoulders.
Her eyes began to sparkle with the strange, disconnected zeal that came over her at events which she considered to be tests of faith.
(i'm sorry momma but I can't be sorry)
But sorry is the Kool-Aid of human emotions. It's what you say when you spill a cup of coffee or throw a gutterball when you're bowling with the girls in the league. True sorrow is as rare as true love.
She was glad they had decided to leave her alone, because she was still uncomfortable about her own motives and afraid to examine them too deeply, lest she discover a jewel of selfishness glowing and winking at her from the black velvet of her subconscious.
We're going to vote for the King and Queen.” “This contest insults women!” Myra Crewes called with uneasy good nature. “It insults men, too!” George Dawson called back, and there was general laughter. Myra was silent. She had made her token protest.
her breasts (dirtypillows)
the Devil came to Chamberlain . . .
(tommy's dead full price paid full price for bringing a plague into the place of light)
(!! NO !!)
(!! THE POWER!!)
Her only regret was that it couldn't be blood.
FLEX,
(!! MOMMA !!)
DANGER! LIVE WIRES!
The over-all impression is one of a town that is waiting to die. It is not enough, these days, to say that Chamberlain will never be the same. It may be closer to the truth to say that Chamberlain will simply never again be.
Found painted on the lawn of the house lot where the White bungalow had been located: CARRIE WHITE IS BURNING FOR HER SINS JESUS NEVER FAILS
From Slang Terms Explained: A Parents' Guide, by John R. Coombs (New York: The Lighthouse Press, 1985), p. 73: to rip off a Carrie: To cause either violence or destruction; mayhem, confusion; (2) to commit arson (from Carrie White, 1963-1979)
It might not be amiss to close this book with a few lines from another Bob Dylan song, lines that might serve as Carrie's epitaph: I wish I could write you a melody so plain/That would save you, dear lady, from going insane/That would ease you and cool you and cease the pain/Of your useless and pointless knowledge . . .*2
