test, young Bobby Rupp
described his last visit to the Clutter home: «There was a full moon, and I thought maybe, if Nancy
wanted to, we might go for a drive — drive out to McKinney Lake. Or go to the movies in Garden
City. But when I called her — it must have been about ten of seven — she said she’d have to ask
her father. Then she came back, and said the answer was no — because we’d stayed out so late
the night before. But said why didn’t I come over and watch television. I’ve spent a lot of time at
the Clutters’ watching television. See, Nancy’s the only girl I ever dated. I’d known her all my life;
we’d gone to school together from the first grade. Always, as long as I can remember, she was
pretty and popular — a person, even when she was a little kid. I mean, she just made everybody
feel good about themselves. The first time I dated her was when we were in the eighth grade.
Most of the boys in our class wanted to take her to the eighth-grade graduation dance, and I was
surprised, I was pretty proud — when she said she would go with me. We were both twelve. My
dad lent me the car, and I drove her to the dance. The more I saw her, the more I liked her; the
whole family, too — there wasn’t any other family like them, not around here, not that I know of. Mr.
Clutter may have been more strict about some things — religion, and so on — but he never tried to
make you feel he was right and you were wrong.
«We live three miles west of the Clutter place. I used to walk it back and forth, but I always worked
summers, and last year I’d saved enough to buy my own car, a ’55 Ford. So I drove over there,
got there a little after seven. I didn’t see anybody on the road or on the lane that leads up to the
house, or anybody outside. Just old Teddy. He barked at me. The lights were on downstairs in
the living room and in Mr. Clutter’s office. The second floor was dark, and I figured Mrs. Clutter
must be asleep — if she was home. You never knew whether she was or not, and I never asked.
But I found out I was right, because later in the evening Kenyon wanted to practice his horn, he
played baritone horn in the school band — and Nancy told him not to, because he would wake up
Mrs. Clutter. Anyway, when I got there they had finished supper and Nancy had cleaned up, put
all the dishes in the dishwasher, and the three of them — the two kids and Mr. Clutter — were in the
living room. So we sat around like any other night-Nancy and I on the couch, and Mr. Clutter in
his chair, the stuffed rocker. He wasn’t watching the television so much as he was reading a book

a ‘Rover Boy,’ one of Kenyon’s books. Once he went out to the kitchen and came back with two
apples; he offered one to me, but I didn’t want it, so he ate them both. He had very white teeth; he
said apples were why. Nancy — Nancy was wearing socks and soft slippers, blue jeans, I think a
green sweater; she was wearing a gold wristwatch and an I.D. bracelet I gave her last January for
her sixteenth birthday — with on one side and mine on the other — and she had on a ring, some
little silver thing she bought a summer ago, when she went to Colorado with the Kidwells. It
wasn’t my ring — our ring. See, a couple of weeks back she got sore at me and said she was going
to take off our ring for a while. When your girl does that, it means you’re on probation. I mean,
sure, we had fusses — everybody does, all the kids that go steady. What happened was I went to
this friend’s wedding, the reception, and drank a beer, one bottle of beer, and Nancy got to hear about it. Some tattle told her I was roaring drunk. Well, she was stone, wouldn’t say hello for a
week. But lately we’d been getting on good as ever, and I believe she was about ready to wear
our ring again.
«O.K. The first show was called ‘The Man and the Challenge.’ Channel 11. About some fellows in
the Arctic. Then we saw a Western, and after that a spy adventure — ‘Five Fingers.’ ‘Mike
Hammer’ came on at nine-thirty. Then the news. But Kenyon didn’t like anything, mostly because
we wouldn’t let him pick the programs. He criticized everything and Nancy kept telling him to hush
up. They always quibbled, but actually they were very close — closer than most brothers and
sisters. I guess partly it was because they’d been alone together so much, what with Mrs. Clutter
away and Mr. Clutter gone to Washington, or wherever. I know Nancy loved Kenyon very
specially, but I don’t think even she, or anybody, exactly understood him. He seemed to be off
somewhere. You never knew what he was thinking, never even knew if he was looking at you on account of he was slightly cockeyed. Some people said he was a genius, and maybe it was
true. He sure did read a lot. But, like I say, he was restless; he didn’t want to watch the TV, he
wanted to practice his horn, and when Nancy wouldn’t let him, I remember Mr. Clutter told him
why didn’t he go down to the basement, the recreation room, where nobody could hear him. But
he didn’t want to do that, either.
«The phone rang once. Twice? Gosh, I can’t remember. Except that once the phone rang and Mr.
Clutter answered it in his office. The door was open — that sliding door between the living room
and the office — and I heard him say ‘Van,’ so I knew he was talking to his partner, Mr. Van Vleet,
and I heard him say that he had a headache but that it was getting better. And said he’d see Mr.
Van Vleet on Monday. When he came back — yes, the Mike Hammer was just over. Five minutes
of news. Then the weather report. Mr. Clutter always perked up when the weather report came
on. It’s all he ever really waited for. Like the only thing that interested me was the sports — which
came on next. After the sports ended, that was ten-thirty, and I got up to go. Nancy walked me
out. We talked a while, and made a date to go to the movies Sunday night — a picture all the girls
were looking forward to, Blue Denim. Then she ran back in the house, and I drove away. It was
as clear as day — the moon was so bright — and cold and kind of windy; a lot of tumbleweed
blowing about. But that’s all I saw. Only now when I think back, I think somebody must have been
hiding there. Maybe down among the trees. Somebody just waiting for me to leave.»
The travelers stopped for dinner at a restaurant in Great Bend. Perry, down to his last fifteen
dollars, was ready to settle for root beer and a sandwich, but Dick said no, they needed a solid
«tuck-in,» and never mind the cost, the tab was his. They ordered two steaks medium rare, baked
potatoes, French fries, fried onions, succotash, side dish of macaroni and hominy, salad with
Thousand Island dressing, cinnamon rolls, apple pie and ice cream, and coffee. To top it off, they
visited a drugstore and selected cigars; in the same drugstore, they also bought two thick rolls of
adhesive tape.
As the black Chevrolet regained the highway and hurried on across a country side imperceptibly
ascending toward the colder, cracker-dry climate of the high wheat plains, Perry closed his eyes
and dozed off into a food-dazed semi-slumber, from which he woke to hear a voice reading the
eleven-o’clock news. He rolled down a window and bathed his face in the flood of frosty air. Dick
told him they were in Finney County. «We crossed the line ten miles back,» he said. The car was
going very fast. Signs, their messages ignited by the car’s headlights, flared up, flew by: «See the
Polar Bears,» «Burris Motors,» «World’s Largest FREE Swim pool,» «Wheat Lands Motel,» and,
finally, a bit before street lamps began, «Howdy, Stranger! Welcome to Garden City. A Friendly
Place.»
They skirted the northern rim of the town. No one was abroad at this nearly midnight hour, and
nothing was open except a string of desolately brilliant service stations. Dick turned into one Kurd’s Phillips 66. A youngster appeared, and asked, «Fill her up?» Dick nodded, and Perry,
getting out of the car, went inside the station, where he locked himself in the men’s room. His legs
pained him, as they often did; they hurt as though his old accident had happened five minutes
before. He shook three aspirins out of a bottle, chewed them slowly (for he liked the taste), and
then drank water from the basin tap. He sat down on the toilet, stretched out his legs and rubbed
them, massaging the almost unbendable knees. Dick had said they were almost there — «only
seven miles more.» He unzippered a pocket of his windbreaker and brought out a paper sack; inside it were the recently purchased rubber gloves. They were glue-covered, sticky and thin, and
as he inched them on, one tore — not a dangerous tear, just a split between the fingers, but it
seemed to him an omen.
The doorknob turned, rattled. Dick said, «Want some candy? They got a candy machine out
here.»
«No.»
«You O.K.?»
«I’m fine.»
«Don’t be all night.»
Dick dropped a dime in a vending machine, pulled the lever, and picked up a bag of