CHAPTER 36

Clem Hoolahan always knew his mother was a whore, his grandfather, Ezeriah, couldn’t go a day without bringing it up.  But it’s real significance was lost to him until, one day when he was nine, the Jerkwater Truant Officer came to say that there would be hell to pay if Clem didn’t start attending school.  At least on days when there wasn’t a blizzard.  

As the oldest kindergartener in the one-room Jerkwater Elementary School, Clem learned what the word Whore really meant, both socially and politically.  True to the Hoolahan code, he took revenge on his unsuspecting tormentors by stealing food or possessions from their lunch boxes and coat pockets, then making sure these things showed up in the custody of other students.  He was in fifth grade before he was caught out by his peers.  But by then he was brawny from ranch work, and none of the students or teachers were brave enough to confront him. 

Watching people react in fear created new vistas for Clem.  All his life he had seen how the cowhands venerated his grandfather and then his father, but the hands had always treated him like a child, dismissing him to play with the dogs or forcing him into menial labor. Once Clem grasped the power of fear, he became a tyrant; suddenly violent and unpredictable.  In his rebellion he even had the audacity to challenge Ezeriah and Horace.   

By his freshman year of high school, Clem was permanently expelled for selling moonshine to his classmates.  He was also punished at home, partly because he had stolen the stuff from Ezeriah’s still, but mostly because he had neglected to share the profits.  

He had, long since, inherited the family ranch but adopted a practice of non-development that left most of the buildings and fences in forlorn condition.  At the age of seventy-four, he still got a kick from stealing the property of those for whom he held a grudge, and Ethyl Esther Keetone was a prime candidate.