I re-read Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country
People”. It’s the third story I’ve read by her and I liked every one. There’s
something cartoon-like about her characters that stumbling around with their
lives that have been damaged by culture and condition. Her writing is magical
and her descriptions hold the attention so well by making these people familiar
and fascinating at the same time. Reading her stories is like slowing down to
watch an accident on the highway.
I
watched an Alfred Hitchcock Hour about a movie star named Lana Layne who is up
for an Academy Award just when her fat, bald ex-husband George, who is supposed
to be dead re-enters her life. She’d married him when she was 17 and he used to
manage her career of doing the hoochie koochie at county fairs. She wins the
Oscar and offers to pay George off as long as he’ll go far away and not tell
anyone that he is her husband. He refuses, because in California the husband
and wife own half of each other’s property and he’s not going to give up on
such a good thing. When he tries to kiss her she resists. They struggle and
then she grabs her Golden Globe award and bludgeons him with it. Her boyfriend,
Harry comes in and together they make a plan to get rid of George’s body. They
make a wedding announcement, stuff George in a trunk and leave for Mexico. They
get married in Tijuana and then the plan is to make it appear that they would
be travelling deep into Mexico, but they double back and recross to California
where Harry has a shack in the middle of nowhere. After hours of driving, Harry
is too exhausted to bury George that night so he carries his body inside to put
in the basement. George’s dead body is slung over Harry’s shoulder as Lana
flicks on the light and they hear a crowd shout, “Surprise!” The shack is full
of friends and reporters with cameras. They are convicted of murder.
I
remember Robert Culp from the show “I Spy”, co-starring Bill Cosby, in which
they played globe hopping professional tennis players that were secretly spies.
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