The Hands of an Artist

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Arthur VanCook Hilson pulled his raincoat collar more tightly against the back of his neck and slowed his pace so he wouldn’t get home too soon. The plan usually took about twenty minutes to think out — twenty minutes to go through every action, every precaution, the police investigation, the funeral and at last the blessed sensation of freedom that glowed far ahead of him like a slow dawn rising behind wooded hills.

It was warm enough so that he felt perspiration glueing his shirt to his lean ribs. It was good to be lean. He took a sideways glance at his tall figure as he passed a shop window and saw his striding figure reflected in the wet glass. Much younger looking than Myra with her sagging stomach and her short-legged waddle, her doughy face.

A young girl came walking briskly out of a doorway. He caught a glimpse of her straight young legs, the free swing of her body. She had dark eyes set wide apart. He stared into them, seeing in their young animal depths a flicker of interest. After she had passed him, he straightened his shoulders and took longer steps. When Myra was gone, there would be a chance to meet young girls like that — to know them well. Young girls with fresh sweet bodies and eyes of the night. After Myra was gone. The phrase beat in his mind like the soft tolling of a hidden bell. Then it changed. After I am free. He glanced down at his hands and saw that they were brown and firm. They swung in the rain, capable and strong. He thought again of the plan. He walked more slowly and the roar of the five o’clock traffic was as the low orchestral accompaniment to the sparkling clarity of his mind.

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