If I Should Die Before I Die Read Online Free PDF

came the Counselor’s Wife’s answer.
    â€œBut I’m telling you about it, you know?”
    Pause.
    â€œHow do you think I should feel about it?” the Counselor’s Wife asked.
    â€œThere you go. Very clever. Answering questions with questions, turning it back on me, you know? But seriously—I mean it!—how do I know what you think? Maybe you’d like to get spread-eagled yourself, how do I know? Would you like your wrists tied down? I want to hear that. Maybe you’d like to be a sandwich, you know?” Laughter, then another pause. “All right, I know what you’re thinking, go ahead and say it. ‘Is that what I think most women want?’…”
    â€œWell?” the Counselor’s Wife said on the tape.
    â€œSure they do, lots of them. They want to be scared. Most women are excited by being scared. It turns them on, you know? But I want to hear that from you. What turns you on, you know?”
    Pause.
    â€œWhy is it so important for you to know what turns me on?” asked the Counselor’s Wife’s cool voice.
    No answer.
    Silence.
    End of tape.
    Increasingly, in the chronology of the tapes, he got more pointed, personal, more graphic too. And angrier, when seemingly nothing he said got to her. I could hear that clearly, and I kept thinking meanwhile that if the bridge-and-tunnel fathers and brothers hadn’t done it yet, somebody sure ought to.
    Still, that didn’t make him a killer.
    I said something of the sort to the Counselor’s Wife.
    â€œWait a minute,” she said, head bowed and fiddling with the machine. “There are a couple of more things I want you to hear.”
    McCloy was very quiet in the next selection, at least at the beginning. He’d start to say something, then he’d fall silent. You could hear him cough. Even though I knew it was part of the technique to wait for him to talk, I didn’t see how she could just sit there, listening to him cough.
    Suddenly, on the tape, she was the one who spoke:
    â€œYou once said you thought women like to be scared, that being scared made them sexy. I wonder why you think that’s so?”
    â€œWhat makes you ask that now?” Tone of irritation.
    â€œCuriosity, that’s all. I also happen to think it’s not true, so I wonder why you think so.”
    â€œIt’s been … well, it’s been my experience, you know?”
    A conversation-stopper, but only for a minute.
    â€œWhat frightens men?” the Counselor’s Wife asked. “I’ve only heard you talk about scaring women, about what scares women. But what scares men?”
    Pause.
    â€œI don’t know. I’m never scared.”
    â€œNever? Not even when you were little?”
    Pause.
    â€œI don’t remember ever …” Pause. “Not really, you know?” Silence again. Then he started, slowly at first, then his voice picking up speed. “I’ve got this friend … Hal, you know? I’ve told you about him before … You want to hear something really weird? He says that when he was little … real little … do you know what he was scared of? I mean like really scared? Of falling asleep, you know? He says he was scared to death of falling asleep! And do you know why? Guess. Go on, guess.”
    No answer from the Counselor’s Wife but it didn’t matter, the voice rushed on:
    â€œIt was the kid’s prayer. His mother made him say it every night. You know the one I mean: ‘Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep,’ you know? ‘Now I lay me down to sleep/I pray the Lord my soul to keep/If I should die before I die/I pray the Lord my soul to take.’
    â€œIt made him an insomniac, you know? He was convinced that if he let himself fall asleep, he was going to die, you know? Can you imagine that? He did everything he could think of to keep from falling asleep! To this day, he won’t sleep with anything on him, not a