the last book I ever read (Black Wings Has My Angel (New York Review Books Classics)) by Elliot Chaze, excerpt six)

from Black Wings Has My Angel (New York Review Books Classics) by Elliot Chaze:

When I got home Virginia was drunk as a lord.

What was worse, she was out on the front lawn watering the trees. That’s right, the trees. She stood in the middle of the yard, wobbling around on those lovely legs, and squirting water up into the leaves of the three old elm trees.

I rolled up the windows of the Packard. The water was coming down on the roof of it from the leaves. I got out fast and moved around the back of the car to her. Out of the side of my eye I saw Damon across the street and he had his own hose going over there. The Massengales were on their front porch, clucking softly the way old people do at dusk. Diagonally across the street the tall girl with the sunburned brown hair was doing something with a lawn mower. I knew all of them were watching Virginia and me.

Virginia said, “The leaves, nobody ever thinks of the poor damned leaves.”