Coz' Pretty Ain't Close Enough, Honey

She was a pretty one, that girl, but she weren't none too bright. That's okay though, cos' mama always told her that as long as she was beautiful, she'd never have to take care of 'erself. Some big strong man or another would protect 'er and feed 'er and give 'er babies. Mama was always concerned mostly 'bout the babies. She wanted grandchildren, an' most of the other sisters weren't just dumb, they was ugly too.1

Excuse me, I should probably introduce myself. Please forgive my... lapse in proper speech patterns. When talking about my baby sister, I tend to get that way. I've learned better than that now. My name is Neil Eli, and I'm from a small town in Arkansas, originally. I'll withhold that name, simply because no one needs to go visiting that place. Nothing but ghosts there, and lonely, unattractive women looking for desperate husbands. I wouldn't wish that upon anyone.2

However, it's the stage for my story. When I say the town was small, I'm not exaggerating. Population 500, my graduating class had six students, and that was considered a big one. I haven't been back for a reunion since I left, I never liked most of those people anyways. It was my senior year, though, that all of it happened. It was my baby sister's, Jeanie by the way, freshman year. 3

Jeanie was a beautiful thing, really. I'm not ashamed to admit that at all. She got all the best genes our bloodline had. Sadly, as I said before, those didn't include the smart ones. My other sisters are still in that dead-end town, and I got out through force of will. Smarts had nothing to do with it. She was pretty though, and she knew it, and so did every one else. I suppose that was the problem really. Everyone else knew it, and jealousy is an awful thing. Brings out the very worst in people. Now, I'm not saying the other girls bullied her or anything, but they didn't treat her too kindly either. She didn't have any friends, but none of the other girls were gonna do anything to her so long as I was around. 4

By a freak accident of nature, men were rare in that town. The women outnumbered them ten to one at best. I can't say for sure whether that still holds true. Not really my concern.5

Well, Jeanie may not have been smart, but she wasn't a moron either. She knew why she didn't have friends, and at first it didn't bother her. Who needed girlfriends when they could have a man? Difficulty in that was in the fact that the men weren't forthcoming either. There were only two other boys in the high school at that point, and one was spoken for - thought he was in love - and the other was nigh marriageable. Later investigation of the outside world on my part revealed that he shared a lot in common with what they term "homosexuals" out here. The idea was nearly unheard of back home, but evidently he had come across it somewhere.6

I did the best I could for my sister, encouraged her to play nice with the other girls, and encouraged them to get to know her. She was as beautiful inside as she was out. Not a nicer girl in the whole world, I think. I never thought that a pretty face could be such a barrier to communication. Seems fairly unnatural to me, but nothing much about that place followed what I'd consider to be the natural order.7

I loved my baby sister, so I was on board when she decided to make herself more sociable. I was just slightly concerned at the method she chose to pursue. She was going to make herself less pretty. 8

Now, I've seen make-up used for a lot of things, but never for the express purpose of making a girl uglier. She was an absolute professional at that one though. She was hideous when she was done with that case. It cost a lot of money, I'm sure, but that's the price you pay for ugly.9

She went to school the next day with the biggest smile on her face I'd ever seen. Jeanie was just so damnably happy, I couldn't help but smile too, even though I was utterly confused when it came to the reason for her joy. She was ugly, but she didn't have friends yet. And come lunch-time she didn't have friends yet. And come final bell she didn't have friends yet. And come tomorrow, and come the next week too. She gave it a pretty good try, I'd say, but no amount of make-up could hide the fact that she was pretty underneath. 10

She kept at it until one day, she just couldn't take anymore. It was messy, and in my defense I didn't know until it was too late to stop it. I had been out on a date at the local diner, which really was no place to take a date, but I wasn't looking at getting lucky. I didn't want a second date either. Hell, I didn't want the first date, but I was set up. The girls liked to do that there. They were pretty generous - if they couldn't get the boy, they were happy enough to pass him around until someone did.11

I wish I'd never gone on that date, for more than one reason these days. When I came home Jeanie had the kitchen knife and her face was torn up by its none-too-sharp edge. She was bleeding all over the nice shag carpet, too. I rushed for her, but was a little too late to stop her from gouging one of her eyes out. Now the human body has a little something called a "pain threshold" and after that's reached, you can't make yourself hurt anymore. It simply won't work. You just lose control. Evidently hers was a lot higher than I imagined, because she was thrashing even as I tackled her and wrestled the knife from her hand. 12

I wasn't thinking too clearly when I started moving her about, I guess. All I was thinking was getting the knife away from her so she couldn't hurt herself more. I didn't realize I was aggravating her other wounds. All that wrestling just made her bleed more, and caused a fair bit of her flayed skin to come off her face. My hands and shirt were covered in my baby sister's blood and I just didn't know what to do, but she was stripped of her knife and as she bled out slowly, she was crying so hard. She was gonna die, and I knew it, and there was nothing I could do about it. The nearest hospital was at least half-an-hour away. It was going to be painful and, most of all, just slow. 13

So I did the only thing I could do, right? I took the knife and finished the job. One clean cut across her throat was enough to lay her out. Then, I thought, that's not how she'd have wanted to go. It was clean. Simple. Beautiful.14

So I tore her apart until no one would ever, EVER, even dare to call my baby sister beautiful again. They were going to respect her final wishes no matter what I had to do.15

There was never any sort of inquiry. The lawmen were all too happy to rule it a suicide. That's okay by now. I was only doin' what she wanted 'erself.16

Y'see, I love my baby sister. Even now she's dead an' gone. She ain't never comin' back, so I has t' make sure 'er memory's kept right. 17

Yeh, my baby sister was pretty, but 'n th' end, she was as ugly as God makes 'em.