But still, you knew, as every kid did, that there was a definite, comforting order at work somewhere behind the scenes. The people you knew well, the ones whose names headed the rolling credits, the ones who had weeks named in their honor on the late-night movie slot, the ones who were important, they stuck around for the action. The ones you barely knew or the ones you disliked--the spurned suitors and jealous deputies and cattle thieves, the Elisha Cooks and the ones without names, with forgettable faces or lousy teeth--they were thrown to death as a sop, something to stop the hunger pangs until the main course rolled around. There was a neatness to death there, an admirable economy to it. Principals lingered like the sun at a summer evening's end. Character and supporting actors fell like dusk around the winter solstice, their lives running out in a shot or two. Extras snuffed it, their goings as brief and unremarkable as fruit flies'. They dropped two or three to a frame, and we thought nothing of it. It was natural; it was expected; it came with the territory.
Can we accept one?
Anatomy