by W. L. Heath
“What was the idea behind that anyway?” Ted asked.
“It was a bet. I think it was Handy James, or maybe Kelley, bet him a dollar he couldn’t get a pool ball in his mouth. I was there and saw the whole thing. They had to dislocate his jaw.”
“Remember Pewter Harris?” Ted said. “When he fell out of the second-floor window of the courthouse?”
“Now, that was something,” the barber said, coming around in front of the chair again. “I happened to see that too, and so help me God, he never even let go of his broom. That’s a fact. He just got up and dusted hisself off and went back up the stairs to finish his sweeping.”
“What was he, an idiot or something?”
“An imbecile. Just a step ahead of an idiot. It runs in that family, you know.”
“Yes, so I’ve heard. Wasn’t he the one the train ran over?”
“No, that was old Shep Hankins’ boy the train hit. He was drunk, they always thought. I don’t know what ever happened to Pewter. Seems to me his sister up in Knoxville took him in, finally. They had people all over Tennessee.”
“Dearborn went away too, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he left too.”
They were silent for a while as the barber cut Shelley’s hair.
“We’ve got some characters around here all right,” the barber said. “Back in the old days seems like something was always happening. Now the town’s twice as big and nothing ever happens. Looks like it would be the other way around.”
In the meantime a party had begun to develop out at the golf club. When Emily went down to join Dink and the Brayleys, Madge came out and said she believed she’d have a small one too, and as they were going back up to the porch with their spiked Cokes, some other people showed up with another bottle. At six o’clock there were nine people up there, all drinking and talking and getting in the mood for some fun.
“The best parties are always those that you don’t plan,” Nell Harriman remarked, and everybody agreed with her. “When a party just sort of happens,” she said, pursuing it a little further, “that’s always when it’s more fun.”
Before long both Dink’s bottle and Joey Brunis’ bottle were empty, and Pete Brayley made a quick trip to town for more. It was going to be a party, all right. Everyone there was still in golf clothes except Bill Clayton, and by six-thirty things had gotten far enough along for them to insist that he go down and get into his golf clothes too. “Don’t be antisocial,” they told him. So Bill went down to the locker room and changed, and while he was down there he slipped in an extra one on them, straight. Morgan was a dry county and the bottles were always kept out of sight in the men’s locker room. Liquor was never served openly except at private parties, but no one objected to drinking at the club, as long as the bottle was kept out of sight – no one, that is, except the grounds keeper’s wife, and they didn’t worry too much about her.
“What I should have done is brought back some hot dogs,” Pete Brayley said. “We could have made a supper of it out here,”
“I heard a funny joke the other day,” Ed Parks said, “but it’s a little on the rough side. I don’t know if I ought to tell it yet.”
“Aw, go ahead. Anybody that don’t like it can leave.”
“All right, here goes. It’s the one about the two nuns on the train. Stop me if you already heard it ...”
Things went on like that for a while with Ed and Dink swapping stories. Martha Byjohn turned over her drink, and Joey Brunis accidentally burned a hole in Steve Whittaker’s sleeve with his cigarette.
When one of the girls went down to the ladies’ room, Bill Clayton moved over to sit beside Emily.
“Where’s Boyd?” he said.
“I don’t know. I don’t think he’s coming out.”
“You two not spatting, I hope?”
“No. He may come out. I didn’t mean to stay this late and I forgot to call him back.”
“I’m glad you did,” he said.
“Glad I did what, stayed late or forgot to call back?”
“Both.”
She looked at him. “I said he may come out yet.”
“All right.”
“Dink, tell the one about the suppository,” someone said. “You know, the dialect one.”
“Aw, that’s too old. You all heard that one a thousand times.”
“Just the same, let’s hear it.”
Dink told the one about the suppository and everybody laughed.
“I still say we ought to eat,” Pete Brayley said. “Why don’t some good Samaritan get in his car and go to town for some hot dogs and potato chips and stuff?”
“Yeah, and some more liquor.”
“I don’t know if Steve and I’ll be able to stay,” Madge Whittaker said. “We’ve got kids at home to feed and get to bed.”
“Well, what all do we need?” Bill Clayton said. “I’ll go get it if one of the girls will go along with me to pick it out.”
A tiny silence fell over the crowd, and a couple of the girls glanced slyly at Emily. Emily looked right back at them.
“I’ll go,” she said.
It was getting late now, the sun was gone and a pleasant coolness had fallen over the rolling, clipped expanse of the golf course. As they walked out through the pines to Bill’s car, Emily felt suddenly annoyed with herself for what she was doing. It was an act of defiance, really – a pointless, heedless thing to have done. I wish I’d kept my mouth shut, she thought to herself. I’m a fool. Now I’ve given them something new to say behind my back.
“I’m beginning to feel my drinks a little,” Bill said. “How about you?”
“A little.”
“That Dink, he’s a bird, isn’t he?”
“He bores me. They all bore me.”
“Uh-oh, somebody’s in a bad humor. I wonder why.”
“I don’t know why. I’ve got a queer feeling. I think I’d like to get quietly plastered.”
“Fine.”
“Not with you though. Don’t get excited.”
He tried to take her arm as she got into the car, but she pulled away and said, “Cool it, Casanova. We’re going straight to town and straight back, so don’t get any big ideas.”
The car top was down and as they went out the curving narrow road between the trees the evening air washed against her cheeks and tossed her hair. I wonder where Boyd is, she thought. Damn it all, I shouldn’t be doing this. What’s the matter with me? What makes me do these fool things? She turned and looked at Bill Clayton and felt more annoyed than ever.
“Why don’t you give up?” she said impulsively.
“Give what up?”
“You know damn well what up. Why don’t you give up and get married. Get a wife of your own and stop trying to make it with everybody else’s. I’m getting sick of it.”
He laughed, uneasily, and shook his head. “You’re quite a gal, Emily, you know that?”
“Let’s see, first it was Nell, then Eileen Eubanks and …”
“No, first it was you, Emily. First, last and always.”
“Well, it’s been me for a long time, I know that. You’re really persistent, aren’t you? Why don’t you just give it up? Get a wife of your own for a change.”
Bill put his head hack and laughed, not knowing exactly what else to do. He’d seen Emily like this before and it always made him uneasy. She could be entirely too plain-spoken at times, Emily could.
“All right, laugh,” she said. “Give me a cigarette.”
He took a silver cigarette case from his pocket, held it open for her to take one, and then depressed the dashboard lighter.
“You know what’s the matter with you, Bill? You’re conceited. You’ve got a big car and a lot of money and just because the little waitresses think you’re hot stuff, you’ve got the same idea yourself. Well, you’re not. And slow down before you kill us both.”
“I’m slowing down.”
“Slow down some more then.”
He looked at he
r and smiled, trying to get her to smile back. “You know what I think’s the matter? I think you’re just sorry you took me up on this in front of the other girls. You’re afraid of the talk.”
“Maybe so.”
“You see? And what happens? You take it all out on poor old Bill, when all I’m trying to be is nice.”
“I know the kind of nice you can be, Billy Boy. Don’t hand me that crap.”
It was seven o’clock when they got back to the club and unloaded the hotdogs, potato chips, buns and other groceries. There was a lot of loud talk and noise coming from the dark upstairs porch now, and someone had started the phonograph in the parlor. Emily felt let-down and sober, and instead of going up the stairs with Bill, she made an excuse and walked out on the terrace. A man was standing there alone, taking deep breaths of the night air. It was Bobby Parks, and he looked as though he was about to be sick.
“Hi,” he said, smiling feebly. “I had to come out for some air. Getting to be quite a party in there.”
“Yeah, a sort of spontaneous demonstration.”
“How did it start?”
“I don’t know. It was an accident. You have anything to drink out here?”
He pointed to a Coke bottle on the edge of the terrace. “You can have that,” he said, “if you don’t mind drinking after me.”
“I don’t mind anything,” Emily said.
She picked up the bottle, sipped it, and then drained it. Bobby looked a little dismayed.
“Thank you, Bobby,” she said. “Now tell me if I look drunk.”
“No.”
“You’re a liar. I bet I look drunk as a monkey’s uncle.”
“You still don’t look it, Emily,” he said earnestly.
She smiled at him and puckered up her nose. “Thanks,” she said.
She walked slowly back toward the wide steps leading to the porch and heard a woman shriek with laughter somewhere in the darkness above. She didn’t want to go up there again. The party spirit had left her as suddenly as it had come on, and now she felt disgusted with herself for the things she had said to Bill. I ought to go home, she thought. I ought to at least go home and change clothes and get Boyd.
She hesitated there at the foot of the stairs, and then she saw Boyd coming toward her out of the dark, walking along the narrow path from the parking area. He had a long paper sack in his hand, which meant a bottle.
“Hello, bottle,” she said.
Boyd grinned. “Why didn’t you call? I was wondering what happened.”
“Party.”
“So I see. You look fairly sober though. What are you doing out here by yourself?”
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
“Darned if I know, Boyd. Come on in and dance with me, darling.”
All around the little town the street lamps had come on now, and people were walking home or sitting down to supper or getting ready to go out to the movies. It was still hot, but at least it was night and the air was breathable again; and since this was Friday night there was a mild but general lifting of spirits. At the drugstore a group of high school boys were kidding around with a booth full of girls, and on the courthouse lawn some old men had started a checker game, sitting at the edge of the monument within the yellow oblong of light that fell from the band rostrum. Working men were taking showers, baby sitters were being phoned, canasta games were being planned. At the poolroom a round of snooker was shaping up. There were 4,700 people in the town of Morgan, and for almost every one of them Friday night meant a small but pleasant departure from the routine of weekday life. For some of them it meant choir practice at the Methodist church; for some it meant friends dropping in to watch TV; for some it meant nothing more than a quiet evening and a chance to read. But for Sugarfoot it meant just one more night like all the rest – if anything a little duller and more tedious than the others. At eight o’clock he decided on another little pop.
He got up, walked slowly around the lobby and emptied all the ashtrays into a brass pail. This was camouflage. It was something you had to do though, because if you just got up and went straight to the closet behind the stairs, you wasn’t fooling anybody. Mr. Neff knew where his bottle was, of course, and when you got right down to facts, you wasn’t really fooling anybody nohow. But there was such a thing as style, and also such a thing as taking care of the other fellow. Mister Neff didn’t care, for that matter, but Miz Neff did, and you had to leave a man a way out. You had to beat around the bush a little so he could say, “I didn’t notice he was drinking, Eloise. I saw him empty the ashtrays, but I didn’t know he had a bottle back there.” Sugar took care of Mr. Neff and Mr. Neff took care of him. Between the two of them they could pull off a lot of stuff that one man couldn’t have got away with. Such as the girls, for instance. Miz Neff would be purely mortified if she knew about the girls. Mister Neff was all right. He even took a drink hisself, once in a great while when Miz went off to Nashville to visit with her sister. One time years ago, Mister Neff had got hisself so loaded up till he took a leak in the potted fern, right there in the lobby. But that was just once in twenty-odd years, and it was late at night besides. No one knew it but Sugar – not even Mister Neff hisself. Sugarfoot could still laugh though, remembering it. Some Mister Neff all right. Miz Neff like to died when that plant turned yellow and shriveled up the way it done. She never guessed it though; never had no sign of a suspicion what happen to that plant.
Sugarfoot went down the shadowy hall and opened the closet door. He pulled the light cord and emptied the brass pail into the trash can; then he reached back in the linen shelf and brought out a pint bottle of white corn liquor. He held it up to the light and checked the level, then pulled the cork and had him a nice long one. He had a feeling in his bones that the Miz was going to play the piano tonight, and a man had to be well fuzzed-up to suffer that racket. As he tamped the cork back in place he felt the liquor spread tendrils of heat through his chest and stomach. Mighty fine, he told himself. Don’t bruise it though, just shake hands with it lightly. He replaced the bottle and put out the light.
When he walked back up the hall toward the lobby, he felt a familiar, secret excitement as the liquor took hold. He shifted his shoulders under the starched white jacket. He flexed his fingers and wriggled his toes in his shoes. He was right now, just about right, and that last one ought to hold till around ten o’clock.
When he took his seat again beside the open door to the porch, his mind went back to the three men in room 201. What you suppose they doing in a town like this? he asked himself again. Doggone me if I can put a finger on it. Might need to go upstairs and take another look in they room. I ought not to do that, but I got to find out something. I’m right uneasy about them three, I declare.
Supper was over and the drummers were moving out on the porch to smoke their cigars. It didn’t look like a card game after all. Miss Sally Ruth Hough said she was going to the picture show, and Mrs. Neff said she believed she’d go along too. That was a break for Sugar because it would be too late to play the piano when she got back. Things had taken a turn for the better.
After it settled down again, Sugar decided to go upstairs and look around. The three men might come straight on back from supper, and if they did, he wouldn’t get another chance at their room. He got up again and walked through the dining room toward the kitchen, as if he was going in to eat his supper; but at the end of the dining room he turned to his right and went through a door that opened onto the rear of the lobby where the stairs went up. Mr. Neff couldn’t see him from there, and by walking softly he made it to the first landing without attracting any notice at all. The second door he passed was Miss Benson’s room and as he walked by, he took her up again in his mind. I wonder if she out with Mister Ace, he thought. Mister Ace was Ace Kelley, poolroom owner and Morgan’s “quality” bootlegger. Sugar had been the first to know about Miss Benson’s liaison with Ace. He had taken a ten-dollar tip to lead Mister Ace up the back stairs one rainy Ma
y afternoon to Miss Benson’s room. Some Mister Ace, Sugar thought. She ain’t hardly two days in town till Mister Ace done got hold of the inside track. No wonder. That man always got a big pocket of change. And cain’t he dress though! Man, man he got clothes for a while! But you know one thing? He cain’t touch Mister Boyd Fairchild when it come to clothes. Mister Boyd the one can dress, all right. That man stay togged out all the time. He got to, I guess, that wife of his. She ain’t careful she going to mess up proper, from what I hear. Don’t they live high though? Some of these white folks sure can live it up. Mercy. Sugar shook his head, walking on down the hall softly.
At the door marked 201 he stopped and took a large ring of keys from his pocket. Go right on in, Sugar, he told himself. You ain’t got long to mess around up here. He unlocked the door and switched on the ceiling light. What he saw told him nothing. Two of the beds were rumpled, there was an ashtray overflowing on the dresser, and in the chair beside the door was a Memphis newspaper. It might have been anybody’s room, anybody at all. Sugar deliberated a moment; then, seeing the suitcases together in one corner, he crossed the room quickly and unlatched the largest of the three. When he opened it his eyes bulged. Among a few pieces of soiled clothing there was a twelve-gauge shotgun with a sawed-off barrel. The gun had been taken down to fit into the bag and the barrel was wrapped in oily brown paper.
“Gret God Amighty,” Sugar said under his breath. “The Lord help us, what has I done run across now?”
Chapter Three
Elsie Cotter was a pale, persecuted woman of fifty, who looked as if the flesh of the upper half of her body had somehow loosened from the bones and settled below her waist – like a rag doll that has been shaken and pounded until all the stuffing is packed into the lower extremities. Her shoulders and chest were frail, and her legs were elephantine. Miss Elsie waddled when she walked, and on this particular July evening as she was on her way home from the library she winced a little with each waddling step, as if her ankles were hurting, or as if she had a headache that the delicate jarring of her footfalls made worse. She was going slowly along a shadowy street called Baird Drive, and she was thinking of the fifty dollars she’d found in a coin purse two days before, at the doorway of Rayburn’s grocery store.