Red-Dirt Marijuana: And Other Tastes

by Terry Southern

  “What kinda cotton you all goin’ to have out there this year, Hal’?”

  “Aw I reckon it’ll be pretty good, Blind Tom—if the dang boll-weevils don’t git at it again.”

  “What, he have some trouble with the weevil?”

  “Aw they got into that south-quarter. Shoot, they ate up half-a-acre ’fore anybody knew it. We had to spray the whole dang crop.”

  “Well, you gran’daddy ain’t lose no cotton-crop to the boll-weevil I tell you that!”

  “Naw, we done sprayed it over now.”

  “You ’member me to you gran’daddy now, Hal’. He ’member Blind Tom Ransom. I picked a mighty lotta cotton out there.”

  “I know you did, Blind Tom.”

  “He git good hands out there now?”

  “Aw they say they ain’t as good as they used to be—you know how they always say that.”

  “I use to pick-a-bale-a-day. I pick seben-hunderd twenty-three pounds one day, dry-load. He was down to the wagon hisself to see it weighed out. He tell you. They say it ain’t never been beat in the county.”

  “I know it, Tom.”

  Leaning against the bar, C.K. was filling his glass, watching the bright red wine tumble into it.

  “Big Nail back,” said Old Wesley.

  “Is that so?” said C.K., and with such smiling astonishment that one might have known it was false.

  “Sho’, he sittin’ right over there in the corner—you see him?”

  “Well, so he is,” said C.K., partly turning around. “I swear I never seen him when I come in!” but he said this in such a laughing way, taking a big drink, too, that it was most apparent that he had.

  “He lookin’ fit, ain’t he?” He laughed softly. “Old Big Nail,” he said, shaking his head as he turned back around. He refilled his half-full glass. “I likes to keep a full glass before me,” he explained to Wesley, “at all times.” He did a little dance-step then, holding on to the bar and looking down at his feet. “How’s business with you, Mr. Wesley?” he asked, coming back to his drink.

  “ ’Bout the same as usual I reckon.”

  “Oh? I would of said it was pickin’ up a little,” said C.K. smiling, looking at Big Nail. “Can’t complain,” said Wesley.

  “Remind me I hear a funny story today,” said C.K., somewhat louder than before and half turning away from the bar; then he stopped to laugh, closing his eyes and lowering his chin down to his chest, shaking his head as though he were trying not to laugh at all.

  “Oh yeah, it were ver’ funny.”

  He had a loose uninhibited manner of telling a story, yet a certain restraint too, an almost imperceptible half-smile, as of modesty, even as if he himself were quite objectively aware of how very good a story it was.

  “These two boys were talkin’, you see, and one of ’em say, he say: ‘Well, boy, what you goin’ do now you is equal?!?’ And the other one say: ‘Well now I glad you ast me that, I tell you what I goin’ do—I goin’ git me one of them big . . . white . . . suits . . . and a white shirt, and white tie, and white shoes and socks, and I goin’ buy me a white Cadillac, and then I goin’ drive down to Houston and git me a white woman!’ And when he say that, the first one jest laugh! So he say, salty-like, he say: ‘What’s the matter with you, boy, you laugh like that when I tell you my plans? You so smart, you tell me what you goin’ do now you is equal!’ So the second one say: “Well, now I tell you what I goin’ do—I goin’ git me a black suit, and black shirt and tie, and black shoes and socks, and I goin’ buy me a black Cadillac, and then I goin’ drive down to Houston . . . and watch them hang yoah black ass!’ ”

  Though everyone had heard the story before, they almost all laughed, because of C.K.’s manner of telling it, the mock way he frowned and grimaced, and the short explosive way he delivered the refrain ‘now-you-is-equal!’ making it nearly unintelligible.

  “I think I know what he tryin’ to say,” said Big Nail, speaking to no one in particular, holding the dice and shaking them softly, close to his ear, “I jest wonder why he don’t put his money . . . where his big mouth is!” And he threw the dice, saying: “Hot . . . SEVEN!”

  So the game was joined, while on the stool against the wall where Harold sat, Blind Tom Ransom played his guitar—and as the crap-game got under way, his head was lifted, sightless eyes seeming to range out over the players, singing:

  “If you evah go to Fut Wurth

  Boy you bettah ack right

  You bettah not ar-gy

  An’ you bettah not fight!

  Shruf Tomlin of Fut Wurth

  Cay’s a foaty-fouh gun

  If you evah see ’im com-min

  Well it too late to run!

  Cause he like to shoot rab-bit

  Like to shoot ’em on de run

  Seen dat Shruf hit a rab-bit

  Wif his foaty-fouh gun!”

  “Well, tell ’em ’bout it, Blind Tom!”

  “An’ he like to shoot de spar-ry

  An’ he like to shoot de quail

  An’ dare ain’t many nig-ger

  In de Fut Wurth jail!”

  “Goddam, sing it, Blind Tom!”

  “Yes he like to shoot de spar-ry

  An’ he like to shoot de quail!

  An’ dare ain’t many nig-ger

  In de Fut Wurth jail!”

  The crap-game progressed through the afternoon; by four o’clock there were about fifteen shooters. Harold had seen C.K. cleaned out three times, and each time leave the bar, to come back a few minutes later with a new stake. The last time though, he had only come back with another 39-cent bottle of Lucy.

  “Put this bottle aside for me, my man,” he said to Wesley, “till I call for it later, in the cool of the evenin’.”

  “Who’s winnin’?” asked Old Wesley.

  “I wouldn’t know nothin’ ’bout that aspeck of the game I assure you!” said C.K.

  “Big Nail winnin’!” said a boy about Harold’s age who was picking cigarette-butts off the floor by the bar. “Big Nail hot as a two-dollah pistol!”

  C.K. gave a derisive snort, and wiped his mouth. “I jest wish I had me a stake,” he said. “Now I can feel it! Lemme have two-dollah, Mistah Wesley, I give it to you first thing in the mornin’—on my way to work! I ain’t kiddin’ you!”

  “Where you workin’ now, C.K.?” asked Wesley, winking at Harold.

  “I ain’t kiddin’ you now!” C.K. said crossly, but then he sighed and turned away.

  “Man, I can sure feel it now!”

  He started snapping his fingers, staring at his hand, fascinated. “Ump!” He made a couple of flourishes, and his shoulders hunched up and down in quick jerks, as though through spasms outside his control. “Ump! Man, I’m hot now, I jest had me a goddam stake!”

  “Here you is, boy.”

  The two bills, wadded together and soft with sweat, landed beside C.K.’s glass. He stared at them without looking up.

  “Go enjoy yourself,” said Big Nail who was standing next to him and appeared to be absorbed in counting and arranging his money, a great deal of it.

  C.K. picked up the crumpled notes and slowly straightened them out. “Shee-iit,” he said, and then walked over to the game, taking his bottle with him.

  Blind Tom was singing:

  “De longest train

  Ah evah did see

  Was one hun-red coaches long. . . .”

  Back in the game, C.K. waited for the dice.

  “I only bets on a sure-thing this time of day,” he said.

  “Here old Crow tryin’ to make his come-back!”

  “What you shootin’, C.K.?”

  “Two-dollah? My, my, how the mighty have fallen!”

  “You jest git on that, boy,” said C.K., “you be havin’ all you want in a ver’ short time!”

  He rattled the dice, soft and then loud, he rolled them between his palms like pieces of putty—he blew on them, spit on them, rubbed them against his crotch, he raged against them like a
sadistic lover:

  “Come, you bitch, you hot mutha-hit ’em with it, SEVEN!”

  “Baby, now one moah time hot SEVEN!”

  He made five straight passes without touching the money, and across the room Blind Tom was singing:

  “An de only gal

  Ah evah did love

  Was on dat tra-in

  An’ gone. . . .”

  “What you shootin’ now, C.K.?”

  “You lookin’ at it, daddy.”

  The $2, doubled five times, was now over $60—and mostly in ones, it lay scattered between them like a kind of exotic garbage.

  During the delay for getting the bet covered, because no one wanted to fade him any more, C.K. kept whispering to the dice and shaking them.

  “They tryin’ to cool you off, dice, they’s so afraid, they tryin’ to cool you off you so hot! Lawd, I feel you burn my hand, you so hot!”

  “Take all or any of it, boys,” said C.K. “Goddamn, step back, we’re comin’ out!”

  “Come on out then,” said Big Nail, standing behind the first row of those crouched around the money, “. . . with all of it.” And the bills fluttered down like big wet leaves.

  “Shee-iit,” said C.K., not looking up, shaking the dice slowly, “. . . you hear that, dice? Man from the North put down his money . . . man from the North give his money now to see you natural seven! Yeah, he want to see your big seven, baby,” and he shook the dice gradually, and gradually faster now, near his head, rhythmically, as though he were playing a maraca or a tambourine, and he was humming along with the sound, saying, “. . . yeah, now you talkin’, baby, now you gittin’ it . . . yeah . . . yeah . . . now we comin’ out, dice, goin’ show ’im the seven, goin’ show ’im the ’leven,” and as he talked to the dice, his voice rose and his tone gained command until, as the dice struck the wall, he was snarling, “Hit him you sonofabitch, SEVEN!”

  Two aces.

  Most were relieved that C.K.’s run was broken.

  “Don’t look too much like no seven to me,” said someone dryly, “look more like the eyes of . . . of some kind of evil serpent!”

  “Hee-hee! That’s what it look like to me too,” said another, and then called out: “Turn up the light, Mister Wesley, way it is now C.K.’s natural-seven done look like snake-eyes!”

  “You have to turn off de light ’fore that ever goin’ resemble a seven!”

  “Hee-hee! You turn ’em off, them snake-eyes still be there! Gleamin’ in the dark!”

  C.K. sat still for a minute while Big Nail gathered the money. Then he got up and went back over to the bar.

  “Lawd, lawd,” he said, shaking his head.

  He filled his glass and took a big mouthful, swishing it around before he swallowed it. “Play the blues, Blind Tom,” he said, “play the blues one time.” But Blind Tom was playing a jump-tune; he was shouting it:

  “My gal don’t go fuh smokin’

  Likker jest make her flinch

  Seem she don’t go fuh nothin’

  Except my big ten inch . . .

  Record of de ban’ dat play de blues,

  Ban’ dat play de blues,

  She jest love my big ten inch . . .

  Record of her favorite blues

  “Las’ nite I try to tease her

  Ah give her a little pinch

  She say ‘Now stop dat jivin’

  An’ git out yoah big ten inch . . .

  Record of de ban’ dat play de blues,

  Ban’ dat play de blues,’

  She jest love MY BIG TEN INCH . . .

  Record of her favorite blues . . .”

  After a few minutes, Big Nail returned to the bar; he was still counting his money and straightening out the crumpled bills.

  “You know, I hear a right funny story today,” said C.K. then, looking at Old Wesley, but speaking loud, “I had to laugh. There was these two boys from Fort Worth, they was over in Paris, France with the Army, and one day they was standin’ on the corner without much in partic’lar to do when a couple of o-fay chicks come strollin’ by, you know what I mean, a couple of nice French gals—and they was ver’ nice indeed with the exception that one of them appeared to be considerable older than the other one, like she might be the great-grandmother of the other one or somethin’ like that, you see. So these boys was diggin’ these chicks and one of them say: ‘Man, let’s make a move, I believe we do awright there!’ And the other one say: ‘Well, now, similar thought occurred to me as well, but . . . er . . . uh . . . how is we goin’ decide who takes the grandmother? I don’t want no old bitch like that!’ So the other one say: ‘How we decide? Why man, I goin’ take the grandmother! I the one see these chicks first, and I gets to take my choice!’ So the other one say: ‘Well, now you talkin’! You gets the grandmother, and I gets the young one—that’s fine! But tell me this, boy—how come you wants that old lady, instead of that fine young gal?’ So the other one say: Why, boy, don’t you know? Ain’t you with it? She been white . . . LON-GER!’ ”

  Finishing the story, C.K. lowered his head, closed-eyed as though he were going to cry, and stamped his foot, laughing.

  “You ain’t change much, is you boy?” said Big Nail.

  C.K. leaned forward over his glass and seemed to consider it very seriously.

  “Well, I don’t know, they’s some people say I ain’t—then they’s others say I just a little faster than I use to be, that’s all.”

  “Now I wonder jest what do they mean by that, these people tellin’ you you so much faster than you use to be.”

  “Oh they didn’t say ‘so much faster,’ they jest say ‘a little faster’—because I was always pretty fast . . . you may recall.”

  Big Nail finished his drink.

  “I don’t think I follow their meanin’,” he said, “I wonder do they mean fast like that,” and as he said the word, he brought his glass quickly forward against the edge of the bar, then held it, very steady, turning it slowly and regarding it, the base still firm in his hand, the edges all jagged.

  Neither of them looked up at the other, and after a few seconds, Big Nail lowered the glass to the bar.

  “Well, no,” said C.K., “I would imagine—though, believe me, this is only a guess—that they was thinkin’ more along other lines,” and while he spoke, he gradually turned toward Big Nail, “I would imagine they was thinkin’ more along . . . smooth-cuttin lines,” and he described a wavering circle in front of him, his hand moving from his own glass towards his chest and suddenly sweeping down to his coat-pocket and out with the razor—which he held then, open and poised, near his face, letting it glitter in the light, he who smiled now and looked directly at Big Nail for the first time that day. But Big Nail had moved too—had taken a step back, and he as well was holding his straight-edged razor there, just so, between two fingers and a thumb, like a barber. Smiling.

  People suddenly began leaving the bar. The crap-game broke up. Harold watched them in pure amazement.

  “They ain’t goin’ be none of that in here!” said Old Wesley, standing at the end of the bar near the door, holding a half-taped chisel in his hand. “You got differences, git on outside, settle you differences out there!”

  “You stay out of this, old man,” said Big Nail, backing out into the center of the room, “we jest havin’ a private talk here.”

  Besides Old Wesley, Harold and Blind Tom Ransom, there were only four other people in the bar now, and they were carefully edging their way along the wall to the door. Outside, standing around the door and looking through the glass front of the bar were about twenty-five people.

  “Ain’t that right, C.K.?”

  Sss-sst! Big Nail’s razor made a hissing arc that touched C.K. just along the left breast, and part of his coat fell away.

  “That’s right,” said C.K., “we jest havin’ a friendly conversation.” Sss-sst! “Big Nail tellin’ me how glad he is to be going back.” Sss-sst!

  “Lawd God!” said someone.

  “
You stop it now!” said Wesley.

  Outside, a woman screamed and started wailing, and one or two children began to cry.

  “Make ’em stop it, Mister Wesley!”

  “Somebody call the police!”

  Inside, they circled like cats, now in one direction, now in the other, feinting steps forward and to the side, suddenly lashing out with the five-inch blade, and all the time smiling and talking with a hideous gentility.

  “You lookin’fit, C.K.”

  Sss-sst!

  “Well, thank you, Big Nail.” Sss-sst! “I was about to remark the same of you.”

  “You got to stop it now!” shouted Old Wesley. “We done call the police!”

  “Somebody git a gun!”

  But they weren’t listening any more. They were moving slower now, each one sagging a little, and they had stopped talking. Once they almost stopped moving altogether, standing about seven feet apart, their arms lower than before, and it seemed at that moment that they might both collapse.

  “Reckon we might as well . . . do it up right,” said Big Nail.

  “Reckon we might as well,” C.K. said.

  So they came together, in the center of the room, for one last time, still smiling, and cut each other to ribbons.

  Blind Tom Ransom, sitting on a stool inside the door, only heard it, a kind of scuffling, whistling sound, followed by a heavy swaying silence. And he heard the clackety noise, as the razors dropped to the floor—first one, then the other—and finally the great sack-weight sound of the two men coming down, like monuments.

  “It’s all ovah now,” he said, “all ovah now.”

  But there was no one to hear him; all the others had turned away from it towards the end. And they didn’t come back—only Harold, and then Old Wesley to stand by the bar, his hands on his hips, shaking his head. He looked at Harold.

  “Boy, you bettah git on home now,” he said gently.

  But before Harold could leave, a patrol-car slid up in front of the place, and Old Wesley directed the boy in through a curtained door behind the bar, as two tall white men in wide-brimmed hats got out of the car, slamming the doors and came inside.

  “What the hell’s goin’ on here, Wesley?” asked one of them looking irately around the room and at the two bodies on the floor.