“It’s not money.”
The editor’s face grew a little more apoplectic than usual. “Seven-fifty, by God. That’s all I can do right now.”
“No, sir. I don’t want a raise. All I want is my paycheck for the first week in September. When you give it to me, I’ll leave.”
“Where you goin’?”
“There’s a studio over in Gainesville that I can work at.”
“How much are they payin’? Tell me, Davies.”
“About five a week less than I’m getting from you.”
“You’re a goddamned liar.”
Davies shook his head. “I’m a liar,” he said. “Okay. I’m getting a thousand a week from them, okay? Now will you give me my damned check so I can pay my rent and leave this town?”
Jenkins pulled the mangled cigarette from his mouth, spat a crumb of tobacco off the end of his tongue. “Don’t you ever come back to me for a job,” he said, opening the company checkbook. He reached in his pocket for his fountain pen, scratched out the check in spiteful strokes. He tore the check loose, closed the book, and waved the paper back and forth to dry the ink. “Don’t you ever ask me for a reference.”
“I won’t.” Davies took the check. “Thank you, sir.”
“Every bit of that camera equipment better be on your desk.”
“It’s out there.”
He went out by the desks feeling relief. No one looked up — the Monday rush was on, with deadline looming at eleven o’clock. He paused in the anteroom to speak to Karen Yates, the dark-haired receptionist. “Miss you, darlin’,” he said.
“You’re really leaving.”
“Yep. I’ll give you a call when I get settled in Gainesville. Maybe come over and take you out now and then. We’ll go to the show.”
“Let’s do it in Gainesville, then.”
“How come?”
Karen made a scrunchy little face of displeasure. “I don’t know. Shirley and me went to the ShadowShow last week to see that Tyrone Power movie, and there was this creep that kept watching us.”
“Who was it?”
“How do I know. Just some old redheaded creep. Somebody told me that he works there. I just know I don’t want to go back to that old ShadowShow as long as he’s there.”
“Okay. See you, Kay-Kay.”
“Bye.”
Outside the Advocate office rain fell from a leaden sky. It was cool; where last Monday the temperature had hit ninety-seven, today it hovered around seventy, and it felt like fall. Davies stood for a minute in the rain, his thin windbreaker inadequate against the chill he felt. Running away, he thought. Running away from bad dreams.
Well. Gainesville’s a bigger place, anyway. More opportunity there. But when Gainesville High plays Gaither, damned if I’m going to root for the Red Elephants. He got into his car, started it, and left the Advocate parking lot. Before he got to the bank he had to start wiping the windshield with the crumpled red neckerchief he had used since the defroster had gone out on him. Reaching his destination, he pulled out of the street and into the parking lot. He was a long way from the building. He nerved himself for the run and opened the door to the cool scent of rain on concrete.
He ran into the bank and cashed his check. He had already emptied his savings account. By the time he settled all his bills here in Gaither, he calculated, he would have not quite four hundred dollars left. Not much.
But he didn’t need too much. Everything he wanted to take with him — clothes, his own camera stuff, his few books, his records, his phonograph — already occupied the trunk and backseat of the car. If he could find a good cheap place to rent over in Gainesville, it shouldn’t be too bad. He could make it on twenty a month less than the Advocate paid him, if he was careful.
He’d do fine, if the dream did not follow him.
If. If. If. A hell of a lot of ifs. With no trouble at all, Davies thought of still more of them: if the dream did follow, if he continued to be visited by the dead-eyed Mollie Avery, with her belly gashed and her guts falling out of it, and if she did keep after him —
I’ll kill myself, Davies thought.
He shivered. He had never remotely contemplated suicide before, but the moment the thought came to him, he realized that it was so. Before I’ll let that dead woman talk to me one more time, I’ll kill myself.
He busied himself with the neckerchief again. He did not want to die. And because he thought that, once he got away from Gaither, he might also escape the dream, he hurried through the rest of his day, through the tasks of paying his bills, settling his obligations, running toward afternoon and toward escape.
3
Ludie Estes was mad. For nearly a week now Mr. Jefferson had kept her out of his house, and what kind of mess that white man was making for her to have to clean up later the Lord only knew. Bad enough that poor Mollie had got herself cut up like that (the Lord’s warning, people in the church had agreed at the funeral: the Lord’s warning against living in sin), and then Ludie had the whole house to do and no help, nobody to talk to, but now old Mr. Jefferson had taken it in his head not to let anybody in.
Still, she had to try. Even on Monday in the rain, she tried. She had her oldest grandson, Michael, drive her out to the big house on the ridge, and with the arthritis gnawing at every joint, she groaned out of the car and up the steps. The door was locked, and no matter how much she rang the bell, no one would come.
But she could hear him moving around in there, upstairs, furtive movements. Once last week she had seen a curtain in the upstairs front pulled aside briefly, then let fall again. The stack of papers on the front porch was already big and getting bigger, and the mailman had already stopped trying to stuff more into the mailbox. He had taken away the accumulation Saturday and had left a note in the box for Mr. Jefferson to please call at the post office for his mail.
The Lord only knew what that white man was doing away up on the second floor of his house, all alone. It sort of put Ludie in mind of what Loftus Nable had told the family (Loftus had married Ludie’s older sister’s girl) about that Mr. Hesketh, the one down in Milledgeville or some other crazy house now. He had plumb lost his mind before poor Loftus realized it, and the janitor had just barely quit his job at the theater in time. Lord knows what would have happened if he had stayed. And now him with a good job workin’ for Jimbo’s Garage, doin’ all them auto mechanics and makin’ enough to feed his wife and five children with money left over. It was a sign that the Lord moved in mysterious ways.
Michael, out in the driveway, touched his horn button, and Ludie turned to scowl at him. “Hush that racket,” she said, knowing that he could not hear her but believing he would understand nonetheless. “Wake the dead blowin’ that car horn.”
She lumbered down the porch steps and around the side. Mr. Jefferson’s car was still where he had left it, right in front of the garage, with the keys inside (Lord, don’t you let Michael see them keys, he’ll steal that car sure) and the doors unlocked. The envelope was at the side door, where it had been every day since Mr. Jefferson had started locking her out. She opened it — the paper seam where the flap opened and closed was getting thin, and the moisture in the air today had caused it to stick a little — and took out a five-dollar bill.
It was hers. The envelope had her name on it, LUDIE, printed big as you please in ink. Every day that she came and could not get in there was a bill in that envelope for her: a ten the first day, and every day since something, once a fifty, never less than a five. Dropping the money into a coat pocket, she tucked the empty envelope back into place between the doorjamb and the screen door. Now she could go.
She waddled toward Michael’s car, drawing heavy breath. Cold day today, dark day. Her arthritis hurt her specially bad on days like this. It should have been a twenty today.
Michael did not open the door for her. He had his car radio on, listening to a news broadcast. “He ain’t gonna let me in,” Ludie said. “Let’s go.”
“Hush, Gra
nny-Ma,” Michael said.
“You blow your horn at me to come on, now you won’t go.”
Michael snapped off the radio and started the car. He drove with jerky motions.
“What you mad about?” Ludie asked him.
“Nothin’.”
“Must be somethin’. Don’t tell me nothin’. You answer me, Michael Estes.”
“They thrown us out,” Michael said.
“Who ‘us’?”
“The president, he said colored people could go to school in Little Rock with whites if they want, and old Faubus he thrown ’em out. It said so on the radio.”
“Little Rock. Where that?”
“A long way off, Granny-Ma.”
“Then don’t worry your head none.”
Michael grunted, still acting angry. “Granny-Ma, every time they do somethin’ to one of us, they do it to all of us. Can’t you understand?”
Ludie looked at her grandson, handsome and dark in his sweater, his face intelligent behind the black horn-rimmed spectacles. He had applied for a scholarship to Tuskegee, and Ludie hoped and dreaded that he would get it. Her first grandson, and the smartest of the bunch. Lord, how she would miss him if he went away off yonder somewhere to school. Speaking slowly, Ludie said, “I seen the Ku Klux and I seen my daddy hit over the head with a baseball bat. When I was just a year older than you are now, the whites took one of my neighbors and they hung him and they burnt him. Just come in the middle of the night, and his wife hangin’ on and beggin’ so pitiful. Took him away off past the railroad and hung him, and then brung him back to the Square and tried to burn him up where the livery stable was, where that theater is now. And his wife so pitiful, and them with six babies in the house. Don’t you talk to me about how when they does it to one they does it to all. You wait until you get old, and then you know you won’t have to talk about it, you feel it down in your soul.”
“I’m sorry, Granny-Ma. I get mad.”
“I know you does, child. We all does.”
“Like that old Mr. Jefferson — ”
“Hush, Michael. Don’t you open your mouth about him.”
“You talk about him all the time.”
“I works for him. When you work for somebody, then you can talk about ’em. Lord, Lord, I sure hope your brains grows to be as big as your mouth one of these days.”
They went through Gaither, heading south, and into Possum Town. Ludie’s house was even farther out of town than Mollie’s had been, and when they passed the turnoff to Slattery Row, Ludie gave her dead friend a fleeting thought: Poor Mollie, he shouldn’t of done her that way. I don’t care who held that knife, the one who killed her was old Mr. Ballew Jefferson, keepin’ her so late at night and her so ascared of the dark. Poor little Mollie.
She sighed, and as if to herself she said, “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.”
“Granny-Ma, do you — ”
“Hush, Michael. You just drive.”
4
The last show ended at ten-fifty. Andy McCory rewound the final reel, pulled it off the projector, and put it into its metal can. By the time he descended the stair, the crowd was already gone. Only Mr. Badon stood by the open front door, looking out at pavement washed with rain. “A good night,” he said without looking around.
“I seen her,” Andy said.
“Did you.” Badon did not look around, but pulled the door shut. The lobby lights were dim.
“She was in last week. The black-haired one. From the newspaper office.”
“These things take time, Andy. You will go home now. Haven’t I told you that you would know when it was time? You should go now. It’s after eleven already.”
“Who’s been foolin’ with the equipment at night?”
“Has the equipment been fooled with?”
“I come in today and found the projectors both switched on. I put them off before I went home last night.”
Badon turned, just a darker figure against the dark, his face shadowed, unreadable. “Perhaps I left the projectors on. After the midnight show last night.”
“We ain’t had no midnight show.”
“They are private. For one person at a time. We have had several of them. There will be many more.” The voice had become silken, insinuating. “Perhaps at the proper time I will give a midnight show for you, Andy. Then you will see a thing or two. But not for a while yet, eh? You will have other things to do. They will keep you — occupied. For now, go home. Get some rest.”
Andy had carried his jacket slung over his shoulder. He pulled it on. Mr. Badon leaned against the door, opening it again. Andy squeezed out past him. Under the protection of the portico, he paused to look back. “Where do you live?” he asked Badon. “You never do go home. You’re here when I come in and you stay after everybody’s gone. Where do you live?”
“Who says I live anywhere?”
“You want me to know. You’re lettin’ me ask you.”
Badon shrugged. “My soul is in this theater,” he said. “That’s the best answer I can give you. A nice capitalistic answer, isn’t it? My soul is in my enterprise, in my business. But I live in various places, Andy, and in various ways. You will understand better one day. For now, go. And be patient. The time is nearer than it was.”
The rain intensified, hissing against the awning of the jewelry shop across the way, fluttering the leaves of the drawf crabapple trees on the Square. “It’s a bad night for a two-mile walk,” Andy said.
“You should buy a car, Andy.”
Andy snorted. “I ain’t got no credit.” He pulled his jacket a little tighter at the neck.
Badon sighed. “Come back inside.”
Andy followed him back to the lobby. Badon went upstairs and came back down with a gray metal cashbox. “What would you say a used car would cost you?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Three hundred.”
Badon flipped the top of the cashbox — wasn’t even locked — and started to count off tens. When thirty of them lay on the counter, Badon said, “Take it. Buy your car.”
Andy reached for the money. “How do I pay you back?”
Badon shook his head. “You need not worry about that. But you will tell your wife that I will hold back a portion of your salary each week until it’s paid off. Five dollars? That would come to three hundred in a little over a year. Very well. As of tonight, you have a five-dollar raise. This is it. You will receive the same amount of money each Friday that we agreed on, however.”
Andy folded the money and put it in his front pocket. “You’re easy with a dollar.”
Badon smiled at him, a smile that was all stretched skin and teeth. He pushed the cashbox over toward Andy. “Money is nothing,” he said. “Andy, I will make you a deal. You can take the whole cashbox for your own — everything that’s in it. I will have no more hold over you. You will be free. Or — well. You know what I can give you. The things aside from money.”
Andy licked his lips. “There must be a thousand dollars in there.”
“Anyway I should say a thousand. Perhaps twice that.”
“You took my blood.”
Badon smiled even wider. “I had need.”
Andy reached for the cashbox and closed the lid. He slid the box back toward Mr. Badon. “I reckon I better go. It’s a long walk in the rain.”
Badon went behind the concession counter and picked up the telephone. He dialed a number and handed the receiver to Andy. “Tell them to pick you up,” he said.
The line was already ringing. After a moment, a man’s voice, blurred a little by alcohol, said, “City Cab.”
Andy frowned at Badon, who nodded. Into the receiver, he said, “I want a cab at the ShadowShow Theater.”
“Goin’ which way, buddy?”
“North.”
“Gotcha.”
Andy gave the receiver back to Badon. Badon hung up. “There. Now I think you’d better have another five dollars. That would cover the taxi fare, would it not?”
“And now you can hire them to drive you home. I’d say you had the last laugh, Andy.”
“Maybe I did.”
“Go on outside. The cab will be here soon, and I have to get ready for the midnight show.”
Andy nodded absently, turned, and went back out under the portico. He got a cigarette from a damp pack of Camels in his shirt pocket and a kitchen match from an aspirin tin he carried in his jeans pocket. He snapped the match alight with his thumbnail and stood just out of the rain, smoking.
The rain pattered in the streets, and a cool wind made him stick his hands deep into his pockets. He felt the bills wadded there and grinned to himself, knowing there were some things better than money.
5
A taxicab passed him, heading north. Harmon Presley said something obscene just under his breath. Taxicabs in Gaither had two-way radios, but the county was too damn cheap to buy them for the patrol cars. Man could get in serious trouble drivin’ around in a patrol car and no way to call for assistance. And the rain tonight, too, slickin’ up the roads. Wouldn’t be surprised if there weren’t some fender benders outside the mill tonight.
He thrust a stick of spearmint gum in his mouth and, driving one-handed, folded the foil and the green-and-white paper wrapper into a neat package, which he dropped in the ashtray. Passing under a streetlight, he took a quick look at his watch: 11:32. Time to do a roundabout of the Square, then he’d better get on over to the mill. But damned if he was gonna get out and direct traffic tonight. He’d sit in the car and watch, the way he’d been doing lately, and let the lint-heads take their lives into their own hands.
Presley came into town on Oglethorpe, but short of the Square he turned into the maze of business streets just outside the downtown district. Everything was quiet: only the Busy Bee, which was close enough to the outskirts to attract truckers thirsty for bad coffee, was still open. He got back on Oglethorpe, turned west on Main, then south on Gaines, and east on Bridge, circumnavigating the Square.
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