She was groggy; she had already fallen asleep. He had to speak very slowly and sanely to tell her what he wanted. She agreed, at last, to do it tomorrow morning, first thing, as soon as the stores opened — for another five hundred dollars of his own money.
That was all right, he thought, crawling back into his nest. The money was his. He didn’t have to worry about it. He examined his arms, his hands, his foot. The cuts were already crusted, the flow of blood stanched; the stitched line across his palm was as black as a tattoo, the skin at the stitches puckered. He was far overdue to have the sutures removed. Well, he would have to do something about that himself.
And tomorrow he would have to do something about all the broken glass on the floor. But now, feeling, knowing, somehow that the visitors would not be back tonight, Ballew Jefferson gratefully sank into sleep.
5
In the cool of the evening John Kirby sat on his porch swing and smoked a pipe. It was a rare indulgence; two bowls of tobacco on a single night. But it was pleasant to drift ever so slightly back and forth, the chains creaking a little, and to have the burned-leaf aroma pungent in his nostrils, and to let his thoughts wander.
Saturday the twenty-first — just a week from tomorrow — would begin another fall. Next month his son would be fourteen. He thought of Alan’s mother, and how like Mary his son was in some ways. He thought of his own task in raising the boy, and gave silent thanks that he had turned out as well as he had so far. Alan was all boy, and that meant he had secret corners of his life that a father could not look into. He had his midnight mischiefs and truancies (tonight, for example; Alan had been gone since before sunset, and it was now close on ten-thirty), but for the most part Alan was a good boy, open, honest, decent.
John, with that urge to pick at the wound, to bring the blood to the surface, wondered how different it might have been had Mary lived. He had gone beyond his initial feelings of guilt for her death long ago. Who expected, these days, that a perfectly normal woman after a perfectly normal pregnancy would die in childbirth, taking the child with her into death? Still, he could not help pacing, in imagination, the wider shape of his life had she and her daughter lived.
The lights went out in Betty’s house across the street. Franklin Lessup liked to retire early, to lie in bed reading (“Poultry magazines!” Betty would rant to John. “I’d rather he read something dirty, like Esquire!”) until he became drowsy enough for sleep.
Another fall almost here, with the weather gone edgy and wet this last week, temperatures skidding down to the fifties and never rising above seventy-five. It’s because it’s almost fall, he decided. I’m restless because it’s almost fall, and because I’m growing older. Thirty-six. Within shouting distance of forty.
He thought of the times in his life when thirty-six had seemed ancient, when forty was not even to be thought of. Others might hit that age, but never John Kirby. He was going to be young forever. But that, of course, was before the war had aged him more in its final year than his life had done in the previous twenty-four years. There had been times, since 1945, when John had had to fight through the feeling that he had only leftover life, that everything real had already happened to him, that the rest was merely existing until existence stopped.
The swing creaked gently with his back-and-forth motion. The tobacco in his pipe glowed red as he inhaled, then dimmed again as he released a fragrant cloud of smoke. It was really a very mild night, but he felt a pang deep in his bones, the achy feeling of cold that you sometimes get with a fever. Not that he felt really ill; it was more a feeling of unease, not of disease, he thought. As if he were slightly out of kilter.
He heard the buzz of bicycle tires on pavement and turned to look over his left shoulder. With its headlamp flaring and fading to the uneven pump of the pedals, Alan’s bike came weaving up the street. Alan pulled off into the yard, swung off the bike, and put the kickstand down. “Hey,” he said as he mounted the porch.
“Son. Where have you been?”
“At school. Miss Lewis had a project that I helped her with.”
“Nice of you. Sit down?”
“Okay.” Alan sat next to his father. The boy was breathing heavily.
“You need a three-speed for this hill,” John said.
“Nah. I just took it too fast, is all.”
“You had a telephone call earlier.”
“Who called?”
“Diane, I think her name was.”
Alan shifted his weight, making the swing move a bit crazily. “Diane England?”
“That’s right.”
“Oh, boy,” Alan moaned. “I forgot.”
“Forgot what?”
“I told her I’d go with her to the movies next week. It’s Man of a Thousand Faces.”
John didn’t say anything for a moment, transported back to a day — when was it: ‘35... ‘36 — when the old State had run a double feature: The Bride of Frankenstein and Phantom of the Opera. Both had frightened him, but the older silent movie, with a corny added soundtrack of organ music, had been especially eerie. The film had starred Lon Chaney, not the wolfman fellow but his father. The man of a thousand faces. “You still have some passes left, haven’t you?” he asked his son.
“Yeah, five of them. Do you think it’d be okay for us to go next Saturday?”
“I suppose so.”
“Uh, Daddy? Do you think you might be able to drive me to her house to pick her up, and then take her back home after? Her dad doesn’t want us to ride our bikes in the evening.”
“What time is the show?”
“I don’t know. It’s always around five o’clock. It’d be over about seven.”
“I think I could handle that.”
“Okay.” An awkward pause. “I guess I’d better go call her before it gets too late.”
“Guess you had.”
Alan slipped off the swing and went into the house, the screen door banging behind him. John Kirby’s pipe had burned out. He leaned back in the swing and hoped that his son had the feeling that thirty-six wasn’t too ancient an age, no matter how infinitely far away forty might seem to him.
6
His father’s hands were terribly strong, forcing his head around, forcing his eyes toward what lay on the bed.
“Johnny,” his father panted, “you’re gonna look.”
His eyes met her eyes.
“Mama,” Johnny whispered, but the thing on the bed could not answer.
7
Her telephone rang at twenty minutes to eleven. “Karen?” A man’s voice, soft, pleasant.
“Yes. Who is this?”
“Guess.”
“Aw, I can’t guess.” She had taken her bath, brushed her black hair a hundred strokes, and since nine had been curled up in bed with a library book — Forever Amber — and a Coke. She dropped the book facedown across her knees and twirled the springy telephone cord in her fingers. “It isn’t Dennis.”
A soft laugh. “No, honey, not him. Listen, why’s a pretty girl like you home alone on Friday night?” There was something behind his voice, some kind of music, not radio music. “How come you ain’t on a date?”
“Well, nobody asked me, that’s why. Is this somebody from the newspaper? Who is this, now?”
“You hurt my feelin’s, honey. You don’t even remember me.”
“I’m just not good on voices.” She captured a curl of wire between forefinger and thumb and gently bit it, feeling the slight give of the insulation. “This isn’t anybody from the Advocate, is it? Tom Davies? No, I know his voice.”
“Maybe I’m your boyfriend.”
She dropped the wire and said in a provocatively soft voice, “Well, I’m kinda between boyfriends right now. I broke up with my old one.”
“Uh-huh.”
What was that music? “Is the television on or something?” Karen asked.
“No, honey. Not here.”
“’Cause I hear some music.”
“No, it ain’t no tel
evision.”
“Well. This is stupid. If you don’t want me to know who you are — ”
“You’ll know before too long.”
“ — I’m just gonna hang up, you mean old thing. I don’t think it’s polite to call a girl up and play guessing games with her.”
“You don’t?”
“No. This isn’t ‘The $64,000 Question,’ you know. I just don’t think a gentleman would call a girl up and make her go through an old guessing game.”
“How about other kinds of games?”
She giggled. “You’re awful. Did you know that? You’re just awful.”
He laughed, too.
Something about the music suddenly clicked with her. “Are you in the movie theater?” she asked. “That sounds like the show I saw with — hey, do you have red hair?”
The man laughed and hung up the phone.
Karen scowled at the receiver. “You old redheaded butthole,” she told him at last. She slammed the receiver down, reached for her Coke, and went back to the adventures of the sorely beset heroine. But her mood had been spoiled.
“He just better not call me back,” she grumbled to herself.
Still, every five minutes or so, she glanced up from her book to give the silent telephone a speculative, almost imploring look.
8
Sam Quarles sat on the sofa balancing the family checkbook. His wife, Ilona, was beside him sewing and listening to the radio. “Well, I think you should take some of your vacation time,” she was saying.
Sam grunted.
“I don’t know what you’re saving it up for, anyhow. You’ve got six weeks coming to you now. I mean, it’s not like we’re ever going anywhere or anything.”
“Please. I’m trying to subtract.”
Ilona was quiet for a few more stitches. The theme from Around the World in Eighty Days came on the radio, and she hummed along with it. “That was such a good movie,” she said.
“Um.”
“We had to drive all the way to Gainesville to see it. Now it’d just come here to Gaither. Wonder why the ShadowShow doesn’t have that one?”
“Probably not new enough anymore.”
“People would go to see it. Lots of people in town didn’t get to see it before. It was such a good movie. You know what I wonder?”
“One-twenty-six-thirty-five. What?”
“I wonder why Joe E. Brown doesn’t make more movies. He’s such a funny man. That great big mouth and all. He tickles me. You know what I’d do if I was one of those Hollywood studios?”
“We’ve got a hundred and twenty-six dollars for the rest of the month,” Quarles said. “You remember that when you go to the Piggly Wiggly. Looks like a lot of hamburger and chicken until payday. What would you do?”
“I’d make a movie with Joe E. Brown and Martha Raye both in it. Don’t you think they’d be a cute couple? Both of them with those big mouths? That’d sure be a funny movie.”
“Yeah.” Quarles stretched. “Hear from Linda today?”
Ilona knotted her thread and cut it short. “No. Looks like Charlie could have found work here in Gaither instead of taking our baby off like that.”
“Marietta ain’t all that far.”
“It’s a long way to me. I wish I could drive a car. You know what I’d do if I could drive a car?”
“You’d bust up our daughter’s marriage.”
“You’re mean, Sam Quarles.”
“I’m a policeman. I’m supposed to be mean.” He leaned away back in the sofa. The TV set across the room was dark, the window beside it dark. “Wonder if Little Sammy’s all squared away.”
“House is quiet.”
“Yeah.”
“I hope he doesn’t get into any trouble down there.”
“Why don’t we run down and see him next weekend?”
“Do you think he’d mind?”
“Why should he?”
“Well,” she said, sorting through the mending basket, “you know college boys.”
“No, I don’t. I never had the chance to go to college myself.”
“You know our son, then.”
“Wonder if he’s going to the game next week.”
“We should have taken him down to Athens.”
Quarles put his arm around Ilona’s shoulders. “I know. But he wanted to go on his own. Lucky the Daniels boy had room for all his junk in his car.”
“They made two trips.”
Quarles laughed. “Planned it, huh? Well, I don’t guess Sammy can get into too much trouble living in a dorm. What was it?”
“Milledge Hall,” she said at once.
“Reckon we could find it if we drove down to Athens?”
“You’re the policeman,” she said, sewing a button on one of his uniform shirts. “You know what I wish?”
“What?”
“I wish you’d take some vacation time this Christmas so that we could go to Florida. We could go during Little Sammy’s break and be a family again.”
“We won’t have the money this Christmas.”
“We’ve got some savings.”
“We’ve got some roofing to do on the house next spring, too.”
“I don’t know what you’re saving up all that vacation time for. It’s not as if the county would go all to pieces without you — Sam? What’s wrong?”
Beside her on the sofa, he had suddenly straightened. “The window.”
“I don’t see anything.”
“I thought somebody was standing outside — better check it out.” He pushed up, went into the entry foyer, and flipped on the porch light. Ilona saw the light come on and heard the door open. After a moment, she heard it close, and the porch light went off again. Sam came back to the living room looking rueful.
“What was it?” she asked.
“Nothin’, I guess. I could’ve sworn somebody in uniform was standin’ just outside the window lookin’ in, though. I thought it was one of the men at first. Guess I’m just worn out.”
“You’ve had a hard week.”
“Hard month.” He rubbed his eyes. “And things goin’ crazy in the jail. Prisoners won’t stay on the third floor, did I tell you that? They keep thinkin’ they see somebody in that end cell. We had some moved up there yesterday, and they raised such a hullabaloo we had to move ’em back down. They’d rather be stuck three to a cell than put up there. You done with that?”
She cut the thread. “I am now.”
“Ready for bed?”
“I suppose so.” Ilona transferred the shirt to the ironing basket, stuck her needle back into the pincushion, and dropped the pincushion in the sewing basket. She started to say something and stopped with her mouth open. Her hand flew to her husband’s forearm, tightened convulsively. She made a curious gagging sound.
“Ilona, honey?” Sam threw his arms around her. “What’s wrong?”
“The window,” she said.
Sam looked, but the window showed only night. “What was it?”
“Oh, God, Sam,” she sobbed. “I — I think it was Harmon Presley!”
9
“What is she, boy?” Johnny’s father demanded, shaking him.
“De-de-dead,” he cried. “Daddy, daddy, don’t kill me.”
10
The weave shop of the New Haven Mill was having a difficult time making production that night. Hob Zaner, the second-shift supervisor, was running one job himself, and his other weavers, all except for Mrs. Tully and Mrs. Ames, were running two each. By ten-thirty they were so far behind schedule it was clearly impossible that they would come anywhere near their quota by quitting time. Zaner turned his job over to Mrs. Tully and went to the floor office. He closed the door, shutting out a little of the wall-shaking sound, and telephoned the main office.
“Jay?” he said into the phone. “Hob here. Listen, we’re just not gonna make production tonight. How’s third shift look?”
Jay O’Hara’s voice came back, hard to catch in the surrounding roar: “Pr
etty bad, Hob. Got about twenty percent absent, looks like. Rest of the day’s been bad, too.”
“Yeah. We were behind when we started. Is everybody sick, or what?”
“I don’t know. I think Warren called around during the day and some said they were down sick and some he couldn’t even reach. I guess there’s something going around. You want to see if we can shift some production to one of the other mills?”
“No, I guess not. It’s not too bad yet. I think we can catch up if we have two or three good days. I just wish these people would let us know when they’re gonna be out, that’s all.”
“Funny, they’re usually pretty good about that.”
“Well, I better get back.”
“Okay. Let’s hope it gets better.”
“Yeah. Right.”
Hob hung up and opened the office door. The weave shop was on the fourth floor of the mill. Across the floor, beyond the looms, someone was pushing a cart loaded with rolls of cotton fabric toward the elevator. Hob frowned. The elevator door was jammed open — against company policy, but everyone did it — and it looked like the elevator car wasn’t even on this floor. “Hey!” he yelled, his voice lost in the clatter and clang of machinery. Cursing, he broke into a lope across the floor, between the rows of looms with their spiderwebs of yarn, their clashing dance of shuttles.
It was Pete Randall, a thirty-year veteran of the mill, tugging and pushing the truckload of cloth into position. He had it straight now, headed right into the elevator shaft. Hob, his tie flying — white shirts and narrow black ties were the uniforms of mill supervisors, as overalls were those of the hands — was nearly there. “Stop! The car’s on the top floor!”
But Pete had gone to the other side of the car, had a grasp on the handle, and was hauling it backward. It took two men, generally, to handle the cloth trucks. The wiry Pete was managing to move it himself. He looked over his shoulder at the empty shaft, put his shoulders into a heave, and began to roll the truck toward him.
“God’s sake!” Hob got his hand on the handle of the cart, but its momentum was too great. Over the top of the rolls of cloth, Pete Randall grinned at him. Then Pete, pushed by the cart, toppled back into the open shaft. The wheels of the cart went over the lip of the shaft, and the rolls of cloth shifted. Hob was dragged forward and turned loose just in time, just as the cart went over the edge.
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