Remember Mrs. Harry Steller Smith?
She paused and looked at the empty bird cage. “You gave me your oath,” says she and turned the most terrifying shade of purple.
“Maybe I did and again maybe I didn’t,” says I. “You did an evil thing when you betrayed Eunice that way but if some people will leave other people alone then maybe I can overlook it.”
Well, sir, she walked out of there just as nice and quiet as you please. So I went and stretched out on the sofa which is the most horrible piece of furniture I’ve ever seen and is part of a matched set Eunice bought in Atlanta in 1912 and paid two thousand dollars for, cash—or so she claims. This set is black and olive plush and smells like wet chicken feathers on a damp day. There is a big table in one corner of the parlor which supports two pictures of Miss E and O-A’s mama and papa. Papa is kind of handsome but just between you and me I’m convinced he has black blood in him from somewhere. He was a captain in the Civil War and that is one thing I’ll never forget on account of his sword which is displayed over the mantel and figures prominently in the action yet to come. Mama has that hang-dog, halfwit look like Olivia-Ann, though I must say Mama carries it better.
So I had just dozed off when I heard Eunice bellowing, “Where is he? Where is he?” And the next thing I know she’s framed in the doorway with her hands planted plumb on those hippo hips and the whole pack scrunched up behind her: Bluebell, Olivia-Ann and Marge.
Several seconds passed with Eunice tapping her big old bare foot just as fast and furious as she could and fanning her fat face with this cardboard picture of Niagara Falls.
“Where is it?” says she. “Where’s my hundred dollars that he made away with while my trusting back was turned?”
“This is the straw that broke the camel’s back,” says I, but I was too hot and tired to get up.
“That’s not the only back that’s going to be broke,” says she, her bug eyes about to pop clear out of their sockets. “That was my funeral money and I want it back. Wouldn’t you know he’d steal from the dead?”
“Maybe he didn’t take it,” says Marge.
“You keep your mouth out of this, missy,” says Olivia-Ann.
“He stole my money sure as shooting,” says Eunice. “Why, look at his eyes—black with guilt!”
I yawned and said, “Like they say in the courts—if the party of the first part falsely accuses the party of the second part then the party of the first part can be locked away in jail even if the State Home is where they rightfully belong for the protection of all concerned.”
“God will punish him,” says Eunice.
“Oh, Sister,” says Olivia-Ann, “let us not wait for God.”
Whereupon Eunice advances on me with this most peculiar look, her dirty flannel nighty jerking along the floor. And Olivia-Ann leeches after her and Bluebell lets forth this moan that must have been heard clear to Eufala and back while Marge stands there wringing her hands and whimpering.
“Oh-h-h,” sobs Marge, “please give her back that money, babydoll.”
I said, “et tu Brute?” which is from William Shakespeare.
“Look at the likes of him,” says Eunice, “lying around all day not doing so much as licking a postage stamp.”
“Pitiful,” clucks Olivia-Ann.
“You’d think he was having a baby instead of that poor child.” Eunice speaking.
Bluebell tosses in her two cents, “Ain’t it the truth?”
“Well, if it isn’t the old pots calling the kettle black,” says I.
“After loafing here for three months does this runt have the audacity to cast aspersions in my direction?” says Eunice.
I merely flicked a bit of ash from my sleeve and not the least bit fazed said, “Dr. A. N. Carter has informed me that I am in a dangerous scurvy condition and can’t stand the least excitement whatsoever—otherwise I’m liable to foam at the mouth and bite somebody.”
Then Bluebell says, “Why don’t he go back to that trash in Mobile, Miss Eunice? I’se sick and tired of carryin’ his ol’ slop jar.”
Naturally that coal-black nigger made me so mad I couldn’t see straight.
So just as calm as a cucumber I arose and picked up this umbrella off the hat tree and rapped her across the head with it until it cracked smack in two.
“My real Japanese silk parasol!” shrieks Olivia-Ann.
Marge cries, “You’ve killed Bluebell, you’ve killed poor old Bluebell!”
Eunice shoves Olivia-Ann and says, “He’s gone clear out of his head, Sister! Run! Run and get Mr. Tubberville!”
“I don’t like Mr. Tubberville,” says Olivia-Ann staunchly. “I’ll go get my hog knife.” And she makes a dash for the door but seeing as I care nothing for death I brought her down with a sort of tackle. It wrenched my back something terrible.
“He’s going to kill her!” hollers Eunice loud enough to bring the house down. “He’s going to murder us all! I warned you, Marge. Quick, child, get Papa’s sword!”
So Marge gets Papa’s sword and hands it to Eunice. Talk about wifely devotion! And, if that’s not bad enough, Olivia-Ann gives me this terrific knee punch and I had to let go. The next thing you know we hear her out in the yard bellowing hymns.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the
coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where
the grapes of wrath are stored.…
Meanwhile Eunice is sashaying all over the place wildly thrashing Papa’s sword and somehow I’ve managed to clamber atop the piano. Then Eunice climbs up on the piano stool and how that rickety contraption survived a monster like her I’ll never be the one to tell.
“Come down from there, you yellow coward, before I run you through,” says she and takes a whack and I’ve got a half-inch cut to prove it.
By this time Bluebell has recovered and skittered away to join Olivia-Ann holding services in the front yard. I guess they were expecting my body and God knows it would’ve been theirs if Marge hadn’t passed out cold.
That’s the only good thing I’ve got to say for Marge.
What happened after that I can’t rightly remember except for Olivia-Ann reappearing with her fourteen-inch hog knife and a bunch of the neighbors. But suddenly Marge was the star attraction and I suppose they carried her to her room. Anyway, as soon as they left I barricaded the parlor door.
I’ve got all those black and olive plush chairs pushed against it and that big mahogany table that must weight a couple of tons and the hat tree and lots of other stuff. I’ve locked the windows and pulled down the shades. Also I’ve found a five-pound box of Sweet Love candy and this very minute I’m munching a juicy, creamy, chocolate cherry. Sometimes they come to the door and knock and yell and plead. Oh, yes, they’ve started singing a song of a very different color. But as for me—I give them a tune on the piano every now and then just to let them know I’m cheerful.
A Tree of Night
IT WAS WINTER. A STRING of naked light bulbs, from which it seemed all warmth had been drained, illuminated the little depot’s cold, windy platform. Earlier in the evening it had rained, and now icicles hung along the station-house eaves like some crystal monster’s vicious teeth. Except for a girl, young and rather tall, the platform was deserted. The girl wore a gray flannel suit, a raincoat, and a plaid scarf. Her hair, parted in the middle and rolled up neatly on the sides, was rich blondish-brown; and, while her face tended to be too thin and narrow, she was, though not extraordinarily so, attractive. In addition to an assortment of magazines and a gray suede purse on which elaborate brass letters spelled Kay, she carried conspicuously a green Western guitar.
When the train, spouting steam and glaring with light, came out of the darkness and rumbled to a halt, Kay assembled her paraphernalia and climbed up into the last coach.
The coach was a relic with a decaying interior of ancient red-plush seats, bald in spots, and peeling iodine-colored woodwork. An old-time copper lamp, attached to the
ceiling, looked romantic and out of place. Gloomy dead smoke sailed the air; and the car’s heated closeness accentuated the stale odor of discarded sandwiches, apple cores, and orange hulls: this garbage, including Lily cups, soda-pop bottles, and mangled newspapers, littered the long aisle. From a water cooler, embedded in the wall, a steady stream trickled to the floor. The passengers, who glanced up wearily when Kay entered, were not, it seemed, at all conscious of any discomfort.
Kay resisted a temptation to hold her nose and threaded her way carefully down the aisle, tripping once, without disaster, over a dozing fat man’s protruding leg. Two nondescript men turned an interested eye as she passed; and a kid stood up in his seat squalling, “Hey, Mama, look at de banjo! Hey, lady, lemme play ya banjo!” till a slap from Mama quelled him.
There was only one empty place. She found it at the end of the car in an isolated alcove occupied already by a man and woman who were sitting with their feet settled lazily on the vacant seat opposite. Kay hesitated a second then said, “Would you mind if I sat here?”
The woman’s head snapped up as if she had not been asked a simple question, but stabbed with a needle, too. Nevertheless, she managed a smile. “Can’t say as I see what’s to stop you, honey,” she said, taking her feet down and also, with a curious impersonality, removing the feet of the man who was staring out the window, paying no attention whatsoever.
Thanking the woman, Kay took off her coat, sat down, and arranged herself with purse and guitar at her side, magazines in her lap: comfortable enough, though she wished she had a pillow for her back.
The train lurched; a ghost of steam hissed against the window; slowly the dingy lights of the lonesome depot faded past.
“Boy, what a jerkwater dump,” said the woman. “No town, no nothin’.”
Kay said, “The town’s a few miles away.”
“That so? Live there?”
No. Kay explained she had been at the funeral of an uncle. An uncle who, though she did not of course mention it, had left her nothing in his will but the green guitar. Where was she going? Oh, back to college.
After mulling this over, the woman concluded, “What’ll you ever learn in a place like that? Let me tell you, honey, I’m plenty educated and I never saw the inside of no college.”
“You didn’t?” murmured Kay politely and dismissed the matter by opening one of her magazines. The light was dim for reading and none of the stories looked in the least compelling. However, not wanting to become involved in a conversational marathon, she continued gazing at it stupidly till she felt a furtive tap on her knee.
“Don’t read,” said the woman. “I need somebody to talk to. Naturally, it’s no fun talking to him.” She jerked a thumb toward the silent man. “He’s afflicted: deaf and dumb, know what I mean?”
Kay closed the magazine and looked at her more or less for the first time. She was short; her feet barely scraped the floor. And like many undersized people she had a freak of structure, in her case an enormous, really huge head. Rouge so brightened her sagging, flesh-featured face it was difficult even to guess at her age: perhaps fifty, fifty-five. Her big sheep eyes squinted, as if distrustful of what they saw. Her hair was an obviously dyed red, and twisted into parched, fat corkscrew curls. A once-elegant lavender hat of impressive size flopped crazily on the side of her head, and she was kept busy brushing back a drooping cluster of celluloid cherries sewed to the brim. She wore a plain, somewhat shabby blue dress. Her breath had a vividly sweetish gin smell.
“You do wanna talk to me, don’t you honey?”
“Sure,” said Kay, moderately amused.
“Course you do. You bet you do. That’s what I like about a train. Bus people are a close-mouthed buncha dopes. But a train’s the place for putting your cards on the table, that’s what I always say.” Her voice was cheerful and booming, husky as a man’s. “But on accounta him, I always try to get us this here seat; it’s more private, like a swell compartment, see?”
“It’s very pleasant,” Kay agreed. “Thanks for letting me join you.”
“Only too glad to. We don’t have much company; it makes some folks nervous to be around him.”
As if to deny it, the man made a queer, furry sound deep in his throat and plucked the woman’s sleeve. “Leave me alone, dear-heart,” she said, as if she were talking to an inattentive child. “I’m O.K. We’re just having us a nice little ol’ talk. Now behave yourself or this pretty girl will go away. She’s very rich; she goes to college.” And winking, she added, “He thinks I’m drunk.”
The man slumped in the seat, swung his head sideways, and studied Kay intently from the corners of his eyes. These eyes, like a pair of clouded milky-blue marbles, were thickly lashed and oddly beautiful. Now, except for a certain remoteness, his wide, hairless face had no real expression. It was as if he were incapable of experiencing or reflecting the slightest emotion. His gray hair was clipped close and combed forward into uneven bangs. He looked like a child aged abruptly by some uncanny method. He wore a frayed blue serge suit, and he had anointed himself with a cheap, vile perfume. Around his wrist was strapped a Mickey Mouse watch.
“He thinks I’m drunk,” the woman repeated. “And the real funny part is, I am. Oh shoot—you gotta do something, ain’t that right?” She bent closer. “Say, ain’t it?”
Kay was still gawking at the man; the way he was looking at her made her squeamish, but she could not take her eyes off him. “I guess so,” she said.
“Then let’s us have us a drink,” suggested the woman. She plunged her hand into an oilcloth satchel and pulled out a partially filled gin bottle. She began to unscrew the cap, but, seeming to think better of this, handed the bottle to Kay. “Gee, I forgot about you being company,” she said. “I’ll got get us some nice paper cups.”
So, before Kay could protest that she did not want a drink, the woman had risen and started none too steadily down the aisle toward the water cooler.
Kay yawned and rested her forehead against the windowpane, her fingers idly strumming the guitar: the strings sang a hollow, lulling tune, as monotonously soothing as the Southern landscape, smudged in darkness, flowing past the window. An icy winter moon rolled above the train across the night sky like a thin white wheel.
And then, without warning, a strange thing happened: the man reached out and gently stroked Kay’s cheek. Despite the breathtaking delicacy of this movement, it was such a bold gesture Kay was at first too startled to know what to make of it: her thoughts shot in three or four fantastic directions. He leaned forward till his queer eyes were very near her own; the reek of his perfume was sickening. The guitar was silent while they exchanged a searching gaze. Suddenly, from some spring of compassion, she felt for him a keen sense of pity; but also, and this she could not suppress, an overpowering disgust, an absolute loathing: something about him, an elusive quality she could not quite put a finger on, reminded her of—of what?
After a little, he lowered his hand solemnly and sank back in the seat, an asinine grin transfiguring his face, as if he had performed a clever stunt for which he wished applause.
“Giddyup! Giddup! my little bucker-ROOS …” shouted the woman. And she sat down, loudly proclaiming to be, “Dizzy as a witch! Dog tired! Whew!” From a handful of Lily cups she separated two and casually thrust the rest down her blouse. “Keep ’em safe and dry, ha ha ha.…” A coughing spasm seized her, but when it was over she appeared calmer. “Has my boy friend been entertaining?” she asked, patting her bosom reverently. “Ah, he’s so sweet.” She looked as if she might pass out. Kay rather wished she would.
“I don’t want a drink,” Kay said, returning the bottle. “I never drink: I hate the taste.”
“Mustn’t be a kill-joy,” said the woman firmly. “Here now, hold your cup like a good girl.”
“No, please …”
“Formercysake, hold it still. Imagine, nerves at your age! Me, I can shake like a leaf, I’ve got reasons. Oh, Lordy, have I got ’em.”
&n
bsp; “But …”
A dangerous smile tipped the woman’s face hideously awry. “What’s the matter? Don’t you think I’m good enough to drink with?”
“Please, don’t misunderstand,” said Kay, a tremor in her voice. “It’s just that I don’t like being forced to do something I don’t want to. So look, couldn’t I give this to the gentleman?”
“Him? No sirree: he needs what little sense he’s got. Come on, honey, down the hatch.”
Kay, seeing it was useless, decided to succumb and avoid a possible scene. She sipped and shuddered. It was terrible gin. It burned her throat till her eyes watered. Quickly, when the woman was not watching, she emptied the cup out into the sound hole of the guitar. It happened, however, that the man saw; and Kay, realizing it, recklessly signaled to him with her eyes a plea not to give her away. But she could not tell from his clear-blank expression how much he understood.
“Where you from, kid?” resumed the woman presently.
For a bewildered moment, Kay was unable to provide an answer. The names of several cities came to her all at once. Finally, from this confusion, she extracted: “New Orleans. My home is in New Orleans.”
The woman beamed. “N.O.’s where I wanna go when I kick off. One time, oh, say 1923, I ran me a sweet little fortune-teller parlor there. Let’s see, that was on St. Peter Street.” Pausing, she stooped and set the empty gin bottle on the floor. It rolled into the aisle and rocked back and forth with a drowsy sound. “I was raised in Texas—on a big ranch—my papa was rich. Us kids always had the best; even Paris, France, clothes. I’ll bet you’ve got a big swell house, too. Do you have a garden? Do you grow flowers?”
“Just lilacs.”
A conductor entered the coach, preceded by a cold gust of wind that rattled the trash in the aisle and briefly livened the dull air. He lumbered along, stopping now and then to punch a ticket or talk with a passenger. It was after midnight. Someone was expertly playing a harmonica. Someone else was arguing the merits of a certain politician. A child cried out in his sleep.