Stories of Erskine Caldwell

  That made me angry. I threw off the strap over my shoulder and jumped over the row beside her.

  “God damn you, Gertie,” I shouted, grabbing her by the arms, “did you let that damn nigger —”

  “Let him do what?” she asked, giggling a little and pulling her skirt above her waist. “Did I let him give me some of his cotton?”

  “Yes —”

  “Sonny gave me only a hundred pounds, Harry.”

  “I’m going to beat hell out of him,” I told her. “He ought to have better sense than to pair off with a white girl. And anyway, he ought to have given you two hundred pounds —”

  Gertie twisted her shoulders from side to side and her heavy breasts shook until I thought that they would surely burst.

  “I’ve just thought of a good riddle, Harry!” she said, naked again from her waist down. “Listen to this: If Sonny offered me a hundred pounds and you offered me two hundred, which one of you would I rather have take me?”

  “Any fool knows that two hundred is twice as much as one hundred, Gertie. And anyway, Sonny is a nigger!”

  “When are you ever going to learn how to answer riddles, Harry?” she said, fanning herself faster and faster. “Two hundred is twice as much as one hundred, but you’re not Sonny.”

  She had begun to giggle, but before she could laugh at me, I caught her and threw her down, and began stuffing cotton into her mouth.

  “That damn nigger, Sonny, won’t ever —”

  I said that much, but I never finished saying all I had meant to tell her when I jumped on her. I could see by looking into her eyes that she had thought of a new riddle, and that as soon as I took the cotton from her mouth she would ask me another one that I could not answer.

  (First published in Contempo)

  The Girl Ellen

  ELLEN WAS NICE enough about it. She said she would never have come over to spend the night with Doris if her family had not suddenly left town for the week end, because she knew Doris and Jim had planned to go swimming that evening. No one could have been more considerate than Ellen.

  Finally, she begged them to let her stay at the house while they went without her.

  It was late in summer, and it had already turned dark. The street lights had just been switched on, but on the porch a dim twilight still lingered.

  “Honest, I’d lots rather stay here,” Ellen insisted.

  “Forget it,” Jim said. “Sometimes it takes three to have a good time, anyway. This might be one of those times.”

  Under his breath he muttered something. It was the first night in almost a month that he had not had to work, and it would probably be the last time that summer he and Doris could go swimming together. He turned his head from the girl and glared at the street light that twinkled intermittently through the restless, breeze-blown maple leaves.

  Jim Gregory did not feel in high spirits anyway. The fellow who worked next to him in the plant had been turned off, and Jim could not help wondering if that were a sign that some of the rest of them would be discharged, too. He had thought about it all the way home, and then he got there and found Ellen with Doris saying that she was afraid to stay by herself while her family was away.

  “I’ll find something to read,” Ellen was saying then, “and I’ll have just as good a time right here.”

  Doris did not have much to say. She liked Ellen a lot, but she was a little sorry it had to happen on just the one night in the month that Jim had off from work.

  “I wouldn’t think of letting you and Jim take me along,” Ellen said for the third or fourth time. “I’d rather stay here.”

  Jim started to tell her to stay there, but to hush up about it.

  “That’s different,” he said. “If you don’t like our company, we probably wouldn’t like yours, either.”

  Ellen jumped off the railing and began tousling Jim’s hair. When he found that he could not push her away, he succeeded in catching her hands and pulling her to the arm of the chair. When he got her there, he was sorry he had touched her. He was on the verge of telling her that she was as sticky as molasses.

  “Nothing in the world could make me go along with you now,” Ellen said. “I wouldn’t do anything with a person who talked so mean.”

  “How do you know I’d like your company?” he said. She tried to pull away from him. He caught both of her hands in his. Doris got up and moved towards the door.

  “Of course you are going with us,” she said with finality. “All three of us are going swimming.”

  Doris went into the house to get ready, and Ellen got down from the arm of the chair. Her hands slipped through Jim’s like silk.

  Before he knew what had happened, Ellen had turned around and kissed him lightly on the mouth. The momentary brushing of her lips on his drew him towards her as if to a magnet. When he finally realized what had taken place, she had already turned and had run into the house. He sat upright for a moment, staring after her in a daze. Slowly he sank back into the chair.

  When the sound of her had died away in the house, he drew the back of his hand across his lips several times, roughly, until the last trace of her kiss had been wiped away.

  While she and Doris were getting ready, he remained on the porch. He had never liked Ellen; she was always running over to see Doris and getting in the way. The longer he thought about it, the more he wished he had worked that night. When he stopped wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, his lips felt bruised, and he was more angry than ever with Ellen for having kissed him.

  Doris and Ellen finally came downstairs ready to leave. When the porch light was turned on, he got up and went to the door. Ellen came out first, smiling a little, and Jim could not keep from staring at her again. He felt then, in spite of himself, that he was glad she was going along. Ellen was taller than Doris and, he saw for the first time, prettier. He wondered why he had never noticed that before. He drew the back of his hand over his mouth, quickly, when the touch of her lips came back to him.

  When they got to the street where the car was standing, all of them waited indecisively to see who would sit in the middle. Ellen hung back until Doris could decide.

  “You sit in the middle,” Doris said finally, taking Ellen by the arm and pushing her to the door.

  Ellen said nothing, but she hesitated for a moment.

  “It’s all the same to me,” Jim said, trying to appear indifferent.

  He made no effort to get into the car until Doris and Ellen had made up their minds. When Ellen got in, Jim opened the door on his side and sat down beside her. He could not see Doris’s face then.

  He started the motor, turned around in the street, and drove off faster than usual. It was only nine o’clock and there was plenty of time to reach the swimming pool in the country. However, he was in a hurry to get there.

  During the first few minutes of driving, Ellen sat away from him as far as she could, but after they had gone a mile or more, he could feel her close beside him. She was as yielding as he had remembered her being on the porch at home.

  After several more minutes he felt that he could not keep from looking at her. Taking his eyes from the road for a moment, he turned and looked at her. Ellen refused to let her eyes meet his. He leaned nearer, hoping to make her look at him.

  “You’d better watch where you are going, Jim,” Doris said, not turning her head.

  He jerked around just in time to keep from running off the road. It made him feel like a fool to have Doris speak like that, but for some reason he did not care. Ellen drew away from him again, and she and Doris began talking together in low tones. After a while, Jim finally stopped trying to overhear what they were saying.

  Just before they reached the swimming pool, Jim drew the back of his hand over his mouth several times. His lips still felt bruised where he had mashed them with his knuckles while on the porch at home. But when he closed his eyes, he could still feel, through the numbness and bruise, the brushing of Ellen’s lips against his.

&nbs
p; “What in the world are you doing, Jim?” Doris cried. He opened his eyes just in time to jam on the brakes. He turned into the parking lot beside the swimming pool. If Doris had not stopped him, they would have passed it. Jim tried to laugh about it, but he felt like a fool just the same. He wondered what Doris was thinking.

  When he stopped the car, Doris jumped out and started for the bathhouse without a word. She did not even wait for Ellen.

  “I’ve got to lock up the car, Doris,” he said crossly. “Can’t you wait a minute?”

  Doris stopped and watched him lock the car. When he put the keys into his pocket and started towards her, she turned and walked away. Ellen ran and caught up with her, and they entered the bathhouse together.

  When Jim got there, they had gone into a locker room, and he did not see them again.

  It did not take him long to change into his bathing suit, and he was in the water ten or fifteen minutes before Doris and Ellen came out of the bathhouse. They came together towards him in the pool.

  There was so much shouting and splashing of water all around them that Jim could not make them understand what he was trying to say. Giving up, he swam across the pool towards them.

  Just before he got to the side of the pool, Doris dived in, plunging out of sight into the ten-foot depth. He and Ellen watched her until she came up. Instead of swimming back to where they were, Doris turned and struck out across the pool to the opposite side. Jim motioned to her with his hands to come back, but Doris did not even shake her head in reply.

  “Can’t you dive?” he said to Ellen. “You don’t have to snap my head off,” she said.

  She dived but did not come up for several seconds. Just when he was becoming uneasy, her head appeared thirty feet away, near the center of the pool.

  He swam to her.

  “You’d better go talk to Doris,” Ellen said, backing away from him.

  They were both treading water.

  “Let’s dive off the tower,” Jim said.

  Ellen shook her head and began swimming towards the shallow end. He followed her.

  “Doris won’t like it if you don’t go over there where she is,” Ellen said. “You’d better go, Jim.”

  He did not look in Doris’s direction.

  Ellen backed away. Reaching for her hand, Jim caught her and pulled her to him. Even under the water her hands were as yielding as they had been on the porch at home. More than ever he felt that she was like soft rubber in his hands.

  “You shouldn’t do that,” she said. “Jim, I —”

  Somebody splashed water near by, and a wave broke over their heads. Ellen came up choking. Quickly grasping her around the waist, Jim lifted her so no more water could reach her head. She was all right after a moment, but he did not release her. Once he had her in his arms, he felt he could never turn her loose again. It was like holding a wild rabbit in his arms, knowing the frightened, panting animal would make a break for freedom at the slightest chance. He squeezed her all the more tightly.

  “Don’t do that, Jim,” she said.

  She strained to break away from him, but Jim’s arms were like iron bands around her. Once, for a moment, she relaxed in his arms. He crushed her more tightly than ever.

  “Jim,” she said, “Jim, we can’t . . .”

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Doris jump to her feet from the bench where she had been sitting and walk to the edge of the pool. He did not look long enough to see whether she had dived in or whether she went back to the bench.

  “Please don’t hold me any more,” Ellen said. “Let’s go with Doris. I can’t let you hold me like this.”

  “She’s all right,” Jim heard himself say. “Don’t worry about her.”

  “But you’ve got to stop, Jim. Please don’t hold me any more. I’m going with Doris.”

  He pulled her with him to the other side of the pool, ignoring her protests. When they got to the rim, Ellen broke away from him and dived under the water. He plunged after her.

  When he came up, he could see neither Ellen nor Doris. For a while he thought they were ducking out of sight, and he went under again himself, swimming along the side of the pool with his eyes open in the water. He could see neither of them.

  After thirty or forty seconds under the water he came up for breath. He came up just in time to see Ellen climbing the ladder out of the water. He splashed after her.

  “Where’s Doris?” Ellen asked him.

  He climbed out and stood beside her, looking around the pool. Doris was not to be seen among the fifteen or twenty persons in the water.

  “Maybe she’s gone into the bathhouse,” he said.

  Ellen’s fingers caught his, closing over his hand.

  “No,” she said, trembling all over. “No, she didn’t go into the bathhouse. She couldn’t have, because I’ve been watching all the time.”

  Jim walked hurriedly around the pool, searching each face in the crowd. When he got back, he sat down on a bench. Ellen dropped beside him.

  “Where is she, Jim?” Ellen said.

  “She’s all right,” he said. “She’ll show up in a minute.”

  “But she wouldn’t go off like this, Jim.”

  Jim laughed.

  “Maybe she didn’t like it because I was in the water with you so long,” he said. “She’ll be back as soon as she gets over it.”

  Ellen drew away from him, moving to the other end of the bench.

  “I shouldn’t have let you,” she said, covering her face with her hands. “I didn’t know what I was doing. It was my fault. I should have known better.”

  He got up and left her to go to the refreshment stand. He brought back two cones of ice cream and sat down on the bench.

  “I wouldn’t have hurt Doris for anything in the world,” Ellen said, covering her face.

  “You didn’t hurt her,” Jim insisted. “She just went into the bathhouse.”

  Ellen tried to eat the ice cream, but she could not swallow it. She handed the cone back to Jim and ran into the bathhouse. She was back in less than a minute.

  “Doris isn’t in the locker room, Jim, but her clothes are!” she cried.

  Jim ran to the pool and tried to see down into the bottom of it. The people all around him were diving and splashing in the water.

  He began to tremble.

  “Jim!” Ellen cried. “Something has happened to Doris!”

  “How could anything happen to her. She can swim as good as I can. What makes you think something happened?”

  Ellen screamed.

  The guard who had been sitting in a chair reading a magazine jumped to his feet and ran towards them.

  “What’s the matter with you people?” he said.

  “A girl is missing!” Ellen cried excitedly. “Doris isn’t here. I haven’t seen her for nearly half an hour.”

  The guard ran to the drain tap and opened the outlet. The water began to sink immediately.

  By that time a dozen or more persons had begun diving and searching in the ten-foot depth. Jim and Ellen stood on the edge, leaning over as far as they could, watching.

  When the water had drained to the four-foot mark, somebody said something. He went under the water and came up slowly. Jim jumped into the pool and felt under the water with his hands. Together they brought up the body of a girl. It was Doris.

  When she had been carried out of the pool and stretched on the ground, Ellen began crying. The guard had already begun working over Doris, and somebody had thought to call an ambulance.

  Doris’s rubber bathing cap had slipped off her head, and her long brown hair was tangled around her, Jim jumped into the water and began searching frantically for the rubber cap while the guard worked over Doris. Jim could think of nothing else to do.

  In spite of the guard’s determined attempt to resuscitate her, Doris was already dead when they lifted her on the stretcher and placed her in the ambulance.

  Jim slumped down in a corner of the bathhouse. No one saw him there, an
d long after everybody else had hurriedly dressed and left, he was still there. The lights had been turned off when he opened his eyes.

  Feeling his way outside, he did not think of changing into his clothes. He walked outside into the parking lot where his car was standing. When he remembered that his keys were in his clothes inside the bathhouse, he started walking towards town without another thought. If the keys had been anyplace else, he would have gone for them; but he could not turn his face again in the direction of the swimming pool.

  He finally got home, but he could not remember how he had managed to find his way when he could recall nothing that had taken place since leaving the parking lot. The hall light was burning as they had left it, and he found an unlocked window through which he managed to climb inside.

  Stumbling through the house from room to room, he at last fell on his hands and knees on the floor, and a moment later he felt himself fall over on his side. The last thing he remembered doing was wondering if Ellen would be there when he woke up.

  (First published in Kneel to the Rising Sun)

  A Woman in the House

  MAX CLOUGH WAS getting along well enough until Elam went away over the week end. Max had his winter’s wood in, his house was sawdust-banked against the frost, and there was a good supply of pumpkin wine in the cellar. He had settled himself for a good three months’ rest and he thought Elam had done the same. Both of them knew that winter was coming, as the ground was frozen every morning, and the sun was already beginning to set in the intervale by two o’clock.

  But Elam went away over the week end. He went off without coming to tell Max about it, and he left early Saturday morning before it was light enough for Max to see him go.

  Only a few days before, Max had gone across the road and talked for an hour or longer, but Elam had not said a word about going away. He had not even said that he was thinking of taking a short trip. They had talked about how dear money was getting to be, and how much improved the mail delivery was since Cliff Stone had taken over the route through the intervale, and about the prospects for a new State highroad through the town. But Elam had said nothing about his going away over the week end. That was the reason why Max was upset Saturday morning when he went across the road to see Elam a moment, and found that the house was locked and that the shades were drawn.