Roy was trying to say something. There was a pained expression on his face when he reached out and caught Ernie’s arm. “I want to explain, Ernie,” he said urgently. “It’s not all that easy—I mean the way you make it sound. I think I can fix it, but we’ll have to go slow. The first thing to do—”
“Get your shoes on, Joe!” Ernie yelled out, ignoring Roy. “It’s Saturday night again, son! I thought for a while the calendar was all shot to hell. Get a move on, Joe!”
“It’s going to take a little time,” Roy was trying to tell them. “You’ll have to be patient, Ernie.”
Ernie turned up the bottle and took a long drink from it. Then he slapped his hat on his head and flung the door open.
“Bud, maybe you don’t know me very well, but they’ll tell you all over that I’ve always been willing to cooperate by waiting just long enough. Where the hell are you, Joe!”
Joe Morningstar had his shoes on by that time, and he wrapped one of the bottles in a newspaper and followed Ernie and Roy down the hall to the elevator. They stopped in the lobby and bought cigarettes and three cigars for Joe before going out to the car in front of the Pineland.
After getting into the back seat of the sedan, Ernie slapped Roy on the shoulder. “What a night for three hometown boys to hell around, Blount! But I knew we couldn’t miss, didn’t you, Joe?”
“How could we miss when we’ve got a lodge brother to take care of things?” Joe readily agreed.
“That’s it!” Ernie shouted, jarring Roy with his hand. “We’re lodge brothers from the old hometown. Let’s get going, brother!”
Roy began to feel uneasy as soon as they left Peachtree Street and turned into Gwinnet Alley. He stopped the car half a block from the cabin where Aunt Hazel Teasley lived and switched off the lights. After that he sat there looking straight ahead and wishing he had never allowed himself to get into such a situation. If his wife had only agreed to let him bring Ernie and Joe to Sunday dinner, he could have gone back to the hotel that afternoon, had a few drinks, put them to bed, and then gone on home. He knew the longer he sat there, the more impatient Ernie and Joe would become now. He opened the door and stepped out to the ground, begging them to stay where they were and not to try to follow him.
He walked down the dark lane under the leafy water-oaks. There were several Negro children playing in the alley and he could hear other children farther away. He could see a Negro man and woman sitting on a doorstep, and others were seated in rocking chairs in the sandy yards. He walked slowly in the warm summer darkness. From all directions came the shrill, excited cries of children playing and the noisy blare of radios. When he got to the front of Aunt Hazel’s cabin, he stopped and looked at the ginkgo trees in the yard while he tried to think what he could do next. There was no one in the front yard or on the doorstep, but a lamp in the hallway cast a bright beam of light all the way to the gate. He turned around and leaned on the fence, hoping he had not been recognized, when a Negro man and a girl walked past.
He had been standing there for several minutes, still undecided about what to do, when he saw Ganus Bazemore coming up the alley from the direction of the grocery store. He walked over to the gate and stood in front of it so Ganus would not be able to go into the house before he could speak to him. Ganus recognized him right away.
“Good evening, Mr. Roy,” he said, coming closer.
“Good evening, Ganus,” he said, keeping his voice low. “How are you tonight?”
“I’m all right, Mr. Roy.” He paused before saying anything more. Then he cautiously inquired, “Are you down here looking for somebody, Mr. Roy?”
“Well, I just happened to be walking past here, Ganus,” he said quickly, trying to sound convincing. He leaned against the fence in an attitude of unhurried ease. “Is this where you live?” He nodded his head toward the small unpainted cabin behind the ginkgo trees.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Roy. This’s Aunt Hazel’s house. We all live here.”
Roy tried not to give the impression that he was in a hurry, and he drummed his fingers on a paling, trying to keep count of the seconds as they passed.
“Well, since I’m down here,” he said presently, “I’d like to speak to your sister, Ganus. If she’s at home, I mean. I’ll wait right here.”
“You want to see Kathyanne about something?”
“That’s right.”
“I’ll go tell her right away, Mr. Roy. I know she’s at home. And she’s been talking about hoping to get a steady job somewhere soon. She’s been looking all over town for steady work. You wait right here, Mr. Roy. It won’t take any time at all.”
Ganus opened the gate and ran into the cabin. Roy took out a cigarette, but, just as he was getting ready to strike a match, he heard voices on the other side of the alley and he threw the cigarette away. Just then he saw Kathyanne come to the door and look in his direction. She stood there a moment, before coming down the steps and walking slowly toward him at the gate. He waited until she was standing on the sidewalk before speaking to her.
“I guess Ganus told you I was out here, Kathyanne,” he began uncertainly. He wondered if he would ever be able to get around to telling her why he was there. “I happened to be down here, and I thought—” His voice faltered in the middle of what he was saying. He felt ill at ease in her presence, and he wondered what Ernie and Joe would say to her if they had been in his place.
“Yes, Mr. Roy?” she said, looking directly at him.
“That’s what I mean,” he muttered indistinctly, still groping for something to say. He wanted to sound casual and friendly. He had seen her at a distance several times before, usually when he was driving home from the mill and she was walking- along the street, but this was the first time he had ever spoken to her. He was surprised to see how good-looking she was, and he felt awkward standing there and not being able to talk to her naturally. He wished he could have stopped right there, and walked away. He had no idea how he could get away now, though, and the longer he waited, the more danger there was of Ernie and Joe coming down the alley. He wondered if he looked as much like a bashful schoolboy as he felt when he tried to smile at her. “How—how’re you tonight, Kathyanne?” he muttered.
“Oh, I’m just fine, Mr. Roy,” she answered so quickly that he was convinced she was reading his thoughts. “Do you want to see me about something?” He knew at once that he would never be able to forget how unmistakably innocent she had made the question sound. It made him feel as though he were betraying someone who had trusted him. “Was that why you came down here, Mr. Roy?”
“Well,” he said, wondering how he could answer the question, “that’s right.” He saw her smiling at his flustered appearance. “I did want to talk to you about something, Kathyanne.”
He was certain he saw a change come over her as she watched his nervous manner.
“What do you want to talk to me about, Mr. Roy?” she then asked forthrightly. “Is it about working at your house?”
“Well, not exactly—my wife usually—but it’s about something. I mean, it’s about something else.”
“About what?”
He took a step backward, at the same time nodding up the alley. “If we went up this way—we could talk better. There’s not so many people around—up that way.”
She hesitated at first, and then she walked past him. Roy hurried to catch up with her and they went past the next house in silence. Nothing was said until he suddenly glimpsed his car ahead.
“Kathyanne, I’d appreciate it a lot if you’d help me out,” he said earnestly. He grasped her arm in a tight grip to prevent her from getting away now. “This’s awfully important to me. I don’t know you very well, but I’ve heard a lot about you. A couple of lodge brothers came to town today, and I thought—”
“You thought what, Mr. Roy?”
“Well, these lodge brothers—they’re nice people—”
“What lodge do they belong to, Mr. Roy?” she asked without a trace of a smile. He stared a
t her bewilderedly. He was unable to decide whether or not she was being sarcastic. “What’s the name of the lodge, Mr. Roy?” she insisted. This time he thought he saw a fleeting smile on her lips.
“Well, it’s a hometown lodge. Anyway, just a lodge.”
“Do you belong to it, Mr. Roy?”
“Me?”
This time there was no doubt about it. She laughed outright at him.
“I guess so, Kathyanne,” he replied meekly. “Anyway,” he then said anxiously as he watched the sedan under the water-oak, “you’d be doing me a great favor. That’s how it is.”
“But, Ganus said—”
“He did?” he spoke up hastily, getting a tighter grip on her arm. By that time he was willing to promise anything. He could see Ernie and Joe opening the door of the sedan. “Jobs are a little scarce right now, Kathyanne. Everybody knows that. But something’ll be sure to open up for you soon. I’ll certainly keep it in mind. You can count on that. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day. Who knows?”
“Why are you asking me to do a favor for you, Mr. Roy?”
“Well, I did a favor for you not long ago, Kathyanne, and I thought maybe you’d appreciate it.”
“What favor did you do, Mr. Roy?”
“I got you out of jail a few weeks ago.”
She shook her head. “The judge let me off, Mr. Roy.”
He could feel her pulling away from him, and he held her with both hands. “The judge let you off because I paid your fine, Kathyanne.” He began urging her toward the car. “I heard Will Hanford talking about it in the post office, and I fixed it up with Will and sent the money over before court opened that morning. I paid that twenty-five-dollar fine for you.”
“I wish you hadn’t done it, Mr. Roy.”
“Why?”
“Because then you wouldn’t come down here and try to make me go off in that car.” She suddenly began struggling to free herself. “I hate you—all you white men! Why don’t you go after white girls—and leave us alone!”
He could see Ernie and Joe watching them from the rear seat, and he pulled her across the sidewalk.
Ernie jumped out and grabbed her.
“Look here!” Ernie said in a loud voice. “God damn, just look here, would you!”
He was glad to be able to turn her over to Ernie and be relieved of the responsibility. Ernie pushed Kathyanne into the car, got in behind her, and slammed the door shut. Roy walked around the front of the car and got under the steering wheel. As he started the engine, he wondered what Kathyanne thought of him at that moment. The fact that she was sitting silently in the rear seat hurt him more than she could have done by violently cursing him. He turned the car around and drove rapidly toward the country. They had gone eastward several blocks when Joe leaned over his shoulder.
“Turn this apparatus around, Roy,” Joe told him, chewing on the cigar stump.
He was planning to go to the fishing camp ten miles from town and he wanted to get there as quickly as possible. “Why, Joe?” he asked, slowing down.
“We’ve got to go back to the hotel and get some wet bottles, Roy. Ernie’s sucked this one dry.”
The empty bottle sailed past his head and through the open window. It crashed in a shower of glass on the pavement. Roy turned the car around in the middle of the block and drove back to the Pineland, carefully avoiding Peachtree Street and going through the alleys. The last thing he wanted to happen was for somebody to see him driving through town on a Saturday night with a mulatto girl in his car. He stopped at the rear of the hotel where the street was unlighted and switched off the engine while Joe went up to the room and got two more bottles of bourbon.
He was sitting there slumped in the seat, wondering what his wife would say if she ever found out what he had done, when Ernie hit him a jarring blow on the shoulder.
“Roy, bud, you’re a dream out of a bellyful of whipped cream,” Ernie said, shaking him. “I never thought you’d get up a decent party for us tonight. Why didn’t you tell me what was coming up? I couldn’t have got up a better party if I’d been doing it myself. But you sure had me and Joe worried sick all this time. And now you come through like a gentleman. I’ll bet you had this planned a month ago—didn’t he, Kathyanne? You had it all figured out in advance that two peckers like me and Joe would rather get our toes turned down on a Saturday night than have to go to your house for Sunday dinner and watch our talk in front of your wife. You’re one hell of a smart oil-and-meal operator, Blount. You know what? Well, I’ll tell you. You’ll end up owning that goddam cottonseed grinder out there one of these days. Believe me, it’s the smart boys like you who know how to climb that old tough titty of a ladder to success. You’re on your way up, bud, old pal, and I’m proud to know you. You can teach me a thing or two about getting ahead in this cockeyed world.” He jarred Roy again with his fist. “If it wasn’t for the wonderful people like you in it, the oil-and-meal business wouldn’t have no more romance than a virgin stuck in a zipper. Ain’t that right, brother?”
“I guess so, Ernie,” Roy said, slumping deeper into the seat.
Part Three
LATE AUTUMN
Chapter 9
SINCE A FEW MINUTES before eight that chilly autumn morning, Ganus had been trudging behind the creaking pushcart, hopefully stopping at house after house to ring the big brass dinner bell, and, when noon came, he was almost at the end of Woodbine Street in the west side of town.
The pavement had ended several blocks behind him, and a short distance ahead, where ragged brown stalks of the past summer’s cotton stood lifeless in the red clay earth, the country began. With the last house in sight, he bent over once more and wearily pushed the heavy cart down the street.
When he stopped, he reached for the brass bell in the cart and began ringing it in a mournful tolling rhythm. There he stood in the middle of the street shivering and shaking as the cold damp wind from the Piedmont in the north, sweeping over the low clay hills and sandy ridges under the leaden sky, flapped his faded patched overalls against his legs.
“I-c-y-m-i-s-s-y!” he called out in a doleful voice. “Here’s your i-c-y-m-i-s-s-y!”
Squeezing his arms against his body for warmth, he watched the dilapidated weather-gray dwelling expectantly to see if anybody would come to the door. It was a one-story shingle-roof breezeway of five rooms, with dusty-leaf Spanish bayonets, stunted and curled for want of care, standing gauntly at each side of the front steps. Blue wood-smoke was drifting southward from the kitchen chimney on the ell-side of the dogtrot, but there was no other sign of life about the place, and he wondered if Mrs. Kettles was at home to hear the bell. After a while the sound of the mournful tolling gradually died away as he put the bell back into the cart.
Walking as far as the gate, he cupped his hands around his mouth and called out again in the same doleful sing-song voice.
“I-c-y-m-i-s-s-y! Here’s your i-c-y-m-i-s-s-y!” He waited several moments, cocking his ear to hear the sound of the slightest movement inside the house, and then resumed the chant. “I-c-y-m-i-s-s-y! Here’s your i-c-y-m-i-s-s-y!”
He was heartened to see the flutter of a curtain as it was pulled aside at one of the windows, and then he caught a glimpse of a woman’s face. He unlatched the gate, stepped into the yard, and called with renewed persistence.
“I-c-y-m-i-s-s-y! Here’s your i-c-y-m-i-s-s-y!”
Just as he finished, the door opened several inches and he saw Mrs. Kettles looking out at him. Kitty was a young woman, not yet twenty-three, and of medium height; and as usual, in winter and summer alike, she was carelessly dressed. In the hot summer months she went about the house wearing a wrap-around apron and a flimsy pink brassiere. It now being the beginning of the cold months, she had already made a seasonal change. She had on a wrinkled mauve petticoat and, instead of a brassiere, a close-fitting emerald-green sweater that bulged conspicuously with her remarkably prominent breasts. She rarely left the house, but when she did go downtown, many men, unac
customed to such a display, and seeing her for the first time as she walked along the street, had been startled speechless by her extraordinary appearance; other men, suddenly remembering important business in the post office or at the drug store she patronized, followed her in order to convince themselves that her unique appearance was a natural development. During such trips downtown, Kitty invariably lost her temper completely and, in a language not often heard in Estherville, cursed at the small boys who ran along beside her gawking at such an unusual sight. The reaction of most of the wives, upon hearing Kitty Kettles described by their husbands, was either outright skeptical or bitterly sarcastic. Her straight, pale, blond hair always looked uncombed and, unless she were going out, she rarely bothered to keep it brushed back from her face.
Kitty was alone most of the time, because Levi Kettles was usually away from home hauling baled cotton on his trailer-truck to spinning mills in Augusta and Clearwater, and she sprawled in bed and read love-story and confession magazines hour after hour. Levi had seen her in a company town one day while he was trucking baled cotton to the mill and, after unloading, he drove back to the house to see if he had been daydreaming or if he had actually seen what he thought he had. He was amazed when he walked up the steps and had had a good look at her. Kitty liked his looks, too, and his bold manner, and it had been easy to persuade her to leave. After half an hour of his bantering talk and free promises, she had packed her best clothes in a suitcase, left word with a neighbor so her parents would not worry about her, got into the truck cab, and ridden away with Levi. They had been living together for about two years, and, although she had begged him many times to keep his promise, Levi was in no hurry to get married. He always told her that there was plenty of time to go to all that trouble later. Levi, a large burly man of thirty, was rough and loud-talking and accustomed to having his own way with women. Kitty had decided, from the first, that no matter how Levi treated her, she would be much better off staying with him than going back home and having to return to work in the spinning mill tending bobbins. Her parents had sent her to work when she was thirteen and she had been waiting for an opportunity to escape from mill life and the company town since she was eighteen. She considered herself lucky to have attracted Levi’s attention and to have made him want her enough to take her away with him. However she was lonely, and she cried in bed several times a day.