by William Gay
You can’t drink that beer here. Did you not know that?
No.
You can only drink it where you bought it at or outside the city limits. You are well inside the city limits. You with Hobart’s bunch?
Yes.
You want to drink beer, set in the pool hall and drink it or take it home with you.
All right.
Where you from?
Not here, Edgewater said.
I don’t want to see you again with one opened.
All right.
When the cop had gone he finished the rest of the beer and slid off the truck and followed the railroad tracks back toward town. He didn’t know what time it was but the light was dimming down and there was still no sign of a sun anywhere. The rain still fell. Two men were arguing in the alley beside the poolhall. Just hit me you son of a bitch, one of them said. You hit me, the other said, and you’ll think a boxcar fell on you.
They stopped to watch Edgewater’s passage.
You want some of this? one of them called out.
Fuck you, Edgewater said.
Lights were on at the Dreamland Theater. The grandmother and her charge were scrutinizing the posters. A whitehatted cowboy with a guitar in one hand and a smoking pistol in the other. They bought tickets and went in. When the side doors opened Edgewater could smell popcorn, hear the sound of gunfire.
Outside the movie, three boys sat on the curb solemn and silent.
What goes on here on Saturday night, he asked them.
Both smaller boys looked toward the biggest. He chewed and swallowed. Oncet in a while they’s a fight or a cuttin, he said.
Edgewater said that was about what he expected.
Briefly that night he took in a dance. The Rambling Mountaineers were playing at a converted roller rink near the outskirts of town. He could hear the fiddles and the stomping and the raucous laughter and it drew him on to where cars ringed the old building and drunks staggered up and down the high steps.
He decided it was not worth seventy-five cents to see if the old woman and girl were inside. He doubted it. Anyway he could hear from outside: the song changed, became plaintive, mournful. When the warship left Manila, headin to deep blue sea, deep blue sea. She’s my Filipino baby.
A drunk woman swung onto his arm, pressed a bottle into his hand. Hello, sweetie, she said. A smell of perfume, splo whiskey, then worse. She staggered, fell to the ground, began to vomit. We’ve got to stop meeting like this, Edgewater told her, began to wipe vomit off his shoes. A man came up and helped her rise, gave Edgewater a malevolent look. Edgewater pocketed the bottle, moved on.
He did not know how he had failed to think of the movie theater. When the show let out they spilled out with the rest, onto the sidewalk, attended by moths, eyes blinking in the unaccustomed light. They moved toward the waiting truck, Edgewater straggling along behind. They were among the first. A few women. Children, eyes still numb from the vision they had seen. A far land of red sunsets and purple mountains, heroines with unimpeachable virtue, lawmen who shot pistols that invariably inflicted only flesh wounds. Then a few drunks began to stagger up to the truck. Looking about to see was there anybody needed whipping.
The old woman and the girl and Edgewater sat on a bench formed by a plank inserted between the slats of the sideboards, some curious family portrait, harridan with progeny, perhaps.
You going to church tomorrow?
No, the old woman said.
I may, the girl told him.
Where’s the church?
She began to tell him. He hardly listened. He was devising a plan for getting her out that night. Perhaps in the dewy cotton rows. His blanket. So sweet. So sweet.
Let’s get it loaded, the driver called. Edgewater turned to look. It was not his employer but a new driver, bigger, a hefty man with muscled arms and a length of leaded broomstick cocked out of the back pocket of his overalls. People began to climb onto the truck. A fat man half made it, toppled backward to stare openeyed at the sky. He was hefted and slid into the back of the truck.
Edgewater had never seen such an outstanding and rich variety of drunks, even in the Navy. There were mean drunks, happy drunks, crying drunks, drunks with jokes that needed telling, drunks with puke on their clothes and their flies unzipped, drunks trying to seduce other men’s wives and other drunks trying to hold onto what they had. He began to believe everyone on the truck was drunk save the old woman and the girl. He had a foreboding of disaster and considered walking but remained where he was. Then the old woman arose and pulled the girl erect and wended her toward the back where the women and children were, Edgewater following. He was standing against the girl and he could feel her breast against his arm, a scarcely perceptible weight. She turned slightly, increased the pressure, he fancied he felt the nipple erect through her blouse.
It took some time to get a headcount.
Clyde ain’t come, a woman said.
We’ll wait a minute, the driver said. They waited awhile and then they left without Clyde.
They eased out of town, a cattle truck of Saturday night revelers drifting toward Sunday morning. They were scarcely past the city limits when a scuffle broke out near the front of the truck. There were squeals, curses, feet struggling for balance in the slewing truck bed. Someone began to pound on the cab of the truck, bong, bong, bong. The truck pulled over to the side of the road and ceased and the driver got out into the moonlight.
All right, what’s the matter?
Fightin, a woman said.
Who is it?
Pug, another said.
Pug what’s your trouble?
There was silence.
Family trouble, the first woman said.
Pug, can you hold it in till you get home? Cause if you can’t I’m comin up there and pitch you over the side. Now what’s it goin to be?
There was a pause. Go ahead on, Pug said.
They moved on. Edgewater was standing against the girl, felt her hip leant into his thigh.
Angry voices arose. Goddamn good for nothin slut, Pug screamed. There were sounds of blows and the thick press of bodies leaned away from the fight like water filling in an overturned bottle and he felt her close and electric against him. Someone banged on the cab with a fist.
This time the driver did not inquire as to what the problems there might be. He slammed the door and climbed up the tailgate. The people parted for his easy passage. He grabbed Pug and shoved.
You son of a bitch, Pug said. He had his hand in his pocket.
The driver had the stick out. Come ahead. It’s some people want to go to bed, he said.
Pug had lit on hands and knees and now arose covered with dust. Pearl, you get your ass off of there.
It’s a long way home, she said from the dark of the front. I reckon I’ll just ride.
Anybody else want to walk? the driver asked. This is the last call, the next bunch won’t be able. He waited. No volunteers? All right then.
As the truck commenced to pick up speed Edgewater felt someone shove him and looked down for a brief moment into the face of the old woman then he was fighting for balance leaning horrified out over the fleeing road. There was white billowing dust, patches of grass dark as deep waters. He lit running and felt his knees dig into his chest and felt his arms flailing wildly and he fell face forward into the dust. He ran a few steps after it. Hey, he yelled. Hey. He ceased running and went over to the side of the road and rolled his pants up and began to inspect himself for injuries. His knees were scraped and raw and his right elbow was cut and had a trickle of black blood welling from it.
After a minute or two he saw Pug beside the road, dragging his feet in the dust and talking to himself. Goddamn slut, he was saying. He fetched up short when he saw Edgewater. Where the hell’d you come from?
That old woman pushed me off.
Pug sat down in the road and held his sides and began to laugh.
After a time Edgewater said, What was the fight about?
<
br /> Pug stopped laughing abruptly. What’s it to you?
Not one goddamned thing, Edgewater said. Just forget I asked, all right?
Well. Since you got to know. I reached down to grab Pearl’s pussy and it was a man’s hand already there. I’m headed right now to kill em where they lay. Pug grew silent for a time. Then he asked, You ain’t got ary drink have ye?
No, Edgewater said, then he remembered. Yes I have. He pulled the bottle out and handed it to Pug. Pug drank deeply and then sat clasping the bottle between his knees. He was sitting hunkered in the road like some grass bird perched atop a wire. After a while Edgewater noticed that he was watching him.
It wadn’t you, was it?
What?
Was it you had his hand on Pearl’s pussy?
Son of a bitch, Edgewater said. I was way in the back.
Let me see your hand. Whoever it was had a ring on. Pug had his knife out.
Edgewater arose and held his hand out in the moonlight and showed him no ring. Pug sat back down and sat holding the knife in one hand and the bottle in the other. I’m gonna rest a minute and then I’m goin on, he said. To hell with em.
Edgewater had turned and began to walk up the moonlit road. In the pale light the dust looked like trackless snow.
Hey buddy, wait up.
I got to get on, Edgewater said without turning.
Get on where?
No reply.
Hey don’t you tell em I’m comin, Pug called across the widening distance.
Soon Pug was lost to his sight. The road wound, fenced and walled in by brush. It dipped, bordered by trees, into a wood. He trudged on. His footfalls became loud to his ears. He feared there were eyes on him, beasts about, footfalls coinciding with his, noises aloft at his scent. Nightmare beasts of fearful myth moving malign and hydrophobic just beyond his sight. Then at last the bowering trees fell away and he followed the road into open country, silver in the summer, starlit, the road bound on he knew not where.
A bewenned hand pulled aside the curtains, goldrimmed glasses leaned to see what fresh hell this was. Beyond the rainwashed glass she saw a green Studebaker parked beneath the chinaberry tree in the front yard, a thin man already coming purposefully up the brick walk. He was carrying a white oblong box.
She let him knock several times before she opened the door. When she did she opened it a bare crack, she could see the man in a white shirt and a blue suitcoat standing there leaned toward the door to get his head out of the rain but all Roosterfish saw was one myopic gold-rimmed eye. She could see that he looked harmless and that he only had the one hand that clutched the cardboard box.
Who are you? She opened the door a little wider.
I’m Robert Goforth, ma’am. Reverend Goforth. I’m here with good news for you.
I could use it, she said, stepping aside to let him enter. He eased into the room, eyes scanning so swiftly it seemed only a glance, but he’d catalogued everything of value in it and he’d ascertained that there was no son or son-in-law about.
All right bring your good news on in here, she said. I’ll let you know ahead of time if it’s something you’re selling and the good news is it’s marked half off, I tell you I don’t want it.
You’re a right tart-tongued grandma ain’t you? Roosterfish thought. No ma’am, I’m not a salesman, he said. Except that we’re all salesmen in the spread of God’s word. I’m with the Unified Church of the Aftermath of God’s Righteous Wrath.
He sometimes became bored with the same churches all the time and allowed himself to be a little creative. Sometimes he tried to see how outrageous he could become without being called on it. He had never been called previous and he wasn’t called on it now.
That looks like a book. Is that a book?
Just so there’s no confusion, he said. Are you Mrs. Clarence Ashton?
I’m Bertha Ashton.
If we could sit down we’ll see, he began, looking about the room.
I don’t see any better sitting down, she said. Does pressure on your backside affect your eyesight?
He didn’t even have the Bible unboxed. Roosterfish could feel it all falling apart. He’d had a feel for these things and this one had disintegrated before she’d fully opened the door, it just wasn’t working, and it wasn’t going to suddenly start working. Just turn and go, he told himself. He remembered some old song, Hand me down my walkin cane, hand me down my watch and chain, ride that midnight train, and thought to himself, just get the fuck out of here, tip your hat and walk out the door and get in the goddamn car and stamp another Bible and roll down the line.
Instead he set the box on a chifferobe and worked onehanded, raised the lid and took up the box and tipped out a white leatherette Bible. He opened it to the frontispiece where an inscription had been stamped in gold leaf. He reached the book toward her.
She didn’t take it. What is it? she asked.
It’s from your loving Clarence, he said.
My loving Clarence is dead and in the ground, she said. What is it?
It’s a Bible personally inscribed to you, the Reverend Goforth said, and I’m aware that he’s passed on. But before he did he had the foresight to order this token of love, an especially designated Bible for you from the Standard Bible Company.
What does it say?
It says, for Bertha, my beloved wife of thirty years. Narrow is the path but bright is the way. Your loving husband, Clarence.
You may as well sit down a moment, she told him. I’ve got to think this over. Roosterfish laid the Bible on the chifferobe and crossed to a sofa with its arms covered with doilies.
She seated herself in an armchair facing across from him. There was a gilt sprinkled card on the wall behind her that said CHRIST IS THE INVITED GUEST AT EVERY MEAL.
You’re not from here, are you?
No ma’am, he said. I’m from back east of here. He was thinking she might offer him a cup of coffee, a cup of tea. Homebaked cookies. What he was actually thinking about was the bottle under the carseat and its unbroken seal but there was no hope of that. There was just something about Bertha Ashton that made him want a drink.
And you’re with this Standard Bible Company?
Yes ma’am.
I thought you were with the Unified Church of whatever it was.
Well, I’m on a sabbatical, getting out in the field, out with the lambs, so to speak.
I imagine you’ve sheared a lamb or two in your time, she said. If you were from around here you’d know more about Clarence. The way was never bright for him, or anyway he griped all the time, and he strayed from that narrow path more times than a few. But say that Bible’s mine free and clear.
Roosterfish was fumbling out the order form. Well, not exactly free and clear, he said. He scrutinized the ticket. There’s the matter of the balance, twenty-seven dollars and sixty-eight cents. He proffered her the ticket, she glanced at it in a cursory manner.
So what it amounts to is I’m paying twenty-eight dollars for a Bible for myself but I’m signing it from Clarence who’s been dead going on a year now.
Roosterfish couldn’t fathom how that happened. He’d read back issues of the county paper in the newspaper office and didn’t see how an obituary going on a year old had appeared in the paper with accounts of the newly dead. He’d made a list and inscribed the Bibles accordingly and here Clarence was already rotting in the ground, his Bible was just now being delivered. It didn’t say much for the efficiency of the Standard Bible Company, of which Roosterfish was sole owner and proprietor.
It took us a while to find you, he said. There was some misunderstanding about the address. It only just got straightened out.
She didn’t answer. She laid the invoice aside and opened the Bible and read the inscription. Roosterfish took heart. Her lips moved as she read. She hadn’t taken the book with the relish he’d anticipated but at least she was nibbling around it.
Maybe he had a change of heart, saw the error of his ways, Roosterfish said te
ntatively. Maybe in his last days he had a premonition that the end was near and he wanted to make amends.
Clarence wasn’t much on premonitions, she said, or he’d be here today for that matter. And he was even worse at making amends.
He studied her. She wasn’t as old as he’d first thought, the gray hair had deceived him. He saw now that she had dyed it silver gray, had it done in ringlets so alike they appeared to have been stamped from sheet metal at a ringlet factory. She was in her late fifties, maybe, and not unattractive from a more intimate angle, if slightly dumpy. The Reverend Goforth wondered if he ought to approach the business transaction in a more intimate fashion. But twenty-seven dollars and sixty-eight cents was a lot of money. He wouldn’t have kicked her out of bed, but then again he wouldn’t have expended much effort to drag her into one either.
I don’t feel right about not taking it if he wanted me to have it, she said at length. But I really can’t afford it. What’ll happen to it if I don’t pay the twenty-eight dollars?
I’ll have to send it back to the Bible company to be shredded, Roosterfish said. Grindin up God’s holy word is a sin and it don’t look good for a Bible company to be a party to it.
That’s the solution, she said. You just give me Clarence’s Bible and tell the company you shredded it.
It seemed to Roosterfish that in the last few minutes their conversation had gotten stranger and stranger. He studied her blond features as if he’d judge the depth of her guile. Something did not feel right. It was as if he’d gone along a wall tapping for solidity and tap it was solid here, then tap tap and there was the unmistakable sound of a hollow place. He wondered what was in the hollow place and he wondered whose leg was being pulled here and unless he was badly mistaken, and he didn’t think he was, he thought he’d felt a tentative tug or two on his own.
The hell with it, he thought. Sometimes you just have to go with the craziness. Just lay back and look at the ceiling and wait until it’s over. Let it roll.
Maybe you could just tear out the page with Clarence on it, she said craftily. And let them shred the rest of it?
