They stood there, the four of them, in the middle of the restaurant, and slowly, everyone had turned to stare at them.
Kin felt a worm of terror leave its home and seek warmth elsewhere. It crawled toward his brain as he saw the eyes of the men in the restaurant fasten on them. He knew what they saw: a nigger, a nigger’s woman, and two little pickaninnies.
He shuddered. It was not entirely from the cold.
Alma, behind him, drew in a deep breath.
Then, the thick-armed counterman, leaning across the Formica counter-top, furrowed his brow and said, very carefully, so there was no chance for misinterpretation, “Sorry, fella, we can’t serve you.”
Then all the suppressed hopes that this time, just this one time of such importance, it would be different, that someone would let it slide, disappeared. It was going to be another battleground, in a war that had never really been fought.
“It’s pretty bad out there,” Kin said, “we thought we might get something hot to warm us up. We’ve been driving all day, all the way from—”
The counterman cut him off with a harsh Midwest accent, not a trace of drawl in it. “I said: I’m sorry but we don’t serve Negroes here.” The way he said it was a cross between Negro and nigger. His voice was harder.
Kin stared at the man: what sort of man was it?
A thick neck supporting a crew-cut head. It looked like some off-color, fleshy burr on the end of a toadstool stem. Huge shoulders, bulging against the lumberjack shirt, and a pair of arms that said quietly musclebound and muscled. Kin was sure he could take the counterman.
But there were others. Four men, obviously truckers, with their caps slanted back on their heads, their eyes coolly inquisitive, their union buttons on the caps catching the glow of the overheads.
And a man and woman at the end of the counter. The woman’s pudgy face was screwed up in distate. She was a southerner, no question. They were able to look at you in a way like no other way. They were smelling hog maws and chitterlings and pomade. Even if it wasn’t there.
Even as they talked, a waitress came out from the kitchen, carrying a plate with steak and home fried potatoes on it. She stopped in an awkward midstride and stared at the newcomers. Her head jerked oddly and she turned to the counterman. “We don’t serve ’em, Eddie,” she said, as though he had never known this fact.
“That’s what I been telling ’em, Una. See, fella, we—uh—we don’t serve your people here. Gas, we got it, but that’s it.”
“It’s winter out there,” Kin said. “My wife and kids—”
The counterman reached down and took something from under the bar that he kept concealed. “You don’t seem to hear too good, fella. What I said was: we ain’t in business for you.”
“We need a room for the night, too,” Alma inserted, a quavering bravado in her voice. She knew they would get nothing, and it was her way of having them turned down for everything, not just a lousy meal. Kin winced at her petty game-playing.
“Say, now, get outta here!” the waitress yelled. Her face was a grimace of outrage. Who were these darkies, anyhow?
“Take it easy, Una, just take it easy. They’re goin’. Ain’tcha, fella?” He came out from behind the bar, holding the sawed-off baseball bat loosely in his left hand.
Kin backed away.
It was going to be fight this big ofay, and maybe get his brains knocked out, and even then not getting food and sleep, unless it was at the county jail…or going back to the car, and the cold.
There could be little decision in the matter.
“Let’s go, Alma,” he said. He reached behind him and opened the door. The cold struck him suddenly, sharply, like a cobra; he felt his teeth clench in frustration and pain.
Eddie, the counterman, advanced on them with the ball bat and his arms like curlicued sausages of great size. “G’wan now, and don’t be makin’ me use this on yer.”
“Is there a colored place near here?” Kin asked, as Alma grabbed Raymond and slipped past into the darkness.
“No…and there ain’t gonna be, if we c’n help it. We got a business to run here, not for you people. G’wan to Illinois, where they treat a nigger better’n a white man.”
He came on again, and Kin backed out, closing the door tightly, staring at the 7-Up decal on the door. Then the wind raced down the neck of his coat, and he hurried to the car.
The three of them were huddled together in the front seat.
“Daddy, I gotta go pee-pee,” Patty said.
“Soon, honey. Soon,” he murmured at her, sliding in. He turned the key in the ignition and for a moment he did not think the overheated, then chilled motor would start. But it kicked over and they pulled ahead, past the forms of the trucks, like great white whales sleeping in shoals of snow.
The road was worse now.
Cars were strewn on either side of the dual lane like flotsam left after the tide. Kin Hooker bent across the wheel, slipping automatically into the rib-straining position he had known all day.
His thoughts were clear, now.
For almost two years now, since they had started the idea, he had been undecided. Certainly it would be decisive, and a new world, and worth fighting for. But so many would be killed, so many, many, many who were innocent, and who had nothing to do with this war that had never been fought.
But it was all right, now. He had received his instructions, and he was going to make that conclave in Chicago. Somehow, he would drive that distance.
And even if he didn’t. Even if he and Alma, Raymond and Patty should overturn out here, if they should freeze to death, or be cracked up, there would be others. Many others, all heading to Chicago this day, and all waiting for the final word.
It was coming.
Nothing could stop it.
They had done it their way for so long, so terribly long, and now the time had come for a change of owners. It had come to this and there was no stopping it. He had been uncertain before, because he was not a man of violence…but suddenly, it was right. It was the way it would be, because they had forced it this way.
Kin Hooker smiled as he studied the disappearing highway.
Like a million other dark smiles that night, across a white countryside.
A wide, white smile in a dark face.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © Foreword by Frank M. Robinson; copyright © 1961 by Frank M. Robinson. Renewed, © 1989 by Frank M. Robinson.
Introduction: “The Children of Nights” by Harlan Ellison; copyright © 1975 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, © 2003 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
“Final Shtick” by Harlan Ellison; copyright © 1960 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, © 1988 by Harlan Ellison. “Gentleman Junkie” (originally published as “Night Fix”) by Harlan Ellison; copyright © 1960 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, © 1988 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
“May We Also Speak?” by Harlan Ellison; copyright © 1959 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, © 1987 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
“Daniel White for the Greater Good” by Harlan Ellison; copyright © 1961 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, © 1989 by Harlan Ellison.
“Lady Bug, Lady Bug” by Harlan Ellison; copyright © 1961 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, © 1989 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation. “Free with This Box!” by Harlan Ellison; copyright © 1958 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, © 1986 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
“There’s One on Every Campus” by Harlan Ellison; copyright © 1959 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, © 1987 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
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br /> “At the Mountains of Blindness” by Harlan Ellison; copyright © 1961 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, © 1989 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
“This Is Jackie Spinning” by Harlan Ellison; copyright © 1959 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, © 1987 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
“No Game for Children” by Harlan Ellison; copyright © 1959 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, © 1987 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
“The Late, Great Arnie Draper” by Harlan Ellison; copyright © 1961 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, © 1989 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
“High Dice” by Harlan Ellison; copyright © 1961 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, © 1989 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation. “Enter the Fanatic, Stage Center” by Harlan Ellison; copyright © 1966 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, © 1994 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
“Someone Is Hungrier” (published under the pseudonym “Pat Roeder”) by Harlan Ellison; copyright © 1960 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, © 1988 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
“Memory of a Muted Trumpet” by Harlan Ellison; copyright © 1960 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, © 1988 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
“Turnpike” by Harlan Ellison; copyright © 1966 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, © 1994 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
“Sally in Our Alley” by Harlan Ellison; copyright © 1966 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, © 1994 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
“The Silence of Infidelity” by Harlan Ellison; copyright © 1957 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, © 1985 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
“Have Coolth” by Harlan Ellison; copyright © 1959 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, © 1987 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
“RFD #2” (originally published as “For Services Rendered”) by Harlan Ellison and Henry Slesar; copyright © 1957 by Harlan Ellison and Henry Slesar. Renewed, © 1985 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation and Henry Slesar.
“No Fourth Commandment” (originally published as “Wandering Killer”) by Harlan Ellison; copyright © 1956 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, © 1984 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
“The Night of Delicate Terrors” by Harlan Ellison; copyright © 1961 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, © 1989 by Harlan Ellison.
Copyright © 1961, 1975, 1983 by Harlan Ellison
Renewed © 1989, 2003 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation
Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media
ISBN 978-1-4976-0465-0
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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Gentleman Junkie and Other Stories of the Hung-Up Generation Page 26
