by James Ross
Smut and I didn’t cook any more than we had to. Sometimes we would make Catfish cook us up a batch of stuff, but he hated to do it, because we always made him wash his hands. Most of the time we just lived out of tin cans. It was sorry eating. I had aimed to cook up some eggs that night, but when they went into the back to play poker I knew there wasn’t any chance of getting Smut out front to watch the business while I cooked. When I saw him come out eating that peanut-butter crap I knew he wasn’t interested in a cooked supper anyway. I opened a can of sardines and got a handful of crackers.
I sat there inside till eleven o’clock that night. I listened to the radio part of the time. The rest of the time I just sat there and thought. Business was slow. I sold gas to a couple of fellows and about half a dozen pints of liquor to some kids that had their girls out on Lover’s Lane. One boy and his girl got a pint about seven-thirty and then came back for more about the time I closed up. He was a grocery store clerk in Corinth. The girl worked in a beauty parlor there. He always wore clothes to make him look like a College Joe. Pants too short, coat too tight in the waist, and a hat that looked like it was something the cats drug up and then put a feather in. He said the liquor didn’t seem to do the girl much good.
‘She don’t loosen up a damn bit,’ he complained to me.
‘Maybe she’s got a girdle on,’ I said.
‘What?’ he said.
‘Try some corn liquor,’ I told him. So he bought a pint of corn. But he must have been pretty dumb. Everybody in town had had that girl except me, and now him. Things looked bad for the boy if he couldn’t loosen up that girl.
About eleven o’clock I got sleepy and went into the room where we slept. The game was still going on. I didn’t hear them talking any, but I could hear the cards. I sat down on Smut’s cot and was untying my shoes when Smut said, ‘That you in there, Jack?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Come on back, Jack,’ he said. I could tell from the way his voice sounded that he was in a better humor. I retied my shoes and went back there.
They were using the kitchen table to play on. Smut was sitting up straight in his chair; Wilbur was at ease, and Bert Ford was leaning over the table, with his chin resting in the palm of his left hand. I looked at the edges of the cards. I don’t think they were from one of the shaved decks. I guess Smut wouldn’t risk that with Bert and Wilbur.
Smut looked up when I came in. ‘Jack, I’m hungry as a dog,’ he said. ‘You can beat me cooking. How about scrambling a few eggs and making a pot of coffee?’
I lit the wicks on the stove and got out a frying-pan. I went to the box where we kept the eggs and Smut looked over his shoulder at me. ‘Get eight or ten eggs. Fix enough for all of us,’ he said.
Wilbur Brannon held up his hand. I was standing behind him and he held a Jack and two treys. ‘No, thanks, don’t fix any for me,’ he said. ‘I’m going back to town in a minute.’
Bert Ford leaned over to the side and spat in the slop bucket. ‘Don’t fry none for me,’ he said. ‘I’m quittin right now. I got to go home. Ain’t hungry noway.’ He sounded pretty glum and I knew he’d lost some. I took three eggs out of the box and broke them into the frying-pan.
Bert Ford got up and pushed back his chair. He walked to the back door and opened it. ‘See you all again,’ he said, and went out. Wilbur said he believed he’d stay on and have a cup of coffee. As soon as I finished the cooking, I went back into the other room and lay down on my mattress bed.
It wasn’t long before Smut came in and sat down on the foot of his cot.
‘Win anything?’ I asked him.
‘A little,’ he said, but he sounded pretty cheerful. ‘I won a little. Enough to make up for them lint heads running off before they lost all they’d won off the other lint heads this morning.’
‘You must be going good if you can win from those two birds,’ I said.
‘I had a feeling I could take them guys tonight,’ he said. ‘As a rule they’re poison. But hell’s bells, what I took off them tonight ain’t a drop in the bucket. They both got plenty money.’
‘Wonder how they got it,’ I said.
Smut kicked his shoes against the wall. ‘God knows; I don’t,’ he said. ‘What I’d like to know is a way to separate them from it.’
5
THE NEXT DAY SMUT took the pick-up and went to Charlotte. He left about nine o’clock and told me he’d be back sometime before night. He didn’t tell me his business in Charlotte.
It was the usual Monday. Sold a little gas. Wiped a lot of windshields and filled up radiators with water. I listened to the radio awhile, but it wasn’t long before the only programs I could get were inspirational programs that told you how to get more out of life. I shut it off and went outside to my nail keg.
I was sitting there smoking and thinking when Catfish came up. I was aggravated to see him because I had an idea he’d want to talk the rest of the morning. It was a warm day, but he had on a blue sweater underneath his overall jacket. He came up to where I was, and flopped down on the ground.
‘How you, Mr. Jack?’ he said.
‘I’m all right,’ I said. I tried to make it sound cold. But Cat was a mighty hard nigger to freeze out
‘Mr. Jack,’ he said, ‘you ain’t got a match, is you?’
I gave him a paper book of matches. He began fumbling around in his overall jacket. He turned the pockets as close to inside out as he could, then he went to fishing around in his pants pockets. Finally he took his hat off and scratched his head. ‘Confound my soul!’ he said. ‘I done come off and left my sack of tobacco to the house. You ain’t got a cigarette, is you, Mr. Jack?’
I gave him a cigarette. I ought to have gone in the store and got him a sack of tobacco and charged it to him. But the way I felt right then I’d rather give him the cigarette than go open up the books.
He got the cigarette lit and he looked mighty contented flopped down there in the dirt, with smoke all around him like a brushpile on fire. He took his hat off and threw it down on the ground beside him and propped himself up on his elbow. I noticed the shape of his face; it was like a wedge.
‘Sho is fine weather we havin,’ he said.
I kind of grunted. ‘But not much good for makin liquor,’ he went on. ‘Little too dry. Kinda dangerous havin a fire out in the woods this dry weather. Smoke show up mighty clear too.’
He smoked on awhile and I didn’t open my mouth to him. Finally he said: ‘Where Mr. Smut? Ain’t he here today?’
‘No.’
‘Where he gone to?’
‘Gone to Charlotte.’
‘I be dog! Gone to Charlotte! I use to live in Charlotte. Didn’t stay there long. Didn’t like it.’
I saw I was going to have to knock him in the head or listen to him. ‘How come you didn’t like Charlotte?’ I asked him.
‘I don’t like that there niggertown they got in Charlotte. We use to live on a creek; Sweet Creek they calls it there. But I never called it no Sweet Creek.’
‘What’d you call it?’
Catfish spat over his shoulder. ‘Sonofabitchin Creek,’ he said.
‘How come you called it that?’
‘On account that there dang creek gits outen the banks and rises up in all them nigger houses. Ever time use to come a rain the water git three foot deep in the house.’
‘Whyn’t you complain to the landlord?’ I asked him.
‘Don’t do no good. Landlord say, “If you don’t like it, git out.” But them was the only kind of house a pore nigger can git in Charlotte.’
‘I think Wilbur Brannon has got some shacks in Charlotte,’ I said. ‘I wonder how much he gets out of them.’
‘If he’s got many he gits plenty,’ Catfish said. ‘Plenty money. Them landlords puts up a little bark house what don’t cost nothin and they don’t paint nothin nor fix up nothin. They don’t never make no repairs neither. They don’t pay no taxes to amount to a hill of beans cause them houses is listed mighty low on the
tax books. But they gits they rent outen them just the same. Why, one man had fourteen nigger houses right there together on that there Sonofabitchin Sweet Creek and not but one garden house for all that bunch! You had to hold yourself in and watch your chanct.’
‘I reckon Wilbur makes a pretty good thing out of his houses, then,’ I said. ‘He’s a strange bird to me. I always wondered where he got his money.’
Catfish was in a smoking notion that day. He raised up and said, ‘Got air nother cigarette you could spare me, Mr. Jack?’ I gave him another one, and he went on. ‘Mr. Brannon got money, but not like that there Mr. Bert Ford.’
‘I’ve heard Bert had money,’ I said, ‘but he don’t spend it like Wilbur Brannon does. Bert always wears overalls and drinks corn liquor. He’s just a country jake.’
‘May be a country jake, but he got the money just the same,’ Catfish said. ‘I use to live on Mr. Bert’s place one year. I know he got the money. He got it buried.’
‘Buried?’ I said. ‘Where’s it buried?’
‘He don’t say. But one night he tell me he done buried thutty thousand dollar.’
‘Hello!’ I said. ‘I didn’t know he talked like that.’
‘Don’t as a ginral rule,’ Catfish said. ‘He made an “O” out of his mouth and tried to blow smoke rings, but didn’t do much at it.’
‘How come him to do it this time?’ I said.
‘Well, I tell you. He been on a long drunk like he use to git on before his liver got mortified on him. He been drunk for the most part, for six months this here time I’m talkin about. And one evenin to’ards sundown I was over to his house to see about gittin a mule the next day to bust out middles with. I come up to the back door and frammed on it. I frammed and I called and finally, lo and behold! Here come a shotgun bar’l pokin out the door at me. Just a Long Tom shotgun bar’l. Well, sir, the day had been ungodly hot, but I tuk and had a chill right then. I was mawtally froze, I was so skeered. Then I see Mr. Bert behind the gun bar’l. He was white as a bed sheet and the draps of sweat standin out on his face like draps of water on a greased watermelon. “What you want, you devil outen hell?” he says to me. I was too skeered to speak right off, but atter awhile I kinda whispered: “Lawd God! Mr. Bert, I don’t want nothin!”
‘He seen who I was then and he says to me: “Well, it ain’t nobody but Catfish Wall. I swear to God I thought you was Tom Flake.” Now, Mr. Jack, I don’t know no Tom Flake and never heered tell of him. “Yes, sir, I thought you was Tom Flake come to git my money.” That was what he said.’
‘That wasn’t telling you he had thirty thousand dollars buried,’ I said.
Catfish spat. ‘That ain’t all,’ he said. ‘Wait till I git through. He made me come in the house and gimme a drink of powerful strong yaller liquor. He kept that there gun lyin acrost his lap all the time. I seen it was cocked too. “He’s been a-hangin around here,” Mr. Bert says, “a-tryin to git me to tell him where I got my thutty thousand dollar buried. But I ain’t a-goin to tell him.” Then Mr. Bert would laugh like some crazy woman. “I’m goin to give the son-of-a-bitch a bate of birdshot,” he says. “Come by the money—it don’t make no difference how—and now it’s my money. I’ll fight for it to the death,” he says.’
‘He was just drunk,’ I said.
‘Cose he was drunk. He was havin delicious trembles. But that don’t make no difference. He done got money and he got it buried.’
‘How’d you manage to get away from him that night?’ I said.
‘By settin there half the night, till he passed out cold as a cucumber. Atter the first two drinks I wa’n’t in no special discomfort. That was hellish strong liquor Mr. Bert was drinkin.’
‘He didn’t tell you much about his money,’ I said.
‘He talk about it right much that night, off and on. Always say the same identical thing. Thutty thousand dollar. Buried.’
‘He never did say where it was buried, though, did he?’
‘Well, not exactly. Ever time he start to git off on that he git to cussin and complainin about the snakes and alligators and such truck.’
‘What snakes and alligators?’
‘Confound if I ever do know. He claim the room was full of snakes and such varmints. He’d say: “Catfish, git this here dang pilate offen my year. Knock this cottonmouth out from under the cheer,” he’d say. “Look at that there alligator sneakin up the side of the wall. But I can’t shoot him,” he’d say. “I got to keep my gun loaded for that there Tom Flake.” I went over to where he was settin, but I couldn’t see no snakes. I humored him, though; I batted round with my hands and tuk the broom and knocked on the wall and acted like I was sweepin the snakes outen the room. That was some time we had that night!’
‘I’ll swear!’ I said. ‘Does he go on drunks like that now?’
‘Not that long,’ Catfish said. ‘His liver won’t stand for it now.’
I sat there thinking about Bert Ford and wondering if he told Catfish the truth, or if Catfish was just yarning. I quit talking to him, and finally he got discouraged and went out and talked to the carpenters.
I figured he was lying to me, but I wasn’t sure. Bert Ford always had plenty of cash on him. One time one of his croppers killed another nigger and they set his bond at a thousand dollars. Bert went to Corinth and pulled out the money, for it was during the busy season and he needed the nigger. Bert must have thought the nigger could beat the case anyway, and he did.
I kept studying about what Smut had said the night before, when he was getting into bed: ‘What I’d like to know is a way to separate them from it.’ That was what I wanted to know too. I needed money worse than Smut did. He was in pretty good shape. I needed money to pay off LeRoy Smathers. After I got that paid I could use considerable for other things. I didn’t like to work for another man. I wanted some place of my own, even if it wasn’t anything but a hot-dog stand. Still I knew I couldn’t get enough money to open up anything, working for twenty-five dollars a month. And I couldn’t see any way of making more than that.
Catfish hung around till that afternoon. He charged a can of salmon and a box of crackers to his account and made his dinner off that. About two o’clock he loaded up his old car with five hundred pounds of sugar and left. I reckon he came up there aiming to get Smut or me to haul a load of sugar down to his place on the pick-up, because we could haul more on that. But when Smut hadn’t shown up after noon Catfish decided to go on with part of a load. He had some beer that needed to have sugar put in it.
It was late when Smut got back. He drove the truck back of the filling station and left it there. He came around to the front and sat down in the door, beside me.
‘Well, I got practically everything lined up today,’ he said. ‘I’m just about ready for the big opening now.’
‘When you aim to be ready?’ I said.
‘In a couple of weeks, at the outside. I got the men coming in here tomorrow to build them tourist cabins. And the new part is going to be ready for us to move in day after tomorrow.’
‘How long will it take them to remodel this filling station into a dance hall?’ I asked him.
‘Not long. They ought to finish it in less than a week. I got a load of fixtures coming in here tomorrow. And the men to put them in.’
He had it sized up just about right. Two weeks from that day we could have had the big opening night. But that would have made it on a Monday and that wasn’t a good time. People wouldn’t have had time to get straightened out from the past week-end. So Smut put it off till Saturday of that week. We spent the rest of the week putting on the finishing touches.
It was a different-looking place after the carpenters got through and the painters finished painting it. The new building was closer to the paved highway than the filling station had been. Smut hired Sam Durkin to take his barn-moving machinery and pull the old filling station over beside the new part. Then the filling station was worked over and made into a dance hall.
In the fr
ont of the roadhouse you would have thought you were in one of these high-toned grills in a big town. Everything was all fixed up, with the floor polished, and the booths on one side. The booths were made out of dark brown wood and there was a little light right over each booth. On the other side from them there was a counter with stools in front of it. In front of the counter we had two big, shiny urns for coffee, and up in the front, next to the door, there was the cash register. Over the booths and up next to the ceiling there were two big pictures painted on the wall. Smut hired some pointed-mustached Italian or Greek to come out there and paint them. This bird wore a tan-colored Mother Hubbard while he painted and he sung songs in some foreign language. There wasn’t much tune to the songs, or it may be that he just couldn’t carry a tune. He was a mighty fast painter and had the pictures finished before one o’clock that afternoon. One of them was a picture of a lake, that was bordered with pale green trees. The water in the lake was blue and the sky above was blue too, with little cottony-looking clouds in it. Underneath it, it said, ‘Under Italian Skies.’ So I reckon the man was an Italian. The other picture was of two women taking a bath in a little creek. Underneath this picture it said, ‘Morning Ablutions.’ One of the women had a locket hung around her neck. They were good-looking women, but a shade heavy.
In the back there was a good-sized kitchen with plenty of cooking tools and a range that was long as the average room. And Smut had bought enough dishes and knives and forks and spoons to take care of an army. I wondered if he’d ever make enough money out there to pay for it all.
The dance hall looked very high class. I wasn’t a good dancer, but Smut and Catfish spent about half their time till Saturday waltzing over that floor. We had a nickelodeon in there, and Smut would put in a nickel and then he’d grab Catfish around the waist and they’d go to town. Smut led—he was a good dancer—and Catfish could follow good as any woman in Corinth. That nigger was loose as a goose. Sometimes Catfish would get out by himself and buck-dance. He spent a lot of time that week dancing when he ought to have been off making liquor.
