“E-eleven! Shoot four bits.”
“You’re faded! Snake eyes! Let the eight bits ride?”
“C’mon, Little Joe!”
“Ninety days in the calaboose! Let it ride!”
The bottle went around. The door began banging open and shut. The cloak room became crowded, murky with cigarette smoke. The music had stopped.
Suddenly pandemonium broke loose: the rising wail of a fire siren, the shrieks of whistles from the cotton gins scattered about the countryside, the crack of pistols and rifles and the duller boom of shotguns. On the veranda girls shrieked and giggled.
“Happy New Year!” said Walter viciously. Max glared at him, shucked off his coat and ripped his collar open.
“Lemme in that game!” he snarled.
A tall man with beautifully ridged hair had just sauntered past the open door. On his arm hung a lithe girl with honey-colored hair.
By three o’clock, Maxwell had won a hundred and forty dollars and broken the game. One by one the gamblers arose, stiffly, like people who have been asleep. The music was still droning along but the cloak room was full of flapping overcoat sleeves. Youths adjusted their ties, smoothed their already patent-leather-smooth hair.
“Is it over?” asked Maxwell.
“Damn near it!” grunted Walter.
Fat Hap White sidled in through the door. Behind him was Jornstadt, his face flushed, hesitant.
“That Princeton guy sure can put away the likker,” grunted a voice behind Max. “He’s still got a quart flask of prime stuff, too.”
Hap White eased up beside Maxwell, speaking in a low voice.
“That license you got, Max,” he hesitated.
Maxwell gave him a cold look. “What license?’
Hap dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief. “You know, that marriage license for you and Doris. We — we want to buy it, since you won’t be needing it yourself.”
“I ain’t selling, and it wouldn’t do you any good if you did have it. It’s got the names already written in it.”
“We can fix that,” wheedled Hap. “It’s easy, Max. Johns — Jornstadt. See? They look alike on paper and there wouldn’t anybody expect a county clerk to be able to write so you could read it. See?”
“Yes, I see,” said Maxwell quietly, very quietly.
“It’s all right with Doris,” urged Hap. “Look, here’s a note she sent.”
Max read the unsigned scrawl in Doris’ childish hand: “You leave me be, you old bigamist!” He scowled blackly.
“What say, Max?” persisted Hap.
Maxwell’s lean jaw set grimly.
“No, I won’t sell it; but I’ll shoot Jornstadt for it — the license against his flask.”
“Aw, come on, Max,” protested Hap, “Jornstadt ain’t no crap shooter. He’s a Northerner. He don’t even know how to handle the dice.”
“Best two out of three, high dice,” said Max. “Take it or leave it.”
Hap pattered over to Jornstadt, muttered a few words. The Princeton man protested, then agreed.
“All right,” said Hap. “Here’s the flask. Put the license beside it on the floor.”
“Where’s the dice?” asked Maxwell. “Who’s got some dice? Peter, gimme that set of yours.”
The darky rolled the whites of his eyes. “My dice — they ain’t — they—”
“Shut up and give them here!” blazed Maxwell. “We won’t hurt ’em. C’mon!”
Peter fished them from his pocket.
“Here, lemme show you, Jornstadt,” exclaimed Hap White.
Jornstadt handled the dice awkwardly. He fumbled them onto the floor. A five and a four showed.
“Nine!” chortled Hap. “That’s a good roll!”
It was plenty good. The best Max could get was three and four — seven. The first round went to Jornstadt.
Max won the next one, however, nine against five. He clicked the dice together.
“Shall I go on shootin’?” he asked Jornstadt.
The Princeton man looked inquiringly at Hap White.
“Sure, it’s all right,” said Hap. “Let him shoot first.”
Clickety-click! The dice tumbled from Maxwell’s hand, rolled over and over and stopped.
“Whoopeee!” cheered Walter Mitchell under his breath. “Two fives! That’s a winner!”
“Any use for me to shoot?” asked Jornstadt.
“Sure, take your roll,” said Hap gloomily, “but you ain’t got no more chance than a female in a frat house.”
Jornstadt fumbled the dice awkwardly from hand to hand. He tossed them out. A five showed. The other cube spun dizzily on a corner for a spine-crawling moment and settled. Maxwell stared at the six black dots winking at him like spotty-eyed devils.
“Osky-wow-wow!” shrilled Hap White. “A natural!”
Jornstadt picked up the dice and glanced inquiringly about.
“Do I win?” he asked.
“Yes, you win,” replied Maxwell evenly. He began putting on his collar. Jornstadt handed the dice to the pop-eyed Peter. “Thank you,” he said. He sauntered from the room with the gleeful Hap White, stuffing flask and license into his pocket.
The room was very still as Maxwell walked to the mirror and began adjusting his tie. One by one the youths slipped out. Maxwell was left alone. He glared into the mirror.
He heard somebody muttering to himself in the little wash room back of the partition. He recognized Peter’s voice.
“Lawdy! Lawdy!” sounded the darky’s querulous tones. “He jest nacherly couldn’ta made no ‘leben wiff dem bones, kase dey ain’t no sixes on ’em! Dem’s special bones. He jest couldn’t! But he did! I wish I knowed how to shoot crap like he don’t know!”
Maxwell stared into the mirror, his lips slowly whitening. He reached to his hip pocket. The dull blue-black of an automatic pistol winked back at him from the mirror. He hesitated, returned the gun to his pocket.
“I don’t want to get myself hung!” he muttered.
For long minutes he stood staring, the smoothness of his forehead wrinkled with the unaccustomed labor of intense thought. Peter still puttered around in the washroom.
Maxwell strode around the partition. He gripped the darky by the arm.
“Pete, I want you to get me something, and get it darned quick,” he snarled. “Listen—”
“But, Mistuh Max, that stuff’s blue lightnin’!” protested the darky. “That ain’t no drinkin’s for white gemmuns! All right, I’s a-gwin’! I’s a-gwin’!”
He was back in five minutes, with a fruit jar full of something that looked like water. Maxwell took it and shoved it into his coat pocket. A minute later Walter Mitchell came in with Jornstadt and Hap White. They had the flask.
Maxwell pulled out his fruit jar, unscrewed the cap and tilted it up.
“This is a man’s drink,” he said. “It ain’t colored water like that stuff!”
Jornstadt sneered. “I never saw anything I couldn’t drink,” he declared. “Gimme a swig!”
“Better leave it alone,” cautioned Maxwell. “I tell you it’s for men.”
Jornstadt flushed darkly. “Gimme that jar!”
Max handed it to him. Hap White caught a whiff and his mouth gaped open.
“That’s cawn likker!” he squeaked.
“Jornstadt, don’t you—”
Maxwell’s elbow caught him viciously in the throat. Jornstadt, the jar already tilted, did not notice. Hap gagged, gulped and subsided, shivering slightly under Maxwell’s baleful glare. Jornstadt gasped.
“Thought so,” nodded Max. “Can’t take it!”
“Who the hell says I can’t!” snarled Jornstadt, and the jar tilted again.
The orchestra was playing “Goodnight, Sweetheart,” when they left the coat room. Jornstadt’s eyes were slightly glazed and he held onto Hap White’s arm. Maxwell walked behind them, a thin smile on his lips. The smile was still there when he saw Jornstadt wobble to Hap White’s car, his arm around Doris.
“We
’re headin’ for Marley,” he heard Hap White say. Lucille, already in the car, giggled.
“Follow them!” Maxwell snarled at Walter Mitchell. Marley was twenty-two miles away. There was a justice of the peace at Marley.
Jornstadt was sagging limply, his head on his breast. His once immaculate shirt bosom had burst open. His collar was up around his ears. Doris and Lucille supported him in the careening car. Doris was whimpering:
“I don’t want to marry anybody. I want to go home. Old drunken bigamist!”
“You’ve got to go through with it now,” said Lucille. “Both your names are on it now. If you don’t it’ll be forgery!”
“It says Maxwell Jornstadt!” wailed Doris. “I’ll be married to both of them! It’ll be bigamy!”
“Bigamy isn’t as bad as forgery. We’ll all be in trouble!”
“I don’t wanna!”
The car slammed to a stop in front of a boxcar that had apparently got lost from its railroad. There were windows cut in it, and a door over which was a sign reading, “Justice of the Peace.”
“I don’t wanna be married in a boxcar!” whimpered Doris.
“It’s just like a church,” urged Lucille, “only there ain’t no organ. A J. P. isn’t a D. D., so he can’t marry you in a church.”
The boxcar door opened and a paunchy, oldish man carrying a flash light looked out. His nightshirt was thrust into his trousers. His braces were dangling.
“Come in! Come in!” he grumbled.
Walter Mitchell’s car slid up. Maxwell got out and strolled to Hap’s car.
Hap was pawing at Jornstadt; trying to rouse him.
“Let him be,” grunted Maxwell. “Get the license and give it to me. I’ll stand up for him.”
“I don’t wanna!” whimpered Doris.
They went into the boxcar. The J. P. stood with a large book in his hand. The light of an oil lamp yellowed their wan faces. The J. P. looked at Doris.
“How old are you, sister?” he asked.
Doris stared woodenly. Lucille spoke up quickly:
“She’s just eighteen.”
“She looks about fourteen and like she ought to be home in bed,” grunted the J. P.
“She’s been sitting up with a sick friend,” said Lucille.
The J. P. looked at the license. Lucille gulped in her throat.
“These names—” he began. Lucille found her voice.
“Doris Houston and Maxwell Johnstadt,” she said.
“Good God, don’t they even know their own names!” exclaimed the J. P. “This one looks like—”
Something suddenly nuzzled into the palm of his hand. Maxwell was standing beside him, very close. The thing that nuzzled the J. P.’s hand was the hundred and forty dollars Max had won in the crap game. The J. P.’s hands closed over the roll of bills like a tomcat’s claw over a mouse. He opened the big book.
“Come on,” Max told Doris three minutes later. “From now on you’re taking orders from me — Mrs. Johns!”
Lucille wailed. Hap White yammered. Jornstadt snored loudly in the tonneau of Hap’s car.
“Oh!” said Doris.
The cold light of a January morning was breaking as they reached the big, garish Houston house. There was already a car standing in front of it.
“That’s Doc Carberry’s Chrysler!” exclaimed Maxwell. “Do you reckon somebody—”
Doris was out and running before the car stopped. “If it is it’s your fault!” she wailed thinly over her shoulder: “Go away from me, you old bigamist.”
Maxwell followed her into the house. He heard Dr. Carberry say:
“He’ll be all right now, Mrs. Houston. I got it out; but it was a narrow escape.”
Doris was screaming at her mother:
“Mamma! I’m married, Mamma! Mamma! I’m married!”
“Married!” shrieked Mrs. Houston. “My God, ain’t we had enough trouble here tonight! Married! Who—”
She caught sight of Maxwell. “You!” she screeched, rushing at him, waving her pudgy hands. The diamonds on her fingers sent dazzling glints of light into his eyes. “You get out of here! Get out, I say! Get out!”
“We’re mar—” began Max. “I tell you—”
Mrs. Houston rushed him into the hall, screeched a final, “Get out!” and dived back into the parlor. The billowing form of the Negro maid suddenly appeared before Max. He gave back a step.
“De front door’s open,” said the Negress pointedly.
“What you talking about?” demanded Max. “I tell you we’re married, all right. We—”
“Ain’t you kicked up enough bobbery ‘round heah for one night?” demanded the Negress. “You get out now. Mebbe you telefoam t’morrow.”
“Telephone!” sputtered Max. “I tell you she’s my—”
“You to blame for it all!” glowered the Negress. “Leavin’ the needle stickin’ in de chair wheah anybody’d knowed de baby would get hold of it!”
She billowed forward. Max suddenly found himself on the front porch.
“Needle — baby—” he gurgled dazedly. “What — what—”
“You no ‘count good-fo’ nothin’! De baby he swallered it!”
The door closed in his face.
He started the car. It moved slowly away. “Telephone, hell,” he said suddenly. “She’s my—”
But he did not say it. An approaching car swung wide of him. He did not see it. He was fumbling in his pocket. At last he drew out a crumpled cigarette. Another car swerved wildly and barely missed Maxwell’s car.
The cruising driver saw only a big car moving with erratic slowness on the wrong side of the street driven by a young man in evening clothes at nine o’clock in the morning.
Afternoon of a Cow
Furioso, 1947
MR. FAULKNER AND I were sitting under the mulberry with the afternoon’s first julep while he informed me what to write on the morrow, when Oliver appeared suddenly around the corner of the smokehouse, running and with his eyes looking quite large and white. “Mr. Bill!” he cried. “Day done sot fire to de pasture!”
“ — —” cried Mr. Faulkner, with that promptitude which quite often marks his actions, “ —— those boys to —— !” springing up and referring to his own son, Malcolm, and to his brother’s son, James, and to the cook’s son, Rover or Grover. Grover his name is, though both Malcolm and James (they and Grover are of an age and have, indeed, grown up not only contemporaneously but almost inextricably) have insisted upon calling him Rover since they could speak, so that now all the household, including the child’s own mother and naturally the child itself, call him Rover too, with the exception of myself, whose practice and belief it has never been to call any creature, man, woman, child or beast, out of its rightful name — just as I permit no one to call me out of mine, though I am aware that behind my back both Malcolm and James (and doubtless Rover or Grover) refer to me as Ernest be Toogood — a crass and low form of so-called wit or humor to which children, these two in particular — are only too prone. I have attempted on more than one occasion (this was years ago; I have long since ceased) to explain to them that my position in the household is in no sense menial, since I have been writing Mr. Faulkner’s novels and short stories for years. But I long ago became convinced (and even reconciled) that neither of them either knew or cared about the meaning of the term.
I do not think that I anticipate myself in saying that we did not know where the three boys would now be. We would not be expected to know, beyond a general feeling or conviction that they would by now be concealed in the loft of the barn or stable — this from previous experience, though experience had never before included or comprised arson. Nor do I feel that I further violate the formal rules of order, unity and emphasis by saying that we would never for one moment have conceived them to be where later evidence indicated that they now were. But more on this subject anon: we were not thinking of the boys now; as Mr. Faulkner himself might have observed, someone should have been think
ing about them ten or fifteen minutes ago; that now it was too late. No, our concern was to reach the pasture, though not with any hope of saving the hay which had been Mr. Faulkner’s pride and even hope — a fine, though small, plantation of this grain or forage fenced lightly away from the pasture proper and the certain inroads of the three stocks whose pleasance the pasture was, which had been intended as an alternative or balancing factor in the winter’s victualing of the three beasts. We had no hope of saving this, since the month was September following a dry summer, and we knew that this as well as the remainder of the pasture would burn with almost the instantaneous celerity of gunpowder or celluloid. That is, I had no hope of it and doubtless Oliver had no hope of it. I do not know what Mr. Faulkner’s emotion was, since it appears (or so I have read and heard) a fundamental human trait to decline to recognize misfortune with regard to some object which man either desires or already possesses and holds dear, until it has run him down and then over like a Juggernaut itself. I do not know if this emotion would function in the presence of a field of hay, since I have neither owned nor desired to own one. No, it was not the hay which we were concerned about. It was the three animals, the two horses and the cow, in particular the cow, who, less gifted or equipped for speed than the horses, might be overtaken by the flames and perhaps asphyxiated, or at least so badly scorched as to be rendered temporarily unfit for her natural function; and that the two horses might bolt in terror, and to their detriment, into the further fence of barbed wire or might even turn and rush back into the actual flames, as is one of the more intelligent characteristics of this so-called servant and friend of man.
So, led by Mr. Faulkner and not even waiting to go around to the arched passage, we burst through the hedge itself and, led by Mr. Faulkner who moved at a really astonishing pace for a man of what might be called almost violently sedentary habit by nature, we ran across the yard and through Mrs. Faulkner’s flower beds and then through her rose garden, although I will say that both Oliver and myself made some effort to avoid the plants; and on across the adjacent vegetable garden, where even Mr. Faulkner could accomplish no harm since at this season of the year it was innocent of edible matter; and on to the panel pasture fence over which Mr. Faulkner hurled himself with that same agility and speed and palpable disregard of limb which was actually amazing — not only because of his natural lethargic humor, which I have already indicated, but because of that shape and figure which ordinarily accompanies it (or at least does so in Mr. Faulkner’s case) — and were enveloped immediately in smoke.
Complete Works of William Faulkner Page 693
