Part One-3
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Listen, he said. "The trouble with you is that you dont have any real kindness. Not but one woman Fve ever known had this real kindness Im talking aboutWell, Ive known you to do things no man in this world would be proud of. Ive known you to------’Or maybe its curiosity I mean. You dont ever see or notiything important that goes on. You never watd think and try to figure anything out. Maybe thats the biggest differeween you and me, after all.’
Alice was almost asleep again, and through the mirror he watched her with detat. There was no distinctive point
about her on which he could fasten his attention, and his gaze glided from her pale brown hair to the stumpy outline of her feet beh the cover. The soft curves of her face led to the roundness of her hips and thighs. When he was away from her there was no oure that stood out in his mind and he remembered her as a plete, unbroken figure.
"The enjoyment of a spectacle is something you have never known, he said.
Her voice was tired. "That fellow downstairs is a spectacle, all right, and a circus too. But Im through putting up with him.’
Hell, the man dont mean anything to me. Hes ive or buddy of mine. But you dont know what it is to store up a whole lot of details and then e upon something real. He turned o water and quickly began to shave.
It was the m of May , yes, that Jake Blount had e in. He had noticed him immediately and watched. The man was short, with heavy shoulders like beams. He had a small, ragged mustache, ah this his lower lip looked as though it had been stung by a . There were many things about the fellow that seemed trary. His head was very large and well-shaped, but his neck was soft a..nd slender as a boys. The mustache looked false, as if it had been stu for a e party and would fall off if he talked too fast. It made him seem almost middle-aged, although his face with its high, smooth forehead and wide-open eyes was young. His hands were huge, stained, and calloused, and he was dressed in a cheap white-linen suit. There was something very funny about the ma the same time another feeling would not let you laugh.
He ordered a pint of liquor and drank it straight in half an hour. The at one of the booths and ate a big chi dinner. Later he read a book and drank beer. That was the beginning. And although Biff had noticed Blount very carefully he would never have guessed about the crazy things that happened later. Never had he seen a man ge so many times in twelve days. Never had he seen a fellow drink so much, stay drunk so long.
Biff pushed up the end of his h his thumb and shaved
his upper lip. He was finished and his face seemed cooler.
Alice was asleep when he went through the bedroom on the way downstairs.
The suitcase was heavy. He carried it to the front of the restaurant, behind the cash register, where he usually stood each evening. Methodically he glanced around the place. A few ers had left and the room was not so crowded, but the set-up was the same. The deaf-mute still drank coffee by himself at one of the middle tables. The drunk had not stopped talking. He was not addressing anyone around him in particular, nor was anyone listening. When he had e into the place that evening he wore those blue overalls instead of the filthy linen suit he had been wearing the twelve days. His socks were gone and his ankles were scratched and caked with mud.
Alertly Biff picked up fragments of his monologue. The fellow seemed to be talking some queer kind of politics again.
Last night he had been talking about places he had been—about Texas and Oklahoma and the Carolinas. Once he had got on the subject of cat-houses, and afterward his jokes got so raw he had to be hushed up with beer. But most of the time nobody was sure just what he was saying. Talk—talk—talk.
The words came out of his throat like a cataract. And the thing was that the at he used was always ging, the kinds of words he used. Sometimes he talked like a linthead and sometimes nice a professor. He would use words a foot long and then slip up on his grammar. It was hard to tell what kind of folks he had or art of the try he was from. He was always ging. Thoughtfully Biff fohe tip of his here was no e. Yet e usually went with brains. This man had a good mind, all right, but he went from ohing to another without any reason behind it at all.
He was like a man thrown off his track by something.Biff leaned his weight on the ter and began to peruse the evening neer. The headliold of a decision by the Board of Aldermen, after four months deliberation, that the local budget could not afford traffic lights at certain dangerous interses of the town. The left ed on the war in the Orient. Biff read them both with equal attention. As his
eyes followed the print the rest of his senses were on the alert to the various otions that went on around him. When he had fihe articles he still stared down at the neer with his eyes half-closed. He felt nervous. The fellow roblem, and before m he would have to make some sort of settlement with him. A<cite></cite>lso, he felt without knowing why that something of importance would happen tonight. The fellow could not keep on forever.
Biff sehat someone was standing irand he raised his eyes quickly. A gangling, towheaded youngster, a girl of about twelve, stood looking in the doorway. She was dressed in khaki shorts, a blue shirt, and tennis shoes—so that at first glance she was like a very young boy. Biff pushed aside the paper when he saw her, and smiled when she came up to him.
Hello, Mick. Been to the Girl Scouts?’
No, she said. I dont belong to them.’
From the er of his eye he noticed that the drunk slammed his fist down on a table and turned away from the men to whom he had been talking. Biffs voice roughened as he spoke to the youngster before him.
Your folks know youre out after midnight?’
Its O.K. Theres a gang of kids playing out late on our block tonight.’
He had never seen her e into the place with anyone her own age. Several years ago she had always tagged behind her older brother. The Kellys were a good-sized family in numbers. Later she would e in pulling a couple of snotty babies in a wagon. But if she wasnt nursing to keep up with the bigger ones, she was by herself. Now the kid stood there seeming not to be able to make up her mind what she wanted. She kept pushing back her damp, whitish hair with the palm of her hand.
Id like a pack of cigarettes, please. The cheapest kind.
Biff started to speak, hesitated, and then reached hisIShand ihe ter. Mick brought out a handkerchief and began untying the knot in the er where she kept her money. As she gave the knot a jerk the ge clattered to the
floor and rolled toward Blount, who stood muttering to himself. For a momeared in a daze at the s, but before the kid could go after them he squatted down with tration and picked up the money. He walked heavily to the ter and stood jiggling the two pehe nickel, and the dime in his palm.
Seventees farettes now?’
Biff waited, and Mick looked from one of them to the other.
The drunk stacked the money into a little pile on the ter, still proteg it with his big, dirty hand. Slowly he picked up one penny and flipped it down.
Five mills for the crackers who grew the weed and five for the dupes who rolled it, he said. A t for you, Biff. Theried to focus his eyes so that he could read the mottoes on the nickel and dime. He kept fingering the two s and moving them around in a circle. At last he pushed them away. And thats a humble homage to liberty. To democrad tyranny.
To freedom and piracy.’
Calmly Biff picked up the money and rang it into the till.
Mick looked as though she wao hang around awhile. She took in the drunk with one long gaze, and theurned her eyes to the middle of the room where the mute sat at his table alone. After a moment Blount also glanow and then in the same dire. The mute sat silently over his glass of beer, idly drawing oable with the end of a burnt matchstick.
Jake Blount was the first to speak. Its funny, but I been seeing that fellow in my sleep for the past three or fhts. He wont leave me alone. If you ever noticed, he never seems to say anything.’
It was seldom that Biff ever discussed one er with another. No, he dont, he answered nonittally.
Its funny.’
Mick shifted her weight from one foot to the other and fitted the package of cigarettes into the pocket of her shorts. Its not funny if you know anything ahout him, she said. Mister Singer lives with us. He rooms in our house.’
Is that so? Biff asked. I declare—I didnt know thatMick walked toward the door and answered him without
looking around. "Sure. Hes been with us three months now.’
Biff unrolled his shirt-sleeves and then folded them up carefully again. He did not take his eyes from Mick as she left the restaurant. And even after she had been gone several minutes he still fumbled with his shirt-sleeves<q>.</q> and stared at the empty doorway. Then he locked his arms across his chest and turned back to the drunk again.
Blount leaned heavily on the ter. His brown eyes were wet-looking and wide open with a dazed expression. He needed a bath so badly that he stank like a goat. There were dirt beads on his sweaty ned an oil stain on his face. His lips were thid red and his brown hair was matted on his forehead. His overalls were too short in the body and he kept pulling at the crotch of them.
Man, you ought to know better, Biff said finally. You t go around like this. Why, Im surprised you havent been picked up francy. You ought to sober up. You need washing and your hair needs cutting. Mod! Youre not fit to walk around amongst people.’
Blount scowled and bit his lower lip.
Now, dont take offense a your dander up. Do what I tell you. Go ba the kit ahe colored boy to give you a big pan of hot water. Tell Willie to give you a tolenty of soap and wash yourself good. The you some milk toast and open up your suitcase and put you on a shirt and a pair of britches that fit you. Then tomorrow you start doing whatever yoing to do and w wherever you mean to work araightened out.’
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