Light in August (23 page)

He met the waitress on the Monday night following the Saturday on which he had tried to pay for the cup of coffee. He did not have the rope then. He climbed from his window and dropped the ten feet to the earth and walked the five miles in to town. He did not think at all about how he would get back into his room.

He reached town and went to the corner where she had told him to wait. It was a quiet corner and he was quite early, thinking   
I will have to remember. To let her show me what to do and how to do it and when. To not let her find out that I dont know, that I will have to find out from her

He had been waiting for over an hour when she appeared. He had been that early. She came up on foot. She came and stood before him, small, with that air steadfast, waiting, downlooking, coming up out of the darkness. “Here you are,” she said.

“I got here soon as I could. I had to wait for them to go to sleep. I was afraid I would be late.”

“Have you been here long? How long?”

“I dont know. I ran, most of the way. I was afraid I would be late.”

“You ran? All them three miles?”

“It’s five miles. It’s not three.”

“Well, say.” Then they did not talk. They stood there, two shadows facing one another. More than a year later, remembering that night, he said, suddenly knowing   
It was like she was waiting for me to hit her
   “Well,” she said.

He had begun now to tremble a little. He could smell her, smell the waiting: still, wise, a little weary; thinking   
She’s waiting for me to start and I dont know how
   Even to himself his voice sounded idiotic. “I reckon it’s late.”

“Late?”

“I thought maybe they would be waiting for you. Waiting up until you…….”

“Waiting for……. Waiting for…….” Her voice died, ceased. She said, not moving; they stood like two shadows: “I live with Mame and Max. You know. The restaurant. You ought to remember them, trying to pay that nickel…….” She began to laugh. There was no mirth in it, nothing in it. “When I think of that. When I think of you coming in there, with that nickel.” Then she stopped laughing. There was no cessation of mirth in that, either. The still, abject, downlooking voice reached him. “I made a mistake tonight. I forgot something.” Perhaps she was waiting for him to ask her what it was. But he did not. He just stood there, with the still, downspeaking voice dying somewhere about his ears. He had forgot about the shot sheep. He had lived with the fact which the older boy had told him too long now. With the slain sheep he had bought immunity from it for too long now for it to be alive. So he could not understand at first what she was trying to tell him. They stood at the corner. It was at the edge of town, where the street became a road that ran on beyond the ordered and measured
lawns, between small, random houses and barren fields—the small, cheap houses which compose the purlieus of such towns. She said, “Listen. I’m sick tonight.” He did not understand. He said nothing. Perhaps he did not need to understand. Perhaps he had already expected some fateful mischance, thinking, ‘It was too good to be true, anyway’; thinking too fast for even thought:
In a moment she will vanish. She will not be. And then I will be back home, in bed, not having left it at all
   Her voice went on: “I forgot about the day of the month when I told you Monday night. You surprised me, I guess. There on the street Saturday. I forgot what day it was, anyhow. Until after you had gone.”

His voice was as quiet as hers. “How sick? Haven’t you got some medicine at home that you can take?”

“Haven’t I got…….” Her voice died. She said, “Well, say.” She said suddenly: “It’s late. And you with four miles to walk.”

“I’ve already walked it now. I’m here now.” His voice was quiet, hopeless, calm. “I reckon it’s getting late,” he said. Then something changed. Not looking at him, she sensed something before she heard it in his hard voice: “What kind of sickness have you got?”

She didn’t answer at once. Then she said, still, down-looking: “You haven’t ever had a sweetheart, yet. I’ll bet you haven’t.” He didn’t answer. “Have you?” He didn’t answer. She moved. She touched him for the first time. She came and took his arm, lightly, in both hands. Looking down, he could see the dark shape of the lowered head which appeared to have been set out of line a little on the neck when she was born. She told him, halting, clumsily, using the only words
which she knew perhaps. But he had heard it before. He had already fled backward, past the slain sheep, the price paid for immunity, to the afternoon when, sitting on a creek bank, he had been not hurt or astonished so much as outraged. The arm which she held jerked free. She did not believe that he had intended to strike her; she believed otherwise, in fact. But the result was the same. As he faded on down the road, the shape, the shadow, she believed that he was running. She could hear his feet for some time after she could no longer see him. She did not move at once. She stood as he had left her, motionless, downlooking, as though waiting for the blow which she had already received.

He was not running. But he was walking fast, and in a direction that was taking him further yet from home, from the house five miles away which he had left by climbing from a window and which he had not yet planned any way of reentering. He went on down the road fast and turned from it and sprang over a fence, into plowed earth. Something was growing in the furrows. Beyond were woods, trees. He reached the woods and entered, among the hard trunks, the branchshadowed quiet, hardfeeling, hardsmelling, invisible. In the notseeing and the hardknowing as though in a cave he seemed to see a diminishing row of suavely shaped urns in moonlight, blanched. And not one was perfect. Each one was cracked and from each crack there issued something liquid, deathcolored, and foul. He touched a tree, leaning his propped arms against it, seeing the ranked and moonlit urns. He vomited.

On the next Monday night he had the rope. He was waiting at the same corner; he was quite early again. Then
he saw her. She came up to where he stood. “I thought maybe you wouldn’t be here,” she said.

“Did you?” He took her arm, drawing her on down the road.

“Where are we going?” she said. He didn’t answer, drawing her on. She had to trot to keep up. She trotted clumsily: an animal impeded by that which distinguished her from animals: her heels, her clothes, her smallness. He drew her from the road, toward the fence which he had crossed a week ago. “Wait,” she said, the words jolting from her mouth. “The fence——I cant——” As she stooped to go through, between the strands of wire which he had stepped over, her dress caught. He leaned and jerked it free with a ripping sound.

“I’ll buy you another one,” he said. She said nothing. She let herself be half carried and half dragged among the growing plants, the furrows, and into the woods, the trees.

He kept the rope, neatly coiled, behind the same loose board in his attic room where Mrs McEachern kept her hoard of nickels and dimes, with the difference that the rope was thrust further back into the hole than Mrs McEachern could reach. He had got the idea from her. Sometimes, with the old couple snoring in the room beneath, when he lifted out the silent rope he would think of the paradox. Sometimes he thought about telling her; of showing her where he kept hidden the implement of his sin, having got the idea, learned how and where to hide it,
from her. But he knew that she would merely want to help him conceal it; that she would want him to sin in order that she could help him hide it; that she would at last make such a todo of meaningful whispers and signals that McEachern would have to suspect something despite himself.

Thus he began to steal, to take money from the hoard. It is very possible that the woman did not suggest it to him, never mentioned money to him. It is possible that he did not even know that he was paying with money for pleasure. It was that he had watched for years Mrs McEachern hide money in a certain place. Then he himself had something which it was necessary to hide. He put it in the safest place which he knew. Each time he hid or retrieved the rope, he saw the tin can containing money.

The first time he took fifty cents. He debated for some time between fifty cents and a quarter. Then he took the fifty cents because that was the exact sum he needed. With it he bought a stale and flyspecked box of candy from a man who had won it for ten cents on a punching board in a store. He gave it to the waitress. It was the first thing which he had ever given her. He gave it to her as if no one had ever thought of giving her anything before. Her expression was a little strange when she took the tawdry, shabby box into her big hands. She was sitting at the time on her bed in her bedroom in the small house where she lived with the man and woman called Max and Mame. One night about a week before the man came into the room. She was undressing, sitting on the bed while she removed her stockings. He came in and leaned against the bureau, smoking.

“A rich farmer,” he said. “John Jacob Astor from the cowshed.”

She had covered herself, sitting on the bed, still, down-looking. “He pays me.”

“With what? Hasn’t he used up that nickel yet?” He looked at her. “A setup for hayseeds. That’s what I brought you down here from Memphis for. Maybe I’d better start giving away grub too.”

“I’m not doing it on your time.”

“Sure. I cant stop you. I just hate to see you. A kid, that never saw a whole dollar at one time in his life. With this town full of guys making good jack, that would treat you right.”

“Maybe I like him. Maybe you hadn’t thought of that.”

He looked at her, at the still and lowered crown of her head as she sat on the bed, her hands on her lap. He leaned against the bureau, smoking. He said, “Mame!” After a while he said again, “Mame! Come in here.” The walls were thin. After a while the big blonde woman came up the hall, without haste. They could both hear her. She entered. “Get this,” the man said. “She says maybe she likes him best. It’s Romeo and Juliet. For sweet Jesus.”

The blonde woman looked at the dark crown of the waitress’ head. “What about that?”

“Nothing. It’s fine. Max Confrey presenting Miss Bobbie Allen, the youth’s companion.”

“Go out,” the woman said.

“Sure. I just brought her change for a nickel.” He went out. The waitress had not moved. The blonde woman went
to the bureau and leaned against it, looking at the other’s lowered head.

“Does he ever pay you?” she said.

The waitress did not move. “Yes. He pays me.”

The blonde woman looked at her, leaning against the bureau as Max had done. “Coming all the way down here from Memphis. Bringing it all the way down here to give it away.”

The waitress did not move. “I’m not hurting Max.”

The blonde woman looked at the other’s lowered head. Then she turned and went toward the door. “See that you dont,” she said. “This wont last forever. These little towns wont stand for this long. I know. I came from one of them.”

Sitting on the bed, holding the cheap, florid candy box in her hands, she sat as she had sat while the blonde woman talked to her. But it was now Joe who leaned against the bureau and looked at her. She began to laugh. She laughed, holding the gaudy box in her bigknuckled hands. Joe watched her. He watched her rise and pass him, her face lowered. She passed through the door and called Max by name. Joe had never seen Max save in the restaurant, in the hat and the dirty apron. When Max entered he was not even smoking. He thrust out his hand. “How are you, Romeo?” he said.

Joe was shaking hands almost before he had recognised the man. “My name’s Joe McEachern,” he said. The blonde woman had also entered. It was also the first time he had ever seen her save in the restaurant. He saw her enter, watching her, watching the waitress open the box. She extended it.

“Joe brought it to me,” she said.

The blonde woman looked at the box, once. She did not even move her hand. “Thanks,” she said. The man also looked at the box, without moving his hand.

“Well, well, well,” he said. “Sometimes Christmas lasts a good while. Hey, Romeo?” Joe had moved a little away from the bureau. He had never been in the house before. He was looking at the man, with on his face an expression a little placative and baffled though not alarmed, watching the man’s inscrutable and monklike face. But he said nothing. It was the waitress who said,

“If you dont like it, you dont have to eat it.” He watched Max, watching his face, hearing the waitress’ voice; the voice downlooking: “Not doing you nor nobody else any harm……. Not on his time…….”   He was not watching her nor the blonde woman either. He was watching Max, with that expression puzzled, placative, not afraid. The blonde woman now spoke; it was as though they were speaking of him and in his presence and in a tongue which they knew that he did not know.

“Come on out,” the blonde woman said.

“For sweet Jesus,” Max said. “I was just going to give Romeo a drink on the house.”

“Does he want one?” the blonde woman said. Even when she addressed Joe directly it was as if she still spoke to Max. “Do you want a drink?”

“Dont hold him in suspense because of his past behavior. Tell him it’s on the house.”