The sound and the fury
building and if I cant manage to live a civilised life outside of it
I’ll go where I can. I can stand on my own feet; I dont need any man’s
mahogany desk to prop me up. So just about the time I got ready to start
I’d have to drop everything and run to sell some redneck a dime’s worth
of nails or something, and Earl up there gobbling a sandwich and half
way back already, like as not, and then I found that all the blanks were
gone. I remembered then that I had aimed to get some more, but it was
too late now, and then I looked up and there Quentin came. In the back
door. I heard her asking old Job if I was there. I just had time to
stick them in the drawer and close it.
She came around to the desk. I looked at my watch.
“You been to dinner already?” I says. “It’s just twelve; I just heard it
strike. You must have flown home and back.”
“I’m not going home to dinner,” she says. “Did I get a letter today?”
“Were you expecting one?” I says. “Have you got a sweetie that can
write?”
“From Mother,” she says. “Did I get a letter from Mother?” she says,
looking at me.
“Mother got one from her,” I says. “I haven’t opened it. You’ll have to
wait until she opens it. She’ll let you see it, I imagine.”
“Please, Jason,” she says, not paying any attention, “Did I get one?”
“What’s the matter?” I says. “I never knew you to be this anxious about
anybody. You must expect some money from her.”
“She said she—” she says. “Please, Jason,” she says, “Did I?”
“You must have been to school today, after all,” I says, “Somewhere
where they taught you to say please. Wait a minute, while I wait on that
customer.”
I went and waited on him. When I turned to come back she was out of
sight behind the desk. I ran. I ran around the desk and caught her as
she jerked her hand out of the drawer. I took the letter away from her,
beating her knuckles on the desk until she let go.
“You would, would you?” I says.
“Give it to me,” she says, “You’ve already opened it. Give it to me.
Please, Jason. It’s mine. I saw the name.”
“I’ll take a hame string to you,” I says. “That’s what I’ll give you.
Going into my papers.”
“Is there some money in it?” she says, reaching for it. “She said she
would send me some money. She promised she would. Give it to me.”
“What do you want with money?” I says.
“She said she would,” she says, “Give it to me. Please, Jason. I wont
ever ask you anything again, if you’ll give it to me this time.”
“I’m going to, if you’ll give me time,” I says. I took the letter and
the money order out and gave her the letter. She reached for the money
order, not hardly glancing at the letter. “You’ll have to sign it
first,” I says.
“How much is it?” she says.
“Read the letter,” I says. “I reckon it’ll say.”
She read it fast, in about two looks.
“It dont say,” she says, looking up. She dropped the letter to the
floor. “How much is it?”
“It’s ten dollars,” I says.
“Ten dollars?” she says, staring at me.
“And you ought to be damn glad to get that,” I says, “A kid like you.
What are you in such a rush for money all of a sudden for?”
“Ten dollars?” she says, like she was talking in her sleep, “Just ten
dollars?” She made a grab at the money order. “You’re lying,” she says.
“Thief!” she says, “Thief!”
“You would, would you?” I says, holding her off.
“Give it to me!” she says, “It’s mine. She sent it to me. I will see it.
I will.”
“You will?” I says, holding her, “How’re you going to do it?”
“Just let me see it, Jason,” she says, “Please. I wont ask you for
anything again.”
“Think I’m lying, do you?” I says. “Just for that you wont see it.”
“But just ten dollars,” she says, “She told me she—she told me—Jason,
please please please. I’ve got to have some money. I’ve just got to.
Give it to me, Jason. I’ll do anything if you will.”
“Tell me what you’ve got to have money for,” I says.
“I’ve got to have it,” she says. She was looking at me. Then all of a
sudden she quit looking at me without moving her eyes at all. I knew she
was going to lie. “It’s some money I owe,” she says. “I’ve got to pay
it. I’ve got to pay it today.”
“Who to?” I says. Her hands were sort of twisting. I could watch her
trying to think of a lie to tell. “Have you been charging things at
stores again?” I says. “You needn’t bother to tell me that. If you can
find anybody in this town that’ll charge anything to you after what I
told them, I’ll eat it.”
“It’s a girl,” she says, “It’s a girl. I borrowed some money from a
girl. I’ve got to pay it back. Jason, give it to me. Please. I’ll do
anything. I’ve got to have it. Mother will pay you. I’ll write to her to
pay you and that I wont ever ask her for anything again. You can see the
letter. Please, Jason. I’ve got to have it.”
“Tell me what you want with it, and I’ll see about it,” I says. “Tell
me.” She just stood there, with her hands working against her dress.
“All right,” I says, “If ten dollars is too little for you, I’ll just
take it home to Mother, and you know what’ll happen to it then. Of
course, if you’re so rich you dont need ten dollars—”
She stood there, looking at the floor, kind of mumbling to herself. “She
said she would send me some money. She said she sends money here and you
say she dont send any. She said she’s sent a lot of money here. She says
it’s for me. That it’s for me to have some of it. And you say we haven’t
got any money.”
“You know as much about that as I do,” I says. “You’ve seen what happens
to those checks.”
“Yes,” she says, looking at the floor. “Ten dollars,” she says, “Ten
dollars.”
“And you’d better thank your stars it’s ten dollars,” I says. “Here,” I
says. I put the money order face down on the desk, holding my hand on
it, “Sign it.”
“Will you let me see it?” she says. “I just want to look at it. Whatever
it says, I wont ask for but ten dollars. You can have the rest. I just
want to see it.”
“Not after the way you’ve acted,” I says. “You’ve got to learn one
thing, and that is that when I tell you to do something, you’ve got it
to do. You sign your name on that line.”
She took the pen, but instead of signing it she just stood there with
her head bent and the pen shaking in her hand. Just like her mother.
“Oh, God,” she says, “oh, God.”
“Yes,” I says, “That’s one thing you’ll have to learn if you never learn
anything else. Sign it now, and get on out of here.”
She signed it. “Where’s the money?” she says. I took the order and
blotted it and put it in my pocket. Then I gave her the ten dollars.
“Now you go on back to school this afternoon, you hear?” I says. She
didn’t answer. She crumpled the bill up in her hand like it was a rag or
something and went on out the front door just as Earl came in. A
customer came in with him and they stopped up front. I gathered up the
things and put on my hat and went up front.
“Been much busy?” Earl says.
“Not much,” I says. He looked out the door.
“That your car over yonder?” he says. “Better not try to go out home to
dinner. We’ll likely have another rush just before the show opens. Get
you a lunch at Rogers’ and put a ticker in the drawer.”
“Much obliged,” I says. “I can still manage to feed myself, I reckon.”
And right there he’d stay, watching that door like a hawk until I came
through it again. Well, he’d just have to watch it for a while; I was
doing the best I could. The time before I says that’s the last one now;
you’ll have to remember to get some more right away. But who can
remember anything in all this hurrah. And now this damn show had to come
here the one day I’d have to hunt all over town for a blank check,
besides all the other things I had to do to keep the house running, and
Earl watching the door like a hawk.
I went to the printing shop and told him I wanted to play a joke on a
fellow, but he didn’t have anything. Then he told me to have a look in
the old opera house, where somebody had stored a lot of papers and junk
out of the old Merchants’ and Farmers’ Bank when it failed, so I dodged
up a few more alleys so Earl couldn’t see me and finally found old man
Simmons and got the key from him and went up there and dug around. At
last I found a pad on a Saint Louis bank. And of course she’d pick this
one time to look at it close. Well, it would have to do. I couldn’t
waste any more time now.
I went back to the store. “Forgot some papers Mother wants to go to the
bank,” I says. I went back to the desk and fixed the check. Trying to
hurry and all, I says to myself it’s a good thing her eyes are giving
out, with that little whore in the house, a Christian forbearing woman
like Mother. I says you know just as well as I do what she’s going to
grow up into but I says that’s your business, if you want to keep her
and raise her in your house just because of Father. Then she would begin
to cry and say it was her own flesh and blood so I just says All right.
Have it your way. I can stand it if you can.
I fixed the letter up again and glued it back and went out.
“Try not to be gone any longer than you can help,” Earl says.
“All right,” I says. I went to the telegraph office. The smart boys were
all there.
“Any of you boys made a million yet?” I says.
“Who can do anything, with a market like that?” Doc says.
“What’s it doing?” I says. I went in and looked. It was three points
under the opening. “You boys are not going to let a little thing like
the cotton market beat you, are you?” I says. “I thought you were too
smart for that.”
“Smart, hell,” Doc says. “It was down twelve points at twelve o’clock.
Cleaned me out.”
“Twelve points?” I says. “Why the hell didn’t somebody let me know? Why
didn’t you let me know?” I says to the operator.
“I take it as it comes in,” he says. “I’m not running a bucket shop.”
“You’re smart, aren’t you?” I says. “Seems to me, with the money I spend
with you, you could take time to call me up. Or maybe your damn
company’s in a conspiracy with those damn eastern sharks.”
He didn’t say anything. He made like he was busy.
“You’re getting a little too big for your pants,” I says. “First thing
you know you’ll be working for a living.”
“What’s the matter with you?” Doc says. “You’re still three points to
the good.”
“Yes,” I says, “If I happened to be selling. I haven’t mentioned that
yet, I think. You boys all cleaned out?”
“I got caught twice,” Doc says. “I switched just in time.”
“Well,” I. O. Snopes says, “I’ve picked hit; I reckon taint no more
than fair fer hit to pick me once in a while.”
So I left them buying and selling among themselves at a nickel a point.
I found a nigger and sent him for my car and stood on the corner and
waited. I couldn’t see Earl looking up and down the street, with one eye
on the clock, because I couldn’t see the door from here. After about a
week he got back with it.
“Where the hell have you been?” I says, “Riding around where the wenches
could see you?”
“I come straight as I could,” he says, “I had to drive clean around the
square, wid all dem wagons.”
I never found a nigger yet that didn’t have an airtight alibi for
whatever he did. But just turn one loose in a car and he’s bound to show
off. I got in and went on around the square. I caught a glimpse of Earl
in the door across the square.
I went straight to the kitchen and told Dilsey to hurry up with dinner.
“Quentin aint come yit,” she says.
“What of that?” I says. “You’ll be telling me next that Luster’s not
quite ready to eat yet. Quentin knows when meals are served in this
house. Hurry up with it, now.”
Mother was in her room. I gave her the letter. She opened it and took
the check out and sat holding it in her hand. I went and got the shovel
from the corner and gave her a match. “Come on,” I says, “Get it over
with. You’ll be crying in a minute.”