The sound and the fury
father’s memory,” she says. “You have a right to, I suppose. But it
breaks my heart to hear you.”
I got up. “If you’ve got any crying to do,” I says, “you’ll have to do
it alone, because I’ve got to get on back. I’ll get the bank book.”
“I’ll get it,” she says.
“Keep still,” I says, “I’ll get it.” I went upstairs and got the bank
book out of her desk and went back to town. I went to the bank and
deposited the check and the money order and the other ten, and stopped
at the telegraph office. It was one point above the opening. I had
already lost thirteen points, all because she had to come helling in
there at twelve, worrying me about that letter.
“What time did that report come in?” I says.
“About an hour ago,” he says.
“An hour ago?” I says. “What are we paying you for?” I says, “Weekly
reports? How do you expect a man to do anything? The whole damn top
could blow off and we’d not know it.”
“I dont expect you to do anything,” he says. “They changed that law
making folks play the cotton market.”
“They have?” I says. “I hadn’t heard. They must have sent the news out
over the Western Union.”
I went back to the store. Thirteen points. Damn if I believe anybody
knows anything about the damn thing except the ones that sit back in
those New York offices and watch the country suckers come up and beg
them to take their money. Well, a man that just calls shows he has no
faith in himself, and like I say if you aren’t going to take the advice,
what’s the use in paying money for it. Besides, these people are right
up there on the ground; they know everything that’s going on. I could
feel the telegram in my pocket. I’d just have to prove that they were
using the telegraph company to defraud. That would constitute a bucket
shop. And I wouldn’t hesitate that long, either. Only be damned if it
doesn’t look like a company as big and rich as the Western Union could
get a market report out on time. Half as quick as they’ll get a wire to
you saying Your account closed out. But what the hell do they care about
the people. They’re hand in glove with that New York crowd. Anybody
could see that.
When I came in Earl looked at his watch. But he didn’t say anything
until the customer was gone. Then he says,
“You go home to dinner?”
“I had to go to the dentist,” I says because it’s not any of his
business where I eat but I’ve got to be in the store with him all the
afternoon. And with his jaw running off after all I’ve stood. You take a
little two by four country storekeeper like I say it takes a man with
just five hundred dollars to worry about it fifty thousand dollars’
worth.
“You might have told me,” he says. “I expected you back right away.”
“I’ll trade you this tooth and give you ten dollars to boot, any time,”
I says. “Our agreement was an hour for dinner,” I says, “and if you dont
like the way I do, you know what you can do about it.”
“I’ve known that some time,” he says. “If it hadn’t been for your mother
I’d have done it before now, too. She’s a lady I’ve got a lot of
sympathy for, Jason. Too bad some other folks I know cant say as much.”
“Then you can keep it,” I says. “When we need any sympathy I’ll let you
know in plenty of time.”
“I’ve protected you about that business a long time, Jason,” he says.
“Yes?” I says, letting him go on. Listening to what he would say before
I shut him up.
“I believe I know more about where that automobile came from than she
does.”
“You think so, do you?” I says. “When are you going to spread the news
that I stole it from my mother?”
“I dont say anything,” he says, “I know you have her power of attorney.
And I know she still believes that thousand dollars is in this
business.”
“All right,” I says, “Since you know so much, I’ll tell you a little
more: go to the bank and ask them whose account I’ve been depositing a
hundred and sixty dollars on the first of every month for twelve years.”
“I dont say anything,” he says, “I just ask you to be a little more
careful after this.”
I never said anything more. It doesn’t do any good. I’ve found that when
a man gets into a rut the best thing you can do is let him stay there.
And when a man gets it in his head that he’s got to tell something on
you for your own good, good-night. I’m glad I haven’t got the sort of
conscience I’ve got to nurse like a sick puppy all the time. If I’d ever
be as careful over anything as he is to keep his little shirt tail full
of business from making him more then eight percent. I reckon he thinks
they’d get him on the usury law if he netted more than eight percent.
What the hell chance has a man got, tied down in a town like this and to
a business like this. Why I could take his business in one year and fix
him so he’d never have to work again, only he’d give it all away to the
church or something. If there’s one thing gets under my skin, it’s a
damn hypocrite. A man that thinks anything he dont understand all about
must be crooked and that first chance he gets he’s morally bound to tell
the third party what’s none of his business to tell. Like I say if I
thought every time a man did something I didn’t know all about he was
bound to be a crook, I reckon I wouldn’t have any trouble finding
something back there on those books that you wouldn’t see any use for
running and telling somebody I thought ought to know about it, when for
all I knew they might know a damn sight more about it now than I did,
and if they didn’t it was damn little of my business anyway and he says,
“My books are open to anybody. Anybody that has any claim or believes
she has any claim on this business can go back there and welcome.”
“Sure, you wont tell,” I says, “You couldn’t square your conscience with
that. You’ll just take her back there and let her find it. You wont
tell, yourself.”
“I’m not trying to meddle in your business,” he says. “I know you missed
out on some things like Quentin had. But your mother has had a
misfortunate life too, and if she was to come in here and ask me why you
quit, I’d have to tell her. It aint that thousand dollars. You know
that. It’s because a man never gets anywhere if fact and his ledgers
dont square. And I’m not going to lie to anybody, for myself or anybody
else.”
“Well, then,” I says, “I reckon that conscience of yours is a more
valuable clerk than I am; it dont have to go home at noon to eat. Only
dont let it interfere with my appetite,” I says, because how the hell
can I do anything right, with that damn family and her not making any
effort to control her nor any of them, like that time when she happened
to see one of them kissing Caddy and all next day she went around the
house in a black dress and a veil and even Father couldn’t get her to
say a word except crying and saying her little daughter was dead and
Caddy about fifteen then only in three years she’d been wearing
haircloth or probably sandpaper at that rate. Do you think I can afford
to have her running bout the streets with every drummer that comes to
town, I says, and them telling the new ones up and down the road where
to pick up a hot one when they made Jefferson. I haven’t got much pride,
I can’t afford it with a kitchen full of niggers to feed and robbing the
state asylum of its star freshman. Blood, I says, governors and
generals. It’s a damn good thing we never had any kings and presidents;
we’d all be down there at Jackson chasing butterflies. I say it’d be bad
enough if it was mine; I’d at least be sure it was a bastard to begin
with, and now even the Lord doesn’t know that for certain probably.
So after awhile I heard the band start up, and then they begun to clear
out. Headed for the show, every one of them. Haggling over a twenty cent
hame string to save fifteen cents, so they can give it to a bunch of
Yankees that come in and pay maybe ten dollars for the privilege. I went
on out to the back.
“Well,” I says, “If you dont look out, that bolt will grow into your
hand. And then I’m going to take an axe and chop it out. What do you
reckon the boll-weevils’ll eat if you dont get those cultivators in
shape to raise them a crop?” I says, “sage grass?”
“Dem folks sho do play dem horns,” he says. “Tell me man in dat show kin
play a tune on a handsaw. Pick hit like a banjo.”
“Listen,” I says. “Do you know how much that show’ll spend in this town?
About ten dollars,” I says. “The ten dollars Buck Turpin has in his
pocket right now.”
“Whut dey give Mr Buck ten dollars fer?” he says.
“For the privilege of showing here,” I says. “You can put the balance of
what they’ll spend in your eye.”
“You mean dey pays ten dollars jest to give dey show here?” he says.
“That’s all,” I says. “And how much do you reckon . . .”
“Gret day,” he says, “You mean to tell me dey chargin um to let um show
here? I’d pay ten dollars to see dat man pick dat saw, ef I had to. I
figures dat tomorrow mawnin I be still owin um nine dollars and six bits
at dat rate.”
And then a Yankee will talk your head off about niggers getting ahead.
Get them ahead, what I say. Get them so far ahead you cant find one
south of Louisville with a blood hound. Because when I told him about
how they’d pick up Saturday night and carry off at least a thousand
dollars out of the county, he says,
“I don’t begrudge um. I kin sho afford my two bits.”
“Two bits hell,” I says. “That dont begin it. How about the dime or
fifteen cents you’ll spend for a damn two cent box of candy or
something. How about the time you’re wasting right now, listening to
that band.”
“Dat’s de troof,” he says. “Well, ef I lives twell night hit’s gwine to
be two bits mo dey takin out of town, dat’s sho.”
“Then you’re a fool,” I says.
“Well,” he says, “I dont spute dat neither. Ef dat uz a crime, all
chain-gangs wouldn’t be black.”
Well, just about that time I happened to look up the alley and saw her.
When I stepped back and looked at my watch I didn’t notice at the time
who he was because I was looking at the watch. It was just two thirty,
forty-five minutes before anybody but me expected her to be out. So when
I looked around the door the first thing I saw was the red tie he had on
and I was thinking what the hell kind of a man would wear a red tie. But
she was sneaking along the alley, watching the door, so I wasn’t
thinking anything about him until they had gone past. I was wondering if
she’d have so little respect for me that she’d not only play out of
school when I told her not to, but would walk right past the store,
daring me not to see her. Only she couldn’t see into the door because
the sun fell straight into it and it was like trying to see through an
automobile searchlight, so I stood there and watched her go on past,
with her face painted up like a damn clown’s and her hair all gummed and
twisted and a dress that if a woman had come out doors even on Gayoso or
Beale street when I was a young fellow with no more than that to cover
her legs and behind, she’d been thrown in jail. I’ll be damned if they
dont dress like they were trying to make every man they passed on the
street want to reach out and clap his hand on it. And so I was thinking
what kind of a damn man would wear a red tie when all of a sudden I knew
he was one of those show folks well as if she’d told me. Well, I can
stand a lot; if I couldn’t, damn if I wouldn’t be in a hell of a fix, so
when they turned the corner I jumped down and followed. Me, without any
hat, in the middle of the afternoon, having to chase up and down back
alleys because of my mother’s good name. Like I say you cant do anything
with a woman like that, if she’s got it in her. If it’s in her blood,
you cant do anything with her. The only thing you can do is to get rid
of her, let her go on and live with her own sort.
I went on to the street, but they were out of sight. And there I was,