The sound and the fury
and when I came to where the wagon road turned off I could see the tire
tracks. Ab Russell was in his lot, but I didn’t bother to ask him and I
hadn’t got out of sight of his barn hardly when I saw the ford. They had
tried to hide it. Done about as well at it as she did at everything else
she did. Like I say it’s not that I object to so much; maybe she cant
help that, it’s because she hasn’t even got enough consideration for her
own family to have any discretion. I’m afraid all the time I’ll run into
them right in the middle of the street or under a wagon on the square,
like a couple of dogs.
I parked and got out. And now I’d have to go way around and cross a
plowed field, the only one I had seen since I left town, with every step
like somebody was walking along behind me, hitting me on the head with a
club. I kept thinking that when I got across the field at least I’d have
something level to walk on, that wouldn’t jolt me every step, but when I
got into the woods it was full of underbrush and I had to twist around
through it, and then I came to a ditch full of briers. I went along it
for awhile, but it got thicker and thicker, and all the time Earl
probably telephoning home about where I was and getting Mother all upset
again.
When I finally got through I had had to wind around so much that I had
to stop and figure out just where the car would be. I knew they wouldn’t
be far from it, just under the closest bush, so I turned and worked back
toward the road. Then I couldn’t tell just how far I was, so I’d have to
stop and listen, and then with my legs not using so much blood, it all
would go into my head like it would explode any minute, and the sun
getting down just to where it could shine straight into my eyes and my
ears ringing so I couldn’t hear anything. I went on, trying to move
quiet, then I heard a dog or something and I knew that when he scented
me he’d have to come helling up, then it would be all off.
I had gotten beggar lice and twigs and stuff all over me, inside my
clothes and shoes and all, and then I happened to look around and I had
my hand right on a bunch of poison oak. The only thing I couldn’t
understand was why it was just poison oak and not a snake or something.
So I didn’t even bother to move it. I just stood there until the dog
went away. Then I went on.
I didn’t have any idea where the car was now. I couldn’t think about
anything except my head, and I’d just stand in one place and sort of
wonder if I had really seen a ford even, and I didn’t even care much
whether I had or not. Like I say, let her lay out all day and all night
with everything in town that wears pants, what do I care. I dont owe
anything to anybody that has no more consideration for me, that wouldn’t
be a damn bit above planting that ford there and making me spend a whole
afternoon and Earl taking her back there and showing her the books just
because he’s too damn virtuous for this world. I says you’ll have one
hell of a time in heaven, without anybody’s business to meddle in only
dont you ever let me catch you at it I says, I close my eyes to it
because of your grandmother, but just you let me catch you doing it one
time on this place, where my mother lives. These damn little slick
haired squirts, thinking they are raising so much hell, I’ll show them
something about hell I says, and you too. I’ll make him think that damn
red tie is the latch string to hell, if he thinks he can run the woods
with my niece.
With the sun and all in my eyes and my blood going so I kept thinking
every time my head would go on and burst and get it over with, with
briers and things grabbing at me, then I came onto the sand ditch where
they had been and I recognised the tree where the car was, and just as I
got out of the ditch and started running I heard the car start. It went
off fast, blowing the horn. They kept on blowing it, like it was saying
Yah. Yah. Yaaahhhhhhhh, going out of sight. I got to the road just in
time to see it go out of sight.
By the time I got up to where my car was, they were clean out of sight,
the horn still blowing. Well, I never thought anything about it except I
was saying Run. Run back to town. Run home and try to convince Mother
that I never saw you in that car. Try to make her believe that I dont
know who he was. Try to make her believe that I didn’t miss ten feet of
catching you in that ditch. Try to make her believe you were standing
up, too.
It kept on saying Yahhhhh, Yahhhhh, Yaaahhhhhhhhh, getting fainter and
fainter. Then it quit, and I could hear a cow lowing up at Russell’s
barn. And still I never thought. I went up to the door and opened it and
raised my foot. I kind of thought then that the car was leaning a little
more than the slant of the road would be, but I never found it out until
I got in and started off.
Well, I just sat there. It was getting on toward sundown, and town was
about five miles. They never even had guts enough to puncture it, to jab
a hole in it. They just let the air out. I just stood there for awhile,
thinking about that kitchen full of niggers and not one of them had time
to lift a tire onto the rack and screw up a couple of bolts. It was kind
of funny because even she couldn’t have seen far enough ahead to take
the pump out on purpose, unless she thought about it while he was
letting out the air maybe. But what it probably was, was somebody took
it out and gave it to Ben to play with for a squirt gun because they’d
take the whole car to pieces if he wanted it and Dilsey says, Aint
nobody teched yo car. What we want to fool with hit fer? and I says
You’re a nigger. You’re lucky, do you know it? I says I’ll swap with you
any day because it takes a white man not to have anymore sense than to
worry about what a little slut of a girl does.
I walked up to Russell’s. He had a pump. That was just an oversight on
their part, I reckon. Only I still couldn’t believe she’d have had the
nerve to. I kept thinking that. I dont know why it is I cant seem to
learn that a woman’ll do anything. I kept thinking, Let’s forget for
awhile how I feel toward you and how you feel toward me: I just wouldn’t
do you this way. I wouldn’t do you this way no matter what you had done
to me. Because like I say blood is blood and you cant get around it.
It’s not playing a joke that any eight year old boy could have thought
of, it’s letting your own uncle be laughed at by a man that would wear a
red tie. They come into town and call us all a bunch of hicks and think
it’s too small to hold them. Well he doesn’t know just how right he is.
And her too. If that’s the way she feels about it, she’d better keep
right on going and a damn good riddance.
I stopped and returned Russell’s pump and drove on to town. I went to
the drugstore and got a coca-cola and then I went to the telegraph
office. It had closed at 12.21, forty points down. Forty times five
dollars; buy something with that if you can, and she’ll say, I’ve got to
have it I’ve just got to and I’ll say that’s too bad you’ll have to try
somebody else, I haven’t got any money; I’ve been too busy to make any.
I just looked at him.
“I’ll tell you some news,” I says, “You’ll be astonished to learn that I
am interested in the cotton market,” I says. “That never occurred to
you, did it?”
“I did my best to deliver it,” he says. “I tried the store twice and
called up your house, but they didn’t know where you were,” he says,
digging in the drawer.
“Deliver what?” I says. He handed me a telegram. “What time did this
come?” I says.
“About half past three,” he says.
“And now it’s ten minutes past five,” I says.
“I tried to deliver it,” he says. “I couldn’t find you.”
“That’s not my fault, is it?” I says. I opened it, just to see what kind
of a lie they’d tell me this time. They must be in one hell of a shape
if they’ve got to come all the way to Mississippi to steal ten dollars a
month. Sell, it says. The market will be unstable, with a general
downward tendency. Do not be alarmed following government report.
“How much would a message like this cost?” I says. He told me.
“They paid it,” he says.
“Then I owe them that much,” I says. “I already knew this. Send this
collect,” I says, taking a blank. Buy, I wrote, Market just on point of
blowing its head off. Occasional flurries for purpose of hooking a few
more country suckers who haven’t got in to the telegraph office yet. Do
not be alarmed. “Send that collect,” I says.
He looked at the message, then he looked at the clock. “Market closed an
hour ago,” he says.
“Well,” I says, “That’s not my fault either. I didn’t invent it; I just
bought a little of it while under the impression that the telegraph
company would keep me informed as to what it was doing.”
“A report is posted whenever it comes in,” he says.
“Yes,” I says, “And in Memphis they have it on a blackboard every ten
seconds,” I says. “I was within sixty-seven miles of there once this
afternoon.”
He looked at the message. “You want to send this?” he says.
“I still haven’t changed my mind,” I says. I wrote the other one out and
counted the money. “And this one too, if you’re sure you can spell
b-u-y.”
I went back to the store. I could hear the band from down the street.
Prohibition’s a fine thing. Used to be they’d come in Saturday with just
one pair of shoes in the family and him wearing them, and they’d go down
to the express office and get his package; now they all go to the show
barefooted, with the merchants in the door like a row of tigers or
something in a cage, watching them pass. Earl says,
“I hope it wasn’t anything serious.”
“What?” I says. He looked at his watch. Then he went to the door and
looked at the courthouse clock. “You ought to have a dollar watch,” I
says. “It wont cost you so much to believe it’s lying each time.”
“What?” he says.
“Nothing,” I says. “Hope I haven’t inconvenienced you.”
“We were not busy much,” he says. “They all went to the show. It’s all
right.”
“If it’s not all right,” I says, “You know what you can do about it.”
“I said it was all right,” he says.
“I heard you,” I says. “And if it’s not all right, you know what you can
do about it.”
“Do you want to quit?” he says.
“It’s not my business,” I says. “My wishes dont matter. But dont get the
idea that you are protecting me by keeping me.”
“You’d be a good business man if you’d let yourself, Jason,” he says.
“At least I can tend to my own business and let other peoples’ alone,” I
says.
“I dont know why you are trying to make me fire you,” he says. “You know
you could quit anytime and there wouldn’t be any hard feelings between
us.”
“Maybe that’s why I dont quit,” I says. “As long as I tend to my job,
that’s what you are paying me for.” I went on to the back and got a
drink of water and went on out to the back door. Job had the cultivators
all set up at last. It was quiet there, and pretty soon my head got a
little easier. I could hear them singing now, and then the band played
again. Well, let them get every quarter and dime in the county; it was
no skin off my back. I’ve done what I could; a man that can live as long
as I have and not know when to quit is a fool. Especially as it’s no
business of mine. If it was my own daughter now it would be different,
because she wouldn’t have time to; she’d have to work some to feed a few
invalids and idiots and niggers, because how could I have the face to
bring anybody there. I’ve too much respect for anybody to do that. I’m a
man, I can stand it, it’s my own flesh and blood and I’d like to see the
colour of the man’s eyes that would speak disrespectful of any woman
that was my friend it’s these damn good women that do it I’d like to see
the good, church-going woman that’s half as square as Lorraine, whore or