Then he was lying on his back beside the road, with water on his face and in his mouth, though he could not swallow. He couldn’t speak, trying to curse, cursing in no voice. Then he was in the car again, on the smooth street where children played in the big, shady yards in small bright garments, and men and women went home toward supper, to plates of food and cups of coffee in the long twilight of summer.
They had a doctor for him in his cell. When the doctor had gone he could smell supper cooking somewhere — ham and hot bread and coffee. He was lying on a cot; the last ray of copper sunlight slid through a narrow window, stippling the bars upon the wall above his head. His cell was near the common room, where the minor prisoners lived, the ones who were in jail for minor offenses or for three meals a day; the stairway from below came up into that room.
It was occupied for the time by a group of negroes from the chain-gang that worked the streets, in jail for vagrancy or for selling a little whiskey or shooting craps for ten or fifteen cents. One of the negroes was at the window above the street, yelling down to someone. The others talked among themselves, their voices rich and murmurous, mellow and singsong. Cotton rose and went to the door of his cell and held to the bars, looking at the negroes.
“Hit,” he said. His voice made no sound. He put his hand to his throat; he produced a dry croaking sound, at which the negroes ceased talking and looked at him, their eyeballs rolling. “It was all right,” Cotton said, “until it started coming to pieces on me. I could a handled that dog.” He held his throat, his voice harsh, dry, and croaking. “But it started coming to pieces on me.…”
“Who him?” one of the negroes said. They whispered among themselves, watching him, their eyeballs white in the dusk.
“It would a been all right,” Cotton said, “but it started coming to pieces.…”
“Hush up, white man,” one of the negroes said. “Don’t you be telling us no truck like that.”
“Hit would a been all right,” Cotton said, his voice harsh, whispering. Then it failed him again altogether. He held to the bars with one hand, holding his throat with the other, while the negroes watched him, huddled, their eyeballs white and sober.
Then with one accord they turned and rushed across the room, toward the staircase; he heard slow steps and then he smelled food, and he clung to the bars, trying to see the stairs. “Are they going to feed them niggers before they feed a white man?” he said, smelling the coffee and the ham.
The End
