“Aw, come on, Mr Binford,” Boon said.
“Why, be damned if here aint still another hog in this wallow,” Mr Binford said. “A big one, too. Wake up, Miss Reba, before these folks suffocate for moisture.” Miss Reba poured the whiskey, her hand shaking, enough to clink the bottle against the glass, saying son of a bitch, son of a bitch, son of a bitch, in a thick fierce whisper.
“That’s better,” Mr Binford said. “Let’s have peace around here. Let’s drink to it.” He raised his glass and was saying, “Ladies and gents all,” when somebody — Minnie I suppose — began to ring a hand bell somewhere in the back. Mr Binford got up. “That’s better still,” he said. “Hash time. Learn us all the refinement and education that there’s a better use for the mouth than running private opinions through it.”
We went back toward the dining room, not fast, Mr Binford leading the way. There were feet again, going fast; two more ladies, girls — that is, one of them was still a girl — hurried down the stairs, still buttoning their clothes, one in a red dress and the other in pink, panting a little. “We hurried as fast as we could,” one of them said quickly to Mr Binford. “We’re not late.”
“I’m glad of that,” Mr Binford said. “I dont feel like lateness tonight.” We went in. There were more than enough places at the table, even with Otis and me. Minnie was still bringing things, all cold — fried chicken and biscuits and vegetables left over from dinner, except Mr Binford’s. His supper was hot: not a plate, a dish of steak smothered in onions at his place. (You see? how much ahead of his time Mr Binford was? Already a Republican.
I dont mean a 1905 Republican — I dont know what his Tennessee politics were, or if he had any — I mean a 1961 Republican. He was more: he was a Conservative. Like this: a Republican is a man who made his money; a Liberal is a man who inherited his; a Democrat is a barefooted Liberal in a cross-country race; a Conservative is a Republican who has learned to read and write.) We all sat down, the two new ladies too; I had met so many people by now that I couldn’t get names any more and had stopped trying; besides, I never saw these two again.
We began to eat. Maybe the reason Mr Binford’s steak smelled so extra was that the rest of the food had smelled itself out at noon. Then one of the new ladies — the one who was no longer a girl — said,
“Were we, Mr Binford?” Now the other one, the girl, had stopped eating too.
“Were you what?” Mr Binford said.
“You know what,” the girl said, cried. “Miss Reba,” she said, “you know we do the best we can — dont dare make no extra noise — no music on Sunday when all the other places do — always shushing our customers up every time they just want to have a little extra fun — but if we aint already setting down at our places in this dining room when he sticks his nose in the door, next Saturday we got to drop twenty-five cents into that God damned box—”
“They are house rules,” Mr Binford said. “A house without rules is not a house. The trouble with you bitches is, you have to act like ladies some of the time but you dont know how. I’m learning you how.”
“You cant talk to me that way,” the older one said.
“All right,” Mr Binford said. “Well turn it around. The trouble with you ladies is, you dont know how to quit acting like bitches.”
The older one was standing now. There was something wrong about her too. It wasn’t that she was old, like Grandmother is old, because she wasn’t. She was alone. It was just that she shouldn’t have had to be here, alone, to have to go through this. No, that’s wrong too. It’s that nobody should ever have to be that alone, nobody, not ever. She said, “I’m sorry, Miss Reba. I’m going to move out. Tonight.”
“Where?” Mr Binford said. “Across the street to Birdie Watts’s? Maybe she’ll let you bring your trunk back with you this time — unless she’s already sold it.”
“Miss Reba,” the woman said quietly. “Miss Reba.”
“All right,” Miss Reba said briskly. “Sit down and eat your supper; you aint going nowhere. Yes,” she said, “I like peace too. So I’m going to mention just one more thing, then we’ll close this subject for good.” She was talking up the table at Mr Binford now. “What the hell’s wrong with you? What the hell happened this afternoon to get you into this God damned humor?”
“Nothing that I noticed,” Mr Binford said.
“That’s right,” Otis said suddenly. “Nothing sure didn’t happen. He wouldn’t even run.” There was something, like a quick touch of electricity; Miss Reba was sitting with her mouth open and her fork halfway in it. I didn’t understand yet but everybody else, even Boon, did. And in the next minute I did too.
“Who wouldn’t run?” Miss Reba said.
“The horse,” Otis said. “The horse and buggy we bet on in the race. Did they, Mr Binford?” Now the silence was no longer merely electric: it was shocked, electrocuted. Remember I told you there was something wrong somewhere about Otis. Though I still didn’t think this was quite it, or at least all of it. But Miss Reba was still fighting.
Because women are wonderful. They can bear anything because they are wise enough to know that all you have to do with grief and trouble is just go on through them and come out on the other side. I think they can do this because they not only decline to dignify physical pain by taking it seriously, they have no sense of shame at the idea of being knocked out. She didn’t quit, even then.
“A horse race,” she said. “At the zoo? in Overton Park?”
“Not Overton Park,” Otis said. “The driving park. We met a man on the streetcar that knowed which horse and buggy was going to win, and changed our mind about Overton Park. Only, they didn’t win, did they, Mr Binford? But even then, we never lost as much as the man did, we didn’t even lose forty dollars because Mr Binford give me twenty-five cents of it not to tell, so all we lost was just thirty-nine dollars and seventy-five cents. Only, on top of that, my twenty-five cents got away from me in that beer mix-up Mr Binford was telling about.
Didn’t it, Mr Binford?” And then some more silence. It was quite peaceful. Then Miss Reba said,
“You son of a bitch.” Then she said, “Go on. Finish your steak first if you want.” And Mr Binford wasn’t a quitter either. He was proud too: that gave no quarter and accepted none, like a gamecock. He crossed his knife and fork neatly and without haste on the steak he had barely cut into yet; he even folded his napkin and pushed it back through the ring and got up and said,
“Excuse me, all,” and went out, looking at nobody, not even Otis.
“Well, Jesus,” the younger of the two late ones, the girl, said; it was then I noticed Minnie standing in the half-open kitchen door. “What do you know?”
“Get to hell out of here,” Miss Reba said to the girl. “Both of you.” The girl and the woman rose quickly.
“You mean . . . leave?” the girl said.
“No,” Miss Corrie said. “Just get out of here. If you’re not expecting anybody in the next few minutes, why dont you take a walk around the block or something?” They didn’t waste any time either. Miss Corrie got up. “You too,” she told Otis. “Go upstairs to your room and stay there.”
“He’ll have to pass Miss Reba’s door to do that,” Boon said. “Have you forgot about that quarter?”
“It was more than a quarter,” Otis said. “There was them eighty-five cents I made pumping the pee a noler for them to dance Saturday night. When he found out about the beer, he taken that away from me too.” But Miss Reba looked at him.
“So you sold him out for eighty-five cents,” she said.
“Go to the kitchen,” Miss Corrie told Otis. “Let him come back there, Minnie.”
“All right,” Minnie said. “I’ll try to keep him out of the icebox. But he’s too fast for me.”
“Hell, let him stay here,” Miss Reba said. “It’s too late now. He should have been sent somewhere else before he ever got off that Arkansas train last week.” Miss Corrie went to the chair next to Miss Reba.
“Why dont you go and help him pack?” she said, quite gently.
“Who the hell are you accusing?” Miss Reba said. “I will trust him with every penny I’ve got. Except for those God damn horses.” She stood up suddenly, with her trim rich body and the hard handsome face and the hair that was too richly red. “Why the hell cant I do without him?” she said. “Why the hell cant I?”
“Now, now,” Miss Corrie said. “You need a drink. Give Minnie the keys
