“All right. If you cant be licked fair without picking up a fence rail, I’m going to take my leg off and whip you with it myself.”
So they fought again, without the fence rail this time, with Mr Buddy and a few more men watching them now, and Anse still wasn’t as good as Matt’s Golden Gloves but he never quit until at last Mr Buddy himself said, “All right. That’s enough,” and told Anse to wash his face at the trough and then go and get in the car and then said to Matt: “And I reckon the time has come for you to be moving on too.”
Except that wasn’t necessary now either; the garage said Matt was already fired and Matt said,
“Fired, hell. I quit. Tell the son of a bitch to come down here and say that to my face.” And Mr Hampton was there too by then, tall, with his big belly and his little hard eyes looking down at Matt. “Where the hell is my car?” Matt said.
“It’s at my house,” Mr Hampton said. “I had it brought in this morning.”
“Well well,” Matt said. “Too bad, aint it? McCallum came in and sprung me before you had time to sell it and stick the money in your pocket, huh? What are you going to say when I walk over there and get in it and start the engine?”
“Nothing, son,” Mr Hampton said. “Whenever you want to leave.”
“Which is right now,” Matt said. “And when I leave your.… ing town, my foot’ll be right down to the floor board on that cut-out too. And you can stick that too, but not in your pocket. What do you think of that?”
“Nothing, son,” Mr Hampton said. “I’ll make a trade with you. Run that cut-out wide open all the way to the county line and then ten feet past it, and I wont let anybody bother you if you’ll promise never to cross it again.”
And that was all. That was Monday, trade day; it was like the whole county was there, had come to town just to stand quiet around the Square and watch Matt cross it for the last time, the paper suitcase he had come to Jefferson with on the seat by him and the cut-out clattering and popping; nobody waving goodbye to him and Matt not looking at any of us: just that quiet and silent suspension for the little gaudy car to rush slowly and loudly through, blatant and noisy and defiant yet at the same time looking as ephemeral and innocent and fragile as a child’s toy, a birthday favor, so that looking at it you knew it would probably never get as far as Memphis, let alone Ohio; on across the Square and into the street which would become the Memphis highway at the edge of town, the sound of the cut-out banging and clattering and echoing between the walls, magnified a thousand times now beyond the mere size and bulk of the frail little machine which produced it; and we — some of us — thinking how surely now he would rush slow and roaring for the last time at least past Linda Snopes’s house.
But he didn’t. He just went on, the little car going faster and faster up the broad street empty too for the moment as if it too had vacated itself for his passing, on past where the last houses of town would give way to country, the vernal space of woods and fields where even the defiant uproar of the cut-out would become puny and fade and be at last absorbed.
So that was what Father called — said to Uncle Gavin — one down. And now it was May and already everybody knew that Linda Snopes was going to be the year’s Number One student, the class’s valedictorian; Uncle Gavin slowed us as we approached Wildermark’s and nudged us in to the window, saying, “That one. Just behind the green one.”
It was a lady’s fitted travelling case.
“That’s for travelling,” Mother said.
“All right,” Uncle Gavin said.
“For travelling,” Mother said. “For going away.”
“Yes,” Uncle Gavin said. “She’s got to get away from here. Get out of Jefferson.”
“What’s wrong with Jefferson?” Mother said. The three of us stood there. I could see our three reflections in the plate glass, standing there looking at the fitted feminine case. She didn’t talk low or loud: just quiet. “All right,” she said. “What’s wrong with Linda then?”
Uncle Gavin didn’t either. “I dont like waste,” he said. “Everybody should have his chance not to waste.”
“Or his chance to the right not to waste a young girl?” Mother said.
“All right,” Uncle Gavin said. “I want her to be happy. Everybody should have the chance to be happy.”
“Which she cant possibly do of course just standing still in Jefferson,” Mother said.
“All right,” Uncle Gavin said. They were not looking at one another. It was like they were not even talking to one another but simply at the two empty reflections in the plate glass, like when you put the written idea into the anonymous and even interchangeable empty envelope, or maybe into the sealed empty bottle to be cast into the sea, or maybe two written thoughts sealed forever at the same moment into two bottles and cast into the sea to float and drift with the tides and the currents on to the cooling world’s end itself, still immune, still intact and inviolate, still ideas and still true and even still facts whether any eye ever saw them again or any other idea ever responded and sprang to them, to be elated or validated or grieved.
“The chance and duty and right to see that everybody is happy, whether they deserve it or not or even want it or not,” Mother said.
“All right,” Uncle Gavin said. “Sorry I bothered you. Come on. Let’s go home. Mrs Rouncewell can send her a dozen sunflowers.”
“Why not?” Mother said, taking his arm, already turning him, our three reflections turning in the plate glass, back toward the entrance and into the store, Mother in front now across to the luggage department.
“I think the blue one will suit her coloring, match her eyes,” Mother said. “It’s for Linda Snopes — her graduation,” Mother told Miss Eunice Gant, the clerk.
“How nice,” Miss Eunice said. “Is Linda going on a trip?”
“Oh yes,” Mother said. “Very likely. At least probably to one of the eastern girls’ schools next year perhaps. Or so I heard.”
“How nice,” Miss Eunice said. “I always say that every young boy and girl should go away from home for at least one year of school in order to learn how the other half lives.”
“How true,” Mother said. “Until you do go and see, all you do is hope. Until you actually see for yourself, you never do give up and settle down, do you?”
“Maggie,” Uncle Gavin said.
“Give up?” Miss Eunice said. “Give up hope? Young people should never give up hope.”
“Of course not,” Mother said. “They dont have to. All they have to do is stay young, no matter how long it takes.”
“Maggie,” Uncle Gavin said.
“Oh,” Mother said, “you want to pay cash for it instead of charge? All right; I’m sure Mr Wildermark wont mind.” So Uncle Gavin took two twenty dollar bills from his wallet and took out one of his cards and gave it to Mother.
“Thank you,” she said. “But Miss Eunice probably has a big one, that will hold all four names.” So Miss Eunice gave her the big card and Mother held out her hand until Uncle Gavin uncapped his pen and gave it to her and we watched her write in the big sprawly hand that still looked like somebody thirteen years old in the ninth grade:
Mr and Mrs Charles Mallison Charles Mallison Jr
Mr Gavin Stevens
and capped the pen and handed it back to Uncle Gavin and took the card between the thumb and finger of one hand and waved it dry and gave it to Miss Eunice.
“I’ll send it out tonight,” Miss Eunice said. “Even if the graduation isn’t until next week. It’s such a handsome gift, why shouldn’t Linda have that much more time to enjoy it.”
“Yes,” Mother said. “Why shouldn’t she?” Then we were outside again, our three reflections jumbled into one walking now across the plate glass; Mother had Uncle Gavin’s arm again.
“All four of our names,” Uncle Gavin said. “At least her father wont know a white-headed bachelor sent his seventeen-year-old daughter a fitted travelling case.”
“Yes,” Mother said. “One of them wont know it.”
FIFTEEN
Gavin Stevens
THE DIFFICULTY WAS, how to tell her, explain to her. I mean, why. Not the deed, the act itself, but the reason for it, the why behind it — say point blank to her over one of the monstrous synthetic paradoxes which were her passion or anyway
