Flannery O'Connor Complete Short Stories Read Free

Most niggers did, Old Dudley thought.
    The daughter came through again. He had meant to be looking at the paper when she came through. “Do me a favor, will you?” she asked as if she had just thought up a favor he could do.
    He hoped she didn’t want him to go to the grocery again. He got lost the time before. All the blooming buildings looked alike. He nodded.
    â€œGo down to the third floor and ask Mrs. Schmitt to lend me the shirt pattern she uses for Jake.”
    Why couldn’t she just let him sit? She didn’t need the shirt pattern. “All right,” he said. “What number is it?”
    â€œNumber 10—just like this. Right below us three floors down.”
    Old Dudley was always afraid that when he went out in the dog runs, a door would suddenly open and one of the snipe-nosed men that hung off the window ledges in his undershirt would growl, “What are you doing here?” The door to the nigger’s apartment was open and he could see a woman sitting in a chair by the window. “Yankee niggers,” he muttered. She had on rimless glasses and there was a book in her lap. Niggers don’t think they’re dressed up till they got on glasses, Old, Dudley thought. He remembered Lutish’s glasses. She had saved up thirteen dollars to buy them. Then she went to the doctor and asked him to look at her eyes and tell her how thick to get the glasses. He made her look at animals’ pictures through a mirror and he stuck a light through her eyes and looked in her head. Then he said she didn’t need any glasses. She was so mad she burned the cornbread three days in a row, but she bought her some glasses anyway at the ten-cent store. They didn’t cost her but $1.98 and she wore them every Saddey. “That was niggers,” Old Dudley chuckled. He realized he had made a noise, and covered his mouth with his hand. Somebody might hear him in one of the apartments.
    He turned down the first flight of stairs. Down the second he heard footsteps coming up. He looked over the banisters and saw it was a woman—a fat woman with an apron on. From the top, she looked kind er like Mrs. Benson at home. He wondered if she would speak to him. When they were four steps from each other, he darted a glance at her but she wasn’t looking at him. When there were no steps between them, his eyes fluttered up for an instant and she was looking at him cold in the face. Then she was past him. She hadn’t said a word. He felt heavy in his stomach.
    He went down four flights instead of three. Then he went back up one and found number 10. Mrs. Schmitt said OK, wait a minute and she’d get the pattern. She sent one of the children back to the door with it. The child didn’t say anything.
    Old Dudley started back up the stairs. He had to take it more slowly. It tired him going up. Everything tired him, looked like. Not like having Rabie to do his running for him. Rabie was a light-footed nigger. He could sneak in a henhouse ’thout even the hens knowing it and get him the fattest fryer in there and not a squawk. Fast too. Dudley had always been slow on his feet. It went that way with fat people. He remembered one time him and Rabie was hunting quail over near Molton. They had ’em a hound dog that could find a covey quickern any fancy pointer going. He wasn’t no good at bringing them back but he could find them every time and then set like a dead stump while you aimed at the birds. This one time the hound stopped cold-still. “Dat gonna be a big ’un,” Rabie whispered, “I feels it.” Old Dudley raised the gun slowly as they walked along. He had to be careful of the pine needles. They covered the ground and made it slick. Rabie shifted his weight from side to side, lifting and setting his feet on the waxen needles with unconscious care. He looked straight ahead and moved forward swiftly. Old Dudley kept one eye ahead and one on the ground.