Jordan County Read Free Page A

there, his hands on the crook of the cane; he looked out across the park, the graveled paths glittering in the sunlight; he sat there, empty-eyed, and the young man might never have spoken to him at all. Pauly went under the wrought-iron arch. He walked three blocks fast, then three blocks slow, and by that time he was back in front of the courthouse, looking up at the Confederate, the blank stone eyeballs under the wide-brimmed hat. Within the next three blocks he passed the depot and was within sight of the post office. He went past it, walking fast again, and re-entered the café.
    He took a booth this time, one in back. The same waitress came with a glass of water as before, still wearing the detachable-looking nails and the crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes. “Hello,” he said.
    “What will it be?”
    “Look: I’m sorry about all that other. I meant it, but I’m sorry I bothered you with it’s what I mean. I was lonesome.”
    “I’m real busy. What will it be?”
    This was not true. There were only a few people in the place, three men drinking beer in a booth across the way and three others seated singly on the stools along the counter. It was two oclock, the postlunch lull. “O.K. Whats good?” he asked. She was about to speak but he held up one hand, pontifical. “It’s
all
good,” he said mournfully. “Bring me liver and onions. Coffee. Apple pie. Can you do that?”
    “All right,” she said.
    He went back to the men’s room, the walls of which were penciled with obscenities so crowded that the later entries had had to be squeezed into the margins and even between the lines of the earlier ones. Pauly tried to close his eyes to them, pictures and text, just as he tried to close his nostrils against the stench of creosote and urine, but the two attempts were equally unsuccessful.
Kilroy was here
was scrawled in several places, opposite one of which someone had written:
A good place for him
.
    When Pauly returned to the booth he saw through the front window that the rain had come on again, no drizzle now, but true rain, big drops pattering hard against the glass. Outside, the street was darkened and the buildings were hidden across the way.
    “Say, thats
rain
,” he said to the waitress as she set the food in front of him.
    “Yes,” she said, and left.
    While he ate he heard one of the beer drinkers in the adjoining booth tell the other two a story. He was a young businessman but he broadened his accent, pretending to be more country than he was. “There was this scratch farmer, a white man working about sixty acres. But it was a wet year and the weeds began to get out of control, so he brought in some help, a dozen hoe-hands, and went down to the field towork alongside them. One of the women was brown-skinned, not yet middle aged, and he took him a notion. So he called her aside where the cotton was high, and the two of them lay down between the rows. Well, his wife came to the field about this time, bringing a pail of water, and she walked right up on them in the act. When he saw her he jumped up and began to run. She yelled after him: ‘You, Ephraim! It aint no use to run. You know I caught you!’ ‘Yessum,’ he said, ‘I know you did. But I believe I’ll run a little ways anyhow.’ ”
    There was laughter, including the laughter of the man who told the story, and when it died down, one of the other beer drinkers said, “I can see how that might help.” They laughed again.
    Pauly frowned. He motioned to the waitress and she came over, still with the mistrustful look. “Bring me another cup of coffee with that,” he told her, pointing at the pie. She brought it, and as she set it down in front of him he said, “I was wrong, baby, wrong and never wronger. It’s not love they need. I know what they need. And I’m the one can give it to them, too. Wait till I drink this.” He put three big spoonfuls of sugar into the coffee and stirred in the jug of cream. The waitress went