All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky

25

“Do you think we got enough money to buy all that stuff?” I said.

Jane looked at me and smiled. “Boys, take a peek.”

She pulled the bill from her pocket and stretched it out between her hands and held it so there was moonlight on it.

It was a hundred-dollar bill.

“Holy cow,” Tony said.

“And when he took it out of his pocket, there was a wad of bills. All I saw were hundreds.”

“What’s a guy with that kind of money and those kind of clothes doing in a hobo camp?” I said.

“Good question,” Jane said. “But I’m hungry, and I will not look a gift horse in the mouth.”

It was like Floyd had said. About a fifteen-minute walk and we were on the edge of town. I could see the real town nestled in shadows about a hundred yards up the road. There were a few houses and there were lights on in the houses, but there was no one on the street. I figured it was probably about six-thirty or so, but as I said before, I didn’t have Daddy’s knack for telling time almost to the minute. But the day was done and people had turned into their homes and were getting ready for supper.

Out here on the fringe were the joints. It wasn’t exactly the kind of place I wanted to be, but I was hungry and we had a hundred-dollar bill.

At the first joint we come to, we went around to the back. The back door was open and there was hillbilly music coming out of the place, and though there were lights on in there, they were dim. I could hear men talking and women laughing and the clack of pool balls slamming together.

We stood at the back door awhile, but we only saw a few people inside, seated in the center of the place and up near the front.

After a few minutes, Jane said, “Well, hell, I’m going in.”

And she went. We went after her.

When we were inside, we were finally noticed. A man with a worn hat that might be white in the daylight, or might once have been white, said, “Well, if they aren’t running them a primer school here now.”

“Kiss my ass,” Jane said.

“Whoa,” said the man in the hat to a man swigging from a bottle of beer. “She’s got a mouth on her.”

The man with the beer said, “Yeah, she does. She talks tough for someone so small.”

“I’m tall enough,” Jane said.

A woman big enough to go bear hunting with a switch came over and looked at us. She was pale, and her hair was like a bird’s nest.

She said, “You kids ain’t supposed to be in here.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, trying to jump ahead of Jane starting some kind of wild lie. “We was asked by a man to buy some sandwiches and some cups, if you got them.”

“Cups?” she said.

“For dipping stew,” Tony said.

“Ah, you’re down there in the ’bo camp, ain’t you?” she said.

“Yes, ma’am, we are,” I said.

“You wanting a handout?” she said. “I can’t give no handout. You know how many hoboes come up here looking for a touch? I can’t do it. I’d be out of business, broke in a week there’s so many.”

“We don’t want a handout,” Jane said. “We said ‘buy.’ We got money.”

She pulled the hundred-dollar bill out of her pocket and took it in both hands and popped it a little like it was a rubber band.

The big woman looked at the bill. “That’s money, all right. You ain’t supposed to be in here, you know. But where you ought to be and where you are, that’s two different things.”

She had grown considerably more friendly.

We went over and sat on some stools at the bar. Jane told her what we wanted.

She went in the rear of the place, yelling at a colored man back there about what to make. We could see them through the open double doors. He was at a counter near a stove and he was slicing bread. He didn’t like her tone, and he said something back, and then they argued back and forth for a few minutes.

While that was going on, I turned on my stool and saw that the man with the almost-white hat was watching us while he chalked up a pool cue.

“I don’t think you should have told him to kiss your ass,” I said.

“He’ll get over it,” Jane said.

The big woman came back to the counter and leaned on it with her elbows, said, “Don’t pay no mind to me and Calvin. That’s the way we talk.”

“Calvin?” Jane said.

“My cook. We always argue. He’s been with me ten years. He can cook better than a New York chef, and he works cheaper.”

“That’s the truth,” Calvin said from the kitchen.

“I got to ask,” Jane said. “How much the sandwiches going to cost?”

“You want quite a few. Twenty dollars.”

“For twelve sandwiches?” Jane said. “What are they made out of? What beef slices cost that much? Are they from the Minotaur?”

“The what?” the big woman said.

“Nothing,” Jane said. “Isn’t that kind of expensive? Twenty dollars seems like a lot. You can buy sandwiches for a quarter a piece, cheaper sometimes.”

“You wanted cups too.”

“Still,” Jane said.

“These are expensive times,” said the big woman.

“These are poor times,” Jane said. “Haven’t you heard? There’s a depression.”

“You look like you’re doing all right,” said the big woman.

“I won’t be after I buy these sandwiches.”

“I’m throwing in two tin cups,” the big woman said.

“You ought to throw in a whole set of dishes and a maid for that price,” Jane said. “Heck, you ought to throw in Calvin.”

“We don’t do that anymore,” Calvin called from the back.

“Oh, no offense meant,” Jane said.

“That’s all right, girl,” he said, coming to the counter wiping his hands on a towel. “I knew what you meant. Them sandwiches and cups is all for about eight dollars, and you know it, Magnolia.”

The big woman, Magnolia, looked at him like he’d just told someone she was actually a Presbyterian minister on holiday.

“You don’t run my business,” Magnolia said to Calvin.

“Yeah, but I’ve made enough sandwiches to know what they go for,” he said, “and they don’t go for that much for that many.”

He tossed the towel over his shoulder and went back into the kitchen.

“All right, then,” Magnolia said. “Here’s the deal, take it or leave it. Twelve fifty.”

“That the sandwiches and five tin cups?” Jane asked.

“That’s the sandwiches, four tin cups, and my best wishes,” Magnolia said.

“That sounds almost fair,” Jane said, giving Magnolia the hundred-dollar bill.