The Heavenly Table

49

AT NINE O’CLOCK, Cane left his brothers sitting on the south bank of Paint Creek and rode into Meade to look around. Within a few minutes, he was satisfied that the town was big enough that they wouldn’t attract attention. The sidewalks were overflowing with people of all sorts, and the streets crowded with every type of horse and mule and car and wagon imaginable. A hundred different sounds filled the sour, slightly chemical air. He returned two hours later and printed in block letters on a piece of paper the name of the livery and the hotel that he wanted Chimney to use, told him where they could be found. “Me and Cob will go first,” Cane said. “Give us half an hour. Then ride in and stable the horse and rent yourself a room. Buy some clothes and get cleaned up, then go find out what you can about buying that automobile.”

“Jesus, anything else?”

“Yeah, there’s a park at the north end of the street you’ll be going in on. We’ll meet you there by the pond this evening at six o’clock. Better buy yourself a watch.”

“Did ye see any whores?” Chimney said.

“No, but don’t worry about that right now. From the looks of things, I expect there’s plenty around.” Cane counted out five hundred dollars and placed it in Chimney’s hand. “That should buy the car and keep you going for a while.”

Crossing over the bridge on South Paint Street, he and Cob passed the paper mill. They veered off into the east end of town a ways and left their horses at Jonson’s Livery, slipping an extra dollar to a stable bum named Chester Higgenbotham to make sure they got some grain. Then they walked uptown to the Hotel McCarthy. Inside the two saddlebags they carried nearly $35,000 and three pistols, along with their mother’s Bible and the dictionary. Cane asked the clerk, a man named Harlan Dix, for a room with two beds and a bathtub. Dix cast a glance at them, noted their shaggy, unkempt appearance. Though he himself deplored the growing emphasis on personal hygiene as another reason why the country was turning soft, the McCarthy had a reputation for being the premier hotel in town, and his boss kept rates high to discourage clients such as this motley pair. “Five dollars a night,” he said. “In advance.” Just as he was getting ready to suggest the Warner down the street, Cane handed him twenty dollars for four days. He stared for a moment at the money, then shrugged and gave them two keys. “Second floor,” he said, pointing at the stairway. “Number eight.”

Though certainly not one of the hotel’s best, the room was still the nicest the brothers had ever been in. It contained two narrow beds and a round woven carpet and a cedar bureau, along with some hooks on the wall for hanging clothes. An upholstered chair sat in the corner. White lacy curtains hung from the two long windows that looked out on the busy street. Another door led to a bathroom with a claw-foot tub. Cob kept pulling the chain that turned on the electric light hanging from the ceiling until Cane, worried that he might break it, told him to stop. Of course, neither of them had ever used a commode before, and it took a minute or two to figure out exactly how it worked. Even then, Cob was afraid of it, and if it hadn’t been for his brother telling him he’d get arrested, he would have gladly done his business in the alley behind the hotel rather than risk some sort of injury.

A few minutes later, Cane walked down the street alone to a dry goods store called Lange Mercantile. After standing outside for a minute, looking at various items displayed in the windows, he went in through the double wooden doors. He was browsing along the first aisle when he suddenly realized that he could buy anything in the goddamn place if he wanted. He thought about that as he watched a dirty little man in a funny white helmet and knee-high rubber boots crouch down to admire a bathroom display in the plumbing section. He recognized that look. He’d seen it in his brothers’ faces whenever they followed Pearl into a store, and stood gazing longingly at everything they couldn’t have while he carefully counted out the pennies to buy some little thing they couldn’t do without, a few nails, say, or a can of strap oil. Never anything more than that. He took one more glance at the man, then moved on to the next aisle.

He ended up buying Cob a pair of bib overalls and two shirts and a pair of sturdy brogans and a cloth cap; and for himself, a new gray suit and a pair of ankle-high leather boots. He also picked up several pairs of socks and underwear and tooth powder and brushes and a razor and a bottle of perfumed water, along with some gauze and tape and a bottle of alcohol to dress Cob’s leg. At the back of the store, in a corner behind the veterinary supplies, he stumbled upon several tall stacks of used books for sale, and his immediate thought was to purchase them all, but then he realized how impractical that would be, at least for now. He wasn’t exactly sure why he loved them, but he knew that he did; and someday, he vowed, he’d have that many or more. He ended up choosing a slightly mildewed copy of Shakespeare’s Tragedies, remembering that a short passage from the playwright in the McGuffey Reader, something about time and how it rushes by so quickly, had been one of his mother’s favorites. He then began carrying everything to the front of the store.

A tired-looking man in a bow tie took his money and wrapped everything up in brown paper. “You got quite a load there,” the clerk said. “Want me to get a boy to help you with it?”

“No, I can manage,” Cane replied. “Don’t have that far to go.” He walked back to the hotel with the packages and found Cob pulling the light chain again. He ran a tub of hot water, and they each took a bath. Then he shaved them both and demonstrated how to use the toothbrush. “I want you to do this at least once every couple days,” he told Cob. He poured some alcohol on the wound and taped gauze around it. Dressed in their new clothes, they went downstairs and out the front door, the clerk hardly recognizing them now. They walked about for a while enjoying their new duds and looking in shop windows. Cane bought some cigars and two pints of bonded whiskey at a liquor store and a small ham from a butcher shop and a bag of doughnuts from a bakery called Mannheim’s. At a place called the Belleview, they ate their first restaurant meal, and while they waited on their dessert, they saw the stable bum they’d left their horses with hurry past the window. Though they had no way of knowing, Chester’s boss, Hog Jonson, had just informed him a few minutes ago that, with the way automobiles were taking over now, he had decided to shut the stable down after Thanksgiving and start a garage with a couple of his nephews. It was the worst piece of news Chester had received since a judge sentenced him to a ten-year term for manslaughter in the Mansfield Reformatory back when he was twenty, and he was on his way to the Mecca Bar to settle his nerves with the dollar Cane had tipped him. All he’d ever done since his release from prison was work with horses; and now, at fifty-seven, he was too old to start over, but he was also too broke to retire. It was happening all over, Hog had told his wife when she asked what his stable hand would do, men and animals being replaced by machines. Nobody gave a shit as long as they weren’t the ones losing out. Don’t worry about it, he said, ol’ Chester will figure something out. And if he don’t, he can always go back to the pen.