The Reivers Read online

  “Yes,” Boon said.

  “Then wash yourself off and put them on; this is a decent place: not a joint. Let them use Vera’s room, Minnie. Vera’s visiting her folks up in Paducah.” She said to Boon or maybe to both of us: “Minnie fixed a bed for Otis up ffi the attic. Lucius can sleep with him tonight—”

  There were feet on the stairs, then in the hall and in the door. This time it was a big girl. I dont mean fat: just big, like Boon was big, but still a girl, young too, with dark hair and blue eyes and at first I thought her face was plain. But she came into the room already looking at me, ?â„¢ I,,knew it didn’t matter what her face was. “Hi, kiddo,” Boon said. But she didn’t pay any attention to him at all yet; she and Miss Reba were both looking at me

  “Watch now,” Miss Reba said. “Lucius, this is Miss Come.” I made my manners again. “See what I mean?” Miss Reba said. “You brought that nephew of yours over here hunting refinement. Here it is, waiting for him. He wont know what it means, let alone why he’s doing it. But maybe Lucius could learn him to at least ape it. All right” she said to Boon. “Go get cleaned up.”

  J, M^ayb^- Corrie>11 ^me help us,” Boon said. He was Holding Miss Corrie’s hand. “Hi, kiddo,” he said again �« -Ar7.TM1??kmg like a shanty-boat swamp rat,” Miss Reba said, “I’ll keep this damned place respectable on Sunday anyhow.”

  Minnie showed us where the room and the bathroom were upstairs and gave us soap and a towel apiece and went out. Boon put his grip on the bed and opened it and took out a clean shirt and his other pants. They were his everyday pants but the Sunday ones he had on wouldn’t be ””””’ ” ‘^ere until they were cleaned with naptha ee?” he said. “I told you so. I done the

  “x 1.1–—make you brinS at least a clean shirt.”

  (My blouse aint muddy,” I said.

  bathe’” r said” “l had a bath yesterday ” said didn’t you?” Said “BUt y�°U hCard What Miss Reba

  - -aid’ “J never **ew �„¢y !adies any-TaSQt trying to make somebody take a bath.”

  �°””? known Miss Reba a few hours out you done learned something else and one shirt from one grip but he over the open grip, busy, holding the shirt in his hand while he decided where to put the pants, then putting the shirt on the bed and picking up the pants again and moving them about a foot further along the bed, then picking up the shirt again and putting it where the pants were; then he cleared his throat loud and hard and went to the window and opened it and leaned out and spit and closed the window and came back to the bed, not looking at me, talking loud, like somebody that comes upstairs first on Christmas morning and tells you what you’re going to get on the Christmas tree that’s not the thing you wrote Santa Claus for:

  “Dont it beat all how much a fellow can learn and in what a short time, about something he not only never knowed before, he never even had no idea he would ever want to know it, let alone would find it useful to him for the rest of his life—providing he kept it, never let it get away from him. Take you, for instance. Just think. Here it aint but yesterday morning, not even two days back yet, and think how much you have learned: how to drive a automobile, how to go to Memphis across the country without depending on the railroad, even how to get a automobile out of a mudhole. So that when you get big and own a automobile of your own, you will not only already know how to drive it but the road to Memphis too and even how to get it out of a ffludhole.”

  “Boss says that when I get old enough to own an automobile, there wont be any more mudholes to get into. That all the roads everywhere will be so smooth and hard that automobiles will be foreclosed and reclaimed by the bank or even wear out without ever seeing a mudhole.”

  “Sure, sure,” Boon said, “all right, all right. Say there aint no more need to know how to get out of a mudhole, at least you’ll still know how to. Because why? Because you aint give the knowing how away to nobody.”

  “Who could I give it to?” I said. “Who would want to know how, if there aint any more mudholes?”

  “All right, all right,” Boon said. “Just listen to me a minute, will you? I ain’t talking about mudholes. I’m talking about the things a fellow—boy can learn that he never even thought about before, that forever afterward, when he needs them he will already have them. Because there aint nothing you ever learn that the day wont come when you’ll need it or find Use for it—providing you’ve still got it, aint let it get away from you by chance or, worse than that, give it away from carelessness or pure and simple bad judgment. Do you see what I mean now? Is that clear?”

  “I dont know,” I said. “It must be, or you couldn’t keep on talking about it.”

  “All right,” he said. “That’s point number one. Now for point number two. Me and you have been good friends as long as we have known each other, we’re having a nice trip together; you done already learned a few things you never seen nor heard of before, and I’m proud to be the one to be along and help you learn them. And tonight you’re fixing to learn some more things I dont think you have thought about before neither—things and information and doings that a lot of folks in Jefferson and other places too will try to claim you aint old enough yet to be bothered with knowing about them. But shucks, a boy that not only learned to run a automobile but how to drive it to Memphis and get it out of that son of a bitch’s private mudhole too, all in one day, is plenty old enough to handle anything he’ll meet. Only -” He had to cough again, hard, and clear his throat and then go to the window and open it and spit again and close it again. Then he came back.

  “And that’s point number three. That’s what I’m trying to impress on you. Everything a m—fel—boy sees and learns and hears about, even if he dont understand it at the time and cant even imagine he will ever have any use to know it, some day he will have a use for it and will need it, providing he has still got it and aint give it away to nobody. And then he will thank his stars for the good friend that Has been his friend since he had to be toted around that livery stable on his back like a baby and held Mm on the first horse he ever rode, that warned him in time not to throw it away and lose it for good by forget-fulness or accident or mischance or maybe even just friendly blabbing about what aint nobody else’s business but theirs—”

  “What you mean is, whatever I see on this trip up here, not to tell Boss or father or Mother or Grandmother when we get back home. Is that it?”

  “Dont you agree?” Boon said. “Aint that not a bit more than just pure and sensible good sense and nobody’s business but yours and mine? Dont you agree?”

  “Then why didn’t you just come right out and say so?” I said. Only he still remembered to make me take another bath; the bathroom smelled even more. I dont mean stronger: I just mean more. I didn’t know much about boarding houses, so maybe they could have one with just ladies in it. I asked Boon; we were on the way back downstairs then; it was beginning to get dark and I was hungry.

  “You damn right they’re ladies,” he said. “If I so much as catch you trying to show any sass to any of them—”

  “I mean, dont any men board here? live here?”

  “No. Dont no men actively live here except Mr Binford, and there aint no boarding to speak of neither. But they have plenty of company here, in and out after supper and later on; you’ll see. Of course this is Sunday night, and Mr Binford is pretty strict about Sunday: no dancing and frolicking: just visiting their particular friends quiet and polite and not wasting too much time, and Mr Binford sees to it they damn sure better keep on being quiet and polite while they are here. In fact, he’s a good deal that way even on week nights. Which reminds me. All you need to do is be quiet and polite yourself and enjoy yourself and listen good in case he happens to say anything to you in particular, because he dont talk very loud the first time and he dont never like it when somebody makes him have to talk twice. This way. They’re likely in Miss Reba’s room.”

  They were: Miss Reba, Miss Corrie, Mr Binford and Otis. Miss Reba had on a black dress
now, and three more diamonds, yellowing too. Mr Binford was little, the littlest one in the room above Otis and me. He had on a black Sunday suit and gold studs and a big gold watch chain and a heavy moustache, and a gold-headed cane and his derby hat and a glass of whiskey on the table at his elbow. But the first thing you noticed about him was his eyes because the first thing you found out was that he was already looking at you. Otis had his Sunday clothes on too. He was not even as big as me but there was something wrong about him.

  “Evening, Boon,” Mr Binford said. “Evening, Mr Binford,” Boon said. “This is a friend of mine. Lucius Priest.” But when I made my manners to him, he didn’t say anything at all. He just quit looking at me. “Reba,” he said, “buy Boon and Corrie a drink. Tell Minnie to make these boys some lemonade.”

  “Minnie’s putting supper on,” Miss Reba said. She unlocked the closet door. It had a kind of bar in it—one shelf with glasses, another with bottles. “Besides, that one of Corrie’s dont want lemonade no more than Boon does. He wants beer.”

  “I know it,” Mr Binford said. “He slipped away from me out at the park. He would have made it only he couldn’t find anybody to go into the saloon for him. Is yours a beer-head too, Boon?”

  “No sir,” I said. “I dont drink beer.”

  “Why?” Mr Binford said. “You dont like it or you cant get it?”

  “No sir,” I said. “I’m not old enough yet.”

  “Whiskey, then?” Mr Binford said.

  “No sir,” I said. “I dont drink anything. I promised my mother I wouldn’t unless Father or Boss invited me.”

  “Who’s his boss?” Mr Binford said to Boon.

  “He means his grandfather,” Boon said.

  “Oh,” Mr Binford said. “The one that owns the automobile. So evidently nobody promised him anything.”

  “You dont need to,” Boon said. “He tells you what to do and you do it.”

  “You sound like you call him boss too,” Mr Binford said. “Sometimes.”

  “That’s right,” Boon said. That’s what I meant about Mr Binford: he was already looking at me before I even knew it.

  “But your mother’s not here now,” he said. “You’re on a tear with Boon now. Eighty—is it?—miles away.”

  “No sir,” I said. “I promised her.”

  “I see,” Mr Binford said. “You just promised her you wouldn’t drink with Boon. You didn’t promise not to go whore-hopping with him.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Miss Reba said. I dont know how to say it. Without moving, she and Miss Corrie jumped, sprang, confederated, Miss Reba with the whiskey bottle in one hand and three glasses in the other.

  “That’ll do,” Mr Binford said.

  “Like hell,” Miss Reba said. “I can throw you out too. Dont think I wont. What the hell kind of language is that?”

  “And you too!” Miss Corrie said; she was talking at Miss Reba. “You’re just as bad! Right in front of them—”

  “I said, that’ll do,” Mr Binford said. “One of them cant get beer and the other dont drink it so maybe they both just come here for refinement and education. Call it they just got some. They just learned that whore and son of a bitch are both words to think twice before pulling the trigger on because both of them can backfire.”

  “Aw, come on, Mr Binford,” Boon said.

  “Why, be damned if here aint still another hog in this wallow,” Mr Binford said. “A big one, too. Wake up, Miss Reba, before these folks suffocate for moisture.” Miss Reba poured the whiskey, her hand shaking, enough to clink the bottle against the glass, saying son of a bitch, son of a bitch, son of a bitch, in a thick fierce whisper. “That’s better,” Mr Binford said. “Let’s have peace around _ Let’s drink to it.” He raised his glass and was saying, “L dies and gents all,” when somebody—Minnie I suppose—I began to ring a hand bell somewhere in the back. Mr Bin-ford got up. “That’s better still,” he said. “Hash time. Learn us all the refinement and education that there’s a better use for the mouth than running private opinions through it.”

  We went back toward the dining room, not fast, Mr Bin-ford leading the way. There were feet again, going fast; two more ladies, girls—that is, one of them was still a girt —hurried down the stairs, still buttoning their clothes, one in a red dress and the other in pink, panting a little. “We hurried as fast as we could,” one of them said quickly to Mr Binford. “We’re not late.”

  “I’m glad of that,” Mr Binford said. “I dont feel like lateness tonight.” We went in. There were more than enough places at the table, even with Otis and me. Minnie was still bringing things, all cold—fried chicken and biscuits and vegetables left over from dinner, except Mr Bin-ford’s. His supper was hot: not a plate, a dish of steak smothered in onions at his place. (You see? how much ahead of his time Mr Binford was? Already a Republican. I dont mean a 1905 Republican—I dont know what his Tennessee politics were, or if he had any—I mean a 1961 Republican. He was more: he was a Conservative. Like this: a Republican is a man who made his money; a Liberal is a man who inherited his; a Democrat is a bare-i footed Liberal in a cross-country race; a Conservative is a Republican who has learned to read and write.) We all sat down, the two new ladies too; I had met so many people by now that I couldn’t get names any more and had stopped trying; besides, I never saw these two again. We began to eat. Maybe the reason Mr Binf ord’s steak smelled so extra was that the rest of the food had smelled itself out at noon. Then one of the new ladies—the one who was no longer a girl—said,

  “Were we, Mr Binford?” Now the other one, the gi had stopped eating too.

  “Were you what?” Mr Binford said. “You know what,” the girl said, cried. “Miss Reba,”! said, “you know we do the best we can—dont dare mate no extra noise—no music on Sunday when all the other places do—always shushing our customers up every time they just want to have a little extra fun—but if we aiit already setting down at our places in this dining room P when he sticks his nose in the door, next Saturday we got to drop twenty-five cents into that God damned box—”

  They are house rules,” Mr Binford said. “A house without rules is not a house. The trouble with you bitches is, you have to act like ladies some of the time but you dont know how. I’m learning you how.”

  “You cant talk to me that way,” the older one said.

  “All right,” Mr Binford said. “We’ll turn it around. The trouble with you ladies is, you dont know how to quit acting like bitches.”

  The older one was standing now. There was something wrong about her too. It wasn’t that she was old, like Grandmother is old, because she wasn’t. She was alone. It was just that she shouldn’t have had to be here, alone, to have to go through this. No. that’s wrong too. It’s that nobody should ever have to be that alone, nobody, not ever. She said, “I’m sorry, Miss Reba. I’m going to move out. Tonight.”

  “Where?” Mr Binford said. “Across the street to Birdie Watts’s? Maybe she’ll let you bring your trunk back with you this time—unless she’s already sold it.”

  “Miss Reba,” the woman said quietly. “Miss Reba.”

  “All right,” Miss Reba said briskly. “Sit down and eat your supper; you aint going nowhere. Yes,” she said, “I like peace too. So I’m going to mention just one more thing, then well close this subject for good.” She was talking up the table at Mr Binford now. “What the hell’s wrong with you? What the hell happened this afternoon to get you into this God damned humor?”

  “Nothing that I noticed,” Mr Binford said.

  “That’s right,” Otis said suddenly. “Nothing sure didn’t happen. He wouldn’t even run.” There was something, like a quick touch of electricity; Miss Reba was sitting with her mouth open and her fork halfway in it. I didn’t understand yet but everybody else, even Boon, did. And in the next minute I did too.

  “Who wouldn’t run?” Miss Reba said.

  “The horse,!! Otis said. “The horse and buggy we bet on in the race. Did they, Mr Binford?” No
w the silence was no longer merely electric: it was shocked, electrocuted. Remember I told you there was something wrong somewhere about Otis. Though I still didn’t think this was quite it, or at least all of it. But Miss Reba was still fighting. Because women are wonderful. They can bear anything because they are wise enough to know that all you have to do with grief and trouble is just go on through them and come out on the other side. I think they can do this because they not only decline to dignify physical pain by taking it seriously, they have no sense of shame at the idea of being knocked out. She didn’t quit, even then.

  “A horse race,” she said. “At the zoo? in Overton Park?”

  “Not Overton Park,” Otis said. “The driving park. We met a man on the streetcar that knowed which horse and buggy was going to win and changed our mind about Overton Park. Only, they didn’t win., did they, Mr Binford? But even then, we never lost as much as the man did, we didn’t even lose forty dollars because Mr Binford give me twenty-five cents of it not to tell, so all we lost was just thirty-nine dollars and seventy-five cents. Only, on top of that, my twenty-five cents got away from me in that beer mix-up Mr Binford was telling about. Didn’t it, Mr Bin-ford?” And then some more silence. It was quite peaceful. Then Miss Reba said,