“Think if I call her and tell her I had a flat tire she’ll believe me?”
I nodded.
“I don’t know, I just don’t know,” he said. “I told her that before—gambling there in LaPlace all night, ’til morning….I don’t know. Maybe I could tell her the car broke down—always having some kind of trouble with that old car. Think that’ll work?”
I nodded.
“I don’t know….Man, I wish I hadn’t stop by here for no haircut. Anywhere but here—anywhere…Think he’ll let me use his phone?”
I nodded.
“You sure?”
I nodded again.
He got up from the chair and went over to Lucas Felix.
“Local or long distance?” Lucas asked.
“N’Awlens.”
“You can use it. Don’t stay on too long.”
He turned his back to us as he dialed the number. She must have been sitting near the phone. He spoke quietly as he could. The shop was silent, not to listen to his conversation, but to give him privacy. We could still hear him.
“Honeybun, honeybun—sound like you mad already. Honeybun, listen; please listen; the car broke down on me. Honeybun—now, you don’t have to cuss like that.”
Sam Hebert was laughing so hard to himself, he had to go to the bathroom. I could hear him in there clearing his throat.
The fellow was saying: “I been trying to fix that old car last two hours….I’m talking low ’cause other people in the room….Honeybun, please, please…Bayonne—Bayonne, a little town between Opelousas and Baton Rouge—St. Raphael Parish—you can find it on the map….No, no, honeybun, now, I know you don’t mean what you just said. God in heaven knows you don’t mean what you just said….”
Sam Hebert started out of the bathroom, shook his head, and he went back inside. He couldn’t stop laughing.
The fellow on the phone was saying: “I worked, I worked, and I worked on that old car. A fellow brought me here so I could use the phone. First thing I did when I got here was call you to tell you not to worry, ’cause I know how much you worry when I drive from Natchitoches to N’Awlens in that old car. I didn’t want you to think I had been in a wreck and— Honeybun, you know you don’t mean that, that you wished I had been in a wreck and was dead….There ain’t no woman here. This a barbershop. You want speak to the barber? You don’t have to say that, honeybun, this a nice man, let me use his phone to call you….I ain’t go’n stay with the barber. Soon’s I get that old car fixed, I’ll be there to take you to Dooky Chase….You’ll already be there with who? That nigger with all that cheap-ass gold in his mouth? You wearing what? That pretty green dress I bought for you for Christmas. Shit—I’m mad now…and coming there….He carry a gun, huh? I carry one, too. And tell that nigger he better shoot straight, ’cause I don’t miss. That nigger too ugly to take anything from me—’specially my woman. See you later.”
He hung up the phone.
“How much I owe you, sir?” he asked Lucas.
“Nothing,” Lucas said. “You have enough troubles.”
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said.
He went to the bathroom as Sam Hebert was coming out wiping his eyes. He was in there about five minutes. When he came out he sat beside me again.
“Sorry, man,” I heard him whisper. “Sorry I had to lie to that woman like that. He’s the cause of it, he caused it. He knows he had me hooked from the start. They do that. Start telling you a story and they know you won’t leave ’til you heard the end. You understand what I’m saying?”
I nodded.
“Got you hooked, too?”
I nodded again.
“They do it on purpose—hook you like that? On purpose. I hope one day I can catch him up in Natchitoches. Don’t y’all ever get tired listening to that jackass?”
I didn’t answer him, I was listening to Jamison:
“Not long after Eula took them children and left him, he started going with Mika Leblanc from Chenal. He had a tiger on his hand. He slap her, she hit him back with her fist. He hit her with his fist, she hit him back with a piece of stove wood. Back and forth, back and forth, ’til she left. Next was Lettie White, a little Creole woman from Livonia. Stayed with Brady about six months, then she went back to her own people. Then he took up with Betty Mae. Y’all still with me, Lucas? You pretty quiet there.”
Lucas Felix assured him that he was with him all the way. Others told him that he was telling it like it was.
With their approval, Jamison went on:
“Had two children by him, a girl and a boy. The girl was pretty, pretty like her mama. Had that tan, creamy color like Lena Horne. The boy was darker—more chocolaty—and ways just like Brady—stayed in trouble. Brady used to beat him, but that didn’t do no good. Boy had too much of Brady’s blood in him.
“Brady was getting up in age, in them late sixties or even in his seventies. Couldn’t whip like he used to. Now he had to pick up a chunk of wood or a brick to throw at Jean-Pierre. One day he gave Jean-Pierre the shotgun and two shells and told him to go out and get a rabbit for supper.”
Sam Hebert laughed. Some of the others did, too, but kept their laughter to themselves. The laughing didn’t stop Jamison:
“Jean-Pierre came back a’ hour later—no rabbit. Brady told him with all those rabbits running ’round in the fields, he couldn’t get one rabbit? Jean-Pierre told him he couldn’t get one. Brady told him to give him back the gun and the bullets. Jean-Pierre handed him the rifle and told him that he had shot at two rabbits but had missed. Brady said to Jean-Pierre, ‘You mean to tell me you shot two whole bullets and missed hitting one rabbit?’ Jean-Pierre said, ‘Yes, sir.’ Brady told him to wait, he was going to get just one bullet and see what he could hit. Jean-Pierre bust out of the house, headed for the field. Brady shot, ‘pow,’ hitting a corn stalk on a row next to where Jean-Pierre was running. He hollered at Jean-Pierre he better bring a rabbit to that house for supper or don’t come back to the house.
“Teddy Man had been hunting that day. On his way back home he saw Jean-Pierre sitting under a tree on that back road. He was crying, his shirt soaking wet from running. Teddy Man asked him what was the matter. Jean-Pierre told him. Teddy Man had three or four rabbits in a sack. He dropped the sack, reached in, got one of the rabbits, and gave it to Jean-Pierre.
“Not long after that, Betty Mae left Brady and took her children to N’Awlens. In N’Awlens, she took up with Lena Aguillard’s oldest boy, Phillip. Phillip used to send Lena a few dollars every so often, and she was always bragging on him, saying how he was making something of himself. He told her that him and Betty Mae and the girl got along very well, but Jean-Pierre stayed in trouble, and they were always bailing him out of jail. In another letter he told her that he had heard there was a lot of work out in California, and Betty Mae thought they should go so she could get Jean-Pierre out of N’Awlens. In his next letter, a month later or two months later, he told her that they had settled down in a little town called Valley Jo, and both him and Betty Mae had gotten good jobs in another little place called Mare Island, just across a little body of water from Valley Jo. The girl was in junior college, but Jean-Pierre still stayed in trouble. Now he was running ’round with a gang and he was smoking dope.
“By now Brady had taken up with Dorothy Lee Brooks. Her husband, Sidney, had died the year before.”
“My God—just look at the time—” I heard behind me.
“When Sidney died, Dorothy Lee was left by herself to take care that old lazy Norman. Boy wouldn’t work for nothing. Stayed drunk. First thing every morning he walked down to that corner store and buy a bottle of that old cheap muscatel wine from Te Jacques. Dorothy Lee begged Te Jacques not to sell him no more wine. Te Jacques told her, what was he in the business for but to please his customers—hanh? ‘Long as he brings his money, I have to sell it to him. I don’t let him have it on credit. But with money—mais oui.’ Dorothy Lee went to Mapes. Mapes told her he couldn’t tell Te Jacques who he could or couldn’t sell his goods to. And he couldn’t tell Norman anything unless he broke some kind of law. So far he hadn’t. Now, she told Brady when they started seeing each other. Norman played it cool for two or three days, then he just had to have that wine. Cut grass all day with nothing but a yo-yo blade. When he finished, that old white woman, Slim Jarreau’s old mother-in-law, gave him one dollar—enough to get a half pint of that old cheap muscatel wine. First thing next morning he headed out for Te Jacques. Brady let him get a good head start, then he followed with that eight-plat bullwhip ’cross his shoulder. He waited across the road for Norman to come outside. You see, you could buy the liquor in the store up front, but if you wanted to drink it, you had to go outside or go to that little side room they called the nigger room.
“White people could drink in the front where they bought grocery, but you couldn’t. And old Norman wanted a drink soon as his hand hit that bottle. He opened that door and went outside and took a big swallow. He raised that bottle to get another swallow, and that’s when he spotted Brady. Brady started toward him, Norman took a quick swallow and started walking in the center of the road. That’s when Harry Chutz’s boy came around the bend in that pickup truck and hit him. Ronald, that big redhead boy, said he did everything he could to stop that truck, but he was going too fast to stop. He got out of the truck crying, saying, ‘I did all I could to stop. God knows I did all I could to stop. But he was in the middle of the road.’ They took Norman to the hospital. He was crippled, not dead. Maybe all that wine in him saved him. They took both Ronald and Brady to jail. But after the judge heard what he had to say—and Brady backed him up—the judge let him go. Mapes spoke up for Brady—how Brady tried to keep children in line when the old people could not. Reynolds, Judge Reynolds, told Brady he knew about him, how he had helped the older people with the children while mon and pa was away—but still he ought to lighten up. He let him go. Few days later Norman came out of the hospital on crutches. Still on crutches to this day. No more Te Jacques though.
“Brady was getting older, getting older, and he moved out of the quarter back into the field—in that same old house he had lived in years before—by the old sugarhouse. Before he could move in he had to run possums, snakes, rats—every kind of vermin you can think of—out of the old house. House had lost couple of blocks, making the gallery lean to one side. That didn’t bother Brady—he just wanted to get away from those ‘quarter niggers.’
“He got one of them Jarreau boys to plow up enough ground to make a garden. He planted watermelons, mushmelons, snap beans, okra, tomatoes, cucumber—anything you can name, he had it. He got Will Bergeron to sell him that old truck for fifty dollars. Old truck had been setting there idle for the longest.
“Brady used to pack his gardening on that old truck and go park ’side the highway. Stay there ’til late in the evening, then come on back home. People coming in from hunting would pass by his house and see him setting on the gallery smoking his pipe. The only person he let visit him was Noah—hanh, Noah?”
Noah was a small man with a patch of hair up front, bald in the middle, and hair on the sides and back of his head. He was a widower, and for company he spent as much time at the barbershop as he did at his own home.
“I’m a Christian man—” he said.
Next to my ear I heard, “Shit, now I got to listen to a goddamn sermon.”
“And being a Christian, I feel that no matter how much a man thinks he wants to be by himself, he wants li’l company every now and then. I thought it was my Christian duty to visit him, even if he told me not to come in—being a Christian I had to try. He was setting on the garry in a rockin’ chair—one of them straw-bottom rockin’ chairs. I spoke, he spoke back.
“I started to sit down on one of the steps, but he told me to come on up. And he went inside and got another one of them straw-bottom rockin’ chairs. We set there maybe couple hours, talkin’ li’l bit; quiet awhile; talk li’l bit mo’; quiet li’l bit mo’. Went on like that for ’bout couple hours; then I told him good night.
“Next time I went by, he told me to come on up. We just set and talk, talk about anything. He always planted more than he could eat or sell. Used to give me sacks of stuff to give people in the quarter. Didn’t mind giving them food, but don’t bother him. No more hunting, eyes had gone bad; but he liked his gardening. Just like to see things grow that he planted. Sometimes we just set there a long time, not saying a word.
“He musta been living back in the field two, maybe three years when that boy—Jean-Pierre—came back.”
“That’s the one he’s goin’ to kill?”
I nodded my head.
“Finally,” I heard behind me.
“ ’Most sundown. If you looked ’cross the sugarhouse, you could see that sun slipping behind the trees. I could see that dust following that car in the quarter about a mile away. Then the car come up and stopped in front of the house. That boy looked at us awhile ’fore he got out and come in the yard.
“ ‘This my daddy’s house?’
“ ‘ ’Pending on who you looking for?’
“ ‘My daddy, Brady Sims.’
“ ‘Come on up,’ I told him. ‘That’s him sitting right there.’
“He stopped in front of Brady and stuck out his hand. Brady didn’t offer his.
“ ‘Hi, Daddy,’ he said.
“ ‘Who you?’ Brady said, looking up at him.
“ ‘Your son, Jean-Pierre.’
“ ‘I don’t know no Jean-Pierre.’
“ ‘Betty Mae son.’
“ ‘I don’t ’member no Betty Mae.’
“The boy looked at me, then back to Brady.
“ ‘You shot at me once.’
“ ‘I missed?’
“ ‘Yes, sir, and I’m glad you did.’
“ ‘I don’t ’member that. What you want?’
“ ‘I come to find my daddy.’
“ ‘You running ’way from the law, boy?’
“ ‘Of course not.’
“ ‘You running ’way from something.’
“ ‘I’m not running from nothing. I just wanted to see my daddy.’
“He stuck out his hand again. Brady still wouldn’t take it. He looked at me.
“ ‘I didn’t get your name, sir?’
“ ‘Noah Williams,’ I said.
“We shook hands.
“ ‘You stay here with Daddy?’
“ ‘No, just visitin’. I live in the quarter.’
“ ‘What kinda work y’all do around here?’
“ ‘What can you do?’
“ ‘ ’Most anything.’
“ ‘Know how to cut grass?’
“ ‘Everybody knows how to cut grass.’
“ ‘You can make some pretty good change—cuttin’ grass.’
“That boy looked down on me like I had hit him.
“ ‘Me?’ he said, and tot his chest. ‘Me? Cut grass?’
“ ‘With a mowing machine, you can make some pretty good change—enough to feed yourself.’
“ ‘Any other kinda work around here? I need money.’
“ ‘You can ax around.’
“He turnt back to Brady.
“ ‘Daddy, can I stay here couple days?’
“Brady didn’t answer him, like he didn’t know he was still there. I tot Brady on the knee, and he looked up at the boy.
“ ‘Can I stay here couple days?’
“ ‘Room over there. You got to clean it out. Sleep there if you want.’
“Boy went to the other door and pulled it open. Sun had gone down, but he could see in there.
“ ‘Good Lord, it’ll take me a day to clean this up.’
“He come on back where we was settin’. He said, ‘I’ll sleep in my car tonight. Clean it tomorrow.’
“I stayed there with Brady few more minutes, then I started for home. That boy was ’sleep in the car.”
Behind me I heard, “I ever told you about that bottle of salt water with three different colors?”
I nodded.
“Liked for me to wash her back. Stick her toes out just ’bove them bubbles—toenails painted red, green, and pink—she wiggle them a little bit. Then she do that other foot—stick her toes out just ’nough for me to see them wiggling; then she duck her foot back in the water….Lord, have mercy, she knows what she do to me—make me want to jump in that tub with all my clothes on…And you think I’ll let a ugly-ass nigger with a mouth full of cheap-ass gold take her from me—’cause he carry a gun? Shit, I carry a gun too. I can’t respect no nigger who don’t carry a gun—not in these days—shit.”
Jamison was talking again:
“Spent all day cleaning out that room. Had to use shovel, broom, and mop. When he finished, Brady was already sittin’ out on the garry smoking his pipe. Boy asked him if he needed anything. Brady didn’t answer. Stella said he came in around six o’clock that night and ordered a hamburger and a bottle of beer. Said he needed to make some money. Said he asked her if she needed any help around the place. He could wait on tables, wash dishes, clean up—anything. But she didn’t need any help. He went over to Luther, asked Luther if he needed any help in the bar; he could be bartender, he could clean up, he could be bouncer—anything. Luther didn’t need no help either. He came back about ten that night; first thing the next morning he was out there again.
“First place he stopped was the store. Will Baptiste was there talking to old Billy Boudreau in Creole. Boy come in.
“Boy: ‘You need somebody to do some work?’
“Old Billy Boudreau: ‘No.’
“ ‘I can clean up,’ the boy said. ‘I can move heavy things. Sacks of rice, sacks of flour—I can move things like that for you.’
“ ‘I just have five-pounds sack of rice; same with sacks of flour and sugar. I can move all that with one hand.’
“ ‘I can deliver things after people buy from you.’
“ ‘They buy, they take it with them—hanh, Will?’
“Will Baptiste nodded his head.
“ ‘I can paint the store for you. Looks like it can stand a painting.’
“Will Baptiste told us old Billy Boudreau looked around the store at every wall, even up at the ceiling.
“Said he said, ‘Will, you can recall the last time this place have been painted—if ever?’
“Will Baptiste shook his head.
“ ‘Best you look for work someplace else,’ old Boudreau told him. ‘Who are you anyway?’
“ ‘Brady Sims’s boy.’
“Old Billy Boudreau looked him over. ‘Oh, yeah, yeah, I remember now. Y’all went to California? How’s that weather out there?’
“ ‘Fine.’
“ ‘Better than here?’
“ ‘Sometimes.’
“ ‘Yeah, yeah, I heard that. Well, best you look for work somewhere else. I don’t need help.’
“He leaves the store; next he goes to Mack Bergeron’s house. Drive in that front yard, like driving in somebody’s front yard in the quarter. Celestine said when she answered that door she nearly fainted.
“ ‘Boy, what you want?’
“ ‘They need anybody to do some work around here?’
“ ‘Boy, ain’t you got any better sense than to come up to this front door. What you think that back door is made for?’
“ ‘Just looking for work.’
“ ‘I don’t care what you looking for—you look for it at that back door. Now, you better get away from here ’fore Mr. Mack or Miss Joyce come here and catch you and that car in this front yard.’
“She slammed the door in his face.
“He left. He stopped at LeJeune plantation house; he stopped at the store. He went to Henry Riehl plantation house, stop there; went to the store. No, no, no; nobody needed any help. He stopped at the pecan factory. Didn’t need any help either. He came into Bayonne. He noticed all the things Jack Trudeau had on the sidewalk—rakes, brooms, mowing machine, a shovel, a hoe—he went in. He asked Jack Trudeau if he needed a clerk, or someone to keep records, or someone just to clean up the place. ‘Lloyd Zeno,’ said Jack Trudeau, scratching the inside of his ear (like he always do), just looked at the boy.
“Then he said: ‘Boy, where—who are you?’
“ ‘Brady Sims’s boy.’
“Lloyd said Jack Trudeau nodded for him to come over. Lloyd had been sweeping up the place.
“ ‘Claim he is one of Brady’s sons; thought they had all gone to California?’
“ ‘Last I heard,’ Lloyd said.
“Lloyd said Jack Trudeau scratch inside his ear again.
“ ‘Where you from?’ he asked.
“ ‘California.’
“Jack Trudeau looked him up and down and shook his head.
“ ‘No, I don’t need a stock clerk. I’m the stock clerk.’
“ ‘I can move things.’
“ ‘I have two boys to do that.’
“ ‘I can keep things clean around here.’
“ ‘That’s Lloyd’s job.’
“Lloyd said the boy looked around in the store, then thanked Jack Trudeau and left. Jack Trudeau followed the boy outside and watched him drive up the street. He came back in scratching his ear and talking to himself. ‘I don’t know what get into some of these niggers these days. Leave from here a few years—come back and want to be clerks. Now, Lloyd, if he had told me he wanted to be my secretary, and he could show me how to save money paying taxes—I woulda thought about hiring him. But, no—clerk.’ He scratch his ear again, and Lloyd went back to sweeping the floor.
“Jake LeCoz, Harry Green, and Sam Ferdinand was eating lunch when the boy stopped in front of the gas station. Jake asked him what he wanted. He told Jake he wanted to see the boss. Jake told him he could handle any business he needed. He said he wanted to see the boss. Jake asked him if it had anything to do with the car. He asked Jake if the boss was inside. Jake told him yes, but I wouldn’t go in if I was you. He went in. Joe DeLong was on the phone. He didn’t look at the boy until he had finished talking. Then he looked at him awhile before he asked him what he wanted.
“ ‘You got any work? I can do mechanic work.’
“ ‘Did you see those boys out there?’
“ ‘I saw them standing ’round eating.’
“ ‘Didn’t Jake tell you not to come in here bothering me?’
“ ‘He said something like that, but I—’
“ ‘Get out of here, and don’t ever come back in here again.’
“Next place he stopped, Semour drugstore. White people eating at the counter, Edna behind the counter serving, Robert Semour at the cash register. Robert sees him: ‘Hey, you looking for something?’
“ ‘You the owner?’
“ ‘I asked, are you looking for something?’
“ ‘Looking for work.’
“ ‘You’re in the wrong place. Get out of here.’
“He looked around the drugstore, especially at the white people eating at the counter.
“ ‘You hard on hearing?’ Robert said, getting up from his seat behind the cash register.
“He left. Montemare hardware store on St. Louis Street, his next stop. Montemare and two other Cajuns was in there talking in Creole. Joe Lenard was stacking cans of paint in a corner.
“Montemare saw the boy. ‘Yeah?’
“ ‘Looking for work.’
“Joe Lenard said Montemare called him. ‘Hey, Joe. Boy here says he wants your job.’
“ ‘I need it myself, Mr. Montemare.’
“ ‘Sorry, but Joe says he has to feed his children. Good luck, though.’
“He drove back to Stella, ordered a hamburger and a beer. Stella could tell he was hungry, and she gave him a plate of beans and rice and a piece of stewed chicken for the same price of a hamburger.
“ ‘Still looking ’round?’ she asked him.
“ ‘Nothing ’round here a man can do,’ he said.
“ ‘Keep trying,’ she told him. ‘Something bound to come up.’ ”
Noah Williams started talking:
“Me and Jules Grimmion was sitting on the garry talkin’. I could see the dust coming down the quarter, then the boy stopped the car before the house and came on in the yard. He spoke to us and took a seat on the steps.
“ ‘Found anything?’ I ax him.
“ ‘Nothing.’
“He sounded tired.
“ ‘How much you make cutting grass?’
“ ‘ ’Pending how hard you work. With your own tools—twenty, twenty-five dollars in a day.’
“Chocktaw could muster up thirty, thirty-five dollars. Hardworking old boy, ’til that snake caught him on the leg—a cottonmouth.”
Behind me I heard: “See what I mean? See what I mean? Now it’s Chocktaw and some fucking snake.”
“He had his own gear—weed eater—everything.”
“Chocktaw had a weed eater,” I heard behind me. “Now I have heard everything. The man kills his son with a gun; this old bastard brings up weed eater. Instead of N’Awlens, I ought to head my ass toward Jackson—listening to this shit.”
“ ‘A snake bit him?’ the boy ax.
“ ‘Cuttin’ ditch bank for Cecil Jarreau, and not wearin’ boots. Snake caught him jus’ ’bove the ankle.’
“ ‘How long do you have to work for twenty-five dollars?’
“ ‘Pretty much the whole day.’
“ ‘And for a mangy twenty-five dollars?’
“ ‘They’s some cotton picking still left out there.’
“From the steps, that boy looked up at Jules and tot his chest couple times.
“ ‘Me?’ he said. ‘Pick cotton? Me?’
“ ‘Man might do ’most anything if he get hungry enough.’
“ ‘I don’t know if y’all down here have heard it—slavery been over.’
“ ‘We heard,’ Jules said. ‘But a man got to do somethin’ to eat and put clothes on his back.’
“The boy nodded his head and got up from the steps.
“ ‘Thank y’all for talking. I’ll keep looking around. Good night.’
“Dust followed the car down the road, back in the field.
“ ‘I hope that boy don’t do nothing crazy for money,’ Jules said.”
Jamison was talking again:
“He worked his way toward Bayonne the first day; now, the next day he went in the opposite direction. Hébert plantation—nothing doing; Samson plantation—same thing; Loddio—nothing; at Pitcher, they told him he could come back at grinding. He went to the old Creole place; they wouldn’t even talk to him there. He went to Reese Phillip gas station in Johnsonville. He went to White and Black cafés and bars in Port Alfred—but nothing doing. Noah, you said you didn’t know what it was the first time you smelled a reefer?”
Behind me I heard this intake, and this loud exhale of breath.
Noah Williams was saying:
“Sittin’ on the garry with Brady that evening, I notice a funny kinda smell. I knowed it wasn’t Brady, ’cause he smoked just Buzz tobacco. Hadn’t never been ’round nobody smoking reefers before, so I couldn’t tell what it was. Brady went on smoking his pipe and looking out at the old sugarhouse. We had been talking ’bout the sugarhouse earlier, when we used to grind cane there; and I s’pose he was still thinkin’ ’bout those old days. But me, I couldn’t get that reefer smell out my mind. After a while, Jean-Pierre started bringing a woman there. A black one at first. They be in that room laughing and talking and smoking reefers. Then they get on that bed, and you could hear that old spring even out on the garry. Th-bang, th-bang, th-bang, th-bang.
“That one was black; then he started bringing a white one there—one of Alvin Tousaint daughters—not that fine one—that li’l skinny one—that chicken legs one. Laughing and talking and smoking reefers, and then on that bed. And you could hear that old gal, ‘Oh, oh, oh, oh.’ And that old spring going th-bang, bang, bang, bang—louder and louder. And that old gal gettin’ louder and louder and louder—like she and that old spring was racing to see which one could make the most noise. Next time he brought her there, Brady stopped him at the steps. Told him to take her and his clothes ’way from his house. Boy asked Brady where he was go’n stay. Brady told him go stay with her. He asked me if they had any more empty rooms in the quarter. I told him yes, but he had to see Mack Bergeron about that. Slept in his car that night; first thing the next morning, drove up to the house and knocked on that kitchen door. Celestine answered.
“ ‘I see you done found some sense,’ she told him.
“ ‘Like to speak to Mack Bergeron.’
“ ‘That’s Mr. Mack Bergeron.’
“ ‘Yeah—mister.’
“Celestine said she didn’t have to find Mack Bergeron. He had probably seen the car drive up in the yard.
“ ‘Do for you?’ he said.
“The boy told him.
“ ‘You and Brady had a round?’
“ ‘Yes, sir.’
“ ‘Sooner or later it happens with Brady.’
“He told him that Arthur Simmons had an extra room in his house. He could go down the quarter and talk to him. Aunt Sis and Uncle Buck had another room. If he found something he liked, it would be dollar a day, thirty dollars a month. If he paid now, he would charge him twenty-five dollars a month. Boy told him he wanted it for a week, and he’ll see if he wanted it longer. He gave Mack Bergeron seven dollars and left.
“Arthur Simmons said he didn’t mind having li’l company, since Loretta had died and all the children had moved. The extra room was already furnished.”