"Good-bye, Mary," he said.
"Good-bye, Jay."
They kissed, and her head settled for a moment against him. He stroked her hair. "I'll let you know," he said, "quick as I can, if it's serious."
"I pray it won't be, Jay."
"Well, we can only hope." The moment of full tenderness between them was dissolved in their thought, but he continued gently to stroke the round back of her head.
"Give all my love to your mother. Tell her they're both in my thoughts and wishes-constantly. And your father, of course, if he's-well enough to talk to."
"Sure, dear."
"And take care of yourself."
"Sure."
He patted her back and they parted.
"Then I'll hear from you-see you-very soon."
"That's right."
"All right, Jay." She squeezed his arm. He kissed her, just beneath the eye, and realized her disappointed lips; they smiled, and he kissed her heartily on the mouth. In a glimmer of gaiety, both were on the verge of parting with their customary morning farewell, she singing, "Good-bye John, don't stay long," he singing back, "I'll be back in a week or two," but both thought better of it.
"All right, dear. Good-bye."
"Good-bye, my dear."
He turned abruptly at the bottom of the steps. "Hey," he whispered. "How's your money?"
She thought rapidly. "All right, thank you."
"Tell the children good-bye for me. Tell them I'll see them tonight."
"I better not promise that, had I?"
"No, but probably. And Mary: I hope I can make supper, but don't wait it."
"All right."
"Good night."
"Good night." He walked back towards the bam. In the middle of the yard he turned and whispered loudly, "And you think it over about your birthday."
"Thank you, Jay. All right. Thank you."
She could hear him walking as quietly as possible on the cinders. He silently lifted and set aside the bar of the door, and opened the door, taking care to be quiet. The first leaf squealed; the second, which was usually worse, was perfectly still. Stepping to the left of the car, and assuming the serious position of stealth which the narrowness of the garage made necessary, he disappeared into the absolute darkness.
She knew he would try not to wake the neighbors and the children; and that it was impossible to start the auto quietly. She waited with sympathy and amusement, and with habituated dread of his fury and of the profanity she was sure would ensue, spoken or unspoken.
Uhgh-hy uh yu hy why uhy uh: wheek-uh-wheek-uh: Ughh-hy wh yuh: wheek: (now the nearly noiseless, desperate adjustments of spark and throttle and choke)
Ughgh-hyuh yuhyuh wheek yuh yuh wheek wheek wheek yuh yuhyuh: wheek: (which she never understood and, from where she stayed now, could predict so well)
Ughgh-Ughgh-yuhyuhUgh wheek yuh yuh Ughgh yuh wheek wheek yuhyuh: wheek wheek: uh: (like a hideous, horribly constipated great brute of a beast: like a lunatic sobbing: like a mouse being tortured): Ughgh-Ughgh-Ughgh (Poor thing, he must be simply furious) Ughgh-wheek-Whughughyuh-Ughwheekyuhuughgyughyuhyuhy a a a a a a a h h h h h h R h R h R H R H R H (oh, stop it!) R H R H (a window went up) R H R H R H R H R H R yuhyhhRRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRH (the door smacked to in rage and triumph) RhRhRh – - – - – - – - (the window went down) RHRHRHRHRH (the machine backed out; crackling on the cinders). RHRH – - – - – (he wrenched it rudely but adroitly in a backward curve, almost to the chicken wire; from between the houses, light from the street caught its black side) rhrh – - – - (and swung as rudely round the corner of the barn and, by opposite turn, into the alley, facing eastward, where it stood) rhrh – - – - – - – - (obedient, conquered, malicious as a mule, while he briefly reappeared, faced towards the house, saw her, waved one hand-she waved, but he did not see her-and drew the gate shut, disappearing beyond it) rhrhrhrhrhrhrhRHRHRHRHRHRHR H R H R H rh rh rh rh rh rh rh rh rh rh rh rh C utta wawwwwk: Craaawwrk?
Chiquawkwawh.
Wrrawkuhkuhkuh.
Craarrawwk. rwrwrk? yrk. rk: She released a long breath, very slowly, and went into. the house.
There was her milk, untouched, forgotten, barely tepid. She drank it down, without pleasure; all its whiteness, draining from the stringing wet whiteness of the empty cup, was singularly repugnant. She decided to leave things until morning, ran water over the dishes, and left them in the sink.
If the children had heard so much as a sound, they didn't show it now. Catherine, as always, was absolutely drowned in sleep, and both of them, as always, were absolutely drowned.
Really, they are too big for that, she thought. Rufus certainly. She carefully readjusted their covers, against catching cold. They scarcely stirred.
I ought to ask a doctor.
She saw the freshened bed. Why, the dear, she thought, smiling, and got in. She was never to realize his intention of holding the warmth in for her; for that had sometime since departed from the bed.
Chapter 3
He imagined that by about now she would about be getting back and finding the bed. He smiled to think of her finding it.
He drove down Forest, across the viaduct, past the smoldering depot, and cut sharply left beneath the asylum and steeply downhill. The L amp;N yards lay along his left, faint skeins of steel, blocked shadows, little spumes of steam; he saw and heard the flickering shift of a signal, but he could no longer remember what that one meant. Along his right were dark vacant lots, pale billboards, the darker blocks of small sleeping buildings, an occasional light. He would have eaten in one of these places, small, weakly lighted holes-in-the-wall, opaque with the smoke of overheated lard, some for Negroes, some for whites, which served railroad men and the unexplainable nighthawks you found in any fair-sized town. You never saw a woman there, except sometimes behind a counter or sweating over a stove. He never used to talk when he went to them, but he enjoyed the feeling of conspiracy, and the sound of voices. If you went to the right ones, and if you were known, or looked like you could be trusted, you could get a shot or two of liquor, any hour of the night.
He ran his tongue over his teeth, tasting the last of the molasses and coffee and bacon and eggs.
Before long the city thinned out into the darkened evidences of that kind of flea-bitten semi-rurality which always peculiarly depressed him: mean little homes, and others inexplicably new and substantial, set too close together for any satisfying rural privacy or use, too far, too shapelessly apart to have adherence as any kind of community; mean little pieces of ill-cultivated land behind them, and alongside the road, between them, trash and slash and broken sheds and rained-out billboards: he passed a late, late streetcar, no passengers aboard, far out near the end of its run.
Within two more minutes he had seen the last of this sort of thing. The darkness became at once more intimate and more hollow; the engine sounded different, a smooth, easy drone; budding limbs swelled up and swept with sudden speed through the last of the vivid light; the auto bored through the center of the darkness of the universe; its poring shafts of light, like an insect's antennae, feeling into distinctness every relevant small obstacle and ease of passage, and very little else. He unbuttoned his vest and the top button of his trousers and settled back. After a few moments he wondered about taking off his coat; but the rhythm and momentum of night driving were too strongly persuasive to wish to break. He settled still more deeply, his eyes shifting gear constantly between the farthest reach of his lights and the nearest, and gave himself over entirely to the pleasures of the journey, and to its still undetermined but essentially grave significance.
It was just nearing daybreak when he came to the river; he had to rap several times on the window of the little shanty before the ferryman awoke.
"Have to double the charge, mister, cross at night," he said, intent on lighting his lantern.
"That's all right."
At the voice, he looked up, well awake for the first time. "Oh, howdy thur," he said.