After he had told several stories, Mr. Head realized that the man he was talking to was asleep and he got up and suggested to Nelson that they walk over the train and see the parts of it. He particularly wanted the boy to see the toilet so they went first to the men’s room and examined the plumbing. Mr. Head demonstrated the ice-water cooler as if he had invented it and showed Nelson the bowl with the single spigot where the travelers brushed their teeth. They went through several cars and came to the diner.
This was the most elegant car in the train. It was painted a rich egg-yellow and had a wine-colored carpet on the floor. There were wide windows over the tables and great spaces of the rolling view were caught in miniature in the sides of the coffee pots and in the glasses. Three very black Negroes in white suits and aprons were running up and down the aisle, swinging trays and bowing and bending over the travelers eating breakfast. One of them rushed up to Mr. Head and Nelson and said, holding up two fingers, “Space for two!” but Mr. Head replied in a loud voice, “We eaten before we left!”
The waiter wore large brown spectacles that increased the size of his eye whites. “Stan’ aside then please,” he said with an airy wave of the arm as if he were brushing aside flies.
Neither Nelson nor Mr. Head moved a fraction of an inch. “Look,” Mr. Head said.
The near corner of the diner, containing two tables, was set off from the rest by a saffron-colored curtain. One table was set but empty but at the other, facing them, his back to the drape, sat the tremendous Negro. He was speaking in a soft voice to the two women while he buttered a muffin. He had a heavy sad face and his neck bulged over his white collar on either side. “They rope them off,” Mr. Head explained. Then he said, “Let’s go see the kitchen,” and they walked the length of the diner but the black waiter was coming fast behind them.
“Passengers are not allowed in the kitchen!” he said in a haughty voice. “Passengers are NOT allowed in the kitchen!”
Mr. Head stopped where he was and turned. “And there’s good reason for that,” he shouted into the Negro’s chest, “because the cockroaches would run the passengers out!”
All the travelers laughed and Mr. Head and Nelson walked out, grinning. Mr. Head was known at home for his quick wit and Nelson felt a sudden keen pride in him. He realized the old man would be his only support in the strange place they were approaching. He would be entirely alone in the world if he were ever lost from his grandfather. A terrible excitement shook him and he wanted to take hold of Mr. Head’s coat and hold on like a child.
As they went back to their seats they could see through the passing windows that the countryside was becoming speckled with small houses and shacks and that a highway ran alongside the train. Cars sped by on it, very small and fast. Nelson felt that there was less breath in the air than there had been thirty minutes ago. The man across the aisle had left and there was no one near for Mr. Head to hold a conversation with so he looked out the window, through his own reflection, and read aloud the names of the buildings they were passing. “The Dixie Chemical Corp!” he announced. “Southern Maid Flour! Dixie Doors! Southern Belle Cotton Products! Patty’s Peanut Butter! Southern Mammy Cane Syrup!”
“Hush up!” Nelson hissed.
All over the car people were beginning to get up and take their luggage off the overhead racks. Women were putting on their coats and hats. The conductor stuck his head in the car and snarled, “Firstopppppmry,” and Nelson lunged out of his sitting position, trembling. Mr. Head pushed him down by the shoulder.
“Keep your seat,” he said in dignified tones. “The first stop is on the edge of town. The second stop is at the main railroad station.” He had come by this knowledge on his first trip when he had got off at the first stop and had had to pay a man fifteen cents to take him into the heart of town. Nelson sat back down, very pale. For the first time in his life, he understood that his grandfather was indispensable to him.
The train stopped and let off a few passengers and glided on as if it had never ceased moving. Outside, behind rows of brown rickety houses, a line of blue buildings stood up, and beyond them a pale rose-gray sky faded away to nothing. The train moved into the railroad yard. Looking down, Nelson saw lines and lines of silver tracks multiplying and criss-crossing. Then before he could start counting them, the face in the window started out at him, gray but distinct, and he looked the other way. The train was in the station. Both he and Mr. Head jumped up and ran to the door. Neither noticed that they had left the paper sack with the lunch in it on the seat.
They walked stiffly through the small station and came out of a heavy door into the squall of traffic. Crowds were hurrying to work. Nelson didn’t know where to look. Mr. Head leaned against the side of the building and glared in front of him.
Finally Nelson said, “Well, how do you see what all it is to see?”
Mr. Head didn’t answer. Then as if the sight of people passing had given him the clue, he said, “You walk,” and started off down the street. Nelson followed, steadying his hat. So many sights and sounds were flooding in on him that for the first block he hardly knew what he was seeing. At the second corner, Mr. Head turned and looked behind him at the station they had left, a putty-colored terminal with a concrete dome on top. He thought that if he could keep the dome always in sight, he would be able to get back in the afternoon to catch the train again.
As they walked along, Nelson began to distinguish details and take note of the store windows, jammed with every kind of equipment—hardware, drygoods, chicken feed, liquor. They passed one that Mr. Head called his particular attention to where you walked in and sat on a chair with your feet upon two rests and let a Negro polish your shoes. They walked slowly and stopped and stood at the entrances so he could see what went on in each place but they did not go into any of them. Mr. Head was determined not to go into any city store because on his first trip here, he had got lost in a large one and had found his way out only after many people had insulted him.
They came in the middle of the next block to a store that had a weighing machine in front of it and they both in turn stepped up on it and put in a penny and received a ticket. Mr. Head’s ticket said, “You weigh 120 pounds. You are upright and brave and all your friends admire you.” He put the ticket in his pocket, surprised that the machine should have got his character correct but his weight wrong, for he had weighed on a grain scale not long before and knew he weighed no. Nelson’s ticket said, “You weigh 98 pounds. You have a great destiny ahead of you but beware of dark women.” Nelson did not know any women and he weighed only 68 pounds but Mr. Head pointed out that the machine had probably printed the number upsidedown, meaning the 9 for a 6.
They walked on and at the end of five blocks the dome of the terminal sank out of sight and Mr. Head turned to the left. Nelson could have stood in front of every store window for an hour if there had not been another more interesting one next to it. Suddenly he said, “I was born here!” Mr. Head turned and looked at him with horror. There was a sweaty brightness about his face. “This is where I come from!” he said.
Mr. Head was appalled. He saw the moment had come for drastic action. “Lemme show you one thing you ain’t seen yet,” he said and took him to the corner where there was a sewer entrance. “Squat down,” he said, “and stick you head in there,” and he held the back of the boy’s coat while he got down and put his head in the sewer. He drew it back quickly, hearing a gurgling in the depths under the sidewalk. Then Mr. Head explained the sewer system, how the entire city was underlined with it, how it contained all the drainage and was full of rats and how a man could slide into it and be sucked along down endless pitchblack tunnels. At any minute any man in the city might be sucked into the sewer and never heard from again. He described it so well that Nelson was for some seconds shaken. He connected the sewer passages with the entrance to hell and understood for the first time how the world was put together in its lower parts. He drew away from the curb.