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‘Don’t stand half in and half out, cawfee man,’ she invited him, ‘either come visit or go away.’

Dove stepped inside, apologizing, ‘Don’t mean to appear ongrateful, miss, for you’ve been pure-quill kind. But a certain party has carried me back here account of one old coffee-pot. Now aint that as sorry a circumstance as ever you heard tell?’

The girl was sitting in an old-fashioned rocker wearing only a white wisp of a slip. Somewhere in the room punk was burning. But her own scent, burning more darkly than that, cut through it.

‘Why, where your fine yellow shoes, cawfee man?’

‘The company’s holding them against that same pitiful pot. O miss,’ Dove broke with the disappointment, ‘I do try my very hardest. Other boys rise without scarcely tryin’ – Why don’t I rise like other boys?’ He covered his eyes with the back of his hand.

‘Why for very shame’ – she took his hands down and caught them softly below her own along the rocker’s arms – ‘shame and double double shame on a great big cawfee man like you takin’ things so hard as this. Of course you’ll rise as high as other boys and likely even higher!’

‘I’m not as right sure of that as I once was, miss, however kind on your part to say so. You see, I got handicaps others haven’t got.’ His knees pressed her own and she let them press. ‘You don’t appear handicapped, cawfee man.’

‘In more ways than one, miss,’ he leaned as he mourned, ‘more ways than one. First, I can’t so much as read my own name. For another, there’s a man right outside your door waitin’ to law me. Now if that aint as pitiful a set of circumstances for a country boy to overcome I never heard of pitifuller.’

‘O cawfee man,’ she chided him tenderly, tucking his hands back below her own, ‘you are the biggest country fool ever to walk barefoot to town. Now tell me true – What color wuz that mizzly old pot you keep grievin’ so about?’

Dove rocked her forward to get a closer look at the pot, gleaming like a burnished treasure in the gloom on the mantel just above the girl’s head. ‘Mostly green, Miss.’ Could he get a hand loose he could reach it.

Cawfee man, you upsettin’ me’ – and putting her feet wide behind him and her full weight forward, forced him to grasp the rocker back of her neck to keep from being upset himself.

— ‘and a spot of red on the handle.’

‘O so you say’ – she hooked her ankles behind his and her arms about his waist to help him keep his balance – ‘So you say, but who ever heard tell of a red ’n green cawfee pot? I don’t think you’d lie, yet it’s hard for a girl to believe – a red ’n green pot.’ Yet for one in grave doubt her voice sounded curiously approving; and let him rock her forward again. ‘What I really wants to know is do it make good cawfee?’

‘Why, they tell me it cook pretty fair, miss. Yet it could be that they lied. It’s a thing I’d not take another person’s word for, were I you.’

‘I ’spects it depend some on whether I grinds my own.’

‘It’s always best do you grind your own, miss. For that way it’s much fresher.’

‘So you say. But what good is fresh if there aint enough to satisfy? Mister, if you talkin’ ’bout some little old scrawny-size pot I aint interested. What I needs is a great big pot, enough for both morning and night.’

‘So long as it make good cawfee, miss, size don’t scarcely matter.’

‘It matter a lot if it so small it boil over the minute your back is turned.’

‘This is a slow-boiler type pot, miss,’ Dove recalled, rocking her back so far that her slip slid to her navel, ‘with a spot of red on the handle.’

Minnie-Mae let her head rest on the chair’s cushioned back and looked up still unbelieving. ‘So you say. But you talks so smooth I begin to doubt you’s a country boy at all. You a city boy without shoes – Now aint you?’

Dove straightened up with a sudden pride. ‘I’m purely country, miss, head to toe, and aint nothin’ to be ashamed of in that. It weren’t town boys made our country great – when danger called it was country boys first to answer the call! And many and many a barefoot boy has rose mighty high, though I don’t recall their names at the moment. Us country boys, we give our all! – O miss, if only someone would give me a chance to rise I wouldn’t ask for pay. You don’t get rich askin’ for raises, that much I know. It’s the boys who were willing to work just for the experience got to be millionaires! Miss, if I could just get my shoes back I’m sure I’d start to rise like others.’

‘Why you just said yourself boys without shoes rise more high than them that has them. Don’t handicap yourself further by puttin’ on shoes, you comical fool.’

Someone tried the latch of the door, then padded softly off. Dove saw the pot almost within reach and felt himself gaining ground inch by inch.

‘Your belt-buckle botherin’ me, country-fool.’

The old-fashioned rocker went creakety-creak.

Now grind cawfee and goddamn your country shoes!’

But Dove only stood waggling his loose tooth, carefully gauging the distance to the pot with his pants around his ankles. He got his little finger around the spout when he heard a swamp mosquito taxiing in: he knew it was a swamp mosquito because it had two motors. It raced down the runway of his left buttock, rocked to a stop, then tried the flesh tentatively as if testing for density. Dove gave his rump a waggle to shake it loose and the movement cost the insect its footing. With the fury of any dignified individual shoved without warning into the street, it planted both feet to gain the greatest leverage and sank its avid proboscis so deep Dove leaped like a hare with the pang.

‘O CAWfee man! O you MIGHTY CAWfee man! O you cawfeegrinding CAWfee man! O you grind so good! O you my cawfiest cawfee man!’ The bug began drilling for bone but the girl gripped both his wrists. All Dove could do was waggle and jerk in a perfect frenzy and the harder he waggled and jerked the more resolved the bug grew to get a bit of bone.

‘I get you shoes! I get you shirts! I get you hats ’n all that! O proud-size cawfee man!’ – then her voice was drowned in a grateful animal groaning – ‘Gawd! Gawd! Gawd!’ And with every ‘Gawd’ she regained lost ground, climbing his back and forcing him further and further from the pot. By the time her ankles were locked behind his neck Dove knew he was losing territory fast. As the old-fashioned rocker went creakety-creak.

‘Out of that!’ The girl’s foot slipped around Dove’s chin and by her instep catapulted him as if he’d been kicked by a mule. He landed entangled in his pants just as Smiley crashed through the window bringing sash, screen and all with him.

Minnie-Mae met Smiley mid-room with the full momentum of the chair behind her – Dove shut his eyes at the soft solid whooosh as her fist broke Smiley’s breath and his legs flew up and he landed even harder than had Dove.

As an empty rocker went clickety-click.

‘I love a fool,’ Dove heard the girl tell, ‘but you two suits me too well.’