—to Dove’s own homesick shore.
He would blink the bright tears from his eyes at last. No time to be homesick anymore. Scarcely time left for a man to rise. He would pick up his sample case and lug on, rapping a front door or rapping a rear. It couldn’t be too long now before some little good looker would invite him too into a fine old Southern home, serve him sweet potato pie too and say, ‘Big Fine Daddy, please stop runnin’ wild.’
But he only came to a great lonely house where a wan redhead of twelve or thirteen cried out at sight of his little store – ‘Granny! A man with everything we need!’ She seized a bar of tar soap ‘for my nappy old hair.’ A shoehorn for her nappy old shoes and cologne for her nappy old bath; a nail file, a comb, a compact – ‘There’s things you need here too, Granny!’ It looked to Dove like the sale of the year.
Till an old, old woman’s voice recalled the girl, and she returned looking more wan than before. And, kneeling silently, replaced every item she had taken from the case.
‘It’s awright, Miss,’ Dove reassured her, ‘Lots of ladies pick out things ’n then change their minds, times bein’ hard as they are.’
‘I didn’t intend to disappoint you,’ the child told him quietly. A nickel spun into the case, the screen door slammed, that old, old house stood sick and still.
‘You would of done better to take the soap,’ Dove reproached the empty porch and shut his case.
But pocketed the nickel. It would buy a cup of Southern coffee and a paper for Fort to read out loud to him.
He walked the endless Negro blocks to home because it was still day. He was suspicious of them by night or by day. What were they forever laughing about from doorstep to door that he could never clearly hear? Their voices dropped when he came near and didn’t rise till he was past earshot. Yet their prophecies pursued him—
Fort was lying on the high brass bed when Dove climbed the Tchoupitoulas Street stair that evening, just as Dove had left him that morning. A couple of noon cups had been added to the morning saucers, a few snipes to those on the floor. ‘Haven’t been able to stir the whole day,’ Fort sighed.
Yet Dove had the momentary impression he had just come in.
Dove handed him the paper and cleared the table and sink while Fort read aloud.
Fort crumpled the want-ads. What was the use of getting out a paper that didn’t tell who needed a Financial Counsellor?
The Financial Counsellor didn’t get up till the dishes were done.
‘I s’pose I got to go shop ’n sweat over the cook stove for y’all now,’ he informed Dove by his tone just what it was like to be imposed upon by everyone day after day.
‘Won’t we wait till Luke shows up?’ Dove suggested, ‘account all I got myself is one misly little two-bitses.’
‘He’ll come in drunk as a dog but he won’t have his rent money up,’ Fort made a safe guess.
‘That’s his turn, an’ he caint help it,’ Dove defended his friend.
Fort began frying something and after a while it must have been done, because he lifted two shapeless gobs into dishes and put both dishes down.
‘I’ll eat anything that won’t eat me,’ Dove announced, and dug right in, cupping his spoon in the palm of his hand before he even made sure the stuff was dead.
Fort gave him the even look.
‘You actually like this slop?’
‘You mean if I had my druthers? Why, if I had my druthers I’d druther eat speckledly gravy,’ Dove assured him.
‘You don’t actually mind living this way?’
‘It’s better than jail.’ Dove was sure.
‘That’s jest what I thought,’ Fort’s suspicions were confirmed – ‘You actually like this life.’
‘It’s the only life I got,’ Dove felt bound to explain.
Little Luke came in grinning with good news on his face and another newspaper under his arm. ‘We’ve just done turned that corner,’ he announced. ‘Didn’t I tell you times had to get worse before they could get better?’
‘Luke,’ Fort rose to tell him, ‘if we were standin’ around wonderin’ which one of us to eat first you still wouldn’t call times hard.’ Then he left to look for something to eat.
Luke skipped to his coat and brought forth a stack of green-margined certificates ‘entitling bearer to one free finger wave and shampoo at the Madam Dewberry Beauty Shop’ – he rattled off the larger print. ‘Now tell me, what woman in N’awlins don’t want a marcel wave and shampoo for free?’
Dove couldn’t name a single one.
‘Tell you what it amounts to, Tex – you’re handing that lucky gal the equivalent of a five-dollar bill.’
‘I am?’
‘You’re workin’ with me on this, aren’t you?’
‘Would it be alright with Madam Dewberry?’
‘That’s my responsibility.’
‘Mighty obliged, Luke.’
‘All you have to do is watch out for telephone wires.’
‘Aint no plumb good at climbin’, Luke.’
‘Who said there was climbin’?’
Somebody’s step sounded on the stair and Luke ducked the certificates hastily into his coat. ‘Got a hundred more stashed under the steps,’ he lowered his voice and touched a finger to his lips – ‘Mum’s the word.’
Rapping with Luke was a lark. Instead of a heavy sample case all Dove had to carry now was a bundle of certificates, and didn’t have to climb a telephone pole after all.
‘I’ll have to wait to see what my husband says,’ his first prospect told him.
‘Reckon you’ll just miss your free wave ’n shampoo then, m’am. We aint comin’ by this way again. Fact is we’re almost out of certificates already. Only puttin’ out a hundred in the whole dern town.’
The woman studied the certificates with a married daughter beside her. ‘Seems just too good to be true,’ both frankly doubted him.
‘M’am, why don’t you just telephone Madam Dewberry and veerfy what I’m sayin’?’
Inasmuch as there was seldom more than one telephone to a block in New Orleans in ’31, the bluff was safe. She took one for herself and one for the daughter.
His second prospect had a harder head. ‘You wait here, young man – I am going to phone.’
‘Yes’m.’ Dove obeyed her.
But when she disappeared to primp for her trip to the corner grocer’s phone, Dove scurried to warn Luke off the block.
Luke took a swig from a half pint off his hip and didn’t feel the need to hurry anywhere. ‘Take your time, Tex.’
‘Here she comes now.’ Luke intercepted the hardheaded number.
‘Good morning, m’am. I’m the manager of the Madam Dewberry Beauty Parlor. My young assistant here reports you want to confirm this invitation. We like that. You’re the type of customer we’re looking for. If we can satisfy you, we can satisfy anybody. Don’t waste your nickel – I stand back of every word on this certificate.’ Luke drew one out of his pocket. ‘I’m not going to charge you even a quarter for this one, m’am.’
He put it in her hand.
‘I didn’t mean I wanted it for nothing,’ Hardhead protested.