He was not running. But he was walking fast, and in a direction that was taking him further yet from home, from the house five miles away which he had left by climbing from a window and which he had not yet planned any way of reentering. He went on down the road fast and turned from it and sprang over a fence, into plowed earth. Something was growing in the furrows. Beyond were woods, trees. He reached the woods and entered, among the hard trunks, the branchshadowed quiet, hardfeeling, hardsmelling, invisible. In the notseeing and the hardknowing as though in a cave he seemed to see a diminishing row of suavely shaped urns in moonlight, blanched. And not one was perfect. Each one was cracked and from each crack there issued something liquid, deathcolored, and foul. He touched a tree, leaning his propped arms against it, seeing the ranked and moonlit urns. He vomited.
On the next Monday night he had the rope. He was waiting at the same corner; he was quite early again. Then he saw her. She came up to where he stood. “I thought maybe you wouldn’t be here,” she said.
“Did you?” He took her arm, drawing her on down the road.
“Where are we going?” she said. He didn’t answer, drawing her on. She had to trot to keep up. She trotted clumsily: an animal impeded by that which distinguished her from animals: her heels, her clothes, her smallness. He drew her from the road, toward the fence which he had crossed a week ago. “Wait,” she said, the words jolting from her mouth. “The fence—I can’t—“As she stooped to go through, between the strands of wire which he had stepped over, her dress caught. He leaned and jerked it free with a ripping sound.
“I’ll buy you another one,” he said. She said nothing. She let herself be half carried and half dragged among the growing plants, the furrows, and into the woods, the trees.
He kept the rope, neatly coiled, behind the same loose board in his attic room where Mrs. McEachern kept her hoard of nickels and dimes, with the difference that the rope was thrust further back into the hole than Mrs. McEachern could reach. He had got the idea from her. Sometimes, with the old couple snoring in the room beneath, when he lifted out the silent rope he would think of the paradox. Sometimes he thought about telling her; of showing her where he kept hidden the implement of his sin, having got the idea, learned how and where to hide it, from her. But he knew that she would merely want to help him conceal it; that she would want him to sin in order that she could help him hide it; that she would at last make such a todo of meaningful whispers and signals that McEachern would have to suspect something despite himself.
Thus he began to steal, to take money from the hoard. It is very possible that the woman did not suggest it to him, never mentioned money to him. It is possible that he did not even know that he was paying with money for pleasure. It was that he had watched for years Mrs. McEachern hide money in a certain place. Then he himself had something which it was necessary to hide. He put it in the safest place which he knew. Each time he hid or retrieved the rope, he saw the tin can containing money.
The first time he took fifty cents. He debated for some time between fifty cents and a quarter. Then he took the fifty cents because that was the exact sum he needed. With it he bought a stale and flyspecked box of candy from a man who had won it for ten cents on a punching board in a store. He gave it to the waitress. It was the first thing which he had ever given her. He gave it to her as if no one had ever thought of giving her anything before. Her expression was a little strange when she took the tawdry, shabby box into her big hands. She was sitting at the time on her bed in her bedroom in the small house where she lived with the man and woman called Max and Mame. One night about a week before the man came into the room. She was undressing, sitting on the bed while she removed her stockings. He came in and leaned against the bureau, smoking.
“A rich farmer,” he said. ‘John Jacob Astor from the cowshed.”
She had covered herself, sitting on the bed, still, downlooking. “He pays me.”
“With what? Hasn’t he used up that nickel yet?” He looked at her. “A setup for hayseeds. That’s what I brought you down here from Memphis for. Maybe I’d better start giving away grub too.”
“I’m not doing it on your time.”
“Sure. I can’t stop you. I just hate to see you. A kid, that never saw a whole dollar at one time in his life. With this town full of guys making good jack, that would treat you right.”
“Maybe I like him. Maybe you hadn’t thought of that.” He looked at her, at the still and lowered crown of her head as she sat on the bed, her hands on her lap. He leaned against the bureau, smoking. He said, “Mame!” After a while he said again, “Mame! Come in here.” The walls were thin. After a while the big blonde woman came up the hall, without haste. They could both hear her. She entered. “Get this,” the man said. “She says maybe she likes him best. It’s Romeo and Juliet. For sweet Jesus!”
The blonde woman looked at the dark crown of the waitress’ head. “What about that?”
“Nothing. It’s fine. Max Confrey presenting Miss Bobbie Allen, the youth’s companion.”
“Go out,” the woman said.
“Sure. I just brought her change for a nickel.” He went out. The waitress had not moved. The blonde woman went to the bureau and leaned against it, looking at the other’s lowered head.
“Does he ever pay you?” she said.
The waitress did not move. “Yes. He pays me.”
The blonde woman looked at her, leaning against the bureau as Max had done. “Coming all the way down here from Memphis. Bringing it all the way down here to give it away.
The waitress did not move. “I’m not hurting Max.”
The blonde woman looked at the other’s lowered head. Then she turned and went toward the door. “See that you don’t,” she said. “This won’t last forever. These little towns won’t stand for this long. I know. I came from one of them.”
Sitting on the bed, holding the cheap, florid candy box in her hands, she sat as she had sat while the blonde woman talked to her. But it was now Joe who leaned against the bureau and looked at her. She began to laugh. She laughed, holding the gaudy box in her bigknuckled hands. Joe watched her. He watched her rise and pass him, her face lowered. She passed through the door and called Max by name. Joe had never seen Max save in the restaurant, in the hat and the dirty apron. When Max entered he was not even smoking. He thrust out his hand. “How are you, Romeo?” he said.
Joe was shaking hands almost before he had recognised the man. “My name’s Joe McEachern,” he said. The blonde woman had also entered. It was also the first time he had even seen her save in the restaurant. He saw her enter, watching her, watching the waitress open the box. She extended it.
“Joe brought it to me,” she said.
The blonde woman looked at the box, once. She did not even move her hand. “Thanks,” she said. The man also looked at the box, without moving his hand.
“Well, well, well,” he said. “Sometimes Christmas lasts a good while. Hey, Romeo?” Joe had moved a little away from the bureau. He had never been in the house before. He was looking at the man, with on his face an expression a little placative and baffled though not alarmed, watching the man’s inscrutable and monklike face. But he said nothing. It was the waitress who said,
“If you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it.” He watched Max, watching his face, hearing the waitress’ voice; the voice downlooking: “Not doing you nor nobody else any harm ... Not on his time ...” He was not watching her nor the blonde woman either. He was watching Max, with that expression puzzled, placative, not afraid. The blonde woman now spoke; it was as though they were speaking of him and in his presence and in a tongue which they knew that he did not know.