After they collected their whiskey and tin cup, Elma pushed Atty until she had him dammed up between her and the wall in the booth. Theresa sat on the other side. She held his hand from across the table. After tasting the first drink, Elma leaned up against him, rubbing his chest and holding the cup to his lips.
“Drink, Atty. Thas it. Take some more, baby. This here will make you into a man.”
His tongue and throat burned. The fumes from that homemade brew made his eyes tear and his breath come short. But what Atty felt most was Elma rubbing and pinching his chest.
“We gonna grow some hair right ovah here tonight,” she whispered.
Theresa’s smile was bright against black skin.
They all drank. Atwater held his breath as he watched the cup go from Theresa’s lips to Elma’s mouth and then to him. Their hands were all over him and they laughed more and more with the liquor.
Elma was almost on top of him. She let her arm rest in his lap.
“I think A-A-Atty like me, Theresa,” she said.
Theresa reached over and grabbed Atwater by the back of his neck. She pulled on him until they were kissing across the table.
“You better let up from him, bitch,” Elma said in a serious tone. “I’m the one found’im. He mine tonight.”
When they weren’t fighting or feeling on Atty the women talked trash. Atty learned that they lived on Peale’s Slope: a little shantytown where most Negroes slept under propped-up shelters with no walls or right outside on the ground if the weather was good. Elma stayed with her old uncle up there in a small cabin. Theresa had lived with them since her boyfriend had left her.
Atwater wanted to know everything about these women. He could repeat every word of what they said, but he didn’t understand it all. For years after that night he’d remember things they said and suddenly, because of something that would happen, he’d realize what they meant.
As evening came on, people began to fill up the bar. It got noisier and smokier but Atwater hardly noticed. Theresa and Elma were enough for him. When Elma would lean close he looked down between her breasts and she’d give him her shattered smile and say, “Atty? What you lookin’ at?”
“How you girls doin’?” A slender man slid in on the bench next to Theresa, but he was looking Elma in the eye.
“Who you askin’?” Elma replied. She took Atty’s hand and held it tight.
“You, baby. Who else I’ma be talkin’ to?”
“All I know, nigger, is that you was s’posed t’be here nine days ago.”
“Nigger?” The man had a baby face, but when he smiled he looked evil. Elma’s hand tightened under that smile, and Atwater’s heart began to race.
“I don’t know what you smilin’ at. Atty here took me out for a drink, so he my boyfriend tonight.” Elma’s voice had lost all of its play.
The fine young face turned toward Atty. He smiled again without showing his teeth.
“Cody,” Theresa asked, “what you doin’ here?”
“I said I was comin’,” he said.
“That was more’n a week ago.”
“I had sumpin’ to do, woman. I got here as soon as I could.”
“What you had to do?” Elma asked.
“I don’t see what’s it to you. You done already got another boyfriend.” Cody smiled and reached down beside him. He brought out of his overalls a full quart bottle of store-bought Old Crow whiskey. “I planned to say I was sorry wit’ this here, but I guess I got to find me another girlfriend.
“You still wit’ John, Theresa?”
The handsome black woman’s mouth came open and she shook her head to say that she was not.
“Theresa!” Elma shouted.
“I ain’t did nuthin’,” Theresa screamed. She licked her lips and avoided Cody’s smiling eyes. “He jus’ axed an’ I told’im.”
“You ain’t gonna go messin’ ’round right under my nose,” Elma said. She was crushing Atwater’s hand.
“Come on, girls,” Cody said. “Don’t let’s fight. They’s whiskey for all of us. Right, Atty?”
“I... I think I had enough,” the boy answered. The room was hot but his forehead felt like ice. “I got... I gots to go home.”
Cody reached down into his pants again and came out with a long homemade knife. The blade was from a five-inch metal saw that had been shaped and sharpened by a grinding stone. It was black and jagged but Atwater could see that it was still sharp. The haft was wadded cork wound tightly around with fly-green fishing twine.
Cody put the knife down next to the bottle and said, “You not refusin’ my hospitality now is ya, man?”
“Cody...”
“Shet yo’ mouf, Theresa. Ain’t nobody axed you. If this man here is man enough take my woman then he man enough t’drink wit’ me.”
Elma sat stock-still. She let go of Atty’s hand. That was the scariest moment for Atwater, because he knew that if Elma was scared then he didn’t have a chance.
“I drink it,” Atty said.
While he was still smiling, Cody poured the tin cup full to the brim and then pushed it in front of Atwater.
“Cody, he cain’t drink all that,” Theresa said. “He ain’t no man.”
Cody raised his hand and Theresa flinched back so hard that she banged her head on the wall.
Atwater picked up the cup and started sipping. Fifty and more years gone by and he was still amazed that he had the strength to drink as much as he did.
Cody put a finger to the boy’s throat to make sure that he was swallowing.
When Atty finally put the cup down, Cody smiled and said, “That’s only half.”
The room changed after Atwater drank. Most of what he heard was just noise but he could hear some talk, even from across the room, very clearly. Colors became stronger and the yellow paint on the walls really did look to be stars.
Elma was saying something but he couldn’t make it out.
“I gotta go,” Atwater said.
“See?” Elma pointed at him. “You done made the boy sick.”
She moved quickly to get up off the bench and let Atwater out. He slid over with no problem, but standing up was a whole new experience. One leg gave way and then the other. He struck the table with his chin, but the feeling was more sweet than it was painful. He was afraid of falling to the sticky floor, but Cody caught him before he tumbled all the way.
The evil baby face came up close to his and said, “You go out an’ do yo’ business an’ then come on back, ya hear?”
The boy thought about nodding — maybe he did.
“ ’Cause if you ain’t back in two minutes I’ma come out there an’ cut you bad.”
Then Cody pushed Atwater toward the door. It was a crooked path to get there; bouncing off one body and then into somebody else. It was like a playful child’s dance with everyone laughing and pushing. He didn’t mind the horseplay though, because, even in that small room, he was too drunk to find the door by himself.
There was the moon again. About three-quarters floating in a thick black eye. The night clouds were golden shoulders for that cyclops. The air was chill and for deep breathing, not like the hell smoke of the Milky Way.
While Atwater relieved himself he laughed because it felt so good. Then he started walking. The leaves crackled and the stream sounded like baby bells. Every footfall was a bass drum going off.
He was lost but that didn’t matter. He had a long talk with his murdered friend and said goodbye.
He scraped and scuffed himself and finally fell face forward in the cold stream. The water sobered him for a moment and he sat on a big rock and wondered where he was.
Once he heard somebody call his name. At first he thought that it was Inez out looking for him. He almost called out but then he worried that it might be Cody. So he kept quiet and played dead.