“She knows her Diddy’s a pore man! She don’t have to have a bunch of old toys and candy and fancy clothes!”
“And why should she?” said Farish abruptly.
Odum—intoxicated by the sound of his own voice—turned foggily and puckered his brow.
“Yeah. You heard right. Why should she have all that mess? Why should any of em have it? We didn’t have anything when we was coming up, did we?”
A slow wave of astonishment illumined Odum’s face.
“Naw, brother!” he cried gaily.
“Was we ashamed of being poor? Was we too good to work? What’s good enough for us is good enough for her, aint it?”
“Dern right!”
“Who says that kids should grow up to think they’re better than their own parents? The Federal Government, that’s who! Why do you reckon Government sticks its nose into a man’s home, and doles out all these food stamps, and vaccinations, and liberal educations on a silver platter? I’ll sure tell you why. It’s so they can brainwash kids to think they got to have more than their folks did, and look down on what they come from, and raise themselves above their own flesh and blood. I don’t know about you, sir, but my daddy never give me a thing for free.”
Low murmurs of approval, from all over the poolroom.
“Nope,” said Odum, wagging his head mournfully. “Mama and Diddy never give me nothing. I worked for it all. Everything I have.”
Farish nodded curtly at Lasharon and the baby. “So tell me this. Why should she have what we didn’t?”
“It’s the God’s own truth! Leave Diddy alone, sugar,” Odum said to his daughter, who was tugging listlessly at his pants leg.
“Diddy, please, let’s go.”
“Diddy aint ready to leave yet, sugar.”
“But Diddy, you said remind you that the Chevrolet place closes at six.”
Catfish, with an expression of rather strained goodwill, slid over to speak quietly with the men from the shrimp boat, one of whom had just glanced at his wristwatch. But then, Odum reached into the front pocket of his filthy jeans, and dug around for a moment or two, and pulled out the biggest wad of cash that Hely had ever seen.
This got everyone’s attention right away. Odum tossed the roll of bills on the pool table.
“What’s left of my insurance settlement,” he said, nodding at the money with drunken piety. “From this hand here. Going to go to the Chevrolet place and pay that minty-breath bastard Roy Dial. He come and taken my damn car from out in front my—”
“That’s how they operate,” said Farish, soberly. “These bastards from the Tax Commission and the Finance Company and the Sheriff’s Department. They come right up on a man’s property, and take what they feel like whenever they feel like it—”
“And,” said Odum, raising his voice, “I’m going to go down there directly and get it back. With this.”
“Um, none of my business, but you ort not drop all that cash money on a car.”
“What?” said Odum belligerently, staggering back. The money, on the green baize, lay in a yellow circle of light.
Farish raised a grubby paw. “I’m saying that if you purchase your vehicle above the table, so called, from a slick weasel like Dial, not only is Dial robbing you outright with the financing but the State and Federal government are right in line for their cut, too. I done spoke out many and many a time against the Sales Tax. The Sales Tax is unconstitutional. I can point my finger right where in the Constitution of this nation it says so.”
“Come on, Diddy,” said Lasharon faintly, plucking away gamely at Odum’s pants leg. “Diddy, please let’s go.”
Odum was gathering up his money. He did not seem to have absorbed really the gist of Farish’s little talk. “No, sir.” He was breathing hard. “That man can’t take what belongs to me! I’m going to go right down to Dial Chevrolet, and sling this right in his face—” he slapped the bills against the pool table—” and I’m going to say to him, I’m gonna say: ‘Give me back my vehicle, you minty-breath bastard.’ ” Laboriously, he stuffed the bills into the right pocket of his jeans as he fished for a quarter in the left. “But first I got this four hundred and two more of yours say I can kick your ass one more time at eight ball.”
Danny Ratliff, who had been pacing in a tight circle by the Coke machine, exhaled audibly.
“Them’s high stakes,” said Farish impassively. “My break?”
“Yours,” said Odum, with a drunken, magnanimous wave.
Farish, with absolutely no expression on his face, reached into his hip pocket and retrieved a large black wallet attached by a chain to a belt loop of his coveralls. With a bank teller’s swift professionalism, he counted off six hundred dollars in twenties and laid them down upon the table.
“That’s a lot of cash, my friend,” said Odum.
“Friend?” Farish laughed harshly. “I only got two friends. My two best friends.” He held up the wallet—still thick with bills—for inspection. “See this? This here’s my first friend, and he’s always right here in my hip pocket. I got me a second best friend that stays with me too. And that friend is a .22 pistol.”
“Diddy,” said Lasharon hopelessly, giving her father’s pants leg one more tug. “Please.”
“What are you staring at, you little shit?”
Hely jumped. Danny Ratliff, only a foot away, was towering over him, eyes horribly alight.
“Hmmn? Answer me when I talk to you, you little shit.”
Everyone was looking at him—Catfish, Odum, Farish, the men from the shrimp boat and the fat guy at the cash register.
As if from a great distance, he heard Lasharon Odum say, in her clear acidic voice: “He’s just looking at the funny books wi’ me Diddy.”
“Is that true? Is it?”
Hely—too petrified to speak—nodded.
“What’s your name?” This, gruffly from across the room. Hely glanced over and saw Farish Ratliff’s good eye trained on him like a power drill.
“Hely Hull,” said Hely without thinking, and then, aghast, clapped a hand over his mouth.
Farish chuckled dryly. “That’s the spirit, boy,” he said, screwing a square of blue chalk on the end of his cue, his good eye still fixed on Hely. “Never tell nothing that you aint made to tell.”
“Aw, I know who this little shit-weasel is,” Danny Ratliff said to his big brother, and then tossed his chin at Hely. “Say you called Hull?”
“Yes, sir,” said Hely miserably.
Danny let out a high, harsh laugh. “Yes sir. Listen at that. Don’t you sir me, you little—”
“Nothing wrong with the boy having manners,” said Farish rather sharply. “Hull, your name is?”
“Yes, sir.”
“He’s kin to that Hull boy, drives an old Cadillac convertible,” said Danny to Farish.
“Diddy,” said Lasharon Odum loudly, in the tense silence. “Diddy, kin me and Rusty go look at the funny books?”
Odum gave her a pat on the bottom. “Run along, sugar. Lookahere,” he said drunkenly to Farish, stabbing the butt of his cue on the floor for emphasis, “we’re going to play this game let’s go on and play it. I got to get going.”
But Farish—much to Hely’s relief—had already begun to rack the balls, after one last, long, stare in his direction.
Hely concentrated every ounce of his attention on the comic book. The letters jumped slightly with his heartbeat. Don’t look up, he told himself, even for a second. His hands were trembling, and his face burned so red that he felt it was drawing the attention of everyone in the room, as a fire would.