Stories of Erskine Caldwell Page 10

  “Drop the bedsheet on the floor,” Jake he told the young filly again. The young filly was getting ready to turn loose the bedsheet and let it drop on the floor like Jake told her to do, when the preacher he grabbed the bedsheet and held to it tight around her so she wouldn’t show none of her naked self to him and Jake and the rest of the people in the house. “No! No! No!” he yelled, getting red in the face and shaking his head at Jake. “That won’t do, my man — that won’t do at all! That would be indecent here before all of us! That can’t be done! I’ll never allow it!” But the preacher he didn’t know Jake Marks. Jake was one of them Varmont ox freighters, and he was as hardheaded about what he wanted as the next one to come along. Jake, he told the young filly again to drop the bedsheet on the floor, and to drop it quick if she wanted to get married. The handsome young filly was getting ready to let go of it like Jake said to, because she was that crazy about Jake she would have stood on her head right then and there if Jake had told her to do it, but just when she was getting ready to let go of it, the preacher he grabbed the bedsheet again and held it fast with both hands.

  The preacher started in trying to argue with Jake about it being indecent for the handsome young filly to stand there naked while she was being married, but Jake he had his head set on getting the full benefits of the shift-law and he wouldn’t give in an inch.

  Then the preacher said he warn’t going to perform the ceremony if that was what Jake was set on doing, and Jake he told the preacher he warn’t going to get married at all without the bedsheet being dropped on the floor so that none of the cloth was touching the young filly.

  Everybody got excited when Jake said that, and the people talked back and forth for an hour or more, arguing first on Jake’s side, because they knew the law on the books, and then on the preacher’s side, because they realized how it might upset the preacher if the handsome young filly stood there naked like Jake was set on having her do. The young filly didn’t care which way the ceremony was done, just so long as Jake married her. She was willing to drop the bedsheet for Jake the minute the preacher let her. She was all excited about getting married, just like Jake had been all the time.

  After a while the preacher gave in to Jake just a little. He saw what a fool he was, trying to argue with a Varmont ox freighter.

  “If she’ll go inside the closet and shut the door so nobody can see her nakedness, I’ll perform the ceremony,” the preacher told Jake.

  “That’s all right by me,” Jake said, “but I’ll be compelled to have some witnesses on my side in case anybody tries to dispute me about us being married under the shift-law or not.”

  They finally settled that part when the preacher agreed to allow two of the older women to go in the closet with the young filly, just to make sure that everything was done in a legal manner. The preacher he didn’t like to have Jake going in a closet with the naked filly, but he was pretty well worn out by that time after arguing for nearly two hours with a Varmont ox freighter, and he said he would have to allow Jake to go in the closet, too.

  Jake went in the closet where the filly and the two older women were.

  “Now, you just look once, Jake,” the preacher said, shaking his head back and forth, “and then you shut your eyes and keep them shut.”

  Jake was in the closet saying something to the young filly, but nobody in the room could hear what it was. The preacher he reached over and made a bit of a crack in the door while he was marrying them so he could hear their answers to the questions. And all that time Jake he was in there striking matches to make sure that the young filly was not putting the bed-sheet on again, and to be certain that he was getting the full benefits of the shift-law.

  When it was all done, the preacher he took the money Jake handed him and went off home without waiting to see what shape the young and handsome filly was in when the closet door was opened. When they came out into the room, the bedsheet was all twisted up into a knot; Jake handed it to her, and she didn’t lose no time in getting upstairs where her clothes were. Jake he had told her to hurry and get dressed, because he wanted to get started with his ox freight back to Varmont.

  They started home to Varmont right away, the handsome young filly all dressed up in her wedding clothes and sitting on top of the freight cargo while Jake he walked along beside the wagon bellowing at the oxen.

  When Jake came back to Bangor on his next trip, a storekeeper tried to present him a bill for a hundred and forty dollars. The storekeeper told Jake that the young filly had bought a lot of dresses and things just before she got married, and he wanted to know if Jake had married her under the shift-law.

  Jake just laughed a little, and started unloading his cargo.

  “Well, was you married that way, or the other way?” the storekeeper asked him.

  “You tell me this first,” Jake said, “and then I’ll answer your question. Does the State of Maine have a shift-law on the books?”

  “Well, yes; but the shift-law says that the woman has to — ”

  “Never mind about explaining it to me,” Jake said. “If the shift-law is on the statute books, then that’s the law I married her with.”

  (First published in Contact)

  The People’s Choice

  GUS WAS LEANING against the fount in the drugstore Saturday morning when Ed Wright, one of the elders, came in and told Gus that the church had made him a deacon. Laying aside the election itself, that was the first of the blunders that were made between then and noon Sunday; Ed Wright should have had the sense not to notify Gus of the election until about midnight Saturday, or better still, until just before preaching time Sunday morning. All the blame for what took place cannot be put off on Ed, though; Gus Streetman should be held just as responsible for what happened as anyone else in town.

  After Ed had told Gus about the church election, Gus just stood there looking at Ed and at the boy behind the fount for several minutes. He was feeling so good about it, he didn’t know what to say. He was as pleased about it as he ever was when he heard the county returns on election night.

  “You’re a deacon now, Gus,” Ed said, leaning against the fount and waiting for Gus to set him up. “Don’t let the boys in the back seats slip any suspender buttons over on you.”

  “You know, Ed,” he said, “I’d rather be elected deacon in the church than to get any other office in the county — except tax assessor. By George, it’s a big thing to be a deacon in the church.”

  Gus was the county tax assessor. He had held the office against all opposition for the past ten or fifteen years, and, from the way things looked then, he would continue being the assessor as long as men went to the polls and saw Gus Streetman’s name printed on the ballot.

  “Well, Gus,” Ed said, “everybody’s glad about it, too. There wasn’t any doubt about you being elected after your name was put up. It was unanimous, too.”

  Gus was feeling so good he didn’t know what to say. He waited for Ed to tell him more about the election, when the minister and all the elders voted for him; but Ed was licking the corners of his mouth for a drink.

  “Let’s have a drink, Gus,” he suggested.

  “Oh, sure, sure!” Gus said, waking up. “What’ll you have, Ed?”

  “Make mine a lime Coke,” he told the boy behind the fount.

  “Give me another Coke, son,” Gus said, “with three big squirts of ammonia.”

  That was the fifth Coke-and-ammonia Gus had drunk since eight-thirty that morning, and it was still two hours until noon.

  He and Ed stood at the fount drinking their Coca-Colas silently. Gus was busy thinking about his election as a deacon, and he was too busy thinking about it to say anything. After a while, Ed said he had to hurry back to the hardware store to see if any customers had come in, and he left Gus leaning against the fount drinking his Coke-and-ammonia.

  “You’ll have to help take up the collection tomorrow morning, Gus,” Ed said at the door. “You’d better wear some shoes that don’t squeak so
much, because everybody will be looking at you.”

  “Oh, sure, sure,” Gus said. “I’ll be there all right. I’m a deacon now.”

  Gus was so busy thinking about his being a deacon in the church that he hardly knew what he was saying, or what Ed was talking about. He was busy thinking about celebrating in some way, too. He had never won an election yet that he hadn’t celebrated, and he was just as proud of being a deacon as he was of being county tax assessor. He walked out of the drugstore and started for the barbershop.

  In the back room of the barbershop there was a little closet where he kept some of his corn and gin. He intended making the celebration this time as big as, or bigger than, any he had ever undertaken before. Usually, he had the chance to celebrate only each four years, when he was re-elected tax assessor, and this was an extra time, like an unexpected holiday.

  People said that Gus Streetman was as big-hearted as a man can be, and that a man just couldn’t help liking him. You could walk up to Gus on the street on a Saturday afternoon and ask Gus for anything you wished, and Gus would give it to you if he had it or if he knew where he could lay his hands on it. You could ask Gus to lend you his new automobile to take a ride out to the country in, and Gus would slap his hand on your shoulder, just as if you were doing him a big favor, and say: “Oh, sure, sure! Go ahead and use it, Joe. Why, by George, all I’ve got in the world is yours for the asking. Sure, go ahead and drive it all you want, Joe.”

  After you had thanked Gus for the use of his new automobile, he would silence you and say: “Now, don’t start talking like that, Joe. You make me think I ain’t doing enough for you. Drive down to the filling station and fill her up with gas, and charge it to me. Just tell Dick I said to make out a ticket for whatever you want, and I’ll come by and take it up the first of the week.”

  That’s how Gus Streetman was about everything. It never mattered to him what a man wished. If you thought you would like to have something, all you had to do was to ask Gus, and if he had it, or knew where he could lay his hands on it, it was yours until you got good and ready to hand it back to him. Sometimes people took advantage of Gus, but not often. Nearly everyone knew where to draw the line, and he had so many friends to look out for him that he was taken care of. In the spring of that year Vance Young had stopped Gus one morning and said he was going up to Atlanta that week-end on a short business trip and that he would like to take Gus’s wife along for company. Gus told him to go ahead and take her along, and he meant it, too; but just before train time somebody broke down and told Gus that Vance was only fooling, and it turned out to be a joke the barbershop crowd was playing on him.

  That was one of the main reasons why Gus got re-elected tax assessor time after time. He had been tax assessor for about fifteen years already, and no man who had ever tried to run against Gus in the primaries had a dog’s chance of taking the office away from him. Just before a primary, Gus would load his automobile up with three or four dozen of those big Senator Watson watermelons, and start out electioneering. He would come to a house beside the road, stop, and get out carrying two of those big melons under his arms. When he reached the front porch, he would roll the Senator Watsons up to the door and take out his pearl-handled pocket-knife and rap on the boards until somebody came out.

  “Well, how’s everything, Harry?” Gus would say, thumping the Senator Watsons with his knuckles, and cocking his head sideways to hear the thump! thump! “How are you satisfied with your tax assessment, Harry?”

  Nobody was ever satisfied, of course, and that was all there would be to Gus getting another vote for the primary. Being a Democrat, he never had to worry about the Republicans at election time. The Lily-whites never bothered with county politics; the mail carriers knew perfectly well which side their bread was buttered on.

  “Reckon we can get the assessment changed, Gus?” the man would say.

  Gus would never answer that question, because by that time he was always busy splitting open one of those big Senator Watsons. When he had got the heart cut out, and had passed it around, he would wipe the blade of his pearl-handled knife on his pants leg and shake hands all around.

  “We need a little rain, don’t we?” Gus would say, starting back to the road where his car was. “Maybe we’ll get a shower before sundown.”

  That’s how Gus got elected county tax assessor the first time, and that’s how he was re-elected every four years following. He never made any promises; therefore he never violated any. But he got the votes, nearly all there were in the whole county.

  When Gus had first started out to be elected deacon, he went about his campaign the same way he did when he was running for political office. He filled up the minister on those big Senator Watsons, day after day, and all the elders, too. When the church election was held during the last week in July, Gus’s name was the first one put up for deacon, and there was only one ballot taken. Gus got all the votes.

  But when Gus wasn’t canvassing for votes, political or otherwise, and when he wasn’t out in some part of the county assessing property, he was usually drinking corn and gin. He kept a store of it in the back room of the barbershop, another supply in the garage at home where his wife wouldn’t be likely to find it, and a third one at the courthouse, in the coal box in his office, where he could reach it at any time of the day or night.

  Gus never got too drunk to walk; that is to say, Fred Jones, the marshal, never had to lock him up. Gus was always on his feet, no matter how much he had been drinking, or for how long a time. He could hold his corn and gin with never an outward sign of drunkenness, unless you happened to look him in his eyes, or to measure his stride.

  That Saturday morning, though, after Ed Wright had notified him of the election, Gus went down to the barbershop and cleaned out all his liquor there, and then he walked over to the courthouse and started on the bottles he kept in the coal box in his office on the second floor.

  Nobody saw much of him again that day, until a little after eight o’clock that night when he came out of the courthouse and walked across the square for another Coke-and-ammonia at the fount in the drugstore. Even then nobody paid much attention to Gus, because he was walking in fairly even strides, and he wasn’t talking unduly loud for a Saturday night. The marshal watched Gus for a few minutes, and then left the square and went back down the alley to pick up a few more drunks in front of the Negro fish houses for the lockup.

  There had been a traveling carnival in town all that week, and nearly everyone went to the show grounds that night to see the carnival close up and move off to the next town. Gus started out there with two or three of his friends at about ten-thirty or eleven. All of them were well liquored, and Gus was shining. When they got to the show grounds, Gus started out to wind up his celebration. He let loose that Saturday night. He took in all the side shows, and he had a big crowd of men and boys following him around the grounds, whooping it up with him.

  Just before midnight, when the carnival was getting ready to close and move on to the next town down the road, Gus saw a show he had missed. It was a little tent off to itself, with a big red-painted picture of a girl, pretty much naked, dancing on it. There was no name on the show, as there were on the others, but down in one corner of the big red picture, just under the girl’s feet, was a little sign that said: For Men Only.

  As soon as somebody told Gus it was a hoochie-coochie show, he dashed for it, pushing people out of his way right and left. He ran up to the ticket seller, bought three or four dozen tickets, and waved his arms at everybody who wished to go in with him and see the show. After they had crowded inside, the show went to pieces so quickly that no one knew what had happened.

  Nobody yet tells exactly what Gus said or did when he got inside with the hoochie-coochie girl, but whatever it was, the show was a complete wreck inside of two minutes. It might have been Gus who jerked out the center pole, bringing the tent down on top of everybody, and it might not have been Gus who grabbed the girl around her waist and ma
de her yell as though she were being squeezed to death by a maniac. But anyway, the tent came down; the dancer yelled and screamed, first for help, next for mercy; the ticket seller shouted for the stake drivers; and some fool down under the tent struck a match to the canvas. When the crowd got the blazing tent off the girl and the bunch of men, they found her and Gus down on the bottom of the pile struggling with each other. Fred Jones, the marshal, came running up just then all excited, deputizing citizens right and left, and got everybody herded out of the show grounds and closed up the carnival.

  What happened to Gus after that, nobody knows exactly, because some of his friends pried him loose from the little dark-skinned hoochie-coochie dancer, and carried him away in an automobile to cool off. Later that night they brought him back to town and locked him in the barbershop so he couldn’t get out where the marshal was certain to get him if he showed himself on the street again that night.