The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers [114]
Harry in the country was different from Harry sitting on the back steps reading the newspapers and thinking about Hitler.
They left early in the morning. The wheels he borrowed were the kind for boys--with a bar between the legs. They strapped the lunches and bathing-suits to the fenders and were gone before nine o’clock. The morning was hot and sunny. Within an hour they were far out of town on a red clay road. The fields were bright and green and the sharp smell of pine trees was in the air. Harry talked in a very excited way. The warm wind blew into their faces. Her mouth was very dry and she was hungry. ‘See that house up on the hill there? Less us stop and get some water.’
‘No, we better wait. Well water gives you typhoid.’
‘I already had typhoid. I had pneumonia and a broken leg and a infected foot.’
‘I remember.’
‘Yeah,’ Mick said. ‘Me and Bill stayed in the front room when we had typhoid fever and Pete Wells would run past on the sidewalk holding his nose and looking up at the window. Bill was very embarrassed. All my hair came out so I was bald-headed.’
‘I bet we’re at least ten miles from town. We’ve been riding an hour and a half--fast riding, too.’
‘I sure am thirsty,’ Mick said. ‘And hungry. What you got in that sack for lunch?’
‘Cold liver pudding and chicken salad sandwiches and pie.’
That’s a good picnic dinner. ‘She was ashamed of what she had brought.’ I got two hard-boiled eggs--already stuffed--with separate little packages of salt and pepper. And sandwiches--blackberry jelly with butter. Everything wrapped in oil paper.
And paper napkins.’
‘I didn’t intend for you to bring anything,’ Harry said. ‘My Mother fixed lunch for both of us. I asked you out here and all. We’ll come to a store soon and get cold drinks.’
They rode half an hour longer before they finally came to the filling-station store. Harry propped up the bicycles and she went in ahead of him. After the bright glare the store seemed dark. The shelves were stacked with slabs of white meat, cans of oil, and sacks of meal. Flies buzzed over a big, sticky jar of loose candy on the counter.
‘What kind of drinks you got?’ Harry asked. The storeman started to name them over. Mick opened the ice box and looked inside. Her hands felt good in the cold water. ‘I want a chocolate Nehi. You got any of them? ‘ ‘Ditto,’ Harry said. ‘Make it two.’
‘No, wait a minute. Here’s some ice-cold beer. I want a bottle of beer if you can treat as high as that’ Harry ordered one for himself, also. He thought it was a sin for anybody under twenty to drink beer--but maybe he just suddenly wanted to be a sport. After the first swallow he made a bitter face. They sat on the steps in front of the store.
Mick’s legs were so tired that the muscles in them jumped.
She wiped the neck of the bottle with her hand and took a long, cold pull. Across the road there was a big empty field of grass, and beyond that a fringe of pine woods. The trees were every color of green--from a bright yellow-green to a dark color that was almost black. The sky was hot blue.
‘I like beer,’ she said. ‘I used to sop bread down in the drops our Dad left. I like to lick salt out my hand while I drink. This is the second bottle to myself I’ve ever had.’
The first swallow was sour. But the rest tastes good.’
The storeman said it was twelve miles from town. They had four more miles to go. Harry paid him and they were out in the hot sun again. Harry was talking loud and he kept laughing without any reason.
‘Gosh, the beer along with this hot sun makes me dizzy. But I sure do feel good,’ he said.
‘I can’t wait to get in swimming.’
There was sand in the road and they had to throw all their weight on the pedals to keep from bogging. Harry’s shirt was stuck to his back with sweat. He still kept talking. The road changed to red clay and the sand was behind them. There was a slow colored song in her mind--one Portia’s brother used to play on his harp. She pedaled in time to it.
Then finally they reached the place she had been looking for.
‘This is it! See that sign that says PRIVATE? We got to climb the bob-wire fence and then take that path there--see!