Tobacco Road - Erskine Caldwell [57]
“I reckon we can crowd in the bed some way,” Jeeter said. “I’ll sleep in the middle.”
“There’s plenty of room for all of you,” the man said, “but maybe I can find another bed for one of you.”
He went out and shut the door.
Jeeter sat down on the bed and unlaced his brogans. The dusty shoes fell with heavy thuds on the bare floor. Dude sat in the chair and looked at the room, the walls, and the ceiling. The yellow plaster had dropped off in many places, and more hung loose, ready to fall the next time there was a vibration.
“We might as well go to bed,” Jeeter said. “Ain’t no sense in sitting up.”
He hung his black felt hat on the bed-post and lay down. Bessie was standing before the wash-stand mirror taking down her hair.
“Ada ought to see me now,” Jeeter said. “I ain’t never slept the night in a hotel in all my days. I bet Ada won’t believe I’m telling the truth when I tell her.”
“You ain’t got no business sleeping in bed with me and Bessie,” Dude said. “You ought to get out on the floor.”
“Now, Dude, you wouldn’t begrudge me one night’s sleeping, would you? Why, Bessie, there, is all willing, ain’t you, Bessie?”
“You hush your mouth, Jeeter!” she said. “You make me feel so foolish when you say that!”
“It’s only me and you, Dude,” he said. “It’s not like it was somebody else. I been wanting to sleep with you and Bessie for the longest time.”
Some one knocked on the door and, before they could answer it, the man walked in.
“What did you say your name was?” he asked Bessie.
He walked over to the washstand where she stood, and waited close beside her.
“Mrs. Dude—” Jeeter said. “I told you that already once.”
“I know—but what’s her first name? You know what I mean—her girl’s name.”
Bessie put her dress over herself before she told him.
“Bessie,” she said. “What do you want to know that for?”
“That’s all right, Bessie,” he said. “That’s all I wanted to know.”
He went out and shut the door.
“These city folks has got the queerest ways,” Jeeter said. “You don’t never know what they is going to ask you next.”
Dude took off his shoes and coat and waited for Bessie to get into bed. She had sat down on the floor to take off her shoes and stockings.
Jeeter sat up in bed and waited for her to finish. A door nearby was slammed so hard that pieces of yellow plaster dropped off the ceiling to the bed and floor.
Suddenly some one knocked on the door again, and it was opened immediately. This time it was a man whom they had not seen before.
“Come on down the hall, Bessie,” he said.
He waited outside until Bessie got up from the floor and went to the door.
“Me?” she said. “What you want with me?”
“Come on down to this other room, Bessie. It’s too crowded up here.”
“They must have found another bed for us,” Jeeter said. “I reckon they found out that there was more beds empty than they thought there was.”
He and Dude watched Bessie gather up her clothes and leave the room. She carried her dress, shoes, and stockings in one hand, and her hat in the other. After the door was closed, the building became quiet again.
“These city people has queer ways, don’t they, Dude?” Jeeter said, turning over and closing his eyes. “They ain’t like us folks out around Fuller.”
“Why didn’t you go to the other bed?” Dude said. “Why did the man tell Bessie to go?”
“You never can tell about the queer ways of city folks, Dude. They do the durndest things sometimes.”
They both lay awake for the next half hour, but neither of them said anything. The light was still burning, but they did not try to turn it off.
A board in the hall floor squeaked, and Bessie came in carrying her clothes in her hands.
“Don’t you like the place they provided you with in the other room?” Jeeter asked, sitting up. “What made you come back, Bessie?”
“I reckon I must have got in the wrong bed by mistake or something,” she said. “Somebody else was in it.”
Dude rubbed his eyes in the glare of the electric light, and looked at Bessie.
“Bessie is sure a pretty woman preacher, ain’t she?” Jeeter said, looking at her.
“I didn’t have time to dress again,” she said.