Tobacco Road - Erskine Caldwell [58]
“That man ought to know what he was doing at the start. Ain’t no sense in making people change beds all night long. He ought to let folks stay in one bed all the time and let us sleep some.”
“Men sure is queer in a hotel,” Bessie said. “They say the queerest things and do the queerest things I ever saw. I’m sure glad we stayed here, because I been having a good time to-night. It ain’t like it is out on the tobacco road.”
There was a tapping on the door again, and a man opened it. He looked at Bessie, and beckoned her to the door.
“Come here, Bessie,” he said, “there’s a room down at the other end of the hall for you.”
He waited outside the partly opened door.
“I went to one room just a little while ago, and there was a man in the bed.”
“Well, that’s all right. Down at this other room is another bed for you. Come on, I’ll go with you and show you how to get there.”
“By God and by Jesus,” Jeeter said. “I never heard of the likes of it in all my life. The men here is going to wear Bessie out, running her from one bed to another all night long. I don’t reckon I’ll ever come to this kind of hotel again. I can’t get no peace and sleep.”
Bessie picked up her clothes and went out. The door was closed, and they heard her and the man walking down the hall.
“I reckon she’s fixed up this time so she won’t have to change beds again,” Jeeter said. “I can’t stay awake no longer to find out.”
Dude went to sleep, too, in a few minutes.
At daybreak, Jeeter was up and dressed, and Dude got up a few minutes later. They sat in the room for the next half hour waiting for Bessie. At last Jeeter got up and went to the door and looked up the hall and down it.
“I reckon we’ll have to go hunt Sister Bessie,” he said. “Maybe she got lost and can’t find this room. It was dark out there last night, and things look different in the daytime up here in the city.”
They opened the door and walked to the end of the hall. All the doors were closed, and Jeeter did not know which one to open. The first two he opened were not occupied, but the next one was. He turned the knob and went inside. There were two people asleep in the bed, but the woman was not Bessie. Jeeter backed out of the room and closed the door. Dude tried the next room. The door of that one was unlocked, too, and Jeeter had to go across the room and look at the woman’s face before he was satisfied she was not Bessie. In the other rooms they entered they failed to find Bessie, and Jeeter did not know what to do. The last room they entered had only a single bed and he was about to close the door, when the girl opened her eyes and sat up. Jeeter stood looking at her, not knowing what else to do. When the girl was fully awake, she smiled and called Jeeter to her.
“What you want?” he said.
“Why did you come in here?” she said.
“I’m looking for Bessie, and I reckon I’d better go hunt for her some more. I’m liable to disgrace myself if I stay here looking at you.”
She called Jeeter again, but he turned his back and ran out of the room. Dude caught up with his father.
“By God and by Jesus, Dude,” Jeeter said. “I never saw so many pretty girls and women in all my days. This hotel is just jammed with them. I’d sure lose my religion if I stayed here much longer. I’ve got to get out in the street right now.”
At the foot of the stairway they saw the man who had rented them the room the night before. He was reading the morning paper.
“We’re ready to leave now,” Jeeter said, “but we can’t find Sister Bessie.”
“The woman who came in with you last night?”
“She’s the one. Sister Bessie, her name is.”
“I’ll get her,” he said, and started up the stairs. “What’s wrong with her nose? I didn’t notice it last night, but I saw it this morning. It gives me the creeps to look at it.”
“She was born like that,” Jeeter said. “Bessie ain’t much to look at in the face, but she’s a right smart piece to live with. Dude, here, he knows, because he’s married to her.”
“She’s got the ungodliest-looking nose I ever saw,” the man said, going up the stairs.