Pop. 1280

3

Maybe I didn't tell you, but this Ken Lacey I was going to visit was the sheriff a couple of counties down the river. Me and him met at a peace officers' convention one year, and we kind of cottoned to each other right away. He wasn't only real friendly, but he was plenty smart; I knew it the minute I started talking to him. So the first chance I got, I'd asked him advice about this problem I had.

'Um-hmmm!' he'd said, after I'd explained the situation and he'd thought it over for a while. 'Now, this privy sits on public property, right? It's out in back of the courthouse?'

'That's right,' I said. 'That's exactly right, Ken.'

'But it don't bother no one but you?'

'Right again,' I said. 'You see, the courtroom is on the downstairs rear, and it don't have no windows in back. The windows are upon the second floor where I live.'

Ken asked me if I couldn't get the county commissioners to tear the privy down and I said no, I couldn't hardly do that. After all, a lot of people used it, and it might make 'em mad.

'And you can't get 'em to clean it out?' he asked. 'Maybe sweeten it up a little with a few barrels of lime?'

'Why should they?' I said. 'It don't bother no one but me. I'd probably call down trouble on myself if I ever complained about it.'

'Uh-hah!' Ken nodded. 'It'd seem right selfish of you.'

'But I got to do something about it, Ken,' I said. 'It ain't just the hot-weather smell, which is plenty bad by itself, but that's only part of it. Y'see, there's these danged big holes in the roof that show everything that's going on inside. Say I've got some visitors in, and they think, Oh, my, you must have a wonderful view out that way. So they look out, and the only view they get is of some fella doing his business.'

Ken said, 'Uh-hah!' again, kind of coughing and stroking his mouth. Then, he went on to say that I really had a problem, a real problem. 'I can see how it might even upset a high sheriff like you, Nick, with all the pre-occu-pations of your great office.'

'You got to help me, Ken,' I said. 'I'm getting plumb frazzled out of my wits.'

'And I'm going to help you,' Ken nodded. 'I ain't never let a brother officer down yet, and I ain't about to begin now.'

So he told me what to do, and I did it. I sneaked out to the privy late that night, and I loosened a nail here and there, and I shifted the floor boards around a bit. The next morning, I was up early, all set to spring into action when the proper time came.

Well, sir, the fella that used the privy most was Mr. J.S. Dinwiddie, the bank president. He'd use it on the way home to lunch and on the way back from lunch, and on the way home at night and on the way in in the morning. Well, sometimes he'd pass it up, but never in the morning. By the time he'd got that far from his house his grits and gravy were working on him, and he just couldn't get to the privy fast enough.

He went rushing in that morning, the morning after I'd done my tampering-a big fat fella in a high white collar and a spanking new broadcloth suit. The floor boards went out from under him, and down into the pit. And he went down with them.

Smack down into thirty years' accumulation of night soil.

Naturally, I had him fished out almost as fast as he went in. So he wasn't really hurt none, just awful messed up. But I never saw one man so mad in all my borned days.

He hopped up and down and sideways, waving his fists and flinging his arms around, and yelling blue murder. I tried to toss some water over him to get the worst of the filth off. But the way he was hopping around and jumping every which way, I couldn't do much good. I'd throw the water at him in one place, and he'd be in another. And cuss! You never heard anything like it, and him a deacon in the church!

The county commissioners came running out, along with the other office holders, all of 'em pretty jittery to see the town's most important citizen like that. Mr. Dinwiddie recognized them somehow, although it's hard to see how he could with all that gunk in his eyes. And if he could have found a club, I swear he'd've clubbed 'em.

He cussed 'em up one side and down the other. He swore he'd file felony charges against them for criminal negligence. He yelled that he was going to file personal damage suits against them for willfully perpetuating a public hazard.

About the only person he had a kind word for was me. He said that a man like me could run the county by himself, and that he was going to see that all the other officials were recalled, because they were just a needless expense and a menace to life and limb as well.

As things turned out, Mr. Dinwiddie never did get around to doing anything of the things he threatened to. But that sure settled the privy problem. It was gone and the pit was filled in within an hour; and if you ever feel like getting a punch in the nose, just tell the commissioners that there ought to be another courthouse privy.

Well, that's a sample of Ken Lacey's advice. Just one sample of how good it is…

Of course, some people might say it was no good at all, that it might have got Mr. Dinwiddie killed and me in a pack of trouble. They might say that the other advice Ken had given me was pure meanness, and meant to be hurtful rather than helpful.

But me, well, I'll always think good of people as long as I possibly can. Or at least I won't think bad about 'em until I absolutely have to. So I hadn't quite reached a decision about Ken as yet.

I figured I'd see how he acted today, what kind of advice he gave me before I made up my mind. If he stacked up even halfway good, I'd give him the benefit of the doubt. But if he didn't appear even that good…

Well, I'd know what to do about him.

I always know.

4

I bought a bite of lunch from the train news butch, just a few sandwiches and some pie and potato chips and peanuts and cookies and sody-pop. About two o'clock that afternoon, we got into Ken Lacey's town, the county seat where he was high sheriff.

It was a real big place-probably four, five thousand people. The main street was paved, along with the square around the courthouse, and everywhere you looked there were wire-wheeled buggies and fancy fringe- topped carriages, and I even seen two, three auty-mo-biles with eye-goggled dudes driving 'em and women in veils and linen dusters holding on for dear life. I mean, it was just like being in New York or one of them other big cities I've heard about. All that stuff to see, and the people so busy and used to excitement that they didn't pay no mind at all.

Just for example, I passed this one vacant lot where there was the god-dangest dogfight going on that I ever did see. Kind of a battle royal between two hounds and a bulldog and a kind of spotty-assed mongrel.

Why, even if there hadn't been a fight, that mongrel would have been enough to make a fella stop and stare. Because I'm telling you, he was really something! He had this high ass in the back, all spotted and speckled like a cow had farted bran on him. But his front legs were so short that his nose almost rubbed on the ground. And one of his eyes was blue and the other'n was yaller. A real bright yaller like a woman's hair.

I stood there gawking, wishing that I had someone from Pottsville with me as a witness, because naturally no one'd ever believe I'd really seen a dog like that. Then, I happened to look around, and hard as it was to tear myself away, I turned my back on that spectacle and went on toward the courthouse.

I just about had to, you know, unless I wanted people to think I was an old country boy. Because I was the only one that had stopped to look. There was so much going on in that city that no one would ever give a second glance to something like that!

Ken and a deputy named Buck, a fella I'd never met before, were sitting in the sheriff's office; slumped way down on their spines with their boots crossed out in front of 'em, and their Stetsons tilted over their