“How bad do you want to do something?” I says. She looks at me. “Of course, a doctor learns all sorts of things folks don’t think he knows. But he ain’t supposed to tell all he knows. It’s against the law.”
Up front Jody says, “Skeet.”
“Excuse me a minute,” I says. I went up front. “Do you see him?” I says.
“Ain’t you done yet?” he says. “Maybe you better come up here and watch and let me do that consulting.”
“Maybe you’ll lay a egg,” I says. I come back. She is looking at me. “Of course you realize that I could be put in the penitentiary for doing what you want,” I says. “I would lose my licence and then I’d have to go to work. You realize that?”
“I ain’t got but ten dollars,” she says. “I could bring the rest next month, maybe.”
“Pooh,” I says, “ten dollars? You see, I can’t put no price on my knowledge and skill. Certainly not for no little paltry sawbuck.”
She looks at me. She don’t even blink. “What you want, then?”
The clock said four to one. So I decided I better get her out. “You guess three times and then I’ll show you,” I says.
She don’t even blink her eyes. “I got to do something,” she says. She looks behind her and around, then she looks toward the front. “Gimme the medicine first,” she says.
“You mean, you’re ready to right now?” I says. “Here?”
“Gimme the medicine first,” she says.
So I took a graduated glass and kind of turned my back to her and picked out a bottle that looked all right; because a man that would keep poison setting around in a unlabelled bottle ought to be in jail, anyway. It smelled like turpentine. I poured some into the glass and give it to her. She smelled it, looking at me across the glass.
“Hit smells like turpentine,” she says.
“Sure,” I says. “That’s just the beginning of the treatment. You come back at ten o’clock tonight and I’ll give you the rest of it and perform the operation.”
“Operation?” she says.
“It won’t hurt you. You’ve had the same operation before. Ever hear about the hair of the dog?”
She looks at me. “Will it work?” she says.
“Sure it’ll work. If you come back and get it.”
So she drunk whatever it was without batting a eye, and went out. I went up front.
“Didn’t you get it?” Jody says.
“Get what?” I says.
“Ah, come on,” he says. “I ain’t going to try to beat your time.”
“Oh, her,” I says. “She just wanted a little medicine. She’s got a bad case of dysentery and she’s a little ashamed about mentioning it with a stranger there.”
It was my night, anyway, so I helped the old bastard check up and I got his hat on him and got him out of the store by eight-thirty. I went as far as the corner with him and watched him until he passed under two street lamps and went on out of sight. Then I come back to the store and waited until nine-thirty and turned out the front lights and locked the door and left just one light burning at the back, and I went back and put some talcum powder into six capsules and kind of cleared up the cellar and then I was all ready.
She come in just at ten, before the clock had done striking. I let her in and she come in, walking fast. I looked out the door, but there wasn’t nobody but a boy in overalls sitting on the curb. “You want something?” I says. He never said nothing, just looking at me. I locked the door and turned off the light and went on back. She was waiting. She didn’t look at me now.
“Where is it?” she said.
I gave her the box of capsules. She held the box in her hand, looking at the capsules.
“Are you sure it’ll work?” she says.
“Sure,” I says. “When you take the rest of the treatment.”
“Where do I take it?” she says.
“Down in the cellar,” I says.
Vardaman
Now it is wider and lighter, but the stores are dark because they have all gone home. The stores are dark, but the lights pass on the windows when we pass. The lights are in the trees around the courthouse. They roost in the trees, but the courthouse is dark. The clock on it looks four ways, because it is not dark. The moon is not dark too. Not very dark. Darl he went to Jackson is my brother Darl is my brother. Only it was over that way, shining on the track.
“Let’s go that way, Dewey Dell,” I say.
“What for?” Dewey Dell says. The track went shining around the window, it red on the track. But she said he would not sell it to the town boys. “But it will be there Christmas,” Dewey Dell says. “You’ll have to wait till then, when he brings it back.”
Darl went to Jackson. Lots of people didn’t go to Jackson. Darl is my brother. My brother is going to Jackson
While we walk the lights go around, roosting in the trees. On all sides it is the same. They go around the courthouse and then you cannot see them. But you can see them in the black windows beyond. They have all gone home to bed except me and Dewey Dell.
Going on the train to Jackson. My brother
There is a light in the store, far back. In the window are two big glasses of soda-water, red and green. Two men could not drink them. Two mules could not. Two cows could not. Darl
A man comes to the door. He looks at Dewey Dell.
“You wait out here,” Dewey Dell says.
“Why can’t I come in?” I say. “I want to come in, too.”
“You wait out here,” she says.
“All right,” I say.
Dewey Dell goes in.
Darl is my brother. Darl went crazy
The walk is harder than sitting on the ground. He
