It was apparent that the bristling antagonists bristled no longer, had limply lost interest in their quarrel.
“Aw, man,” mumbled Jinx, “what you talkin’ ’bout?”
“You know what I’m talkin’ ’bout you freckle-face giraffe, and so does ’at baby hippopotamus in front of you. We got that Court Avenue job in the mornin’, and if I got to break in one rooky on it, I might as well break in two.” The voice, too, was like bronze, heavy, rich in tone, uncompromisingly solid, with a surface shadowy and smooth as velvet save for an occasional ironic glint.
“This boogy,” explained Bubber, “thinks he’s bad. Come slippin’ me ’bout my family. He knows I don’t play nuthin’ like that.”
“Needn’t git uppity ’bout it,” mumbled Jinx sullenly.
“Ain’ gittin’ uppity. Jes’ natchly don’ like it, thass all. Keep yo’ thick lips off my family ef y’ know what’s good fo’ y’.”
He who had interrupted queried blandly, “Ain’t there gonna be no fight?”
Jinx said to Bubber—“Aw go ’haid, drabble-tail. Ain’ nobody studyin’ yo’ family.”
And this questionable apology Bubber chose to accept. “Oh,” said he. “Oh—aw right, then. Thass different.”
The atmosphere cleared, attention returned to gin and jest, and Bubber approached the giant, who now was grinning.
“Certainly am sorry th’ ain’ go’n’ be no hostilities,” sighed the latter. “Been wantin’ to spank yo’ little black bottom ev’y sence you broke that rope this mornin’.”
“Aw go ’haid, Shine. That boogy’s shoutin’ ’cause you was hyeh to protect ’im. I’m go’n’ ketch ’im one these days when you ain’ ’round, and I’m go’n’ turn ’im ev’y way but loose.”
“Don’t let ’im surprise y’. He kin wrastle the hell out of a piano.”
“Piano don’t fight back.”
“Don’t it? Well—neither will you if he get the same hold on y’.”
“Humph. Who the hell’s scared o’ that—freckle-face giraffe?”
II
Patmore, the proprietor, appeared, a large, powerful man with a broad, hard face, a bright display of gold teeth, and the complexion of a guinea hen’s egg. He wore a loose brown suit, of which the coat was large and boxy and the ample trousers sharply creased but so long that they broke about his ankles in cubistic planes and angles. Smoke and the caustic vapors of rum had rendered his voice rough and husky, and when he spoke you had an irresistible impulse to clear your throat.
Pat addressed Bubber. “You and Long-Boy still at it, huh?”
“Aw—’at string-bean’s crazy. I’m gon’ snap ’im in two and string ’im one these times.”
“Know what I’m go’n’ do with you two?”
“Whut?”
“See that door over there?”
“Yea.”
“That’s the cellar door, see? Next time y’all start anything in hyeh, I’m go’n’ send the two of you down there and let you settle it once and for all. Best man come out—other one drug out. See?”
“Any rats down there?”
“Yea—and y’all’ll make two more.”
“Well,” grinned Bubber, “when I walk out, them rats’ll have some bones to gnaw on anyhow,” and he moved off toward the pool room.
Ignoring Pat’s attempt to play the genial host, Shine had already returned to his drink with an indifference hardly short of insult. He now replenished his glass from a pint bottle in his hand, and slipped the bottle into his own hip pocket.
Pat’s green eyes narrowed. “That’ll be only three bucks to you, Shine.”
Shine looked up. “What?”
“Anybody else—four.”
“This,” said Shine, “is good licker.”
“ ’Course ’tis. All my licker is good.”
“This ain’ never been yourn—’scription licker.” Shine sampled his glass with an odd mingling of relish and unconcern, the one unmistakably for his drink, the other for his company.
Pat feigned incredulity. “Mean that’s your licker?”
“ ’Tain’t my brother’s.”
“Mean—” Pat’s unbelief mounted “—mean—you buy licker somewhere else and bring it in my place to drink?”
Shine tossed off the rest of the glass, set it down on the bar counter, and looked upon Pat, who was almost as tall as himself, with a wearily tolerant smile.
“Sho’ takes you a long time to see a thing,” he remarked. “You hear me say it’s ’scription. You ain’t runnin’ no drugstore, are y’? You see me drink it. You ain’t blind, are y’? Yea, I bought it. Yea, I brought it here. Yea, I’m drinkin’ it. Now what the hell ’bout it?”
A smaller man equally “bad,” equally convinced of the necessity of being hard, but aware of physical odds against him, would have said this with sneers and sarcasm, thus bolstering his courage against his handicap. Shine however had never found it necessary to be nasty as well as bad. He had spoken with an air of amusement, and there was but a touch of challenge in his terminal remark.
Pat stood silent a moment. Eventually he said, “Nothin’ ’bout it, big boy. Nothin’. Jes’ askin’ f’ information, that’s all.” And rather too abruptly he walked away.
Shine stared long into his third glass of ’scription liquor before he lifted it to his lips. Good whiskey is not like gin. Gin makes you forget, good whiskey makes you remember. Perhaps it was at the memories in this, his third glass of good whiskey, that Shine now stared. …
A boy, overgrown, bigger by far than his fellow orphan asylumites, so much bigger that they never challenged him to do battle as they frequently challenged the others. As big, almost, as the superintendent, about whom the smallest thing was his pebble of a heart. They were all at work in the truck garden, Shrimpie, Frankfurter, Jellybean, and the others, as well as this overgrown one whose name was then Joshua Jones. They were picking tomatoes, mostly green ones, to be taken to the kitchen and made into “pickalilly.” They were seeing who could pick most in the hour allotted to them for the work.
And Shrimpie, unaware that they were being watched from the window of the nearest cottage, suddenly stopped, staring in surprise and delight at a big, red, prematurely ripe tomato in his hand.
“Y’all kin work fast as you please,” Shrimpie declared. “I’m gon’ stop and eat this hyeh one.”
Three bites out of the luscious thing—and the superintendent’s hand was on Shrimpie’s shoulder. Three cruelly vehement
