'What?' I asked, and at that same moment I resolved to leave Texas forever.
'I tole'im that I had a man beat me four ways from sundown my whole life and I sent him t'hell. I say, 'I sent his son after'im, so Satan stay wit' me and I whip yo' ass too.''
Mouse laughed softly, laid his head on the bar, and went to sleep. I pulled out my wallet, quietly as if I were afraid to waken the dead, left two bills, and went down to the hotel. I was on a bus for Los Angeles before the sun came up.
But it seemed like a lifetime had passed since then. I was a landowner that night and I was working for my mortgage. 'Junior,' I said. 'Many white girls been in here lately?'
'Why? You lookin' fo' one?' Junior was naturally suspicious.
'Well… kinda.'
'You kinda lookin' fo' one! When you gonna find out?'
'You see, uh, I heard about this girl. Um … Delia or Dahlia or sumpin'. I know it starts with a 'D.' Anyway she has blond hair and blue eyes and I been told that she was worth lookin' at.'
'Cain't say I remember, man. I mean some white girls come in on the weekends, you know, but they don't never come alone. And I lose my job wolfin' after some other brother's date.'
I had the notion that Junior was lying to me. Even if he knew the answer to my question he would have kept it quiet. Junior hated anybody who he thought was doing better than he was. Junior hated everybody.
'Yeah, well, I guess I'll see her if she comes in.' I looked around the room. 'There's a chair over there next to the band, think I'll grab it.'
I knew Junior was watching me as I left him but I didn't care. He wouldn't help me and I didn't give a damn about him.
5
I found a chair next to my friend Odell Jones.
Odell was a quiet man and a religious man. His head was the color and shape of a red pecan. And even though he was a God-fearing man he'd find his way down to John's about three or four times a week. He'd sit there until midnight nursing a bottle of beer, not saying a word unless somebody spoke to him.
Odell was soaking up all the excitement so he could carry it around with him on his job as a janitor at the Pleasant Street school. Odell always wore an old gray tweed jacket and threadbare brown woolen pants.
'Hey, Odell,' I greeted him.
'Easy.'
'How's it going tonight?'
'Well,' he said slowly, thinking it over. 'It's goin' alright. It sure is goin'.'
I laughed and slapped Odell on the shoulder. He was so slight that the force pushed him to the side but he just smiled and sat back up. Odell was older than most of my friends by twenty years or more; I think he was almost fifty then. To this day he's outlived two wives and three out of four children.
'What's it look like tonight, Odell?'
''Bout two hours ago,' he said while he scratched his left ear, 'Fat Wilma Johnson come in with Toupelo and danced up a storm. She jump up in the air and come down so hard this whole room like t'shook.'
'That Wilma like to dance,' I said.
'Don't know how she keep that much heft, hard as she work and hard as she play.'
'She probably eat hard too.'
That tickled Odell.
I asked him to hold a seat for me while I went around saying hello.
I made the rounds shaking hands and asking people if they had seen a white girl, Delia or Dahlia or something. I didn't use her real name because I didn't want anybody to connect me with her if Mr. Albright turned out to be wrong and there was trouble. But no one had seen her. I would have even asked Frank Green but he was gone by the time I worked my way to the bar.
When I got back to my table Odell was still there and smiling.
'Hilda Redd come in,' he said to me.
'Yeah?'
'Lloyd try to make a little time an' she hit him in that fat gut so hard he a'most went down.' Odell acted out Lloyd's part, puffing his cheeks and bulging his eyes.
We were still laughing when I heard a shout that was so loud even Lips looked up from his horn.
'Easy!'
Odell looked up.
'Easy Rawlins, is that you?'
A big man walked into the room. A big man in a white suit with blue pinstripes and a ten-gallon hat. A big black man with a wide white grin who moved across the crowded room like a cloudburst, raining hellos and howyadoin's on the people he passed as he waded to our little table.
'Easy!' he laughed. 'You ain't jumped outta no windahs yet?'
