They Don't Dance Much: A Novel (8 page)

Catfish kept nodding and nodding, and his head got a little farther over every time. Finally he fell out of the chair and woke up. He bounced around on the floor and put his hand on the stove, that was hot. He jerked it back and stuck his fingers in his mouth. ‘Great God!’ he said. ‘Confound my soul! Done ruint my hand on this here stove. I’m burnt bad.’

He got up complaining and sucking his fingers. Smut looked over his shoulder at him. ‘Put some lard on it, Cat, and take a drink of liquor,’ he said.

Catfish stopped taking on. ‘Ain’t no more liquor in that bottle,’ he said.

Smut pulled out the drawer of the table. He took a bottle of liquor out of the drawer and handed it to Catfish. ‘Here,’ he said.

Catfish opened the bottle and took a long slug. He set the bottle down and looked at his hand. ‘I ain’t burnt so bad,’ he said, and belched. ‘I don’t know’s I’m burnt bad enough to use no lard.’

‘I didn’t think you was,’ Smut said, and belched himself. ‘Gimme that bottle,’ he told Catfish.

Catfish didn’t do it right off. ‘Just one more little small drink, Mr. Smut,’ he said, ‘to gimme courage. I got to walk some powerfully dark woods roads before I git home.’

‘Well, all right,’ Smut said, ‘but it better be small.’

Catfish didn’t drink out of the bottle this time. He took the glass and poured that full. He swallowed it down without batting an eye.

Smut looked at him, then at what was left of the liquor in the bottle.

‘Damn if you ain’t going to get drunk,’ he told Catfish. ‘You already drunk enough liquor to founder a mule.’

Catfish pulled his hat down over one ear. ‘That ain’t nothin,’ he said. ‘I ain’t never been drunk. Cose I been high as a kite, but not down drunk. Liquor don’t bother me. I takes it or leaves it alone.’

‘That’s half right, anyway,’ Smut said.

Catfish buttoned up his overall jacket and went out the back door. When he hit the ground he commenced singing, ‘Death Gonna Lay His Cold, Icy Hands on Me.’

Smut shivered. ‘Got kind of a gruesome turn of mind, ain’t he?’ he said.

‘Kind of,’ I said. ‘By the way, Smut, what’s my job going to be when we get started up?’

‘You can be the cashier,’ he said, and yawned. ‘You’ll have to look after the cash register and keep the books; course I’ll help you. I’m going to keep an eye on the whole works myself. I got to, if I ever get out of debt.’

The next morning Smut went to Corinth and got Rufus Jones. When they got back to the roadhouse Smut told me that he got Fletch Monroe sobered up enough to get out the paper that day, if he didn’t take a backset. The reason Smut was so anxious for it to be published this time was that he had a big ad to put in there.

That afternoon we stuck poles on each side of the highway and hung a big sign between the poles. Of course it was up high, so it wouldn’t get knocked down by the first big truck that came along. On the sign it said:

BIG FORMAL OPENING, OCT. 28

RIVER BEND ROADHOUSE

DINE AND DANCE

FRESH PIT BARBECUE

CHICKEN DINNERS

EVERYBODY WELCOME.

Besides that, Smut had stuck posters all over Corinth where he could get folks to let him, or where he thought he could get by with it. He had nailed them to trees, and telephone poles, and pasture fences. He seemed to think it would get a big crowd out there for Saturday night. But I doubted it; I thought he might work up a good business in time. But not right off the bat. I could see us sitting around Saturday night with nobody out there but the usual mill hands and farmers and kids from uptown that ought to have been home studying their Sunday-School lessons for the next day.

THAT AFTERNOON SMUT SAT
around and worried about the
Enterprise
getting out. He said Fletch told him that he would stay sober, but you couldn’t put much dependence in Fletch. He was off to the bootleggers at the drop of a hat. About four o’clock Smut got ready to go to Corinth and see how Fletch was getting along. But while he was trying to find the truck keys a car pulled up in the yard. It was Astor LeGrand’s car, and Fletch was with Astor.

Fletch opened the door and hopped out. He looked mighty bad; you could tell he was sober. He was a long, slim fellow, with hollows under his eyes, and lips that were yellow from cigarette stains. He’d light a cigarette and let it burn into his lip before he threw it away. He was waving a couple of newspapers in his hand.

‘Here you are, Smut,’ he said. ‘Out on time, just like I promised you. I brought you a couple of copies here.’

‘Did you mail them all out?’ Smut asked him. I reckon he was afraid maybe Fletch had just set up the type and run off a couple of copies and then took a notion to come out and throw a long drunk.

‘Every damn subscriber will get his paper in the morning, and if he don’t want to read it he can go to hell,’ Fletch said. He didn’t sit down, but stood there kind of twitching his shoulders. His hands hung down by his side. He kept clinching his fingers together, then unclinching them.

Smut opened the paper. ‘I’ll get you a drink in a minute, Fletch,’ he said. ‘How’re you today, Mr. Astor?’

Astor LeGrand sat down on one of the nail kegs. ‘Nothing extra, thank you,’ he said.

I picked up the other paper that was lying across Smut’s lap. I guess Fletch didn’t know much news that day. Most of the paper was about our opening the roadhouse. On the first page there was a full column about it. In the main it just said that the River Bend Roadhouse would be opened to the public on Saturday, October 28, and went on to tell about Smut Milligan and what he had in mind. Then there were several other little pieces about who was going to work down there. One of them said: ‘Mr. Matthew Rush has accepted a position as waiter with Mr. Richard Milligan at River Bend Roadhouse. Mr. Rush is well known about Corinth and has spent most of his life here. He will begin his new duties tomorrow.’ The rest of them were about like that. There was a lot of guff about Mr. Milligan having operated various roadhouses and taverns on the Pacific Coast, from Lower California to British Columbia. The piece said he was amply qualified to serve the public.

On the back there was a full-page ad of our place. It was about like this:

BIG FORMAL OPENING SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28

THE RIVER BEND ROADHOUSE

Mr. Richard (Smut) Milligan announces that he will be ready to serve the public with Superior Sea Food, Sizzling Steaks, Curb Service, Dancing Accommodations, Hot Rhythm, and Various Other Things, at his location on River Road and Lover’s Lane. Special Accommodations for Tourists. Smut Milligan is experienced in the operation of Roadhouses, Etc., and promises a real treat for all visitors to his establishment. He has engaged competent help as follows: Mr. Jack McDonald, Cashier; Mr. Walter Honeycutt, Head Waiter; Dick Pittman, Curb Service; Matthew Rush and Sam Hall, Waiters; Rufus Jones and Johnny Lilly, Cooks. Your special attention is called to Rufus Jones, who will have charge of the kitchen. Rufus is known far and wide for his steaks. He has cooked for Alpha Beta at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N.C.; the Washington Duke Hotel in Durham, N.C.; and for the Pullman Company. [They forgot to say anything about him cooking for the chain gang in Scotland County, but I guess some things are better forgot.] We are anxious to serve you.

SPECIAL ATTENTION, TOURISTS! We have tourist cabins with lights, running water, soft mattresses, and all modern conveniences. TRY OUR CABINS!

When I finished reading my paper, Smut was still deep in his. I looked up at Fletch Monroe. He looked like he was on needles and pins. He would lean his weight on one foot, then shift it to the other. His shoulders were twitching up and down and he was working the sides of his mouth like some woman that is itching to get in the conversation, but can’t. Finally Smut got through reading and said: ‘Well, it’s all right, Fletch. Let’s go get you a drink.’

‘Pal, I need one!’ Fletch said, and they went inside. In a minute I went in there too. But Astor LeGrand stayed where he was.

There wasn’t anything much to do, so I just sat in there with Smut and Fletch and watched Fletch drink. Smut got him a pint of some sort of rye liquor and Fletch commenced drinking it out of the bottle. He took a drink of water after each swallow of liquor. The drinks he took were about the biggest ones I ever saw anybody take. He took three drinks in about thirty minutes’ time and the pint was all gone. It made him steady; he quit fumbling around with his hands, and his shoulders got still. Fletch talked to Smut about how he thought business was going to be, and things like that. I could see that Smut was tired of him. Now that the paper was out and it was all right about that, Smut wished Fletch would go on off. He turned on the radio pretty loud and would pretend not to hear the questions Fletch asked him. Pretty soon Fletch gave it up and just sat there talking to himself and smoking.

After awhile Smut looked around at Fletch. He saw the pint bottle was empty and he went back and got another bottle. It was four fifths of a quart this time. He handed the bottle to Fletch.

‘You better go on home, Fletch,’ Smut said. ‘You might get drunk and sick out here, add no doctor handy. Astor’ll take you home.’

Fletch put the bottle under his arm and mumbled something. His face looked like he was studying about something that happened a long time ago. He went outside, and in a minute I heard Astor start up the car. I wondered how come Astor LeGrand to bring Fletch out there in the first place. He was a big shot in Corinth, and wasn’t running any taxi.

The next day was a hot one for October, and I thought that was a sign we’d maybe have a fair crowd out that night if it kept on like that. The warm weather would make the young folks restless and they’d have to go somewhere and do something. It being hot so late in the fall would make them more restless than hot weather in the summer-time, when it’s supposed to be hot and everybody takes off most of their clothes and sits around resigned to it. I thought they might as well come to the roadhouse as not.

The main trouble was, there was a big football game over at Durham that afternoon. That always draws big from Corinth. Boys that don’t have but one shirt to their name will save up and go to Durham or Chapel Hill to take in a football game. Especially if it’s one of these intersectional games. Then the girls are always egging them on to take them to football games. In the fall a girl gets rated by how many football games she gets to go to.

I sat outside the roadhouse that morning, on a little wooden chair that was painted green (Smut put the nail kegs in the car shed and said we wouldn’t use them any more, because they didn’t have enough tone for a roadhouse), and I read the
Charlotte Observer.
On the sports page it said that if it kept on hot that afternoon the home team would win. The heat wilts those Yankees when they come down here, and the Yankees we got hired on our football teams win because they have got used to it by then. The paper said there would be a big crowd at the game. I figured maybe we’d get a little trade out of some of the South Carolina folks that would come up the River Road on the way to Durham.

It turned out that there was a lot of traffic on the highway that day. From eleven o’clock to twelve we did a pretty good business. We sold ten or twelve pints of liquor and a lot of gas. It kept us all busy for a while, but in the afternoon things slacked off.

That afternoon a lot of the cotton-mill hands came out. They looked like they felt out of place in that shiny new roadhouse at first, but most of them bought some liquor. It wasn’t long before they were acting like they were used to roadhouses and had been raised in one. They went in the little room that was marked private, and played the slot machines and cussed them as much as usual. They all bet on the pin-ball machines that were legal. Some of them sat in the booths and played poker. They were a little quieter than usual.

There wasn’t much farm trading going on that afternoon. I reckon it had got out by then that Smut had sold out his stock of groceries and such odds and ends like plowlines and nails and work shoes. There was a sprinkling of country boys hanging around, but mainly from curiosity. They all liked to hear the nickelodeon. One of them would match another one to see who put the nickel in the slot. When the piece played out they would match again and get another record going. They liked the mournful-sounding records that were sung by hillbilly singers. Their favorite was some bird named Basil Barnhart, the Bear Mountain Barytone. It was a pity the bears let him get away.

My new job was different from what I’d been doing before. I had to wear a tie and sit on the stool back of the cash register. Matt and Sam, the waiters, had little ruled pads that they used to write up the amount a customer owed. The customer was supposed to give me the ticket and pay me. Then I took the tickets and stuck them on a long nail-like thing that was bottom side up. When the business was done for the night I had to add up the tickets and they had to come up and balance with the money in the till. Then I had to fix up the copies of the menu, but that wasn’t much of a job. During the week we didn’t aim to change the menus very often. But for the opening night we had a long list of things that we were ready to serve.

When it got dark that night there still wasn’t anybody there except for the usual Saturday night crowd of mill hands and loafers from Corinth. They were mostly pretty tight by then, but still not noisy. I couldn’t understand it. Wilbur Brannon was sitting outside, talking to Dick Pittman. Smut came out of the kitchen and walked up to where I was sitting. He leaned his elbows on the table the cash register was on.

‘Not much of a crowd, so far,’ he said. He sounded like he was getting a little anxious. He had on his best clothes: a black suit, with a white shirt that was clean, and a black bow tie. He looked good except for his hair. It needed cutting. He still looked tough, for his coat was a little too tight and made his shoulders look like they were going to bust through.