Five Smooth Stones (38 page)

"They wouldn't serve him. David,
will
you—"

"Yeah. They served him. Finally. When the bartender had worn the bar top down a couple of inches polishing it off, he came over and said, 'Waddyawant?' Just like that. Growled it. Ambrose said, 'Whiskey straight; water back.' And he put five dollars on the bar. You know what that red-necked bastard did?"

"Threw it in his face.
David—"

"How you talk! They not like that in N'Awlins. They loves their nigras. Don't y'all know that in N'Awlins we their people? 'Ouah people'—that's what they calls us in N'Awlins. Threw it in his face? Hell, no! That wouldn't be kind, Sudsy. You got to be
kind
to the nigra. You come to the South now, you remember that, y'hyah? Don't you go round calling their nigras names like clever son of a bitch or handkerchief-haid bastard. He didn't throw that whiskey in Ambrose's face. He walked down to the end of the bar and he got him a paper cup—yes, suh, a nice, clean, li'l ol' paper cup—"

Sudsy, interested in spite of himself, said, "Dixie cup, no doubt."

David continued: "Must have been. Anyhow, he poured a slug of whiskey in that li'l ol' Dixie cup and he gave it to Ambrose, and poured water in another Dixie cup and he gave it to him—"

"And spit in 'em?"

"No! Sudsy, you've got to learn about these things. They're things like unwritten laws. No, he didn't spit in 'em. He waited till Ambrose finished his drink; then he picked up the money in one hand, and the water cup in the other, and crumpled up the water cup and threw it in the trash basket —hard. Like it was some kind of filth. Then he picked up the other cup, and he did the same thing with it; only, he threw it in harder. Then he walked over to the cash register and made change. You see, if he'd made change before he showed Ambrose how upset he was about having to serve him, Ambrose might have left before he had chance to see him throw those cups away that a nigger had drunk from. It'll be a long time before I forget the look on Ambrose's face when he walked out of there. How you talk! Throwing whiskey in the face of a poor thirsty nigra, spitting in his drink."

David straightened his shoulders, sat erect now, and his voice changed and became the familiar voice Sudsy knew, only lower and more gentle. "And you're talking about the plague, Sudsy? There's millions of us were born with it."

The warmth of the room, the two stiff drinks, the stillness of a deserted dormitory on a holiday weekend were getting to Clifton Sutherland. His eyes were moist, as they always were after the second drink. The knuckles of the hand that held the bottle were no longer white as they had been when he had clutched it as though it were going to save him from drowning. He held up the bottle, looked through it at David, said, "Yea, verily," and poured more whiskey.

When he had finished the drink and the inevitable shudder, David looked at him, and smiled. "I don't know why," he said, "I swear to God I don't know why you drink when you suffer like that."

The quirk of Sudsy's lips might have passed for a smile.

"Son of a bitch," he said. "Clever son of a bitch."

David leaned across the table, took the bottle, and drank from it. "Yes, oh, yes." he said. "Be kind. Let us be kind. Let us all love one another. Quit looking at that bottle, man. You can have it back." He sloshed the whiskey around in the bottle, gauging the amount left. "Brethren, let us be kind," he said. "Yea, brethren, let us love one another." He took a swallow of the whiskey, began to sing. " 'Take this
bottle,
Carry to the captain'—"

He reached out a long arm, held the bottle out to Sudsy. "Going to get you drunk, Sudsy," he said. "Going to get you real stinking drunk. Boxed out, that's what I'm going to get you. Tell me now, while you can still talk, brother, what you want me to do for you while you're drunk?"

***

It did not take long for David to realize that his goal of getting Clifton Sutherland sufficiently drunk to get him back into the Infirmary, or at the worst into bed in his own room, was not likely to be achieved. Sudsy appeared to be well aware of his intent, and developed a caginess that liquor would not dim. David made another attempt to appeal to reason. "They'll be sending you home on Sunday at the latest, Suds. Come on. Use your head. If you go back now they may not even have discovered you're out. That wouldn't be too bad a rap—just coming over here."

"I told the nurse I was going to sleep. I
gotta
be out of this place before they bring the supper trays around."

David poured another drink, offered it to him, but he shook his head. "Later," he said. "Later, man."

"Listen to reason, Suds. What good's it going to do to get a bad mark against you? Besides, you aren't fit to travel."

Sudsy's eyes were glazed, the round cheeks beginning to look flushed, and his speech slurred slightly. He stood up and shrugged into his duffel coat. "I didn't come here for a lecture," he said. "What the hell did you think I came here for?"

"Help," said David.

Sudsy's hand was out to push David aside, on his way to the door, but one of David's big ones spread out on the smaller youth's chest. He pushed, not hard, and Sudsy went back a few steps, and the edge of the couch struck the back of his legs. One arm flailing, he lost balance and wound up, half lying, half sitting, on the couch.

"Cut out that crap, Sutherland. Have it your own way." David looked down at the other boy, and suddenly his half-angry exasperation left him. He saw a friend, achingly homesick and troubled, judgment warped by illness and shock. What in hell difference did a lousy rule make? Sudsy wasn't trying to do anything bad; he just wanted to go home, like a hurt child.

"So-so, Sudsy," he said. "So-so. I'll pack for you, and get you ready to go. How'll we get you there? You're not going to drive, that's for sure."

"Who said I was going to drive? Going to get prain or tlane—train or plane."

"Where? Where are you going to get this prain or tlane?"

"Cinci. We've got time, David."

"On a holiday weekend?"

"Train. Then we don't have to go to Covington. Listen, David." Sudsy had the top off the bottle and was peering into it with one eye closed. "Listen, David, old friend. I'll pour us another drink. Then you go downstairs and telephone, see. You telephone that li'l ol' railroad station and see if you can get me on a train for Boston. Get me a roomette. You got credit at that switchboard."

When David came back, Sudsy was lying across the bed, feet on the floor.

"Sick," he said when David entered. "I feel so damned sick."

"So-so," said David. "So-so, little man. You're going to feel sicker. All they had was a bedroom, and that's out of Columbus."

"You get it, David?"

"Sure, I got it. You have any money?"

Sudsy snickered and rolled his head from side to side on the bed. "Money! Sure I've got money! All kinds of—" Suddenly he sat up. "My God! Money! Three dollars! Three lousy li'l ol' dollars!"

"I told you you were going to feel sicker." David stood over the other boy, looking down at him. Sudsy waggled a forefinger at him. "Drive," he said. "We can drive. We can drive to New York and I'll get a train there. You call the station again and you tell the man what he can do with his big ol' bedroom. You tell him to be glad it's not a pineapple."

David walked to one of the windows beside the fireplace. Snow had begun to fall again, big flakes mingling with small ones, drifting past. It did not look like the start of a heavy fall, but he'd give it an hour to cover the roads. He did not relish the idea of driving so far in a snowstorm, however mild, and there was no telling what the weather would be doing between Laurel and New York. And somewhere between the two places they would have to stop. And Suds would get hungry; he always did when he had been drinking, and there would be places where they wouldn't serve him— David Champlin—because he was colored. He would have to go in and get the food and bring it out, perhaps go around back and get it. If that happened he knew he wouldn't be able to keep Sudsy in. the car because Sudsy would know why and would make a scene sure as hell. They might even wind up in jail.

All David knew of tuberculosis was the general knowledge he'd picked up from reading, and what he knew of Gramp's friends in New Orleans who had died of it—and there had been plenty. There had been Big Red Harris, who, Gramp said, had played drums every night with a coffee can beside him, coughing and spitting up blood, and who had died on the stand coughing blood so that it filled the coffee can and ran onto the stand. For all his brave words to Sudsy, "It's nothing today," he was afraid. He couldn't see how pneumonia or a night in jail could be anything but bad on top of TB; very bad.

He turned away from the window. "I've got money, Suds. You take the train."

"Not all that kind of money, pal? More'n a hundred dollars?"

"It's only sixty something. And I can let you have some for taxis and meals and stuff like that."

"But that's—" Sudsy looked at David, and the face crumpled like a baby's, then set; the flush left it, and it was doughy and pale, opaque, a surface on which no emotion could reflect. "That's one-way," he said. "That's a one-way ticket."

"Sure it is. Round trip's only good for six months. Look, Suds, it's tough—but they won't let you back this year. Next year. Come on, fella—"

Sudsy did not move for a minute, then rose slowly. "I wanted to be a doctor," he said.

"Jesus have moicy!" said David. "Jesus have moicy! How can one sorry little piece of a guy have so much stupidness in him! And your old man a doctor. You grew up with doctoring. You must've learned
something.
My grandfather still doesn't believe in germs, not really. No one ever taught him any better. Gramp still thinks if somebody faints or has a bad spell it's a 'revolution of the blood.' But even Gramp's not
that
ignorant. You'll be a doctor—but I'll be darned if I think you'll be a good one!"

Sudsy was rolling the whiskey bottle between the palms of his hands, still sitting on the edge of the couch. "Takes a hell of a long time to be a doctor," he said. "A year's a hell of a long time."

"And we're messing around talking for a hell of a long time. Come on, let's move the bodies over to Emory."

They slipped out the side door of Quimby House, and David's reconnoitering showed him no signs of life on the campus. They hurried down the side path, over gray slush under a powder of new snow. A cold wind met them at the corner, and Sudsy stopped, buffeted not by the wind but by a paroxysm of coughing.

David's arm was around his shoulder, holding him upright. Sudsy felt the warmth of the other's blood through his coat, the strength of his body, thought he could feel the steady, strong rhythm of the heart. He tried .to speak, but the coughing stopped him, and its sound was horrible in his own ears.

Through it he heard David's voice: "Lawd! Lawd! Warm sun! Arizona! You've got it made, man. You tell your old man you've got to take me with you." Then the coughing stopped, and he tried to laugh, clearheaded for a minute in the gray cold.

"Tell my old man I've got to have the first Negro Justice of the SOO-preme Court of these YEWnited States with me?" He was still shaken, weakened by the paroxysm, but he started across the roadway. "That takes a hell of a long time, too. And a hell of a lot of brains. You going to write to me, David?"

"I'll study about it," said David. "I don't see why I should worry myself writing to an ornery little creep without any more sense than you have, but I'll study about it."

"Bastard," said Sudsy. "Handkerchief-haid bastard."

Inside the rear entrance of Emory Hall, David stopped and brushed the snow from his head, then rubbed his scalp until it tingled. Gramp had always made him do that when he'd been out in the rain without a hat. "Brings the blood back to the head," Gramp said. "Keeps away a cold."

Sudsy went up the back stairs ahead of him, was halfway down the second-floor corridor when David reached it. Sudsy called out sharply: "Come on, come
on,
David. You've been dragging your ass all afternoon."

David heard a sound behind him, turned his head as Suds was speaking, and saw a slender figure in a blue bathrobe cross quickly from the showers to a room across the hall. He recognized it as Clevenger, and swore under his breath. There were no other signs of life in the dormitory.

The rule about cars on campus had been unofficially repealed during the holiday weekend, and Sudsy's was parked behind the dormitory. David packed the essentials quickly, promising to send the rest of the stuff the following week. As David stowed the suitcase in the luggage compartment, Sudsy said: "The money. I'll get the money back to you. My dad'll send it Monday."

"You better," said David. "Gramp's saying he's picked up weight, mighty near a hundred and five now, he says. He'll take me on if I don't get that money. That all? We got everything you want?" He was wearing a green stocking cap borrowed from Suds, and now he pulled the cuff down over his ears and climbed behind the wheel. "Better get your head down till we clear the campus, chum," he said.

As they neared the driveway that led to the parking circle behind the Infirmary, David swore loudly at a noise from the rear of the car. He glanced at Sudsy to make sure he still had his head below the level of the window and windshield, and stopped the car. "Damned trunk lock," he said, and ran to the back of the car. He raised the lid of the luggage compartment, slammed if shut with enough force to engage the catch, locked it and tried it carefully before returning to his seat Sudsy laughed. "You scared the whey out of me," he said. "I thought you were going to try and get me back in."

"You're not drunk enough. I tried. I know when I'm licked."

"Listen, David." They were on the highway now. "When the stink comes, you tell 'em you didn't know I'd sprung myself out of the Infirmary, see? Tell them I came to your room and said they'd released me. You mind lying?"

"Cripes, no! It's my neck, too. You came to my room—
with
that bottle."