Jordan County

Dawn broke somewhere up the line, pearly under a drizzle of rain, but presently the rain left off and the flat eastern rim of earth was tinted rose. The sun came up fast, dark red while still half hidden, the color of blood, then fiery as it bounced clear of the landline, shining on the picked-over cotton that hung in bluing skeins on dead brown stalks. Ahead the engine was rounding a curve and suddenly a plume of steam was balanced on the whistle; it screamed, much as a hound will bay once in full course for no reason at all; then the plume disappeared and it hushed. The rain returned but the sun still shone, pale yellow through the mizzle. “I ought to watch,” the young man told himself. He spoke aloud. But that was the last he remembered. He slid back into drowsiness and slumber, taking with him only the present sensations of dusty plush and cinders and vibration.

“Dont,” he said. The hand nudged at his shoulder again and the voice came back, as if from a long way off.

“Bristol,” it said. “All out.”

He saw the hand, the black cuff with its gold-thread stars and bars of longterm service toward retirement, and looking up he saw the conductor himself, the face with its halo of white
hair, the broken veins of the nose, the jowls and dewlap. “Hey?”

“End of the line. All out for Bristol.”

Then he woke. It was there, outside the window, in broad open daylight. He had stayed awake all night, riding south out of Memphis through the hundred-odd miles of blackness, with only the soft gold gleam of cabin lanterns scattered at random across the fields and the infrequent sudden garish burst of streetlights announcing towns, and then had slept through the arrival. “Thanks,” he said.

Rising — he was about twenty-five, rumpled and unshaven after the all-night trainride — he took his suitcase from the overhead rack and carried it down the aisle of the empty coach. At the door onto the rear platform he turned suddenly, looking back, and saw what he had known he would see. The conductor stood there, watching him, the ticket punch in his left hand glinting highlight. He narrowed his eyes and pulled his chin down. “Whats the matter?” he said. “You think I’m drunk or something?” The conductor shrugged and turned away. He smiled, swung the door ajar, and stepped onto the platform.

Brilliant early morning sunlight struck him across the eyes as he came down the iron steps to where the flagman stood on the concrete quay, the brass buttons on his coat as bright as the sun itself. “Mississippi, hey?” the young man cried. He smiled as he spoke.

“Thats right,” the flagman said. “Home again.”

“Jordan County. You think itll rain?”

“Oh sure. Cotton’s all in: why not?”

“Why not,” he said, waving his hand, and went into the depot.

He intended to leave his bag with the ticket agent, but the agent was busy at his window with three Negroes. Grave-faced, they wore funeral clothes, dark suits with heavy watch chains and boiled collars. The agent was scratching his head, grave-faced too. They had accompanied a dead friend to the station; they wanted to ship him to Vicksburg in his coffin. That was easy enough. The problem was they wanted him
sent back two days later for a second funeral. He had lived both in Vicksburg and in Bristol, with lodge brothers and relatives in each, and since the widow insisted on burial here, they figured it would be cheaper, more convenient all around, that is, to send him to Vicksburg so his friends could see him there, laid out in style, than it would be for all those people to leave their jobs and buy railroad tickets to come up here and see him. Then they would ship him back to Bristol for the second funeral and the burial. That made sense; the trouble lay in the question of fares. First-class was the normal rate, but the agent was not so sure about the propriety of selling a round-trip ticket to a corpse. His friends maintained he was entitled to it, but the agent was doubtful; he was not even sure but what it might be sacrilegious. “I’ll call the office and get a ruling,” he was saying, still scratching his head, as the young man left with the suitcase.

Again in brilliant sunlight he walked westward down the main street of the town. Cars went past or paused at intersections, obedient to the traffic lights suspended between poles, the lidless glare of red and green, the momentary blink of amber, relaying the orders of some central brain, peremptory, electric, and unthinking. The young man frowned. When he had gone two blocks he stopped and gazed across the street at a department store with a new façade of imitation marble that was mottled like a pinto;
Goodblood’s
it said in a flowing script across the pony-colored front. He shook his head. Then as he stood looking down the line of bright new parking meters, each with its clockwork entrails ticking off the time between now and the red flag of violation, he saw a man coming toward him. The man walked with his head tipped forward, a worried expression on his face. He stopped, patting his pockets, preoccupied, and the young man spoke.

“They changed it,” he said to the man. “They changed it on me while my back was turned.”

“How’s that?” The worried look did not leave the man’s face.

“The town. They changed it. It’s all new.”

“Yes; it’s growing,” the man said. He nodded once and hurried on, preoccupied, patting his pockets.

“Hey!” The man did not glance back; he was already out of earshot. “You didnt know me, did you?” the young man said, standing at the curb with the suitcase held against his leg. “You didnt know little Pauly Green that used to deliver your paper. Did you, Mr Nowell?”

Just then a cloud blew past the sun. The glitter left the rain-washed streets but then came back as bright as ever; the cloud was gone and the parking meters twinkled in steady metallic progression along the curb. He turned to go, swinging the suitcase clear of his leg, and as he turned he saw an envelope lying face-down on the sidewalk. Something was written on the flap. Bending forward Pauly read the almost childish script.
Write soon!!
PS
.
I
am seventeen now. My birthday was Fri 13, I hope not bad luck
. He picked it up. When he turned it over he saw that the stamp had not been canceled and the address, damp from contact with the sidewalk, was written in the same adolescent scrawl.
Miss Norma Jean Purdy, Box 221 Route
7,
Indemnity, Miss
. He turned it over again. The flap had come unglued, so he opened it and took out a sheet of blue-lined paper with three loose-leaf holes down the left margin. Another cloud blew past the sun while he read. The paper went from dazzling white to gray, then back to dazzling.

Pauly smiled. The post office was one block farther; as he went past the mailbox he sealed the sticky flap again and dropped the letter into the slot. “Go where you belong, where youre not wanted,” he told it as it fell from sight. As always, when he turned it loose there was the sense of having done something irretrievable. Another cloud went over the sun, but this time it did not pass. Rain began to fall and he hurried to the door of a café in the middle of the block. Inside, he sat on a stool at the counter, the suitcase up-ended on the floor beside him. “What will it be?” the waitress said.

“Whats good?”

“You want breakfast?”

“Breakfast.” He nodded and the waitress watched him across
the glass of water she had brought. “Whats good?” He smiled but she did not smile back. Her nails were coral; they looked detachable, like earrings bought in a shop. She was no longer young and crow’s feet were etched at the outward corners of her eyes.

“It’s all good.”

“Is the bacon good?”

“It’s all good,” she said mournfully.

“O.K. Give me ham and eggs. Coffee now.”

“How you want the eggs?”

“What?”

“How you want them fixed?”

“Mm —
I
dont care. Looking at me, I reckon.”

“Two!” she cried over her shoulder, in the direction of the order window. “Straight up, with ham!”

“Yao,” a voice said from the kitchen.

When she returned from the coffee urn and set the thick white cup and saucer on the counter, he was waiting. He leaned forward and asked her, stiff-lipped with the steam from the coffee rising about his face: “Why doesnt everybody love each other?”