Cockfighter - Charles Ray Willeford [56]
“Three suns?” he asked. “You mean three days?”
I nodded.
“Without a deposit, I can't promise to hold it for you, sir.”
I shrugged indifferently and left the lot. I had a hunch that the pickup would still be there when I came back for it.
When I got back to my hotel room I counted my money. Twenty-three dollars and eighty-one cents. Money just seems to evaporate. I had no idea where all of it had gone, but I had to nurse what was left like a miser. Twelve dollars would be needed to pay four days' rent on the hotel room, and I would have to eat and smoke on the remainder. If I didn't get a letter from Judge Powell within three days, or four at the most, I would have to make other plans of some kind.
I spent the next three days at the public library. There was a long narrow cafe near the hotel that featured an “Eye-Opener Early-Bird Breakfast,” consisting of one egg, one slice of bacon, one slice of brushed margarine toast and a cup of coffee—all for forty-two cents. After eating this meager fare, I walked slowly to the library and sat outside on the steps until it opened, thinking forward to lunch. I read magazines until noon in the periodical room, and then returned to the hotel and checked the desk for my mail. I then returned to the library. By two o'clock I was ravenous, and I would eat a poor boy sandwich across the street, and drink a Coca-Cola. The poor boy sandwich had three varieties of meat, but not much meat. I then returned to the library and read books until it closed at nine p.m.
My taste in reading is catholic. I can take Volume III of the Encyclopedia Americana out of the stacks and read it straight through from Corot to Deseronto with an equal interest, or lack of interest, in each subject. Roget's Thesaurus or a dictionary can hold my attention for several hours. I don't own many books. There were only a few on poultry breeding at my Ocala farm and a first edition of Histories of Game Strains that I won as a prize one time at a cockfight. And I also owned a beat-up copy of Huckleberry Finn. I suppose I've drifted down the river with Huck Finn &Co. fifty times or more.
When the library closed at nine, I ate a hamburger, returned to the hotel and went to bed.
Three days passed quickly this way. On the morning of the fourth day, however, I didn't leave the hotel. My stomach was so upset I didn't even feel like eating the scanty “Eye-Opener Early-Bird Breakfast,” afraid I couldn't hold it. I sat in the lobby waiting apprehensively for the mail.
There were two letters for me, both of them special delivery. One was a thick brown envelope from Judge Powell, and the other was a flimsier envelope from Jake Mellhorn. I didn't open either letter until I reached my room. My fingers were damp when I opened the thick envelope from Judge Powell first, but when I emptied the envelope onto my bed, the only thing I could see was the gray-green certified check from the Mansfield Farmer's Trust, made out to my name for one thousand, five hundred dollars!
My reaction to the check surprised me. I hadn't realized how much I had counted on getting it. My knees began to shake first, and then my hands. A moment later my entire body was shivering as though I had malaria, and I had to sit down quickly. I was wet from my hair down to the soles of my feet with a cold, clammy perspiration that couldn't have been caused by anything else but cold, irrational fear. Of course, I hadn't allowed my mind to dwell on the possibility of failure, but now that I actually had the money, the suppressed doubts and fears made themselves felt. But my physical reaction didn't last very long. I stripped to the waist and bathed my upper body with a cold washrag, and dried myself thoroughly, before reading Judge Powell's letter. It was a long letter, overly long, typed