Cockfighter - Charles Ray Willeford [8]
Carrying my gaff case and coop, I walked back to the trailer camp. Dody met me at the door of the Love-Lee-Mobile Home with a bright, lopsided smile. Her lipstick was on crooked, and there was too much rouge on her cheeks. She wanted to look older, but makeup made her look younger instead.
“Did you win, Frank?”
I leaned the folded coop against the side of the trailer and pointed to it with a gesture of exasperation.
“Oh!” she said. Her red lips were fixed in a fat, crooked “O” for an instant. “I'm real sorry, Frank.”
I placed my gaff case beside the coop and entered the trailer. There was a dusty leather suitcase under the bed, and I wiped the scuffed surfaces clean with a dirty T-shirt I found on top of the built-in dresser. I unstrapped the suitcase, opened it on the bed, and began to pack. There wasn't too much to put into it. Most of my clothes were on the farm. I packed my clean underwear, two clean white shirts, and then searched the trailer for my dirty shirts. I found them in a bucket of cold water beneath the sink. Dody had been promising to wash and iron them for the past three days, but just like everything else, she hadn't gotten around to doing it. I couldn't very well pack wet shirts in the suitcase on top of clean dry clothing, so I left the dirty shirts in the bucket.
In the tiny bathroom I gathered up my toilet articles and zipped them into a blue nylon Dropkit. When I packed the Dropkit into the suitcase, Dody began to evidence an avid interest in my actions.
“What are you packing for, Frank?” she asked.
Despite the fact that I had never said as much as a single word to her in the three weeks we had been living together, she persisted in asking questions that couldn't be answered by an affirmative nod, a negative waggle of my head, or an explanatory gesture of some kind. If I had answered every foolish question she put to me in writing, I could have filled up two notebooks a day.
I tossed two pairs of clean blue jeans into the open suitcase, and then undressed as far as my shorts. I pulled on a pair of gray-green corduroy trousers, and put on my best shirt, a black oxford cloth Western shirt with white pearl buttons. The jodhpur boots I was wearing were black and comfortable, and they were fastened with buckles and straps. I had ordered them by mail from a bootmaker in El Paso, Texas, and had paid forty-five dollars for them. They were the only shoes I had with me. I untied the red bandanna from around my neck and exchanged it for a square of red silk, tying a loose knot and tucking the ends inside my collar before I buttoned the top shirt button. It was much too hot to wear the matching corduroy coat to my trousers, so I added it to the suitcase. The coat would come in handy in northern Florida.
“You aren't leaving, are you, Frank?” Dody asked worriedly. “I mean, are we leaving the trailer?”
I nodded impatiently, and searched through a dozen drawers and compartments before I found my clean socks. There were only three pairs, white cotton with elastic tops. I usually wear white socks. Colored socks make my feet sweat. I put the socks into the suitcase.
“Where're we going, Frank? I can get ready in a second,” the girl lied.
There were five packages of Kools left, a half can of lighter fluid and a package of flints. I put a fresh pack of Kools in my pocket, and tossed the remaining packs, fluid and flints into the suitcase. After one last look around I closed the lid and buckled the straps. To get my guitar from under the bed I had to lie flat on the floor and reach for it. The guitar was now the substitute for my voice, and my ability to play it is what had attracted Dody to me in the first place. When I needed a woman again, the guitar would help me get one.
I carried the guitar case and suitcase into the