Light in August - William Faulkner [69]
“Didn’t he order coffee too?” she said.
“No,” the waitress said, in that level voice that was still in motion, going away. “I misunderstood.”
When he got out, when his spirit wrung with abasement and regret and passionate for hiding scuttled past the cold face of the woman behind the cigar case, he believed that he knew he would and could never see her again. He did not believe that he could bear to see her again, even look at the street, the dingy doorway, even from a distance, again, not thinking yet, It’s terrible to be young. It’s terrible. Terrible. When Saturdays came he found, invented, reasons to decline to go to town, with McEachern watching him, though not with actual suspicion yet. He passed the days by working hard, too hard; McEachern contemplated the work with suspicion. But there was nothing which the man could know, deduce. Working was permitted him. Then he could get the nights passed, since he would be too tired to lie awake. And in time even the despair and the regret and the shame grew less. He did not cease to remember it, to react it. But now it had become wornout, like a gramophone record: familiar only because of the worn threading which blurred the voices. After a while even McEachern accepted a fact. He said:
“I have been watching you lately. And now there is nothing for it but I must misdoubt my own eyes or else believe that at last you are beginning to accept what the Lord has seen fit to allot you. But I will not have you grow vain because I have spoken well of it. You’ll have time and opportunity (and inclination too, I don’t doubt) to make me regret that I have spoken. To fall into sloth and idleness again. However, reward was created for man the same as chastisement. Do you see that heifer yonder? From today that calf is your own. See that I do not later regret it.”
Joe thanked him. Then he could look at the calf and say, aloud: “That belongs to me.” Then he looked at it, and it was again too fast and too complete to be thinking: That is not a gift. It is not even a promise: it is a threat; thinking, ‘I didn’t ask for it. He gave it to me. I didn’t ask for it,’ believing, God knows, I have earned it.
It was a month later. It was Saturday morning. “I thought you did not like town anymore,” McEachern said.
“I reckon one more trip won’t hurt me,” Joe said. He had a half dollar in his pocket. Mrs. McEachern had given it to him. He had asked for a nickel. She insisted that he take the half dollar. He took it, holding it on his palm, cold, contemptuously.
“I suppose not,” McEachern said. “You have worked hard, too. But town is no good habit for a man who has yet to make his way.”
He did not need to escape, though he would have, even by violence perhaps. But McEachern made it easy. He went to the restaurant, fast. He entered without stumbling now. The waitress was not there. Perhaps he saw, noticed that she wasn’t. He stopped at the cigar counter, behind which the woman sat, laying the half dollar on the counter. “I owe a nickel. For a cup of coffee. I said pie and coffee, before I knew that pie was a dime. I owe you a nickel.” He did not look toward the rear. The men were there, in their slanted hats and with their cigarettes. The proprietor was there; waiting, Joe heard him at last, in the dirty apron, speaking past the cigarette:
“What is it? What does he want?”
“He says he owes Bobbie a nickel,” the woman said. “He wants to give Bobbie a nickel.” Her voice was quiet. The proprietor’s voice was quiet.
“Well for Christ’s sake,” he said. To Joe the room was full of listening. He heard, not hearing; he saw, not looking. He was now moving toward the door. The half dollar lay on the glass counter. Even from the rear of the room the proprietor could see it, since he said, “What’s that for?”
“He says he owes for a cup of coffee,” the woman said.
Joe had almost reached the door. “Here, Jack,” the man said. Joe did not stop. “Give him his money,” the man said, flatvoiced, not yet moving. The cigarette smoke would curl still across his face, unwinded by any movement. “Give it back to him,