Tobacco Road - Erskine Caldwell [58]
“Maybe it will cost too much,” she said. “You go upstairs and see how much it costs.”
Jeeter stuffed another handful of crackers and cheese in his mouth, and went up the flight of stairs where the hotel was. There was a small sign over the door, dimly lighted, which said it was a hotel.
He came back in less than five minutes.
“They’ll let us stay for fifty cents apiece,” he said. “They is pretty much crowded, and there ain’t but one room vacant, but we can stay if we wants to. I sure do, don’t you, Bessie? I ain’t never stayed all night in a hotel before.”
Bessie by that time had set her heart on spending a night in a hotel in the city, and she was ready to go up the stairs when Jeeter said it would cost fifty cents for each of them.
“Now you hold on tight to that money, Jeeter,” she said. “That’s a heap of money to lose. You don’t want to let it get away from you.”
They walked up the narrow stairway and found themselves in a small, dusty room. It was the lobby. Half a dozen straight-back chairs and a table were in the dimly lighted room. The man who ran the hotel took them to the table and told them to sign their names on the register. Jeeter told him they would have to make their marks.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Jeeter.”
“Jeeter what?”
“Jeeter Lester, from out near Fuller.”
“What’s the boy’s name?”
“Dude’s name is Dude, the same as mine.”
“Dude Lester?”
“That’s right.”
“And what’s her name?” he asked, looking up at Bessie.
Bessie smiled at him, and he looked at her legs. She hunched her left shoulder forward and hung her head downward. He looked her over again.
“Her name is Mrs. Dude,” Jeeter said.
The man looked at Dude and then at Bessie, and smiled. He was holding the pen for them to touch while he made the cross-marks opposite their names.
Jeeter gave him the money, and they were taken up another stairway to the third floor. The halls were dark, and the rooms shadowy and unventilated. He opened a door and told them to walk in.
“Is this where we sleep?” Jeeter asked him.
“This is the place. It’s the only room I got left, too. We’re pretty full to-night.”
“This sure is a fine place,” Jeeter said. “I didn’t know hotels was such fine places before. I wish Lov was here to see me now.”
There was only one bed in the room; it was large, flat, and high off the floor.
“I reckon we can crowd in the bed some way,” Jeeter said. “I’ll sleep in the middle.”
“There’s plenty of room for all of you,” the man said, “but maybe I can find another bed for one of you.”
He went out and shut the door.
Jeeter sat down on the bed and unlaced his brogans. The dusty shoes fell with heavy thuds on the bare floor. Dude sat in the chair and looked at the room, the walls, and the ceiling. The yellow plaster had dropped off in many places, and more hung loose, ready to fall the next time there was a vibration.
“We might as well go to bed,” Jeeter said. “Ain’t no sense in sitting up.”
He hung his black felt hat on the bed-post and lay down. Bessie was standing before the wash-stand mirror taking down her hair.
“Ada ought to see me now,” Jeeter said. “I ain’t never slept the night in a hotel in all my days. I bet Ada won’t believe I’m telling the truth when I tell her.”
“You ain’t got no business sleeping in bed with me and Bessie,” Dude said. “You ought to get out on the floor.”
“Now, Dude, you wouldn’t begrudge me one night’s sleeping, would you? Why, Bessie, there, is all willing, ain’t you, Bessie?”
“You hush your mouth, Jeeter!” she said. “You make me feel so foolish when you say that!”
“It’s only me and you, Dude,” he said. “It’s not like it was somebody else. I been wanting to sleep with you and Bessie for the longest time.”
Some one knocked on the door and, before they could answer it, the man walked in.
“What did you say your name was?” he asked Bessie.
He walked over to the washstand where she stood, and waited close beside her.
“Mrs. Dude—” Jeeter said. “I told you that already once.”
“I know—but what’s her first name? You