“And next thing I knew, it was ‘Awk!’ I think I must have fallen asleep. ‘Awk!’ I heard, and there was this colored girl standing over me, eyes as big as moons. ‘Miz Davies! Come quick! A burg-ular!’ she screeches. When she could clearly see I was dressed nicely. And Mrs. Davies heard and came running, came clattering up the stairs out of breath and ‘Explain yourself!’ she says. I was thinking since she was a woman, maybe she’d have a kind heart. I threw myself on her mercy. ‘Mrs. Davies,’ I said, ‘I’ll be straight with you: I’m up from down home to see Junior because the two of us are in love. And it’s so cold outside, you wouldn’t believe, so blessed cold and all I’ve had all day is a little hot chocolate and a breadline sandwich and one sip of milk from Junior’s windowsill and a slice of his store-bought bread—’ ”
“Lord God, Linnie,” Junior said in disgust.
“Well, what could I say? I figured since she was a woman … wouldn’t you think? I thought she might say, ‘Oh, you poor little thing. You must be chilled to the bone.’ But she was ugly to me, Junior. I should have guessed it, from that dyed hair. She said, ‘Out!’ She said, ‘You and him both, out! Here I was thinking Junior Whitshank was a decent hardworking man!’ she says. ‘Why, I could have got way higher rent from someone who’d take his meals here, but I let him stay on out of Christian spirit and this is the thanks I get? Out,’ she says. ‘I’m not running a brothel,’ and she flips up this ring of keys hanging on her belt and unlocks your door and says, ‘Pack all your things, yours and his both, and get out.’ ”
Junior gripped his forehead with one hand.
“Then she stood right there like I was some sort of criminal, Junior, watching every move while I packed. Colored girl standing next to her with eyes still big as moons. What did they think I would steal? What would I want to steal? I couldn’t find any suitcase for you and so I asked real polite, I said, ‘Mrs. Davies,’ I said, ‘do you think I might borrow a cardboard box if I promised to bring it back later?’ But she said, ‘Ha! As if I’d trust you!’ Like a little old cardboard box was something precious. I had to pack your things in a tied-up pair of your overalls, for lack of anything better.”
“You packed all I owned?” Junior asked.
“All in this big lumpy tied-up hobo bundle. And then I had to—”
“You packed my Prince Albert tin?”
“I packed every little thing, I tell you.”
“But did you pack my Prince Albert tin, Linnie.”
“Yes, I packed your Prince Albert tin. Why’re you making such a fuss about it? I thought you smoked Camels.”
“I don’t smoke anything nowadays,” he said bitterly. “It costs too much.”
“Then why—?”
“Let me get this clear,” he told her. “I don’t have a place to live anymore, is that what you’re saying?”
“No, and me neither. Can you believe it? Would you ever think that she could act so ugly? And then I had to carry all those things down the street—my suitcase and that great knobby bundle and your canister with the bread inside and—oh! Junior! Your milk bottle! I forgot your milk bottle! I’m so sorry!”
“That’s what you’re sorry about?”
“I’ll buy us another. Milk was ten cents at this store I went past. I’ve got ten cents, easy.”
“You are telling me I’m sleeping on the street tonight,” Junior said.
“No, wait; I’m getting to that. There I was, toting all our worldly goods, walking down the street and crying, and I was looking for a ROOM TO LET sign but I didn’t see nary a one so finally I just knocked on some lady’s door and said, ‘Please, my husband and I have lost our home and we’ve got no place to stay.’ ”
“Well, that would never work,” Junior said. (He didn’t bother dealing just now with the “husband” part.) “Half the country could say that.”
“You’re right,” Linnie said cheerfully. “It didn’t work a bit, not with her nor with the next lady either nor the lady after that, though all of them were real nice about it. ‘Sorry, honey,’ they said, and one lady offered me a square of gingerbread but I was still full from the charity sandwich. By then I was way down Dutch Street. I’d turned left at the café and of course I didn’t bother asking there, not after how they’d treated me. But the next lady said that she would take us in.”
“What?”
“And it’s a nicer room, too. It’s got a bigger bed, so you won’t have to sleep on a chair. No bureau, but there’s a nightstand with drawers, and a closet. The lady let me have it because her husband’s been laid off work and she’s been thinking for a while now, she said, that maybe their little boy should move in with his sister so they could rent his room out for five dollars a week.”
“Five dollars!” Junior said. “Why so steep?”
“Is that steep?”
“At Mrs. Davies’s I pay four.”
“You do?”
“Is this with meals?” Junior asked.
“Well, no.”