Cane sighed and shook his head. “No, but next time don’t leave without telling me where you’re going first. I been looking all over for you. Remember, we got to be careful.”
“He wants me to go with him again tomorrow. Is that all right?”
“What, to look in more privies? Why would you want to do that?”
“I don’t know,” Cob said with a shrug. “He said we was friends. Besides, what else am I gonna do?”
Cane’s stomach growled. Looking down the street, he saw a sign hanging over a door that said WHITE’S LUNCHEONETTE. He’d been half sick all morning from the liquor he drank last night, but now he felt ravenous. “You had anything to eat?”
“Just the doughnuts,” Cob said. He wanted to ask why the lady would give them away for free, and what “on de house” meant, but his brother already seemed a little upset. Maybe later, he thought.
“Well, let’s go get something.”
“Did you have a good time out at that whore shed last night?” Cob asked as they started walking toward the diner.
“Ah, not really,” Cane said, wishing he’d had enough nerve to ask the bookstore lady her name. “But Chimney sure did.”
55
THAT AFTERNOON, A tree buyer for the paper mill named Nesbert Motley let Sugar out of his automobile at the bridge on the south side of town. Motley was coming back from making an offer on a pristine stand of hardwood down below Buchanan when he came around a curve and damn near ran over the black man standing in the middle of the road. He didn’t mind at all giving him a ride—some of the best days of his boyhood over in Lancaster had been spent in the company of a colored boy named Smoky Hansberry—but he was a little hesitant about being seen uptown with somebody so ragged and wild-looking. And what if he later caused trouble? It was true that Sugar looked like he was at the end of his rope. He hadn’t had a bite of food except walnuts or a drink of anything but water in three days; the loose sole of one of his shoes flapped with every step he took, and he’d had to tie a piece of ivy around his pants to keep them from falling to the ground. Probably the only thing still keeping him upright was his determination to get back to Detroit and start sweet-talking Flora’s friend.
Sugar was walking past the reeking, rackety mill wondering why someone would ever voluntarily stick around such a place when he saw a big man in front of a bar motioning him over. Sugar hesitated a moment, then crossed the street and stopped at the edge of the sidewalk. “You want something?” he asked the man.
“You look thirsty,” Pollard said. He’d been sitting on the steps pondering the notice that had been stuck inside his door this morning, informing him that the city was hereby fining him three dollars every week until he emptied his outhouse, or at least took it down to an “acceptable level.” Just like the fucking shit scooper had threatened.
“You got that right,” Sugar replied.
“You looking for a job?”
“I don’t know nothin’ about tendin’ bar.”
Pollard laughed. “Don’t worry, business is bad enough without me lettin’ a nigger take over.” He tore the notice into little pieces and tossed them in the air. “No, what I’m lookin’ for is someone to clean out the jake in the back. You take her down four feet, I’ll give you two dollars and a pint.”
Within seconds of hearing the offer, Sugar could already taste the liquor on his parched tongue. A pint! By God, he’d down it in one long drink. And two dollars! That would buy two more. As far as food went, why, he could worry about that later. “Let me see it,” he said.
Pollard led him around the side of the building. “There it is,” he said, pointing at an outhouse at the edge of the alley, made of rough slabs with a rickety door hanging a little cockeyed from leather straps.
Sugar opened the door and the stench brought tears to his eyes. A cloud of flies emerged into the sunlight, as if even they couldn’t stand the smell anymore. He held his breath and looked inside. The contents were bubbling up over the top of the hole, like a volcano ready to erupt. Just as he was on the verge of telling the man no, he thought of the pint again. “How would I go about it?” he asked, once he stepped away from the door.
“Ye’d have to dip it out,” Pollard said. “It’s easy. The lid lifts up. I usually do it myself, but I hurt my back the other day.” He pointed to a dented tin bucket lying near the back door of the bar. “You can use that.”
“But where would I put it?” Sugar asked. “That’d be quite a pile by the time I got done.”
“Jesus Christ,” Pollard said, “what do you want me to do, hold your hand, too?” He looked around, then nodded toward the well-kept yard that belonged to the Grady bitch on the other side of the alley. “Just toss it over the fence there.”
“Two dollars and a pint, right?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Could I have a snort ’fore I get started?”