Teeftallow/Chapter 8

ABNER TEEFTALLOW joined Zed Parrum at the hotel gate and they strolled together down the street to the garage where they fell in with other labourers on their half holiday. These men whiled away the afternoon telling and listening to obscene jokes. Their thoughts played around women, drinking, and gaming, the three easements of their monotonous pointless lives. They smoked, chewed tobacco, spat on the cement floor of the garage, and enjoyed the human warmth of their oaths and verbal nastiness.

The men who supplied the jokes and anecdotes were called "liars." These primitives efforts at fiction always gave their hearers a kind of supercilious disdain for the narrator. He was such a "liar," they would say; for neither teller nor hearer had any conventional fictional frame upon which to stretch the woof of the "liar's" narrative and so maintain their mutual self-respect.

During the afternoon, the garage listened to the "liars" and made plans to shoot craps that night in a skirt of woods to the south of Irontown; a place given over to that sport or passion. Abner went back to the Scovell House and ate supper, full of hesitation about the coming night of craps. He was afraid of losing his money; and then he thought if he could win a few dollars . . . He was not aware that winning or losing was a minor detail of gaming.

When he finished his supper he went up to his room, drew out his week's wages, recounted it, and then stood in the middle of the floor with that drawn feeling in his diaphragm which marks profound hesitation. He did not want to go to the crap woods, nor could he endure to stay in his room. He ​fingered the money in his pocket. He made a move to sit on the edge of his bed, but instead, went to his window and peered out into the gathering darkness. The premonition of coming evil, which arises out of unsettled nerves, oppressed him. Zed Parrum had promised to call by the hotel for him, and now as Abner looked out of the window he saw Zed’s angular form coming through the gloom. Zed whistled up, and Abner, immensely relieved that a decision had been made for him, put on his hat and hurried downstairs.

On his way down he almost collided with a girl coming up through the darkness. It seemed to Abner that this girl must know that he was going to a crap game. When he passed her he stood stock still, listening to her retreating footsteps down the long hall until his reason told him that she did not know his purposes.

Abner joined Zed at the door, and without a word the two went out the gate and set off down the street in the darkness.

Once Abner had embarked on the expedition he was very glad of it. It accelerated the whole tempo of the evening. A sense of adventure, a possibility of danger quickened his pulse. Their road presently deserted the main street for alleys among the Negro shacks at the outskirts of the village. These cabins merged gradually into the woods themselves. The alley dwindled to a path. As the boys walked along it other stragglers began to appear in the gloom moving toward the crap grounds. At two or three hundred yards’ distance someone fired a pistol a number of times—a sudden hard hammering too rapid for Abner to count.

Some of the nearer stragglers whistled discreetly at the two youths and Zed answered them. Three men came up; one had a bottle. He passed it around with "Have a jolt." "Take a kick." "Bail her out." As each man drank he wiped the mouth of the bottle carefully on his shirt sleeve and returned it to the owner. There was a certain ritualism about it which impressed Abner as being urbane and cultured. These Irontown men certainly had a polish one didn’t find in the hills.

​A fire shining through the woods guided the gamesters to the crap grounds. A picket stationed some fifty yards from the fire identified the newcomers and allowed them to pass on. If an officer approached, this picket whistled a warning and the gamesters pocketed their money and dice and were found simply standing around a fire blackguarding each other in their usual social fashion.

The gambling place was a hard bare circle of earth, swept clear of twigs and grass, about fifteen feet in diameter. A fire of pine knots gave light. Half-a-dozen hillmen and two or three Negroes were already in the ring playing. A Negro squatted on his haunches had the dice and was shooting them out with a jerk of his hand and a snap of his fingers. As he shot he grunted, "Huh . . . hot dam, come up, Tom Paine . . huh. . . . Come up, old Tom Paine . . . huh. . . . Come up an' look at yo' daddy . . . huh!"

At each "huh" he gave the dice a twitch which sent them spinning on their corners on the hard, smooth dirt. The pair would dance like tops, settle, and the Negro would whisk them up almost instantly and continue his monotonous chant.

Every player strained his eyes in the firelight to see what pips had rolled uppermost. Suddenly someone shouted, "Dough pips!"

The Negro stared at his seven, struck the earth with his fist. "Hot damn, old Tom Paine th'owed me down wid dough pips!"

Came a moving of the little piles of coins in the ring as they changed owners. The next player took up the dice and began the same sing-song "Big Dick frum Boston . . huh. . . . Come uhlong, Big Dick. . . ."

Abner joined the circle and stood looking at the shooters weave their bodies about and spin out the dice. Other labourers were continually joining the ring. From the pickets came a series of guarded whistles which challenged each newcomer. Presently the crowd grew so thick that another ​ring and a new fire were started, and a second circle of players began shooting and betting.

In Abner's circle the men stood or squatted on their haunches and tossed their stakes on the ground in front of them. Those who stood raked the money into little piles with the toes of their shoes.

This ring of money in the firelight fascinated Abner. It appeared to be a kind of ownerless money engaged in some hazardous adventure of its own. A squatting man edged over and let Abner into the circle. The boy hesitated, reached into his pocket, and fingered his money. Presently he drew out his bills with hands that trembled so that he could hardly unroll the quarters they contained. One of these coins fell to the ground. He had a sudden flair that this meant good luck. He squatted and pushed the shining disc into the ring.

The dice were now in the hands of a white villager, one of those dubious small-town Beau Brummels who exist without apparent labour. He was shooting with tremendous esprit. His point was nine.

"Come on! Come on, you ninety days in jail! Git uhway frum here, feevy! What the hell! Goin' up thu Nashville! Ninety days in jail! Huh. . . .

Huh! Stan' up, little ones!"

Abner watched this eloquent shooter and wondered tensely whether or not he would make his point, Ninety Days in Jail. If he could only know in time! Suddenly it appeared to Abner that such a devil-may-care must win. He pushed out his coin and mumbled with a thick tongue, "Quarter says he makes it!"

"Fade you!" said the man who had moved over and tossed a quarter on top of Abner's. No sooner were the stakes laid, than the shooter threw a seven.

​"Crapped out!" shouted the Negro. The man raked Abner's quarter into his pile with a single gesture.

The sight of his quarter shifting to his opponent's money shook at Abner's nerves. He felt an angry necessity of winning it back. He got out another quarter with still unsteadier hands and flung that on the ground.

"I bet he"— then he hesitated not knowing whether to say wins or loses—"loses."

His neighbour covered Abner's coin with the quarter he had already won from the boy. He bet carelessly because he was betting inside Abner's pocket.

The shooter who was half drunk stoof on his knees, weaving about, chanting at each shot, "Come up, Little Joe! Don't deceive yo' pappy! . . . huh. . . . Hot dam, Eights frum Decatur! Come up, you little son uv a gun . . . huh. . . . Hot dam, Big Dick frum Boston! . . ."

The succession of shots formed a continuous strain on Abner's nerves. He leaned forward, peering intently through the firelight to see what pips rolled uppermost. Every nerve in him vibrated. He did not know it, but the swift succession of suspenses and dénouements was a profound relief from the plodding monotony of his week's work. It was a spiritual refreshment. Hope and fear, gain and loss rushed past quickly enough for Abner to lose himself in the impetuous current of the game.

The dice whirled out, were snatched back, were whirled out again. . . . A Negro was shooting now, and at each sway and croon he might have been screwig up a string in Abner's head.

"Little Feevy!" Five was the black man's point.

Abner bet against him.

"Come on, little gal!" quavered the Negro, weaving about. "Stan up fuh yo' baby . . . huh. . . . Go way, box cars, come on little feevy . . . huh. . . . Thah you ah, honey chile, lookin' yo' baby in de eye. . . ."

​A rake of his neighbour's hand swept Abner's wager into his own pile.

The youth bent down and trembled in the fellow's ear, "Gimme change fer a ten!"

"Throw it down an' shoot it out!" whipped back the man, who had no time for making change.

Abner tossed his ten-dollar bill to the earth.

"Much you want to bet?"

"Fifty cents he falls off," snapped Abner.

The gambler tossed a half dollar on to the bill; at that moment the black shot a three and a four.

"Hell far, a nachel!" cried someone.

The man picked up his half and tapped the bill, which meant a half dollar in it was his.

This was a fantastic thing; a bill which a moment before had been Abner's now was only partly his. It had been nicked; there it still lay on the ground, but would melt away, or grow. . . . Abner could feel his heart beating tumultuously.

"Dollar he makes his next point!"

The man threw the half dollar on the bill.

The Negro with his endless crooning threw eleven. Another natural. The ten-dollar bill had cured itself and had brought Abner a fifty-cent piece besides.

The play went on and on. Abner's attention focussed on the shooting with cataleptic intensity. His money grew and shrank. Now it was a greenback, now a pile of silver and two or three small bills. The blood pounded in his temples. The Negro won and won.

Suddenly above the profanity some player cried, "Crooks!" Instantly there came a thudding of fists, oaths. Abner saw two men rolling and pounding each other in the firelight. A moment later the Negro was thrown bodily from the ring by half-a-dozen hands.

Abner was conscious merely of extreme exasperation that the play was stopped. He crouched with his hands over his money, waiting for the game to be resumed. When the ​next shooter, a white man, picked up the dice, it seemed as if some intolerable gap had been bridged. Abner's nerves settled in their cycle of suspense, dénouement, pleasure, pain. He made his hazard concerning the future, even if that future were separated from the present by the merest tick of time. Still he was using his powers of forecasting a functioning his daily life did not hold. The boy played on and on.

The stars of the summer night wove slowly overhead as these devotees of the dark Goddess of Chance knelt at their devotions. Once in the syncope of his gaming Abner saw Tug Beavers come up to the firelight out of the darkness and join the gamblers. Near Tug sat Peck Bradley. The throw of the dice moved around the circle from man to man. Presently the cubes were in Tug's hands. Beavers was shooting when a voice snapped out:

"Lemme see them dice!"

Tug began, "What the hell . . ." when Bradley cut in, "It's that nigger's pair o' crooks!"

Tug cried out, "Damn it, look at 'em!" and threw them down.

"You've switched! What's up yore sleeve?"

Abner saw Peck jerk at Tug's sleeve and rip it open.

For a moment Tug seemed on the verge of smashing the face of his accuser, but Peck's hard animal face, his hog-bristle hair, and the fact that he was then on trial for murder must have halted Tug, for he said with a dry swallow:

"There, damn ye, I reckon you see I ain't got no dice 'cept them what was handed me!"

Bradley grumbled dissatisfaction but loosed Tug, and the next man took up the play. But the quarrel between the white men had broken up the spirit of the game. Three of four men arose and took themselves off through the darkness. Abner played for perhaps another half hour, when the last of the gamblers deserted the game and the youth was forced to quit. He took up his money, uncounted, and put it in his pocket. His bent knees were so stiff that he toppled over ​when he tried to rise. He straightened his legs with pain and at last stood on his feet and walked.

Tug Beavers joined Abner grouchily. "Damn fool," he growled, "accuse me of running crooks. . . . I kain't use crooks nohow. . . . I practised a lot with 'em, but I kain't run 'em. . . ." He continued his bitter meditations and finally said, "Don't know what's the matter with Peck Bradley, thought me an' him wuz the best of frien's."

A player walking through the darkness near the two answered, "You don't know. Where you been to-night?"

"Jess ramblin'," said Tug, trying to see his questioner. "What makes you ast that?"

"Nothin', cep' Peck Bradley used to ramble hisse'f in the direction you took tull he got into that trouble over killin' ole man Shleton; then Squire Meredith forbid his daughter from seein' Peck."

Mr. Beavers hesitated a moment, then said in another tone, "Oh—I see. . . ."

"Yep," agreed the informant, "I guess if you had made a move when Peck ripped yore shirt it would have been Katy Lock the Door with you, all right."

This was said very cheerfully, considering that the phrase "Katy Lock the Door" meant that Tug would have been killed.

"They ort to hang that damn rascal," denounced Tug earnestly.

"My dad," answered the voice discreetly, "told me to think what I pleased so long as I don't say nothin'."

Tug moved away from Abner over to the man and began talking in a lower tone.

Presently a stranger walked up by Abner's side and after a few words about the crap game ventured the remark that rich people could play cards in their own houses, but poor men were forced to go to the woods for their gambling. From this he went on to say that the rich took all the earnings of the poor, which was not right. After that Abner caught phrases about "class consciousness," "unearned increment," ​"plutocrats," and presently this strange fellow was saying that the labourers on the railroad were grossly underpaid. They were worth, he said, ten or fifteen dollars a day, they should receive this amount or strike for higher wages; it was shameful to allow Railroad Jones or any one else . . .

The unknown had a queer sharp accent, which reminded Abner somewhat of Mr. Ditmas. The fellow evidently was a Yankee—that is, a trickster. Abner wondered what was his trick? The youth walked on in a protracted silence, not understanding a word of what this Yankee said. The excitement of gambling still danced through his head and made the blood beat in his temples. When he reached the dirty alleys of the Negro houses, his grumbling companion left him and Abner walked on alone. Occasionally the strangeness of his recent companion's remarks came to him—the men ought to have ten or fifteen dollars a day—then he could see the dice spinning again before his eyes. . . .

The first gray of dawn glimmered in the streets as Abner turned toward his hotel; by the time he reached the gate, a delicate pearly light suffused the scraggy mulberry bearing the Scovell House sign and gave it a certain softness of outline. As he opened the front door the bells of the distant Catholic church began a solemn ringing for early Mass on Sunday morning.