Edisto - Padgett Powell by Padgett Powell Page A

that—a gun went off in a pawnshop on King Street and it was
like the air itself was black for a moment, and we weren’t even
inside the shop. I eased back up into the tube.
    ". . . if there’s a difference. One leaves,
one  doesn’t. You couldn’t, I could. Don’t make me out . .
."
    "I know." An easy whine of wicker.
    "Same?" Another chinking and wash sound.
    "It’s none of your business, but I’ll tell
you anyway. He came out here and found Theenie in her gin and she
decided he’s her long-lost grandchild by her crazy daughter."
Still another punctuation of glass and liquid noise. "And I
asked him to stay here. For Simons."
    "You don’t know him from—"
    "Everson, did I know you? Did you know—"
    "That was just for marriage. This, you’ve got,
he’s raising —"
    "Necessity of invention." Then, quickly;
"Okay, look. I liked the kid. At school the gossip mill has done
about as hysterical a thing as you want to. God, this is strong.
Look, Iv, we’re all coming down a bit, but I’m not addled yet.
And the thing on Simons, the book thing . .
    "The book thing," he said.
    "It’s no good without the baseball thing."
Then she adds: "That’s why the man’s here, known or not.
He’s duty-free, cuts a figure, keeps him straight. That’s all
there is."
    I’d had enough. All I had to do was figure out how
to model my face for going in the house. This was some of the
strangest verbiage I ever heard. I don’t know why I thought so at
the time. It looks reasonable now.
    But I was hypered out, so I walked all the way back
up to the Grand. When I was almost an hour late I called them.
    "Where are you?"
    "I’m up at Jake’s. I thought Daddy could
pick me up here."
    "It’s your weekend," she said. "When
he gets here I’ll tell him."
    "Okay. Thanks." Thanks for mendacity, I
should have said—mendacity and lies.
    Well, I got a cold one. For the first time I needed
one, I thought. I rolled it on my forehead. It felt like a new kind
of ironing, heavy cold metal to smooth things out.
    Jake came up and shook the can and put another one up
without asking, like I was a real regular customer. "Drink dis
slow. Your momma called, said sit tight."
    I sat tight. After that one I didn’t need to iron
my head anymore.
    I thought of a joke, for some reason, that Margaret
Pinckney told during the last party. Bill and Jim interfered with her
but she got it out, talking like a harelip. The hero’s a harelip.
Selling peaches, he knocks on a 1ady’s door. She answers in
"something comfortable—very," Margaret said.
    "Yes?"
    "Ma’am, want thum peacheth?"
    "It would depend."
    "Depend on what?" said the harelip.
    “ Are they firm?”
    "Oh yeth, ma’am, they’re firm."
    "Do they have a very light fuzz on them?”
    "Oh yeth, ma’am, they have a very light futh
on them."
    "Come in," the lady said, and he did.
 
“Are they as firm as these?" she asked, showing him her
titties. Margaret said boobs.
    "I couldn’t thay."
    She made him feel them. "Oh yeth, ma’am,
they’re ath firm ath theeth."
    "Well, is the fuzz on them as light as this
fuzz?"
    Margaret said: "She revealed herself totally to
the harelip door-to-door peach salesman."
    "I—I—I couldn’t th-thay that either,"
he said. "Give me your hand and we’ll find out," she
said, and then, jumping, said, "Quick, I hear someone coming!
Under the sofa!"
    The salesman rolled under the sofa and the lady
dressed. It was a false alarm. When the heat blew off she got the
salesman out.
    "Whew."
    "I’ll thay.” They settled down.
    Then the lady said: "I’ll buy all your fruit
if you’ll tell me what part of my body you think is the sharpest."
    "The tharpetht?"
    "Yes. And I’ll take it all.”
    "Well, ma’am, I believe it’th your eerth."
    "My ears?”
    "Yeth, ma’am."
    "But why my ears?"
    "Well, you know when you thaid you thought you
heard thomeone coming?"
    "Yes."
    "Well"—he hesitated——"it wath
me."
    It wath a houthe rocker that night. Even Bill and Jim
were