They Don't Dance Much: A Novel by James Ross Page A

been pretty funny that day, because Lola was certainly doing a lot of laughing. I went back to my paper.
    I had just about finished it when they came inside. Smut was showing her around the new joint.
    ‘Hello, Jack,’ she said to me.
    ‘Hello,’ I said.
    She had on a red leather jacket that day, and a hat that looked like hell. Altogether I reckon it was what you’d call a sports costume. Smut pretended to be pointing out the various features of the roadhouse, but mostly he was getting an eyeful of Lola.
    ‘Look at that art I got splashed up there on the walk,’ Smut said. He pointed at the picture of the women taking a bath, but he was looking at the back of Lola’s neck where it was white against the black of her hair.
    Lola looked where he pointed. ‘They’re pretty,’ she said. ‘Who painted the pictures, Smut?’
    ‘I done it evenings after work,’ Smut said.
    ‘You’re a big liar,’ Lola said, and laughed. Her laugh sounded nervous, like she was afraid somebody respectable might come in and find her there.
    ‘I actually done it,’ Smut said. ‘Business is drudgery to me. But I love Art. I sweat all day trying to make an honest dollar, but when the sun sinks in the west I lose myself in Art.’
    ‘Oh, pooey,’ Lola said. She looked over her shoulder and smiled at me, that half-scared smile. She commenced hitching at the corners of her hat.
    ‘Show me your dance hall and your roulette wheel,’ she said to Smut.
    ‘I ain’t got a roulette wheel,’ Smut said, ‘but if you’ll come out and play it sometime, I’ll get one.’
    ‘Oh, I might get out some night,’ she said, and they went over to the other side and into the dance hall. Smut didn’t show her the kitchen. She wasn’t a girl that was specially interested in kitchens.
    In a minute I heard the nickelodeon start up, and then I thought I heard them gliding over the floor. I walked down toward the kitchen so I could see into the dance hall. They were dancing; Smut held her close to him and was looking down at her. She seemed to be interested in the looks of the floor.
    The nickelodeon kept going, off and on, for more than half an hour; then it stopped. After awhile Lola and Smut came back around the front of the building, and it wasn’t long till Lola left.
    I couldn’t quite figure out why she slipped out to see Smut Milligan. She had the richest man in Corinth and ought to have been satisfied. I reckon the trouble was that she was married to a man that never took a chance. He didn’t have to. But Smut would take a chance on anything, and when she was with him I think she got to feeling the same way. It was a feeling she had to have now and then. I saw she aimed to have him, one way or another. It wasn’t a thing that mattered so much to Smut Milligan by then. The main thing he wanted was money.
    There wasn’t any big football game in the state that Saturday; still we took in as much money as we had the Saturday we opened. We did all right on Sunday too, but things got quiet early that night. About the only thing going on that night was a poker game.
    It was a three-handed game at first: Baxter Yonce, Wilbur Brannon, and Bert Ford. At first Baxter Yonce didn’t want to get in the game. He said he had a headache. But finally he let Wilbur persuade him to go back to the private room with them. There wasn’t anybody else back there. About eight o’clock I carried them some cracked ice. I couldn’t tell who was winning. They all had their coats off. Baxter Yonce’s shirt was wet with sweat. He played a hard game of cards.
    It wasn’t late that night when Smut walked up to the cash register and asked me how much we’d taken in that day.
    ‘About sixty dollars.’ I said.
    ‘Well, gimme twenty-five dollars,’ he said. ‘I want to make about fifty more in this poker game going on in the back. I feel lucky tonight.’
    I gave him the money: four fives, three ones, and two dollars in change. He stuck it in his coat-pocket and