Ruby laughed and slapped her thigh. Tracy, still shaking, kept his hands over his face, while Billy just looked at the floor and smiled.
Ringo started jumping rope with his eyes closed. Tracy leaned forward and touched Ruby’s knee. “Ruby, you ain’t gonna give that old moral?” he said, looking disgusted.
“I got to, baby,” Ruby said. “O.K., Billy, you ask me.”
Billy looked serious and folded his arms across his apron. “What’s the moral of that story?”
“The moral of that story—” Ruby began, looking very serious.
“Aw, Ruby,” Tracy said, shaking his head and looking at his feet. Ringo, with his arms straight out and his eyes closed, was standing completely still.
“The moral of that story,” Ruby went on, holding up a hand for quiet, “is that, Ringo, honey, you sure is one dumb nigger.”
They all began to laugh, moaning and groaning with laughter, leaning on one another, and, except for Ruby, Ringo laughed loudest and hardest. The laughter continued for about five minutes, gradually diminishing, then rising again. Ruby had her arms around Tracy’s head, and Ringo sat on the floor. Billy had walked over to the counter and, leaning on it, his hands palms down on the top, laughed in gasps. I was laughing myself.
“Now, what you laughing at?” Ringo said to me from the floor. “That ain’t nice.”
Ruby looked over at me and said, “Honey, don’t pay us no mind.”
After a while, the laughter fell into silence. There were just the sounds of the wind, and Billy’s shoes on the floor, as he walked around taking cans out of cartons and putting them on shelves. Only Ruby was still smiling. Tracy and Ringo seemed sad. They were looking down at their hands. Ringo, who had a very gentle expression, was biting his lip. Billy moved around looking preoccupied and tired. Ruby looked at me and winked, and I smiled at her. She was one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. She nodded in the direction of Tracy and Ringo, and said to me, “They looking kind of blue,” and Tracy looked up from his hands and smiled shyly, but Ringo continued to bite his lip and look down.
“Will you look at him?” Ruby said. “Ain’t he cute?”
“Come on, Ruby. I ain’t in the mood,” Ringo said, looking up. His face was still very gentle.
“Is you sad, baby?” she said, going over and putting her hand on his cheek.
“I all right,” Ringo said.
“I just don’t know what I’m gonna do with you,” Ruby said.
Tracy stood up and stretched and yawned, and then sat down again. He was smiling sleepily. “Boy, that laughing take a lot out of me,” he said.
Billy said he guessed it was time he went home, and we all got up and walked slowly toward the door, with Ruby leading the way. Outside, it was foggy and still raining, though it had let up some. Billy came out and locked the door from the outside, and then we all walked up the street. I said I’d go with them a while and get the bus at the stop farther on.
“Well, we certainly glad you is gonna stay with us a while longer,” Ruby said, smiling. She took my arm and Ringo’s arm.
Tracy walked on ahead with Billy. Billy was wearing a neatly fitting raincoat, and as he walked, very erect and relaxed, he seemed much younger than he did in the grocery store. Tracy walked slouching forward. He was slightly pigeon-toed. “Look at Billy,” Ruby said. “He look like a little boy with a big bear.”
“Maybe we is them bears,” Ringo said to me, looking across Ruby, “and, John, you is Goldilocks.” Then he began to laugh very hard by himself.
“Aw, you ain’t funny, Ringo,” Ruby said, squeezing my arm. “You just ain’t funny.”
As we approached my bus stop, Ruby told me to take care of myself. “I hope you remember us,” she said.
She called to Tracy and Billy to come back and say goodbye to me. They turned around and looked surprised, and then they walked back.
“Look, if you ever sick again,” Ringo said, “you come on back and see us.”
“Aw, shut up, Ringo,” Ruby said. “He don’t have to be sick to come back and see us. Right?” She put her arm around my shoulder as I shook hands with Ringo. “He talk like we is some hospital or something,” she said.
“Aw, Ruby, you take everything I say and twist it,” Ringo said. “Look, John, don’t mind nothing I done.”
I told Ringo he hadn’t done anything.
“You lucky he ain’t had more time,” Billy said. “He can do some things.”
I shook hands with Billy and thanked him for everything. Then Tracy stuck out his big hand. “So long, John,” he said. “It been nice knowing you.”
The bus was coming down the street rather slowly, because of the fog. When it pulled in, I picked up my suitcase and said goodbye again.
“Goodbye, honey!” Ruby yelled. “Take it easy.”
Billy gave a serious little wave, and as I stepped into the bus, Ringo yelled, “I hope the bus break down!” and Ruby hit him on the head with her pocketbook. I heard Ringo say that he had said it for luck, and Ruby told him that she had also hit him for luck. I went to the back of the bus and waved to them from the rear window, and the fog closed in and covered them, and I couldn’t see them any more.
Cast a yellow shadow
(excerpt)
by Ross Thomas
(Originally published in 1967)
Downtown
The call came while I was trying to persuade a lameduck Congressman to settle his tab before he burned his American Express card. The tab was $18.35 and the Congressman was drunk and had already made a pyre of the cards he held from Carte Blanche, Standard Oil, and the Diner’s Club. He had used a lot of matches as he sat there at the bar drinking Scotch and burning the cards in an ashtray. “Two votes a precinct,” he said for the dozenth time. “Just two lousy votes a precinct.”
“When they make you an ambassador, you’ll need all the credit you can get,” I said as Karl handed me the phone. The Congressman thought about that for a moment, frowned and shook his head, said something more about two votes a precinct, and set fire to the American Express card. I said hello into the phone.
“McCorkle?” It was a man’s voice.
“Yes.”
“This is Hardman.” It was a soft bass voice with a lot of bulldog gravy and grits in it. Hardman, the way he said it, was two distinct words, an adjective and a noun, and both got equal billing.
“What can I do for you?”
“Make me a reservation for lunch tomorrow? Bout one-fifteen?”
“You don’t need a reservation.”
“Just socializin a little.”
“I’m off the ponies,” I said. “I haven’t made a bet in two days.”
“That’s what they been tellin me. Man, you trying to quit winner?”
“Just trying to quit. What’s on your mind?”
“Well, I got me a little business over in Baltimore.” He paused. I waited. I prepared for a long wait. Hardman was from Alabama or Mississippi or Georgia or one of those states where they all talk alike and where it takes a long weekend to get to the point.
“You’ve got business in Baltimore and you want a reservation for one-fifteen tomorrow and you want to know why I haven’t made book with you in two days. What else?”
“Well, we was supposed to pick somethin up off a boat over there in Baltimore and there was a little trouble and this white boy got hurt. So Mush — you know Mush?”
I told him I knew Mush.
“So Mush was bout to get hisself hurt by a couple of mothers when this white boy steps in and sort of helps Mush out — know what I mean?”
“Perfectly.”
“Say wha?”