The letter had been a long time in catching up with him. It was addressed from the same city in which he was then working. He read it, feeling a nostalgic tug at his heart. Having an afternoon off from his job, he went out to see her.
The house was in a scrofulous neighborhood of similar dwellings. Flanking it on one side was a weed-grown railroad siding. On the other was an abandoned commercial building, its crumbling faзade clustered with grinning, frowning, earnest-looking posters of innumerable political aspirants- cardboard vultures on the bones of a dead dream.
Stepping up on the porch and starting to knock, Mitch glanced through the opened screen door. It was a so-called shotgun house, its three-and-a-half rooms in a row. It was just about impossible not to see into the bedroom, the second room back, and to hear the epigamic surgings of the bedsprings.
Mitch lowered his hand without knocking. He went quietly down the walk, and sauntered up to the corner and back. Then, he moved toward the porch again, whistling noisily. He knocked. He knocked a second time, and the throaty flushing of a toilet answered him. In the fragmented silence that followed, a silence punctuated by a man's surly monosyllables and simpering whinny which could not be, but was, his mother's, Mitch called out to her.
"Mother? It's me, Mitch."
In the interim before she finally came to the door, Mitch almost called it off and left. He did not see how he could face the whinnier, the owner of that cowering voice, and he was sure that he had better not face her husband. He could see the man moving about the bedroom, a swarthy, sleek-haired character with very broad shoulders and an invisible waist. And he detested every inch of what he saw.
Still, knowing that he should beat it, Mitch was somehow held where he was. So after almost ten minutes, he was at last greeting his mother through the rusted screen. Through it, since she did not unlatch it, although her hand hesitated fearfully in the neighborhood of the latch.
"Francis,"-she spoke weakly over her shoulder. "It's my son, dear."
"Big deal."
"Uh, would it be all right-could I have him come in, dear?"
"He ain't my kid."
"Oh, thank you, dear, thank you," his wife breathed gratefully. And Mitch was allowed to enter.
She gave Mitch a hasty peck, obviously fearfully aware of the man in the other room. Mitch sat down on one of the three straight chairs, a little puzzled by the appearance of the divan until he recognized it as the front seat of an automobile. His mother asked him what he was doing now, and he said he was night bell-captain at the city's leading hotel. She said that was nice, oh, that was awfully nice; wasn't that nice, Francis? ("Big deal ") And Mitch thought, Holy God, what's happened to her?
He knew the answer to that one, of course, and in a way it seemed to have been good for her. The peppery waspishness had given way to a cow-like contentment. She was washed out looking, haggard as a witch. But, hell, she was pushing fifty now, and Francis the Gallant couldn't be over thirty-five.
"… a dancer, you know," his mother was saying. "Francis is a very talented dancer. Everyone says so."
"That's nice. Oh, that's awfully nice," Mitch said.
"Yes, uh, yes, he dances."
"Oh," said Mitch. "You mean he dances."
"Y-Yes… A dancer."
"Well, that's nice. That's awfully nice," Mitch said. And then, his mother's eyes begging, he made himself behave. "I'm sure he's very good," he said. "I'd like to see him sometime."
Francis did not come into the living room until he was fully dressed in a very "sharp" black suit with broad chalk stripes, toothpick- toed shoes, a black shirt and a yellow tie. He waited until Mitch had arisen and extended his hand. Then he sat down, ignoring the hand, taking a swig from the can of beer he was carrying.
He stared at Mitch silently, eyes unblinking. Mitch stared back at him smiling.
"So you're a bellboy," he finally grunted. "What do you do when a guy asks you to get him a woman?"
"What do you do?" Mitch said.
"I heard that all you birds was pimps."
"Did you indeed?" Mitch smiled. "And what's your personal opinion?"
His mother was fidgeting nervously; she whimpered the statement-question that Mitch might like a can of beer. "So let him have one," Francis said, and he suddenly pitched the can at Mitch.
Mitch caught it, but awkwardly; beer splashed onto the trousers of his one-hundred-and-fifty-dollar suit. Very carefully, he set the can down on the bare pine floor. He again turned his smile on Francis, who was shaking with laughter.
"You ain't much of a catcher, bellboy!"
"No, I'm not," Mitch smiled. "But you should see me pitch."
"What'd you pay for that suit you're wearin'?"
"I made it myself," Mitch said. "I make all my own clothes."
"Don't get smart, bellboy!"
"You should try it," Mitch said. "After all, what have you got to lose?"
He could feel his smile widening, freezing on his face. His mother knew its meaning, and twittered an attempted diversion. But her husband silenced her with a look.
"How much loot you make a week, bellboy?"
"I'll trade information with you," said Mitch. "Where do you keep your little red hat?"
"Huh? I ain't got no little red hat."
"But what do you use to collect the pennies in?"
"Collect pen-huh?"
"That people give you for dancing," Mitch explained. "Or doesn't the organ-grinder trust you with money?"
His mother whinnied fearfully.
Francis cursed, swarming up out of his chair. But he just wasn't fast enough. Before he knew what was happening to him (if he ever knew), Mitch had given him a kick in the groin, an elbow across the windpipe and a knee in the face. Then, as Mitch's mother screamed and clawed at him, he methodically stomped in her husband's ribs.
He was sorry, terribly, terribly sorry, even as he fled the house. The fact that Francis was the king of the boobs was no reason to half- kill him. In attacking Francis, he realized, the real victim had been his mother. He would never dare see her again now. And he would have to get himself out of town very quickly.
He went home and gave Teddy the news, promising to send for her as soon as he found another job. Teddy declared that she was going right along with him. Her daddy wasn't going to go any place without his mama.
"We'll go to Forth Worth," she announced. "I know of a very good job I can get there. The same kind of work I'm doing now."
"But what about me? I don't know that I can get a job there."
"You don't need a job; I make more than enough for both of us. Anyway, you'll be busy taking care of the baby."
"Baby! What the hell are you talking about?" Teddy raised her skirt, and pulled down her panties, baring the creamy environs of her belly button. She pulled his head against the area, and suddenly he felt something-a small but unmistakable kick.