Sanctuary

This was on week nights. On alternate Saturday evenings, at the Letter

Club dances, or on the occasion of the three formal yearly balls, the

town boys, lounging in attitudes of belligerent casualness with their

identical hats and upturned collars watched her enter the gymnasium upon

black collegiate arms and vanish in a swirling blitter upon a glittering

swirl of music with her high delicate head and her bold painted mouth and

soft chin, her eyes blankly right and left looking, cool, predatory and

discreet.

Later, the music wailing beyond the glass, they would watch her through

the windows as she passed in swift rotation from one pair of black

sleeves to the next, her waist shaped slender and urgent in the interval,

her feet filling the rhythmic gap with music. Stooping they would drink

from flasks and light cigarettes, then erect again, motionless against

the light, the upturned collars, the hatted heads, would be like a row

of hatted and muffled busts cut from black tin and nailed to the

window-sills.

There would always be three or four of them there when the band played

Home, Sweet Home, lounging near the exit, their faces cold, bellicose,

a little drawn with sleeplessness, watching the couples emerge in a wan

aftermath of motion and noise. Three of them watched Temple and Gowan

Stevens come out, into the chill presage of spring dawn. Her face was

quite pale, dusted over with recent powder, her hair in spent red curls.

Her eyes, all pupils now, rested upon them for a blank moment. Then she

lifted her hand in a wan gesture, whether at them or not, none could have

said. They did not respond, no flicker in their cold eyes. They watched

Gowan slip his arm into hers, and the fleet revelation of flank and thigh

as she got into his car. It was a long, low roadster, with a jacklight.

"Who's that son bitch?" one said.

"My father's a judge," the second said in a bitter, lilting falsetto.

"Hell. Let's go to town."

They went on. Once they yelled at a car, but it did not stop. On the

bridge across the railroad cutting they stopped and

20 WILLIAM FAULKNER

drank from a bottle. The last made to fling it over the railing. The

second caught his arm.

"Let me have it," he said. He broke the bottle carefully and spread the

fragments across the road. They watched him.

"You're not good enough to go to a college dance," the first said. "You

poor bastard."

"My father's a judge," the other said propping the jagged shards upright

in the road.

"Here comes a car," the third said.

It had three headlights. They leaned against the railing, slanting their

hats against the light, and watched Temple and Gowan pass. Temple's head

was low and close. The car moved slowly.

"You poor bastard," the first said.

"Am IT' the second said. He took something from his pocket and flipped

it out, whipping the sheer, faintly scented web across their faces. "Am

IT'

"That's what you say."

"Doc got that step-in in Memphis," the third said. "Off a damn whore."

"You're a lying bastard," Doc said.

They watched the fan of light, the diminishing ruby taillamp, come to a

stop at the Coop. The lights went off. After a while the car door

slammed. The lights came on; the car moved away. It approached again.

They leaned against the rail in a row, their hats slanted against the

glare. The broken glass glinted in random sparks. The car drew up and

stopped opposite them.

"You gentlemen going to town?" Gowan said, opening the door. They leaned

against the rail, then the first said, "Much obliged," gruffly and they

got in, the two others in the rumble seat, the first beside Gowan.

"Pull over this way," he said. "Somebody broke a bottle there."

"Thanks," Gowan said. The car moved on. "You gentlemen going to

Starkville tomorrow to the game?"

The ones in the rumble seat said nothing.

"I dont know," the first said. "I dont reckon so."

"I'm a stranger here," Gowan said. "I ran out of liquor tonight, and I've

got a date early in the morning. Can you gentlemen tell me where I could

get a quart?"

"It's mighty late," the first said. He turned to the others. "You know

anybody he can find this time of night, Doc?"

"Luke might," the third said.

"Where does he live?" Gowan said.

"Go on," the first said. "I'll show you." They crossed the square and

drove out of town about a half mile.

SANCTUARY 21

"This is the road to Taylor, isn't it?" Gowan said.

" yes, " the first said.

"I've got to drive down there early in the morning," Gowan said. "Got to

get there before the special does. You gentlemen not going to the game,

you say."

"I reckon not," the first said. "Stop here." A steep slope rose, crested

by stunted blackjacks. "You wait here," the first said. Gowan switched

off the lights. They could hear the other scrambling the slope.

"Does Luke have good liquor?" Gowan said.

"Pretty good. Good as any, I reckon," the third said.

"If you dont like it, you dont have to drink it," Doc said. Gowan turned

fatly and looked at him.

"It's as good as that you had tonight," the third said.

"You didn"t have to drink that, neither," Doc said.