Snopes: The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion

They were both looking at me, Minnie too from under the hat. “How do you mean, poor?” Reba said.

“That’s in trouble or jail or somewhere that maybe wasn’t his fault.”

“Minnie’s husband is a son of a bitch and he’s in ail all right,” Reba said. “But I wouldn’t call him poor. Would you, Minnie?”

“Nome,” Minnie said.

“But at least he’s out of woman trouble for a while,” Reba told Minnie. “That ought to make you feel a little better.”

“You dont know Ludus,” Minnie said. “I like to see any place, chain gang or not, where Ludus cant find some fool woman to believe him.”

“What did he do?” I said.

“He quit his job last winter and laid around here ever since, eating out of my kitchen and robbing Minnie’s pocketbook every night after she went to sleep, until she caught him actually giving the money to the other woman, and when she tried to ask him to stop he snatched the flatiron out of her hand and damn near tore her ear off with it. That’s why she has to wear a hat all the time even in the house. So I’d say if any—if anybody deserved them forty dollars it would be Minnie—”

A woman began screaming at the top of the stairs in the upper hall. Minnie and Reba ran out. I picked up the money and followed. The woman screaming the curses was the new girl, Thelma, standing at the head of the stairs in a flimsy kimono, or more or less of it. Captain Strutterbuck was halfway down the stairs, wearing his hat and carrying his coat in one hand and trying to button his fly with the other. Minnie was at the foot of the stairs. She didn’t outshout Thelma nor even shout her silent: Minnie just had more volume, maybe more practice:

“Course he never had no money. He aint never had more than two dollars at one time since he been coming here. Why you ever let him get on the bed without the money in your hand first, I dont know. I bet he never even took his britches off. A man wont take his britches off, dont never have no truck with him a-tall; he done already shook his foot, no matter what his mouth still saying.”

“All right,” Reba told Minnie. “That’ll do.” Minnie stepped back; even Thelma hushed; she saw me or something and even pulled the kimono back together in front. Strutterbuck came on down the stairs, still fumbling at the front of his pants; maybe the last thing he did want was for both his eyes to look at the same thing at the same time. But I dont know; according to Minnie he had no more reason to be alarmed and surprised now at where he was than a man walking a tightrope. Concerned of course and damned careful, but not really alarmed and last of all surprised. He reached the downstairs floor. But he was not done yet. There were still eight or ten feet to the front door.

But Reba was a lady. She just held her hand out until he quit fumbling at his fly and took the folded money order out of whatever pocket it was in and handed it to her. A lady. She never raised her hand at him. She never even cursed him. She just went to the front door and took hold of the knob and turned and said, “Button yourself up. Aint no man going to walk out of my house at just eleven oclock at night with his pants still hanging open.” Then she closed the door after him and locked it. Then she unfolded the money order. Minnie was right. It was for two dollars, issued at Lonoke, Arkansas. The sender’s name was spelled Q’Milla Strutterbuck. “His sister or his daughter?” Reba said. “What’s your guess?”

Minnie was looking too. “It’s his wife,” she said. “His sister or mama or grandma would sent five. His woman would sent fifty—if she had it and felt like sending it. His daughter would sent fifty cents. Wouldn’t nobody but his wife sent two dollars.”

She brought two more bottles of beer to the dining-room table. “All right,” Reba said. “You want a favor. What favor?”

I took out the money again and shoved the ten across to her again, still holding the other forty. “This is for you and Minnie, to remember me until I come back in two years. I want you to send the other to my great-uncle in the Mississippi penitentiary at Parchman.”

“Will you come back in two years?”

“Yes,” I said. “You can look for me. Two years. The man I’m going to be working for says I’ll be back in one but I dont believe him.”

“All right. Now what do I do with the forty?”

“Send it to my great-uncle Mink Snopes in Parchman.”

“What’s he in for?”

“He killed a man named Jack Houston back in 1908.”

“Did Houston deserve killing?”

“I dont know. But from what I hear, he sure worked to earn it.”

“The poor son of a bitch. How long is your uncle in for?”

“Life,” I said.

“All right,” she said. “I know about that too. When will he get out?”

“About 1948 if he lives and nothing else happens to him.”

“All right. How do I do it?” I told her, the address and all.

“You could send it From another prisoner.”

“I doubt it,” she said. “I aint never been in jail. I dont aim to be.”

“Send it From a friend then.”

“All right,” she said. She took the money and folded it. “The poor son of a bitch,” she said.

“Which one are you talking about now?”