Big city girl - By Charles Williams Page 0,3

went on, “It’s kind of sad when a man’s got to go to the neighbors to hear word about his own kin.”

He’s thinking about the radio again, Mitch thought. He’s got that damned radio in his mind and nothing’ll get it out. Next spring he’ll be wanting to know if maybe Mr. Sam won’t let us get one on credit at the store. Keeps on raining like this and the crap grass choking you to death, and there ain’t going to be enough credit at the store to buy a can of Prince Albert, but maybe Mr. Sam’ll let us buy a radio. Maybe Sam’ll buy us all some blue serge pants and yellow shoes so we can go parading up the road while the crap grass gets so rank you could hunt bears in it.

Things wasn’t bad enough before, but them long-nosed Jimerson boys got to come over every other day and tell him how there was some more about Sewell on the radio. God knows that what they was saying about Sewell wasn’t nothing you’d think he’d want to listen to, but maybe he looks at it different. Maybe if they call you Mad Dog Neely and go on and on over the radio and write about you in the papers it’s the same as if you was some big gun in the gov’ment and he ought to hear all about it so he can tell everybody around the courthouse on Saturday evening.

Well, it’s all over now, and you wouldn’t hear no more about Sewell if you had a dozen radios. Once they get you in there in the pen, there ain’t no long-nosed bastards writing about you and talking about you on the radio. Not till maybe thirty years from now, when they might let you out if you behave yourself, or till someday they kill you if you don’t.

Two

It was sweltering in the kitchen, and outside the air was dead. Out over the bottom they could hear the rumble of thunder, like wagons rolling across a bridge. They were at the table, with Cass at the head and Mitch and Joy seated across from each other. Jessie was filling their plates from the pot of butter beans on the stove.

Cass held his knife and fork upright, one in each hand, and looked at Joy. “Didn’t see none of them Jimerson boys this morning, I reckon?”

“No,” she said. “They haven’t been around.”

Cass sighed. “Guess there’s nothing new about Sewell, then. Sure wish we could hear something.”

“He’ll write us when he can, Papa,” Jessie said. “I know he will.”

Cass dismissed this with a wave of the fork. “Wasn’t thinking about letters. Mail takes a long time. And he wouldn’t write, nohow. Now, if we just had a radio, like the Jimersons . . .”

Joy had been watching Mitch, who was eating bent over his plate and seemingly paying no attention to any of them, but now she brightened and smiled at Cass.

“You know, I was thinking the very same thing, just this morning. I mean, how nice it’d be if we had a radio. If you had a radio, that is. I’m just a kind of visitor and I don’t really count. But a radio is so much fun. I just wouldn’t be without one, ever since that first one I had. The one they gave me in the beauty contest. I told you about that, didn’t I? About winning the beauty contest in New Iberia when I was just sixteen, and they gave me all those prizes and a radio was one of them. I sold some of the prizes, but I kept the radio because it was the cutest thing. Of course, I was a lot prettier then.” She paused and laughed deprecatingly. “I’d hate to have to enter one now.”

Mitch did not even look up. For a woman whose husband is going to the pen for life, she’s sure got a hell of a lot to worry about, he thought.

Cass was thinking about the radio and was not to be distracted by trifling side issues like beauty contests. He said nothing.

Well, she thought. Well! Of all the stupid.

“Joy, you could win any beauty contest in the world,” Jessie said loyally behind her at the stove. “Couldn’t she, Papa?”

“Oh, sure,” Cass said vaguely. “Ain’t no doubt about it.” Come to think of it, she did say she won a radio that way. Maybe they could enter her in a contest now and win another one. Didn’t