Читать книгу Minnow - James E. McTeer II - Страница 7

Minnow emerged from the house into the afternoon sun. It was a South Carolina summer, hot and humid. The heat hit his nerves and gave him life. No time to waste. His mother needed him, and his father. If things went well, he'd be getting a soda, too.

He paused on the stoop to catch a breath of air and then crossed the dry, crackling grass to the road out front. He stopped on the verge and turned. A bigger trip might mean a brown sack with lunch in it. A trip out to the Island would mean a fishing pole or maybe a good walking stick. This was just downtown, though, just south to the river.

He hesitated again and then returned across the yard to the stoop for his summer shoes. They were only barely holding together—a few scraps of leather connected by his mother's careful stitches—but they would add some protection to the thick padding his feet developed over the hot months when shoes were mostly negotiable.

The road took him away from his house and his neighbor's shack and past a few old shanties on the corner. He waved at Mrs. Marcy, bent over her splintered picket fence, looking for anyone to talk to.

The road to town from his house was a familiar route, and today its sights and sounds were a sideshow to the main event. He had a dollar, and everyone back home was depending on him. Even if he saw any of the gang, they'd have to wait. They wouldn't understand. They'd want to spend some of the money on candy, which might not be such a bad idea some other time. But not today.

He passed Mr. Jack's inn, the first inn on the way to town, overflowing onto the porch with boarders. He passed the main stable for the Avery phosphate operation, smelling like hay and horse manure. He passed a tabby hovel where an old negro lived with his cat. The man made bread in an oven out back and sold it to people for cheap.

An oxcart passed him, the ox with horns wider than the cart. A little man sat on the driver's seat, hauling a load of seed rice, headed away from town. A pair of men—probably sailors—passed on the other side, going the same direction.

Another oxcart passed, and another, and then Minnow caught up with a strolling couple and overtook them. They looked like they lived on Bay Street and were just out enjoying the afternoon. The man had a pocket watch on a chain and a fancy hat, and she had a hat and a silk parasol. It was a nice day for a walk: hot but clear, cooler in shady places where spidery live oaks put their moss-draped arms across the road, or where palmetto trees spread wide emerald fans to sway in the river breeze.

The dirt road widened, and he left the roadway to walk the brick path that wound alongside. He passed tall white houses with broad porches and went by the Episcopal church that his family had patronized generations ago when they had had more money and lived closer to the river. The white church had a grand steeple, and the whole place was surrounded by a tall wrought-iron fence.

Minnow walked into town, where low brick buildings were topped by white clapboard dwellings and a grid of dirt roads led past shops and stores and offices. He heard a party in a courtyard behind a gray tabby wall. People clinked glasses and women laughed over their husbands' voices. Horses clopped down side streets, and a mule brayed somewhere toward Bay Street and the river. The air smelled sweet, like the heady perfume of yellow jasmine flowers. Farther along he caught a whiff of something fruity and warm, like maybe a lady in one of the upstairs apartments baking a Saturday pie.

He walked onto Bay Street, paved in cobblestones and flanked by the premier businesses of town. Locals and travelers alike walked up and down the wide street between horses and oxcarts. People talked and shopped under awnings and in the shade of buildings, trying to find respite from the sultry summer air.

His favorite store was Roth's, the candy store all the way down on the corner. He liked the soft candy gumdrops and peppermint sticks and the way they mixed a soda just right. It would take longer to walk all the way down there, though, and his main concern today was time.

He stayed close to the front of the shoe store on the near side of the road, watching people pass. Summer brought the planters in from the islands to escape the heat and the yellow fever. They strolled with their wives and children, spending money at whatever shops they liked. Sailors and seafarers walked the street, too, come in to town from Port Royal. You couldn't buy civilized things like fancy clothes or a cream soda in Port Royal, so they left that rowdy place to do their business in town. He saw a few kids. No one he knew, really, except a little boy from school. None of his gang. Even if they were around, they'd just slow him down.

He slipped in behind a stinky ox and followed its cleared path down Bay Street, avoiding the milling crowd. He crossed and stood in the shade of the buildings on the other side, then walked with his hands in his pockets past storefronts and shop doors.

He got to Ander's but stopped in the alley first. He walked down, just barely able to fit broad-shouldered through the brick passage. A salty breeze blew over him when he exited on the other side.

The Newfort River wound behind Bay Street, reaching almost up to the back of the buildings. The wide band of water was calm, barely rippled, cobalt blue under a bright sky, bordered on both sides by fields of powder-green marsh grass. Boats and dinghies and a few bigger barges cruised up and down the living water. The main ferry from Bay Street to the Island was midway on its course, with old Calico urging his rowers at their work. A negro on a flat-bottom raft cast a spinning net at the edge of the marsh on the opposite side.

A few children played down on the slimy rocks that acted as a barrier between the river and Bay Street buildings. It wasn't a bad place to spend the day, but Minnow did not have time for an adventure. He returned to Bay Street and didn't stop to watch the crowd. His father was in bed, back home, waiting.

Ander's was one of the stores with a big glass front that showed what was going on inside. A few people were up at the soda bar, and a few people shopped at the shelves of general goods. Minnow eyed the man behind the counter, straightened his shirt, and went inside.

He pushed through the door, and the young couple at the soda bar looked back. A little bell jingled, and the shoppers exited behind him. The man behind the counter kept his head down, checking something on a piece of paper. Minnow looked left, at the groceries, then right at the bar. All the candy and soda and novelties were behind the bar, at the man's back. The medicine was farther down. Usually Minnow was there with his mother, picking up her foot ointment, but he'd never been alone. The place smelled like the ointment.

He walked the length of the bar, past the couple, and the man turned his eyes up and watched him go. He had greased-back black hair, and his forehead was tall and smooth. He looked back down at the paper. Minnow stopped and stepped up to the counter, his head barely rising over the burnished wooden edge.

The shelves were nine-high from floor to ceiling, stacked with bottles, cans, and jars. Most were labeled, some were not. A few items he didn't recognize: a wooden device, a metal thing with a flat round head, a bundle of leather strips. Many things appeared as if they'd been there for a long time, dust-covered and piled up, almost spilling off the edge.

Another customer came in. The man behind the counter looked up and then glanced over to see Minnow standing there.

"You looking for something in particular?"

The man set his pencil down and walked over. He stopped to check something that Minnow couldn't see on the back shelf, and then continued down slowly, as if he knew the need was urgent but still would take his time.

Minnow reached down and took out the wallet and spread it wide to retrieve the dollar and the prescription. He fumbled the bill and it fluttered down to his feet to the floor. He bent down and scooped it up, and as he straightened he noticed the two teenagers at the bar looking at him.

"You need something?" the man asked.

Minnow looked up and his face was hot. He wiped his hand across his brow and then set his palm on the bar surface, wrist bent and forearm hanging vertically.

"Don't take that out in here if you don't need something. Lots of people like a dollar to spend."

"Yessir."

Minnow set the prescription down on the bar with his free hand and slid it toward the pharmacist. The man took it, unfolded it, read it, wrinkled his brow, and looked up at Minnow.

"Somebody's sick in their lungs."

"Yessir."

"Who's sick? Your momma?"

"My father, sir."

"What's he got?"

"He's been sick a long time."

"With what?"

Minnow shook his head.

The man put a hand to his chin, clicked his teeth together.

"Fever?"

"Some."

"I don't have this," the man said, and pushed the paper back.

"What do you mean?"

The man leaned in closer to Minnow's head.

"We don't have it. I don't carry it. Never have. Who prescribed this?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Doctor?"

"Yessir."

"What doctor?"

"I don't know," Minnow said, and licked his lips. His forehead felt hot again. He just wanted to help his parents. Help them, and get a soda. "A man with dark hair, like yours. He's tall. He comes sometimes to see my father."

"Tall?" the man asked, and smiled. "Well, that clears it up. Doesn't it?"

Minnow studied the wood grain of the bar. A black circle was there, like from a cigarette ash.

"Do you know who might have it?" Minnow asked.

The pharmacist frowned and shook his head. One of the teenagers finished a soda, and the straw made a sucking sound that filled the whole place.

Minnow wiped his forehead again. His mother back home. Father in bed. Waiting on him. He couldn't even get a soda. How could he get a soda if he couldn't bring back the medicine?

"What about the one on the Island? What about the one who works out there?"

"He works out there, boy, but he gets all his medicine from me. No one around here has got it."

Minnow swallowed.

"You need anything else?" the man asked.

Minnow looked into the back of the store, then up toward the glowing window at the front. The teenagers got up and left. The bell jingled as the door clapped shut. The bright sound faded fast, along with all of his plans to return triumphant. They were alone in the store.

"No sir."

He put the dollar in the billfold, folded the prescription, put it back too, and then folded the whole thing into his pocket.

"You need anything else?"

"No sir."

"Go see your mama and tell her she can't get that outside of Savannah. Don't know what fool wrote it."

He nodded and walked down the length of the bar past the dirty soda glasses. He squinted at the light outside and could see people passing like ghosts, warbled and dizzy in the wide field of glass. The heat on his forehead passed, now, and he stopped at the door.

He set his hands on the door and pushed it open, looking up at the bells as they rang.

"Boy."

He stopped with the door still open. The musty air of the shop blew past him into the hot street. Minnow didn't turn around when he answered. His father would have whipped him for that, probably.

"Yessir?"

"Boy, come here."

He closed the door and walked over. He approached the edge of the counter, and the man sighed and put his elbow down. He leaned in.

"I know one man who might have it."

Minnow jerked his head up and stared the man in the eyes.

"Who is it?"

"He's a type of doctor."

"Where?"

"Near here."

"Please tell me who it is. My father's very sick."

"He can sell you that paste for half that dollar."

"Where is he?"

"Give me the other half."

"Sir?"

"You don't need it all. Give me half and I'll tell you where to go to make your daddy all better."

Minnow looked down at his shoes. He had a dollar. For medicine and a soda. But if the medicine was less, he could skip the soda and his mother wouldn't be mad, and it would be the same, really.

He dug the billfold out and flung it open, spilling the dollar onto the bar. The man laughed and clapped one hand over the bill and dragged it across the wood until it dropped off the edge into his other hand. He took two quarters from a pocket on his apron and put them on the wood. They rang dully, and one spun in a circle before it lay flat.

"You can get it at a place in Port Royal."

Minnow took a step back and raised his eyebrows.

"Port Royal?"

"Yes."

"No doctors are there."

Sailors, fighters, travelers, and thieves—but no doctors.

"I'm thinking of one you don't know about. Or maybe you do."

Minnow stood there, arms limp. He shook his head.

"Doctor Crow works out of Port Royal. Last of his kind. At least this far in."

"Doctor Crow?"

"Crow."

"He comes to town sometimes," Minnow said.

"You know him then."

"He has purple glasses. So he can see inside your soul."

The pharmacist laughed.

"You believe in hoodoo, boy?"

"No sir. I mean, I've never seen much of it, so I don't believe so."

The man leaned in farther, this time close enough that Minnow could smell tobacco on his tongue.

"Don't let him put the root on you, boy. You give him that money and get what you need and get out of there, or you'll wake up a stud boar out past the Island with negroes spear-hunting you."

Minnow shook his head.

"You're sure he has it?"

"He's got lots. You go find out."

"Where do I find him?"

"Down by the oyster rake. He's got a place there."

"What do I tell him?"

"You don't tell him nothing. You give him that paper, and that money, and he'll give you what you need. And you most certainly don't tell him who sent you there. You got it?"

"Yessir."

"Now you need anything else from me?"

"No sir."

"If you come back here, it better be for a good reason."

"Yessir."