Dirty Work Read Online Free PDF Page B

there’s any left over?”
    “Yes, get you a Coke or something, but hurry.”
    So I hurried. I didn’t know what Kotex cost but I was sure it wouldn’t cost a dollar. I was hoping it would only cost about ninety cents. I could get a Coke for a dime, that or a big Nehi grape. And it was entirely possible that the Kotex would only cost eighty cents or something like that, so that maybe I could get a Moon Pie to go along with it. All the way up there I was wondering what to get. And I was happy. I wasn’t even tired from that mile run. I slowed down when I got close to the store, and there were about seven or eight old men sitting around out front there, spitting and whittling some more wood off the benches. Talking about cows and stuff, I guess.
    I didn’t know any of those old men and I was shy, too,so I just looked down at the ground when I walked in between all their legs. Of course they were quiet when I went by. I stepped inside the store and the boards creaked. They sagged in places, and the holes in them were patched with pieces of tin nailed down to the wood. It was dusty and dark and there was a stove in the center of the room with a pipe going up through the ceiling. And behind the counter was the meanest looking old man I’d ever seen. He had white hair and a leathery old face with white whiskers bristling all over it and he had brown stains going down from the corners of his mouth. I knew what his name was. He was Mr. Davis. He had faded blue eyes and his voice sounded like gravel sliding across a washtub.
    “Hep you?” he said.
    “Yessir,” I said. I stepped on up there with my dollar. “I need me some Kotex.”
    He acted like it insulted him. He gave me a sharp look. He moved out from behind the counter, shuffling in his house shoes. His black pants were baggy and his white shirt was dirty. The Kotex was up on a high shelf and he reached and pulled one down and swatted the dust off it with his hand. I laid my dollar on the counter and waited while he brought it over. Blue box. Kotex Sanitary Napkins. Junior.
    He’d already set it down and started back around the counter. I looked at him and he stopped.
    “Well,” he said. “What else?”
    “Super,” I said.
    “What?
Speak up, boy, cain’t hear you! Damn near deaf!” he screamed. He had one hand cupped behind his ear.
    “Super!” I shouted. “Need the Super! She said not get the Junior!”
    “Goddang, boy,” he said, and he snatched the box off the counter. “Speak up, speak up.” He muttered and mumbled while he shuffled back across the room and reached and put it back and got a box of the Supers.
    “All right. What else?”
    “How much?”
    “Sixty cents. Out of a dollar.” He’d already picked up the money.
    “I want to get something else,” I said. He waited while I went over to the drink box. I opened the lid and looked down in it. The drinks were all in glass bottles and they were standing up to their necks in ice cold water. Cokes and Nehis and SunRise Oranges and 7-Ups and Royal Crown Colas and Dr. Peppers all lined up in formations like soldiers. It was hard to decide what I wanted. I settled for a big Nehi grape and closed the lid. I opened it and looked around for the Moon Pies. There was an open box of them on top of the drink case. I got one and carried it and the Nehi back to the counter.
    I asked him if I had enough money to get all that but he didn’t say anything. He just rang it up and gave me my change. Twenty cents. Two dimes. I thanked him and started out.
    “Wait a minute,” he said. “Here’s you a sack.”
    “That’s okay,” I said. “I don’t need a sack.”
    “You better put it in a sack. So everbody won’t see it.” He kind of mumbled that.
    I couldn’t really see the logic, but I waited for him to put it in a sack. I dropped my Moon Pie in there, too.
    I went out the door and the voices hushed again when I went by. I didn’t look at anybody and I kept my head down until I got past them.