Song of Solomon Read Online Free PDF Page B

that always seemed to be shining in Ruth’s face when he bent to kiss her—an ecstasy he felt inappropriate to the occasion.
    None of that, of course, did he describe to the young man who came to call. Which is why Macon Dead still believed the magic had lain in the two keys.
             
    In the middle of his reverie, Macon was interrupted by rapid tapping on the window. He looked up, saw Freddie peeping through the gold lettering, and nodded for him to enter. A gold-toothed bantamweight, Freddie was as much of a town crier as Southside had. It was this same rapid tapping on the window-pane, the same flash-of-gold smile that had preceded his now-famous scream to Macon: “Mr. Smith went splat!” It was obvious to Macon that Freddie now had news of another calamity.
    “Porter gone crazy drunk again! Got his shotgun!”
    “Who’s he out for?” Macon began closing books and opening desk drawers. Porter was a tenant and tomorrow was collection day.
    “Ain’t out for nobody in particular. Just perched himself up in the attic window and commenced to waving a shotgun. Say he gotta kill him somebody before morning.”
    “He go to work today?”
    “Yep. Caught the eagle too.”
    “Drunk it all up?”
    “Not all of it. He only got one bottle, and he still got a fist fulla money.”
    “Who’s crazy enough to sell him any liquor?”
    Freddie showed a few gold teeth but said nothing, so Macon knew it was Pilate. He locked all his drawers save one—the one he unlocked and took a small .32 from.
    “Police warn every bootlegger in the county, and he still gets it somehow.” Macon went on with the charade, pretending he didn’t know his sister was the one Porter and anybody else—adult, child, or beast—could buy wine from. He thought for the hundredth time that she needed to be in jail and that he would be willing to put her there if he could be sure she wouldn’t loudmouth him and make him seem trashy in the eyes of the law—and the banks.
    “You know how to use that thing, Mr. Dead, sir?”
    “I know how.”
    “Porter’s crazy when he drunk.”
    “I know what he is.”
    “How you aiming to get him down?”
    “I ain’t aiming to get him down. I’m aiming to get my money down. He can go on and die up there if he wants to. But if he don’t toss me my rent, I’m going to blow him out of that window.”
    Freddie’s giggle was soft, but his teeth strengthened its impact. A born flunky, he loved gossip and the telling of it. He was the ear that heard every murmur of complaint, every name-calling; and his was the eye that saw everything: the secret loving glances, the fights, the new dresses.
    Macon knew Freddie as a fool and a liar, but a reliable liar. He was always right about his facts and always wrong about the motives that produced the facts. Just as now he was right about Porter having a shotgun, being in the attic window, and being drunk. But Porter was not waiting to kill somebody, meaning anybody, before morning. In fact he was very specific about whom he wanted to kill—himself. However, he did have a precondition which he shouted down, loud and clear, from the attic. “I want to fuck! Send me up somebody to fuck! Hear me? Send me up somebody, I tell ya, or I’ma blow my brains out!”
    As Macon and Freddie approached the yard, the women from the rooming house were hollering answers to Porter’s plea.
    “What kinda bargain is that?”
    “Kill yourself first and then we’ll send you somebody.”
    “Do it have to be a woman?”
    “Do it got to be human?”
    “Do it got to be alive?”
    “Can it be a piece of liver?”
    “Put that thing down and throw me my goddam money!” Macon’s voice cut through the women’s fun. “Float those dollars down here, nigger, then blow yourself up!”
    Porter turned and aimed his shotgun at Macon.
    “If you pull that trigger,” shouted Macon, “you better not miss. If you take a shot you better make sure I’m dead, cause if you don’t I’m gonna