Tell Them Katy Did Read Online Free PDF Page B

gone.”
    “He up there yellin’” Sukie say, rollin’ her eyes toward the stairs. “Best quieten him down, ’fore somebody outside hear him.”
    She climbed the stairs, out of breath by the time she got to the top. “Gettin’ too ole for this shit,” she muttered, pullin’ herself up by the railin’, stride piano trailin’ after her like cigarette smoke. She heard him callin’ her name ’fore she got halfway up: “Marilou. Marilou.”
    “What for you be makin’ all this racket?” she demanded, slippin’ into the room and closin’ the door firmly behind herself. “You wantin’ to bring every sheriff deputy in the county up here?”
    He was halfway sittin’ up on the bed, his brow shiny with sweat like it been waxed and his eyes a-glitterin’. He smell all gassy too, or maybe that the toilet bucket. Green and yellow splotches leakin’ through the blind. Piano tinklin’ faintly below. Away in the distance, a siren wail. She hopin’ it not comin’ here.
    “I seen it, Marilou,” he say, all excited. “I seen it.”
    “You seen what?”
    “That ole train. The Midnight Special. I seen its headlight.”
    “You out of your head. Them tracks half a mile from here, three quarters more like, plus the blinds is down tight on the window. Aint no way you seein’ no light from no train, not clear up here.”
    “I seen it, I did, it was a-shinin’ right in my face. I’m goin’ free, I tell you. I be free by morning.”
    He dropped back down on the bed again, eyes closed, breath rattlin’ in his chest. She look down at him, at the face use to be handsome, ugly now from pain, way she didn’ want to remember him. She feelin’ scared, and sad, too, wonderin’ how he come to this, on the run, hidin’ away in an attic. Dyin’, most likely. Even he git out of here, they have the dogs lookin’ for him by now. Dogs be better off than him.
    She had to go, couldn’ stay up here. White man waitin’ for her downstairs . His kind gits impatient, they don’t git what they wants when they wants it.
    More sirens on the street, didn’t seem to be comin’ here though. Room hot as a stove. Lights flashin’ behind her. Music down below. That ole bucket stinkin’. All of it wrong, seemed to her. Wasn’ no way for a man to die. Man ain’ had no chance to live happy, seems like he ought at least die happy.
    She be knowin’ him a long time, too. He wasn’ a bad man, not like some she could name. Brought her flowers once, she remembered that like yesterday. He be sweet to her, too, most the time.
    What chance he have, though, a colored man in a white man’s town? What chance any of ’em have?
    A last breath rattle in his throat and he be gone. He was right, she figure—he be free at last…. Only kind of freedom a man like him ever know.
    She lean down, close his eyes. Saw where one of her tears fell on his cheek, but she left it glistenin’ there and went out the room.

Changing Views
    “It isn’t much, I’m afraid.” Cliff held the door for Angela.
    “I wonder that you live here, then,” she said with some asperity, going in before him. The short hallway went past the open door of a bedroom, past a small kitchen, and led into the living room. He took her coat from her and hung it on the back of a chair. She laid her purse on an end table, and looking around, wrinkled up her nose. There was a lingering smell of cooked food—onions, she thought. Cliff couldn’t boil water. Who on earth could have been cooking onions?
    He shrugged. “It’s home.”
    “Home,” she said, “is Chicago. And, speaking of which,” she added, turning to face him and lifting one eyebrow, “when are you coming home?”
    He shrugged again and went past her, to the window overlooking the street. “It’s not much of a view, but you can just see the hills from here,” he said. “The lights are spectacular at night.”
    “I did not come to San Francisco to enjoy the views,” she said.
    He turned from the window, framed