Ellen Datlow - Tails of Wonder and Imagination

Railroad said quietly, “You don’t like the way things are going, son?”

Hiram twitched against the seat like he was itchy between the shoulder blades. “I ain’t sayin’ that. I just want out of this state.”

“We going to Atlanta. In Atlanta we can get lost.”

“Gonna get me a girl!” Bobby Lee said.

“They got more cops in Atlanta than the rest of the state put together,” Hiram said. “In Florida…”

Without taking his eyes off the road, Railroad snapped his right hand across the bridge of Hiram’s nose. Hiram jerked, more startled than hurt, and his hat tumbled off into the back seat.

Bobby Lee laughed, and handed Hiram his hat.

It was after 11:00 when they hit the outskirts of Atlanta. Railroad pulled into a diner, the Sweet Spot, red brick and an asbestos-shingled roof, the air smelling of cigarettes and pork barbecue. Hiram rubbed some dirt from the lot into the stain on his pants leg. Railroad unlocked the trunk and found the dead man’s suitcase, full of clothes. He carried it in with them.

On the radio sitting on the shelf behind the counter, Kitty Wells sang “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels.” Railroad studied the menu, front and back, and ordered biscuits and gravy. While they ate Bobby Lee ran on about girls, and Hiram sat sullenly smoking. Railroad could tell Hiram was getting ready to do something stupid. He didn’t need either of them anymore. So after they finished eating, Railroad left the car keys on the table and took the suitcase into the men’s room. He locked the door. He pulled his .38 out of the waistband, put it on the sink, and changed out of the too-tight dungarees into some of the dead husband’s baggy trousers. He washed his face and hands. He cleaned his glasses on the tail of the parrot shirt, then tucked in the shirt. He stuck the .38 into the suitcase and came out again. Bobby Lee and Hiram were gone, and the car was no longer in the parking lot. The bill on the table, next to Hiram’s still smoldering cigarette, was for six dollars and eighty cents.

Railroad sat in the booth drinking his coffee. In the window of the diner, near the door, a piece of cardboard had been taped up, saying, “WANTED: FRY COOK.” When he was done with the coffee, he untaped the sign and headed to the register. After he paid the bill he handed the cashier the sign. “I’m your man,” he said.

The cashier called the manager. “Mr. Cauthron, this man says he’s a cook.”

Mr. Cauthron was maybe thirty-five years old. His carrot red hair stood up in a pompadour like a rooster’s comb, and a little belly swelled out over his belt. “What’s your name?”

“Lloyd Bailey.”

“Lloyd, what experience do you have?”

“I can cook anything on this here menu,” Railroad said.

The manager took him back to the kitchen. “Stand aside, Shorty,” the manager said to the tall black man at the griddle. “Fix me a Denver omelet,” he said to Railroad.

Railroad washed his hands, put on an apron, broke two eggs into a bowl. He threw handfuls of chopped onion, green pepper, and diced ham into a skillet. When the onions were soft, he poured the beaten eggs over the ham and vegetables, added salt and cayenne pepper.

When he slid the finished omelet onto a plate, the manager bent down over it as if he were inspecting the paint job on a used car. He straightened up. “Pay’s thirty dollars a week. Be here at six in the morning.”

Out in the lot Railroad set down his bag and looked around. Cicadas buzzed in the hot city night. Around the corner from the diner he’d noticed a big Victorian house with a sign on the porch, “Rooms for Rent.” He was about to start walking when, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a movement by the trash barrel next to the chain-link fence. He peered into the gloom and saw the cat trying to leap up to the top to get at the garbage. He went over, held out his hand. The cat didn’t run; it sniffed him, butted its head against his hand.

He picked it up, cradled it under his arm, and carried it and the bag to the rooming house. Under dense oaks, it was a big tan clapboard mansion with green shutters and hanging baskets of begonias on the porch, and a green porch swing. The thick oval leaded glass of the oak door was beveled around the edge, the brass of the handle dark with age.

The door was unlocked. His heart jumped a bit at the opportunity it presented; at the same time he wanted to warn the proprietor against such foolishness. Off to one side of the entrance was a little table with a doily, vase and dried flowers; on the other a sign beside a door said, “manager.”

Railroad knocked. After a moment the door opened and a woman with the face of an angel opened it. She was not young, perhaps forty, with very white skin and blonde hair. She looked at him, smiled, saw the cat under his arm. “What a sweet animal,” she said.

“I’d like a room,” he said.

“I’m sorry. We don’t cater to pets,” the woman said, not unkindly.

“This here’s no pet, Ma’m,” Railroad said. “This here’s my only friend in the world.”

The landlady’s name was Mrs. Graves. The room she rented him was twelve feet by twelve feet, with a single bed, a cherry veneer dresser, a wooden table and chair, a narrow closet, lace curtains on the window, and an old pineapple quilt on the bed. The air smelled sweet. On the wall opposite the bed was a picture in a dime store frame, of an empty rowboat floating in an angry gray ocean, the sky overcast, only a single shaft of sunlight in the distance from a sunset that was not in the picture.

The room cost ten dollars a week. Despite Mrs. Graves’s rule against pets, like magic she took a shine to Railroad’s cat. It was almost as if she’d rented the room to the cat, with Railroad along for the ride. After some consideration, he named the cat Pleasure. She was the most affectionate animal he had ever seen. She wanted to be with him, even when he ignored her. She made him feel wanted; she made him nervous. Railroad fashioned a cat door in the window of his room so that Pleasure could go out and in whenever she wanted, and not be confined to the room when Railroad was at work.

The only other residents of the boarding house were Louise Parker, a school teacher, and Charles Foster, a lingerie salesman. Mrs. Graves cleaned Railroad’s room once a week, swept the floors, alternated the quilt every other week with a second one done in a rose pattern that he remembered from his childhood. He worked at the diner from six in the morning, when Maisie, the cashier, unlocked, until Shorty took over at three in the afternoon. The counter girl was Betsy, and Service, a Negro boy, bussed tables and washed dishes. Railroad told them to call him Bailey, and didn’t talk much.

When he wasn’t working, Railroad spent most of his time at the boarding house, or evenings in a small nearby park. Railroad would take the Bible from the drawer in the boarding house table, buy an afternoon newspaper, and carry them with him. Pleasure often followed him to the park. She would lunge after squirrels and shy away from dogs, hissing sideways. Cats liked to kill squirrels, dogs liked to kill cats, but there was no sin in it. Pleasure would not go to hell, or heaven. Cats had no souls.

The world was full of stupid people like Bobby Lee and Hiram, who lied to themselves and killed without knowing why. Life was a prison. Turn to the right, it was a wall. Turn to the left, it was a wall. Look up it was a ceiling, look down it was a floor. And Railroad had taken out his imprisonment on others; he was not deceived in his own behavior.