4
PARTISAN REVIEW
"Yeah," the other answered, "Bummin' takes all the tallow
out o' mah pole. Ah aint been eatin' so reg'lar o' late, neither.
What's yore name, nigger?"
"Call me Mack. What's yours?"
"Call me Tex."
"If
I jest had a sock like you said, Tex, do y' think it'd
keep it from rubbin' some?"
Tex surmised that this must be a northern Negro, to judge
by his speech.
The fog lifted a little, and the El Paso sun came through.
They came to a park with a picket-fence going around and
around; there were teeter-totters for small children and swings
for smaller children; and at one end was a net whereon two
large men swung and belammed one small red ball. A stretch
of grass looked dry for sleep here. The 'hoes found a gate,
and entered.
The small grass bent itself between Tex McKay's fingers.
Long shadows trembled in the light....
"Ah better shake this shine," Tex counseled himself.
Surreptitiously, the Negro began bathing his foot by wrig–
gling his naked toes beneath a dripping bush. He did this for
several minutes, covertly, then declared his foot well.
''But a sock....
If
oney I had a white sock now." His
eyes closed even as he muttered, and in a moment he was sleep–
ing soundly, one arm in a ragged sleeve outflung and the other
shielding his eyes; as though fearing in sleep to be struck.
"Ah ought to got me a coat fo' the night that's comin'",''
Tex thought, watching sunshadow between half-closed lids. Sun–
shadow made him think of wet lengths of yellow ribbon stretched
flat aslant the grass to dry. Some lengths were narrow and
some were quite wide, some intertwined and became one, then
wriggled away into many, all yellow-wet and delicate across
green shadowgrass.
The Negro wriggled his toes, in sleep. Tex's own feet
had gone sockless for months, he too was very tired; but even
as he felt himself dozing off he became aware of someone com–
ing toward him. Then a silver badge above small boots, (a row
of brass buttons and a neck on thighs swung up a winding cin–
dered path twirling a club-on-a-cord like a swagger-stick. Tex
saw him coming, shoved Mack, and ran. From behind the
picket fence, safe outside, Tex watched. Boots budged Mack
until he rolled over, moaning like a sick man. He was sweating
