Tammy out of Time Read online

“Can’t you wash yourself?”

  “Who said anything about washing? I simply expect the ordinary conveniences of civilization, that’s all. Especially when I pay for them. It’s incredible. Not a tub in the place, I suppose, not a——” He looked fit to be tied.

  “Miss Renie has a little foot tub she soaks her feet in. I could slip in and get you that, if you——”

  “A foot tub! A tin foot tub, no doubt. My Lord, how do you expect a man of my size to get himself into a foot tub!”

  “Oh,” Tammy said. “It’s more than just washing yourself dean? You want to get all the way under. Like the Baptists. Total immersion.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “Then there ain’t a thing in the world to do about it, less’n you go to the river, and that’s a right far piece.”

  Mr. Bissle grunted and went over to sit on the steps. “The quaint charm of the Old South, ante-bellum atmosphere,” he grumbled. “I’ve got work to do. I’ve got to be comfortable, I tell you. My baths—two a day....What was that woman thinking about, sending me to a place like this?”

  “Maybe she was thinking about what Mrs. Brent told her.”

  “And what did Mrs. Brent tell her? I’d like to know.”

  “She told her that being here you’d likely come to know how wonderful Pete is and get a notion of giving him a job in your business.”

  “Well, I can tell you right now I have no notion of giving anybody anything.” He reached in the pocket of his striped robe and got out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and a match. He scratched the match on the steps with a sweep of his hand. “And was I right last night when I said a young man had better take up plumbing! I recommend it to the young man of the house.” And having said that and drawn on his cigarette, he seemed to feel better. “Just how wonderful is this Pete?”

  Tammy took a long breath. “He is the most wonderful there is.”

  “H’m. So that’s how you feel about it.”

  “Yes.” She flung back her head and looked at him squarely.

  “I thought my little cousin Barbara had a mortgage on that property.”

  “She wants him, if that’s what you mean. She wants him for richer but not for poorer. She doesn’t want him unless he has a good job and can buy her everything in the world.”

  He nodded. “Barbara’s got a good head on her. Runs in the family. She knows how to look after number one. That’s what you’ve got to do in this world.”

  “But she isn’t going to get Pete.” Tammy went back to her weeding.

  “Why not?”

  “Two reasons, the way I figger it.”

  “What are they?”

  Tammy moved along the path to a new patch of grass. “One is: you ain’t going to give him a big job because you’re mad about not having a bathtub big enough to put yourself in whole.”

  “Nonsense. That’s another matter. I wouldn’t let a thing like that influence me.” He puffed a minute. “Matter of fact I need a new man.” He scowled off into the distance, maybe seeing his need and where it was. Then he added, “And Barbara’d make a smart wife for him. She’d push him. Nice-looking fellow, with some advertising experience, in a small way, of course. But he needs push.”

  “Barbara isn’t going to push him.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I ain’t going to let her.”

  “You?” He gave her a queer look.

  “Me.” Tammy sat back on her heels again and looked at him. “I don’t know myself how I’ll manage it, but I’m agoing to. She ain’t got the least notion of how to love one man and no other.”

  “Love,” Mr. Bissle said with scorn. “Love’s a disease.”

  “Didn’t you never love a woman?”

  “Not me. A man travels faster if he travels alone.”

  Tammy looked at him a long minute. “It’s a curious thing, to see a man alone,” she said. “Alone, with nothing maybe but a bathtub.”

  “Humph.” He stood. “Haven’t got a bath. No room service either I suppose.”

  “Room service?”

  “Breakfast sent up, that sort of thing.”

  “Oh, yes, you can have that. When do you want it?”

  “Half an hour.” Then he mounted the steps and the stairs to his room, not looking back.

  Tammy finished the weeding and went into the kitchen to wash her hands. Osia had breakfast ready on the stove and she was sitting at the kitchen table drinking her coffee. “That-there man, look like he’s a big man from way off, way he talk. How-come he has to wash hisself so much?”

  “Because he’s so big, I reckon,” Tammy said, going to the stove to pour herself some coffee. “He’s put all he’s got into himself. That’s why. It’s puffed him up in mind and body. He don’t believe in learning.” She sat down across the table from Osia. “And he don’t believe in love.”

  “Now that’s something, ain’t it? A big man like that, come in a car as big as a house only it got white-rim wheels on it, and don’t believe in learning.” Osia got up and went to the stove. “Is he going to get his clothes on and eat now?”

  “He wants it in his room.” Tammy sat drinking her coffee and watching Osia put the long griddle to heat and move with confidence among her many pots and pans. “Osia?” Tammy leaned her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her clasped hands. “Osia.”

  “Yassum?” Osia turned her dark head and looked at Tammy over her shoulder. She was a thin, tall woman, slow moving, with a kind of grace in her moving, as if a drumbeat out of distant time and place had set the rhythm of her step.

  “Osia, why is it, when I sit down, you get up?”

  Osia turned her dark glance away. “There is a lot of things, Miss Tammy, that you don’t seem to know nothing about.”

  “I know I don’t. I’m always puzzling. But this—is it a kind of manners that goes with cooking?”

  “No, ma’am.” It seemed for a while as if she was not going to say any more than that. She poured batter on the griddle in six neat circles. Then she said with bitterness, “It’s a kind of manners that goes with the color of your skin.”

  “That’s a funny thing. It don’t seem to make sense. There are so many manners that don’t make sense. Like Professor Brent getting himself up and putting a chair under, if you’re a woman, and not, if you’re a man. That might go back to the lords and ladies days, like it was in The Idylls of the King. But this here——”

  “This-here goes back to slavery days, Miss Tammy. That’s what it goes back to.”

  “That was long ago, too. Do you reckon it will wear off in time?”

  “Not in my time.” Osia got a tray from the shelf and read a white napkin on it.

  “Is it worrying to you?”

  “No’m. I’m used to it. It don’t worry me so much, but it worry my chillen. I declare, you sure do think of the beatingest things, Miss Tammy.” Osia shook her head. “Look like you come on the world with a fresh mind. Ain’t cluttered up.”

  “That’s what Professor Brent says. It’s a blank and he wants to write on it, only he doesn’t know what, yet.”

  “You better do your own writing, Miss Tammy. Don’t let nobody fool with your brain. Now I got to get these-here cakes up yonder whilst they’s good and hot.” She set the plate on the tray.

  “I’ll take it up,” Tammy said, rising. “You cook me some. They smell powerful good. What’s in them?”

  “Just cold light bread and sody, eggs and buttermilk and a speck of salt. Flour and some butter, too. That’s all. Hey, you Roots, come in here!”

  Roots came in from the pantry, a pencil and pad in his hand. Tammy said, “Hello, Roots. You been drawing?”

  “Yassum.” He stood with eyes on the floor.

  “He’s all the time drawing.” Osia got down a cup and saucer for Mr. Bissle. “He ain’t content with drawing just what Miss Renie tell him. He draw the beatingest things.”

  “What you got there?”

  Shyly Roots held out his drawing pad. Os
ia gave it a quick glance and she had to set down the coffeepot, she got to laughing so. “You sure got that one to the life. That’s Mr. Bissle to the life. Just how he look from here.” She turned back to the stove, wiping her eyes. “Lawdamussy, it just about kill me some time, what that child draw.”

  Tammy studied the drawing. It had no more than a dozen lines, to it, but every line meant something. A curved line and a circle with a round head on top—that was the shape of Mr. Bissle from the back, for sure. One hand held a cigarette and the smoke curled over his head. “What’s he sitting on?” She pointed to the rounded line on which he perched.

  Roots turned his head, as if he wasn’t going to answer. Then he said, “I heard you all talking about a tub. That there’s one big tub, big as the world.”

  “That ought to hold him.” Tammy smiled. “But why did you put one star up in the sky?”

  “I heerd you saying something about a man being alone.”

  “But I don’t see why...a star——”

  “Ain’t nothing make you feel so lonesome as a star, Miss Tammy. ‘Specially just one.”

  “That’s right,” Tammy agreed. “It does make you lonesome.” She held out the drawing to him.

  He shook his head. “You can have it.”

  “I’d love to keep it. Here Osia, give me the tray. I’ll take it.” She folded the sheet over and took the tray from Osia. “He sure ought to be pleased with this breakfast.”

  On the upper ell porch she held the tray in one hand and rapped on Mr. Bissle’s door. “Here’s your breakfast, Mr. Bissle.”

  “Come in, come in.”

  He was sitting in bed with pillows behind him and pictures and printed papers and written papers all around him. He looked like some kind of bald-headed bluebird that had been making himself a nest of papers. “Just set it there.” He waved to the small table beside the head of the bed, looking up. “Forgot to tell you I never take anything but dry toast and coffee. What’s that I smell?”

  “Battercakes and sausage and molasses and coffee.”

  “Battercakes!” He hiked himself up higher in the bed and looked around. “H’m.” He reached over and took a cake in his fingers. The butter dripped on the sheet. “Indigestible, raw inside, poisonous to the liver.” He sniffed it, took a bite, and a look of wonder went over his face. “Suppose I’ll have to eat them, now you’ve got them here.” He took up the tray and balanced it on his stomach. Roots’s picture fluttered to the floor. “What’s that? The bill?”

  “N-not exactly.” Tammy stooped to pick it up.

  “Well, give it to me. May as well know the worst right off.” He put another battercake in his mouth.

  “I...you may not like it. You aren’t really so...though you’re nigh onto it.”

  He took it from her, stared at it. He turned it this way and that, twisting his face to one side and then the other. “Lord, that’s an idea! Who did this?” he roared.

  “It...it was Roots. But he——”

  “Who on earth is Roots?”

  “Just a little boy. He didn’t mean——”

  “Just a little boy, eh?” He half closed his eyes and a crafty look came over his face.

  “Just a little black boy,” Tammy said.

  “Oho! A little black boy, eh? Better yet. Give me my pants.” Tammy looked around the room. His pants were folded neatly over a chair by the other wall. She went slowly to the chair and took them up. Then she started for the door, carrying them carefully over her arm.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” he demanded with his mouth full of battercakes and sausage.

  “I’m not agoing to give them to you. He didn’t mean no harm by that picture. I’m agoing to take them downstairs and keep them till you get out of the notion of beating him.”

  Mr. Bissle choked down his mouthful. “I’m not going to beat anybody. I’m going to get a quarter out of my pocket and buy the picture. Now give me my pants!”

  “Oh!” Tammy stared at him. “You like it?”

  Mrs. Brent’s distressed voice came up from the lower porch. “Tammy! Tammy! Come down at once. What on earth are you doing in Mr. Bissle’s room?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Brent, I——”

  “Sure I like it. It’s perfect,” Mr. Bissle said. “Just what I’ve been looking for—ten men working on ideas and here a little black boy——But you needn’t tell him that. A quarter’s plenty.” He looked up at the ceiling and smiled. He was like a fat baby in a crib. “This place brings me luck. Bath or no bath, I guess I’ll stay.”

  “Tammy, are you coming?” Mrs. Brent sounded wild.

  “Just a minute, Mrs. Brent. I’m coming soon as I give Mr. Bissle his pants.”

  “O Lord!” Mrs. Brent’s moan came from down below. “Will I have to—you see, Joel, I just can’t take the responsibility for what happens. And Mr. Bissle—of all people——” Her voice died away.

  Mr. Bissle wiped his fingers on some of the papers that were scattered over the bed. He reached in his pants pocket and brought out a handful of change. “You’re witness to the fact that I’ve bought it. It’s mine, and all the rights and privileges.”

  “Are you coming, Tammy? Or will I have to...to send Professor Brent up?” Mrs. Brent sounded as though she couldn’t wait any longer.

  “I’m coming just as soon as he gives me a quarter, Mrs. Brent,” Tammy called back.

  Mr. Bissle selected three nickels and a dime and held them out, counting them into her hand. “Looks like more that way.”

  Tammy took the money and stood a moment, uncertain. “What you want of that picture, Mr. Bissle?”

  “I’ll show you.” He found a red pencil and resting the drawing on the brief case across his knee he printed “ON TOP OF THE WORLD.” Below that he added “WITH A HUBBA.”

  “What’s a hubba?”

  “New cigarette we’re launching.” He held the drawing out before him and admired it. “You’ll see it on every billboard in the country, in every magazine. Swell. That’s really pretty swell.” Then he looked down at his empty plate. “Lord, I ate all those cakes without thinking what I was doing!”

  Tammy turned in the doorway. “You want some hot water and soda?”

  “No, just bring me some more. I’ll die happy.”

  Tammy came down the stairs with Mr. Bissle’s empty tray in one hand and the money jingling in the other. Professor and Mrs. Brent sat at the porch table, breakfast untouched before them. Tammy was hurrying on toward the kitchen when Mrs. Brent straightened up from leaning her head on her hand and said, “Tammy!”

  Tammy stopped short and looked around.

  “Tammy,” Mrs. Brent said in a choked voice, clicking her teeth, “this is too much. I cannot——Where did you get that money?”

  “Mr. Bissle,” Tammy said. “And you don’t need to be worrying. He is in an awful good mood now. He says he can die happy, and it’s give him an appetite. He wants some more battercakes, though he doesn’t usually eat anything but dry toast.”

  Professor Brent said, “Let Osia take him the pancakes. You come here.”

  “All right, Professor Brent. Just a minute. He wants more battercakes, Osia,” she said, going on into the kitchen. “Goshamighty, Osia, I never knowed anybody could make money that easy. Roots, lookahere—twenty-five cents!”

  Mrs. Brent was talking in little gasps. “Before the servants! Joel, this time you must do something. And Mr. Bissle, you’ll have to order him out. Oh, why did this have to happen?”

  Tammy could hear what she was saying but she couldn’t give it her mind yet. She put the money on the kitchen table beside Roots. “He bought your picture, Roots,” she cried. “He liked it. He paid you twenty-five cents for it, look!”

  Roots grinned, speechless. Osia said, “Now ain’t that something!” Then she caught sight of Professor Brent standing in the doorway and added hurriedly, “Yessuh, Professor Brent, I’m bringing your coffee right now.”

  Professor Brent went back to the table on the porch. “I s
uppose you heard that, my dear? I cannot understand why it is that you always expect the worst.”

  “Because it’s the worst that usually happens. Oh, Joel, I don’t know what to think. There was that other time—with Ernie—before breakfast, too.”

  “Tammy, come eat your breakfast,” Professor Brent said as she came from the kitchen.

  Tammy ate in silence, looking from one to the other, wondering what the trouble was. Miss Renie came out with Picasso as usual. Tammy said good morning and went on trying to puzzle things out. Osia carried another plate of cakes upstairs and came back.

  “Why so serious and silent, Tammy?” Miss Renie asked in the middle of her breakfast.

  “I’m just figgering something out,” Tammy said, her eyes on Mrs. Brent. She was remembering how Mrs. Brent had called and called her to come down from upstairs, and yet there was nothing she was in a hurry to tell her. Then she remembered her last words, in that shocked tone, “Ernie—and before breakfast too.” That was what she had said. Suddenly it was all clear to Tammy. She laid down her knife and fork and leaned forward, fixing Mrs. Brent with her serious gray eyes. “Mrs. Brent, did you think that Mr. Bissle and I were——”

  “Oh Tammy, please——” Mrs. Brent glanced nervously toward the stairs and Mr. Bissle’s feet as he began to take the steps one at a time.

  “I haven’t got on any face paint this morning and you shouldn’t have. Besides, I wouldn’t have picked Mr. Bissle out if I’d been alooking around.”

  “Oh, my,” Mrs. Renie cried, “don’t tell me I got up so late I missed all the fun!”

  “Aunt Renie,” Professor Brent said, “your use of the word fun in this connection shows a paucity of vocabulary that appalls me.” He took off his glasses and began polishing them on his napkin.

  Tammy was not to be turned aside. “But, Mrs. Brent, really, did you——”

  Mrs. Brent was fidgeting in her chair. She spoke in a hasty aside, keeping a watch on Mr. Bissle’s slow descent of the stairs.

  “Tammy, I——well, it was a most compromising situation...what was I to think....Anybody would have——”

  “You ought to be ashamed,” Tammy said, and added, “If I ever get into anybody’s bed, I’ll come straightway and tell you. I promise you that.”