William Faulkner, SANCTUARY – WordPress.com - literature save 2

"Beer? Beer? Is somebody--"
"Put the son of a bitch in a coffin. See how he likes it."
"Put the son of a bitch in a coffin," the woman in red shrieked. They rushed
toward the door, where the proprietor stood waving his hand above his head, his voice
shrieking out of the uproar before he turned and fled.
In the main room a male quartet engaged from a vaudeville house was singing.
They were singing mother songs in close harmony; they sang Sonny Boy. The weeping
was general among the older women. Waiters were now carrying cups of punch in to
them and they sat holding the cups in their fat, ringed hands, crying.
The orchestra played again. The woman in red staggered into the room. "Come
on, Joe," she shouted, "open the game. Get that damn stiff out of here and open the
game." A man tried to hold her; she turned upon him with a burst of filthy language and
went on to the shrouded crap table and hurled a wreath to the floor. The proprietor rushed
toward her, followed by the bouncer. The proprietor grasped the woman as she lifted
another floral piece. The man who had tried to hold her intervened, the woman cursing
shrilly and striking at both of them impartially with the wreath. The bouncer caught the
man's arm; he whirled and struck at the bouncer, who knocked him halfway across the
room. Three more men entered. The fourth rose from the floor and all four of them
rushed at the bouncer.
He felled the first and whirled and sprang with an unbelievable celerity, into the
main room. The orchestra was playing. It was immediately drowned in a sudden
pandemonium of chairs and screams. The bouncer whirled again and met the rush of the
four men. They mingled; a second man flew out and skittered along the floor on his back;
the bouncer sprang free. Then he whirled and rushed them; in a whirling plunge they bore
down upon the bier and crashed into it. The orchestra had ceased and were now climbing
onto their chairs with their instruments. The floral offerings flew; the coffin teetered.
"Catch it!" a voice shouted. They sprang forward but the coffin crashed heavily to the
floor, coming open. The corpse tumbled slowly and sedately out and came to rest with its
face in the center of a wreath.
"Play something!" the proprietor bawled, waving his arms; .,play! Play!"
When they raised the corpse the wreath came too, attached to him by a hidden end
of a wire driven into his cheek. He had worn a cap which, tumbling off, exposed a small
blue hole in the center of his forehead. It had been neatly plugged with wax and was
painted, but the wax had been jarred out and lost. They couldn't find it, but by
unfastening the snap in the peak, they could draw the cap down to his eyes.
As the cortège neared the downtown section more cars joined in. The hearse was
followed by six Packard touring cars with the tops back, driven by liveried chauffeurs
and filled with flowers. They looked exactly alike and were of the type rented by the hour
by the better class agencies. Next came a nondescript line of taxis, roadsters, sedans,
which increased as the procession moved slowly through the restricted district where
faces peered from beneath lowered shades, toward the main artery that led back out of
town, toward the cemetery.
On the avenue the hearse increased its speed, the procession stretching out at swift
intervals. Presently the private cars and the cabs began to drop out. At each intersection
they would turn this way or that, until at last only the hearse and the six Packards were