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

"Yes. I cant seem to help myself," Horace said. He opened the paper. Torn from a
handbill, it bore an address in pencil in a neat, flowing hand.
"He turned up here about two weeks ago," Miss Reba said. "Come in looking for
two boys and sat around the dining-room blowing his head off and feeling the girls'
behinds, but if he ever spent a cent I dont know it.
Did he ever give you an order, Minnie?"
"Nome," Minnie said.
"And couple of nights later he was here again. Didn't spend nuttin, didn't do nuttin
but talk, and I says to him 'Look here, mister, folks what uses this waiting-room has got
to get on the train now and then.' So next time he brought a half-pint of whiskey with
him. I dont mind that, from a good customer. But when a fellow like him comes here
three times, pinching my girls and bringing one half-pint of whiskey and ordering four
coca-colas . . . Just a cheap, vulgar man, honey. So I told Minnie not to let him in
anymore, and here one afternoon I aint no more than laid down for a nap when--I never
did find out what he done to Minnie to get in. I know he never give her nuttin. How did
he do it, Minnie? He must a showed you something you never seen before. Didn't he?"
Minnie tossed her head. "He aint got nothing I wantin to see. I done seed too
many now fer my own good." Minnie's husband had quit her. He didn't approve of
Minnie's business. He was a cook in a restaurant and he took all the clothes and jewelry
the white ladies had given Minnie and went off with a waitress in the restaurant.
"He kept on asking and hinting around about that girl," Miss Reba said, "and me
telling him to go ask Popeye if he wanted to know right bad. Not telling him nuttin except
to get out and stay out, see; so this day it's about two in the afternoon and I'm asleep and
Minnie lets him in and he asks her who's here and she tells him aint nobody, and he goes
on up stairs. And Minnie says about that time Popeye comes in. She says she dont know
what to do. She's scared not to let him in and she says she knows if she does and he
spatters that big bastard all over the upstairs floor, she knows I'll fire her and her husband
just quit her and all.
"So Popeye goes on upstairs on them cat feet of his and comes on your friend on
his knees, peeping through the keyhole. Minnie says Popeye stood behind him for about a
minute, with his hat cocked over one eye. She says he took out a cigarette and struck a
match on his thumbnail without no noise and lit it and then she says he reached over and
held the match to the back of your friend's neck, and Minnie says she stood there halfway
up the stairs and watched them; that fellow kneeling there with his face like a pie took out
of the oven too soon and Popeye squirting smoke through his nose and kind of jerking his
head at him. Then she come on down and in about ten seconds here he comes down the
stairs with both hands on top of his head, going wump-wump-wump inside like one of
these here big dray-horses, and he pawed at the door for about a minute, moaning to
himself like the wind in a chimney Minnie says, until she opened the door and let him
out. And that's the last time he's even rung this bell until tonight. . . . Let me see that."
Horace gave her the paper. "That's a nigger whorehouse," she said. "The lous--Minnie,
tell him his friend aint here. Tell him I dont know where he went.
Minnie went out. Miss Reba said,
"I've had all sorts of men in my house, but I got to draw the line somewhere. I had
lawyers, too. I had the biggest lawyer in Memphis back there in my dining-room, treating
my girls. A millionaire. He weighed two hundred and eighty pounds and he had his own