Norwood by Charles Portis

Author:Charles Portis
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: General, Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2011-01-04T05:00:00+00:00

A dog started barking upstairs, a little scrappy one, and some woman took it up and started yelling down. The stairwell echoed with female Spanish abuse. The door opened a foot or so and Norwood gave his guitar a little trick spin and dropped into a boxing stance. “Whuddaya say, tush hog,” he said. But it wasn’t Joe William at all. It was a short, bushy-headed young man in a green sweater. He was eating a sandwich. He said, “What is all this?”

Norwood said, “Oh. I thought Joe William Reese lived here.”

“Well, he did, but he’s gone now. You just missed him.”

“Where did he go?”

“Back home. Some place in Arkansas. He left a couple of days ago. You a friend of his?”

“We was in the service together. How Company, Third Batt, Fifth Marines. He owes me some money.”

“I take it you’re from Arkansas too.”

“Naw, I’m from Ralph, Texas. We used to live in Arkansas but when I was in the seventh grade we moved over to Ralph. It’s just the other side of Texarkana. Bowie County.”

“I see. Well, how is everything in Bowie County?”

“Just fine. What did he go back home for?”

“Well, as I get it, he was following this girl.”

“What girl?”

“Some girl from his home town. I forget her name. She was up at Columbia more or less killing time and she wanted to go to Paris or Italy or someplace but her father said she’d have to put in some time at home first. Reese is trying to marry her. It was all very complicated. I can’t remember the details. I gather her family has some money.”

“Yeah, I know about her. He’s been sweet on her for a long time.”

“So. That’s the story. He left.”

“What was he doing here?”

“Working at the post office.”

“He could of done that at home.”

“That’s true enough. But then the girl was up here. Look, you want some coffee or something? You look pretty beat. I was just having lunch.”

“I don’t care if I do.”

“Come on in.”

“I wouldn’t mind having a sandwich either.”

“Sure thing. I’m afraid all I have is potted meat.”

“That’ll be fine.”

“It’ll have to be on hamburger buns too, I’m out of bread.”

“That’ll be fine.”

“This stuff is cheap but it’s very nutritious.” He picked up the can and read from it. “Listen to this: ‘beef tripe, beef hearts, beef, pork, salt, vinegar, flavoring, sugar and sodium nitrite.’ Do you know what tripe is?”

“It’s the gut part.”

“That’s what I thought. I suspected it was something like that.”

“It’s all meat. Meat is meat. Have you ever eat any squirrel brains?”

“No, how are they?”

“About like calf brains. They’re not bad if you don’t think about it. The bad part is cracking them little skulls open. One thing I won’t eat is hog’s head cheese. My sister Vernell, you can turn her loose with a spoon and she’ll eat a pound of it before she gets up. Some people call it souse.”

“Why do they call it that?”

“I don’t know. You got to have a name for everything.

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