The Great Big Doorstep by E. P. O'Donnell

Author:E. P. O'Donnell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LSU Press
Published: 2015-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

THEOPHILE

DELA

Evvie looked into the shop as she went by. Tayo was busy with a customer. He had on a white coat. Evvie walked a ways down the road. She went down to the river edge, and for a while sat on a tuft of willow roots. The fog was cold, the water’s surface chilled by the melting ice of the north. The staggering river’s breath was heavy with the odor of its own strange liquors. It made her feel sad. She did not know what was the matter with her today. She took her books and climbed back to the top of the levee.

As she passed the barber shop, Tayo came out. He leaned his shoulder against the door-frame, smoking a cigarette, and fixed her with his stuffed-moose gaze. He spoke and she answered. After she had gone by, he called to her, ‘Evvie, where you goin?’

‘Home.’

‘I wunt you to mail me a letter when you pass the pos office.’

‘All right.’

He motioned her to follow him into the shop. He acted as though he had been expecting her, as if he knew she would not refuse to go into the shop because she did not know how to refuse. There was hair on the floor of the shop. Some of it was in patches, each of a different shade, and some in a heap mixed up into no color, or into the color of raw veal. From the big porcelain chair, a man might look at the river and see the white fruit liners pass, with a red and a green eye at night, and in the day a roaring white mustache.

Tayo said, ‘You like my shop. Sit in the chair. Feel my new chair. Simulated leather. And I mean guaranteed simulated. Feel it.’

‘I can see it.’

She wanted to leave now. She went to the door and did a few steps of a tap dance. Through the window she saw scores of black-hooded laughing gulls wheeling and grabbing the air with their wings over the foggy wharf, making a great commotion with their boisterous laughter. A boat was tied up out there.

Tayo said, ‘Come see what they doin!’ Evvie went to the window with him, and looked along his brown wrist to the long claw-like nail on the end. The boat was named And How, a lugger rigged for trawling. A group of boys on deck were squatting round a small heap of dead fish. A smiling Negro stood watching them with his legs crossed in the shape of a figure four. The boys had a can of lye. With driftwood sticks they were cramming lumps of lye down the gullets of the dead fish.

‘Me, I showed them that trick,’ Tayo said. ‘Watch something.’ Tayo cupped his hands and yelled, ‘Eh, la bas! That’s enough! Fling it! Go head!’

The boys heard Tayo. They all looked toward the barber shop and smiled. Then one of them picked up by the tail the fish that was stuffed with lye and flung it far up into the mist.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.