They watched Gowan slip his arm into hers, and the fleet revelation of flank and thigh as she got into his car. It was a long, low roadster, with a jacklight.
“Who’s that son bitch?” one said.
“My father’s a judge,” the second said in a bitter, lilting falsetto.
“Hell.
Let’s go to town.”
They went on.
Once they yelled at a car, but it did not stop.
On the bridge across the railroad cutting they stopped and drank from a bottle.
The last made to fling it over the railing.
The second caught his arm.
“Let me have it,” he said.
He broke the bottle carefully and spread the fragments across the road.
They watched him.
“You’re not good enough to go to a college dance,” the first said.
“You poor bastard.”
“My father’s a judge,” the other said, propping the jagged shards upright in the road.
“Here comes a car,” the third said.
It had three headlights.
They leaned against the railing, slanting their hats against the light, and watched Temple and Gowan pass.
Temple’s head was low and close.
The car moved slowly.
“You poor bastard,” the first said.
“Am I?” the second said.
He took something from his pocket and flipped it out, whipping the sheer, faintly scented web across their faces.
“Am I?”
“That’s what you say.”
“Doc got that step-in in Memphis,” the third said.
“Off a damn whore.”
“You’re a lying bastard,” Doc said.
They watched the fan of light, the diminishing ruby taillamp, come to a stop at the Coop.
The lights went off.
After a while the car door slammed.
The lights came on; the car moved away. It approached again.
They leaned against the rail in a row, their hats slanted against the glare. The broken glass glinted in random sparks.
The car drew up and stopped opposite them.
“You gentlemen going to town?” Gowan said, opening the door.
They leaned against the rail, then the first said
“Much obliged” gruffly and they got in, the two others in the rumble seat, the first beside Gowan.
“Pull over this way,” he said.
“Somebody broke a bottle there.”
“Thanks,” Gowan said.
The car moved on.
“You gentlemen going to Starkville tomorrow to the game?”
The ones in the rumble said nothing.
“I dont know,” the first said.
“I dont reckon so.”
“I’m a stranger here,” Gowan said.
“I ran out of liquor tonight, and I’ve got a date early in the morning.
Can you gentlemen tell me where I could get a quart?”
“It’s mighty late,” the first said.