“Here’s the professor,” he said, without stopping. He entered the house, the hall.
He went on and crossed the back porch and turned and entered the room where the light was.
It was the kitchen.
A woman stood at the stove. She wore a faded calico dress. About her naked ankles a worn pair of man’s brogans, unlaced, flapped when she moved.
She looked back at Popeye, then to the stove again, where a pan of meat hissed.
Popeye stood in the door.
His hat was slanted across his face.
He took a cigarette from his pocket, without producing the pack, and pinched and fretted it and put it into his mouth and snapped a match on his thumbnail.
“There’s a bird out front,” he said.
The woman did not look around.
She turned the meat.
“Why tell me?” she said.
“I dont serve Lee’s customers.”
“It’s a professor,” Popeye said.
The woman turned, an iron fork suspended in her hand. Behind the stove, in shadow, was a wooden box.
“A what?”
“Professor,” Popeye said.
“He’s got a book with him.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“I dont know.
I never thought to ask.
Maybe to read the book.”
“He came here?”
“I found him at the spring.”
“Was he trying to find this house?”
“I dont know,” Popeye said.
“I never thought to ask.”
The woman was still looking at him.
“I’ll send him on to Jefferson on the truck,” Popeye said.
“He said he wants to go there.”
“Why tell me about it?” the woman said.
“You cook.
He’ll want to eat.”
“Yes,” the woman said. She turned back to the stove.
“I cook.
I cook for crimps and spungs and feebs.
Yes.
I cook.”
In the door Popeye watched her, the cigarette curling across his face.
His hands were in his pockets.
“You can quit.
I’ll take you back to Memphis Sunday.
You can go to hustling again.”
He watched her back.
“You’re getting fat here.
Laying off in the country.
I wont tell them on Manuel street.”
The woman turned, the fork in her hand.
“You bastard,” she said.
“Sure,” Popeye said.