A man shouted “taxi” at them; a redcap tried to take Fonzo’s bag.
“Look out,” he said, drawing it back.
On the street more cabmen barked at them.
“So this is Memphis,” Fonzo said.
“Which way is it, now?”
He had no answer.
He looked around and saw Virgil in the act of turning away from a cabman.
“What you—”
“Up this way,” Virgil said.
“It aint far.”
It was a mile and a half.
From time to time they swapped hands with the bags.
“So this is Memphis,” Fonzo said.
“Where have I been all my life?”
When they entered the Gayoso a porter offered to take the bags.
They brushed past him and entered, walking gingerly on the tile floor.
Virgil stopped.
“Come on,” Fonzo said.
“Wait,” Virgil said.
“Thought you was here before,” Fonzo said.
“I was.
This hyer place is too high.
They’ll want a dollar a day here.”
“What we going to do, then?”
“Let’s kind of look around.”
They returned to the street.
It was five oclock.
They went on, looking about, carrying the suit cases.
They came to another hotel.
Looking in they saw marble, brass cuspidors, hurrying bellboys, people sitting among potted plants.
“That un’ll be just as bad,” Virgil said.
“What we going to do then?
We caint walk around all night.”
“Let’s git off this hyer street,” Virgil said.
They left Main Street.
At the next corner Virgil turned again.
“Let’s look down this-a-way.
Git away from all that ere plate glass and monkey niggers.
That’s what you have to pay for in them places.”
“Why?
It’s already bought when we got there.
How come we have to pay for it?”
“Suppose somebody broke it while we was there.
Suppose they couldn’t ketch who done it.
Do you reckon they’d let us out withouten we paid our share?”
At five-thirty they entered a narrow dingy street of frame houses and junk yards.
Presently they came to a three storey house in a small grassless yard.
Before the entrance a latticework false entry leaned.
On the steps sat a big woman in a mother hubbard, watching two fluffy white dogs which moved about the yard.
“Let’s try that un,” Fonzo said.