Free The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson Mccullers Page A

‘Are you kin to Mister Singer?’ she asked.’ Not a bit.’
    ‘Good friend?’
    ‘Good enough to spend the night with him.’
    ‘I just wondered--Which direction is Main Street? ’ She pointed to the right Two blocks down this way.’ Jake combed his mustache with his fingers and started off. He jingled the seventy-five cents in his hand and bit his lower lip until it was mottled and scarlet. The three Negroes were walking slowly ahead of him, talking among themselves. Because he felt lonely in the unfamiliar town he kept close behind them and listened. The girl held both of them by the arm. She wore a green dress with a red hat and shoes. The boys walked very close to her. ‘What we got planned for this evening?’ she asked.
    ‘It depend entirely upon you, Honey,’ the tall boy said. ‘Willie and me don’t have no special plans.’
    She looked from one to the other. ‘You all got to decide.’
    ‘Well--’ said the shorter boy in the red socks. ‘Highboy and me thought m-maybe us three go to church.’
    The girl sang her answer in three different tones. ‘O-K-And after church I got a notion I ought to go and set with Father for a while--just a short while.’ They turned at the first corner, and Jake stood watching them a moment before walking on.
    The main street was quiet and hot, almost deserted. He had not realized until now that it was Sunday--and the thought of this depressed him. The awnings over the closed stores were raised and the buildings had a bare look in the bright sun. He passed the New York Cafe. The door was open, but the place looked empty and dark. He had not found any socks to wear that morning, and the hot pavement burned through the thin soles of his shoes. The sun felt like a hot piece of iron pressing down on his head. The town seemed more lonesome than any place he had ever known. The stillness of the street gave him a strange feeling. When he had been drunk the place had seemed violent and riotous. And now it was as though everything had come to a sudden, static halt.
    He went into a fruit and candy store to buy a paper. The Help-Wanted column was very short. There were several calls for young men between twenty-five and forty with automobiles to sell various products on commission. These he skipped over quickly. An advertisement for a truck-driver held his attention for a few minutes. But the notice at the bottom interested him most It read: Wanted--Experienced Mechanic. Sunny Dixie Show. Apply Corner Weavers Lane & 15th Street.
    Without knowing it he had walked back to the door of the restaurant where he had spent his time during the past two weeks. This was the only place on the block besides the fruit store which was not closed. Jake decided suddenly to drop in and see Biff Brannon.
    The cafe was very dark after the brightness outside.
    Everything looked dingier and quieter than he had remembered it. Brannon stood behind the cash register as usual, his arms folded over his chest. His good-looking plump wife sat filing her fingernails at the other end of the counter.
    Jake noticed that they glanced at each other as he came in.
    ‘Afternoon,’ said Brannon.
    Jake felt something in the air. Maybe the fellow was laughing because he remembered things that had happened when he was drunk. Jake stood wooden and resentful. ‘Package of Target, please.’ As Brannon reached beneath the counter for the tobacco Jake decided that he was not laughing. In the daytime the fellow’s face was not as hard-looking as it was at night He was pale as though he had not slept, and his eyes had the look of a weary buzzard’s.
    ‘Speak up,’ Jake said. ‘How much do I owe you?’
    Brannon opened a drawer and put on the counter a public-school tablet. Slowly he turned over the pages and Jake watched him. The tablet looked more like a private notebook than the place where he kept his regular accounts. There were long lines of figures, added, divided, and subtracted, and little drawings. He stopped