“How comes you keep on pesterin' me—I ain't got that boy of yourn?”
“Yes, you have got him,” she said, her voice shaking and threatening to break. “You've got him body and soul. And I want him—me, his mother. I want you to give him back to me.”
His gaze lifted until he considered empty space a foot above her head. Slowly he reached an angular arm back under his right shoulder blade and fished about there until he had extracted from a hip pocket a long, black rectangle of navy chewing tobacco that was like a shingle newly dipped in creosote. It was a virgin plug—he bought a fresh one every morning and by night would make a ragged remnant of it. With the deliberation of a man who has plenty of time to spare, he set his stained front teeth in a corner of it and gnawed off a big scallop of the rank stuff. His tongue herded it back into his jaw, where it made a lump. He put the plug away. She stood silently through this, kneading her hands together, a most humble suppliant awaiting this monarch's pleasure.
“You told me all that there foolishness the other time,” he said. “Ain't you got no new song to sing this time? Ef you have I'll listen, mebbe. Ef you ain't I'll tell you good-by.”
“Elmer,” she said, “what kind of a man are you? Haven't you got any compassions at all? Why, Elmer, your pa and my pa were soldiers together in the same regiment. You and me were raised together right here in this town. We went to the same schoolhouse together as children—don't you remember? You weren't a mean boy then. Why, I used to think you was right good-hearted. For the sake of those old days won't you do something about Eddie? It's wrong and it's sinful—what you're doing to him and the rest of the young boys in this town.”
“Ef you think that why come to me?” he demanded. “Why not go to the police with your troubles?” He split his lips back, and a double row of discoloured snags that projected from the gums like little chisels showed between them.
“And have 'em laugh in my face, same as you're doing now? Have 'em tell me to go and get the evidence? Oh, I know you're safe enough there. I reckon you know who your friends are. You shut up when the Grand Jury meets; and once in a while when things get hot for you, like they did when that Law and Order League was so busy, you close up your place; and once in a while you go up to court and pay a fine and then you keep right on. But it's not you that's paying the fine—I know that mighty good and well. The money to pay it comes out of the pockets of poor women in this town—wives and mothers and sisters.
“Oh, there's others besides me that are suffering this minute. There's that poor, little, broken-hearted Mrs. Shetler, out there on Wheelis Street—the one whose husband had to run away because he fell short in his accounts with the brickyard. And there's that poor, old Mrs. Postelwaite, that's about to lose the home that she's worked her fingers to the bone, mighty near, to help pay for, and she'll be left without a roof over her head in her old age because her husband's went and lost every cent he can get his hands on playing cards in your place, and so now they can't meet their mortgage payments. And there's plenty of others if the truth was only known. And oh, there's me and my boy—the only boy I've got. Elmer Magee, how you can sleep nights I don't see!” “I don't,” he said. “I work nights.” His wit appealed to him, for he grinned again. “Say, listen here!” His mood had changed and he spat the next words out. “Ef you think I ain't good company for that son of yourn, why don't you make him stay away from me? I ain't hankerin' none fur his society.”
“I've tried to, Elmer—God knows I've tried to, time and time again. That's why I've come back to you once more to ask you if you won't help me. I've gone down on my knees alone and prayed for help and I've prayed with Eddie, too, and I've pleaded with him. He don't run round town carousing like some boys his age do. He don't drink and he's not wild, except it just seems like he can't leave gambling alone. Oh, he's promised me and promised me he'd quit, but he's weak—and he's only a boy. I've kept track of his losings as well as I could, and I know that first and last he's lost nearly two hundred dollars playing cards with you and your crowd. That may not be much to you, Elmer—I reckon you're rich—but it's a lot to a lone woman like me. It means bread and meat and house rent and clothes to go on my back—that's what it means to me. My feet are mighty near out of these shoes I've got on, and right this minute there's not a cent in the house. I don't say you cheated him, but the money's gone and you got it. And it's ruining my boy. He's only a boy—he won't be twenty-one till the twelfth day of next April. If only you wouldn't let him come inside your place he'd behave himself—I know he would.
“So you see, Elmer, you're the only one that can make him go straight—that's why I've come back to you this second time. I reckon he ain't so much to blame. You know—yes, you've got reason to know better than anybody else—that his father before him couldn't leave playing cards alone. I hoped I could raise Eddie different. As a little thing I used to tell him playing cards were the devil's own playthings. But it seems like he can't just help it. I reckon it's in his blood.”