Journeyman by Erskine Caldwell Page A

others in the room. All of them, Dene included, looked as if they knew exactly what Lorene was talking about. Tom was grinning.
    “Don’t be so stupid, Clay,” Lorene said, smiling at him. “I was hustling on the side.”
    “Hustling?” Clay repeated.
    She nodded, looking at Dene beside the table.
    “Well, I’ll be dogged,” Clay said, shaking his head. “I still don’t know what you’re driving at.”
    “Putting out for money, Clay,” Tom said, nodding.
    “I’ll be a suck-egg mule!” Clay said, straightening up. He glanced over to see what Semon was doing. “You mean to say you’ve been doing that down in Jacksonville, Lorene?”
    “Sure,” Tom spoke up. “That’s what she’s been trying to tell you. I know all about it, because I’ve been talking to her all the way back from McGuffin.”
    “Well, I’ll be a suck-egg mule!” he said. “I never knew it was done that way before.”
    “It’s that way all over the country,” Tom said, nodding. “There’s a couple of thousand of them up in Augusta, hustling just like Lorene’s been doing in Jacksonville.”
    “How do you know so much about it, Tom, and I don’t?” he asked bewilderedly. “I never knew a thing like that before in all my life. I thought it was done sort of free everywhere just like it is in Rocky Comfort. I’ve seen little presents passed out, but I never saw real money change hands over a deal like that.”
    “Oh, I know a little,” Tom said. “I’ve been around some. I get off to Augusta every once in a while.”
    Clay continued to stare at Lorene as though she were a stranger. He did not know what to think.
    During the silence, Clay looked up to see Semon moving his chair across the room. He placed it beside Lorene’s and sat down, leaning towards her. His voice was so low no one else could hear what he was saying to her.
    “Did you hear all that, Dene?” Clay said. “What do you know about that!”
    She shook her head, looking from Lorene to him and back again.
    “Ask the preacher what he thinks about it,” Tom urged. “Go on and ask him; don’t be scared of him.”
    “Semon, is that one of the things you preach about?” Clay said.
    “People’s habits is grist for my mill, coz,” he said.
    Clay looked closely at him. He did not like the way he leaned over Lorene.
    “I reckon you’ve sort of got a free rein,” Clay said sharply. “You tell other people what not to do, but you go ahead and do the same thing yourself.”
    Semon was too busily engaged in talking to Lorene to notice him. He ignored Clay as if he had not heard a word.
    “Leave him alone,” Tom said. “Let him go ahead and talk to Lorene. I’d like to see her give him something he couldn’t give away.”
    “I haven’t got a thing in the world against Semon as a preacher,” Clay said. “It’s true I haven’t heard him preach yet, but just the same I’m willing to grant him that for what he claims to be. That’s all right with me. But I don’t like it worth a doggone to have him fooling around my wife like that.”
    “You must have forgot. Lorene’s not your wife now. You’re married to Dene.”
    “That is true, in a way. I am married to Dene, but I’ve never been unmarried from Lorene.”
    “You can’t claim both of them, Clay. They’ve got a law against men who keep two or more at the same time.”
    “The law can’t touch me, if Semon thinks he can fool around with Lorene. I won’t stand for it. I’ll go ahead and break the law with the two of them, but I ain’t aiming to stand by and see him fool with Lorene. And I don’t believe they ever made a law to suit me, either. There’s some men who need two wives, and I’m one of them. There’s plenty of times when I need two of them. There ain’t no use making a law against it, because that don’t stop me from wanting a couple.”
    Tom picked up his chair and moved beside Clay. He bent his head down and said something.
    “She’s just a whore now. Let Semon get