Read Online Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Truman Capote
Ads: Link
Orleans?” said Joel. “There are all kinds of good-looking fellows in New Orleans.”
“Aw, I ain’t studyin no New Orleans. It ain’t only the mens, honey: I wants to be where they got snow, and not all this sunshine. I wants to walk around in snow up to my hips: watch it come outa the sky in gret big globs. Oh, pretty . . . pretty. You ever see the snow?”
Rather breathlessly, Joel lied and claimed that he most certainly had; it was a pardonable deception, for he had a great yearning to see bona fide snow: next to owning the Koh-i-noor diamond, that was his ultimate secret wish. Sometimes, on flat boring afternoons, he’d squatted on the curb of St. Deval Street and daydreamed silent pearly snowclouds into sifting coldly through the boughs of the dry, dirty trees. Snow falling in August and silvering the glassy pavement, the ghostly flakes icing his hair, coating rooftops, changing the grimy old neighborhood into a hushed frozen white wasteland uninhabited except for himself and a menagerie of wonder-beasts: albino antelopes, and ivory-breasted snowbirds; and occasionally there were humans, such fantastic folk as Mr Mystery, the vaudeville hypnotist, and Lucky Rogers, the movie star, and Madame Veronica, who read fortunes in a Vieux Carré tearoom. “It was one stormy night in Canada that I saw the snow,” he said, though the farthest north he’d ever set foot was Richmond, Virginia. “We were lost in the mountains, Mother and me, and snow, tons and tons of it, was piling up all around us. And we lived in an ice-cold cave for a solid week, and we kept slapping each other to stay awake: if you fall asleep in snow, chances are you’ll never see the light of day again.”
“Then what happened?” said Missouri, disbelief subtly narrowing her eyes.
“Well, things got worse and worse. Mama cried, and the tears froze on her face like little BB bullets, and she was always cold. . . .” Nothing had warmed her, not the fine wool blankets, not the mugs of hot toddy Ellen fixed. “Each night hungry wolves howled in the mountains, and I prayed. . . .” In the darkness of the garage he’d prayed, and in the lavatory at school, and in the first row of the Nemo Theatre while duelling gangsters went unnoticed on the magic screen. “The snow kept falling, and heavy drifts blocked the entrance to the cave, but uh . . .” Stuck. It was the end of a Saturday serial that leaves the hero locked in a slowly filling gas chamber.
“And?”
“And a man in a red coat, a Canadian mountie, rescued us . . . only me, really: Mama had already frozen to death.”
Missouri denounced him with considerable disgust. “You is a gret big story.”
“Honest, cross my heart,” and he x-ed his chest.
“Uh uh. You Mama die in the sick bed. Mister Randolph say so.”
Somehow, spinning the tale, Joel had believed every word; the cave, the howling wolves, these had seemed more real than Missouri and her long neck, or Miss Amy, or the shadowy kitchen. “You won’t tattle, will you, Missouri? About what a liar I am.”
She patted his arm gently. “Course not, honey. Come to think, I wish I had me a two-bit piece for every story I done told. Sides, you tell good lies, the kind I likes to hear. We gonna get along just elegant: me, I ain’t but eight years older’n you, and you been to the school.” Her voice, which was like melted chocolate, was warm and tender. “Les us be friends.”
“O.K.,” said Joel, toasting her with his coffee cup, “friends.”
“And somethin else is, you call me Zoo. Zoo’s my rightful name, and I always been called by that till Papadaddy let on it stood for Missouri, which is the state where is located the city of St. Louis.
Them,
Miss Amy ’n Mister Randolph, they so proper: Missouri this ’n Missouri t’other, day in, day out. Huh! You call me Zoo.”
Joel saw an opening. “Does my father call you Zoo?”
She dipped down into the blouse of her gingham dress, and withdrew a silver
“Aw, I ain’t studyin no New Orleans. It ain’t only the mens, honey: I wants to be where they got snow, and not all this sunshine. I wants to walk around in snow up to my hips: watch it come outa the sky in gret big globs. Oh, pretty . . . pretty. You ever see the snow?”
Rather breathlessly, Joel lied and claimed that he most certainly had; it was a pardonable deception, for he had a great yearning to see bona fide snow: next to owning the Koh-i-noor diamond, that was his ultimate secret wish. Sometimes, on flat boring afternoons, he’d squatted on the curb of St. Deval Street and daydreamed silent pearly snowclouds into sifting coldly through the boughs of the dry, dirty trees. Snow falling in August and silvering the glassy pavement, the ghostly flakes icing his hair, coating rooftops, changing the grimy old neighborhood into a hushed frozen white wasteland uninhabited except for himself and a menagerie of wonder-beasts: albino antelopes, and ivory-breasted snowbirds; and occasionally there were humans, such fantastic folk as Mr Mystery, the vaudeville hypnotist, and Lucky Rogers, the movie star, and Madame Veronica, who read fortunes in a Vieux Carré tearoom. “It was one stormy night in Canada that I saw the snow,” he said, though the farthest north he’d ever set foot was Richmond, Virginia. “We were lost in the mountains, Mother and me, and snow, tons and tons of it, was piling up all around us. And we lived in an ice-cold cave for a solid week, and we kept slapping each other to stay awake: if you fall asleep in snow, chances are you’ll never see the light of day again.”
“Then what happened?” said Missouri, disbelief subtly narrowing her eyes.
“Well, things got worse and worse. Mama cried, and the tears froze on her face like little BB bullets, and she was always cold. . . .” Nothing had warmed her, not the fine wool blankets, not the mugs of hot toddy Ellen fixed. “Each night hungry wolves howled in the mountains, and I prayed. . . .” In the darkness of the garage he’d prayed, and in the lavatory at school, and in the first row of the Nemo Theatre while duelling gangsters went unnoticed on the magic screen. “The snow kept falling, and heavy drifts blocked the entrance to the cave, but uh . . .” Stuck. It was the end of a Saturday serial that leaves the hero locked in a slowly filling gas chamber.
“And?”
“And a man in a red coat, a Canadian mountie, rescued us . . . only me, really: Mama had already frozen to death.”
Missouri denounced him with considerable disgust. “You is a gret big story.”
“Honest, cross my heart,” and he x-ed his chest.
“Uh uh. You Mama die in the sick bed. Mister Randolph say so.”
Somehow, spinning the tale, Joel had believed every word; the cave, the howling wolves, these had seemed more real than Missouri and her long neck, or Miss Amy, or the shadowy kitchen. “You won’t tattle, will you, Missouri? About what a liar I am.”
She patted his arm gently. “Course not, honey. Come to think, I wish I had me a two-bit piece for every story I done told. Sides, you tell good lies, the kind I likes to hear. We gonna get along just elegant: me, I ain’t but eight years older’n you, and you been to the school.” Her voice, which was like melted chocolate, was warm and tender. “Les us be friends.”
“O.K.,” said Joel, toasting her with his coffee cup, “friends.”
“And somethin else is, you call me Zoo. Zoo’s my rightful name, and I always been called by that till Papadaddy let on it stood for Missouri, which is the state where is located the city of St. Louis.
Them,
Miss Amy ’n Mister Randolph, they so proper: Missouri this ’n Missouri t’other, day in, day out. Huh! You call me Zoo.”
Joel saw an opening. “Does my father call you Zoo?”
She dipped down into the blouse of her gingham dress, and withdrew a silver
Similar Books
