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I’m going where the water drinks like cherry wine Lord Lord
I’m going where the water drinks like cherry wine Because this Louisiana water tastes like turpentine.
Seth rolled another keg to the edge of the truck bed. Someone grabbed it by the top and pulled it over into the street. A stave broke loose and the wine poured into the gutter. A fight broke out between the man who had tipped over the cask and another man who had been waiting to fill his cup.
Lathrop got up on the truck and motioned for the band to stop playing.
“Here it comes,” April whispered. “God, I hope he makes it quick. I’m getting sick.”
“Now that I met most of you folks I’d like to tell you what I got planned when I get in office,” he began. His tan suit was spotted with wine stains. “You see that dirt road we came up on? When I’m elected we’re not going to have roads like that. No sir, we’re going to have the best streets and highways anywhere. You’re not going to have to sit on your front porch and eat all that dust everytime a car comes down your street. We’re going to get electric lights in the houses and plumbing and running water, and there’s going to be good schools you can send your children to.”
“Lawd-God,” Seth whispered.
“They ought to bring a fire hose out here and wash them down,” April said. “None of them must have bathed since the Civil War.”
“Don’t you like nigger politics?” Seth said.
“And we’re going to have unemployment insurance and social security and charity hospitals for the poor,” Lathrop said. “We’re going to run that bunch of politicians out of the capitol and put the common man back in his rightful place. We’re going to get rid of the fat boys that are draining the state dry and giving nothing to the people; we’re going to raise the wages and the living standard, and the only way to do it is to get this big city trash out of office and let a man of the people serve and represent the people.”
“This is the last time I’m going around kissing niggers for Lathrop,” April said.
“You thinking about quitting?” Seth said. “Doc Elgin ought to give you a job. They say there’s good money in pushing happy powder in the grade schools.”
April turned to him and formed two words with her lips.
“And there’s a lot more benefits coming to the state,” Lathrop said. “For years you been paying taxes to the rich, and the only thing you got for it is hard work and poverty. I’ve seen colored people working in the fields twelve hours a day and not getting enough money to buy bread and greens with; I’ve seen them sweating on highway gangs and railroad and construction jobs and getting nothing but sunstroke for their pay. Well, that’s going to change. Every man in this state is going to have an even chance, and there’s not going to be any rich men walking over the poor—”
His speech went on for another half hour. A police car came down the blacktop and cruised slowly by the crowd. An officer in the front seat waved to Lathrop. Lathrop nodded in return, and the car disappeared down the road. The last cask of wine was emptied, the band put away their instruments, and Lathrop said good night to the crowd. He went among the Negroes and shook a few hands before he got in his sedan and drove back to the other side of town, where he was to make a late speech at a segregationist rally held in a vacant lot under a big tent. The truck followed the sedan past the board shacks and across the railroad crossing.
At the hotel J.P. stopped off in the bar and had a whiskey and water. He had another. He got some change from the bartender and went to use the telephone in the booth. He phoned Doc Elgin at his home.
“You didn’t come around today,” J.P. said.
“I’ve been busy. I asked you not to phone me except at my office,” Elgin said.
“I need some candy.”
“Everybody needs candy.”
“I’m almost out. I’ll need some by tomorrow.”
“I have a lot of people to see,” Elgin said.
“Listen, I need it in the morning.”
“Where will you be?”
“At the hotel.”
“You owe me for the last two deliveries.”
“I’ll make it good tomorrow.”
“I advise you to,” Elgin said, and hung up.
J.P. had a glass of beer and a ham sandwich at the bar and went up to April’s room. Through the door he could hear the shower water running. He went in without knocking and sat in a chair by the window and waited for her. He lifted the shade and looked down into the street. The lamp on the corner burned in the dark. A Negro fruit vender pushed a wood cart along the worn brick paving in the street. The night was quiet except for the creak of the wooden wheels over the brick and the slow shuffle of the Negro.
April came out of the bath in her robe. She was drying the back of her neck with a towel. Her hair was damp from the shower. She looked at him without speaking and took a cigarette from a nickel-plated case on the table and lighted it.
