and some fella would give a spiel about how he was the missing link and then throw a chicken down and the
geek’d bite the head off it. Once my oldest brotherBradford, who died in a car accident in Biloxi about twenty
years ago – went to see that man. My father said he’d be sorry, but he didn’t forbid Brad, because Brad was
nineteen then, a man. He went, and all the time he was gone me and Kissy meant to ask him what it was like.
but when we saw the expression on his face we never. We knew better, you know?”
Delores nodded.
“And I knew that Mr Jefferies was standing there, had been standing there all the while, and when I turned
around he’d look just like Brad after Brad seen the geek bite the head off that chicken.
“I turned around, still holding that sheet in my hands, but he wasn’t there. It had just been my guilty heart
seeing him in the eye of my mind. I walked to the door and looked out and seen he was still in the parlor,
writing on his yellow pad faster than ever. So I went ahead and changed the bed and freshened the room just
like always, but it was like somebody else was doing it. That feeling
that I was behind a glass wall was back, stronger than ever.
“I took care of the used towels and linens using the bedroom door like you’re supposed to – first thing I ever
learned back in 1957 when I came to work here is you don’t ever, ever take the linen out to the hall through the
sitting room of a suite – and then I came back in to where he was. I meant to tell him I’d do the parlor later,
when he wasn’t working. But when I saw him – saw the way he was acting – I was so surprised that I stopped
right there in the doorway, looking at him.
“He was walking around the room so fast that his yellow silk pajamas were whipping around his legs. He had
his hands in his hair and he was twirling it every which way. He looked like one of those brainy
mathematicians in the old Saturday Evening Post cartoons. His eyes were all wild, like he’d had a bad shock.
First thing I thought was that he’d seen what I did after all and it had … you know … made him feel. . . ”
“Made him feel so sick it almost drove him crazy?”
Martha nodded.
“Turned out it didn’t have anything to do with me. At least he didn’t think so. That was the only time he
talked to me, other than to ask me if I’d get some more stationery or another pillow or change the setting on
the air conditioner. He talked to me because he had to.
Something had happened to him – something very bigand he had to talk to somebody or go crazy, I guess.
My head is splitting,’ he said.
I’m sorry to hear that, Mr Jefferies,’ I said. ‘I can get you some aspirin if-‘
“‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s not it. It’s this idea. It’s like I went fishing for trout and hooked a marlin instead. I write books for a living. Made-up stories.’
” ‘Yes sir, Mr Jefferies,’ I said, ‘I have read two of them and thought they were fine.’
“‘Did you,’ he said, looking at me as if maybe I’d gone crazy. ‘Well, that’s very kind of you to say, anyway. I
woke up this morning and I had an idea.’
“Yes sir, I was thinking to myself, you had an idea, all right, and whatever it was came out all over the sheet.
Only it ain’t there no more, so you don’t have to worry. And I almost laughed out loud. Only, Delores, I don’t
think he would have noticed if I had.
“‘I ordered up some breakfast,’ he said, and pointed at the room service trolley by the door, ‘and as I ate it I
thought about this little idea. I thought it might make a short story. There’s this magazine, you know . . . The