3

Alabama 3

He drifted about in his memories without prodding. He skipped the
years, bounced along happily, glad to be heard; for he is usually a solitary
figure on the streets there in Red Bay. Rarely do people talk to him and
take interest in his affairs. How he talked ....

"I didn't marry until I was up in the thirties. I never did settle
down to then, and I didn't drink as much after I got married, but when I
was sawmilling all over Mississippi and Alabama, I was something! I spent
money! I spent every dollar I made, and I made $150 a day sometimes. We'd
go to Birmingham every Saturday. We'd go out to Red Light. That town!
Was there women? —-the damdest town ever I was in! It was tough! It
was over there past that old L. and N. Depot that we was." "No, there
wasn't no 26th Street then. The tough place was Red Light, we called it."

He took off his hat, and the hair was thin and gray, but the scalp
was tough and tanned. He pulled his cheap, boy-like, straw hat down on his
head again. "I was up from South Mississippi—I was working dovm there
in a mill that had 600 men, nearly all niggers, coiinting the ones in the
woods. We was cutting pines. I was up in Birmingham, and I got to talking
to J. E. Williams from Vina. He's the Goddamdest liar that ever lived!
There never was a liar like him. He got to telling me about the timber up
here; he told me how many thousand and thousand of feet of timber there
was here. I listened, since I was nearly through in South Mississippi;
timber was pretty near all cut down there.

"Well, he told me so much about that timber, and I was looking for a good
timber country to settle down in, that I brought my family and hauled
everything to Vina. There was Alvin, Earl, and Roy in the family then.
J. W. was born there in Vina ...

"J. E. Williams is the damndest liar ever I saw ..." He growled in
his throat like a little pup, his old eyes looked from the glasses, the
black, celluloid rimmed glasses. "I moved."

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