They murmured again, laughing.
“I’ll give you two dollars,” Jason said. “Either of you.”
“I cant git away neither,” the first said.
“All right,” Jason said. “Go on.”
He sat there for sometime. He heard a clock strike the half hour, then people began to pass, in Sunday and Easter clothes. Some looked at him as they passed, at the man sitting quietly behind the wheel of a small car, with his invisible life ravelled out about him like a wornout sock. After a while a negro in overalls came up.
“Is you de one wants to go to Jefferson?” he said.
“Yes,” Jason said. “What’ll you charge me?”
“Fo dollars.”
“Give you two.”
“Cant go fer no less’n fo.” The man in the car sat quietly. He wasn’t even looking at him. The negro said, “You want me er not?”
“All right,” Jason said, “Get in.”
He moved over and the negro took the wheel. Jason closed his eyes. I can get something for it at Jefferson, he told himself, easing himself to the jolting, I can get something there. They drove on, along the streets where people were turning peacefully into houses and Sunday dinners, and on out of town. He thought that. He wasn’t thinking of home, where Ben and Luster were eating cold dinner at the kitchen table. Something—the absence of disaster, threat, in any constant evil—permitted him to forget Jefferson as any place which he had ever seen before, where his life must resume itself.