I could have painted the whole building myself in three days. But I wasn’t a county commissioner, and I didn’t have a painting contractor for a brother-in-law.

Some colored folks had a cook-shack down near the railway station, and I stopped there and ate a plate of corn bread and fried catfish. I was too upset to eat a real meal; too worried about my worries. So I just ate the one plateful, and then I bought another order with a cup of chicory to take on the train with me.

The train came and I got on. I got a seat next to the window, and began to eat. Trying to tell myself that I’d really got Myra told off this morning and that she’d be a lot easier to get along with from now on.

But I knew I was kidding myself.

We’d had showdowns like the one this morning a lot of times. She’d threaten what she was going to do to me, and I’d point out that she had plenty to lose herself. And then things would be a little better for a while—but not really better. Nothing that really mattered was any better.

It wasn’t, you see, because it wasn’t a fair stand-off between me and her.

She had the edge, and when things came to a showdown, she knew I’d back away.

Sure, she couldn’t lose me my job without being a loser herself. She’d have to leave town, her and her low-down half-wit of a brother, and it’d probably be a danged long time before she had it as nice as she had it with me. Probably she’d never have it as nice.

But she ‘could’ get by.

She’d have ‘something’.

But me . . .

All I’d ever done was sheriffin’. It was all I could do. Which was just another way of saying that all I could do was nothing. And if I wasn’t sheriff, I wouldn’t have nothing or be nothing.

It was a kind of hard fact to face—that I was just a nothing doing nothing. And that brought up something else for me to worry about. The worry that maybe I could lose my job without Myra saying or doing anything.

Because I’d begun to suspect lately that people weren’t quite satisfied with me. That they expected me to do a little something instead of just grinning and joking and looking the other way. And me, I just didn’t quite know what to do about it.

The train took a curve and began to follow the river a ways. By craning my neck, I could see the unpainted sheds of the town whorehouse and the two men— pimps—sprawled on the little wharf in front of the place. Those pimps had caused me a sight of trouble, a powerful sight of trouble. Only last week, they’d accidentally-on-purpose bumped me into the river, and a few days before they’d accidentally-on-purpose tripped me up in the mud. And the worst thing of all was the way they talked to me, calling me names and poking mean fun at me, and not showing me no respect at all like you’d naturally expect pimps to show a sheriff, even if he was shaking ‘em down for a little money.