Part One
IN THE town there were two mutes, and they were always
together. Early every morning they would come out from
the house where they lived and walk arm in arm down the
street to work. The two friends were very different. The
one who always steered the way was an obese and
dreamy Greek. In the summer he would come out
wearing a yellow or green polo shirt stuffed sloppily into
his trousers in front and hanging loose behind. When it
was colder he wore over this a shapeless gray sweater.
His face was round and oily, with half-closed eyelids and
lips that curved in a gentle, stupid smile. The other mute
was tall. His eyes had a quick, intelligent expression. He
was always immaculate and very soberly dressed.
Every morning the two friends walked silently together until
they reached the main street of the town. Then when they
came to a certain fruit and candy store they paused for a
moment on the sidewalk outside. The Greek, Spiros
Antonapoulos, worked for his cousin, who owned this fruit
store. His job was to make candies and sweets, uncrate the
fruits, and to keep the place clean. The thin mute, John Singer,
nearly always put his hand on his friend's arm and looked for a
second into his face before leaving him. Then after this goodbye Singer crossed the street and walked on alone to the
jewelry store where he worked as a silverware engraver.
In the late afternoon the friends would meet again. Singer
came back to the fruit store and waited until Antonapoulos
was ready to go home. The Greek would be lazily unpacking a
case of peaches or melons, or perhaps
2
looking at the funny paper in the kitchen behind the store
where he cooked. Before their departure Antonapoulos always
opened a paper sack he kept hidden during the day on one of
the kitchen shelves. Inside were stored various bits of food he
had collected—a piece of fruit, samples of candy, or the butt-
end of a liverwurst. Usually before leaving Antonapoulos
waddled gently to the glassed case in the front of the store
where some meats and cheeses were kept. He glided open the
back of the case and his fat hand groped lovingly for some
particular dainty inside which he had wanted. Sometimes his
cousin who owned the place did not see him. But if he noticed
he stared at his cousin with a warning in his tight, pale face.
Sadly Antonapoulos would shuffle the morsel from one corner
of the case to the other. During these times Singer stood very
straight with his hands in his pockets and looked in another
direction. He did not like to watch this little scene between the
two Greeks. For, excepting drinking and a certain solitary
secret pleasure, Antonapoulos loved to eat more than anything
else in the world.
In the dusk the two mutes walked slowly home together. At
home Singer was always talking to Antonapoulos. His hands
shaped the words in a swift series of designs. His face was
eager and his gray-green eyes sparkled brightly. With his thin,
strong hands he told Antonapoulos all that had happened
during the day.
Antonapoulos sat back lazily and looked at Singer. It was
seldom that he ever moved his hands to speak at all— and
then it was to say that he wanted to eat or to sleep or to drink.
These three things he always said with the same vague,
fumbling signs. At night, if he were not too drunk, he would
kneel down before his bed and pray awhile. Then his plump
hands shaped the words 'Holy Jesus,' or 'God,' or 'Darling
Mary.' These were the only words Antonapoulos ever said.
Singer never knew just how much his friend understood of all
the things he told him. But it did not matter.
They shared the upstairs of a small house near the business
section of the town. There were two rooms. On the oil stove in
the kitchen Antonapoulos cooked all of their meals. There
were straight, plain kitchen chairs for Singer and an
overstuffed sofa for Antonapoulos. The bedroom
3
was furnished mainly with a large double bed covered with an
eiderdown comforter for the big Greek and a narrow iron cot
for Singer.
Dinner always took a long time, because Antonapoulos loved
food and he was very slow. After they had eaten, the big
Greek would lie back on his sofa and slowly lick over each
one of his teeth with his tongue, either from a certain delicacy
or because he did not wish to lose the savor of the meal—
while Singer washed the dishes.
Sometimes in the evening the mutes would play chess. Singer
had always greatly enjoyed this game, and years before he had
tried to teach it to Antonapoulos. At first his friend could not
be interested in the reasons for moving the various pieces
about on the board. Then Singer began to keep a bottle of
something good under the table to be taken out after each
lesson. The Greek never got on to the erratic movements of
the knights and the sweeping mobility of the queens, but he
learned to make a few set, opening moves. He preferred the
white pieces and would not play if the black men were given
him. After the first moves Singer worked out the game by
himself while his friend looked on drowsily. If Singer made
brilliant attacks on his own men so that in the end the black
king was killed, Antonapoulos was always very proud and
pleased.
The two mutes had no other friends, and except when they
worked they were alone together. Each day was very much
like any other day, because they were alone so much that
nothing ever disturbed them. Once a week they would go to
the library for Singer to withdraw a mystery book and on
Friday night they attended a movie. Then on payday they
always went to the ten-cent photograph shop above the Army
and Navy Store so that Antonapoulos could have his picture
taken. These were the only places where they made customary
visits. There were many parts in the town that they had never
even seen.
The town was in the middle of the deep South. The summers
were long and the months of winter cold were very few.
Nearly always the sky was a glassy, brilliant azure and the sun
burned down riotously bright. Then the light, chill rains of
November would come, and perhaps later there would be frost
and some short months of cold. The winters were changeable,
but the summers always4
were burning hot. The town was a fairly large one. On the
main street there were several blocks of two- and three-story
shops and business offices. But the largest buildings in the
town were the factories, which employed a large percentage of
the population. These cotton mills were big and flourishing
and most of the workers in the town were very poor. Often in
the faces along the streets there was the desperate look of
hunger and of loneliness.
But the two mutes were not lonely at all. At home they were
content to eat and drink, and Singer would talk with bis hands
eagerly to his friend about all that was in his mind. So the
years passed in this quiet way until Singer reached the age of
thirty-two and had been in the town with Antonapoulos for ten
years.
Then one day the Greek became ill. He sat up in bed with his
hands on his fat stomach and big, oily tears rolled down his
cheeks. Singer went to see his friend's cousin who owned the
fruit store, and also he arranged for leave from his own work.
The doctor made out a diet for Antonapoulos and said that he
could drink no more wine. Singer rigidly enforced the doctor's
orders. All day he sat by his friend's bed and did what he
could to make the time pass quickly, but Antonapoulos only
looked at him angrily from the corners of his eyes and would
not be amused.
The Greek was very fretful, and kept finding fault with the
fruit drinks and food that Singer prepared for him. Constantly
he made his friend help him out of bed so that he could pray.
His huge buttocks would sag down over his plump little feet
when he kneeled. He fumbled with his hands to say 'Darling
Mary' and then held to the small brass cross tied to his neck
with a dirty string. His big eyes would wall up to the ceiling
with a look of fear in them, and afterward he was very sulky
and would not let his friend speak to him.
Singer was patient and did all that he could. He drew little
pictures, and once he made a sketch of his friend to amuse
him. This picture hurt the big Greek's feelings, and he refused
to be reconciled until Singer had made his face very young
and handsome and colored his hair bright yellow and his eyes
china blue. And then he tried not to show his pleasure.
Singer nursed his friend so carefully that after a week
5
Antonapoulos was able to return to his work. But from that
time on there was a difference in their way of life. Trouble
came to the two friends.
Antonapoulos was not ill any more, but a change had come in
him. He was irritable and no longer content to spend the
evenings quietly in their home. When he would wish to go out
Singer followed along close behind him. Antonapoulos would
go into a restaurant, and while they sat at the table he slyly put
lumps of sugar, or a pepper-shaker, or pieces of silverware in
bis pocket. Singer always paid for what he took and there was
no disturbance. At home he scolded Antonapoulos, but the big
Greek only looked at him with a bland smile.
The months went on and these habits of Antonapoulos grew
worse. One day at noon he walked calmly out of the fruit store
of his cousin and urinated in public against the wall of the
First National Bank Building across the street. At times he
would meet people on the sidewalk whose faces did not please
him, and he would bump into these persons and push at them
with his elbows and stomach. He walked into a store one day
and hauled out a floor lamp without paying for it, and another
time he tried to take an electric train he had seen in a
showcase.
For Singer this was a time of great distress. He was
continually marching Antonapoulos down to the courthouse
during lunch hour to settle these infringements of the law.
Singer became very familiar with the procedure of the courts
and he was in a constant state of agitation. The money he had
saved in the bank was spent for bail and fines. All of his
efforts and money were used to keep his friend out of jail
because of such charges as theft, committing public
indecencies, and assault and battery.
The Greek cousin for whom Antonapoulos worked did not
enter into these troubles at all. Charles Parker (for that was the
name this cousin had taken) let Antonapoulos stay on at the
store, but he watched him always with his pale, tight face and
he made no effort to help him. Singer had a strange feeling
about Charles Parker. He began to dislike him.
Singer lived in continual turmoil and worry. But
Antonapoulos was always bland, and no matter what
happened the gentle, flaccid smile was still on his face. In all6
the years before it had seemed to Singer that there was
something very subtle and wise in this smile of his friend. He
had never known just how much Antonapoulos understood
and what he was thinking. Now in the big Greek's expression
Singer thought that he could detect something sly and joking.
He would shake his friend by the shoulders until he was very
tired and explain things over and over with his hands. But
nothing did any good.
All of Singer's money was gone and he had to borrow from the
jeweler for whom he worked. On one occasion he was unable
to pay bail for bis friend and Antonapoulos spent the night in
jail. When Singer came to get him out the next day he was
very sulky. He did not want to leave. He had enjoyed his
dinner of sowbelly and cornbread with syrup poured over it.
And the new sleeping arrangements and his cellmates pleased
him.
They had lived so much alone that Singer had no one to help
him in his distress. Antonapoulos let nothing disturb him or
cure him of his habits. At home he sometimes cooked the new
dish he had eaten in the jail, and on the streets there was never
any knowing just what he would do.
And then the final trouble came to Singer.
One afternoon he had come to meet Antonapoulos at the fruit
store when Charles Parker handed him a letter. The letter
explained that Charles Parker had made arrangements for his
cousin to be taken to the state insane asylum two hundred
miles away. Charles Parker had used his influence in the town
and the details were already settled. Antonapoulos was to
leave and to be admitted into the asylum the next, week.
Singer read the letter several times, and for a while he could
not think. Charles Parker was talking to him across the
counter, but he did not even try to read his lips and
understand. At last Singer wrote on the little pad he always
carried in his pocket:
You cannot do this. Antonapoulos must stay with me.
Charles Parker shook his head excitedly. He did not know
much American. 'None of your business,' he kept saying over
and over.
7
Singer knew that everything was finished. The Greek was
afraid that some day he might be responsible for his cousin.
Charles Parker did not know much about the American
language—but he understood the American dollar very well,
and he had used his money and influence to admit his cousin
to the asylum without delay.
There was nothing Singer could do.
The next week was full of feverish activity. He talked and
talked. And although his hands never paused to rest he could
not tell all that he had to say. He wanted to talk to
Antonapoulos of all the thoughts that had ever been in his
mind and heart, but there was not time. His gray eyes glittered
and his quick, intelligent face expressed great strain.
Antonapoulos watched him drowsily, and his friend did not
know just what he really understood.
Then came the day when Antonapoulos must leave. Singer
brought out Ms own suitcase and very carefully packed the
best of their joint possessions. Antonapoulos made himself a
lunch to eat during the journey. In the late afternoon they
walked arm in arm down the street for the last time together. It
was a chilly afternoon in late November, and little huffs of
breath showed in the air before them.
Charles Parker was to travel with his cousin, but he stood
apart from them at the station. Antonapoulos crowded into the
bus and settled himself with elaborate preparations on one of
the front seats. Singer watched him from the window and his
hands began desperately to talk for the last time with his
friend. But Antonapoulos was so busy checking over the
various items in his lunch box that for a while he paid no
attention. Just before the bus pulled away from the curb he
turned to Singer and his smile was very bland and remote—as
though already they were many miles apart.
The weeks that followed didn't seem real at all. All day Singer
worked over his bench in the back of the jewelry store, and
then at night he returned to the house alone. More than
anything he wanted to sleep. As soon as he came home from
work he would lie on his cot and try to doze awhile. Dreams
came to him when he lay there half-asleep. And in all of them
Antonapoulos was there. His hands would jerk nervously, for
in his dreams he was talk-8
ing to his friend and Antonapoulos was watching him.
Singer tried to think of the time before he had ever known his
friend. He tried to recount to himself certain things that had
happened when he was young. But none of these things he
tried to remember seemed real.
There was one particular fact that he remembered, but it was
not at all important to him. Singer recalled that, although he
had been deaf since he was an infant, he had not always been
a real mute. He was left an orphan very young and placed in
an institution for the deaf. He had learned to talk with his
hands and to read. Before he was nine years old he could talk
with one hand in the American way—and also could employ
both of his hands after the method of Europeans. He had
learned to follow the movements of people's lips and to
understand what they said. Then finally he had been taught to
speak.
At the school he was thought very intelligent. He learned the
lessons before the rest of the pupils. But he could never
become used to speaking with his lips. It was not natural to
him, and his tongue felt like a whale in his mouth. From the
blank expression on people's faces to whom he talked in this
way he felt that his voice must be like the sound of some
animal or that there was something disgusting in his speech. It
was painful for him to try to talk with his mouth, but his hands
were always ready to shape the words he wished to say. When
he was twenty-two he had come South to this town from
Chicago and he met Antonapoulos immediately. Since that
time he had never spoken with his mouth again, because with
his friend there was no need for this.
Nothing seemed real except the ten years with Antonapoulos.
In his half-dreams he saw his friend very vividly, and when he
awakened a great aching loneliness would be in him.
Occasionally he would pack up a box for Antonapoulos, but
he never received any reply. And so the months passed hi this
empty, dreaming way.
In the spring a change came over Singer. He could not sleep
and his body was very restless. At evening he would walk
monotonously around the room, unable to work off a new
feeling of energy. If he rested at all it was only during a few
hours before dawn—then he would drop bluntly into
9
a sleep that lasted until the morning light struck suddenly
beneath his opening eyelids like a scimitar.
He began spending his evenings walking around the town. He
could no longer stand the rooms where Antonapoulos had
lived, and he rented a place in a shambling boarding-house not
far from the center of the town.
He ate his meals at a restaurant only two blocks away. This
restaurant was at the very end of the long main street and the
name of the place was the New York Cafe. The first day he
glanced over the menu quickly and wrote a short note and
handed it to the proprietor.
Each morning for breakfast I want an egg, toast, and coffee
$0.15
For lunch I want soup (any kind), a meat sandwich, and milk
— $0.25
Please bring me ut dinner three vegetables (any kind but
cabbage), fish or meat, and a glass of beer—
$0.35
Thank you.
The proprietor read the note and gave him an alert, tactful
glance. He was a hard man of middle height, with a beard so
dark and heavy that the lower part of his face looked as
though it were molded of iron. He usually stood in the corner
by the cash register, his arms folded over his chest, quietly
observing all that went on around him. Singer came to know
this man's face very well, for he ate at one of his tables three
times a day.
Each evening the mute walked alone for hours in the street.
Sometimes the nights were cold with the sharp, wet winds of
March and it would be raining heavily. But to him this did not
matter. His gait was agitated and he always kept his hands
stuffed tight into the pockets of his trousers. Then as the
weeks passed the days grew warm and languorous. His
agitation gave way gradually to exhaustion and there was a
look about him of deep calm. In his face there came to be a
brooding peace that is seen most often in the faces of the very
sorrowful or the very wise. But still he wandered through the
streets of the town, always silent and alone.10
\_f N A black, sultry night in early summer Biff Brannon
stood behind the cash register of the New York Cafe. It was
twelve o'clock. Outside the street lights had already been
turned off, so that the light from the cafe made a sharp, yellow
rectangle on the sidewalk. The street was deserted, but inside
the cafe there were half a dozen customers drinking beer or
Santa Lucia wine or whiskey. Biff waited stolidly, his elbow
resting on the counter and his thumb mashing the tip of his
long nose. His eyes were intent. He watched especially a
short, squat man in overalls who had become drunk and
boisterous. Now and then his gaze passed on to the mute who
sat by himself at one of the middle tables, or to others of the
customers before the counter. But he always turned back to
the drunk in overalls. The hour grew later and Biff continued
to wait silently behind the counter. Then at last he gave the
restaurant a final survey and went toward the door at the back
which led upstairs.
Quietly he entered the room at the top of the stairs. It was dark
inside and he walked with caution. After he had gone a few
paces his toe struck something hard and he reached down and
felt for the handle of a suitcase on the floor. He had only been
in the room a few seconds and was about to leave when the
light was turned on.
Alice sat up in the rumpled bed and looked at him. 'What you
doing with that suitcase?' she asked. 'Can't you get rid of that
lunatic without giving him back what he's already drunk up?'
'Wake up and go down yourself. Call the cop and let him get
soused on the chain gang with cornbread and peas. Go to it,
Misses Brannon.'
'I will all right if he's down there tomorrow. But you leave that
bag alone. It don't belong to that sponger any more.'
'I know spongers, and Blount's not one,' Biff said. 'Myself—I
don't know so well. But I'm not that kind of a thief.'
Calmly Biff put down the suitcase on the steps outside.
11
The air was not so stale and sultry in the room as it was
downstairs. He decided to stay for a short while and douse his
face with cold water before going back.
'I told you already what I'll do if you don't get rid of that
fellow for good tonight. In the daytime he takes them naps at
the back, and then at night you feed him dinners and beer. For
a week now he hasn't paid one cent. And all his wild talking
and carrying-on will ruin any decent trade.'
'You don't know people and you don't know real business,'
Biff said. "The fellow in question first came in here twelve
days ago and he was a stranger in the town. The first week he
gave us twenty dollars' worth of trade. Twenty at the
minimum.'
'And since then on credit,' Alice said. Tive days on credit, and
so drunk it's a disgrace to the business. And besides, he's
nothing but a bum and a freak.'
'I like freaks,' Biff said.
'I reckon you dol I just reckon you certainly ought to, Mister
Brannon—being as you're one yourself.'
He rubbed his bluish chin and paid her no attention. For the
first fifteen years of their married life they had called each
other just plain Biff and Alice. Then in one of their quarrels
they had begun calling each other Mister and Misses, and
since then they had never made it up enough to change it.
Tm just warning you he'd better not be there when I come
down tomorrow.'
Biff went into the bathroom, and after he had bathed his face
he decided that he would have time for a shave. His beard was
black and heavy as though it had grown for three days. He
stood before the mirror and rubbed his cheek meditatively. He
was sorry he had talked to Alice. With her, silence was better.
Being around that woman always made him different from his
real self. It made him tough and small and common as she
was. Biff's eyes were cold and staring, half-concealed by the
cynical droop of his eyelids. On the fifth finger of his
calloused hand there was a woman's wedding ring. The door
was open behind him, and in the mirror he could see Alice
lying in the bed.
'Listen,' he said. "The trouble with you is that you don't have
any real kindness. Not but one woman Fve ever known had
this real kindness I'm talking about'12
'Well, I've known you to do things no man in this world would
be proud of. I've known you to------'
'Or maybe it's curiosity I mean. You don't ever see or notice
anything important that goes on. You never watch and think
and try to figure anything out. Maybe that's the biggest
difference between you and me, after all.'
Alice was almost asleep again, and through the mirror he
watched her with detachment. There was no distinctive point
about her on which he could fasten his attention, and his gaze
glided from her pale brown hair to the stumpy outline of her
feet beneath the cover. The soft curves of her face led to the
roundness of her hips and thighs. When he was away from her
there was no one feature that stood out in his mind and he
remembered her as a complete, unbroken figure.
"The enjoyment of a spectacle is something you have never
known,' he said.
Her voice was tired. "That fellow downstairs is a spectacle, all
right, and a circus too. But I'm through putting up with him.'
'Hell, the man don't mean anything to me. He's no relative or
buddy of mine. But you don't know what it is to store up a
whole lot of details and then come upon something real.' He
turned on the hot water and quickly began to shave.
It was the morning of May 15, yes, that Jake Blount had come
in. He had noticed him immediately and watched. The man
was short, with heavy shoulders like beams. He had a small,
ragged mustache, and beneath this his lower lip looked as
though it had been stung by a wasp. There were many things
about the fellow that seemed contrary. His head was very
large and well-shaped, but his neck was soft and slender as a
boy's. The mustache looked false, as if it had been stuck on for
a costume party and would fall off if he talked too fast. It
made him seem almost middle-aged, although his face with its
high, smooth forehead and wide-open eyes was young. His
hands were huge, stained, and calloused, and he was dressed
in a cheap white-linen suit. There was something very funny
about the man, yet at the same time another feeling would not
let you laugh.
He ordered a pint of liquor and drank it straight in half an
hour. Then he sat at one of the booths and ate a big
chicken dinner. Later he read a book and drank beer. That was
the beginning. And although Biff had noticed Blount very
carefully he would never have guessed about the crazy things
that happened later. Never had he seen a man change so many
times in twelve days. Never had he seen a fellow drink so
much, stay drunk so long.
Biff pushed up the end of his nose with his thumb and shaved
his upper lip. He was finished and his face seemed cooler.
Alice was asleep when he went through the bedroom on the
way downstairs.
The suitcase was heavy. He carried it to the front of the
restaurant, behind the cash register, where he usually stood
each evening. Methodically he glanced around the place. A
few customers had left and the room was not so crowded, but
the set-up was the same. The deaf-mute still drank coffee by
himself at one of the middle tables. The drunk had not stopped
talking. He was not addressing anyone around him in
particular, nor was anyone listening. When he had come into
the place that evening he wore those blue overalls instead of
the filthy linen suit he had been wearing the twelve days. His
socks were gone and his ankles were scratched and caked with
mud.
Alertly Biff picked up fragments of his monologue. The
fellow seemed to be talking some queer kind of politics again.
Last night he had been talking about places he had been—
about Texas and Oklahoma and the Carolinas. Once he had
got on the subject of cat-houses, and afterward his jokes got so
raw he had to be hushed up with beer. But most of the time
nobody was sure just what he was saying. Talk—talk—talk.
The words came out of his throat like a cataract. And the thing
was that the accent he used was always changing, the kinds of
words he used. Sometimes he talked like a linthead and
sometimes nice a professor. He would use words a foot long
and then slip up on his grammar. It was hard to tell what kind
of folks he had or what part of the country he was from. He
was always changing. Thoughtfully Biff fondled the tip of his
nose. There was no connection. Yet connection usually went
with brains. This man had a good mind, all right, but he went
from one thing to another without any reason behind it at all.
He was like a man thrown off his track by something.14
Biff leaned his weight on the counter and began to peruse the
evening newspaper. The headlines told of a decision by the
Board of Aldermen, after four months' deliberation, that the
local budget could not afford traffic lights at certain dangerous
intersections of the town. The left column reported on the war
in the Orient. Biff read them both with equal attention. As his
eyes followed the print the rest of his senses were on the alert
to the various commotions that went on around him. When he
had finished the articles he still stared down at the newspaper
with his eyes half-closed. He felt nervous. The fellow was a
problem, and before morning he would have to make some
sort of settlement with him. Also, he felt without knowing
why that something of importance would happen tonight. The
fellow could not keep on forever.
Biff sensed that someone was standing in the entrance and he
raised his eyes quickly. A gangling, towheaded youngster, a
girl of about twelve, stood looking in the doorway. She was
dressed in khaki shorts, a blue shirt, and tennis shoes—so that
at first glance she was like a very young boy. Biff pushed
aside the paper when he saw her, and smiled when she came
up to him.
'Hello, Mick. Been to the Girl Scouts?'
'No,' she said. 'I don't belong to them.'
From the corner of his eye he noticed that the drunk slammed
his fist down on a table and turned away from the men to
whom he had been talking. Biffs voice roughened as he spoke
to the youngster before him.
'Your folks know you're out after midnight?'
'It's O.K. There's a gang of kids playing out late on our block
tonight.'
He had never seen her come into the place with anyone her
own age. Several years ago she had always tagged behind her
older brother. The Kellys were a good-sized family in
numbers. Later she would come in pulling a couple of snotty
babies in a wagon. But if she wasn't nursing or trying to keep
up with the bigger ones, she was by herself. Now the kid stood
there seeming not to be able to make up her mind what she
wanted. She kept pushing back her damp, whitish hair with
the palm of her hand.
'I'd like a pack of cigarettes, please. The cheapest kind'.
Biff started to speak, hesitated, and then reached his
IS
hand inside the counter. Mick brought out a handkerchief and
began untying the knot in the corner where she kept her
money. As she gave the knot a jerk the change clattered to the
floor and rolled toward Blount, who stood muttering to
himself. For a moment he stared in a daze at the coins, but
before the kid could go after them he squatted down with
concentration and picked up the money. He walked heavily to
the counter and stood jiggling the two pennies, the nickel, and
the dime in his palm.
'Seventeen cents for cigarettes now?'
Biff waited, and Mick looked from one of them to the other.
The drunk stacked the money into a little pile on the counter,
still protecting it with his big, dirty hand. Slowly he picked up
one penny and flipped it down.
'Five mills for the crackers who grew the weed and five for the
dupes who rolled it,' he said. 'A cent for you, Biff.' Then he
tried to focus his eyes so that he could read the mottoes on the
nickel and dime. He kept fingering the two coins and moving
them around in a circle. At last he pushed them away. 'And
that's a humble homage to liberty. To democracy and tyranny.
To freedom and piracy.'
Calmly Biff picked up the money and rang it into the till.
Mick looked as though she wanted to hang around awhile. She
took in the drunk with one long gaze, and then she turned her
eyes to the middle of the room where the mute sat at his table
alone. After a moment Blount also glanced now and then in
the same direction. The mute sat silently over his glass of
beer, idly drawing on the table with the end of a burnt
matchstick.
Jake Blount was the first to speak. 'It's funny, but I been seeing
that fellow in my sleep for the past three or four nights. He
won't leave me alone. If you ever noticed, he never seems to
say anything.'
It was seldom that Biff ever discussed one customer with
another. 'No, he don't,' he answered noncommittally.
'It's funny.'
Mick shifted her weight from one foot to the other and fitted
the package of cigarettes into the pocket of her shorts. 'It's not
funny if you know anything ahout him,' she said. 'Mister
Singer lives with us. He rooms in our house.'
'Is that so?' Biff asked. 'I declare—I didn't know that'16
Mick walked toward the door and answered him without
looking around. "Sure. He's been with us three months now.'
Biff unrolled his shirt-sleeves and then folded them up
carefully again. He did not take his eyes from Mick as she left
the restaurant. And even after she had been gone several
minutes he still fumbled with his shirt-sleeves and stared at
the empty doorway. Then he locked his arms across his chest
and turned back to the drunk again.
Blount leaned heavily on the counter. His brown eyes were
wet-looking and wide open with a dazed expression. He
needed a bath so badly that he stank like a goat. There were
dirt beads on his sweaty neck and an oil stain on his face. His
lips were thick and red and his brown hair was matted on his
forehead. His overalls were too short in the body and he kept
pulling at the crotch of them.
'Man, you ought to know better,' Biff said finally. 'You can't
go around like this. Why, I'm surprised you haven't been
picked up for vagrancy. You ought to sober up. You need
washing and your hair needs cutting. Motherogod! You're not
fit to walk around amongst people.'
Blount scowled and bit his lower lip.
'Now, don't take offense and get your dander up. Do what I tell
you. Go back in the kitchen and tell the colored boy to give
you a big pan of hot water. Tell Willie to give you a towel and
plenty of soap and wash yourself good. Then eat you some
milk toast and open up your suitcase and put you on a clean
shirt and a pair of britches that fit you. Then tomorrow you
can start doing whatever you're going to do and working
wherever you mean to work and get straightened out.'
'You know what you can do,' Blount said drunkenly. *You can
just------'
'All right,' Biff said very quietly. 'No, I can't Now you just
behave yourself.'
Biff went to the end of the counter and returned with two
glasses of draught beer. The drunk picked up his glass so
clumsily that beer slopped down on his hands and messed the
counter. Biff sipped his portion with careful relish. He
regarded Blount steadily with half-closed eyes. Blount was not
a freak, although when you first saw him he gave you that
impression. It was like something was
deformed about him—but when you looked at him closely
each part of him was normal and as it ought to be. Therefore if
this difference was not in the body it was probably in the
mind. He was like a man who had served a term in prison or
had been to Harvard College or had lived for a long time with
foreigners in South America. He was like a person who had
been somewhere that other people are not likely to go or had
done something that others are not apt to do.
Biff cocked his head to one side and said, 'Where are you
from?'
"Nowhere.'
*Now, you have to be born somewhere. North Carolina —
Tennessee—Alabama—some place.'
Blount's eyes were dreamy and unfocused. 'Carolina,' he said.
'I can tell you've been around,' Biff hinted delicately.
But the drunk was not listening. He had turned from the
counter and was staring out at the dark, empty street. After a
moment he walked to the door with loose, uncertain steps.
'Adios,' he called back.
Biff was alone again and he gave the restaurant one of his
quick, thorough surveys. It was past one in the morning, and
there were only four or five customers in the room. The mute
still sat by himself at the middle table. Biff stared at him idly
and shook the few remaining drops of beer around in the
bottom of his glass. Then he finished his drink in one slow
swallow and went back to the newspaper spread out on the
counter.
This time he could not keep his mind on the words before him.
He remembered Mick. He wondered if he should have sold
her the pack of cigarettes and if it were really harmful for kids
to smoke. He thought of the way Mick narrowed her eyes and
pushed back the bangs of her hair with the palm of her hand.
He thought of her hoarse, boyish voice and of her habit of
hitching up her khaki shorts and swaggering like a cowboy in
the picture show. A feeling of tenderness came in him. He was
uneasy.
Restlessly Biff turned his attention to Singer. The mute sat
with his hands in his pockets and the half-finished glass of
beer before him had become warm and stagnant. He18
would offer to treat Singer to a slug of whiskey before he left.
What he had said to Alice was true—he did like freaks. He
had a special friendly feeling for sick people and cripples.
Whenever somebody with a harelip or T.B. came into the
place he would set him up to beer. Or if the customer were a
hunchback or a bad cripple, then it would be whiskey on the
house. There was one fellow who had had his peter and his
left leg blown off in a boiler explosion, and whenever he came
to town there was a free pint waiting for him. And if Singer
were a drinking kind of man he could get liquor at half price
any time he wanted it. Biff nodded to himself. Then neatly he
folded his newspaper and put it under the counter along with
several others. At the end of the week he would take them all
back to the storeroom behind the kitchen, where he kept a
complete file of the evening newspapers that dated back
without a break for twenty-one years.
At two o'clock Blount entered the restaurant again. He
, brought in with him a tall Negro man carrying a black bag.
\The drunk tried to bring him up to the counter for a
drink, but the Negro left as soon as he realized why he had
been led inside. Biff recognized him as a Negro doctor who
had practiced in the town ever since he could remember.
He was related in some way to young Willie back in the
kitchen. Before he left Biff saw him turn on Blount with
a look of quivering hatred.
The drunk just stood there.
.Don't you know you can't bring no nigger in a place where
white men drink?' someone asked him.
Biff watched this happening from a distance. Blount was very
angry, and now it could easily be seen how drunk he was.
'I'm part nigger myself,' he called out as a challenge.
Biff watched him alertly and the place was quiet. With his
thick nostrils and the rolling whites of his eyes it looked
a
little as though he might be telling the truth.
'I'm part nigger and wop and bohunk and chink. All of those.
'
There was laughter.
'And I'm Dutch and Turkish and Japanese and American.' He
walked in zigzags around the table where the mute drank his
coffee. His voice was loud and cracked.
Tm one who knows. I'm a stranger in a strange land.'
.Quiet down,' Biff said to him.
Blount paid no attention to anyone in the place except the
mute. They were both looking at each other. The mute's eyes
were cold and gentle as a cat's and all his body seemed to
listen. The drunk man was in a frenzy.
.You're the only one in this town who catches what I mean,'
Blount said. 'For two days now 1 been talking to you in my
mind because I know you understand the things I want to
mean.'
Some people in a booth were laughing because without
knowing it the drunk had picked out a deaf-mute to try to talk
with. Biff watched the two men with little darting glances and
listened attentively.
Blount sat down to the table and leaned over close to Singer.
There are those who know and those who don't know. And
for every ten thousand who don't know there's only one who
knows. Thaf s the miracle of all time—the fact that these
millions know so much but don't know this. It's like in the
fifteenth century when everybody believed the world was flat
and only Columbus and a few other fellows knew the truth.
But it's different in that it took talent to figure that the earth is
round. While this truth is so obvious it's a miracle of all
history that people don't know. You savvy.'
Biff rested his elbows on the counter and looked at Blount
with curiosity. 'Know what?' he asked.
"Don't listen to him,' Blount said. 'Don't mind that flat-footed,
blue-jowled, nosy bastard. For you see, when us people who
know run into each other mat's an event. It almost never
happens. Sometimes we meet each other and neither guesses
that the other is one who knows. That's a bad thing. It's
happened to me a lot of times. But you see there are so few of
us.'
'Masons?' Biff asked.
'Shut up, you! Else 111 snatch your arm off and beat you
black with it,' Blount bawled. He hunched over close to the
mute and his voice dropped to a drunken whisper. 'And how
come? Why has this miracle of ignorance endured? Because
of one thing. A conspiracy. A vast and insidious conspiracy.
Obscurantism.
'
The men in the booth were still laughing at the drunk20
who was trying to hold a conversation with the mute. Only
Biff was serious. He wanted to ascertain if the mute really
understood what was said to him. The fellow nodded
frequently and his face seemed contemplative. He was only
slow—that was all. Blount began to crack a few jokes along
with this talk about knowing. The mute never smiled until
several seconds after the funny remark had been made; then
when the talk was gloomy again the smile still hung on his
face a little too long. The fellow was downright uncanny.
People felt themselves watching him even before they knew
that there was anything different about him. His eyes made
a
person think that he heard things nobody else had ever heard,
that he knew things no one had ever guessed before. He did
not seem quite human.
Jake Blount leaned across the table and the words came out as
though a dam inside him had broken. Biff could not
understand him any more. Blount's tongue was so heavy with
drink and he talked at such a violent pace that the sounds were
all shaken up together. Biff wondered where he would go
when Alice turned him out of the place. And in the morning
she would do it, too—like she said.
Biff yawned wanly, patting his open mouth with his fingertips
until his jaw had relaxed. It was almost three o'clock, the most
stagnant hour in the day or night
The mute was patient. He had been listening to Blount for
almost an hour. Now he began to look at the clock
occasionally. Blount did not notice this and went on without
a
pause. At last he stopped a to roll a cigarette, and then the
mute nodded his head in the direction of the clock, smiled in
that hidden way of his, and got up from the table. His hands
stayed stuffed in his pockets as always. He went out quickly.
Blount was so drunk that he did not know what had happened.
He had never even caught on to the fact that the mute made no
answers. He began to look around the place with his mouth
open and his eyes rolling and fuddled. A red vein stood out on
his forehead and he began to hit the table angrily with his
fists. His bout could not last much longer now.
'Come on over,' Biff said kindly. "Your friend has gone.
'
The fellow was still hunting for Singer. He had never seemed
really drunk like that before. He had an ugly look.
'I have something for you over here and I want to speak with
you a minute,' Biff coaxed.
Blount pulled himself up from the table and walked with big,
loose steps toward the street again.
Biff leaned against the wall. In and out—in and out. After all,
it was none of his business. The room was very empty and
quiet. The minutes lingered. Wearily he let his head sag
forward. All motion seemed slowly to be leaving the room.
The counter, faces, the booths and tables, the radio in the
corner, whirring fans on the ceiling—all seemed to become
very faint and still.
He must have dozed. A hand was shaking his elbow. His wits
came back to him slowly and he looked up to see what was
wanted. Willie, the colored boy in the kitchen, stood before
him dressed in his cap and his long white apron. Willie
stammered because he was excited about whatever he was
trying to say.
'And so he were 1-1-lamming his fist against this here brick w-
w-wall.
'
'What's that?
'
'Right down one of them alleys two d-d-doors away.
'
Biff straightened bis slumped shoulders and arranged his tie.
'What?
'
'And they means to bring him in here and they liable to pile in
any minute------
'
'Willie,' Biff said patiently. 'Start at the beginning and let me
get this straight.
'
'It this here short white man with the m-m-mustache.
'
.Mr. Blount. Yes>
'Well—I didn't see how it commenced. I were standing in the
back door when I heard this here commotion. Sound like a big
fight in the alley. So I r-r-run to see. And this here white man
had just gone hog wild. He were butting bis head against the
side of this brick wall and hitting with his fists. He were
cussing and fighting like I never seen a white man fight
before. With just this here wall. He liable to broken his own
head the way he were carrying on. Then two white mens who
had heard the commotion come up and stand around and
look------'22
'So what happened?'
'Well—you know this here dumb gentleman—hands in
pockets—this here------'
'Mr. Singer.'
'And he come along and just stood looking around to see what
it were all about. And Mr. B-B-Blount seen him and
commenced to talk and holler. And then all of a sudden he
fallen down on the ground. Maybe he done really busted his
head open. A p-p-p-police come up and somebody done told
him Mr. Blount been staying here.'
Biff bowed his head and organized the story he had just heard
into a neat pattern. He rubbed his nose and thought for a
minute.
"They liable to pile in here any minute.' Willie went to the
door and looked down the street 'Here they all come now.
They having to drag him.'
A dozen onlookers and a policeman all tried to crowd into the
restaurant. Outside a couple of whores stood looking in
through the front window. It was always funny how many
people could crowd in from nowhere when anything out of the
ordinary happened.
'No use creating any more disturbance than necessary,' Biff
said. He looked at the policeman who supported the drunk.
'The rest of them might as well clear out.'
The policeman put the drunk in a chair and hustled the little
crowd into the street again. Then he turned to Biff: 'Somebody
said he was staying here with you.'
'No. But he might as well be,' Biff said.
'Want me to take him with me?'
Biff considered. 'He won't get into any more trouble tonight.
Of course I can't be responsible—but I think this will calm
him down.'
'O.K. I'll drop back in again before I knock off.'
Biff, Singer, and Jake Blount were left alone. For the first
time since he had been brought in, Biff turned his attention to
the drunk man. It seemed that Blount had hurt his jaw very
badly. He was slumped down on the table with his big hand
over his mouth, swaying backward and forward. There was a
gash in his head and the blood ran from his temple. His
knuckles were skinned raw, and he was so filthy that he
looked as if he had been pulled by the scruff of the neck from
a sewer. All the juice had
23
spurted out of him and he was completely collapsed. The mute
sat at the table across from him, taking it all in with his gray
eyes.
Then Biff saw that Blount had not hurt his jaw, but he was
holding his hand over his mouth because bis lips were
trembling. The tears began to roll down his grimy face. Now
and then he glanced sideways at Biff and Singer, angry that
they should see him cry. It was embarrassing. Biff shrugged
his shoulders at the mute and raised his eyebrows with a what-
to-do? expression. Singer cocked his head on one side.
Biff was in a quandary. Musingly he wondered just how he
should manage the situation. He was still trying to decide
when the mute turned over the menu and began to write.
// you cannot think of any place for him to go he can go home
with me. First some soup and coffee would be good for him.
With relief Biff nodded vigorously.
On the table he placed three special plates of the last evening
meal, two bowls of soup, coffee, and dessert. But Blount
would not eat. He would not take his hand away from his
mouth, and it was as though his lips were some very secret
part of himself which was being exposed. His breath came in
ragged sobs and his big shoulders jerked nervously. Singer
pointed to one dish after the other, but Blount just sat with his
hand over his mouth and shook his head.
Biff enunciated slowly so that the mute could see. 'The
jitters------' he said conversationally.
The steam from the soup kept floating up into Blount's face,
and after a little while he reached shakily for his spoon. He
drank the soup and ate part of his dessert. His thick, heavy lips
still trembled and he bowed his head far down over his plate.
Biff noted this. He was thinkng that in nearly every person
there was some special physical part kept always guarded.
With the mute his hands. The kid Mick picked at the front of
her blouse to keep the cloth from rubbing the new, tender
nipples beginning to come out on her24
breast. With Alice it was her hair; she used never to let him
sleep with her when he rubbed oil in his scalp. And with
himself?
Lingeringly Biff turned the ring on his little finger. Anyway
he knew what it was not. Not. Any more. A sharp line cut into
his forehead. His hand in his pocket moved nervously toward
his genitals. He began whistling a song and got up from the
table. Funny to spot it in other people, though.
They helped Blount to his feet. He teetered weakly. He was
not crying any more, but he seemed to be brooding on
something shameful and sullen. He walked in the direction he
was led. Biff brought out the suitcase from behind the counter
and explained to the mute about it. Singer looked as though he
could not be surprised at anything.
Biff went with them to the entrance. 'Buck up and keep your
nose clean,' he said to Blount.
The black night sky was beginning to lighten and turn a deep
blue with the new morning. There were but a few weak,
silvery stars. The street was empty, silent, almost cool. Singer
carried the suitcase with his left hand, and with his free hand
he supported Blount. He nodded goodbye to Biff and they
started off together down the sidewalk. Biff stood watching
them. After they had gone hah* a block away only their black
forms showed in the blue darkness —the mute straight and
firm and the broad-shouldered, stumbling Blount holding on
to him. When he could see them no longer, Biff waited for a
moment and examined the sky. The vast depth of it fascinated
and oppressed him. He rubbed his forehead and went back
into the sharply lighted restaurant.
He stood behind the cash register, and his face contracted and
hardened as he tried to recall the things that had happened
during the night. He had the feeling that he wanted to explain
something to himself. He recalled the incidents in tedious
detail and was still puzzled.
The door opened and closed several times as a sudden spurt of
customers began to come in. The night was over. Willie
stacked some of the chairs up on the tables and mopped at the
floor. He was ready to go home and was singing. Willie was
lazy. In the kitchen he was always stopping to play for a while
on the harmonica he carried
around with him. Now he mopped the floor with sleepy
strokes and hummed his lonesome Negro music steadily.
The place was still not crowded—it was the hour when men
who have been up all night meet those who are freshly
wakened and ready to start a new day. The sleepy waitress
was serving both beer and coffee. There was no noise or
conversation, for each person seemed to be alone. The mutual
distrust between the men who were just awakened and those
who were ending a long night gave everyone a feeling of
estrangement.
The bank building across the street was very pale in the dawn.
Then gradually its white brick walls grew more distinct. When
at last the first shafts of the rising sun began to brighten the
street, Biff gave the place one last survey and went upstairs.
Noisily he rattled the doorknob as he entered so that Alice
would be disturbed. 'Motherogod!' he said. 'What a night!'
Alice awoke with caution. She lay on the rumpled bed like a
sulky cat and stretched herself. The room was drab in the
fresh, hot morning sun, and a pair of silk stockings hung limp
and withered from the cord of the window-shade.
'Is that drunk fool still hanging around downstairs?' she
demanded.
Biff took off his shirt and examined the collar to see if it were
clean enough to be worn again. 'Go down and see for yourself.
I told you nobody will hinder you from kicking him out.'
Sleepily Alice reached down and picked up a Bible, the blank
side of a menu, and a Sunday-School book from the floor
beside the bed. She rustled through the tissue pages of the
Bible until she reached a certain passage and began reading,
pronouncing the words aloud with painful concentration. It
was Sunday, and she was preparing the weekly lesson for her
class of boys in the Junior Department of her church. 'Now as
he walked by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew
his brother casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers.
And Jesus said unto them, "Come ye after me, and I will make
you to become fishers of men." And straightway they forsook
their nets, and followed him.'26
Biff went into the bathroom to wash himself. The silky
murmuring continued as Alice studied aloud. He listened. \ ..
and in the morning, rising up a great while before day, He
went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.
And Simon and they that were with Him followed after Him.
And when they had found Him, they said unto Him, "All men
seek for Thee." '
She had finished. Biff let the words revolve again gently
inside him. He tried to separate the actual words from the
sound of Alice's voice as she had spoken them. He wanted to
remember the passage as his mother used to read it when he
was a boy. With nostalgia he glanced down at the wedding
ring on his fifth finger that had once been hers. He wondered
again how she would have felt about bis giving up church and
religion.
'The lesson for today is about the gathering of the disciples,'
Alice said to herself in preparation. 'And the text is, "All men
seek for Thee." '
Abruptly Biff roused himself from meditation and turned on
the water spigot at full force. He stripped off his undervest
and began to wash himself. Always he was scrupulously clean
from the belt upward. Every morning he soaped his chest and
arms and neck and feet—and about twice during the season he
got into the bathtub and cleaned all of his parts.
Biff stood by the bed, waiting impatiently for Alice to get up.
From the window he saw that the day would be windless and
burning hot. Alice had finished reading the lesson. She still
lay lazily across the bed, although she knew that he was
waiting. A calm, sullen anger rose in him. He chuckled
ironically. Then he said with bitterness: 'If you like I can sit
and read the paper awhile. But I wish you would let me sleep
now.'
Alice began dressing herself and Biff made up the bed. Deftly
he reversed the sheets in all possible ways, putting the top one
on the bottom, and turning them over and upside down. When
the bed was smoothly made he waited until Alice had left the
room before he slipped off his trousers and crawled inside.
His feet jutted out from beneath the cover and his wiry-haired
chest was very dark against the pillow. He was glad he had not
told Alice about what had happened to the drunk. He had
wanted to talk
to somebody about it, because maybe if he told all the facts
out loud he could put his finger on the thing that puzzled him.
The poor son-of-a-bitch talking and talking and not ever
getting anybody to understand what he meant. Not knowing
himself, most likely. And the way he gravitated around the
deaf-mute and picked him out and tried to make him a free
present of everything in him.
Why?
Because in some men it is in them to give up everything
personal at some time, before it ferments and poisons—throw
it to some human being or some human idea. They have to. In
some men it is in them—The text is 'All men seek for Thee.'
Maybe that was why—maybe—He was a Chinaman, the
fellow had said. And a nigger and a wop and a Jew. And if he
believed it hard enough maybe it was so. Every person and
every thing he said he was------
Biff stretched both of his arms outward and crossed his naked
feet. His face was older in the morning light, with the closed,
shrunken eyelids and the heavy, iron-like beard on his cheeks
and jaw. Gradually his mouth softened and relaxed. The hard,
yellow rays of the sun came in through the window so that the
room was hot and bright. Biff turned wearily and covered his
eyes with his hands. And he was nobody but—Bartholomew
—old Biff with two fists and a quick tongue—Mister Brannon
—by himself.
J. HE sun woke Mick early, although she had stayed out mighty
late the night before. It was too hot even to drink coffee for
breakfast, so she had ice water with syrup in it and cold
biscuits. She messed around the kitchen for a while and then
went out on the front porch to read the funnies. She had
thought maybe Mister Singer would be reading the paper on
the porch like he did most Sunday mornings. But Mister
Singer was not there, and later on her Dad said he came in
very late the night before and had company in his room. She
waited for Mister Singer a long time. All the other boarders
came down except him. Fi-28
nally she went back in the kitchen and took Ralph out of his
high chair and put a clean dress on him and wiped off his face.
Then when Bubber got home from Sunday School she was
ready to take the kids out. She let Bubber ride in the wagon
with Ralph because he was barefooted and the hot sidewalk
burned his feet. She pulled the wagon for about eight blocks
until they came to the big, new house that was being built. The
ladder was still propped against the edge of the roof, and she
screwed up nerve and began to climb.
'You mind Ralph,' she called back to Bubber. 'Mind the gnats
don't sit on his eyelids.'
Five minutes later Mick stood up and held herself very
straight. She spread out her arms like wings. This was the
place where everybody wanted to stand. The very top. But not
many kids could do it. Most of them were scared, for if you
lost your grip and rolled off the edge it would kill you. All
around were the roofs of other houses and the green tops of
trees. On the other side of town were the church steeples and
the smokestacks from the mills. The sky was bright blue and
hot as fire. The sun made everything on the ground either
dizzy white or black.
She wanted to sing. All the songs she knew pushed up toward
her throat, but there was no sound. One big boy who had got
to the highest part of the roof last week let out a yell and then
started hollering out a speech he had learned at High School
—'Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend me your ears!' There
was something about getting to the very top that gave you a
wild feeling and made you want to yell or sing or raise up
your arms and fly.
She felt the soles of her tennis shoes slipping, and eased
herself down so that she straddled the peak of the roof. The
house was almost finished. It would be one of the largest
buildings in the neighborhood—two stories, with very high
ceilings and the steepest roof of any house she had ever seen.
But soon the work would all be finished. The carpenters
would leave and the kids would have to find another place to
play.
She was by herself. No one was around and it was quiet and
she could think for a while. She took from the pocket of her
shorts the package of cigarettes she had bought the night
before. She breathed in the smoke slowly. The cigarette gave her a drunk feeling so that her head seemed heavy
and loose on her shoulders, but she had to finish it.
M.K.—That was what she would have written on everything
when she was seventeen years old and very famous. She
would ride back home in a red-and-white Packard automobile
with her initials on the doors. She would have M.K. written in
red on her handkerchiefs and underclothes. Maybe she would
be a great inventor. She would invent little tiny radios the size
of a green pea that people could carry around and stick in their
ears. Also flying machines people could fasten on their backs
like knapsacks and go zipping all over the world. After that
she would be the first one to make a large tunnel through the
world to China, and people could go down in big balloons.
Those were the first tilings she would invent They were
already planned.
When Mick had finished half of the cigarette she smashed it
dead and flipped the butt down the slant of the roof. Then she
leaned forward so that her head rested on her arms and began
to hum to herself.
It was a funny thing—but nearly all the time there was some
kind of piano piece or other music going on in the back of her
mind. No matter what she was doing or thinking it was nearly
always there. Miss Brown, who boarded with them, had a
radio in her room, and all last winter she would sit on the
steps every Sunday afternoon and listen in on the programs.
Those were probably classical pieces, but they were the ones
she remembered best. There was one special fellow's music
that made her heart shrink up every time she heard it.
Sometimes this feEow's music was like little colored pieces of
crystal candy, and other times it was the softest, saddest thing
she had ever imagined about.
There was the sudden sound of crying. Mick sat up straight
and listened The wind ruffled the fringe of hair on her
forehead and the bright sun made her face white and damp.
The whimpering continued, and Mick moved slowly along the
sharp-pointed roof on her hands and knees. When she reached
the end she leaned forward and lay on her stomach so that her
head jutted over the edge and she could see the ground below.
The kids were where she had left them. Bubber was30
squatting over something on the ground and beside him was a
little black, dwarf shadow. Ralph was still tied in the wagon.
He was just old enough to sit up, and he held on to the sides of
the wagon, with his cap crooked on his head, crying.
'Bubber!' Mick called down. 'Find out what that Ralph wants
and give it to him.'
Bubber stood up and looked hard into the baby's face. 'He
don't want nothing.'
'Well, give him a good shake, then.'
Mick climbed back to the place where she had been sitting
before. She wanted to think for a long time about two or three
certain people, to sing to herself, and to make plans. But that
Ralph was still hollering and there wouldn't be any peace for
her at all.
Boldly she began to climb down toward the ladder propped
against the edge of the roof. The slant was very steep and
there were only a few blocks of wood nailed down, very far
apart from each other, that the workmen used for footholds.
She was dizzy, and her heart beat so hard it made her tremble.
Commandingly she talked out loud to herself: 'Hold on here
with your hands tight and then slide down until your right toe
gets a grip there and then stay close and wiggle over to the
left. Nerve, Mick, you've got to keep nerve.'
Coming down was the hardest part of any climbing. It took her
a long time to reach the ladder and to feel safe again. When
she stood on the ground at last she seemed much shorter and
smaller and her legs felt for a minute like they would crumple
up with her. She hitched her shorts and jerked the belt a notch
tighter. Ralph was still crying, but she paid the sound no
attention and went into the new, empty house.
Last month they had put a sign out in front saying that no
children were allowed on the lot. A gang of kids had been
scuffling around inside the rooms one night, and a girl who
couldn't see in the dark had run into a room that hadn't been
floored and fallen through and broken her leg. She was still at
the hospital in a plaster parish cast. Also, another time some
tough boys wee-weed all over one of the walls and wrote
some pretty bad words. But no matter how many Keep Out
signs were put up, they couldn't run
31
kids away until the house had been painted and finished and
people had moved in.
The rooms smelled of new wood, and when she walked the
soles of her tennis shoes made a flopping sound that echoed
through all the house. The air was hot and quiet. She stood
still in the middle of the front room for a while, and then she
suddenly thought of something. She fished in her pocket and
brought out two stubs of chalk—one green and the other red.
Mick drew the big block letters very slowly. At the top she
wrote EDISON, and under that she drew the names of DICK
TRACY and MUSSOLINI. Then in each corner with the
largest letters of all, made with green and outlined in red, she
wrote her initials—M.K. When that was done she crossed
over to the opposite wall and wrote a very bad word—
PUSSY, and beneath that she put her initials, too.
She stood in the middle of the empty room and stared at what
she had done. The chalk was still in her hands and she did not
feel really satisfied. She was trying to think of the name of
this fellow who had written this music she heard over the
radio last whiter. She had asked a girl at school who owned a
piano and took music lessons about him, and the girl asked her
teacher. It seemed this fellow was just a kid who had lived in
some country in Europe a good while ago. But even if he was
just a young kid he had made up all these beautiful pieces for
the piano and for the violin and for a band or orchestra too. In
her mind she could remember about six different tunes from
the pieces of his she had heard. A few of them were kind of
quick and tinkling, and another was like that smell in the
springtime after a rain. But they all made her somehow sad
and excited at the same time.
She hummed one of the tunes, and after a while in the hot,
empty house by herself she felt the tears come in her eyes. Her
throat got tight and rough and she couldn't sing any more.
Quickly she wrote the fellow's name at the very top of the list
—MOTSART.
Ralph was tied in the wagon just as she had left him. He sat up
quiet and still and his fat little hands held on to the sides.
Ralph looked like a little Chinese baby with his square black
bangs and bis black eyes. The sun was in his32
face, and that was why he had been hollering. Bubber was
nowhere around. When Ralph saw her coming he began
tuning up to cry again. She pulled the wagon into the shade by
the side of the new house and took from her shirt pocket a
blue-colored jelly bean. She stuck the candy in the baby's
warm, soft mouth.
'Put that in your pipe and smoke it,' she said to him. In a way it
was a waste, because Ralph was still too little to get the real
good flavor out of candy. A clean rock would be about the
same to him, only the little fool would swallow it. He didn't
understand any more about taste than he did about talking.
When you said you were so sick and tired of dragging him
around you had a good mind to throw him in the river, it was
the same to him as if you had been loving him. Nothing much
made any difference to him. That was why it was such an
awful bore to haul him around.
Mick cupped her hands, clamped them tight together, and
blew through the crack between her thumbs. Her cheeks
puffed out and at first there was only the sound of air rushing
through her fists. Then a high, shrill whistle sounded, and
after a few seconds Bubber came out from around the corner
of the house.
She rumpled the sawdust out of Bubber's hair and straightened
Ralph's cap. This cap was the finest thing Ralph had. It was
made out of lace and all embroidered. The ribbon under bis
chin was blue on one side and white on the other, and over
each ear there were big rosettes. His head had got too big for
the cap and the embroidery scratched, but she always put it on
him when she took him out. Ralph didn't have any real baby
carriage like most folks' babies did, or any summer bootees.
He had to be dragged around in a tacky old wagon she had got
for Christmas three years before. But the fine cap gave him
face.
There was nobody on the street, for it was late Sunday
morning and very hot. The wagon screeched and rattled.
Bubber was barefooted and the sidewalk was so hot it burned
his feet. The green oak trees made cool-looking black shadows
on the ground, but that was not shade enough.
'Get up in the wagon,' she told Bubber. 'And let Ralph sit in
your lap.
'
'I can walk all right.
'
The long summer-time always gave Bubber the colic. He
didn't have on a shirt and his ribs were sharp and white. The
sun made him pale instead of brown, and his little titties were
like blue raisins on his chest.
'I don't mind pulling you,' Mick said. 'Get on in.
'
*O.K.
'
Mick dragged the wagon slowly because she was not in any
hurry to get home. She began talking to the kids. But it was
really more like saying things to herself than words said to
them.
'This is a funny thing—the dreams I've been having lately. It's
like I'm swimming. But instead of water I'm pushing out my
arms and swimming through great big crowds of people. The
crowd is a hundred times bigger than in Kresses' store on
Saturday afternoon. The biggest crowd in the world. And
sometimes I'm yelling and swimming through people,
knocking them all down wherever I go— and other times Fm
on the ground and people are trompling all over me and my
insides are oozing out on the sidewalk. I guess it's more like
a
nightmare than a plain
On Sundays the house was always full of folks because the
boarders had visitors. Newspapers rustled and there was cigar
smoke, and footsteps always on the stairs.
'Some things you just naurally want to keep private. Not
because they are bad, but because you just want them secret.
There are two or three things I wouldn't want even you to
know about'
Bubber got out when they came to the corner and helped her
lift the wagon down the curb and get it up on the next
sidewalk.
'But there's one thing I would give anything for. And that's a
piano. If we had a piano I'd practice every single night and
learn every piece in the world. That's the thing I, want more
than anything else.'
They had come to their own home block now. Their house
was only a few doors away. It was one of the biggest houses
on the whole north side of town—three storiesi*
high. But then there were fourteen people in the family. There
weren't that many in the real, blood Kelly family— but they
ate there and slept there at five dollars a head and you plight
as well count them on in. Mr. Singer wasn't counted in that
because he only rented a room and kept it straightened up
himself.
The house was narrow and had not been painted for many
years. It did hot seem to be built strong enough for its three
stories of height. It sagged on one side.
Mick untied Ralph and lifted him from the wagon. She darted
quickly through the hall, and from the corner of her eye she
saw that the living-room was full of boarders. Her Dad was
there, too. Her Mama would be in the kitchen. They were all
hanging around waiting for dinner-time.
She went into the first of the three rooms that the family kept
for themselves. She put Ralph down on the bed where her Dad
and Mama slept and gave him a string of beads to play with.
From behind the closed door of the next room she could hear
the sound of voices, and she decided to go inside.
Hazel and Etta stopped talking when they saw her. Etta was
sitting in the chair by the window, painting her toe-nails with
the red polish. Her hah- was done up in steel rollers and there
was a white dab of face cream on a little place under her chin
where a pimple had come out. Hazel was flopped out lazy on
the bed as usual. 'What were you all jawing about?' It's none of
your nosy business,' Etta said. 'Just you hush up and leave us
alone.'
'It's my room just as much as it is either one of yours. I have as
good a right hi here as you do.' Mick strutted from one corner
to the other until she had covered all the floor space. 'But then
I don't care anything about picking any fight. All I want are
my own rights.'
Mick brushed back her shaggy bangs with the palm of her
hand. She had done this so often that there was a little row of
cowlicks above her forehead. She quivered her nose and made
faces at herself in the mirror. Then she began walking around
the room again.
Hazel and Etta were O.K. as far as sisters went. But Etta was
like she was full of worms. All she thought about was movie
stars and getting in the movies. Once she had
35
written to Jeanette MacDonald and had got a typewritten letter
back saying that if ever she came out to Hollywood she could
come by and swim in her swimming pool. And ever since that
swimming pool had been preying on Etta's mind. All she
thought about was going to Hollywood when she could scrape
up the bus fare and getting a job as a secretary and being
buddies with Jeanette MacDonald and getting in the movies
herself.
She primped all the day long. And that was the bad part. Etta
wasn't naturally pretty like Hazel. The main thing was she
didn't have any chin. She would pull at her jaw and go through
a lot of chin exercises she had read in ft movie book. She was
always looking at her side profile in the mirror and trying to
keep her mouth set in a certain way. But it didn't do any good.
Sometimes Etta would hold her face with her hands and cry hi
the night about it.
Hazel was plain lazy. She was good-looking but thick in the
head. She was eighteen years old, and next to Bill she was the
oldest of all the kids in the family. Maybe that was the trouble.
She got the first and biggest share of everything—the first
whack at the new clothes and the biggest part of any special
treat. Hazel never had to grab for anything and she was soft.
'Are you just going to tramp around the room all day? It makes
me sick to see you hi those silly boy's clothes. Somebody
ought to clamp down on you, Mick Kelly, and make you
behave,' Etta said.
'Shut up,' said Mick. 'I wear shorts because I don't want to
wear your old hand-me-downs. I don't want to be like either of
you and I don't want to look like either of you. And I won't.
That's why I wear shorts. I'd rather be a boy any day, and I
wish I could move in with Bill.'
Mick scrambled under the bed and brought out a large hatbox.
As she carried it to the door both of them called after her,
'Good riddance!'
Bill had the nicest room of anybody in the family. Like a den
—and he had it all to himself—except for Bubber. Bill had
pictures cut out from magazines tacked on the walls, mostly
faces of beautiful ladies, and in another corner were some
pictures Mick had painted last year herself at the free art class.
There was only a bed and a desk in the room.JO
Bill was sitting hunched over the desk, reading Popular
Mechanics. She went up behind him and put her arms around
his shoulders. 'Hey, you old son-of-a-gun.'
He did not begin tussling with her like he used to do. .Hey,' he
said, and shook his shoulders a little.
'Will it bother you if I stay in here a little while?'
'Sure—I don't mind if you want to stay.'
Mick knelt on the floor and untied the string on the big
hatbox. Her hands hovered over the edge of the lid, but for
some reason she could not make up her mind to open it
'I been thinking about what I've done on this already,' she said.
'And it may work and it may not.'
Bill went on reading. She still knelt over the box, but did not
open it. Her eyes wandered over to Bill as he sat with his back
to her. One of his big feet kept stepping on the other as he
read. His shoes were scuffed. Once their Dad had said that all
Bill's dinners went to his feet and his breakfast to one ear and
bis supper to the other ear, that was a sort of mean thing to say
and Bill had been sour over it for a month, but it was funny.
His ears flared out and were very red, and though he was just
out of high school he wore a size thirteen shoe. He tried to
hide his feet by scraping one foot behind the other when he
stood up, but that only made it worse.
Mick opened the box a few inches and then shut it again. She
felt too excited to look into it now. She got up and walked
around the room until she could calm down a little. After a
few minutes she stopped before the picture she had painted at
the free government art class for school kids last winter. There
was a picture of a storm on the ocean and a sea gull being
dashed through the air by the wind. It was called 'Sea Gull
with Back Broken in Storm.' The teacher had described the
ocean during the first two or three lessons, and that was what
nearly everybody started with. Most of the kids were like her,
though, and they had never really seen the ocean with their
own eyes.
That was the first picture she had done and Bill had tacked it
on his wall. All the rest of her pictures were full of people.
She had done some more ocean storms at first —one with an
airplane crashing down and people jumping out to save
themselves, and another with a trans-Atlan
37
tic liner going down and all the people trying to push and
crowd into one little lifeboat.
Mick went into the closet of Bill's room and brought out some
other pictures she had done in the class—some pencil
drawings, some water-colors, and one canvas with oils. They
were all full of people. She had imagined a big fire on Broad
Street and painted how she thought it would be. The flames
were bright green and orange and Mr. Bran-non's restaurant
and the First National Bank were about the only buildings left.
People were lying dead in the streets and others were running
for their lives. One man was in his nightshirt and a lady was
trying to carry a bunch of bananas with her. Another picture
was called 'Boiler Busts in Factory,' and men were jumping
out of windows and running while a knot of kids in overalls
stood scrouged together, holding the buckets of dinner they
had brought to their Daddies. The oil painting was a picture of
the whole town fighting on Broad Street. She never knew why
she had painted this one and she couldn't think of the right
name for it. There wasn't any fire or storm or reason you could
see in the picture why all this battle was happening. But there
were more people and more moving around than in any other
picture. This was the best one, and it was too bad that she
couldn't think up the real name. In the back of her mind
somewhere she knew what it was.
Mick put the picture back on the closet shelf. None of them
were any good much. The people didn't have fingers and some
of the arms were longer than the legs. The class had been fun,
though. But she had just drawn whatever came into her head
without reason—and in her heart it didn't give her near the
same feeling that music did. Nothing was really as good as
music.
Mick knelt down on the floor and quickly lifted the top of the
big hatbox. Inside was a cracked ukulele strung with two
violin strings, a guitar string and a banjo string. The crack on
the back of the ukulele had been neatly mended with sticking
plaster and the round hole in the middle was covered by a
piece of wood. The bridge of a violin held up the strings at the
end and some sound-holes had been carved on either side.
Mick was making herself a violin. She held the violin in her
lap. She had the feeling she had38
never really looked at it before. Some time ago she made
Bubber a little play mandolin out of a cigar box with rubber
bands, and that put the idea into her head. Since that she had
hunted all over everywhere for the different parts and added a
little to the job every day. It seemed to her she had done
everything except use her head.
'Bill, this don't look like any real violin I ever saw.' He was
still reading—'Yeah—?'
'It just don't look right. It just don't------'
She had planned to tune the fiddle that day by screwing the
pegs. But since she had suddenly realized how all the work
had turned out she didn't want to look at it. Slowly she
plucked one string after another. They all made the same little
hollow-sounding ping.
'How anyway will I ever get a bow? Are you sure they have to
be made out of just horses' hair?' 'Yeah,' said Bill impatiently.
'Nothing like thin wire or human hair strung on a limber stick
would do?'
Bill rubbed his feet against each other and didn't answer.
Anger made beads of sweat come out on her forehead.
Her voice was hoarse. 'It's not even a bad violin. It's only
a cross between a mandolin and a ukulele. And I hate
them. I hate them------'
Bill turned around.
'It's all turned out wrong. It won't do. It's no good.' Tipe down,'
said Bill. 'Are you just carrying on about that old broken
ukulele you've been fooling with? I could have told you at first
it was crazy to think you could make any violin. That's one
thing you don't sit down and make —you got to buy them. I
thought anybody would know a thing like that. But I figured it
wouldn't hurt yon if you found out for yourself.'
Sometimes she hated Bill more than anyone else in the world.
He was different entirely from what he used to be. She started
to slam the violin down on the floor and stomp on it, but
instead she put it back roughly into the hatbox. The tears were
hot in her eyes as fire. She gave the box a kick and ran from
the room without looking at Bill.
As she was dodging through the hall to get to the back yard
she ran into her Mama.
39
'What's the matter with you? What have you been into now?'
Mick tried to jerk loose, but her Mama held on to her arm.
Sullenly she wiped the tears from her face with the back of her
hand. Her Mama had been in the kitchen and she wore her
apron and house-shoes. As usual she looked as though she had
a lot on her mind and didn't have time to ask her any more
questions.
'Mr. Jackson has brought his two sisters to dinner and there
won't be but just enough chairs, so today you're to eat in the
kitchen with Bubber.'
'That*s hunky-dory with me,' Mick said.
Her Mama let her go and went to take off her apron. From the
dining-room there came the sound of the dinner bell and a
sudden glad outbreak of talking. She could hear her Dad
saying how much he had lost by not keeping up his accident
insurance until the time he broke bis hip. That was one thing
her Dad could never get off his mind —ways he could have
made money and didn't. There was a clatter of dishes, and
after a while the talking stopped.
Mick leaned on the banisters of the stairs. The sudden crying
had started her with the hiccups. It seemed to her as she
thought back over the last month that she had never really
believed in her mind that the violin would work. But in her
heart she had kept making herself believe. And even now it
was hard not to believe a little. She was tired out. Bill wasn't
ever a help with anything now. She used to think Bill was the
grandest person in the world. She used to follow after him
every place he went— out fishing in the woods, to the
clubhouses he built with other boys, to the slot machine in the
back of Mr. Bran-non's restaurant—everywhere. Maybe he
hadn't meant to let her down like this. But anyway they could
never be good buddies again.
In the hall there was the smell of cigarettes and Sunday
dinner. Mick took a deep breath and walked back toward the
kitchen. The dinner began to smell good and she was hungry.
She could hear Portia's voice as she talked to Bubber, and it
was like she was half-singing something or telling him a story.
'And that is the various reason why I'm a whole lot40
more fortunate than most colored girls,' Portia said as she
opened the door. 'Why?' asked Mick.
Portia and Bubber were sitting at the kitchen table eating their
dinner. Portia's green print dress was cool-looking against her
dark brown skin. She had on green earrings and her hair was
combed very tight and neat.
'You all time pounce in on the very tail of what somebody say
and then want to know all about it,' Portia said. She got up and
stood over the hot stove, putting dinner on Mick's plate.
'Bubber and me was just talking about my Grandpapa's home
out on the Old Sardis Road. I was telling Bubber how he and
my uncles owns the whole place themself. Fifteen and a half
acre. They always plants four of them in cotton, some years
swapping back to peas to keep the dirt rich, and one acre on a
hill is just for peaches. They haves a mule and a breed sow
and all the time from twenty to twenty-five laying hens and
fryers. They haves a vegetable patch and two pecan trees and
plenty figs and plums and berries. This here is the truth. Not
many white farms has done with their land good as my
Grandpapa.'
Mick put her elbows on the table and leaned over her plate.
Portia had always rather talk about the farm than anything
else, except about her husband and brother. To hear her tell it
you would think that colored farm was the very White House
itself.
'The home started with just one little room. And through the
years they done built on until there's space for my Grandpapa,
his four sons and their wives and chil-drens, and my brother
Hamilton. In the parlor they haves a real organ and a
gramophone. And on the wall they haves a large picture of my
Grandpapa taken in his lodge uniform. They cans all the fruit
and vegetables and no matter how cold and rainy the winter
turns they pretty near always haves plenty to eat.'
'How come you don't go live with them, then?' Mick asked.
Portia stopped peeling her potatoes and her long, brown
fingers tapped on the table in time to her words. "This here the
way it is. See—each person done built on his room for his
fambly. They all done worked hard during all these years. And
of course times is hard for ever
41
body now. But see—I lived with my Grandpapa when I were
a
little girl. But I haven't never done any work out there since.
Any time, though, if me and Willie and Highboy gets in bad
trouble us can always go back.
'
'Didn't your Father build on a room?
'
Portia stopped chewing. 'Whose Father? You mean my
Father?
'
"Sure,' said Mick.
'You know good and well my Father is a colored doctor right
here in town.
'
Mick had heard Portia say that before, but she had thought it
was a tale. How could a colored man be a doctor?
.This here the way it is. Before the tune my Mama married my
Father she had never known anything but real kindness. My
Grandpa is Mister Kind hisself. But my Father is different
from him as day is from night.'
'Mean?'asked Mick.
"No, he not a mean man,' Portia said slowly. 'It just that
something is the matter. My Father not like other colored
mens. This here is hard to explain. My Father all the time
studying by hisself. And a long time ago he taken up all these
notions about how a fambly ought to be. He bossed over ever
little thing in the house and at night he tried to teach us
children lessons.'
"That don't sound so bad to me,' said Mick.
'listen here. You see most of the time he were very quiet. But
then some nights he would break out hi a kind of fit. He could
get madder than any man I ever seen. Everbody who know my
Father say that he was a sure enough crazy man. He done
wild, crazy things and our Mama quit him. I were ten years
old at the time. Our Mama taken us children with her to
Grandpapa's farm and us were raised out there. Our Father all
the time wanted us to come back. But even when our Mama
died us children never did go home to live. And now my
Father stay all by hisself.'
Mick went to the stove and filled her plate a second time.
Portia's voice was going up and down like a song, and nothing
could stop her now.
'I doesn't see my Father much—maybe once a week— but I
done a lot of thinking about him. I feels sorrier for
I42
him than anybody I knows. I expect he done read more books
than any white man in this town. He done read more books
and he done worried about more things. He full of books and
worrying. He done lost God and turned his back to religion.
All his troubles come down just to that.'
Portia was excited. Whenever she got to talking about God—
or Willie, her brother, or Highboy, her husband— she got
excited.
'Now, I not a big shouter. I belongs to the Presbyterian Church
and us don't hold with all this rolling on the floor and talking
in tongues. Us don't get sanctified ever week and wallow
around together. In our church we sings and lets the preacher
do the preaching. And tell you the truth I don't think a little
singing and a little preaching would hurt you, Mick. You
ought to take your little brother to the Sunday School and also
you plenty big enough to sit in church. From the biggity way
you been acting lately it seem to me like you already got one
toe in the pit.'
'Nuts,' Mick said.
'Now Highboy he were Holiness boy before us were married.
He loved to get the spirit ever Sunday and shout and sanctify
hisself. But after us were married I got him to join with me,
and although it kind of hard to keep him quiet sometime I
think he doing right well.'
'I don't believe in God any more than I do Santa Oaus,' Mick
said.
'You wait a minute! That's why it sometime seem to me you
favor my Father more than any person I ever knowed.'
'Me? You say / favor him?'
'I don't mean in the face or in any kind of looks. I was
speaking about the shape and color of your souls.'
Bubber sat looking from one to the other. His napkin was tied
around his neck and in his hand he still held his empty spoon.
'What all does God eat?' he asked.
Mick got up from the table and stood in the doorway, ready to
leave. Sometimes it was fun to devil Portia. She started on the
same tune and said the same thing over and over—like that
was all she knew.
'Folks like you and my Father who don't attend the
church can't never have nair peace at all. Now take me here—I
believe and I haves peace. And Bubber, he haves his peace
too. And my Highboy and my Willie likewise. And it seem to
me just from looking at him this here Mr. Singer haves peace
too. I done felt that the first time I seen him.'
'Have it your own way,' Mick said. 'You're crazier than any
father of yours could ever be.'
'But you haven't never loved God nor even nair person. You
hard and tough as cowhide. But just the same I knows you.
This afternoon you going to roam all over the place without
never being satisfied. You going to traipse all arpund like you
haves to find something lost. You going to work yourself up
with excitement Your heart going to beat hard enough to kill
you because you don't love and don't have peace. And then
some day you going to bust loose and be ruined. Won't
nothing help you then.'
'What, Portia?' Bubber asked. 'What kind of things does He
eat?'
Mick laughed and stamped out of the room.
She did roam around the house during the afternoon because
she could not get settled. Some days were just like that. For
one thing the thought of the violin kept worrying her. She
could never have made it like a real one—and after all those
weeks of planning the very thought of it made her sick. But
how could she have been so sure the idea would work? So
dumb? Maybe when people longed for a thing that bad the
longing made them trust in anything that might give it to them.
Mick did not want to go back into the rooms where the family
stayed. And she did not want to have to talk to any of the
boarders. No place was left but the street—and there the sun
was too burning hot. She wandered aimlessly up and down the
hall and kept pushing back her rumpled hair with the palm of
her hand. 'Hell,' she said aloud to herself. 'Next to a real piano
I sure would rather have some place to myself than anything I
know.'
That Portia had a certain kind of niggery craziness, but she
was O.K. She never would do anything mean to Bubber or
Ralph on the sly like some colored girls. But Portia had said
that she never loved anybody. Mick stopped walk-44
ing and stood very still, rubbing her fist on the top of her head.
What would Portia think if she really knew? Just what would
she think?
She had always kept things to herself. That was one sure truth.
Mick went slowly up the stairs. She passed the first landing
and went on to the second. Some of the doors were open to
make a draught and there were many sounds in the house.
Mick stopped on the last flight of stairs and sat down. If Miss
Brown turned on her radio she could hear the music. Maybe
some good program would come on.
She put her head on her knees and tied knots in the strings of
her tennis shoes. What would Portia say if she knew that
always there had been one person after another? And every
time it was like some part of her would bust in a hundred
pieces.
But she had always kept it to herself and no person had ever
known.
Mick sat on the steps a long time. Miss Brown did not turn on
her radio and there was nothing but the noises that people
made. She thought a long time and kept hitting her thighs with
her fists. Her face felt like it was scattered in pieces and she
could not keep it straight. The feeling was a whole lot worse
than being hungry for any dinner, yet it was like that. I want—
I want—I want—was all that she could think about—but just
what this real want was she did not know.
After about an hour there was the sound of a doorknob being
turned on the landing above. Mick looked up quickly and it
was Mister Singer. He stood in the hall for a few minutes and
his face was sad and calm. Then he went across to the
bathroom. His company did not come out with him. From
where she was sitting she could see part of the room, and the
company was asleep on the bed with a sheet pulled over him.
She waited for Mister Singer to come out of the bathroom.
Her cheeks were very hot and she felt them with her hands.
Maybe it was true that she came up on these top steps
sometimes so she could see Mister Singer while she was
listening to Miss Brown's radio on the floor below. She
wondered what kind of music he heard in his mind that his
ears couldn't hear. Nobody
45
knew. And what kind of things he would say if he could talk.
Nobody knew that either.
Mick waited, and after a while he came out into the hall again.
She hoped he would look down and smile at her. And then
when he got to his door he did glance down and nod his head.
Mick's grin was wide and trembling. He went into his room
and shut the door. It might have been he meant to invite her in
to see him. Mick wanted suddenly to go into his room.
Sometime soon when he didn't have company she would really
go in and see Mister Singer. She really would do that.
The hot afternoon passed slowly and Mick still sat on the
steps by herself. The fellow Motsart's music was in her mind
again. It was funny, but Mister Singer reminded her of this
music. She wished there was some place where she could go
to hum it out loud. Some kind of music was too private to sing
in a house cram full of people. It was funny, too, how
lonesome a person could be in a crowded house. Mick tried to
think of some good private place where she could go and be
by herself and study about this music. But though she thought
about this a long time she knew in the beginning that there
was no good place.
l_j ATE in the afternoon Jake Blount awoke with the feeling
that he had slept enough. The room hi which he lay was small
and neat, furnished with a bureau, a table, a bed, and a few
chairs. On the bureau an electric fan turned its face slowly
from one wall to another, and as the breeze from it passed
Jake's face he thought of cool water. By the window a man sat
before the table and stared down at a chess game laid out
before him. In the daylight the room was not familiar to Jake,
but he recognized the man's face instantly and it was as though
he had known him a very long time.
Many memories were confused in Jake's mind. He lay
motionless with his eyes open and his hands turned palm
upward. His hands were huge and very brown against the
white sheet. When he held them up to his face he saw that
they were scratched and bruised—and the veins were46
I
swollen as though he had been grasping hard at something for
a long time. His face looked tired and unkempt. His brown
hair fell down over his forehead and his mustache was awry.
Even his wing-shaped eyebrows were rough and tousled. As
he lay there his lips moved once or twice and his mustache
jerked with a nervous quiver. .
After a while he sat up and gave himself a thump on the f
side of his head with one of his big fists to straighten himself
out. When he moved, the man playing chess looked up quickly
and smiled at him.
'God, I'm thirsty,' Jake said. 'I feel like the whole Russian army
marched through my mouth in its stocking feet.' The man
looked at him, still smiling, and then suddenly he reached
down on the other side of the table and brought up a frosted
pitcher of ice water and a glass. Jake drank in great panting
gulps—standing half-naked in the middle of the room, his
head thrown back and one of his hands closed in a tense fist.
He finished four glasses before he took a deep breath and
relaxed a little.
Instantly certain recollections came to him. He couldn't
remember coming home with this man, but things that had
happened later were clearer now. He had waked up soaking in
a tub of cold water, and afterward they drank coffee and
talked. He had got a lot of things off his chest and the man had
listened. He had talked himself hoarse, but he could remember
the expressions on the man's face better than anything that was
said. They had gone to bed in the morning with the shade
pulled down so no light could come in. At first he would keep
waking up with nightmares and have to turn the light on to get
himself clear again. The light would wake this fellow also, but
he hadn't complained at all.
'How come you didn't kick me out last night?' The man only
smiled again. Jake wondered why he was so quiet. He looked
around for his clothes and saw that his suitcase was on the
floor by the bed. He couldn't remember how he had got it back
from the restaurant where he owed for the drinks. His books, a
white suit, and some shirts were all there as he had packed
them. Quickly he began to dress himself.
An electric coffee-pot was perking on the table by the
47
time he had his clothes on. The man reached into the pocket of
the vest that hung over the back of a chair. He brought out a
card and Jake took it questioningly. The man's name—John
Singer—was engraved in the center, and beneath this, written
in ink with the same elaborate precision as the engraving,
there was a brief message.
I am a deaf-mute, but I read the lips and understand what is
said to me. Please do not shout.
The shock made Jake feel light and vacant. He and John
Singer just looked at each other.
'I wonder how long it would have taken me to find that out,' he
said.
Singer looked very carefully at his lips when he spoke-he had
noticed that before. But a dummy!
They sat at the table and drank hot coffee out of blue cups.
The room was cool and the half-drawn shades softened the
hard glare from the windows. Singer brought from his closet a
tin box that contained a loaf of bread, some oranges, and
cheese. He did not eat much, but sat leaning back in his chair
with one hand in his pocket. Jake ate hungrily. He would have
to leave the place immediately and think things over. As long
as he was stranded he ought to scout around for some sort of
job in a hurry. The quiet room was too peaceful and
comfortable to worry in —he would get out and walk by
himself for a while.
'Are there any other deaf-mute people here?' he asked. *You
have many friends?'
Singer was still smiling. He did not catch on to the words at
first, and Jake had to repeat them. Singer raised his sharp, dark
eyebrows and shook his head.
'Find it lonesome?'
The man shook his head in a way that might have meant either
yes or no. They sat silently for a little while and then Jake got
up to leave. He thanked Singer several times for the night's
lodging, moving his lips carefully so that he was sure to be
understood. The mute only smiled again and shrugged his
shoulders. When Jake asked if he could leave his suitcase
under the bed for a few days the mute nodded that he could.48
Then Singer took his hands from his pocket and wrote
carefully on a pad of paper with a silver pencil. He shoved the
pad over toward Jake.
/ can put a mattress on the floor and you can stay here until
you find a place. I am out most of the day. It will not be any
trouble.
Jake felt his lips tremble with a sudden feeling of gratefulness.
But he couldn't accept. 'Thanks,' he said, 'I already got a place.'
As he was leaving the mute handed him a pair of blue
overalls, rolled into a tight bundle, and seventy-five cents. The
overalls were filthy and as Jake recognized them they aroused
in him a whirl of sudden memories from the past week. The
money, Singer made him understand, had been in his pockets.
'Adios,' Jake said. Til be back sometime soon.'
He left the mute standing in the doorway with his hands still
in his pockets and the half-smile on his face. When he had
gone down several steps of the stairs he turned and waved.
The mute waved back to him and closed his door.
Outside the glare was sudden and sharp against his eyes. He
stood on the sidewalk before the house, too dazzled at first by
the sunlight to see very clearly. A youngun was sitting on the
banisters of the house. He had seen her somewhere before. He
remembered the boy's shorts she was wearing and the way she
squinted her eyes.
He held up the dirty roll of overalls. 1 want to throw these
away. Know where I can find a garbage can?'
The kid jumped down from the banisters. 'It's in the back yard.
I'll show you.'
He followed her through the narrow, dampish alley at the side
of the house. When they came to the back yard Jake saw that
two Negro men were sitting on the back steps. They were both
dressed in white suits and white shoes. One of the Negroes
was very tall and his tie and socks were brilliant green. The
other was a light mulatto of average height. He rubbed a tin
harmonica across his knee. In contrast with his tall companion
his socks and tie were a hot red.
The kid pointed to the garbage can by the back fence
49
and then turned to the kitchen window. 'Portia!' she called.
'Highboy and Willie here waiting for you.
'
A soft voice answered from the kitchen. 'You neen holler so
loud. I know they is. I putting on my hat right now.
'
Jake unrolled the overalls before throwing them away. They
were stiff with mud. One leg was torn and a few drops of
blood stained the front. He dropped them in the can. A Negro
girl came out of the house and joined the white-suited boys on
the steps. Jake saw that the youngun in shorts was looking at
him very closely. She changed her weight from one foot to the
other and seemed excited.
'Are you kin to Mister Singer?' she asked.
'Not a bit.
'
'Good friend?
'
'Good enough to spend the night with him.
'
'I just wondered------
'
'Which direction is Main Street?
'
She pointed to the right Two blocks down this way.
'
Jake combed his mustache with his fingers and started off. He
jingled the seventy-five cents in his hand and bit his lower lip
until it was mottled and scarlet. The three Negroes were
walking slowly ahead of him, talking among themselves.
Because he felt lonely in the unfamiliar town he kept close
behind them and listened. The girl held both of them by the
arm. She wore a green dress with a red hat and shoes. The
boys walked very close to her.
'What we got planned for this evening?' she asked.
'It depend entirely upon you, Honey,' the tall boy said. "Willie
and me don't have no special plans.'
She looked from one to the other. 'You all got to decide.'
'Well------' said the shorter boy in the red socks. 'Highboy and
me thought m-maybe us three go to church.'
The girl sang her answer in three different tones. 'O— K—
And after church I got a notion I ought to go and set with
Father for a while—just a short while.' They turned at the first
corner, and Jake stood watching them a moment before
walking on.
The main street was quiet and hot, almost deserted. He had
not realized until now that it was Sunday—and the thought of
this depressed him. The awnings over the closed stores were
raised and the buildings had a bare look in the50
bright sun. He passed the New York Cafe. The door was open,
but the place looked empty and dark. He had not found any
socks to wear that morning, and the hot pavement burned
through the thin soles of his shoes. The sun felt like a hot
piece of iron pressing down on his head. The town seemed
more lonesome than any place he had ever known. The
stillness of the street gave him a strange feeling. When he had
been drunk the place had seemed violent and riotous. And
now it was as though everything had come to a sudden, static
halt.
He went into a fruit and candy store to buy a paper. The Help-
Wanted column was very short. There were several calls for
young men between twenty-five and forty with automobiles to
sell various products on commission. These he skipped over
quickly. An advertisement for a truck-driver held his attention
for a few minutes. But the notice at the bottom interested him
most It read:
Wanted—Experienced Mechanic. Sunny Dixie Show. Apply
Corner Weavers Lane & 15th Street.
Without knowing it he had walked back to the door of the
restaurant where he had spent his time during the past two
weeks. This was the only place on the block besides the fruit
store which was not closed. Jake decided suddenly to drop in
and see Biff Brannon.
The cafe was very dark after the brightness outside.
Everything looked dingier and quieter than he had
remembered it. Brannon stood behind the cash register as
usual, his arms folded over his chest. His good-looking plump
wife sat filing her fingernails at the other end of the counter.
Jake noticed that they glanced at each other as he came in.
'Afternoon,' said Brannon.
Jake felt something in the air. Maybe the fellow was laughing
because he remembered things that had happened when he
was drunk. Jake stood wooden and resentful. 'Package of
Target, please.' As Brannon reached beneath the counter for
the tobacco Jake decided that he was not laughing. In the
daytime the fellow's face was not as hard-looking as it was at
night He was pale as though
51
he had not slept, and his eyes had the look of a weary
buzzard's.
'Speak up,' Jake said. 'How much do I owe you?'
Brannon opened a drawer and put on the counter a public-
school tablet. Slowly he turned over the pages and Jake
watched him. The tablet looked more like a private notebook
than the place where he kept his regular accounts. There were
long lines of figures, added, divided, and subtracted, and little
drawings. He stopped at a certain page and Jake saw his last
name written at the corner. On the page there were no figures
—only small checks and crosses. At random across the page
were drawn little round, seated cats with long curved lines for
tails. Jake stared. The faces of the little cats were human and
female. The faces of the little cats were Mrs. Brannon.
'I have checks here for the beers,' Brannon said. 'And crosses
for dinners and straight lines for the whiskey. Let
me see------' Brannon rubbed his nose and his eyelids
drooped down. Then he shut the tablet. 'Approximately twenty
dollars.'
'It'll take me a long time,' Jake said. T3ut maybe you'll get it'
"There's no big hurry.'
Jake leaned against the counter. 'Say, what kind of a place is
this town?'
'Ordinary,' Brannon said. 'About like any other place the same
size.'
'What population?'
'Around thirty thousand.'
Jake opened the package of tobacco and rolled himself . a
cigarette. His hands were shaking. 'Mostly mills?'
That's right. Four big cotton mills—those are the main ones. A
hosiery factory. Some gins and sawmills.'
'What kind of wages?'
'I'd say around ten or eleven a week on the average— but then
of course they get laid off now and then. What makes you ask
all this? You mean to try to get a job in a
mill?'
Jake dug his fist into his eye and rubbed it sleepily. 'Don't
know. I might and I might not.' He laid the newspaper on the
counter and pointed out the advertisement52
he had just read. 'I think I'll go around and look into this.'
Brannon read and considered. 'Yeah,' he said finally. 'I've seen
that show. It's not much—just a couple of contraptions such as
a flying-jinny and swings. It corrals the colored people and
mill hands and kids. They move around to different vacant lots
in town.'
'Show me how to get there.'
Brannon went with him to the door and pointed out the
direction. 'Did you go on home with Singer this morning?'
Jake nodded.
"What do you think of him?'
Jake bit his lips. The mute's face was in his mind very clearly.
It was like the face of a friend he had known for a long time.
He had been thinking of the man ever since he had left his
room. 'I didn't even know he was a dummy,' he said finally.
He began walking again down the hot, deserted street. He did
not walk as a stranger in a strange town. He seemed to be
looking for someone. Soon he entered one of the mill districts
bordering the river. The streets became narrow and unpaved
and they were not empty any longer. Groups of dingy, hungry-
looking children called to each other and played games. The
two-room shacks, each one like the other, were rotten and
unpainted. The stink of food and sewage mingled with the
dust in the air. The falls up the river made a faint rushing
sound. People stood silently in doorways or lounged on steps.
They looked at Jake with yellow, expressionless faces. He
stared back at them with wide, brown eyes. He walked jerkily,
and now and then he wiped his mouth with the hairy back of
his hand.
At the end of Weavers Lane there was a vacant block. It had
once been used as a junk yard for old automobiles. Rusted
pieces of machinery and torn inner tubes still littered the
ground. A trailer was parked in one corner of the lot, and nearby was a flying-jinny partly covered with canvas.
Jake approached slowly. Two little younguns in overalls stood
before the flying-jinny. Near them, seated on a box, a Negro
man drowsed in the late sunshine, his knees collapsed against
each other. In one hand he held a sack of melted chocolate.
Jake watched him stick his fingers in the miry candy and then
lick them slowly.
53
.Who's the manager of this outfit?
'
The Negro thrust his two sweet fingers between his lips and
rolled over them with his tongue. 'He a red-headed man,' he
said when he had finished. 'That all I know, Cap'n.
'
'Where's he now?
'
'He over there behind that largest wagon.
'
Jake slipped off his tie as he walked across the grass and
staffed it into his pocket. The sun was beginning to set in the
west. Above the black line of housetops the sky was warm
crimson. The owner of the show stood smoking a cigarette by
himself. His red hair sprang up like a sponge on the top of his
head and he stared at Jake with gray, flabby eyes.
"You the manager?
'
*Uh-huh. Patterson's my name.
'
'I come about the job in this morning's paper.
'
*Yeah. I don't want no greenhorn. I need a experienced
mechanic.
'
'I got plenty of experience,' Jake said.
'What you ever done?
'
Tve worked as a weaver and loom-fixer. I've worked in
garages and an automobile assembly shop. All sorts of
different things.
'
Patterson guided him toward the partly covered flying-jinny.
The motionless wooden horses were fantastic in the late
afternoon sun. They pranced up statically, pierced by their
dull gilt bars. The horse nearest Jake had a splintery wooden
crack in its dingy rump and the eyes walled blind and frantic,
shreds of paint peeled from the sockets. The motionless
merry-go-round seemed to Jake like something in a liquor
dream.
'I want a experienced mechanic to run this and keep the works
in good shape,' Patterson said.
.I can do that all right.'
'If s a two-handed job,' Patterson explained. 'You're in charge
of the whole attraction. Besides looking after the machinery
you got to keep the crowd in order. You got to be sure that
everybody gets on has a ticket. You got to be sure that the
tickets are O.K. and not some old dance-hall ticket. Everybody
wants to ride them horses, and you'd be surprised what niggers
will try to put over on you when54
they don't have no money. You got to keep three eyes open all
the time.'
Patterson led him to the machinery inside the circle of horses
and pointed out the various parts. He adjusted a lever and the
thin jangle of mechanical music began. The wooden cavalcade
around them seemed to cut them off from the rest of the
world. When the horses stopped, Jake asked a few questions
and operated the mechanism himself.
'The fellow I had quit on me,' Patterson said when they had
come out again into the lot. 'I always hate to break in a new
man.' 'When do I start?'
Tomorrow afternoon. We run six days and nights a week—
beginning at four and shutting up at twelve. You're to come
about three and help get things going. And it takes about a
hour after the show to fold up for the night.' 'What about pay?'
'Twelve dollars.'
Jake nodded, and Patterson held out a dead-white, boneless
hand with dirty fingernails.
It was late when he left the vacant lot. The hard, blue sky had
blanched and in the east there was a white moon. Dusk
softened the outline of the houses along the street. Jake did
not return immediately through Weavers Lane, but wandered
in the neighborhoods near-by. Certain smells, certain voices
heard from a distance, made him stop short now and then by
the side of the dusty street. He walked erratically, jerking from
one direction to another for no purpose. His head felt very
light, as though it were made of thin glass. A chemical change
was taking place in him. The beers and whiskey he had stored
so continuously in his system set in a reaction. He was
sideswiped by drunkenness. The streets which had seemed so
dead before were quick with life. There was a ragged strip of
grass bordering the street, and as Jake walked along the
ground seemed to rise nearer to his face. He sat down on the
border of grass and leaned against a telephone pole. He settled
himself comfortably, crossing his legs Turkish fashion and
smoothing down the ends of his mustache. Words came to him
and dreamily he spoke them aloud to himself.
55
.Resentment is the most precious flower of poverty. Yeah.'
It was good to talk. The sound of his voice gave him pleasure.
The tones seemed to echo and hang on the air so that each
word sounded twice. He swallowed and moistened his mouth
to speak again. He wanted suddenly to return to the mute's
quiet room and tell him of the thoughts that were in his mind.
It was a queer thing to want to talk with a deaf-mute. But he
was lonesome.
The street before him dimmed with the coming evening.
Occasionally men passed along the narrow street very close to
him, talking in monotones to each other, a cloud of dust rising
around their feet with each step. Or girls passed by together,
or a mother with a child across her shoulder. Jake sat numbly
for some time, and at last he got to his feet and walked on.
Weavers Lane was dark. Oil lamps made yellow, trembling
patches of light in the doorways and windows. Some of the
houses were entirely dark and the families sat on their front
steps with only the reflections from a neighboring house to see
by. A woman leaned out of a window and splashed a pail of
dirty water into the street. A few drops of it splashed on Jake's
face. High, angry voices could be heard from the backs of
some of the houses. From others there was the peaceful sound
of a chair slowly rocking.
Jake stopped before a house where three men sat together on
the front steps. A pale yellow light from inside the house
shone on them. Two of the men wore overalls but no shirts
and were barefooted. One of these was tall and loose-jointed.
The other was small and he had a running sore on the corner
of his mouth. The third man was dressed in shirt and trousers.
He held a straw hat on his knee.
'Hey,' Jake said.
The three men stared at him with mill-sallow, dead-pan faces.
They murmured but did not change their positions. Jake pulled
the package of Target from his pocket and passed it around.
He sat down on the bottom step and took off his shoes. The
cool, damp ground felt good to his feet.
'Working now?'56
.Yeah,' said the man with the straw hat. 'Most of the time.'
Jake picked between his toes. 'I got the Gospel in me,* he
said. 'I want to tell it to somebody.'
The men smiled. From across the narrow street there was the
sound of a woman singing. The smoke from their cigarettes
hung close around them in the still air. A little youngun
passing along the street stopped and opened bis fly to make
water.
'There's a tent around the corner and it's Sunday,' the small
man said finally. 'You can go there and tell all the Gospel you
want.'
'It's not that kind. It's better. It's the truth.'
'What kind?'
Jake sucked his mustache and did not answer. After a while he
said, 'You ever have any strikes here?'
'Once,' said the tall man. They had one of these here strikes
around six years ago.'
'What happened?'
The man with the sore on his mouth shuffled his feet and
dropped the stub of his cigarette to the ground. 'Well —they
just quit work because they wanted twenty cents a hour. There
was about three hundred did it. They just hung around the
streets all day. So the mill sent out trucks, and in a week the
whole town was swarming with folks come here to get a job.'
Jake turned so that he was facing them. The men sat two steps
above him so that he had to raise his head to look into their
eyes. 'Don't it make you mad?' he asked.
'How do you mean—mad?'
The vein in Jake's forehead was swollen and scarlet.
'Christamighty, man! I mean mad—m-a-d—mad.1 He scowled
up into their puzzled, sallow faces. Behind them, through the
open front door he could see the inside of the house. In the
front room there were three beds and a wash-stand. In the back
room a barefooted woman sat sleeping in a chair. From one of
the dark porches near-by there was the sound of a guitar.
'I was one of them come in on the trucks,' the tall man said.
'That makes no difference. What I'm trying to tell you
57
is plain and simple. The bastards who own these mills are
millionaires. While the doffers and carders and all the people
behind the machines who spin and weave the cloth can't
hardly make enough to keep their guts quiet. See? So when
you walk around the streets and. think about it and see hungry,
worn-out people and ricket-legged young-uns, don't it make
you mad? Don't it?'
Jake's face was flushed and dark and his lips trembled. The
three men looked at him warily. Then the man in the straw hat
began to laugh.
'Go on and snicker. Sit there and bust your sides open.'
The men laughed in the slow and easy way that three men
laugh at one. Jake brushed the dirt from the soles of his feet
and put on his shoes. His fists were closed tight and his mouth
was contorted with an angry sneer. 'Laugh —that's all you're
good for. I hope you sit there and snicker 'til you rot!' As he
walked stiffly down the street, the sound of their laughter and
catcalls still followed him.
The main street was brightly lighted. Jake loitered on a corner,
fondling the change in his pocket. His head throbbed, and
although the night was hot a chill passed through his body. He
thought of the mute and he wanted urgently to go back and sit
with him awhile. In the fruit and candy store where he had
bought the newspaper that afternoon he selected a basket of
fruit wrapped in cellophane. The Greek behind the counter
said the price was sixty cents, so that when he had paid he was
left with only a nickel. As soon as he had come out of the
store the present seemed a funny one to take a healthy man. A
few grapes hung down below, the cellophane, and he picked
them off hungrily.
Singer was at home when he arrived. He sat by the window
with the chess game laid out before him on the table. The
room was just as Jake had left it, with the fan turned on and
the pitcher of ice water beside the table. There was a panama
hat on the bed and a paper parcel, so it seemed that the mute
had just come in. He jerked his head toward the chair across
from him at the table and pushed the chessboard to one side.
He leaned back with his hands in his pockets, and his face
seemed to question Jake about what had happened since he
had left.58
Jake put the fruit on the table. 'For this afternoon,' he said.
'The motto has been: Go out and find an octopus and put socks
on it.'
The mute smiled, but Jake could not tell if he had caught what
he had said. The mute looked at the fruit with surprise and
then undid the cellophane wrappings. As he handled the fruits
there was something very peculiar in the fellow's face. Jake
tried to understand this look and was stumped. Then Singer
smiled brightly.
'I got a job this afternoon with a sort of show. I'm to run the
flying-jinny.'
The mute seemed not at all surprised. He went into the closet
and brought out a bottle of wine and two glasses. They drank
in silence. Jake felt that he had never been in such a quiet
room. The light above his head made a queer reflection of
himself in the glowing wineglass he held before him—the
same caricature of himself he had noticed many times before
on the curved surfaces of pitchers or tin mugs—with his face
egg-shaped and dumpy and his mustache straggling almost up
to his ears. Across from him the mute held his glass in both
hands. The wine began to hum through Jake's veins and he felt
himself entering again the kaleidoscope of drunkenness.
Excitement made his mustache tremble jerkily. He leaned
forward with his elbows on his knees and fastened a wide,
searching gaze on Singer.
'I bet I'm the only man in this town that's been mad— I'm
talking about really mean mad—for ten solid long years. I
damn near got in a fight just a little while ago. Sometimes it
seems to me like I might even be crazy. I just don't know.'
Singer pushed the wine toward his guest. Jake drank from the
bottle and rubbed the top of his head.
'You see, it's like I'm two people. One of me is an educated
man. I been in some of the biggest libraries in the country. I
read. I read all the time. I read books that tell the pure honest
truth. Over there in my suitcase I have books by Karl Marx
and Thorstein Veblen and such writers as them. I read them
over and over, and the more I study the madder I get. I know
every word printed on every page. To begin with I like words.
Dialectic materialism—Jesuitical prevarication'— Jake rolled
the syllables
59
in his mouth with loving solemnity—'teleological propensity.'
The mute wiped his forehead with a neatly folded
handkerchief.
'But what I'm getting at is this. When a person knows and can't
make the others understand, what does he do?'
Singer reached for a wineglass, filled it to the brim, and put it
firmly into Jake's bruised hand. 'Get drunk, huh?' Jake said
with a jerk of his arm that spilled drops of wine on his white
trousers. 'But listen! Wherever you look there's meanness and
corruption. This room, this bottle of grape wine, these fruits in
the basket, are all products of profit and loss. A fellow can't
live without giving his passive acceptance to meanness.
Somebody wears his tail to a frazzle for every mouthful we eat
and every stitch we wear —and nobody seems to know.
Everybody is blind, dumb, and blunt-headed—stupid and
mean.'
Jake pressed his fists to his temples. His thoughts had
careened in several directions and he could not get control of
them. He wanted to go berserk. He wanted to get out and fight
violently with someone in a crowded street.
Still looking at him with patient interest, the mute took out his
silver pencil. He wrote very carefully on a slip of paper, Are
you Democrat or Republican? and passed the paper across the
table. Jake crumpled it in his hand. The room had begun to
turn around him again and he could not even read.
He kept his eyes on the mute's face to steady himself. Singer's
eyes were the only things in the room that did not seem to
move. They were varied in color, flecked with amber, gray,
and a soft brown. He stared at them so long that he almost
hypnotized himself. He lost the urge to be riotous and felt
calm again. The eyes seemed to understand all that he had
meant to say and to hold some message for him. After a while
the room was steady again.
'You get it,' he said in a blurred voice. 'You know what I
mean.'
From afar off there was the soft, silver ring of church bells.
The moonlight was white on the roof next door and the sky
was a gentle summer blue. It was agreed without words that
Jake would stay with Singer a few days until he found a room.
When the wine was finished the mute60
put a mattress on the floor beside the bed. Without removing
any of his clothes Jake lay down and was instantly asleep.
JL AR from the main street, in one of the Negro sections of the
town, Doctor Benedict Mady Copeland sat in his dark kitchen
alone. It was past nine o'clock and the Sunday bells were
silent now. Although the night was very hot, there was a small
fire in the round-bellied wood stove. Doctor Copeland sat
close to it, leaning forward in a straight-backed kitchen chair
with his head cupped in his long, slender hands. The red glow
from the chinks of the stove shone on his face—in this light
his heavy lips looked almost purple against his black skin, and
his gray hair, tight against his skull like a cap of lamb's wool,
took on a bluish color also. He sat motionless in this position
for a long time. Even his eyes, which stared from behind the
silver rims of his spectacles, did not change their fixed,
somber gaze. Then he cleared his throat harshly, and picked
up a book from the floor beside his chair. All around him the
room was very dark, and he had to hold the book close to the
stove to make out the print. Tonight he read Spinoza. He did
not wholly understand the intricate play of ideas and the
complex phrases, but as he read he sensed a strong, true
purpose behind the words and he felt that he almost
understood.
Often at night the sharp jangle of the doorbell would rouse
him from his silence, and in the front room he would find a
patient with a broken bone or with a razor wound. But this
evening he was not disturbed. And after the solitary hours
spent sitting in the dark kitchen it happened that he began
swaying slowly from side to side and from his throat there
came a sound like a kind of singing moan. He was making this
sound when Portia came.
Doctor Copeland knew of her arrival in advance. From the
street outside he caught the sound of an harmonica playing a
blues song and he knew that the music was played by William,
his son. Without turning on the light he went through the hall
and opened the front door. He did not step out on the porch,
but stood in the dark behind
61
the screen. The moonlight was bright and the shadows of
Portia and William and Highboy lay black and solid on the
dusty street. The houses in the neighborhood had a miserable
look. Doctor Copeland's house was different from any other
building near-by. It was built solidly of brick and stucco.
Around the small front yard there was a picket fence. Portia
said good-bye to her husband and brother at the gate and
knocked on the screen door.
'How come you sit here in the dark like this?'
They went together through the dark hall back to the kitchen.
'You haves grand electric lights. It don't seem natural why you
all the time sitting in the dark like this.'
Doctor Copeland twisted the bulb suspended over the table
and the room was suddenly very bright. 'The dark suits me,' he
said.
The room was clean and bare. On one side of the kitchen table
there were books and an inkstand—on the other side a fork,
spoon, and plate. Doctor Copeland held himself bolt upright
with his long legs crossed and at first Portia sat stiffly, too.
The father and daughter had a strong resemblance to each
other—both of them had the same broad, flat noses, the same
mouths and foreheads. But Portia's skin was very light when
compared to her Father's.
'It sure is roasting in here,' she said. 'Seems to me you would
let this here fire die down except when you cooking.'
'If you prefer we can go up to my office,' Doctor Copeland
said.
'I be all right, I guess. I don't prefer.'
Doctor Copeland adjusted his silver-rimmed glasses and then
folded his hands in his lap. 'How have you been since we were
last together? You and your husband—and your brother?'
Portia relaxed and slipped her feet out of her pumps. 'Highboy
and Willie and me gets along just fine.'
'William still boards with you?'
'Sure he do,' Portia said. 'You see—us haves our own way of
living and our own plan. Highboy—he pay the rent. I buys all
the food out of my money. And Willie—he tends to all of our
church dues, insurance, lodge dues, and Saturday Night. Us
three haves our own plan and each one of us does our
parts.'tJAKSUIN
Doctor Copeland sat with his head bowed, pulling at his long
fingers until he had cracked all of his joints. The clean cuffs
of his sleeves hung down past his wrists—below them his thin
hands seemed lighter in color than the rest of his body and the
palms were soft yellow. His hands had always an immaculate,
shrunken look, as though they had been scrubbed with a brush
and soaked for a long time in a pan of water.
'Here, I almost forgot what I brought,' Portia said. 'Haves you
had your supper yet?'
Doctor Copeland always spoke so carefully that each syllable
seemed to be filtered through his sullen, heavy lips. 'No, I
have not eaten.'
Portia opened a paper sack she had placed on the kitchen
table. 'I done brought a nice mess of collard greens and I
thought maybe we have supper together. I done brought a
piece of side meat, too. These here greens need to be seasoned
with that. You don't care if the collards is just cooked in meat,
do you?'
'It does not matter.'
'You still don't eat nair meat?'
*No. For purely private reasons I am a vegetarian, but it does
not matter if you wish to cook the collards with a piece of
meat'
Without putting on her shoes Portia stood at the table and
carefully began to pick over the greens. This here floor sure
do feel good to my feets. You mind if I just walk around like
this without putting back on them tight, hurting pumps?'
'No,' said Doctor Copeland. 'That will be all right'
'Then—us'll have these nice collards and some hoecake and
coffee. And I, going to cut me off a few slices of this here
white meat and fry it for myself.'
Doctor Copeland followed Portia with his eyes. She moved
slowly around the room in her stockinged feet, taking down
the scrubbed pans from the wall, building up the fire, washing
the grit from the collards. He opened his mouth to speak once
and then composed his lips again.
'So you and your husband and your brother have your own cooperative plan,' he said finally.
"That's right.'
Doctor Copeland jerked at his fingers and tried to pop
THE HEAR! IS A LUWHL I rtuiN mis. i.
the joints again. 'Do you intend to plan for children?'
Portia did not look at her father. Angrily she sloshed the water
from the pan of collards. "There be some things,' she said,
'that seem to me to depend entirely upon God.'
They did not say anything else. Portia left the supper to cook
on the stove and sat silently with her long hands dropping
down limp between her knees. Doctor Cope-land's head rested
on his chest as though he slept. But he was not sleeping; now
and then a nervous tremor would pass over his face. Then he
would breathe deeply and compose his face again. Smells of
the supper began to fill the stifling room. In the quietness the
clock on top of the cupboard sounded very loud, and because
of what they had just said to each other the monotonous
ticking was like the word 'chil-dren, chil-dren,' said over and
over.
He was always meeting one of them—crawling naked on a
floor or engaged in a game of marbles or even on a dark street
with his arms around a girl. Benedict Copeland, the boys were
all called. But for the girls there were such names as Benny
Mae or Madyben or Benedine Ma-dine. He had counted one
day, and there were more than a dozen named for him.
But all his life he had told and explained and exhorted. You
cannot do this, he would say. There are all reasons why this
sixth or fifth or ninth child cannot be, he would tell them. It is
not more children we need but more chances for the ones
already on the earth. Eugenic Parenthood for the Negro Race
was what he would exhort them to. He would tell them in
simple words, always the same way, and with the years it
came to be a sort of angry poem which he had always known
by heart.
He studied and knew the development of any new theory. And
from his own pocket he would distribute the devices to his
patients himself. He was by far the first doctor in the town to
even think of such. And he would give and explain and give
and tell them. And then deliver maybe two score times a
week. Madyben and Benny Mae.
That was only one point. Only one.
All of his life he knew that there was a reason for his working.
He always knew that he was meant to teach his people. All
day he would go with his bag from house to house and on all
things he would talk to them. MCUULLEKS
After the long day a heavy tiredness would come in him. But
in the evening when he opened the front gate the tiredness
would go away. There were Hamilton and Karl Marx and
Portia and little William. There was Daisy, too.
Portia took the lid from the pan on the stove and stirred the
collards with a fork. 'Father—' she said after a while.
Doctor Copeland cleared his throat and spat into a
handkerchief. His voice was bitter and rough. 'Yes?'
'Less us quit this here quarreling with each other.'
'We were not quarreling,' said Doctor Copeland.
'It don't take words to make a quarrel,' Portia said. 'It look to
me like us is always arguing even when we sitting perfectly
quiet like this. It just this here feeling I haves. I tell you the
truth—ever time I come to see you it mighty near wears me
out. So less us try not to quarrel in any way no more.'
'It is certainly not my wish to quarrel. I am sorry if you have
that feeling, Daughter.'
She poured out coffee and handed one cup unsweetened to her
father. In her own portion she put several spoons of sugar. 'I
getting hungry and this will taste good to us. Drink your
coffee while I tell you something which happened to us a
piece back. Now that it all over it seem a little bit funny, but
we got plenty reason not to laugh too hard.'
'Go ahead,' said Doctor Copeland.
'Well—sometime back a real fine-looking, dressed-up colored
man come in town here. He called hisself Mr. B. F. Mason
and said he come from Washington, D. C. Ever day he would
walk up and down the street with a walking-cane and a pretty
colored shirt on. Then at night he would go to the Society
Caf6. He eaten finer than any man in this town. Ever night he
would order hisself a bottle of gin and two pork chops for his
supper. He always had a smile for everybody and was always
bowing around to the girls and holding a door open for you to
come in or go out For about a week he made hisself mighty
pleasant wherever he were. Peoples begun to ask questions
and wonder about this rich Mr. B. F. Mason. Then pretty soon,
after he acquaints hisself, he begun to settle down to business.'
Portia spread out her lips and blew into her saucer of
r ncn&i
coffee. 'I suppose you done read in the paper about this
Government Pincher business for old folks?'
Doctor Copeland nodded. 'Pension,' he said.
'Well—he were connected with that. He were from the
government. He had to come down from the President in
Washington, D. C, to join everbody up for the Government
Pinchers. He went around from one door to the next
explaining how you pay one dollar down to join and after that
twenty-five cents a week—and how when you were forty-five
year old the government would pay you fifty dollars ever
month of your life. All the peoples I know were very excited
about this. He give everbody that joined a free picture of the
President with his name signed under it. He told how at the
end of six months there were going to be free uniforms for
ever member. The club was called the Grand League of
Pincheners for Colored Peoples— and at the end of two
months everbody was going to get a orange ribbon with a G.
L. P. C. P. on it to stand for the name. You know, like all these
other letter things in the government. He come around from
house to house with this little book and everbody commenced
to join. He wrote their names down and took the money. Ever
Saturday he would collect In three weeks this Mr. B. F. Mason
had joined up so many peoples he couldn't get all the way
around on Saturday. He have to pay somebody to take up the
collections in each three four blocks. I collected early ever
Saturday for near where we live and got that quarter. Course
Willie had joined at the beginning for him and Highboy and
me.'
'I have come across many pictures of the President in various
houses near where you live and I remember hearing the name
Mason mentioned,' said Doctor Copeland. 'He was a thief?'
'He were,' said Portia. 'Somebody begun to find out about this
Mr. B. F. Mason and he were arrested. They find out he were
from just plain Atlanta and hadn't never smelled no
Washington, D. C, or no President. All the money were hid or
spent. Willie had just throwed away seven dollars and fifty
cents.'
Doctor Copeland was excited. 'That is what I mean by—'
c
'In the hereafter,' Portia said, 'that man sure going to66
wake up with a hot pitchfork in his gut. But now that it all
over it do seem a little bit funny, but of course we got plenty
reason not to laugh too hard.'
'The Negro race of its own accord climbs up on the cross on
every Friday,' said Doctor Copeland.
Portia's hands shook and coffee trickled down from the saucer
she was holding. She licked it from her arm. 'What , you
mean?'
'I mean that I am always looking. I mean that if I could just
find ten Negroes—ten of my own people—with spine and
brains and courage who are wilMng to' give all that
they have------'
Portia put down the coffee. 'Us was not talking about anything
like that'
'Only four Negroes,' said Doctor Copeland. 'Only the sum of
Hamilton and Karl Marx and William and you. Only four
Negroes with these real true qualities and backbone------'
'Willie and Highboy and me have backbone,' said Portia
angrily. 'This here is a hard world and it seem to me us three
struggles along pretty well.'
For a minute they were silent. Doctor Copeland laid his
spectacles on the table and pressed bis shrunken fingers to his
eyeballs.
'You all the time using that word—Negro,' said Portia. 'And
that word haves a way of hurting people's feelings. Even old
plain nigger is better than that word. But polite peoples—no
matter what shade they is—always says colored.'
Doctor Copeland did not answer. 'Take Willie and me. Us
aren't all the way colored. Our Mama was real light and both
of us haves a good deal of white folks' blood in us. And
Highboy—he Indian. He got a good part Indian in him. None
of us is pure colored and the word you all the time using haves
a way of hurting people's feelings.'
'I am not interested in subterfuges,' said Doctor Copeland. 'I
am interested only in real truths.'
'Well, this here is a truth. Everybody is scared of you. It sure
would take a whole lot of gin to get Hamilton or Buddy or
Willie or my Highboy to come in this house and
67
sit with you like I does. Willie say he remember you when he
were only a little boy and he were afraid of his own father
then.'
Doctor Copeland coughed harshly and cleared his throat.
'Everbody haves feelings—no matter who they is—and
nobody is going to walk in no house where they certain their
feelings will be hurt. You the same way. I seen your feelings
injured too many times by white peoples not to know that.'
*No,' said Doctor Copeland. 'You have not seen my feelings
injured.'
'Course I realize that Willie or my Highboy or me— that none
of us is scholars. But Highboy and Willie is both good as gold.
There just is a difference between them and you.'
'Yes,' said Doctor Copeland.
'Hamilton or Buddy or Willie or me—none of us ever cares to
talk like you. Us talk like our own Mama and her peoples and
their peoples before them. You think out everthing in your
brain. While us rather talk from something in our hearts that
has been there for a long time. That's one of them differences.'
'Yes,' said Doctor Copeland.
'A person can't pick up they children and just squeeze them to
which-a-way they wants them to be. Whether it hurt them or
not. Whether it right or wrong. You done tried that hard as any
man could try. And now I the only one of us that would come
in this here house and sit with you like this.
'
The light was very bright in Doctor Copeland's eyes and her
voice was loud and hard. He coughed and his whole face
trembled. He tried to pick up the cup of cold coffee, but his
hand would not hold it steadily. The tears came up to his eyes
and he reached for his glasses to try to hide them.
Portia saw and went up to him quickly. She put her arms
around his head and pressed her cheek to his forehead. 'I done
hurt my Father's feelings,' she said softly.
His voice was hard. 'No. It is foolish and primitive to keep
repeating this about hurt feelings.'68
The tears went slowly down his cheek and the fire made them
take on the colors of blue and green and red. 'I be really and
truly sorry,' said Portia.
Doctor Copeland wiped his face with his cotton handkerchief.
'It is all right.
'
'Less us not ever quarrel no more. I can't stand this here
fighting between us. It seem to me that something real bad
come up in us ever time we be together. Less us never quarrel
like this no more.
'
'No,' said Doctor Copeland. 'Let us not quarrel.
'
Portia sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
For a few minutes she stood with her arms around her father's
head. Then after a while she wiped her face for a final time
and went over to the pot of greens on the stove.
'It mighty nigh time for these to be tender,' she said cheerfully.
'Now I think I'll start making some of them good little
hoecakes to go along with them.
'
Portia moved slowly around the kitchen in her stockinged feet
and her father followed her with his eyes. For a while again
they were silent.
With his eyes wet, so that the edges of things were blurred,
Portia was truly like her mother. Years ago Daisy had walked
like that around the kitchen, silent and occupied. Daisy was
not black as he was—her skin had been like the beautiful
color of dark honey. She was always very quiet and gentle.
But beneath that soft gentleness there was something stubborn
in her, and no matter how conscientiously he studied it all out,
he could not understand the gentle stubbornness in his wife.
He would exhort her and he would tell her all that was in his
heart and still she was gentle. And still she would not listen to
him but would go on her own way.
Then later there were Hamilton and Karl Marx and William
and Portia. And this feeling of real true purpose for them was
so strong that he knew exactly how each thing should be with
them. Hamilton would be a great scientist and Karl Marx a
teacher of the Negro race and William a lawyer to fight
against injustice and Portia a doctor for women and children.
And when they were even babies he would tell them of the
yoke they must thrust from their shoulders—the
69
yoke of submission and slothfulness. And when they were a
little older he would impress upon them that there was no
God, but that their lives were holy and for each one of them
there was this real true purpose. He would tell it to them over
and over, and they would sit together far away from him and
look with their big Negro-children eyes at their mother. And
Daisy would sit without listening, gentle and stubborn.
Because of the true purpose for Hamilton, Karl Marx,
William, and Portia, he knew how every detail should be. In
the autumn of each year he took them all into town and bought
for them good black shoes and black stockings. For Portia he
bought black woolen material for dresses and white linen for
collars and cuffs. For the boys there was black wool for
trousers and fine white linen for shirts. He did not want them
to wear bright-colored, flimsy clothes. But when they went to
school those were the ones they wished to wear, and Daisy
said that they were embarrassed and that he was a hard father.
He knew how the house should be. There could be no f and-
ness—no gaudy calendars or lace pillows or knickknacks —
but everything in the house must be plain and dark and
indicative of work and the real true purpose.
Then one night he found that Daisy had pierced holes in little
Portia's ears for earrings. And another time a kew-pie doll
with feather skirts was on the mantelpiece when he came
home, and Daisy was gentle and hard and would not put it
away. He knew, too, that Daisy was teaching the children the
cult of meekness. She told them about hell and heaven. Also
she convinced them of ghosts and of haunted places. Daisy
went to church every Sunday and she talked sorrowfully to the
preacher of her own husband. And with her stubbornness she
always took the children to the church, too, and they listened.
The whole Negro race was sick, and he was busy all the day
and sometimes half the night. After the long day a great
weariness would come in him, but when he opened Sie front
gate of his home the weariness would go away. Yet when he
went into the house William would be playing music on a
comb wrapped in toilet paper, Hamilton and Karl Marx would
be shooting craps for their lunch money, Portia would be
laughing with her mother.70
He would start all over with them, but in a different way. He
would bring out their lessons and talk with them. They would
sit close together and look at their mother. He would talk and
talk, but none of them wanted to understand.
The feeling that would come on him was a black, terrible,
Negro feeling. He would try to sit in his office and read and
meditate until he could be calm and start again. He would pull
down the shades of the room so that there would be only the
bright light and the books and the feeling of meditation. But
sometimes this calmness would not come. He was young, and
the terrible feeling would not go away with study.
Hamilton, Karl Marx, William, and Portia would be afraid of
him and look at their mother—and sometimes when he
realized this the black feeling would conquer him and he knew
not what he did.
He could not stop those terrible things, and afterward he could
never understand.
'This here supper sure smells good to me,' said Portia. 1 expect
us better eat now because Highboy and Willie liable to come
trooping in any minute.'
Doctor Copeland settled his spectacles and pulled his chair up
to the table. 'Where have your husband and William been
spending the evening?'
They been throwing horseshoes. This here Raymond Jones
haves a horseshoe place in his back yard. This Raymond and
his sister, Love Jones, plays ever night. Love is such a ugly
girl I don't mind about Highboy or Willie going around to
their house any time they wishes. But they said they would
come back for me at quarter to ten and I expecting them now
any minute.'
'Before I forget,' said Doctor Copeland. 'I suppose you hear
frequently from Hamilton and Karl Marx.'
'I does from Hamilton. He practically taken over all the work
on our Grandpapa's place. But Buddy, he in Mobile —and you
know he were never a big hand at writing letters. However,
Buddy always haves such a sweet way with peoples that I
don't ever worry concerning him. He the kind to always get
along right well.'
They sat silently at the table before the supper. Portia kept
looking up at the clock on the cupboard because it
71
was time for Highboy and Willie to come. Doctor Copeland
bent his head over the plate. He held the fork in his hand as
though it were heavy, and his fingers trembled. He only tasted
the food and with each mouthful he swallowed hard. There
was a feeling of strain, and it seemed as though both of them
wanted to keep up some conversation.
Doctor Copeland did not know how to begin. Sometimes he
thought that he had talked so much in the years before to his
children and they had understood so little that now there was
nothing at all to say. After a while he wiped his mouth with
his handkerchief and spoke in an uncertain voice.
'You have hardly mentioned yourself. Tell me about your job
and what you have been doing lately.'
'Course I still with the Kellys,' said Portia. 'But I tells you,
Father, I don't know how long I going to be able to keep on
with them. The work is hard and it always take me a long time
to get through. However, that don't bother me none. It about
the pay I worries about. I suppose to get three dollars a week
—but sometimes Mrs. Kelly likes a dollar or fifty cents of
paying me the full amount. Course she always catches up on it
soon as she able. But it haves a way of leaving me in a pinch.'
"That is not right,' said Doctor Copeland. 'Why do you stand
for it?'
'It ain't her fault. She can't help it,' said Portia. 'Half the folks
in that house don't pay the rent, and it a big expense to keep
everthing up. I tell you the truth—the Kellys is just barely
keeping one jump ahead of the sheriff. They having a mighty
hard time.'
'There ought to be some other job you can get' 'I know. But the
Kellys is really grand white peoples to work for. I really fond
of them as I can be. Them three little children is just like some
of my own kinfolks. I feel like I done really raised Bubber and
the baby. And although Mick and me is always getting into
some kind of quarrel together, I haves a real close fondness
for her, too.' 'But you must think of yourself,' said Doctor
Copeland.
'Mick, now------' said Portia. 'She a real case. Not a
soul know how to manage that child. She just as biggity and
headstrong as she can be. Something going on in her72
all the time. I haves a funny feeling about that child. It seem to
me that one of these days she going to really surprise
somebody. But whether that going to be a good surprise or a
bad surprise I just don't know. Mick puzzle me sometimes.
But still I really fond of her.'
*You must look out for your own livelihood first.'
'As I say, it ain't Mrs. Kelly's fault It cost so much to run that
big old house and the rent just don't be paid. Ain't but one
person in the house who pay a decent amount for his room and
pay it on the dot without fail. And that man only been living
there a short while. He one of these here deaf-and-dumb folks.
He the first one of them I ever seen close up—but he a mighty
fine white man.9
'Tall, thin, with gray and green eyes?' asked Doctor Copeland
suddenly. 'And always polite to everyone and very well
dressed? Not like someone from this town— more like a
Northerner or maybe a Jew?'
'That him,' said Portia.
Eagerness came into Doctor Copeland's face. He crumbled his
hoecake into the collard juice in his plate and began to eat
with a new appetite. 'I have a deaf-mute patient,' he said.
'How come you acquainted with Mr. Singer?' asked Portia.
Doctor Copeland coughed and covered his mouth with his
handkerchief. 'I have just seen him several times.'
'I better clean up now,' said Portia. 'It sure enough time for
Willie and my Highboy. But with this here real sink and grand
running water these little dishes won't take me two winks.'
The quiet insolence of the white race was one thing he had
tried to keep out of his mind for years. When the resentment
would come to him he would cogitate and study. In the streets
and around white people he would keep the dignity on his face
and always be silent. When he was younger it was 'Boy'—but
now it was 'Uncle.' 'Uncle, run down to that filling station on
the corner and send me a 4 mechanic' A white man in a car
had called out those words to him not long ago. 'Boy, give me
a hand with this.' —'Uncle, do that.' And he would not listen,
but would walk, on with the dignity in him and be silent
73
A few nights ago a drunken white man had come up to him
and begun pulling him along the street. He had his bag with
him and he was sure someone was hurt. But the drunkard had
pulled him into a white man's restaurant and the white men at
the counter had begun hollering out with their insolence. He
knew that the drunkard was making fun of him. Even then he
had kept the dignity in him.
But with this tall, thin white man with the gray-green eyes
something had happened that had never happened to him with
any white man before.
It came about on a dark, rainy night several weeks ago. He had
just come from a maternity case and was standing in the rain
on a corner. He had tried to light a cigarette and one by one
the matches in his box fizzled out. He had been standing with
the unlighted cigarette in his mouth when the white man
stepped up and held for him a lighted match. In the dark with
the flame between them they could see each other's faces. The
white man smiled at him and lighted for him his cigarette. He
did not know what to say, for nothing like that had ever
happened to him before.
They had stood for a few minutes on the street corner
together, and then the white man had handed him his card. He
wanted to talk to the white man and ask him some questions,
but he did not know for sure if he could really understand.
Because of the insolence of all the white race he was afraid to
lose his dignity in friendliness.
But the white man had lighted his cigarette and smiled and
seemed to want to be with him. Since then he had thought this
over many times.
'I have a deaf-mute patient,' said Doctor Copeland to Portia.
The patient is a boy five years of age. And somehow I cannot
get over the feeling that I am to blame for bis handicap. I
delivered him, and after two post-delivery visits of course I
forgot about him. He developed ear trouble, but the mother
paid no attention to the discharges from his ears and did not
bring him to me. When it was finally brought to my attention
it was too late. Of course he hears nothing and of course he
therefore cannot speak. But I have watched him carefully, and
it seems to me that if he were normal he would be a very
intelligent child.' 'You always had a great interest in little
children,' said74
Portia. 'You care a heap more about them than about grown
peoples, don't you?'
"There is more hope in the young child,' said Doctor
Copeland. 'But this deaf boy—I have been meaning to. make
inquiries and find if there is some institution that would take
him.'
'Mr. Singer would tell you. He a truly kind white man and he
not a bit biggity.'
'I do not know------' said Doctor Copeland. 'I have
thought once or twice about writing him a note and seeing if
he could give me information.'
'Sure I would if I was you. You a grand letter-writer and I
would give it to Mr. Singer for you,' said Portia. 'He come
down in the kitchen two-three weeks ago with a few shirts he
wanted me to rinch out for him. Them shirts were no more
dirty than if Saint John the Baptist hisself had been wearing
them. All I had to do were dip them in warm water and give
the collars a small rub and press them. But that night when I
taken them five clean shirts up to his room you know how
much he give me?'
'No.'
'He smile like he always do and hand over to me a dollar. A
whole dollar just for them little shirts. He one really kind and
pleasant white man and I wouldn't be afraid to ask him any
question. I wouldn't even mind writing that nice white man a
letter myself. You go right ahead and do it, Father, if you
wants to.'
'Perhaps I will,' said Doctor Copeland.
Portia sat up suddenly and began arranging her tight, oily hair.
There was the faint sound of a harmonica and then gradually
the music grew louder. 'Here come Willie and Highboy,'
Portia said. 'I got to go out now and meet them. You take care
of yourself now, and send me a word if you needs me for
anything. I did enjoy the supper with you and the talking very
much.'
The music from the harmonica was very clear now, and they
could tell that Willie was playing while he waited at the front
gate.
'Wait a minute,' said Doctor Copeland. 'I have only seen your
husband with you about two times and I believe we have never
really met each other. And it has been
75
three years since William has visited his father. Why not tell
them to drop in for a little while?'
Portia stood in the doorway, fingering her hair and her
earrings.
'Last time Willie come in here you hurted his feelings. You
see you don't understand just how------'
'Very well,' said Doctor Copeland. 'it was only a suggestion.'
'Wait,' said Portia. 'I going to call them. I going to invite them
in right now.'
Doctor Copeland lighted a cigarette and walked up and down
the room. He could not straighten his glasses to just the right
position and his fingers kept trembling. From the front yard
there was the sound of low voices. Then heavy footsteps were
in the hall and Portia, William, and Highboy entered the
kitchen.
'Here we is,' said Portia. 'Highboy, I don't believe you and my
Father has ever truly been introduced to each other. But you
knows who each other is.'
Doctor Copeland shook hands with both of them. Willie hung
back shyly against the wall, but Highboy stepped forward and
bowed formally. 'I has always heard so much about you,' he
said. 'I be very pleased to make your acquaintance.'
Portia and Doctor Copeland brought in chairs from the hall
and the four of them sat around the stove. They were silent
and uneasy. Willie gazed nervously around the room —at the
books on the kitchen table, the sink, the cot against the wall,
and at his father. Highboy grinned and picked at his tie.
Doctor Copeland seemed about to speak, and then he wet his
lips and was still silent.
'Willie, you were going pretty good with your harp,' said
Portia finally. 'Look to me like you and Highboy must of got
into somebody's gin bottle.'
'No, ma'am,' said Highboy very politely. 'Us haven't had
anything since Saturday. Us have just been enjoying our
horseshoe game.'
Doctor Copeland still did not speak, and they all kept glancing
at him and waiting. The room was close and the quietness
made everyone nervous.
'I do haves the hardest time with them boys' clothes,'76
Portia said. 'I washes both of them white suits ever Saturday
and I presses them twice a week. And look at them now.
Course they don't wear them except when they gets home
from work. But after two days they seems to be potty black. I
ironed them pants just last night and now there not a crease
left.'
Still Doctor Copeland was silent. He kept his eyes on his son's
face, but when Willie noticed this he bit his rough, blunt
fingers and stared at his feet. Doctor Copeland felt his pulse
hammering at his wrists and temples. He coughed and held his
fist to his chest. He wanted to speak to his son, but he could
think of nothing to say. The old bitterness came up in him and
he did not have time to cogitate and push it down. His pulse
hammered in him and he was confused. But they all looked at
him, and the silence was so strong that he had to speak.
His voice was high and it did not sound as though it came
from himself. 'William, I wonder how much of all the things I
have said to you when you were a child have stayed in your
mind.'
'I don't know what you m-m-means,' Willie said.
The words came before Doctor Copeland knew what he would
say. 'I mean that to you and Hamilton and Karl Marx I gave all
that was in me. And I put all of my trust and hope in you. And
all I get is blank misunderstanding and idleness and
indifference. Of all I have put in nothing has remained. All has
been taken away from me. All that I have tried to do------'
'Hush,' said Portia. "Father, you promised me that us would
not quarrel. This here is crazy. Us can't afford to quarrel.'
Portia got up and started toward the front door. Willie and
Highboy followed quickly. Doctor Copeland was the last to
come.
They stood in the dark before the front door. Doctor Copeland
tried to speak, but his voice seemed lost some-.. where deep
inside him. Willie and Portia and Highboy stood in a group
together.
With one arm Portia held to her husband and brother and with
the other she reached out to Doctor Copeland. 'Less us all
make up now before us goes. I can't stand
77
this here fighting between us. Less us not ever quarrel no
more.'
In silence Doctor Copeland shook hands again with each of
them. 'I am sorry,' he said.
'It quite all right with me,' said Highboy politely.
'It quite all right with me too,' Willie mumbled.
Portia held all of their hands together. 'Us just can't afford to
quarrel.'
They said good-bye, and Doctor Copeland watched them from
the dark front porch as they went together up the street. Their
footsteps as they walked away had a lonesome sound and he
felt weak and tired. When they were a block away William
began playing his harmonica again. The music was sad and
empty. He stayed on the. front porch until he could neither see
nor hear them any longer.
Doctor Copeland turned off the lights in his house and sat in
the dark before the stove. But peace would not come to him.
He wanted to remove Hamilton and Karl Marx and William
from his mind. Each word that Portia had said to him came
back in a loud, hard way to his memory. He got up suddenly
and turned on the light. He settled himself at the table with his
books by Spinoza and William Shakespeare and Karl Marx.
When he read the Spinoza aloud to himself the words had a
rich, dark sound.
He thought of the white man of whom they had spoken. It
would be good if the white man could help him with Augustus
Benedict Mady Lewis, the deaf patient. It would be good to
write to the white man even if he did not have this reason and
these questions to ask. Doctor Copeland held his head in his
hands and from his throat there came the strange sound like a
kind of singing moan. He remembered the white man's face
when he smiled behind the yellow match flame on that rainy
night—and peace was in him.
B
Y MIDSUMMER Singer had visitors more often than any other
person in the house. From his room in the evening there was
nearly always the sound of a voice. After dinner at the New
York Cafe he bathed and dressed himself in78
79
one of his cool wash suits and as a rule did not go out again.
The room was cool and pleasant. He had an icebox in the
closet where he kept bottles of cold beer and fruit drinks. He
was never busy or in a hurry. And always he met his guests at
the door with a welcome smile.
Mick loved to go up to Mister Singer's room. Even if he was a
deaf-and-dumb mute he understood every word she said to
him. Talking with him was like a game. Only there was a
whole lot more to it than any game. It was like finding out
new things about music. She would tell him some of her plans
that she would not tell anybody else. He let her meddle with
his cute little chess men. Once when she was excited and
caught her shirt-tail in the electric fan he acted in such a
kindly way that she was not embarrassed at all. Except for her
Dad, Mister Singer was the nicest man she knew.
When Doctor Copeland wrote the note to John Singer about
Augustus Benedict Mady Lewis there was a polite reply and
an invitation for him to make a call when he found the
opportunity. Doctor Copeland went to the back of the house
and sat with Portia awhile in the kitchen. Then he climbed the
stairs to the white man's room. There was truly none of the
quiet insolence about this man. They had a lemonade together
and the mute wrote down the answer to the questions he
wished to know. This man was different from any person of
the white race whom Doctor Copeland had ever encountered.
Afterward he pondered about this white man a long time.
Then later, inasmuch as he had been invited in a cordial
manner to return, he made another visit.
Jake Blount came every week. When he walked up to Singer's
room the whole stairway shook. Usually he car-A ried a
paper sack of beers. Often his voice would come out y loud
and angry from the room. But before he left his voice
gradually quieted. When he descended the stairs he did not
carry the sack of beers any longer, and he walked away
thoughtfully without seeming to notice where he was going.
Even Biff Brannon came to the mute's room one night. But as
he could never stay away from the restaurant for long, he left
in a half-hour.
Singer was always the same to everyone. He sat in a
straight chair by the window with his hands stuffed tight into
his pockets, and nodded or smiled to show his guests that he
understood.
If he did not have a visitor in the evening, Singer went to a
late movie. He liked to sit back and watch the actors talking
and walking about on the screen. He never looked at the title
of a picture before going into a movie, and no matter what was
showing he watched each scene with equal interest.
Then, one day in July, Singer suddenly went away without
warning. He left the door of his room open, and on the table in
an envelope adddessed to Mrs. Kelly there were four dollars
for the past week's rent. His few simple possessions were gone
and the room was very clean and bare. When his visitors came
and saw this empty room they went away with hurt surprise.
No one could imagine why he had left like this.
Singer spent all of his summer vacation in the town where
Antonapoulos was being kept in the asylum. For months he
had planned this trip and imagined about each moment they
would have together. Two weeks beforehand his hotel
reservation had been made and for a long time he had carried
his railroad ticket in an envelope in his pocket.
Antonapoulos was not changed at all. When Singer came into
his room he ambled placidly to meet his friend. He was even
fatter than before, but the dreamy smile on his face was just
the same. Singer had some packages in his arms and the big
Greek gave them his first attention. His presents were a scarlet
dressing-gown, soft bedroom slippers, and two monogrammed
nightshirts. Antonapoulos looked beneath all the tissue papers
in the boxes very carefully. When he saw that nothing good to
eat had been concealed there, he dumped the gifts disdainfully
on his bed and did not bother with them any more.
The room was large and sunny. Several beds were spaced in a
row together. Three old men played a game of slapjack in a
corner. They did not notice Singer or Antonapoulos, and the
two friends sat alone on the other side of the room.
It seemed to Singer that years had passed since they had been
together. There was so much to say that his80
hands could not shape the signs with speed enough. His green
eyes burned and sweat glittered on his forehead. The old
feeling of gaiety and bliss was so quick in him again that he
could not control himself.
Antonapoulos kept his dark, oily eyes on his friend and did
not move. His hands fumbled languidly with the crotch of his
trousers. Singer told him, among other things, about the
visitors who had been coming to see him. He told his friend
that they helped take his mind away from his lonesomeness.
He told Antonapoulos that they were strange people and
always talking—but that he liked to have them come. He drew
quick sketches of Jake Blount and Mick and Doctor Copeland.
Then as soon as he saw mat Antonapoulos was not interested
Singer crumpled the sketches and forgot about them. When
the attendant came in to say that their time was up, Singer had
not finished half of the things he wanted to say. But he left the
room very tired and happy.
The patients could receive their friends only on Thursday and
Sunday. On the days when he could not be with
Antonapoulos, Singer walked up and down in his room at the
hotel.
His second visit to his friend was like the first, except that the
old men in the room watched them listlessly and did not play
slapjack.
After much trouble Singer obtained permission to take
Antonapoulos out with him for a few hours. He planned each
detail of the little excursion in advance. They drove out into
the country in a taxi, and then at four-thirty they went to the
dining-room at the hotel. Antonapoulos greatly enjoyed his
extra meal. He ordered half the dishes on the menu and ate
very greedily. But when he had finished he would not leave.
He held to the table. Singer coaxed him and the cab driver
wanted to use force. Antonapoulos sat stolidly and made
obscene gestures when they came too close to him. At last
Singer bought a bottle of whiskey from the hotel manager and
lured him into the taxi again. When Singer threw the
unopened bottle out of the window Antonapoulos wept with
disappointment and offense. The end of their little excursion
made Singer very sad.
His next visit was the last one, for his two weeks' vacation
was almost over. Antonapoulos had forgotten what
81
had happened before. They sat in their same corner of the
room. The minutes slipped by quickly. Singer's hands talked
desperately and his narrow face was very pale. At last it was
time for him to go. He held his friend by the arm and looked
into his face in the way that he used to do when they parted
each day before work. Antonapoulos stared at him drowsily
and did not move. Singer left the room with his hands stuffed
hard into his pockets.
Soon after Singer returned to his room at the boarding-house,
Mick and Jake Blount and Doctor Copeland began to come
again. Each one of them wanted to know where he had been
and why he had not let them know about his plans. But Singer
pretended that he did not understand their questions, and his
smile was inscrutable.
One by one they would come to Singer's room to spend the
evening with him. The mute was always thoughtful and
composed. His many-tinted gentle eyes were grave as a
sorcerer's. Mick Kelly and Jake Blount and Doctor Copeland
would come and talk in the silent room—tor they felt that the
mute would always understand whatever they wanted to say to
him. And maybe even more than that.Part Two
J. ms summer was different from any other time Mick could
remember. Nothing much happened that she could describe to
herself in thoughts or words—but there was a feeling of
change. AH the time she was excited. In the morning she
couldn't wait to get out of bed and start going for the day. And
at night she hated like hell to have to sleep again.
Right after breakfast she took the kids out, and except for
meals they were gone most of the day. A good deal of the time
they just roamed around the streets—with her pulling Ralph's
wagon and Bubber following along behind. Always she was
busy with thoughts and plans. Sometimes she would look up
suddenly and they would be way off in some part of town she
didn't even recognize. And once or twice they ran into Bill on
the streets and she was so busy thinking he had to grab her by
the arm to make her see him.
Early in the mornings it was a little cool and their shadows
stretched out tall on the sidewalk in front of them. But in the
middle of the day the sky was always blazing hot. The glare
was so bright it hurt to keep your eyes open. A lot of times the
plans about the things that were going to happen to her were
mixed up with ice and snow. Sometimes it was like she was
out in Switzerland and all the mountains were covered with
snow and she was skating on cold, greenish-colored ice.
Mister Singer would be skating with her. And maybe Carole
Lombard or Ar-turo Toscanini who played on the radio. They
would be skating together and then Mister Singer would fall
through
82
83
the ice and she would dive in without regard for peril and
swim under the ice and save his life. That was one of the plans
always going on in her mind.
Usually after they had walked awhile she would park Bubber
and Ralph in some shady place. Bubber was a swell kid and
she had trained him pretty good. If she told him not to go out
of hollering distance from Ralph she wouldn't ever find him
shooting marbles with kids two or three blocks away. He
played by himself near the wagon, and when she left them she
didn't have to worry much. She either went to the library and
looked at the National Geographic or else just roamed around
and thought some more. If she had any money she bought a
dope or a Milky Way at Mister Brannon's. He gave kids a
reduction. He sold them nickel things for three cents.
But all the time—no matter what she was doing—there was
music. Sometimes she hummed to herself as she walked, and
other times she listened quietly to the songs inside her. There
were all kinds of music in her thoughts. Some she heard over
radios, and some was in her mind already without her ever
having heard it anywhere.
In the night-time, as soon as the kids were in bed, she was
free. That was the most important time of all. A lot of things
happened when she was by herself and it was dark. Right after
supper she ran out of the house again. She couldn't tell
anybody about the things she did at night, and when her Mama
asked her questions she would answer with any little tale that
sounded reasonable. But most of the time if anybody called
her she just ran away like she hadn't heard. That went for
everybody except her Dad. There was something about her
Dad's voice she couldn't run away from. He was one of the
biggest, tallest men in the whole town. But his voice was so
quiet and kindly that people were surprised when he spoke.
No matter how much of a hurry she was in, she always had to
stop when her Dad called.
This summer she realized something about her Dad she had
never known before. Up until then she had never thought
about him as being a real separate person. A lot of times he
would call her. She would go in the front room where he
worked and stand by him a couple of minutes— but when she
listened to him her mind was never on the84
things he said to her. Then one night she suddenly realized
about her Dad. Nothing unusual happened that night and she
didn't know what it was that made her understand. Afterward
she felt older and as though she knew him as good as she
could know any person.
It was a night in late August and she was in a big rush. She
had to be at this house by nine o'clock, and no maybe either.
Her Dad called and she went into the front room. He was
sitting slumped over his workbench. For some reason it never
did seem natural to see him there. Until the time of his
accident last year he had been a painter and carpenter. Before
daylight every morning he would leave the house in his
overalls, to be gone all day. Then at night sometimes he
fiddled around with clocks as an extra work. A lot of times he
had tried to get a job in a jewelry store where he could sit by
himself at a desk all day with a clean white shirt on and a tie.
Now when he couldn't carpenter any more he had put a sign at
the front of the house reading 'Clocks and Watches Repaired
Cheap.' But he didn't look like most jewelers—the ones
downtown were quick, dark little Jew men. Her Dad was too
tall for his workbench, and his big bones seemed joined
together in a loose way.
Her Dad just stared at her. She could tell he didn't have any
reason for calling. He only wanted real bad to talk to her. He
tried to think of some way to begin. His brown eyes were too
big for his long, thin face, and since he had lost every single
hair the pale, bald top of his head gave him a naked look. He
stul looked at her without speaking and she was in a hurry.
She had to be at that house by nine sharp and there was no
time to waste. Her Dad saw she was in a hurry and he cleared
his throat
'I got something for you,' he said. 'Nothing much, but maybe
you can treat yourself with it.'
He didn't have to give her any nickel or dime just because he
was lonesome and wanted to talk. Out of what he made he
only kept enough to have beer about twice a week. Two
bottles were on the floor by his chair now, one empty and one
just opened. And whenever he drank beer he liked to talk to
somebody. Her Dad fumbled with his belt and she looked
away. This summer he had gotten like a kid about hiding those
nickels and dimes he kept for
85
himself. Sometimes he hid them in his shoes, and other times
in a little slit he had cut in his belt. She only halfway wanted
to take the dime, but when he held it out her hand was just
naturally open and ready.
'I got so much work to do I don't know where to begin,'
he said.
That was just the opposite to the truth, and he knew it good as
she did. He never had many watches to fix, and when he
finished he would fool around the house doing any little job
that was needed. Then at night he sat at his bench, cleaning
old springs and wheels and trying to make the work last out
until bedtime. Ever since he broke his hip and couldn't work
steady he had to be doing something
every minute.
'I been thinking a lot tonight,' her Dad said. He poured out his
beer and sprinkled a few grains of salt on the back of his hand.
Then he licked up the salt and took a swallow
out of the glass.
She was in such a hurry that it was hard to stand still. Her Dad
noticed this. He tried to say something—but he had not called
to tell her anything special. He only wanted to talk with her
for a little while. He started to speak and swallowed. They just
looked at each other. The quietness grew out longer and
neither of them could say a word.
That was when she realized about her Dad. It wasn't like she
was learning a new fact—she had understood it all along in
every way except with her brain. Now she just suddenly knew
that she knew about her Dad. He was lonesome and he was an
old man. Because none of the kids went to him for anything
and because he didn't earn much money he felt like he was cut
off from the family. And in his lonesomeness he wanted to be
close to one of his kids —and they were all so busy that they
didn't know it. He felt like he wasn't much real use to
anybody.
She understood this while they were looking at each other. It
gave her a queer feeling. Her Dad picked up a watch spring
and cleaned it with a brush dipped in gasoline.
'I know you're in a hurry. I just hollered to say hello.' *No, I'm
not in any rush,' she said. 'Honest.' That night she sat down in
a chair by his bench and they talked awhile. He talked about
accounts and expenses and86
how things would have been if he had just managed in a
different way. He drank beer, and once the tears came to his
eyes and he snuffled his nose against his shirt-sleeve. She
stayed with him a good while that night. Even if she was in an
awful hurry. Yet for some reason she couldn't tell him about
the things in her mind—about the hot, dark nights.
These nights were secret, and of the whole summer they were
the most important time. In the dark she walked by herself and
it was like she was the only person in the town. Almost every
street came to be as plain to her in the nighttime as her own
home block. Some kids were afraid to walk through strange
places in the dark, but she wasn't. Girls were scared a man
would come out from somewhere and put his teapot in them
like they was married. Most girls were nuts. If a person the
size of Joe Louis or Mountain Man Dean would jump out at
her and want to fight she would run. But if it was somebody
within twenty pounds her weight she would give him a good
sock and go right on.
The nights were wonderful, and she didn't have time to think
about such things as being scared. Whenever she was in the
dark she thought about music. While she walked along the
streets she would sing to herself. And she felt like the whole
town listened without knowing it was Mick Kelly.
She learned a lot about music during these free nights in the
summer-time. When she walked out in the rich parts of town
every house had a radio. All the windows were open and she
could hear the music very marvelous. After a while she knew
which houses tuned in for the programs she wanted to hear.
There was one special house that got all the good orchestras.
And at night she would go to this house and sneak into the
dark yard to listen. There was beautiful shrubbery around this
house, and she would sit under a bush near the window. And
after it was all over she would stand in the dark yard with her
hands in her pockets and think for a long time. That was the
realest part of all the summer—her listening to this music on
the radio and studying about it
'Cerra fa puerta, senor' Mick said.
87
Bubber was sharp as a briar. 'Haga me usted el favor,
senorita,' he answered as a comeback.
It was grand to take Spanish at Vocational. There was
something about speaking in a foreign language that made her
feel like she'd been around a lot. Every afternoon since school
had started she had fun speaking the new Spanish words and
sentences. At first Bubber was stumped, and it was funny to
watch his face while she talked the foreign language. Then he
caught on in a hurry, and before long he could copy
everything she said. He remembered the words he learned,
too. Of course he didn't know what all the sentences meant,
but she didn't say them for the sense they made, anyway. After
a while the kid learned so fast she gave out of Spanish and just
gabbled along with made-up sounds. But it wasn't long before
he caught her out at that—nobody could put a thing over on
old Bubber Kelly.
'I'm going to pretend like I'm walking into this house for the
first time,' Mick said. 'Then I can tell better if all the
decorations look good or not.'
She walked out on the front porch and then came back and
stood in the hall. All day she and Bubber and Portia and her
Dad had been fixing the hall and the dining-room for the
party. The decoration was autumn leaves and vines and red
crepe paper. On the mantelpiece in the dining-room and
sticking up behind the hatrack there were bright yellow leaves.
They had trailed vines along the walls and on the table where
the punch bowl would be. The red cr£pe paper hung down in
long fringes from the mantel and also was looped around the
backs of the chairs. There was plenty decoration. It was O.K.
She rubbed her hand on her forehead and squinted her eyes.
Bubber stood beside her and copied every move she made. 'I
sure do want this party to turn out all right. I
sure do.'
This would be the first party she had ever given. She had
never even been to more than four or five. Last summer she
had gone to a prom party. But none of the boys asked her to
prom or dance, she just stood by the punch bowl until all the
refreshments were gone and then went home. This party was
not going to be a bit like that one. In a few88
hours now the people she had invited would start coming and
the to-do would begin.
It was hard to remember just how she got the idea of this
party. The notion came to her soon after she started at
Vocational. High School was swell. Everything about it was
different from Grammar School. She wouldn't have liked it so
much if she had had to take a stenographic course like Hazel
and Etta had done—but she got special permission and took
mechanical shop like a boy. Shop and Algebra and Spanish
were grand. English was mighty hard. Her English teacher
was Miss Minner. Everybody said Miss Minner had sold her
brains to a famous doctor for ten thousand dollars, so that
after she was dead he could cut them up and see why she was
so smart. On written lessons she cracked such questions as
'Name eight famous contemporaries of Doctor Johnson,' and
'Quote ten lines from "The Vicar of Wakefield." ' She called
on people by the alphabet and kept her grade book open
during the lessons. And even if she was brainy she was an old
sourpuss. The Spanish teacher had traveled once in Europe.
She said that in France the people carried home loaves of
bread without having them wrapped up. They would stand
talking on the streets and hit the bread on a lamp post. And
there wasn't any water in France—only wine.
In nearly all ways Vocational was wonderful. They walked
back and forth in the hall between classes, and at lunch period
students hung around the gym. Here was the thing that soon
began to bother her. In the halls the people would walk up and
down together and everybody seemed to belong to some
special bunch. Within a week or two she knew people in the
halls and in classes to speak to them—but that was all. She
wasn't a member of any bunch. In Grammar School she would
have just gone up to any crowd she wanted to belong with and
that would have been the end of the matter. Here it was
different.
During the first week she walked up and down the halls by
herself and thought about this. She planned about being with
some bunch almost as much as she thought of music. Those
two ideas were in her head all the time. And finally she got the
idea of the party.
89
She was strict with the invitations. No Grammar School kids
and nobody under twelve years old. She just asked people
between thirteen and fifteen. She knew everybody she invited
good enough to speak to them in the halls— and when she
didn't know their names she asked to find out. She called up
those who had a telephone, and the rest she invited at school.
On the telephone she always said the same thing. She let
Bubber stick in his ear to listen. 'This is Mick Kelly,' she said.
If they didn't understand the name she kept on until they got it.
Tm having a prom party at eight o'clock Saturday night and
I'm inviting you now. I live at 103 Fourth Street, Apartment
A.' That Apartment A sounded swell on the telephone. Nearly
everybody said they would be delighted. A couple of tough
boys tried to be smarty and kept on asking her name over and
over. One of them tried to act cute and said, 'I don't know you.'
She squelched him in a hurry: 'You go eat grass!' Outside of
that wise guy there were ten boys and ten girls and she knew
that they were all coming. This was a real party, and it would
be better and different from any party she had ever gone to or
heard about before.
Mick looked over the hall and dining-room one last time. By
the hatrack she stopped before the picture of Old Dirty-Face.
This was a photo of her Mama's grandfather. He was a major
way back in the Civil War and had been killed in a battle.
Some kid once drew eyeglasses and a beard on his picture,
and when the pencil marks were erased it left his face all dirty.
That was why she called him Old Dirty-Face. The picture was
in the middle of a three-part frame. On both sides were
pictures of his sons. They looked about Bubber's age. They
had on uniforms and their faces were surprised. They had
been killed in battle also. A long time ago.
Tm going to take this down for the party. I think it looks
common. Don't you?'
'I don't know,' Bubber said./Are we common, Mick?' 'I'm not.'
She put the picture underneath the hatrack. The decoration
was O.K. Mister Singer would be pleased when he came
home. The rooms seemed very empty and quiet. The90
table was set for supper. And then after supper it would be
time for the party. She went into the kitchen to see about the
refreshments.
'You think everything will be all right?' she asked Portia.
Portia was making biscuits. The refreshments were on top of
the stove. There were peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and
chocolate snaps and punch. The sandwiches were covered
with a damp dishcloth. She peeped at them but didn't take one.
'I done told you forty times that everthing going to be all
right,' Portia said. 'Just soon as I come back from fixing supper
at home I going to put on that white apron and serve the food
real nice. Then I going to push off from here by nine-thirty.
This here is Saturday night and Highboy and Willie and me
haves our plans, too.'
'Sure,' Mick said. 'I just want you to help out till things sort of
get started—you know.'
She gave in and took one of the sandwiches. Then she made
Bubber stay with Portia and went into the middle room. The
dress she would wear was laying out on the bed. Hazel and
Etta had both been good about lending her their best clothes—
considering that they weren't supposed to come to the party.
There was Etta's long blue crepe de chine evening dress and
some white pumps and a rhine-stone tiara for her hair. These
clothes were really gorgeous. It was hard to imagine how she
would look in them.
The late afternoon had come and the sun made long, yellow
slants through the window. If she took two hours over
dressing for the party it was time to begin now. When she
thought about putting on the fine clothes she couldn't just sit
around and wait. Very slowly she went into the bathroom and
shucked off her old shorts and shirt and turned on the water.
She scrubbed the rough parts of her heels and her knees and
especially her elbows. She made the bath take a long time.
She ran naked into the middle room and began to dress. Silk
teddies she put on, and silk stockings. She even wore one of
Etta's brassieres just for the heck of it. Then very carefully she
put on the dress and stepped into the pumps. This was the first
time she had ever worn an evening dress. She stood for a long
time before the mirror. She was
91
so tall that the dress came up two or three inches above her
ankles—and the shoes were so short they hurt her. She stood
in front of the mirror a long tune, and finally decided she
either looked like a sap or else she looked very beautiful. One
or the other.
Six different ways she tried out her hair. The cowlicks were a
little trouble, so she wet her bangs and made three spit curls.
Last of all she stuck the rhinestones in her hair and put on
plenty of lipstick and paint. When she finished she lifted up
her chin and half-closed eyes like a movie star. Slowly she
turned her face from one side to the other. It was beautiful she
looked—just beautiful.
' She didn't feel like herself at all. She was somebody different
from Mick Kelly entirely. Two hours had to pass before the
party would begin, and she was ashamed^ for any of the
family to see her dressed so far ahead of time. She went into
the bathroom again and locked the door. She couldn't mess up
her dress by sitting down, so she stood in the middle of the
floor. The close walls around her seemed to press hi all the
excitement. She felt so different from the old Mick Kelly that
she knew this would be better than anything else in all her
whole life—this party.
.Yippee! The punch!'
'The cutest dress------'
'Say! You solve that one about the triangle forty-six by
twen------'
'Lemme by! Move out my way!'
The front door slammed every second as the people swarmed
into the house. Sharp voices and soft voices sounded together
until there was just one roaring noise. Girls stood in bunches
in their long, fine evening dresses, and the boys roamed
around in clean duck pants or R.O.T.C. uniforms or new dark
fall suite. There was so much commotion that Mick couldn't
notice any separate face or person. She stood by the hatrack
and stared around at the party as a whole.
'Everybody get a prom card and start signing up.'
At first the room was too loud for anyone to hear and pay
attention. The boys were so thick around the punch bowl that
the table and the vines didn't show at alL Only91
her Dad's face rose up above the boys' heads as he smiled and
dished up the punch into the little paper cups. On the seat of
the hatrack beside her were a jar of candy and two
handkerchiefs. A couple of girls thought it was her birthday,
and she had thanked them and unwrapped the presents without
telling them she wouldn't be fourteen for eight more months.
Every person was as clean and fresh and dressed up as she
was. They smelled good. The boys had their hair plastered
down wet and slick. The girls with their different-colored long
dresses stood together, and they were like a bright hunk of
flowers. The start was marvelous. The beginning of this party
was O.K.
'I'm part Scotch Irish and French and------'
*I got German blood------'
She hollered about the prom cards one more time before she
went into the dining-room. Soon they began to pile in from the
hall. Every person took a prom card and they lined up in
bunches against the walls of the room. This was the real start
now.
It came all of a sudden in a very queer way—this quietness.
The boys stood together on one side of the room and the girls
were across from them. For some reason every person quit
making noise at once. The boys held their cards and looked at
the girls and the room was very still. None of the boys started
asking for proms like they were supposed to do. The awful
quietness got worse and she had not been to enough parties to
know what she should do. Then the boys started punching
each other and talking. The girls giggled—but even if they
didn't look at the boys you could tell they only had their minds
on whether they were going to be popular or not. The awful
quietness was gone now, but there was something jittery about
the
room.
After a while a boy went up to a girl named Delores Brown.
As soon as he had signed her up the other boys all began to
rush Delores at once. When her whole card was full they
started on another girl, named Mary. After that everything
suddenly stopped again. One or two extra girls got a couple of
proms—and because she was giving the party three boys came
up to her. That was all.
The people just hung around in the dining-room and the hall.
The boys mostly flocked around the punch bowl
93
and tried to show off with each other. The girls bunched
together and did a lot of laughing to pretend like they were
having a good time. The boys thought about the girls and the
girls thought about the boys. But all that came of it was a
queer feeling in the room.
It was then she began to notice Harry Minowitz. He lived in
the house next door and she had known him all her life.
Although he was two years older she had grown faster than
him, and in the summer-time they used to wrestle and fight out
on the plot of grass by the street. Harry was a Jew boy, but he
did not look so much like one. His hair was light brown and
straight. Tonight he was dressed very neat, and when he came
in the door he had hung a grown man's panama hat with a
feather in it
on the hatrack.
It wasn't his clothes that made her notice him. There was
something changed about his face because he was without the
horn-rimmed specs he usually wore. A red, droppy sty had
come out on one of his eyes and he had to cock his head
sideways like a bird in order to see. His long, thin hands kept
touching around his sty as though it hurt him. When he asked
for punch he stuck the paper cup right into her Dad's face. She
could tell he needed his glasses very bad. He was nervous and
kept bumping into people. He didn't ask any girl to prom
except her—and that was because it was her party.
All the punch had been drunk. Her Dad was afraid she would
be embarrassed, so he and her Mama had gone back to the
kitchen to make lemonade. Some of the people were on the
front porch and the sidewalk. She was glad to get out in the
cool night air. After the hot, bright house she could smell the
new autumn in the darkness.
Then she saw something she hadn't expected. Along the edge
of the sidewalk and in the dark street there was a bunch of
nighborhood kids. Pete and Sucker Wells and Baby and
Spareribs—the whole gang that started at below Bubber's age
and went on up to over twelve. There were even kids she
didn't know at all who had somehow smelled a party and come
to hang around. And there were kids her age and older that she
hadn't invited either because they had done something mean to
her or she had done something mean to them. They were all
dirty and in plain94
shorts or draggle-tailed knickers or old everyday dresses. They
were just hanging around in the dark to watch the party. She
thought of two feelings when she saw those kids —one was
sad and the other was a kind of warning.
'I got this prom with you.' Harry Minowitz made out like he
was reading on his card, but she could see nothing was written
on it. Her Dad had come onto the porch and blown the whistle
that meant the beginning of the first prom.
'Yeah,' she said. 'Let's get going.'
They started out to walk around the block. In the long dress
she still felt very ritzy. 'Look yonder at Mick Kelly!' one of the
kids in the dark hollered. 'Look at her!' She just walked on like
she hadn't heard, but it was that Spare-ribs, and some day soon
she would catch him. She and Harry walked fast along the
dark sidewalk, and when they came to the end of the street
they turned down another block.
'How old are you now, Mick—thirteen?'
'Going on fourteen.'
She knew what he was thinking. It used to worry her all the
time. Five feet six inches tall and a hundred and three pounds,
and she was only thirteen. Every kid at the party was a runt
beside her, except Harry, who was only a couple of inches
shorter. No boy wanted to prom with a girl so much taller than
him. But maybe cigarettes would help stunt the rest of her
growth.
'I grew three and a fourth inches just in last year,' she said.
'Once I saw a lady at the fair who was eight and a half feet
tall. But you probably won't grow that big.'
Harry stopped beside a dark crepe myrtle bush. Nobody was
in sight. He took something out of his pocket and started
fooling with whatever it was. She leaned over to see—it was
his pair of specs and he was wiping them with his
handkerchief.
'Pardon me,' he said. Then he put on his glasses and she could
hear him breathe deep.
'You ought to wear your specs all the time.'
'Yeah.'
'How come you go around without them?'
95
The night was very quiet and dark. Harry held her elbow when
they crossed the street.
'There's a certain young lady back at the party that thinks it's
sissy for a fellow to wear glasses. This certain person—oh
well, maybe I am a------'
He didn't finish. Suddenly he tightened up and ran a few steps
and sprang for a leaf about four feet above his head. She just
could see that high leaf in the dark. He had a good spring to
his jumping and he got it the first time. Then he put the leaf in
his mouth and shadow-boxed for a few punches in the dark.
She caught up with him.
As usual a song was in her mind. She was humming to herself.
'What's that you're singing?
'
.It's a piece by a fellow named Mozart'
Harry felt pretty good. He was sidestepping with his feet like
a
fast boxer. 'That sounds like a sort of German name.
'
'I reckon so.
'
'Fascist?' he asked.
*What?
'
'I say is that Mozart a Fascist or a Nazi?
'
Mick thought a minute. *No. They're new, and this fellow's
been dead some time.
'
'It's a good thing.' He began punching in the dark again. He
wanted her to ask why.
'I say it's a good thing,' he said again.
'Why?
'
'Because I hate Fascists. If I met one walking on the street I'd
kill him.
'
She looked at Harry. The leaves against the street light made
quick, freckly shadows on his face. He was excited. 'How
come?' she asked. 'Gosh! Don't you ever read the paper? You
see, it's this
way------
'
They had come back around the block. A commotion was
going on at her house. People were yelling and running on the
sidewalk. A heavy sickness came in her belly.
There's not time to explain unless we prom around the block
again. I don't mind telling you why I hate Fascists. I'd like to
tell about it.
'
This was probably the first chance he had got to spiel96
these ideas out to somebody. But she didn't have time to listen.
She was busy looking at what she saw in the front of her
house. 'O.K. I'll see you later.' The prom was over now, so she
could look and put her mind on the mess she saw.
What had happened while she was gone? When she left the
people were standing around in the fine clothes and it was a
real party. Now—after just five minutes—the place looked
more like a crazy house. While she was gone those kids had
come out of the dark and right into the party itself. The nerve
they had! There was old Pete Wells banging out of the front
door with a cup of punch hi his hand. They bellowed and ran
and mixed with the invited people —in their old loose-legged
knickers and everyday clothes.
Baby Wilson messed around on the front porch—and Baby
wasn't more than four years old. Anybody could see she ought
to be home in bed by now, same as Bubber. She walked down
the steps one at a time, holding the punch high up over her
head. There was no reason for her to be here at all. Mister
Brannon was her uncle and she could get free candy and
drinks at his place any time she wanted to. As soon as she was
on the sidewalk Mick caught her by the arm. 'You go right
home, Baby Wilson. Go on, now.' Mick looked around to see
what else she could do to straighten things out again like they
ought to be. She went up to Sucker Wells. He stood farther
down the sidewalk, j where it was dark, holding his paper
cup and looking at * everybody in a dreamy way. Sucker
was seven years old and he had on shorts. His chest and feet
were naked. He 1 wasn't causing any of the commotion, but
she was mad I as hell at what had happened.
|
She grabbed Sucker by the shoulders and began to shake him.
At first he held his jaws tight, but after a min- I ute his teeth
began to rattle. 'You go home, Sucker Wells. You quit
hanging around where you're not invited.' When she let him
go, Sucker tucked his tail and walked slowly down the street.
But he didn't go all the way home. After he got to the corner
she saw him sit down on the curb and watch the party where
he thought she couldn't see him.
For a minute she felt good about shaking the spit out of
Sucker. And then right afterward she had a bad worry feeling
in her and she started to let him come back. The
big kids were the ones who messed up everything. Real brats
they were, and with the worst nerve she had ever seen.
Drinking up the refreshments and ruining the real party into
all this commotion. They slammed through the front door and
hollered and bumped into each other. She went up to Pete
Wells because he was the worst of all. He wore his football
helmet and butted into people. Pete was every bit of fourteen,
yet he was still stuck in the seventh grade. She went up to him,
but he was too big to shake like Sucker. When she told him to
go home he shimmied and made a nose dive at her.
'I been in six different states. Florida, Alabama------f
TMade out of silver cloth with a sash------*
The party was all messed up. Everybody was talking at once.
The invited people from Vocational were mixed with the
neighborhood gang. The boys and the girls still stood in
separate bunches, though—and nobody prommed. In the
house the lemonade was just about gone. There was only a
little puddle of water with floating lemon peels at the bottom
of the bowl. Her Dad always acted too nice with kids. He had
served out the punch to anybody who stuck a cup at him.
Portia was serving the sandwiches when she went into the
dining-room. In five minutes they were all gone. She only got
one—a jelly kind with pink sops come through the bread.
Portia stayed in the dining-room to watch the party. 1 having
too good a time to leave,' she said. 'I done sent word to
Highboy and Willie to go on with the Saturday Night without
me. Everbody so excited here I going to wait and see the end
of this party.'
Excitement—that was the word. She could feel it all through
the room and on the porch and the sidewalk. She felt excited,
too. It wasn't just her dress and the beautiful way her face
looked when she passed by the hatrack mirror and saw the red
paint on her cheeks and the rhinestone tiara in her hair. Maybe
it was the decoration and all these Vocational people and kids
being jammed together.
.Watch her run!
'
'Ouch! Cut it out——
'
'Act your age!
'
A bunch of girls were running down the street, holding up
their dresses and with the hair flying out behind them.98
CARSON McCULLERS
Some boys had cut off the long, sharp spears of a Spanish
bayonet bush and they were chasing the girls with them.
Freshmen in Vocational all dressed up for a real prom party
and acting just like kids. It was half playlike and half not
playlike at all. A boy came up to her with a sticker and she
started running too.
The idea of the party was over entirely now. This was just a
regular playing-out. But it was the wildest night she had ever
seen. The kids had caused it. They were like a catching
sickness, and their coming to the party made all the other
people forget about High School and being almost grown. It
was like just before you take a bath in the afternoon when you
might wallow around in the back yard and get plenty dirty just
for the good feel of it before getting into the tub. Everybody
was a wild kid playing out on Saturday night—and she felt
like the very wildest of all.
She hollered and pushed and was the first to try any new stunt.
She made so much noise and moved around so fast she
couldn't notice what anybody else was doing. Her breath
wouldn't come fast enough to let her do all the wild things she
wanted to do.
The ditch down the street! The ditch! The ditch!'
She started for it first. Down a block they had put in new pipes
under the street and dug a swell deep ditch. The flambeaux
around the edge were bright and red in the dark. She wouldn't
wait to climb down. She ran until she reached the little wavy
flames and then she jumped.
With her tennis shoes she would have landed like a cat —but
the high pumps made her slip and her stomach hit this pipe.
Her breath was stopped. She lay quiet with her eyes closed.
The party------For a long time she remembered how
she thought it would be, how she imagined the new people at
Vocational. And about the bunch she wanted to be with every
day. She would feel different in the halls now, knowing that
they were not something special but like any other kids. It was
O.K. about the ruined party. But it was all over. It was the
end.
Mick climbed out of the ditch. Some kids were playing around
the little pots of flames. The fire made a red glow and there
were long, quick shadows. One boy had gone home and put on
a dough-face bought in advance for Hal
99
lowe'en. Nothing was changed about the party except her.
She walked home slowly. When she passed kids she didn't
speak or look at them. The decoration in the hall was torn
down and the house seemed very empty because everyone had
gone outside. In the bathroom she took off the blue evening
dress. The hem was torn and she folded it so the raggedy place
wouldn't show. The rhinestone tiara was lost somewhere. Her
old shorts and shirt were lying on the floor just where she had
left them. She put them on. She was too big to wear shorts any
more after this. No more after this night Not any more.
Mick stood out on the front porch. Her face was very white
without the paint. She cupped her hands before her mouth and
took a deep breath. 'Everybody go home! The door is shut!
The party is over!'
In the quiet, secret night she was by herself again. It was not
late—yellow squares of light snowed in the windows of the
houses along the streets. She walked slow, with her hands in
her pockets and her head to one side. For a long time she
walked without noticing the direction.
Then the houses were far apart from each other and there were
yards with big trees in them and black shrubbery. She looked
around and saw she was near this house where she had gone
so many times in the summer. Her feet had just taken her here
without her knowing. When she came to the house she waited
to be sure no person could see. Then she went through the side
yard.
The radio was on as usual. For a second she stood by the
window and watched the people inside. The bald-headed man
and the gray-haired lady were playing cards at a table. Mick
sat on the ground. This was a very fine and secret place. Close
around were thick cedars so that she was completely hidden
by herself. The radio was no good tonight—somebody sang
popular songs that all ended in the same way. It was like she
was empty. She reached in her pockets and felt around with
her fingers. There were raisins and a buckeye and a string of
beads— one cigarette with matches. She lighted the cigarette
and put her arms around her knees. It was like she was so
empty there wasn't even a feeling or thought in her.
One program came on after another, and all of them100
CARSON McCULLERS
were punk. She didn't especially care. She smoked and picked
a little bunch of grass blades. After a while a new announcer
started talking. He mentioned Beethoven. She had read in the
library about that musician—his name was pronounced with
an a and spelled with double e. He was a German fellow like
Mozart When he was living he spoke in a foreign language
and lived in a foreign place— like she wanted to do. The
announcer said they were going to play his third symphony.
She only halfway listened because she wanted to walk some
more and she didn't care much what they played. Then the
music started. Mick raised her head and her fist went up to her
throat.
How did it come? For a minute the opening balanced from one
side to the other. Like a walk or march. Like God strutting in
the night. The outside of her was suddenly froze and only that
first part of the music was hot inside her heart. She could not
even hear what sounded after, but she sat there waiting and
froze, with her fists tight. After a while the music came again,
harder and loud. It didn't have anything to do with God. This
was her, Mick Kelly, walking in the daytime and by herself at
night. In the hot sun and in the dark with all the plans and
feelings. This music was her—the real plain her.
She could not listen good enough to hear it alL The music
boiled inside her. Which? To hang on to certain wonderful
parts and think them over so that later she would not forget—
or should she let go and listen to each part that came without
thinking or trying to remember? Golly! The whole world was
this music and she could not listen hard enough. Then at last
the opening music came again, with all the different
instruments bunched together for each note like a hard, tight
fist that socked at her heart And the first part was over.
This music did not take a long time or a short time. It did not
have anything to do with time going by at all. She sat with her
arms held tight around her legs, biting her salty knee very
hard. It might have been five minutes she listened or half the
night. The second part was black-colored—a slow march. Not
sad, but like the whole world was dead and black and there
was no use thinking back how it was before. One of those
horn kind of instruments played a sad and silver tune. Then
the music rose up angry
and with excitement underneath. And finally the black march
again.
But maybe the last part of the symphony was the music she
loved the best—glad and like the greatest people in the world
running and springing up in a hard, free way. Wonderful
music nice this was the worst hurt there could be. The whole
world was this symphony, and there was not enough of her to
listen.
It was over, and she sat very stiff with her arms around her
knees. Another program came on the radio and she put her
fingers in her ears. The music left only this bad hurt in her,
and a blankness. She could not remember any of the
symphony, not even the last few notes. She tried to remember,
but no sound at all came to her. Now that it was over there
was only her heart like a rabbit and this terrible hurt.
The radio and the lights in the house were turned off. The
night was very dark. Suddenly Mick began hitting her thigh
with her fists. She pounded the same muscle with all her
strength until the tears came down her face. But she could not
feel this hard enough. The rocks under the bush were sharp.
She grabbed a handful of them and began scraping them up
and down on the same spot until her hand was bloody. Then
she fell back to the ground and lay looking up at the night.
With the fiery hurt in her leg she felt better. She was limp on
the wet grass, and after a while her breath came slow and easy
again.
Why hadn't the explorers known by looking at the sky that the
world was round? The sky was curved, like the inside of a
huge glass ball, very dark blue with the sprinkles of bright
stars. The night was quiet. There was the smell of warm
cedars. She was not trying to think of the music at all when it
came back to her. The first part happened hi her mind just as it
had been played. She listened in a quiet, slow way and thought
the notes out like a problem in geometry so she would
remember. She could see the shape of the sounds very clear
and she would not forget them.
Now she felt good. She whispered some words out loud: 'Lord
forgiveth me, for I knoweth not what I do.' Why did she think
of that? Everybody in the past few years knew there wasn't
any real God. When she thought of what she102
used to imagine was God she could only see Mister Singer
with a long, white sheet around him. God was silent— maybe
that was why she was reminded. She said the words again, just
as she would speak them to Mister Singer: 'Lord forgiveth me,
for I knoweth not what I do.'
This part of the music was beautiful and clear. She could sing
it now whenever she wanted to. Maybe later on, when she had
just waked up some morning, more of the music would come
back to her. If ever she heard the symphony again there would
be other parts to add to what was already in her mind. And
maybe if she could hear it four more times, just four more
times, she would know it all. Maybe.
Once again she listened to this opening part of the music.
Then the notes grew slower and soft and it was like she was
sinking down slowly into the dark ground.
Mick awoke with a jerk. The air had turned chilly, and as she
was coming up out of the sleep she dreamed old Etta Kelly
was taking all the cover. 'Gimme some blanket
------' she tried to say. Then she opened her eyes. The sky
was very black and all the stars were gone. The grass was wet.
She got up in a hurry because her Dad would be worried. Then
she remembered the music. She couldn't tell whether the time
was midnight or three in the morning, so she started beating it
for home in a rush. The air had a smell in it like autumn. The
music was loud and quick in her mind, and she ran faster and
faster on the sidewalks leading to the home block.
B
. Y OCTOBER the days were blue and cool. Biff Brannon
changed his light seersucker trousers for dark-blue serge ones.
Behind the counter of the cafe he installed a machine that
made hot chocolate. Mick was very partial to hot chocolate,
and she came in three or four times a week to drink a cup. He
served it to her for a nickel instead of a dime and he wanted to
give it to her free. He watched her as she stood behind the
counter and he was troubled and sad. He wanted to reach out
his hand and touch her sunburned, tousled hair—but not as he
had ever touched
a woman. In him there was an uneasiness, and when he spoke
to her his voice had a rough, strange sound.
There were many worries on his mind. For one thing, Alice
was not well. She worked downstairs as usual from seven in
the morning until ten at night, but she walked very slowly and
brown circles were beneath her eyes. It was in the business
that she showed this illness most plainly. One Sunday, when
she wrote out the day's menu on the typewriter, she marked
the special dinner with chicken a la king at twenty cents
instead of fifty, and did not discover the mistake until several
customers had already ordered and were ready to pay. Another
time she gave back two fives and three ones as change for ten
dollars. Biff would stand looking at her for a long time,
rubbing his nose thoughtfully and with his eyes half-closed.
They did not speak of this together. At night he worked
downstairs while she slept, and during the morning she
managed the restaurant alone. When they worked together he
stayed behind the cash register and looked after the kitchen
and the tables, as was their custom. They did not talk except
on matters of business, but Biff would stand watching her
with his face puzzled.
Then in the afternoon of the eighth of October there was a
sudden cry of pain from the room where they slept. Biff
hurried upstairs. Within an hour they had taken Alice to the
hospital and the doctor had removed from her a tumor almost
the size of a newborn child. And then within another hour
Alice was dead.
Biff sat by her bed at the hospital in stunned reflection. He
had been present when she died. Her eyes had been drugged
and misty from the ether and then they hardened like glass.
The nurse and the doctor withdrew from the room. He
continued to look into her face. Except for the bluish pallor
there was little difference. He noted each detail about her as
though he had net watched her every day for twenty-one years.
Then gradually as he sat there his thoughts turned to a picture
that had long been stored inside him.
The cold green ocean and a hot gold strip of sand. The little
children playing on the edge of the silky line of foam. The
sturdy brown baby girl, the thin little naked boys, the half-
grown children running and calling out to each other104
with sweet, shrill voices. Children were here whom he knew,
Mick and his niece, Baby, and there were also strange young
faces no one had ever seen before. Biff bowed his head.
After a long while he got up from his chair and stood in the
middle of the room. He could hear his sister-in-law, Lucile,
walking up and down the hall outside. A fat bee crawled
across the top of the dresser, and adroitly Biff caught it in his
hand and put it out the open window. He glanced at the dead
face one more time, and then with widowed sedateness he
opened the door mat led out into the hospital corridor.
Late the next morning he sat sewing in the room upstairs.
Why? Why was it that in cases of real love the one who is left
does not more often follow the beloved by suicide? Only
because the living must bury the dead? Because of the
measured rites that must be fulfilled after a death? Because it
is as though the one who is left steps for a time upon a stage
and each second swells to an unlimited amount of time and he
is watched by many eyes? Because there is a function he must
carry out? Or perhaps, when there is love, the widowed must
stay for the resurrection of the beloved—so that the one who
has gone is not really dead, but grows and is created for a
second time in the soul of the living? Why?
Biff bent close over his sewing and meditated on many things.
He sewed skillfully, and the calluses on the tips of his fingers
were so hard that he pushed the needle through the cloth
without a thimble. Already the mourning bands had been sewn
around the arms of two gray suits, and now he was on the last.
The day was bright and hot, and the first dead leaves of the
new autumn scraped on the sidewalks. He had gone out early.
Each minute was very long. Before him there was infinite
leisure. He had locked the door of the restaurant and hung on
the outside a white wreath of lilies. To the funeral home he
went first and looked carefully at the selection of caskets. He
touched the materials of the linings and tested the strength of
the frames.
'What is the name of the crepe of this one—Georgette?'
105 The undertaker answered his questions in an oily,
unctuous voice.
'And what is the percentage of cremations in your business?'
Out on the street again Biff walked with measured formality.
From the west there was a warm wind and the sun was very
bright. His watch had stopped, so he turned down toward the
street where Wilbur Kelly had recently put out his sign as
watchmaker. Kelly was sitting at his bench in a patched
bathrobe. His shop was also a bedroom, and the baby Mick
pulled around with her in a wagon sat quietly on a pallet on
the floor. Each minute was so long that in it there was ample
time for contemplation and enquiry. He asked Kelly to explain
the exact use of jewels in a watch. He noted the distorted look
of Kelly's right eye as it appeared through his watchmaker's
loupe. They talked for a while about Chamberlain and
Munich. Then as the time was still early he decided to go up
to the mute's room.
Singer was dressing for work. Last night there had come from
him a letter of condolence. He was to be a pallbearer at the
funeral. Biff sat on the bed and they smoked a cigarette
together. Singer looked at him now and then with his green
observant eyes. He offered him a drink of coffee. Biff did not
talk, and once the mute stopped to pat him on the shoulder and
look for a second into his face. When Singer was dressed they
went out together.
Biff bought the black ribbon at the store and saw the preacher
of Alice's church. When all was arranged he came back home.
To put things in order—that was the thought in his mind. He
bundled up Alice's clothes and personal possessions to give to
Lucile. He thoroughly cleaned and straightened the bureau
drawers. He even rearranged the shelves of the kitchen
downstairs and removed the gaily colored crSpe streamers
from the electric fans. Then when this was done he sat in the
tub and bathed himself all over. And the morning was done.
Biff bit the thread and smoothed the black band on the sleeve
of his coat. By now Lucile would be waiting for him. He and
she and Baby would ride in the funeral car together. He put
away the work basket and fitted the coat106
with the mourning band very carefully on his shoulders. He
glanced swiftly around the room to see that all was well
before going out again.
An hour later he was in Lucile's kitchenette. He sat with his
legs crossed, a napkin over his thigh, drinking a cup of tea.
Lucile and Alice had been so different in all ways that it was
not easy to realize they were sisters. Lucile was thin and dark,
and today she had dressed completely in black. She was fixing
Baby's hair. The kid waited patiently on the kitchen table with
her hands folded in her lap while her mother worked on her.
The sunlight was quiet and mellow in the room.
'Bartholomew------' said Lucile.
.What?'
"Don't you ever start thinking backward?'
'I don't,'said Biff.
'You know it's like I got to wear blinders all the time so I won't
think sideways or in the past. All I can let myself think about
is going to work every day and fixing meals and Baby's
future.'
That's the right attitude.'
'I been giving Baby finger waves down at the shop. But they
come out so quick I been thinking about letting her have a
permanent. I don't want to give it to her myself— I think
maybe 111 take her up to Atlanta when I go to the
cosmetologist convention and let her get it there.'
'Motherogod! She's not but four. It's liable to scare her. And
besides, permanents tend to coarsen the hair.'
Lucile dipped the comb in a glass of water and mashed the
curls over Baby's ears. 'No, they don't. And she wants one.
Young as Baby is, she already has as much ambition as I got.
And that's saying plenty.'
Biff polished his nails on the palm of his hand and shook his
head.
'Every time Baby and I go to the movies and see those kids in
all the good roles she feels the same way I do. I swear she
does, Bartholomew. I can't even get her to eat her supper
afterward.'
'For goodness' sake,' Biff said.
'She's getting along so fine with her dancing and expression
lessons. Next year I want her to start with the piano because I
think it'll be a help for her to play some.
107 Her dancing teacher is going to give her a solo in the
soiree. I feel like I got to push Baby all I can. Because the
sooner she gets started on her career the better it'll be for both
of us.'
'Motherogod!'
'You don't understand. A child with talent can't be treated like
ordinary kids. That's one reason I want to get Baby out of this
common neighborhood. I can't let her start to talk vulgar like
these brats around her or run wild like they do.'
'I know the kids on this block,' Biff said. 'They're all right.
Those Kelly kids across the street—the Crane boy------.
'You know good and well that none of them are up to
Baby's level.'
Lucile set the last wave in Baby's hair. She pinched the kid's
little cheeks to put more color in them. Then she lifted her
down from the table. For the funeral Baby had on a little white
dress with white shoes and white socks and even small white
gloves. There was a certain way Baby always held her head
when people looked at her, and it was turned that way now.
They sat for a while in the small, hot kitchenette without
saying anything. Then Lucile began to cry. 'It's not like we
was ever very close as sisters. We had our differences and we
didn't see much of each other. Maybe it was because I was so
much younger. But there's something about your own blood
kin, and when anything like this happens------'
Biff clucked soothingly.
'I know how you two were,' she said. It wasn't all just roses
with you and she. But maybe that sort of makes it worse for
you now.'
Biff caught Baby under the arms and swung her up to his
shoulder. The kid was getting heavier. He held her carefully as
he stepped into the living-room. Baby felt warm and close on
his shoulder, and her little silk skirt was white against the dark
cloth of his coat. She grasped one of his ears very tight with
her little hand.
'Unca Biff! Watch me do the split.'
Gently he set Baby on her feet again. She curved both arms
above her head and her feet slid slowly in opposite108
directions on the yellow waxed floor. In a moment she was
seated with one leg stretched straight in front of her and one
behind. She posed with her arms held at a fancy angle, looking
sideways at the wall with a sad expression.
She scrambled up again. 'Watch me do a handspring. Watch
me do a------'
'Honey, be a little quieter,' Lucile said. She sat down beside
Biff on the plush sofa. 'Don't she remind you a little of him—
something about her eyes and face?'
'Hell, no. I can't see the slightest resemblance between Baby
and Leroy Wilson.'
Lucile looked too thin and worn out for her age. Maybe it was
the black dress and because she had been crying. 'After all, we
got to admit he's Baby's father,' she said.
'Can't you ever forget about that man?'
'I don't know. I guess I always been a fool about two things.
And that's Leroy and Baby.'
Bill's new growth of beard was blue against the pale skin of
his face and his voice sounded tired. 'Don't you ever just think
a thing through and find out what's happened and what ought
to come from that? Don't you ever use logi<5—if these are the
given facts this ought to be the result?'
'Not about him, I guess.'
Biff spoke in a weary manner and his eyes were almost closed.
'You married this certain party when you were seventeen, and
afterward there was just one racket between you after another.
You divorced him. Then two years later you married him a
second time. And now he's gone off again and you don't know
where he is. It seems like those facts would show you one
thing—you two are not suited to each other. And that's aside
from the more personal side—the sort of man this certain
party happens to be anyway.'
'God knows I been realizing all along he's a heel. I just hope
he won't ever knock on that door again.'
'Look, Baby,' Biff said quickly. He laced his fingers and held
up his hands. "This is the church and this is the steeple. Open
the door and here are God's people.'
Lucile shook her head. 'You don't have to bother about Baby. I
tell her everything. She knows about the whole mess from A
to Z.'
"Then if he comes back you'll let him stay here and sponge on
you just as long as he pleases—like it was before?'
'Yeah. I guess I would. Every time the doorbell or the phone
rings, every time anybody steps up on the porch, something in
the back of my mind thinks about that man.' Biff spread out
the palms of his hands. 'There you are.' The clock struck two.
The room was very close and hot. Baby turned another
handspring and made a split again on the waxed floor. Then
Biff took her up into his lap. Her little legs dangled against his
shin. She unbuttoned his vest and burrowed her face into him.
'Listen,' Lucile said. 'If I ask you a question will you promise
to answer me the truth?' 'Sure.'
'No matter what it is?'
Biff touched Baby's soft gold hair and laid his hand gently on
the side of her little head. 'Of course.'
'It was about seven years ago. Soon after we was married the
first time. And he came in one night from your place with big
knots all over his head and told me you caught him by the
neck and banged his head against the side of the wall. He
made up some tale about why you did it, but I want to know
the real reason.'
Biff turned the wedding ring on his finger. I just never did like
Leroy, and we had a fight In those days I was different from
now.'
"No. There was some definite thing you did that for. We been
knowing each other a pretty long time, and I understand by
now that you got a real reason for every single thing you ever
do. Your mind runs by reasons instead of just wants. Now,
you promised you'd tell me what it was, and I want to know.'
'It wouldn't mean anything now/ 'I tell you I got to know.'
'All right,' Biff said. 'He came in that night and started
drinking, and when he was drunk he shot off his mouth about
you. He said he would come home about once a month and
beat hell out of you and you would take it. But then afterward
you would step outside in the hall and laugh aloud a few times
so that the neighbors in the other rooms would think you both
had just been playing around110
and it had all been a joke. That's what happened, so just forget
about it'
Lucile sat up straight and there was a red spot on each of her
cheeks. 'You see, Bartholomew, that's why I got to be like I
have blinders on all the time so as not to think backward or
sideways. All I can let my mind stay on is going to work every
day and fixing three meals here at home and Baby's career.'
'Yes.'
'I hope you'll do that too, and not start thinking backward.'
Biff leaned his head down on his chest and closed his eyes.
During the whole long day he had not been able to think of
Alice. When he tried to remember her face there was a queer
blankness in him. The only thing about her that was clear in
his mind was her feet—stumpy, very soft and white with puffy
toes. The bottoms were pink and near the left heel there was a
tiny brown mole. The night they were married he had taken
off her shoes and stockings and kissed her feet. And, come to
think of it, that was worth considerable, because the Japanese
believe that the choicest part of a woman------
Biff stirred and glanced at his watch. In a little while they
would leave for the church where the funeral would be held.
In his mind he went through the motions of the ceremony. The
church—riding, dirge-paced behind the hearse with Lucile and
Baby—the group of people stand-' ing with bowed heads in
the September sunshine. Sun on . the white tombstones, on
the fading flowers and the can- 1 vas tent covering the newly
dug grave. Then home again ' —and what?
'No matter how much you quarrel there's something about
your own blood sister,' Lucile said.
Biff raised his head. 'Why don't you marry again? Some nice
young man who's never had a wife before, who would take
care of you and Baby? If you'd just forget about Leroy you
would make a good man a fine wife.'
Lucile was slow to answer. Then finally she said: *You know
how we always been—we nearly all the time understand each
other pretty well without any kind of throbs either way. Well,
that's the closest I ever want to be to any man again.'
111
1 feel the same way,' Biff said.
Half an hour later there was a knock on the door. The car for
the funeral was parked before the house. Biff and Lucile got
up slowly. The three of them, with Baby in her white silk
dress a little ahead, walked in solemn quietness outside.
Biff kept the restaurant closed during the next day. Then in
the early evening he removed the faded wreath of lilies from
the front door and opened the place for business again. Old
customers came in with sad faces and talked with him a few
minutes by the cash register before giving their orders. The
usual crowd was present—Singer, Blount, various men who
worked in stores along the block and in the mills down on the
river. After supper Mick Kelly showed up with her little
brother and put a nickel into the slot machine. When she lost
the first coin she banged on the machine with her fists and
kept opening the receiver to be sure that nothing had come
down. Then she put in another nickel and almost won the
jackpot. Coins came clattering out and rolled along the floor.
The kid and her little brother both kept looking around pretty
sharp as they picked them up, so that no customer would put
his foot on one before they could get to it The mute was at the
table in the middle of the room with his dinner before him.
Across from him Jake Blount sat drinking beer, dressed in his
Sunday clothes, and talking. Everything was the same as it had
always been before. After a while the air became gray with
cigarette smoke and the noise increased. Biff was alert, and no
sound or movement escaped him.
'I go around,' Blount said. He leaned earnestly across the table
and kept his eyes on the mute's face. 'I go all around and try to
tell them. And they laugh. I can't make them understand
anything. No matter what I say I can't seem to make them see,
the truth.'
Singer nodded and wiped his mouth with his napkin. His
dinner had got cold because he couldn't look down to eat, but
he was so polite that he let Blount go on talking. The words of
the two children at the slot machine were high and clear
against the coarser voices of the men. Mick was putting her
nickels back into the slot. Often she looked around at the
middle table, but the mute had his back turned to her and did
not see.112
'Mister Singer's got fried chicken for his supper and he hasn't
eaten one piece yet,' the little boy said.
Mick pulled down the lever of the machine very slowly. 'Mind
your own business.'
'You're always going up to his room or some place where you
know he'll be.'
'I told you to hush, Bubber Kelly.'
'You do.'
Mick shook him until his teeth rattled and turned him around
toward the door. 'You go on home to bed. I already told you I
get a bellyful of you and Ralph in the daytime, and I don't
want you hanging around me at night when I'm supposed to be
free.'
Bubber held out bis grimy little hand. Well, give me a nickel,
then.' When he had put the money in his shirt pocket he left
for home.
Biff straightened his coat and smoothed back his hair. His tie
was solid black, and on the sleeve of his gray coat there was
the mourning band that he had sewn there. He wanted to go up
to the slot machine and talk with Mick, but something would
not let him. He sucked in his breath sharply and drank a glass
of water. A dance orchestra came in on the radio, but he did
not want to listen. All the tunes in the last ten years were so
alike he couldn't tell one from the other. Since 1928 he had
not enjoyed music. Yet when he was young he used to play
the mandolin, and he knew the words and the melody of every
current song.
He laid his finger on the side of his nose and cocked his head
to one side. Mick had grown so much in the past year that
soon she would be taller than he was. She was dressed in the
red sweater and blue pleated skirt she had worn every day
since school started. Now the pleats had come out and the hem
dragged loose around her sharp, jutting knees. She was at the
age when she looked as much like an overgrown boy as a girl.
And on that subject why was it that the smartest people mostly
missed that point? By nature all people are of both sexes. So
that marriage and the bed is not all by any means. The proof?
Real youth and old age. Because often old men's voices grow
high and reedy and they take on a mincing walk. And old
women sometimes grow fat and their voices get rough and
deep and they grow dark little mustaches. And he even proved
113 it himself—the part of him that sometimes almost wished
he was a mother and that Mick and Baby were his kids.
Abruptly Biff turned from the cash register.
The newspapers were in a mess. For two weeks he hadn't filed
a single one. He lifted a stack of them from under the counter.
With a practiced eye he glanced from the masthead to the
bottom of the sheet. Tomorrow he would look over the stacks
of them in the back room and see about changing the system
of files. Build shelves and use those solid boxes canned goods
were shipped in for drawers. Chronologically from October
27,1918, on up to the present date. With folders and top
markings outlining historical events. Three sets of outlines—
one international beginning with the Armistice and leading
through the Munich aftermath, the second national, the third
all the local dope from the time Mayor Lester shot his wife at
the country club up to the Hudson Mill fire. Everything for the
past twenty years docketed and outlined and complete. Biff
beamed quietly behind his hand as he rubbed his jaw. And yet
Alice had wanted him to haul out the papers so she could turn
the room into a ladies' toilet. That was just what she had
nagged him to do, but for once he had battered her down. For
that one time.
With peaceful absorption Biff settled down to the details of
the newspaper before him. He read steadily and with
concentration, but from habit some secondary part of him was
alert to everything around him. Jake Blount was still talking,
and often he would hit his fist on the table. The mute sipped
beer. Mick walked restlessly around the radio and stared at the
customers. Biff read every word in the first paper and made a
few notes on the
margins.
Then suddenly he looked up with a surprised expression. His
mouth had been open for a yawn and he snapped it shut. The
radio swung into an old song that dated back to the time when
he and Alice were engaged. 'Just a Baby's Prayer at Twilight.'
They had taken the streetcar one Sunday to Old Sardis Lake
and had rented a rowboat. At sunset he played on the
mandolin while she sang. She had on a sailor hat, and when he
put his arm around her waist
she—Alice------
A dragnet for lost feelings. Biff folded the newspapers114
and put them back under the counter. He stood on one foot
and then the other. Finally he called across the room to Mick.
'You're not listening, are you?'
Mick turned off the radio. 'No. Nothing on tonight.' All of that
he would keep out of his mind, and concentrate on something
else. He leaned over the counter and watched one customer
after another. Then at last his attention rested on the mute at
the middle table. He saw Mick edge gradually up to him and
at his invitation sit down. Singer pointed to something on the
menu and the waitress brought a Coca-Cola for her. Nobody
but a freak like a deaf-mute, cut off from other people, would
ask a right young girl to sit down to the table where he was
drinking with another man. Blount and Mick both kept their
eyes on Singer. They talked, and the mute's expression
changed as he watched them. It was a funny thing. The reason
—was it in them or in him? He sat very still with his hands in
his pockets, and because he did not speak it made him seem
superior. What did that fellow think and realize? What did he
know?
Twice during the evening Biff started to go over to the middle
table, but each time he checked himself. After they were gone
he still wondered what it was about this mute —and in the
early dawn when he lay in bed he turned over questions and
solutions in his mind without satisfaction. The puzzle had
taken root in him. It worried him in the back of his mind and
left him uneasy. There was something wrong.
[.ANY times Doctor Copeland talked to Mr. Singer. Truly he
was not like other white men. He was a wise man, and he
understood the strong, true purpose in a way that other white
men could not. He listened, and in his face there was
something gentle and Jewish, the knowledge of one who
belongs to a race that is oppressed. On one occasion he took
Mr. Singer with him on his rounds. He led him through cold
and narrow passages smelling of dirt and sickness and fried
fatback. He showed him a successful skin graft made on the
face of a woman patient who had been severely burned. He
treated a syphilitic child and pointed
115
out to Mr. Singer the scaling eruption on the palms of the
hand, the dull, opaque surface of the eye, the sloping upper
front incisors. They visited two-room shacks that housed as
many as twelve or fourteen persons. In a room where the fire
burned low and orange on the hearth they were helpless while
an old man strangled with pneumonia. Mr. Singer walked
behind him and watched and understood. He gave nickels to
the children, and because of his quietness and decorum he did
not disturb the patients as would have another visitor.
The days were chilly and treacherous. In the town there was
an outbreak of influenza so that Dr. Copeland was busy most
of the hours of the day and night. He drove through the Negro
sections of the town in the high Dodge automobile he had
used for the past nine years. He kept the isinglass curtains
snapped to the windows to cut off the draughts, and tight
around his neck he wore his gray wool shawl. During this time
he did not see Portia or William or Highboy, but often he
thought of them. Once when he was away Portia came to see
him and left a note and borrowed half a sack of meal.
There came a night when he was so exhausted that, although
there were other calls to make, he drank hot milk and went to
bed. He was cold and feverish so that at first he could not rest.
Then it seemed that he had only begun to sleep when a voice
called him. He got up wearily and, still in his long flannel
nightshirt, he opened the front door. It was Portia.
"The Lord Jesus help us, Father,' she said. Doctor Copeland
stood shivering with his nightshirt drawn close around his
waist. He held his hand to his throat and looked at her and
waited.
'It about our Willie. He been a bad boy and done got hisself in
mighty bad trouble. And us got to do something.' Doctor
Copeland walked from the hall with rigid steps. He stopped in
the bedroom for his bathrobe, shawl, and slippers and went
back to the kitchen. Portia was waiting for him there. The
kitchen was lifeless and cold. 'All right. What has he done?
What is it?' 'Just wait a minute. Just let me find brain room so
I can study it all out and tell it to you plain.
'
He crushed some sheets of newspaper lying on the116
hearth and picked up a few sticks of kindling.
'Let me make the fire,' Portia said. 'You just sit down at the
table, and soon as this here stove is hot us going to have a cup
of coffee. Then maybe it all won't seem so bad.
'
"There is not any coffee. I used the last of it yesterday.' >
When he said this Portia began to cry. Savagely she stuffed
paper and wood into the stove and lighted it with a trembling
hand. "This here the way it is,' she said. 'Willie and Highboy
were messing around tonight at a place where they got no
business being. You know how I feels like I always got to
keep my Willie and my Highboy close to me? Well, if I'd been
there none of this trouble would of come about. But I were at
the Ladies' Meeting at the church and them boys got restless.
They went down to Madame Reba's Palace of Sweet Pleasure.
And Father, this is sure one bad, wicked place. They got a
man sells tickets on the bug— but they also got these strutting,
bad-blood, tail-shaking nigger gals and these here red satin
curtains and------'
'Daughter,' said Doctor Copeland irritably. He pressed his
hands to the side of bis head. 'I know the place. Get to the
point.'
'Love Jones were there—and she is one bad colored gal.
Willie he drunk liquor and shimmied around with her until
first thing you know he were in a fight. He were in a fight with
this boy named Junebug—over Love. And for a while they
fights there with their hands and then this Junebug got out his
knife. Our Willie didn't have no knife, so he commenced to
bellow and run around the parlor. Then finally Highboy found
Willie a razor and he backed up and nearbout cut this
Junebug's head off.'
Doctor Copeland drew his shawl closer around him. 'Is he
dead?'
"That boy too mean to die. He in the hospital, but he going to
be out and making trouble again before long.'
'And William?'
'The police come in and taken him to the jail in the Black
Maria. He still locked up.'
'And he did not get hurt?'
'Oh, he got a busted eye and a little chunk cut out his behind.
But it won't bother him none. What I can't understand is how
come he would be messing around with that Love. She at least
ten shades blacker than I is and she
117
the ugliest nigger I ever seen. She walk like she have a egg
between her legs and don't want to break it. She ain't even
clean. And here Willie done cut the buck like this over her.'
Doctor Copeland leaned closer to the stove and groaned. He
coughed and his face stiffened. He held his paper
handkerchief to his mouth and it became spotted with blood.
The dark skin of his face took on a greenish pallor.
'Course Highboy come and tell me soon as it all happened.
Understand, my Highboy didn't have nothing to do with these
here bad gals. He were just keeping Willie company. He so
grieved about Willie he been sitting out on the street curb in
front of the jail ever since.' The fire-colored tears rolled down
Portia's face. 'You know how us three has always been. Us
haves our own plan and nothing ever went wrong with it
before. Even money hasn't bothered us none. Highboy he pay
the rent and I buys the food-—and Willie he takes care of
Saturday Night. Us has always been like three-piece twinses.'
At last it was morning. The mill whistles blew for the first
shift. The sun came out and brightened the clean saucepans
hanging on the wall above the stove. They sat for a long time.
Portia pulled at the rings on her ears until her lobes were
irritated and purplish red. Doctor Copeland still held his head
in his hands.
'Seem to me,' Portia said finally, 'if us can just get a lot of
white peoples to write letters about Willie it might help out
some. I already been to see Mr. Brannon. He written exactly
what I told him to. He were at his cafe after it all happened
like he is ever night. So I just went in there and explained how
it was. I taken the letter home with me. I done put it in the
Bible so I won't lose it or dirty it'
'What did the letter say?'
'Mr. Brannon he wrote just hike I asked him to. The letter tell
about how Willie has been working for Mr. Brannon going on
three year. It tell how Willie is one fine upstanding colored
boy and how he hasn't ever been in no trouble before now. It
tell how he always had plenty chances to take things in the
cafe if he were like some other type of colored boy and
how------'
'Pshaw!' said Doctor Copeland. 'All that is no good.'
'Us just can't sit around and wait. With Willie locked up in the
jail. My Willie, who is such a sweet boy even if he118
did do wrong tonight. Us just can't sit around and wait'
'We will have to. That is the only thing we can do.'
'Well, I know I ain't'
Portia got up from the chair. Her eyes roved distractedly
around the room as though searching for something. Then
abruptly she went toward the front door.
'Wait a minute,' said Doctor Copeland. 'Where do you intend
to go now?'
'I got to work. I sure got to keep my job. I sure have to stay on
with Mrs. Kelly and get my pay ever week.'
'I want to go to the jail,' said Doctor Copeland. 'Maybe I can
see William.'
'I going to drop by the jail on my way to work. I got to send
Highboy off to his work, too—else he liable to sit there
grieving about Willie all the morning.'
Doctor Copeland dressed hurriedly and joined Portia in the
hall. They went out into the cool, blue autumn morning. The
men at the jail were rude to them and they were able to find
out very little. Doctor Copeland then went to consult a lawyer
with whom he had had dealings before. The following days
were long and full of worried thoughts. At the end of three
weeks the trial for William was held and he was convicted of
assault with a deadly weapon. He was sentenced to nine
months of hard labor and sent immediately to a prison in the
northern part of the state.
Even now the strong true purpose was always in him, but he
had no time in which to think on it He went from one house to
another and the work was unending. Very early in the morning
he drove off in the automobile, and then at eleven o'clock the
patients came to the office. After the sharp autumn air outside
there would be a hot, stale odor in the house that made him
cough. The benches in the hall were always full of sick and
patient Negroes who waited for him, and sometimes even the
front porch and his bedroom would be crowded. All the day
and frequently half the night there was work. Because of the
tiredness in him he wanted sometimes to lie down on the floor
and beat with his fists and cry. If he could rest he might get
well. He had tuberculosis of the lungs, and he measured his
temperature four times a day and had an X-ray once a month.
But he could not rest. For there was another
thing bigger than the tiredness—and this was the strong true
purpose.
He would think of this purpose until sometimes, after a long
day and night of work, he would become blank so that he
would forget for a minute just what the purpose was. And then
it would come to him again and he would be restless and eager
to take on a new task. But the words often stuck in his mouth,
and his voice now was hoarse and not loud as it had been
before. He pushed the words into the sick and patient faces of
the Negroes who were his people.
Often he talked to Mr. Singer. With him he spoke of chemistry
and the enigma of the universe. Of the infinitesimal sperm and
the cleavage of the ripened egg. Of the complex million-fold
division of the cells. Of the mystery of living matter and the
simplicity of death. And also he spoke with him of race.
'My people were brought from the great plains, and the dark,
green jungles,' he said once to Mr. Singer. 'On the long
chained journeys to the coast they died by the thousands. Only
the strong survived. Chained in the foul ships that brought
them here they died again. Only the hardy Negroes with will
could live. Beaten and chained and sold on the block, the least
of these strong ones perished again. And finally through the
bitter years the strongest of my people are still here. Their
sons and daughters, their grandsons and great grandsons.'
'I come to borrow and I come to ask a favor,' Portia said.
Doctor Copeland was alone in his kitchen when she walked
through the hall and stood in the doorway to tell him this. Two
weeks had passed since William had been sent away. Portia
was changed. Her hair was not oiled and combed as usual, her
eyes were bloodshot as though she had partaken of strong
drink. Her cheeks were hollow, and with her sorrowful,
honey-colored face she truly resembled her mother now.
'You know them nice white plates and cups you have?'
*You may have them and keep them.'
'No, I only wants to borrow. And also I come here to ask a
favor of you.'
'Anything you wish,' said Doctor Copeland.
Portia sat down across the table from her father. Tirst I120
suppose I better explain. Yesdiddy I got this here message
from Grandpapa saying they all coming in tomorrow and
spend the night and part of Sunday with us. Course they been
mighty worried about Willie, and Grandpapa feel like us all
ought to get together again. He right, too. I sure do want to see
our fcLnfolks again. I been mighty homesick since Willie
been gone.'
'You may have the plates and anything else you can find
around here,' Doctor Copeland said. 'But hold up your
shoulders, Daughter. Your carriage is bad.'
'It going to be a real reunion. You know this is the first time
Grandpapa have spent the night in town for twenty years. He
haven't ever slept outside of his own home except two times in
his whole life. And anyway he kind of nervous at night. All
during the dark he have to get up and drink water and be sure
the childrens is covered up and all right. I a little worried
about if Grandpapa will be comfortable here.'
'Anything of mine you think you will need——'
'Course Lee Jackson bringing them in,' said Portia. 'And with
Lee Jackson it going to take them all day to get here. 1 not
expecting them till around supper-time. Course Grandpapa
always so patient with Lee Jackson he wouldn't make him
hurry none.'
'My soul! Is that old mule still alive? He must be fully
eighteen years old.'
'He even older than that. Grandpapa been working him now
for twenty years. He done had that mule so long he always say
it just like Lee Jackson is one of his blood kin. He understand
and love Lee Jackson like he do his own grandchildrens. I
never seen a human who know so good what a animal is
thinking as Grandpapa. He haves a close feeling for everthing
that walks and eats.'
'Twenty years is a long time to work a mule.'
'It sure is. Now Lee Jackson is right feeble. But Grandpapa
sure do take good care of him. When they plows out in the hot
sun Lee Jackson haves a great big straw hat on his head just
like Grandpapa—with holes cut for his ears. That mule's straw
hat is a real joke, and Lee Jackson won't budge a step when he
going to plow without that hat is on his head.'
Doctor Copeland took down the white china dishes from
the shelf and began to wrap them ia newspaper. 'Have you
enough pots and pans to cook all the food you will need?'
'Plenty,' Portia said. 'I not going to any special trouble.
Granpapa, he Mr. Thoughtful hisself—and he always bring in
something to help out when the f ambly come to dinner. I only
going to have plenty meal and cabbage and two pounds of
nice mullet.' 'Sounds good.'
Portia laced her nervous yellow fingers together. "There one
thing I haven't told you yet. A surprise. Buddy going to | be
here as well as Hamilton. Buddy just come back from Mobile.
He helping out on the farm now.'
"It has been five years since I last saw Karl Marx.' 'And that
just what I come to ask you about,* said Portia. 'You
remember when I walked in the door I told you I come to
borrow and to ask a favor.'
Doctor Copeland cracked the points of his fingers. 'Yes.'
'Well, I come to see if I can't get you to be there tomorrow at
the reunion. All your childrens but Willie going to be there.
Seem to me like you ought to join us. I sure will be glad if you
come.'
Hamilton and Karl Marx and Portia—and William. Doctor
Copeland removed his spectacles and pressed his fingers
against his eyelids. For a minute he saw the four of them very
plainly as they were a long time ago. Then he looked up and
straightened his glasses on his nose. Thank you,' he said. 'I
will come.'
That night he sat alone by the stove in the dark room and
remembered. He thought back to the time of his childhood.
His mother had been born a slave, and after freedom she was a
washerwoman. His father was a preacher, who had once
known John Brown. They had taught him, and out of the two
or three dollars they had earned each week they saved. When
he was seventeen years old they had sent him North with
eighty dollars hidden in his shoe. He had worked in a
blacksmith's shop and as a waiter and as a bellboy in a hotel.
And all the while he studied and read and went to school. His
father died and his mother did not live long without him. After
ten years of struggle he was a doctor and he knew his mission
and he came South
again.
He married and made a home. He went endlessly from122
house to house and spoke the mission and the truth. The
hopeless suffering of his people made in him a madness, a
wild and evil feeling of destruction. At times he drank strong
liquor and beat his head against the floor. In his heart there
was a savage violence, and once he grasped the poker from the
hearth and struck down his wife. She took Hamilton, Karl
Marx, William, and Portia with her to her father's home. He
wrestled in his spirit and fought down the evil blackness. But
Daisy did not come back to him. And eight years later when
she died his sons were not children any more and they did not
return to him. He was left an old man in an empty house.
Promptly at five o'clock the next afternoon he arrived at the
house where Portia and Highboy lived. They resided in the
part of town called Sugar Hill, and the house was a narrow
cottage with a porch and two rooms. From inside there was a
babble of mixed voices. Doctor Copeland approached stiffly
and stood in the doorway holding his shabby felt hat in his
hand.
The room was crowded and at first he was not noticed. He
sought the faces of Karl Marx and Hamilton. Besides them
there was Grandpapa and two children who sat together on the
floor. He was still looking into the faces of his sons when
Portia perceived him standing in the door. 'Here Father,' she
said.
The voices stopped. Grandpapa turned around in his chair. He
was thin and bent and very wrinkled. He was wearing the
same greenish-black suit that he had worn thirty years before
at his daughter's wedding. Across his vest there was a
tarnished brass watch chain. Karl Marx and Hamilton looked
at each other, then down at the floor, and finally at their
father.
'Benedict Mady------' said the old man. 'Been a long
time. A real long time.'
'Ain't it, though!' Portia said. 'This here the first reunion us is
all had in many a year. Highboy, you get a chair from the
kitchen. Father, here Buddy and Hamilton.' Doctor Copeland
shook hands with his sons. They were both tall and strong and
awkward. Against their blue shirts and overalls their skin had
the same rich brown color as did Portia's. They did not look
him in the eye, and in their faces there was neither love nor
hate.
123
It sure is a pity everybody couldn't come—Aunt Sara and Jim
and all the rest,' said Highboy. 'But this here is a real pleasure
to us.'
'Wagon too full,' said one of the children. 'Us had to walk a
long piece 'cause the wagon too full anyways.'
Grandpapa scratched Ms ear with a matchstick. 'Somebody
got to stay home.'
Nervously Portia licked her dark, thin lips. 'It our Willie I
thinking about. He were always a big one for any kind of party
or to-do. My mind just won't stay off our Willie.'
Through the room there was a quiet murmur of agreement.
The old man leaned back in bis chair and waggled his head up
and down. 'Portia, Hon, supposing you reads to us a little
while. The word of God sure do mean a lot in a time of
trouble.'
Portia took up the Bible from the table in the center of the
room. 'What part you want to hear now, Grandpapa?'
'It all the book of the Holy Lord. Just any place your eye fall
on will do.'
Portia read from the Book of Luke. She read slowly, tracing
the words with her long, limp finger. The room was still.
Doctor Copeland sat on the edge of the group, cracking his
knuckles, his eyes wandering from one point to another. The
room was very small, the air close and stuffy. The four walls
were cluttered with calendars and crudely painted
advertisements from magazines. On the mantel there was a
vase of red paper roses. The fire on the hearth burned slowly
and the wavering light from the oil lamp made shadows on the
wall. Portia read with such slow rhythm that the words slept in
Doctor Copeland's ears and he was drowsy. Karl Marx lay
sprawled upon the floor beside the children. Hamilton and
Highboy dozed. Only the old man seemed to study the
meaning of the words.
Portia finished the chapter and closed the book.
'I done pondered over this thing a many a time/ said
Grandpapa.
The people in the room came out of their drowsiness. 'What?
'
asked Portia.
'It this way. You recall them parts Jesus raising the dead and
curing the sick?
'
'Course we does, sir,' said Highboy deferentially.124
CARSON Me CULLERS
I
'Many a day when I be plowing or working,' Grandpapa said
slowly, 'I done thought and reasoned about the time when
Jesus going to descend again to this earth. 'Cause I done
always wanted it so much it seem to me like it will be while I
am living. I done studied about it many a time. And this here
the way I done planned it. I reason I will get to stand before
Jesus with all my childrens and grandchil-drens and great
grandchildrens and kinfolks and friends and I say to him,
"Jesus Christ, us is all sad colored peoples." And then he will
place His holy hand upon our heads and straightway us will be
white as cotton. That the plan and reasoning that been in my
heart a many and a many a time.'
A hush fell on the room. Doctor Copeland jerked the cuff of
his sleeves and cleared his throat. His pulse beat too fast and
his throat was tight Sitting in the corner of the room he felt
isolated and angry and alone.
'Has any of you ever had a sign from Heaven?' asked
Grandpapa.
'I has, sir,' said Highboy. 'Once when I were sick with the
pneumonia I seen God's face looking out the fireplace at me. It
were a large white man's face with a white beard and blue
eyes.'
'I seen a ghost,' said one of the children—the girL
'Once I seen------' began the little boy.
Grandpapa held up his hand. 'You childrens hush. You, . I
Celia—and you, Whitman—it now the time for you to * listen
but not be heard,' he said. 'Only one time has I had a real sign.
And this here the way it come about. It were in the summer of
last year, and hot. I were trying to dig up the roots of that big
oak stump near the hogpen and when I leaned down a kind of
catch, a misery, come suddenly in the small of my back. I
straightened up and then aU around went dark. I were holding
my hand to my back and looking up at the sky when suddenly
I seen this little angel. It were a little white girl angel—look to
me about the size of a field pea—with yellow hair and a white
robe. Just flying around near the sun. After that I come in the
house and prayed. I studied the Bible for three days before I
went out in the field again.'
Doctor Copeland felt the old evil anger in him. The words
rose inchoately to his throat and he could not speak
125
them. They would listen to the old man. Yet to words of
reason they would not attend. These are my people, he tried to
tell himself—but because he was dumb this thought did not
help him now. He sat tense and sullen.
'It a queer thing,' said Grandpapa suddenly. 'Benedict Mady,
you a fine doctor. How come I get them miseries sometime in
the small of my back after I been digging and planting for a
good while? How come that misery bother me?'
'How old are you now?'
'I somewhere between seventy and eighty year old.'
The old man loved medicine and treatment Always when he
used to come in with his family to see Daisy he would have
himself examined and take home medicine and salves for the
whole group of them. But when Daisy left him the old man
did not come anymore and he had to content himself with
purges and kidney pills advertised in the newspapers. Now the
old man was looking at him with timid eagerness.
'Drink plenty of water,' said Doctor Copeland. 'And rest as
much as you can.'
Portia went into the kitchen to prepare the supper. Warm
smells began to fill the room. There was quiet, idle talking,
but Doctor Copeland did not listen or speak. Now and then he
looked at Karl Marx or Hamilton. Karl Marx talked about Joe
Louis. Hamilton spoke mostly of the hail that had ruined some
of the crops. When they caught their father's eye they grinned
and shuffled their feet on the floor. He kept staring at them
with angry misery.
Doctor Copeland clamped his teeth down hard. He had
thought so much about Hamilton and Karl Marx and William
and Portia, about the real true purpose he had had for them,
that the sight of their faces made a black swollen feeling in
him. If once he could tell it all to them, from the far away
beginning until this very night, the telling would ease the
sharp ache in his heart. But they would not listen or
understand.
He hardened himself so that each muscle in his body was rigid
and strained. He did not listen or look at anything around him.
He sat in a corner like a man who is blind and dumb. Soon
they went into the supper table and the old man said grace.
But Doctor Copeland did not eat126
When Highboy brought out a pint ,bottle of gin, and they
laughed and passed the bottle from mouth to mouth, he
refused that also. He sat in rigid silence, and at last he picked
up his hat and left the house without a farewell. If he could
not speak the whole long truth no other word would come to
him.
He lay tense and wakeful throughout the night. Then the next
day was Sunday. He made half a dozen calls, and in the
middle of the morning he went to Mr. Singer's room. The visit
blunted the feeling of loneliness in him so that when he said
good-bye he was at peace with himself once more.
However, before he was out of the house this peace had left
him. An accident occurred. As he started down the stairs he
saw a white man carrying a large paper sack and he drew close
to the banisters so that they could pass each other. But the
white man was running up the steps two at a time, without
looking, and they collided with such force that Doctor
Copeland was left sick and breathless.
'Christ! I didn't see you.'
Doctor Copeland looked at him closely but made no answer.
He had seen this white man once before. He remembered the
stunted, brutal-looking body and the huge, awkward hands.
Then with sudden clinical interest he observed the white man's
face, for in his eyes he saw a strange, fixed, and withdrawn
look of madness.
'Sorry,' said the white man.
Doctor Copeland put his hand on the banister and passed on.
I
W HO was that?' Jake Blount asked. 'Who was the tall, " thin
colored man that just come out of here?
'
The small room was very neat. The sun lighted a bowl of
purple grapes on the table. Singer sat with his chair tilted back
and his hands in his pockets, looking out of the window.
'I bumped into him on the steps and he gave me this look—
why, I never had anybody to look at me so dirty.
'
Jake put the sack of ales down on the table. He realized
I
127
with a shock that Singer did not know he was in the room. He
walked over to the window and touched Singer on the
shoulder.
'I didn't mean to bump into him. He had no cause to
act like that.'
Jake shivered. Although the sun was bright there was a chill in
the room. Singer held up his forefinger and went into the hall.
When he returned he brought with him a scuttle of coal and
some kindling. Jake watched him kneel before the hearth.
Neatly he broke the sticks of kindling over his knee and
arranged them on the foundation of paper. He put the coal on
according to a system. At first the fire would not draw. The
flames quivered weakly and were smothered by a black roll of
smoke. Singer covered the grate with a double sheet of
newspapers. The draught gave the fire new life. In the room
there was a roaring sound. The paper glowed and was sucked
inward. A crackling orange sheet of flame filled the grate.
The first morning ale had a fine mellow taste. Jake gulped his
share down quickly and wiped his mouth with file back of his
hand.
There was this lady I knew a long time ago,' he said. 'You sort
of remind me of her, Miss Clara. She had a little farm in
Texas. And made pralines to sell in the cities. She was a tall,
big, fine-looking lady. Wore those long, baggy sweaters and
clodhopper shoes and a man's hat. Her husband was dead
when I knew her. But what I'm getting at is this: If it hadn't
been for her I might never have known. I might have gone on
through life like the millions of others who don't know. I
would have just been a preacher or a linthead or a salesman.
My whole life might have
been wasted.'
Jake shook his head wonderingly.
To understand you got to know what went before. You see, I
lived in Gastonia when I was a youngun. I was a knock-kneed
little runt, too small to put in the mill. I worked as pin boy in a
bowling joint and got meals for pay. Then I heard a smart,
quick boy could make thirty cents a day stringing tobacco not
very far from there. So I went and made that thirty cents a day.
That was^ when I was ten years old. I just left my folks. I
didn't write. They were glad I was gone. You understand how
those things are.128
And besides, nobody could read a letter but my sister.'
He waved his hand in the air as though brushing something
from his face. 'But I mean this. My first belief was Jesus.
There was this fellow working in the same shed with me. He
had a tabernacle and preached every night. I went and listened
and I got this faith. My mind was on Jesus all day long. In my
spare time I studied the Bible and prayed. Then one night I
took a hammer and laid my hand on the table. I was angry and
I drove the nail all the way through. My hand was nailed to
the table and I looked at it and the fingers fluttered and turned
blue.'
Jake held out his palm and pointed to the ragged, dead-white
scar in the center.
'I wanted to be an evangelist. I meant to travel around the
country preaching and holding revivals. In the meantime I
moved around from one place to another, and when I was
nearly twenty I got to Texas. I worked in a pecan grove near
where Miss Clara lived. I got to know her and at night
sometimes I would go to her house. She talked to me.
Understand, I didn't begin to know all at once. That's not the
way it happens to any of us. It was gradual. I began to read. I
would work just so I could put aside enough money to knock
off for a while and study. It was like being born a second time.
Just us who know can understand what it means. We have
opened our eyes and have seen. We're like people from way
off yonder somewhere.'
Singer agreed with him. The room was comfortable in a
homey way. Singer brought out from the closet the tin box in
which he kept crackers and fruit and cheese. He se-*
lected an orange and peeled it slowly. He pulled off shreds
' of pith until the fruit was transparent in the sun. He sec-i
tioned the orange and divided the plugs between them. *
Jake ate two sections at a time and with a loud whoosh spat
the seeds into the fire. Singer ate his share slowly and
deposited his seeds neatly in the palm of one hand. They
opened two more ales.
'And how many of us are there in this country? Maybe ten
thousand. Maybe twenty thousand. Maybe a lot more. I been
to a lot of places but I never met but a few of us. But say a
man does know. He sees the world as it is and he looks back
thousands of years to see how it all come about.
129
He watched the slow agglutination of capital and power and
he sees its pinnacle today. He sees America as a crazy house.
He sees how men have to rob their brothers in order to live.
He sees children starving and women working sixty hours a
week to get to eat. He sees a whole damn army of unemployed
and billions of dollars and thousands of miles of land wasted.
He sees war coming. He sees how when people suffer just so
much they get mean and ugly and something dies in them. But
the main thing he sees is that the whole system of the world is
built on a lie. And although it's as plain as the shining sun—
the don't-knows have lived with that lie so long they just can't
see it.'
The red corded vein in Jake's forehead swelled angrily. He
grasped the scuttle on the hearth and rattled an avalanche of
coal on the fire. His foot had gone to sleep, and he stamped it
so hard that the floor shook.
'I been all over this place. I walk around. I talk. I try to explain
to them. But what good does it do? Lord God!'
He gazed into the fire, and a flush from the ale and heat
deepened the color of his face. The sleepy tingling in his foot
spread up his leg. He drowsed and saw the colors of the fire,
the tints of green and blue and burning yellow. 'You're the
only one,' he said dreamily. "The only one.'
He was a stranger no longer. By now he knew every street,
every alley, every fence in all the sprawling slums of the town.
He still worked at the Sunny Dixie. During the fall the show
moved from one vacant lot to another, staying always within
the fringes of the city limit, until at last it had encircled the
town. The locations were changed but the settings were alike
—a strip of wasteland bordered by rows of rotted shacks, and
somewhere near a mill, a cotton gin, or a bottling plant. The
crowd was the same, for the most part factory workers and
Negroes. The show was gaudy with colored lights in the
evening. The wooden horses of the flying-jinny revolved in
the circle to the mechanical music. The swings whirled, the
rail around the penny throwing game was always crowded.
From the two booths were sold drinks and bloody brown
hamburgers
and cotton candy.
He had been hired as a machinist, but gradually the range of
his duties widened. His coarse, bawling voice called out
through the noise, and continually he was loung-130
ing from one place on the show grounds to another. Sweat
stood out on his forehead and often his mustache was soaked
with beer. On Saturday his job was to keep the people in
order. His squat, hard body pushed through the crowd with
savage energy. Only his eyes did not share the violence of the
rest of him, Wide gazing beneath his massive scowling
forehead, they had a withdrawn and distracted appearance.
He reached home between twelve and one in the morning. The
house where he lived was squared into four rooms and the rent
was a dollar fifty per person. There was a privy in the back
and a hydrant on the stoop. In his room the walls and floor had
a wet, sour smell. Sooty, cheap lace curtains hung at the
window. He kept his good suit in his bag and hung his overalls
on a nail. The room had no heat and ho electricity. However, a
street light shone outside the window and made a pale
greenish reflection inside. He never lighted the oil lamp by his
bed unless he wanted to read. The acrid smell of burning oil in
the cold room nauseated him.
If he stayed at home he restlessly walked the floor. He sat on
the edge of the unmade bed and gnawed savagely at the
broken, dirty ends of his fingernails. The sharp taste of grime
lingered in his mouth. The loneliness in him was so keen that
he was filled with terror. Usually he had a pint of bootleg
white lightning. He drank the raw liquor and by daylight he
was warm and relaxed. At five o'clock the whistles from the
mills blew for the first shift. The whistles made lost, eerie
echoes, and he could never sleep until after they had sounded.
But usually he did not stay at home. He went out into the
narrow, empty streets. In the first dark hours of the morning
the sky was black and the stars hard and bright. Sometimes the
mills were running. From the yellow-lighted buildings came
the racket of the machines. He waited at the gates for the early
shift. Young girls in sweaters and print dresses came out into
the dark street. The men came out carrying their dinner pails.
Some of them always went to a streetcar caf6 for Coca-Cola
or coffee before going home, and Jake went with them. Inside
the noisy mill the men could hear plainly every word that was
spoken, but for the first hour outside they were deaf.
I
131
In the streetcar Jake drank Coca-Cola with whiskey added. He
talked. The winter dawn was white and smoky and cold. He
looked with drunken urgency into the drawn, yellow faces of
the men. Often he was laughed at, and when this happened he
held his stunted body very straight and spoke scornfully hi
words of many syllables. He stuck his little finger out from his
glass and haughtily twisted his mustache. And if he was still
laughed at he sometimes fought. He swung his big brown fists
with crazed violence and sobbed aloud.
After such mornings he returned to the show with relief. It
eased him to push through the crowds of people. The noise,
the rank stinks, the shouldering contact of human flesh
soothed his jangled nerves.
Because of the blue laws hi the town the show closed for the
Sabbath. On Sunday he got up early in the morning and took
from the suitcase his serge suit. He went to the main street.
First he dropped into the New York Cafe and bought a sack of
ales. Then he went to Singer's room. Although he knew many
people in the town by name or face, the mute was his only
friend. They would idle in the quiet room and drink the ales.
He would talk, and the words created themselves from the
dark mornings spent in the streets or hi his room alone. The
words were formed and spoken with relief.
The fire had died down. Singer was playing a game of fools
with himself at the table. Jake had been asleep. He awoke with
a nervous quiver. He raised his head and turned to Singer.
'Yeah,' he said as though in answer to a sudden question.
'Some of us are Communists. But not all
of us------. Myself, I'm not a member of the Communist
Party. Because in the first place I never knew but one of them.
You can bum around for years and not meet Communists.
Around here there's no office where you can go up and say
you want to join—and if there is I never heard of it. And you
just don't take off for New York and join. As I say I never
knew but one—and he was a seedy little teetotaler whose
breath stunk. We had a fight. Not that I hold that against the
Communists. The main fact is I don't think so much of Stalin
and Russia. I hate every damn country and government there
is. But even so maybe I ought to132
joined up with the Communists first place. I'm not certain one
way or the other. What do you think?'
Singer wrinkled his forehead and considered. He reached for
his silver pencil and wrote on his pad of paper that he didn't
know.
'But there's this. You see, we just can't settle down after
knowing, but we got to act And some of us go nuts. There's
too much to do and you don't know where to start It makes
you crazy. Even me—I've done things that when I look back at
them they don't seem rational Once I started an organization
myself. I picked out twenty lint-heads and talked to them until
I thought they knew. Our motto was one word: Action. Huh!
We meant to start riots—stir up all the big trouble we could.
Our ultimate goal was freedom—but a real freedom, a great
freedom made possible only by the sense of justice of the
human souL Our motto, "Action," signified the razing of
capitalism. In the constitution (drawn up by myself) certain
statutes dealt with the swapping of our motto from "Action" to
"Freedom" as soon as our work was through.'
Jake sharpened the end of a match and picked a troublesome
cavity in a tooth. After a moment he continued:
"Then when the constitution was all written down and the first
followers well organized—then I went out on a hitch-hiking
tour to organize component units of the society. Within three
months I came back, and what do you reckon I found? What
was the first heroic action? Had their righteous fury overcome
planned action so that they had gone ahead without me? Was
it destruction, murder, revolution?'
Jake leaned forward in his chair. After a pause he said
somberly:
'My friend, they had stole the fifty-seven dollars and thirty
cents from the treasury to buy uniform caps and free Saturday
suppers. I caught them sitting around the conference table,
rolling the bones, their caps on their heads, and a ham and a
gallon of gin in easy reach.'
A timid smile from Singer followed Jake's outburst of
laughter. After a while the smile on Singer's face grew
strained and faded. Jake still laughed. The vein in his forehead
swelled, his face was dusky red. He laughed too long. Singer
looked up at the clock and indicated the time—
half-past twelve. He took his watch, his silver pencil and pad,
his cigarettes and matches from the mantel and distributed
them among his pockets. It was dinner-time.
But Jake still laughed. There was something maniacal in the
sound of his laughter. He walked about the room, jingling the
change in his pockets. His long, powerful arms swung tense
and awkward. He began to name over parts of his coming
meal. When he spoke of food his face was fierce with gusto.
With each word he raised his upper lip like a ravenous animal.
'Roast beef with gravy. Rice. And cabbage and light bread.
And a big hunk of apple pie. I'm famished. Oh, Johnny, I can
hear the Yankees coming. And speaking of meals, my friend,
did I ever tell you about Mr. Clark Patterson, the gentleman
who owns the Sunny Dixie Show? He's so fat he hasn't seen
his privates for twenty years, and all day he sits in his trailer
playing solitaire and smoking reefers. He orders his meals
from a short-order joint nearby and every day he breaks his
fast with------'
Jake stepped back so that Singer could leave the room. He
always hung back at doorways when he was with the mute. He
always followed and expected Singer to lead. As they
descended the stairs he continued to talk with nervous
volubility. He kept his brown, wide eyes on Singer's face.
The afternoon was soft and mild. They stayed indoors. Jake
had brought back with them a quart of whiskey. He sat
brooding and silent on the foot of the bed, leaning now and
then to fill his glass from the bottle on the floor. Singer was at
his table by the window playing a game of chess. Jake had
relaxed somewhat. He watched the game of his friend and felt
the mild, quiet afternoon merge with the darkness of evening.
The firelight made dark, silent waves on the walls of the room.
But at night the tension came in him again. Singer had put
away his chess men and they sat facing each other.
Nervousness made Jake's lips twitch raggedly and he drank to
soothe himself. A backwash of restlessness and desire
overcame him. He drank down the whiskey and began to talk
again to Singer. The words swelled with him and gushed from
his mouth. He walked from the window to the bed and back
again—again and again. And at last the134
deluge of swollen words took shape and he delivered them to
the mute with drunken emphasis:
'The things they have done to us! The truths they have turned
into lies. The ideals they have fouled and made vile. Take
Jesus. He was one of us. He knew. When He said that it is
harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for
a rich man to enter the kingdom of God —he damn well meant
just what he said. But look what the Church has done to Jesus
during the last two thousand years. What they have made of
him. How they have turned every word he spoke for their own
vile ends. Jesus would be framed and in jail if he was living
today. Jesus would be one who really knows. Me and Jesus
would sit across the table and I would look at him and he
would look at me and we would both know that the other
knew. Me and Jesus and Karl Marx could all sit at a table
and-----
'And look what has happened to our freedom. The men who
fought the American Revolution were no more like these
D.A.R. dames than I'm a pot-bellied, perfumed Pekingese dog.
They meant what they said about freedom. They fought a real
revolution. They fought so that this could be a country where
every man would be free and equal. Huh! And that meant
every man was equal in the sight of Nature—with an equal
chance. This didn't mean that twenty per cent of the people
were free to rob the other eighty per cent of the means to live.
This didn't mean for one rich man to sweat the piss out of ten
thousand poor men so that he can get richer. This didn't mean
the tyrants were free to get this country in such a fix that
millions of people are ready to do anything—cheat, lie, or
whack off their right arm—just to work for three squares and
a flop. They have made the word freedom a blasphemy. You
hear me? They have made the word freedom stink like a skunk
to all who know.'
The vein in Jake's forehead throbbed wildly. His mouth
worked convulsively. Singer sat up, alarmed, Jake tried to
speak again and the words choked in his mouth. A shudder
passed through his body. He sat down in the chair and pressed
his trembling lips with his fingers. Then he said huskily:
'It's this way, Singer. Being mad is no good. Nothing we can
do is any good. That's the way it seems to me. All we
.
135
can do is go around telling the truth. And as soon as enough of
the don't knows have learned the truth then there won't be any
use for fighting. The only thing for us to do is let them know.
All that's needed. But how? Huh?'
The fire shadows lapped against the walls. The dark, shadowy
waves rose higher and the room took on motion. The room
rose and fell and all balance was gone. Alone Jake felt himself
sink downward, slowly in wavelike motions downward into a
shadowed ocean. In helplessness and terror he strained his
eyes, but he could see nothing except the dark and scarlet
waves that roared hungrily over him. Then at last he made out
the thing which he sought. The mute's face was faint and very
far away. Jake closed his eyes.
The next morning he awoke very late. Singer had been gone
for hours. There was bread, cheese, an orange, and a pot of
coffee on the table. When he had finished his breakfast it was
time for work. He walked somberly, his head bent, across the
town toward his room. When he reached the neighborhood
where he lived he passed through a certain narrow street that
was flanked on one side by a smoke-blackened brick
warehouse. On the wall of this building there was something
that vaguely distracted him. He started to walk on, and then
his attention was suddenly held. On the wall a message was
written in bright red chalk, the letters drawn thickly and
curiously formed:
Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the
princes of the earth.
He read the message twice and looked anxiously up and down
the street. No one was in sight. After a few minutes of puzzled
deliberation he took from his pocket a thick red pencil and
wrote carefully beneath the inscription:
Whoever wrote the above meet me here tomorrow at noon,
Wednesday, November 29. Or the next day.
At twelve o'clock the next day he waited before the wall.
.
Now and then he walked impatiently to the corner to look : up
and down the streets. No one came. After an hour he ■ had to
leave for the show.136
The next day he waited, also.
Then on Friday there was a long, slow winter rain. The wall
was sodden and the messages streaked so that no word could
be read. The rain continued, gray and bitter and cold.
ICK,' Bubber said. 'I come to believe we all gonna drown.' It
was true that it like to never quit raining. Mrs. Wells rode
them back and forth to school in her car, and every afternoon
they had to stay on the front porch or in the house. She and
Bubber played Parcheesi and Old Maid and shot marbles on
the living-room rug. It was nearing along toward Christmas
time and Bubber began to talk about the Little Lord Jesus and
the red bicycle he wanted Santa Claus to bring him. The rain
was silver on the win-dowpanes and the sky was wet and cold
and gray. The river rose so high that some of the factory
people had to move out of their houses. Then when it looked
like the rain would keep on and on forever it suddenly
stopped. They woke up one morning and the bright sun was
shining. By afternoon the weather was almost warm as
summer. Mick came home late from school and Bubber and
Ralph and Spareribs were on the front sidewalk. The kids
looked hot and sticky and their winter clothes had a sour
smell. Bubber had his slingshot and a pocketful of rocks.
Ralph sat up in his wagon, his hat crooked on his head, and he
was fretful. Spareribs had bis new rifle with him. The sky was
a wonderful blue.
'We waited for you a long time, Mick,' Bubber said. 'Where
you been?'
She jumped up the front steps three at a time and threw her
sweater toward the hat rack. 'Practicing on the piano in the
gym.'
Every afternoon she stayed after school for an hour to play.
The gym was crowded and noisy because the girls' team had
basketball games. Twice today she was hit on the head with
the ball. But getting a chance to sit at a piano was worth any
amount of knocks and trouble. She would arrange bunches of
notes together until the sound came
that she wanted. It was eaiser than she had thought. After the
first two or three hours she figured out some sets of chords in
the bass that would fit in with the main tune her right hand
was playing. She could pick out almost any piece now. And
she made up new music too. That was better than just copying
tunes. When her hands hunted out these beautiful new sounds
it was the best feeling she had ever known.
She wanted to learn how to read music already written down.
Delores Brown had taken music lessons for five years. She
paid Delores the fifty cents a week she got for lunch money to
give her lessons. This made her very hungry all through the
day. Delores played a good many fast, runny pieces—but
Delores did not know how to answer all the questions she
wanted to know. Delores only taught her about the different
scales, the major and minor chords, the values of the notes,
and such beginning rules as those.
Mick slammed the door of the kitchen stove. "This all we got
to eat?'
'Honey, it the best I can do for you,' Portia said. Just
cornpones and margarine. As she ate she drank a glass of
water to help wash down the swallows.
'Quit acting so greedy. Nobody going to snatch it out your
hand.'
The kids still hung around in front of the house. Bubber had
put his slingshot in his pocket and now he played with the
rifle. Spareribs was ten years old and his father had died the
month before and this had been his father's gun-All the
smaller kids loved to handle that rifle. Every few minutes
Bubber would haul the gun up to his shoulder. He took aim
and made a loud pow sound.
'Don't monkey with the trigger,' said Spareribs. 1 got the gun
loaded.'
Mick finished the cornbread and looked around for something
to do. Harry Minowitz was sitting on his front porch banisters
with the newspaper. She was glad to see him. For a joke she
threw up her arm and hollered to him, 'Heil!'
But Harry didn't take it as a joke. He went into his front hall
and shut the door. It was easy to hurt his feelings. She was
sorry, because lately she and Harry had been right good
friends. They had always played in the same gang138
when they were kids, but in the last three years he had been at
Vocational while she was still in grammar school. Also he
worked at part-time jobs. He grew up very suddenly and quit
hanging around the back and front yards with kids. Sometimes
she could see him reading the paper in his bedroom or
undressing late at night. In mathematics and history he was the
smartest boy at Vocational. Often, now that she was in high
school too, they would meet each other on the way home and
walk together. They were in the same shop class, and once the
teacher made them partners to assemble a motor. He read
books and kept up with the newspapers every day. World
politics were all the time on his mind. He talked slow, and
sweat stood out on his forehead when he was very serious
about something. And now she had made him mad with her.
'I wonder has Harry still got his gold piece,' Spareribs said.
'What gold piece?'
'When a Jew boy is born they put a gold piece in the bank for
him. That's what Jews do.'
'Shucks. You got it mixed up,' she said. 'It's Catholics you're
thinking about. Catholics buy a pistol for a baby soon as it's
born. Some day the Catholics mean to start a war and kill
everybody else.'
'Nuns give me a funny feeling,' Spareribs said. 'It scares me
when I see one on the street.'
She sat down on the steps and laid her head on her knees. She
went into the inside room. With her it was like there was two
places—the inside room and the outside room. School and the
family and the things that happened every day were in the
outside room. Mister Singer was in both rooms. Foreign
countries and plans and music were in the inside room. The
songs she thought about were there. And the symphony. When
she was by herself hi this inside room the music she had heard
that night after the party would come back to her. This
symphony grew slow like a big flower in her mind. During the
day sometimes, or when she had just waked up in the
morning, a new part of the symphony would suddenly come to
her. Then she would have to go into the inside room and listen
to it many times and try to join it into the parts of the
symphony she remembered. The inside room was a very pri
139
vate place. She could be in the middle of a house full of
people and still feel like she was locked up by herself.
Spareribs stuck his dirty hand up to her eyes because she had
been staring off at space. She slapped him.
'What is a nun?' Bubber asked.
'A Catholic lady,' Spareribs said. 'A Catholic lady with a big
black dress that comes up over her head.'
She was tired of hanging around with the kids. She would go
to the library and look at pictures in the National Geographic.
Photographs of all the foreign places in the world. Paris,
France. And big ice glaciers. And the wild jungles in Africa.
'You kids see that Ralph don't get out in the street,' she said.
Bubber rested the big rifle on his shoulder. 'Bring me a
story back with you.'
It was like that kid had been born knowing how to read. He
was only in the second grade but he loved to read stories by
himself—and he never asked anybody else to read to him.
'What kind you want this time?'
'Pick out some stories with something to eat in them. I like
that one a whole lot about them German kids going out in the
forest and coming to this house made out of all different kinds
of candy and the witch. I like a story with something to eat in
it.'
'I'll look for one,' said Mick.
'But I'm getting kinda tired of candy,' Bubber said. 'See if you
can't bring me a story with something like a barbecue
sandwich in it. But if you can't find none of them I'd like a
cowboy story.'
She was ready to leave when suddenly she stopped and stared.
The kids stared too. They all stood still and looked at Baby
Wilson coming down the steps of her house across the street.
'Ain't Baby cute!' said Bubber softly.
Maybe it was the sudden hot, sunny day after all those rainy
weeks. Maybe it was because their dark winter clothes were
ugly to them on an afternoon like this one. Anyway Baby
looked like a fairy or something in the picture show. She had
on her last year's soiree costume—with a little pink-gauze
skirt that stuck out short and stiff, a pink body waist, pink
dancing shoes, and even a little pink140
pocketbook. With her yellow hair she was all pink and white
and gold—and so small and clean that it almost hurt to watch
her. She prissed across the street in a cute way, but would not
turn her face toward them.
'Come over here,' said Bubber. 'Lemme look at your little pink
pocketbook------'
Baby passed them along the edge of the street with her head
held to one side. She had made up her mind not to speak to
them.
There was a strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street,
and when Baby reached it she stood still for a second and then
turned a handspring.
'Don't pay no mind to her,' said Spareribs. 'She always tries to
show off. She's going down to Mister Brannon's cafe to get
candy. He's her uncle and she gets it free.'
Bubber rested the end of the rifle on the ground. The big gun
was too heavy for him. As he watched Baby walk off down
the street he kept pulling the straggly bangs of his hair. 'That
sure is a cute little pink pocketbook,' he said.
'Her Mama always talks about how talented she is,' said
Spareribs. 'She thinks she's gonna get Baby in the movies.'
It was too late to go look at the National Geographic. Supper
was almost ready. Ralph tuned up to cry and she took him off
the wagon and put him on the ground. Now it was December,
and to a kid Bubber's age that was a long time from summer.
All last summer Baby had come out in that pink soiree
costume and danced in the middle of the street. At first the
kids would flock around and watch her, but soon they got tired
of it. Bubber was the only one who would watch her as she
came out to dance. He would sit on the curb and yell to her
when he saw a car coming. He had watched Baby do her
soiree dance a hundred times—but summer had been gone for
three months and now it seemed new to him again.
'I sure do wish I had a costume,' Bubber said.
'What kind do you want?'
'A real cool costume. A real pretty one made out of all
different colors. Like a butterfly. That's what I want for
Christmas. That and a bicycle!'
'Sissy,' said Spareribs.
Bubber hauled the big rifle up to his shoulder again and took
aim at a house across the street. 'I'd dance around in
141
my costume if I had one. I'd wear it every day to school.' Mick
sat on the front steps and kept her eyes on Ralph. Bubber
wasn't a sissy like Spareribs said. He just loved pretty things.
She'd better not let old Spareribs get away with that.
'A person's got to fight for every single thing they get,' she
said slowly. 'And I've noticed a lot of times that the farther
down a kid comes in the family the better the kid really is.
Younger kids are always the toughest. I'm pretty hard 'cause
I've a lot of them on top of me. Bubber —he looks sick, and
likes pretty things, but he's got guts underneath that. If all this
is true Ralph sure ought to be a real strong one when he's old
enough to get around. Even though he's just seventeen months
old I can read something hard and tough in that Ralph's face
already.
'
Ralph looked around because he knew he was being talked
about. Spareribs sat down on the ground and grabbed Ralph's
hat off his head and shook it in his face to tease him.
'AH right!' Mick said. 'You know what 111 do to you if you
start him to cry. You just better watch out'
Everything was quiet. The sun was behind the roofs of the
houses and the sky in the west was purple and pink. On the
next block there was the sound of kids skating. Bubber leaned
up against a tree and he seemed to be dreaming about
something. The smell of supper came out of the house and it
would be time to eat soon.
'Lookit,' Bubber said suddenly. 'Here comes Baby again. She
sure is pretty in the pink costume.
'
Baby walked toward them slowly. She had been given a prize
box of popcorn candy and was reaching in the box for the
prize. She walked in that same prissy, dainty way. You could
tell that she knew they were all looking at her.
'Please, Baby------' Bubber said when she started to
pass them. 'Lemme see your little pink pocketbook and touch
your pink costume.
'
Baby started humming a song to herself and did not listen. She
passed by without letting Bubber play with her. She only
ducked her head and grinned at him a little.
Bubber still had the big rifle up to his shoulder. He made
a
loud pow sound and pretended like he had shot Then he called
to Baby again—in a soft, sad voice like he142
was calling a little kitty. 'Please, Baby—come here,
Baby------
'
He was too quick for Mick to stop him. She had just seen his
hand on the trigger when there was the terrible ping of the
gun. Baby crumpled down to the sidewalk. It was like she was
nailed to the steps and couldn't move or scream. Spareribs had
his arm up over his head.
Bubber was the only one that didn't realize. 'Get up, Baby,' he
hollered. 'I ain't mad with you.'
It all happened in a second. The three of them reached Baby at
the same time. She lay crumpled down on the dirty sidewalk.
Her skirt was over her head, showing her pink panties and her
little white legs. Her hands were open—in one there was the
prize from the candy and in the other the pocketbook. There
was blood all over her hair ribbon and the top of her yellow
curls. She was shot in the head and her face was turned down
toward the ground.
So much happened in a second. Bubber screamed and dropped
the gun and ran. She stood with her hands up to her face and
screamed too. Then there were many people. Her Dad was the
first to get there. He carried Baby into the house.
'She's dead,' said Spareribs. 'She's shot through the eyes. I seen
her face.'
Mick walked up and down the sidewalk, and her tongue stuck
in her mouth when she tried to ask was Baby killed. Mrs.
Wilson came running down the block from the beauty parlor
where she worked. She went into the house and came back out
again. She walked up and down in the street, crying and
pulling a ring on and off her finger. Then the ambulance came
and the doctor went in to Baby. Mick followed him. Baby was
lying on the bed in the front room. The house was quiet as a
church.
Baby looked like a pretty little doll on the bed. Except for the
blood she did not seem hurt. The doctor bent over and looked
at her head. After he finished they took Baby out on a
stretcher. Mrs. Wilson and her Dad got into the ambulance
with her.
The house was still quiet. Everybody had forgotten about
Bubber. He was nowhere around. An hour passed. Her Mama
and Hazel and Etta and all the boarders waited in the front
room. Mister Singer stood in the doorway.
After a long time her Dad came home. He said Baby wouldn't
die but that her skull was fractured. He asked for Bubber.
Nobody knew where he was. It was dark outside. They called
Bubber in the back yard and in the street. They sent Spareribs
and some other boys out to hunt for him. It looked like Bubber
had gone clear out of the neighborhood. Harry went around to
a house where they thought he might be.
Her Dad walked up and down the front porch. 'I never have
whipped any of my kids yet,' he kept saying. 'I never believed
in it. But I'm sure going to lay it onto that kid as soon as I get
my hands on him.'
Mick sat on the banisters and watched down the dark street. 'I
can manage Bubber. Once he comes back I can take care of
him all right.'
'You go out and hunt for him. You can find him better than
anybody else.'
As soon as her Dad said that she suddenly knew where Bubber
was. In the back yard there was a big oak and in the summer
they had built a tree house. They had hauled a big box up in
this oak, and Bubber used to love to sit up in the tree house by
himself. Mick left the family and the boarders on the front
porch and walked back through the alley of the dark yard.
She stood for a minute by the trunk of the tree. 'Bubber—,' she
said quietly. 'It's Mick.'
He didn't answer, but she knew he was there. It was like she
could smell him. She swung up on the lowest branch and
climbed slowly. She was really mad with that kid and would
have to teach him a lesson. When she reached the tree house
she spoke to him again—and still there wasn't any answer. She
climbed into the big box and felt around the edges. At last she
touched him. He was scrounged up in a corner and his legs
were trembling. He had been holding his breath, and when she
touched him the sobs and the breath came out all at once.
'I—I didn't mean Baby to fall. She was just so little and cute—
seemed to me like I just had to take a pop at her.'
Mick sat down on the floor of the tree house. 'Baby's dead,'
she said. They got a lot of people hunting for you.'
Bubber quit crying. He was very quiet.
*You know what Dad's doing in the house?'144
It was like she could hear Bubber listening.
'You know Warden Lawes—you heard him over the radio.
And you know Sing Sing. Well, our Dad's writing a1 letter to
Warden Lawes for him to be a little bit kind to you when they
catch you and send you to Sing Sing.'
The words were so awful-sounding in the dark that a shiver
came over her. She could feel Bubber trembling.
'They got little electric chairs there—just your size. And when
they turn on the juice you just fry up like a piece of burnt
bacon. Then you go to Hell.'
Bubber was squeezed up in the corner and there was not a
sound from him. She climbed over the edge of the box to get
down. 'You better stay up here because they got policemen
guarding the yard. Maybe in a few days I can bring vou
something to eat'
Mick leaned against the trunk of the oak tree. That would
teach Bubber all right. She had always managed him and she
knew more about that kid than anybody else. Once, about a
year or two ago, he was always wanting to stop off behind
bushes and pee and play with himself awhile. She had caught
on to that pretty quick. She gave him a good slap every time it
happened and in three days he was cured. Afterwards he never
even peed normal like other kids—he held his hands behind
him. She always had to nurse that Bubber and she could
always manage him. In a little while she would go back up to
the tree house and bring him in. After this he would never
want to pick up a gun again in all his life.
There was still this dead feeling in the house. The boarders all
sat on the front porch without talking or rocking in the chairs.
Her Dad and her Mama were in the front room. Her Dad drank
beer out of a bottle and walked up and down the floor. Baby
was going to get well all right, so this worry was not about
her. And nobody seemed to be anxious about Bubber. It was
something else.
'That Bubber!" said Etta.
Tm shamed to go out of the house after this,' Hazel said.
Etta and Hazel went into the middle room and closed the door.
Bill was in his room at the back. She didn't want to talk with
them. She stood around in the front hall and thought it over by
herself.
Her Dad's footsteps stopped. 'It was deliberate,' he said. 'It's
not like the kid was just fooling with the gun and it went off
by accident. Everybody who saw it said he took deliberate
aim.'
'I wonder when we'll hear from Mrs. Wilson,' her Mama said.
■'We'll hear plenty, all right!'
'I reckon we will.'
Now that the sun was down the night was cold again like
November. The people came in from the front porch and sat in
the living-room—but nobody lighted a fire. Mick's sweater
was hanging on the hat rack, so she put it on and stood with
her shoulders bent over to keep warm. She thought about
Bubber sitting out in the cold, dark tree house. He had really
believed every word she said. But he sure deserved to worry
some. He had nearly killed that Baby.
'Mick, can't you think of some place where Bubber might
be?'her Dad asked.
'He's in the neighborhood, I reckon.'
Her Dad walked up and down with the empty beer bottle in
his hand. He walked like a blind man and there was sweat on
his face. 'The poor kid's scared to come home. If we could find
him I'd feel better. I've never laid a hand on Bubber. He
oughtn't be scared of me.'
She would wait until an hour and a half was gone. By that
time he would be plenty sorry for what he did. She always
could manage that Bubber and make him learn.
After a while there was a big excitement in the house. Her
Dad telephoned again to the hospital to see how Baby was,
and in a few minutes Mrs. Wilson called back. She said she
wanted to have a talk with them and would come to the house.
Her Dad still walked up and down the front room like a blind
man. He drank three more bottles of beer. 'The way it all
happened she can sue my britches off. All she could get would
be the house outside of the mortgage. But the way it happened
we don't have any comeback at all.'
Suddenly Mick thought about something. Maybe they would
really try Bubber in court and put him in a children's jail.
Maybe Mrs. Wilson would send him to reform school. Maybe
they would really do something terrible to146
Bubber. She wanted to go out to the tree house right away and
sit with him and tell him not to worry. Bubber was always so
thin and little and smart. She would kill anybody that tried to
send that kid out of the family. She wanted to kiss him and
bite him because she loved him so much.
But she couldn't miss anything. Mrs. Wilson would be there in
a few minutes and she had to know what was going on. Then
she would run out and tell Bubber that all the things she said
were lies. And he would really have learned the lesson he had
coming to him.
A ten-cent tajdcab drove up to the sidewalk. Everybody
waited on the front porch, very quiet and scared. Mrs. Wilson
got out of the taxi with Mister Brannon. She could hear her
Dad grinding his teeth together in a nervous way as they came
up the steps. They went into the front room and she followed
along after them and stood in the doorway. Etta and Hazel and
Bill and the boarders kept out of it.
'I've come to talk over all this with you,' Mrs. Wilson said.
The front room looked tacky and dirty and she saw Mister
Brannon notice everything. The mashed celluloid doll and the
beads and junk Ralph played with were scattered on the floor.
There was beer on her Dad's workbench, and the pillows on
the bed where her Dad and Mama slept were right gray.
Mrs. Wilson kept pulling the wedding ring on and off her
finger. By the side of her Mister Brannon was very calm. He
sat with his legs crossed. His jaws were blue-black and he
looked like a gangster in the movies. He had always had this
grudge against her. He always spoke to her in this rough voice
different from the way he talked to other people. Was it
because he knew about the time she and Bubber swiped a pack
of chewing gum off his counter? She hated him.
'It all boils down to this,' said Mrs. Wilson. "Your kid shot my
baby in the head on purpose.'
Mick stepped into the middle of the room. *No, he didn't,' she
said. 'I was right there. Bubber had been aiming that gun at me
and Ralph and everything around there.
He just happened to aim it at Baby and his finger slipped. I
was right there.'
Mister Brannon rubbed his nose and looked at her in a sad
way. She sure did hate him.
'I know how you all feel—so I want to come to the point right
now.'
Mick's Mama rattled a bunch of keys and her Dad sat very still
with his big hands hanging over his knees.
'Bubber didn't have it in his mind beforehand,' Mick said. 'He
just------'
Mrs. Wilson jabbed the ring on and oft her finger. Wait a
minute. I know how everything is. I could bring it to court and
sue for every cent you own.'
Her Dad didn't have any expression on his face. 'I tell you one
thing,' he said. 'We don't have much to sue for. All we got
is------'
'Just listen to me,' said Mrs. Wilson. 'I haven't come here with
any lawyer to sue you. Bartholomew—Mister Brannon—and I
talked it over when we came and we just about agree on the
main points. In the first place, I want to do the fair, honest
thing—and in the second place, I don't want Baby's name
mixed up in no common lawsuit at her age.'
There was not a sound and everybody in the room sat stiff in
their chairs. Only Mister Brannon halfway smiled at Mick, but
she squinted her eyes back at him in a tough way.
Mrs. Wilson was very nervous and her hand shook when she
lighted a cigarette. 'I don't want to have to sue you or anything
like that. All I want is for you to be fair. I'm not asking you to
pay for all the suffering and crying Baby went through with
until they gave her something to sleep. There's not any pay
that would make up for that. And I'm not asking you to pay for
the damage this will do to her career and the plans we had
made. She's going to have to wear a bandage for several
months. She won't get to dance in the soiree—maybe there'll
even be a little bald place on her head.'
Mrs. Wilson and her Dad looked at each other like they was
hypnotized. Then Mrs. Wilson reached around to her
pocketbook and took out a slip of paper.148
"The things you got to pay are just the actual price of what it
will cost us in money. There's Baby's private room in the
hospital and a private nurse until she can come home. There's
the operating room and the doctor's bill— and for once I
intend the doctor to be paid right away. Also, they shaved all
Baby's hair off and you got to pay me for the permanent wave
I took her to Atlanta to get—so when her hair grows back
natural she can have another one. And there's the price of her
costume and other little extra bills like that. I'll write all the
items down just as soon as I know what they'll be. I'm trying
to be just as fair and honest as I can, and you'll have to pay the
total when I bring it to you.'
Her Mama smoothed her dress over her knees and took a
quick, short breath. 'Seems to me like the children's ward
would be a lot better than a private room. When Mick had
penumonia------'
'I said a private room.'
Mister Brannon held out his white, stumpy hands and
balanced them like they was on scales. 'Maybe in a day or two
Baby can move into a double room with some other kid.'
Mrs. Wilson spoke hard-boiled. 'You heard what I said. Long
as your kid shot my Baby she certainly ought to have every
advantage until she gets well.'
'You're in your rights,' her Dad said. 'God knows we don't have
anything now—but maybe I can scrape it up. I realize you're
not trying to take advantage of us and I appreciate it. We'll do
what we can.'
She wanted to stay and hear everything that they said, but
Bubber was on her mind. When she thought of him sitting up
in the dark, cold tree house thinking about Sing Sing she felt
uneasy. She went out of the room and down the hall toward
the back door. The wind was blowing and the yard was very
dark except for the yellow square that came from the light in
the kitchen. When she looked back she saw Portia sitting at
the table with her long, thin hands up on her face, very still.
The yard was lonesome and the wind made quick, scary
shadows and a mourning kind of sound in the darkness.
She stood under the oak tree. Then just as she started to reach
for the first limb a terrible notion came over her.
It came to her all of a sudden that Bubber was gone. She
called him and he did not answer. She climbed quick and quiet
as a cat.
'Say! Bubber!'
Without feeling in the box she knew he wasn't there. To make
sure she got into the box and felt in all the corners. The kid
was gone. He must have started down the minute she left. He
was running away for sure now, and with a smart kid like
Bubber it was no telling where they'd catch him.
She scrambled down the tree and ran to the front porch. Mrs.
Wilson was leaving and they had all come out to the front
steps with her.
'Dad!' she said. 'We got to do something about Bubber. He's
run away. I'm sure he left our block. We all got to get out and
hunt him.'
Nobody knew where to go or how to begin. Her Dad walked
up and down the street, looking in all the alleys. Mister
Brannon telephoned for a ten-cent taxi for Mrs. Wilson and
then stayed to help with the hunt. Mister Singer sat on the
banisters of the porch and he was the only person who kept
calm. They all waited for Mick to plan out the best places to
look for Bubber. But the town was so big and the little kid so
smart that she couldn't think what to do.
Maybe he had gone to Portia's house over in Sugar Hill. She
went back into the kitchen where Portia was sitting at the table
with her hands up to her face.
'I got this sudden notion he went down to your house. Help us
hunt him.'
'How come I didn't think of that! I bet a nickel my little scared
Bubber been staying in my home all the time.'
Mister Brannon had borrowed an automobile. He and Mister
Singer and Mick's Dad got into the car with her and Portia.
Nobody knew what Bubber was feeling except her. Nobody
knew he had really run away like he was escaping to save his
life.
Portia's house was dark except for the checkered moonlight on
the floor. As soon as they stepped inside they could tell there
was nobody in the two rooms. Portia lighted the front lamp.
The rooms had a colored smell, and they were crowded with
cut-out pictures on the walls and150
the lace table covers and lace pillows on the bed. Bubber was
not there.
'He been here,' Portia suddenly said. 'I can tell somebody been
in here.'
Mister Singer found the pencil and piece of paper on the
kitchen table. He read it quickly and then they all looked at it
The writing was round and scraggly and the smart little kid
hadn't misspelled but one word. The note said:
Dear Portia,
I gone to Florada. Tell every body.
Yours truly, Bubber Kelly
They stood around surprised and stumped. Her Dad looked
out the doorway and picked his nose with his thumb in a
worried way. They were all ready to pile in the car and ride
toward the highway leading south.
'Wait a minute,' Mick said. 'Even if Bubber is seven years old
he's got brains enough not to tell us where he's going if he
wants to run away. That about Florida is just a trick.'
'A trick?' her Dad said.
'Yeah. There only two places Bubber knows very much about.
One is Florida and the other is Atlanta. Me and Bubber and
Ralph have been on the Atlanta road many a time. He knows
how to start there and that's where he's headed. He always
talks about what he's going to do when he gets a chance to go
to Atlanta.'
They went out to the automobile again. She was ready to
climb into the back seat when Portia pinched her on the
elbow. 'You know what Bubber done?' she said in a quiet
voice. 'Don't you tell nobody else, but my Bubber done also
taken my gold earrings off my dresser. I never thought my
Bubber would have done such a thing to me.'
Mister Brannon started the automobile. They rode slow,
looking up and down the streets for Bubber, headed toward
the Atlanta road.
It was true that in Bubber there was a tough, mean streak. He
was acting different today than he had ever acted before. Up
until now he was always a quiet little kid who never really
done anything mean. When anybody's
feelings were hurt it always made him ashamed and nervous.
Then how come he could do all the things he had done today?
They drove very slow out the Atlanta road. They passed the
last line of houses and came to the dark fields and woods. All
along they had stopped to ask if anyone had seen Bubber. 'Has
a little barefooted kid in corduroy knickers been by this way?'
But even after they had gone about ten miles nobody had seen
or noticed him. The wind came in cold and strong from the
open windows and it was late at night.
They rode a little farther and then went back toward town. Her
Dad and Mister Brannon wanted to look up all the children in
the second grade, but she made them turn around and go back
on the Atlanta road again. All the while she remembered the
words she had said to Bubber. About Baby being dead and
Sing Sing and Warden Lawes. About the small electric chairs
that were just his size, and Hell. In the dark the words had
sounded terrible.
They rode very slow for about half a mile out of town, and
then suddenly she saw Bubber. The lights of the car showed
him up in front of them very plain. It was funny. He was
walking along the edge of the road and he had his thumb out
trying to get a ride. Portia's butcher knife was stuck in his belt,
and on the wide, dark road he looked so small that it was like
he was five years old instead of seven.
They stopped the automobile and he ran to get in. He couldn't
see who they were, and his face had the squint-eyed look it
always had when he took aim with a marble. Her Dad held
him by the collar. He hit with his fists and kicked. Then he
had the butcher knife in his hand. Their Dad yanked it away
from him just in time. He fought like a little tiger in a trap, but
finally they got him into the car. Their Dad held him in his lap
on the way home and Bubber sat very stiff, not leaning against
anything.
They had to drag him into the house, and all the neighbors and
the boarders were out to see the commotion. They dragged
him into the front room and when he was there he backed off
into a corner, holding his fists very tight and with his squinted
eyes looking from one person to the other Like he was ready
to fight the whole crowd.
He hadn't said one word since they came into the house152
until he began to scream: "Mick done it! I didn't do it Mick
done it!'
There were never any kind of yells like the ones Bub-ber
made. The veins in his neck stood out and his fists were hard
as little rocks.
'You can't get me! Nobody can get me!' he kept yelling.
Mick shook him by the shoulder. She told him the things she
had said were stories. He finally knew what she was saying
but he wouldn't hush. It looked like nothing could stop that
screaming.
'I hate everybody! I hate everybody!'
They all just stood around. Mister Brannon rubbed his nose
and looked down at the floor. Then finally he went out very
quietly. Mister Singer was the only one who seemed to know
what it was all about. Maybe this was because he didn't hear
that awful noise. His face was still calm, and whenever
Bubber looked at him he seemed to get quieter. Mister Singer
was different from any other man, and at times like this it
would be better if other people would let him manage. He had
more sense and he knew things that ordinary people couldn't
know. He just looked at Bubber, and after a while the kid
quieted down enough so that their Dad could get him to bed.
In the bed he lay on his face and cried. He cried with long, big
sobs that made him tremble all over. He cried for an hour and
nobody in the three rooms could sleep. Bill moved to the
living-room sofa and Mick got into bed with Bubber. He
wouldn't let her touch him or snug up to him. Then after
another hour of crying and hiccoughing he went to sleep.
She was awake a long time. In the dark she put her arms
around him and held him very close. She touched him all over
and kissed him everywhere. He was so soft and little and there
was this salty, boy smell about him. The love she felt was so
hard that she had to squeeze him to her until her arms were
tired. In her mind she thought about Bubber and music
together. It was like she could never do anything good enough
for him. She would never hit him or even tease him again. She
slept all night with her arms around his head. Then in the
morning when she woke up he was gone. But after that night
there was not much of a chance for
her to tease him any more—her or anybody else. After he shot
Baby the kid was not ever like little Bubber again. He always
kept his mouth shut and he didn't fool around with anybody.
Most of the time he just sat in the back yard or in the coal
house by himself. It got closer and closer toward Christmas
time. She really wanted a piano, but naturally she didn't say
anything about that. She told everybody she wanted a Micky
Mouse watch. When they asked Bubber what he wanted from
Santa Claus he said he didn't want anything. He hid his
marbles and jack-knife and wouldn't let anyone touch his story
books.
After that night nobody called him Bubber any more. The big
kids in the neighborhood started calling him Baby-Killer
Kelly. But he didn't speak much to any person and nothing
seemed to bother him. The family called him by his real name
—George. At first Mick couldn't stop calling him Bubber and
she didn't want to stop. But it was funny how after about a
week she just naturally called him George like the others did.
But he was a different kid— George—going around by
himself always like a person much older and with nobody, not
even her, knowing what was really in his mind.
She slept with him on Christmas Eve night. He lay in the dark
without talking. 'Quit acting so peculiar,' she said to him. 'Less
talk about the wise men and the way the children in Holland
put out their wooden shoes instead of hanging up their
stockings.'
George wouldn't answer. He went to sleep.
She got up at four o'clock in the morning and waked
everybody in the family. Their Dad built a fire in the front
room and then let them go into the Christmas tree and see
what they got. George had an Indian suit and Ralph a rubber
doll. The rest of the family just got clothes. She looked all
through her stocking for the Mickey Mouse watch but it
wasn't there. Her presents were a pair of brown Oxford shoes
and a box of cherry candy. While it was still dark she and
George went out on the sidewalk and cracked nigger-toes and
shot firecrackers and ate up the whole two-layer box of cherry
candy. And by the time it was daylight they were sick to the
stomach and tired out. She lay down on die sofa. She shut her
eyes and went into the inside room.154
EIGHT o'clock Doctor Copeland sat at his desk, studying a
sheaf of papers by the bleak morning light from the window.
Beside him the tree, a thick-fringed cedar, rose up dark and
green to the ceiling. Since the first year he began to practice
he had given an annual party on Christmas Day, and now all
was in readiness. Rows of benches and chairs lined the walls
of the front rooms. Throughout the house there was the sweet
spiced odor of newly baked cake and steaming coffee. In the
office with him Portia sat on a bench against the wall, her
hands cupped beneath her chin, her body bent almost double.
'Father, you been scrouched over the desk since five o'clock.
You got no business to be up. You ought to stayed in bed until
time for the to-do.'
Doctor Copeland moistened his thick lips with his tongue. So
much was on his mind that he had no attention to give to
Portia. Her presence fretted him.
At last he turned to her irritably. 'Why do you sit there
moping?'
'I just got worries,' she said. 'For one thing, I worried about our
Willie.'
'William?'
'You see he been writing me regular ever Sunday. The letter
will get here on Monday or Tuesday. But last week he didn't
write. Course I not really anxious. Willie—he always so good-
natured and sweet I know he going to be all right. He been
transferred from the prison to the chain gang and they going to
work up somewhere north of Atlanta. Two weeks ago he
wrote this here letter to say they going to attend a church
service today, and he done asked me to send him his suit of
clothes and his red tie.'
.Is that all William said?'
'He written that this Mr. B. F. Mason is at the prison, too. And
that he run into Buster Johnson—he a boy Willie used to
know. And also he done asked me to please send him his harp
because he can't be happy without he got his harp to play on. I
done sent everthing. Also a checker set and a white-iced cake.
But I sure hope I hears from him in the next few days.'
155
Doctor Copeland's eyes glowed with fever and he could not
rest his hands. 'Daughter, we shall have to discuss this later. It
is getting late and I must finish here. You go back to the
kitchen and see that all is ready.'
Portia stood up and tried to make her face bright and happy.
'What you done decided about that five-dollar prize?'
'As yet I have been unable to decide just what is the wisest
course,' he said carefully.
A certain friend of his, a Negro pharmacist, gave an award of
five dollars every year to the high-school student who wrote
the best essay on a given subject. The pharmacist always made
Doctor Copeland sole judge of the papers and the winner was
announced at the Christmas party. The subject of the
composition this year was 'My Ambition: How I Can Better
the Position of the Negro Race in Society.' There was only one
essay worthy of real consideration. Yet this paper was so
childish and ill-advised that it would hardly be prudent to
confer upon it the award. Doctor Copeland put on his glasses
and re-read the essay with deep concentration.
This is my ambition. First I wish to attend Tuskegee College
but I do not wish to be a man like Booker Washington or
Doctor Carver. Then when I deem that my education is
complete I wish to start off being a fine lawyer like the one
who defended the Scottsboro Boys. I would only take cases
for colored people against white people. Every day our people
are made in every way and by every means to feel that they
are inferior. This is not so. We are a Rising Race. And we
cannot sweat beneath the white man's burdens for long. We
cannot always sow where others reap.
I want to be like Moses, who led the children of Israel from
the land of the oppressors. I want to get up a Secret
Organization of Colored Leaders and Scholars. All colored
people will organize under the direction of these picked
leaders and prepare for revolt. Other nations in the world who
are interested in the plight of our race and who would like to
see the United States divided would come to our aid. All
colored people will organize and there will be a revolution,
and at the close colored156
people will take up all the territory east of the Mississippi and
south of the Potomac. I shall set up a mighty country under the
control of the Organization of Colored Leaders and Scholars.
No white person will be allowed a passport—and if they get
into the country they will have no legal rights.
I hate the whole white race and will work always so that the
colored race can achieve revenge for all their sufferings. That
is my ambition.
Doctor Copeland felt the fever warm in his veins. The ticking
of the clock on his desk was loud and the sound jarred his
nerves. How could he give the award to a boy with such wild
notions as this? What should he decide?
The other essays were without any firm content at all. The
young people would not think. They wrote only about their
ambitions and omitted the last part of the tide altogether. Only
one point was of some significance. Nine out of the lot of
twenty-five began with the sentence, 'I do not want to be a
servant.' After that they wished to fly airplanes, or be
prizefighters, or preachers or dancers. One girl's sole ambition
was to be kind to the poor.
The writer of the essay that troubled him was Lancy Davis. He
had known the identity of the author before he turned the last
sheet over and saw the signature. Already he had some trouble
with Lancy. His older sister had gone out to work as a servant
when she was eleven years old and she had been raped by her
employer, a white man past middle age. Then a year or so later
he had received an emergency call to attend Lancy.
Doctor Copeland went to the filing case in his bedroom where
he kept notes on all of his patients. He took out the card
marked 'Mrs. Dan Davis and Family' and glanced through the
notations until he reached Lancy's name. The date was four
years ago. The entries on him were written with more care
than the others and in ink: 'thirteen years old—past puberty.
Unsuccessful attempt self-emasculation. Oversexed and
hyperthyroid. Wept boisterously during two visits, though
little pain. Voluble—very glad to see Lucy Davis—mother
washerwoman. Intelligent talk through paranoiac.
Environment fair
157
with one exception and well worth watching and all possible
help. Keep contact. Fee: $1 (?)'
'It is a difficult decision to make this year,' he said to Portia.
"But I suppose I will have to confer the award on Lancy
Davis.'
'If you done decide, then—come tell me about some of
these here presents.'
The gifts to be distributed at the party were in the kitchen.
There were paper sacks of groceries and clothing, all
marked with a red Christmas card. Anyone who cared to
come was invited to the party, but those who meant to
attend had stopped by the house and written (or had asked
a friend to write) their names in a guest book kept on the
table in the hall for that purpose. The sacks were piled on
the floor. There were about forty of them, each one
depending in size on the need of the receiver. Some gifts
were only small packages of nuts or raisins and others
were boxes almost too heavy for a man to lift The kitchen
was crowded with good things. Doctor Copeland stood in
the doorway and his nostrils quivered with pride.
1 think you done right well this year. Folks certainly have
been kindly.'
Tshaw!' he said. This is not a hundredth part of what is
needed.'
.Now, there you go, Father! I know good and well you just
as pleased as you can be. But you don't want to show it.
You got to find something to grumble about. Here we
haves about four pecks of peas, twenty sacks of meaL
about fifteen pounds of side meat, mullet, six dozen eggs,
plenty grits, jars of tomatoes and peaches. Apples and two
dozen oranges. Also garments. And two mattresses and four
blankets. I call this something!'
'A drop in the bucket.'
Portia pointed to a large box in the corner. These here —what
you intend to do with them?'
The box contained nothing but junk—a headless doll, some
duty lace, a rabbitskin. Doctor Copeland scrutinized each
article. 'Do not throw them away. There is use for everything.
These are the gifts from our guests who have nothing better to
contribute. I will find some purpose for them later.'158
"Then suppose you look over these here boxes and sacks so I
can commence to tie them up. There ain't going to be room
here in the kitchen. Time they all pile in for the refreshments.
I just going to put these here presents out on the back steps
and in the yard.'
The morning sun had risen. The day would be bright and cold.
In the kitchen there were rich, sweet odors. A dishpan of
coffee was on the stove and iced cakes filled a shelf in the
cupboard.
'And none of this comes from white people. All from colored.'
'No,' said Doctor Copeland. 'That is not wholly true. Mr.
Singer contributed a check for twelve dollars to be used for
coal. And I have invited him to be present today.' 'Holy Jesus!'
Portia said. 'Twelve dollars!' 'I felt that it was proper to ask
him. He is not like other people of the Caucasian race.'
'You right,' Portia said. 'But I keep thinking about my Willie. I
sure do wish he could enjoy this here party today. And I sure
do wish I could get a letter from him. It just prey on my mind.
But here! Us got to quit this here talking and get ready. It
mighty near time for the party to come.'
Time enough remained. Doctor Copeland washed and clothed
himself carefully. For a while he tried to rehearse what he
would say when the people had all come. But expectation and
restlessness would not let him concentrate. Then at ten o'clock
the first guests arrived and within half an hour they were all
assembled.
'Joyful Christmas to you!' said John Roberts, the postman. He
moved happily about the crowded room, one shoulder held
higher than the other, mopping his face with a white silk
handkerchief.
'Many happy returns of the day!' The front of the house was
thronged. Guests were blocked at the door and they formed
groups on the front porch and in the yard. There was no
pushing or rudeness; the turmoil was orderly. Friends called
out to each other and strangers were introduced and clasped
hands. Children and young people clotted together and moved
back toward the kitchen. 'Christmas gift!'
159
Doctor Copeland stood in the center of the front room by the
tree. He was dizzy. He shook hands and answered salutations
with confusion. Personal gifts, some tied elaborately with
ribbons and others wrapped in newspapers, were thrust into
his hands. He could find no place to put them. The air
thickened and voices grew louder. Faces whirled about him so
that he could recognize no one. His composure returned to
him gradually. He found space to lay aside the presents in his
arms. The dizziness lessened, the room cleared. He settled his
spectacles and began to look around him.
'Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!' There was Marshall
Nicolls, the pharmacist, in a long-tailed coat, conversing with
his son-in-law who worked on a garbage truck. The preacher
from the Most Holy Ascension Church had come. And two
deacons from other churches. Highboy, wearing a loud
checked suit, moved sociably through the crowd. Husky young
dandies bowed to young women in long, bright-colored
dresses. There were mothers with children and deliberate old
men who spat into gaudy handkerchiefs. The room was warm
and
noisy.
Mr. Singer stood in the doorway. Many people stared at him.
Doctor Copeland could not remember if he had welcomed him
or not. The mute stood by himself. His face resembled
somewhat a picture of Spinoza. A Jewish face. It was good to
see him.
The doors and the windows were open. Draughts blew
through the room so that the fire roared. The noises quieted.
The seats were all filled and the young people sat in rows on
the floor. The hall, the porch, even the yard were crowded
with silent guests. The time had come for him to speak—and
what was he to say? Panic tightened his throat. The room
waited. At a sign from John Roberts all sounds were hushed.
'My People,' began Doctor Copeland blankly. There was a
pause. Then suddenly the words came to him.
'This is the nineteenth year that we have gathered together in
this room to celebrate Christmas Day. When our people first
heard of the birth of Jesus Christ it was a dark time. Our
people were sold as slaves in this town on the courthouse
square. Since then we have heard and told the160
story of His life more times than we could remember. So
today our story will be a different one.
'One hundred and twenty years ago another man was born in
the country that is known as Germany—a country far across
the Atlantic Ocean. This man understood as did Jesus. But his
thoughts were not concerned with Heaven or the future of the
dead. His mission was for the living. For the great masses of
human beings who work and suffer and work until they die.
For people who take in washing and work as cooks, who pick
cotton and work at the hot dye vats of the factories. His
mission was for us, and the name of this man was Karl Marx.
'Karl Marx was a wise man. He studied and worked and
understood the world around him. He said that the world was
divided into two classes, the poor and the rich. For every rich
man there were a thousand poor people who worked for this
rich man to make him richer. He did not divide the world into
Negroes or white people or Chinese—to Karl Marx it seemed
that being one of the millions of poor people or one of the few
rich was more important to a man than the color of his skin.
The life mission of Karl Marx was to make all human beings
equal and to divide the great wealth of the world so that there
would be no poor or rich and each person would have his
share. This is one of the commandments Karl Marx left to us:
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his
needs."'
A wrinkled, yellow palm waved timidly from the halL Were
he the Mark in the Bible?'
Doctor Copeland explained. He spelled the two names and
cited dates. 'Are there any more questions? I wish each one of
you to feel free to start or enter into any discussion.'
'I presume Mr. Marx was a Christian church man?' asked the
preacher.
'He believed in the holiness of the human spirit*
'Were he a white man?'
'Yes. But he did not think of himself as a white man. He said,
"I consider nothing human as alien to myself." He thought of
himself as a brother to all people.'
Doctor Copeland paused a moment longer. The faces around
him were waiting.
"What is the value of any piece of property, of any
merchandise we buy in a store? The value depends only on
one thing—and that is the work it took to make or to raise this
article. Why does a brick house cost more than a cabbage?
Because the work of many men goes into the making of one
brick house. There are the people who made the bricks and
mortar and the people who cut down the trees to make the
planks used for the floor. There are the men who made the
building of the brick house possible. There are the men who
carried the materials to the ground where the house was to be
built. There are the men who made the wheelbarrows and
trucks that carried the materials to this place. Then finally
there are the workmen who built the house. A brick house
involves the labor of many, many people—while any of us can
raise a cabbage in his back yard. A brick house costs more
than a cabbage because it takes more work to make. So when a
man buys this brick house he is paying for the labor that went
to make it. But who gets the money—the profit? Not the many
men who did the work—but the bosses who control them. And
if you study this further you will find that these bosses have
bosses above them and those bosses have bosses higher up —
so that the real people who control all this work, which makes
any article worth money, are very few. Is this clear so far?'
'Us understand!'
But did they? He started all over and retold what he had said.
This time there were questions.
'But don't clay for these here bricks cost money? And don't it
take money to rent land and raise crops on?'
'That is a good point,' said Doctor Copeland. 'Land, clay,
timber—those things are called natural resources. Man does
not make these natural resources—man only develops them,
only uses them for work. Therefore should any one person or
group of persons own these things? How can a man own
ground and space and sunlight and rain for crops? How can a
man say "this is mine" about those things and refuse to let
others share them? Therefore Marx says that these natural
resources should belong to everyone, not divided into little
pieces but used by all the people according to their ability to
work. It is like this. Say a man died and left his mule to his
four sons. The sons162
r
would not wish to cut up the mule to four parts and each take
his share. They would own and work the mule together. That
is the way Marx says all of the natural resources should be
owned—not by one group of rich people but by all the
workers of the world as a whole.
"We in this room have no private properties. Perhaps one or
two of us may own the homes we live in, or have a dollar or
two set aside—but we own nothing that does not contribute
directly toward keeping us alive. All that we own is our
bodies. And we sell our bodies every day we live. We sell
them when we go out in the morning to our jobs and when we
labor all day. We are forced to sell at any price, at any time,
for any purpose. We are forced to sell our bodies so that we
can eat and live. And the price which is given us for this is
only enough so that we will have the strength to labor longer
for the profits of others. Today we are not put up on the
platforms and sold at the courthouse square. But we are forced
to sell our strength, our time, our souls during almost every
hour that we live. We have been freed from one kind of
slavery only to be delivered into another. Is this freedom? Are
we yet free men?"
A deep voice called out from the front yard. "That the real
truth!'
That how things is!'
.And we are not alone in this slavery. There are millions of
others throughout the world, of all colors and races and
creeds. This we must remember. There are many of our people
who hate the poor of the white race, and they hate us. The
people in this town living by the river who work in the mills.
People who are almost as much in need as we are ourselves.
This hatred is a great evil, and no good can ever come from it.
We must remember the words of Karl Marx and see the truth
according to his teachings. The injustice of need must bring us
all together and not separate us. We must remember that we
all make the things of this earth of value because of our labor.
These main truths from Karl Marx we must keep in our hearts
always and not forget.
'But my people! We in this room—we Negroes—have another
mission that is for ourselves alone. Within us there is a strong,
true purpose, and if we fail in this purpose we
163
will be forever lost. Let us see, then, what is the nature of this
special mission.'
Doctor Copeland loosened the collar of his shirt, for in his
throat there was a choked f eeling. The grievous love he felt
within him was too much. He looked around him at the hushed
guests. They waited. The groups of people in the yard and on
the porch stood with the same quiet attention as did those in
the room. A deaf old man leaned forward with his hand to his
ear. A woman hushed a fretful baby with a pacifier. Mr.
Singer stood attentively in the doorway. Most of the young
people sat on the floor. Among them was Lancy Davis. The
boy's lips were nervous and pale. He clasped his knees very
tightly with his arms, and his young face was sullen. All the
eyes in the room watched, and in them there was hunger for
truth.
'Today we are to confer the five-dollar award upon the high-
school student who wrote the best essay on the topic, "My
Ambition: How I can Better the Position of the Negro Race in
Society." This year the award goes to Lancy Davis.' Doctor
Copeland took an envelope from his pocket "There is no need
for me to tell you that the value of this award is not wholly in
the sum of money it represents— but the sacred trust and faith
that goes with it.'
Lancy rose awkwardly to his feet. His sullen lips trembled. He
bowed and accepted the award. 'Do you wish me to read the
essay I have written?'
'No,' said Doctor Copeland. 'But I wish you to come and talk
with me sometime this week.'
'Yes, sir.' The room was quiet again.
' "I do not wish to be a servant!" That is the desire I have read
over and over in these essays. Servant? Only one in a
thousand of us is allowed to be a servant. We do not work!
We do not serve!'
The laughter in the room was uneasy.
'Listen! One out of five of us labors to build roads, or to take
care of the sanitation of this city, or works in a sawmill or on a
farm. Another one out of the five is unable to get any work at
all. But the other three out of this five— the greatest number
of our people? Many of us cook for those who are
incompetent to prepare the food that they themselves eat.
Many work a lifetime tending flower gar-164
dens for the pleasure of one or two people. Many of us polish
slick waxed floors of fine houses. Or we drive automobiles for
rich people who are too lazy to drive themselves. We spend
our lives doing thousands of jobs that are of no real use to
anybody. We labor and all of our labor is wasted. Is that
service? No, that is slavery.
'We labor, but our labor is wasted. We are not allowed to
serve. You students here this morning represent the fortunate
few of our race. Most of our people are not allowed to go to
school at all. For each one of you there are dozens of young
people who can hardly write their names. We are denied the
dignity of study and wisdom.
' "From each according to his ability, to each according to his
needs." All of us here know what it is to suffer for real need.
That is a great injustice. But there is one injustice bitterer
even than that—to be denied the right to work according to
one's ability. To labor a lifetime uselessly. To be denied the
chance to serve. It is far better for the profits of our purse to
be taken from us than to be robbed of the riches of our minds
and souls.
'Some of you young people here this morning may feel the
need to be teachers or nurses or leaders of your race. But most
of you will be denied. You will have to sell yourselves for a
useless purpose in order to keep alive. You will be thrust back
and defeated. The young chemist picks cotton. The young
writer is unable to learn to read. The teacher is held in useless
slavery at some ironing board. We have no representatives in
government. We have no vote. In all of this great country we
are the most oppressed of all people. We cannot lift up our
voices. Our tongues rot in our mouths from lack of use. Our
hearts grow empty and lose strength for our purpose.
'People of the Negro race! We bring with us all the riches of
the human mind and soul. We offer the most precious of all
gifts. And our offerings are held in scorn and contempt. Our
gifts are trampled in the mud and made useless. We are put to
labor more useless than the work of beasts. Negroes! We must
arise and be whole again! We must be free!'
In the room there was a murmur. Hysteria mounted. Doctor
Copeland choked and clenched his fists. He felt as though he
had swelled up to the size of a giant. The love in
165
him made his chest a dynamo, and he wanted to shout so that
his voice could be heard throughout the town. He wanted to
fall upon the floor and call out in a giant voice. The room was
full of moans and shouts.
'Save us!'
'Mighty Lord! Lead us from this wilderness of death!
'Hallelujah! Save us, Lord!'
He struggled for the control in htm. He struggled and at last
the discipline returned. He pushed down the shout in him and
sought for the strong, true voice.
'Attention!' he called. 'We will save ourselves. But not by
prayers of mourning. Not by indolence or strong drink. Not by
the pleasures of the body or by ignorance. Not by submission
and humbleness. But by pride. By dignity. By becoming hard
and strong. We must build strength for our real true purpose.'
He stopped abruptly and held himself very straight. 'Each year
at this time we illustrate in our small way the first
commandment from Karl Marx. Every one of you at this
gathering has brought in advance some gift. Many of you have
denied yourselves comfort that the needs of others may be
lessened. Each of you has given according to his best ability,
without thought to the value of the gift he will receive in
return. It is natural for us to share with each other. We have
long realized that it is more blessed to give than to receive.
The words of Karl Marx have always been known in our
hearts: "From each according to his ability, to each according
to his needs." '
Doctor Copeland was silent a long time as though his words
were complete. Then he spoke again:
'Our mission is to walk with strength and dignity through the
days of our humiliation. Our pride must be strong, for we
know the value of the human mind and soul. We must teach
our children. We must sacrifice so that they may earn the
dignity of study and wisdom. For the time will come. The time
will come when the riches in us will not be held in scorn and
contempt. The time will come when we will be allowed to
serve. When we will labor and our labor will not be wasted.
And our mission is to await this time with strength and faith.'
It was finished. Hands were clapped, feet were stamped upon
the floor and en the hard winter ground outside. The166
odor of hot, strong coffee floated from the kitchen. John
Roberts took charge of the presents, calling out the names
written on the cards. Portia ladled the coffee from the dish-pan
on the stove while Marshall Nicolls passed slices of cake.
Doctor Copeland moved about among the guests, a little
crowd always surrounding him.
Someone nagged at his elbow: 'He the one your Buddy named
for?' He answered yes. Lancy Davis followed him with
questions; he answered yes to everything. The joy made him
feel like a drunken man. To teach and exhort and explain to
his people—and to have them understand. That was the best
of all. To speak the truth and be attended.
'Us certainly have had one fine time at this party.'
He stood in the vestibule saying good-bye. Over and over he
shook hands. He leaned heavily against the wall and only his
eyes moved, for he was tired.
'I certainly do appreciate.'
Mr. Singer was the last to leave. He was a truly good man. He
was a white man of intellect and true knowledge. In him there
was none of the mean insolence. When all had departed he
was the last to remain. He waited and seemed to expect some
final word.
Doctor Copeland held his hand to his throat because his
larynx was sore. 'Teachers,' he said huskily. 'That is our
greatest need. Leaders. Someone to unite and guide us.'
After the festivity the rooms had a bare, ruined look. The
house was cold. Portia was washing the cups in the kitchen.
The silver snow on the Christmas tree had been tracked over
the floors and two of the ornaments were broken.
He was tired, but the joy and the fever would not let him rest
Beginning with the bedroom, he set to work to put the house
in order. On the top of the filing case there was a loose card—
the note on Lancy Davis. The words that he would say to him
began to form in his mind, and he was restless because he
could not speak them now. The boy's sullen face was full of
heart and he could not thrust it from his thoughts. He opened
the top drawer of the file to replace the card, A, B, C—he
thumbed through the letters nervously. Then his eye was fixed
on his own name: Copeland, Benedict Mady.
167
In the folder were several lung X-rays and a short case history.
He held an X-ray up to the light. On the upper left lung there
was a bright place like a calcified star. And lower down a
large clouded spot that duplicated itself in the right lung
farther up. Doctor Copeland quickly replaced the X-rays in the
folder. Only the brief notes he had written on himself were
still in his hand. The words stretched out large and scrawling
so that he could hardly read them. '1920—calcif. of lymph
glands—very pronounced thickening of hili. Lesions arrested
—duties resumed. 1937—lesion reopened—X-ray
shows------' He
could not read the notes. At first he could not make out the
words, and then when he read them clearly they made no
reason. At the finish there were three words: 'Prognosis: Don't
know.'
The old black, violent feeling came in him again. He leaned
down and wrenched open a drawer at the bottom of the case.
A jumbled pile of letters. Notes from the Association for the
Advancement of Colored People. A yellowed letter from
Daisy. A note from Hamilton asking for a dollar and a half.
What was he looking for? His hands rummaged in the drawer
and then at last he arose stiffly.
Time wasted. The past hour gone.
Portia peeled potatoes at the kitchen table. She was slumped
over and her face was dolorous.
'Hold up your shoulders,' he said angrily. 'And cease moping.
You mope and drool around until I cannot bear to look on
you.'
'I were just thinking about Willie,' she said. 'Course the letter
is only three days due. But he got no business to worry me like
this. He not that kind of a boy. And I got this queer feeling.
'
'Have patience, Daughter.
'
'I reckon I have to.
'
'There are a few calls I must make, but I will be back shortly.
'
'O.K.
'
'All will be well,' he said.
Most of his joy was gone in the bright, cool noonday sun. The
diseases of his patients lay scattered in his mind. An abscessed
kidney. Spinal meningitis. Pott's disease. He lifted the crank of
the automobile from the back seat168
Usually he hailed some passing Negro from the street to crank
the car for him. His people were always glad to help and
serve. But today he fitted the crank and turned it vigorously
himself. He wiped the perspiration from his face with the
sleeve of his overcoat and hurried to get beneath the wheel
and on his way.
How much that he had said today was understood? How much
would be of any value? He recalled the words he had used,
and they seemed to fade and lose their strength. The words left
unsaid were heavier on his heart. They rolled up to his lips
and fretted them. The faces of his suffering people moved in
a
swelling mass before his eyes. And as he steered the
automobile slowly down the street his heart turned with this
angry, restless love.
J. HE town had not known a winter as cold as this one for
years. Frost formed on the windowpanes and whitened the
roofs of houses. The winter afternoons glowed with a hazy
lemon light and shadows were a delicate blue. A thin coat of
ice crusted the puddles in the streets, and it was said on the
day after Christmas that only ten miles to the north there was a
light fall of snow.
A change came over Singer. Often he went out for the long
walks that had occupied him during the months when
Antonapoulos was first gone. These walks extended for miles
in every direction and covered the whole of the town. He
rambled through the dense neighborhoods along the river that
were more squalid than ever since the mills had been slack
this winter. In many eyes there was a look of somber
loneliness. Now that people were forced to be idle, a certain
restlessness could be felt. There was a fervid outbreak of new
beliefs. A young man who had worked at the dye vats in a mill
claimed suddenly that a great holy power had come in him. He
said it was his duty to deliver a new set of commandments
from the Lord, The young man set up a tabernacle and
hundreds of people came each night to roll on the ground and
shake each other, for they believed that they were in the
presence of something more than human. There was murder,
too. A woman who could
169
not make enough to eat believed that a foreman had cheated
on her work tokens and she stabbed him in the throat. A
family of Negroes moved into the end house on one of the
most dismal streets, and this caused so much indignation that
the house was burned and the black man beaten by his
neighbors. But these were incidents. Nothing had really
changed. The strike that was talked about never came off
because they could not get together. All was the same as
before. Even on the coldest nights the Sunny Dixie Show was
open. The people dreamed and fought and slept as much as
ever. And by habit they shortened their thoughts so that they
would not wander out into the darkness beyond tomorrow.
Singer walked through the scattered odorous parts of town
where the Negroes crowded together. There was more gaiety
and violence here. Often the fine, sharp smell of gin lingered
in the alleys. Warm, sleepy firelight colored the windows.
Meetings were held in the churches almost every night.
Comfortable little houses set off in plots of brown grass—
Singer walked in these parts also. Here the children were
huskier and more friendly to strangers. He roamed through the
neighborhoods of the rich. There were houses, very grand and
old, with white columns and intricate fences of wrought iron.
He walked past the big brick houses where automobiles
honked in the driveways and where the plumes of smoke
rolled lavishly from chimneys. And out to the very edges of
the roads that led from the town to general stores where
fanners came on Saturday nights and sat around the stove. He
wandered often about the four main business blocks that were
brightly lighted and then through the black, deserted alleys
behind. There was no part of the town that Singer did not
know. He watched the yellow squares of light reflect from a
thousand windows. The winter nights were beautiful. The sky
was a cold azure and the stars were very bright
Often it happened now that he would be spoken to and
stopped during these walks. All kinds of people became
acquainted with him. If the person who spoke to him was a
stranger, Singer presented his card so that his silence would be
understood. He came to be known through all the town. He
walked with his shoulders very straight and kept his hands
always stuffed down into his pockets. His170
gray eyes seemed to take in everything around him, and in his
face there was still the look of peace that is seen most often in
those who are very wise or very sorrowful. He was always
glad to stop with anyone wishing his company. For after all he
was only walking and going nowhere.
Now it came about that various rumors started in the town
concerning the mute. In the years before with An-tonapoulos
they had walked back and forth to work, but except for this
they were always alone together in their rooms. No one had
bothered about them then—and if they were observed it was
the big Greek on whom attention was focused. The Singer of
those years was forgotten.
So the rumors about the mute were rich and varied. The Jews
said that he was a Jew. The merchants along the main street
claimed he received a large legacy and was a very rich man. It
was whispered in one browbeaten textile union that the mute
was an organizer for the C.I.O. A lone Turk who had roamed
into the town years ago and who languished with his family
behind the little store where they sold linens claimed
passionately to his wife that the mute was Turkish. He said
that when he spoke his language the mute understood. And as
he claimed this his voice grew warm and he forgot to squabble
with his children and he was full of plans and activity. One
old man from the country said that the mute had come from
somewhere near his home and that the mute's father had the
finest tobacco crop in all the country. All these things were
said about him.
Antonapoulos! Within Singer there was always the memory of
his friend. At night when he closed his eyes the Greek's face
was there in the darkness—round and oily, with a wise and
gentle smile. In his dreams they were always together.
It was more than a year now since his friend had gone away.
This year seemed neither long nor short. Rather it was
removed from the ordinary sense of time—as when one is
drunk or half-asleep. Behind each hour there was always his
friend. And this buried life with Antonapoulos changed and
developed as did the happenings around him. During the first
few months he had thought most of the terrible weeks before
Antonapoulos was taken away—of the
171
trouble that followed his Illness, of the summons for arrest,
and the misery in trying to control the whims of his friend. He
thought of times in the past when he and Antonapoulos had
been unhappy. There was one recollection, far in the past, that
came back to him several times.
They never had no friends. Sometimes they would meet other
mutes—there were three of them with whom they became
acquainted during the ten years. But something always
happened. One moved to another state the week after they met
him. Another was married and had six children and did not
talk with his hands. But it was their relation with the third of
these acquaintances that Singer remembered when his friend
was gone.
The mute's name was Carl. He was a sallow young man who
worked in one of the mills. His eyes were pale yellow and his
teeth so brittle and transparent that they seemed pale and
yellow also. In his blue-overalls that hung limp over his
skinny little body he was like a blue-and-yellow rag doll.
They invited him to dinner and arranged to meet him
beforehand at the store where Antonapoulos worked. The
Greek was still busy when they arrived. He was finishing a
batch of caramel fudge in the cooking room at the back of the
store. The fudge lay golden and glossy over the long marble-
topped table. The air was warm and rich with sweet smells.
Antonapoulos seemed pleased to have Carl watch him as he
glided the knife down the warm candy and cut it into squares.
He offered their new friend a corner of the fudge on the edge
of his greased knife, and showed him the trick that he always
performed for anyone when he wished to be liked. He pointed
to a vat of syrup boiling on the stove and fanned his face and
squinted his eyes to show how hot it was. Then he wet his
hand in a pot of cold water, plunged it into the boiling syrup,
and swiftly put it back into the water again. His eyes bulged
and he rolled out his tongue as though he were in great agony.
He even wrung his hand and hopped on one foot so that the
building shook. Then he smiled suddenly and held out his
hand to show that it was a joke and hit Carl on the shoulder.
It was a pale winter evening, and their breath clouded in the
cold air as they walked with their arms interlocked down the
street Singer was in the middle and he left them172
173
on the sidewalk twice while he went into stores to shop. Carl
and Antonapoulos carried the sacks of groceries, and Singer
held to their arms tightly and smiled all the way home. Their
rooms were cozy and he moved happily about. making
conversation with Carl. After the meal the two of them talked
while Antonapoulous watched with a slow smile. Often the
big Greek would lumber to the closet and pour out drinks of
gin. Carl sat by the window, only drinking when
Antonapoulos pushed the glass into his face, and then taking
solemn little sips. Singer could not ever remember his friend
so cordial to a stranger before, and he thought ahead with
pleasure to the time when Carl would visit them often.
Midnight had passed when the thing happened that ruined the
festive party. Antonapoulos returned from one of his trips to
the closet and his face had a glowering look. He sat on his bed
and began to stare repeatedly at their new friend with
expressions of offense and great disgust. Singer tried to make
eager conversation to hide this stranee behavior, but the Greek
was persistent. Carl huddled in a chair, nursing his bony
knees, fascinated and bewildered by the grimaces of the big
Greek. His face was flushed and he swallowed timidly. Singer
could ignore the situation no longer, so at last he asked
Antonapoulos if his stomach pained him or if he perhaps felt
bad and wished to go to sleep. Antonapoulos shook his head.
He pointed to Carl and began to make all the gestures of
obscenity which he knew. The disgust on his face was terrible
to see. Carl was small with fear. At last the big Greek ground
his teeth and rose from his chair. Hurriedly Carl picked up his
cap and left the room. Singer followed him down the stairs.
He did not know how to explain his friend to this stranger.
Carl stood hunched in the doorway downstairs, limp, with his
peaked cap pulled down over his face. At last they shook
hands and Carl went away.
Antonapoulos let him know that while they were not noticing,
their guest had gone into the closet and drunk up all the gin.
No amount of persuasion could convince Antonapoulos that it
was he himself who had finished the bottle. The big Greek sat
up in bed and his round face was dismal and reproachful.
Large tears trickled slowly down to the neck of his undershirt
and he could not be comforted. At last he went to sleep, but Singer was awake in the
dark a long time. They never saw Carl again.
Then years later there was the time Antonapoulos took the
rent money from the vase on the mantelpiece and spent it all
on the slot machines. And the summer afternoon
Antonapoulos went downstairs naked to get the paper. He
suffered so from the summer heat. They bought an electric
refrigerator on the installment plan, and Antonapoulos would
suck the cubes of ice constantly and even let a few of them
melt in bed with him as he slept. And the time Antonapoulos
got drunk and threw a bowl of macaroni in his face.
Those ugly memories wove through his thoughts during the
first months like bad threads through a carpet. And then they
were gone. All the times that they had been unhappy were
forgotten. For as the year went on his thoughts of his friend
spiraled deeper until he dwelt only with the Antonapoulos
whom he alone could know.
This was the friend to whom he told all that was in his heart.
This was the Antonapoulos who no one knew was wise but
him. As the year passed his friend seemed to grow larger in
his mind, and his face looked out in a very grave and subtle
way from the darkness at night. The memories of his friend
changed in his mind so that he remembered nothing that was
wrong or foolish—only the wise and good.
He saw Antonapoulos sitting in a large chair before him. He
sat tranquil and unmoving. His round face was inscrutable.
His mouth was wise and smiling. And his eyes were profound.
He watched the things that were said to him. And in his
wisdom he understood.
This was the Antonapoulos who now was always in his
thoughts. This was the friend to whom he wanted to tell things
that had come about. For something had happened in this year.
He had been left in an alien land. Alone. He had opened his
eyes and around him there was much he could not understand.
He was bewildered.
He watched the words shape on their lips.
We Negroes want a chance to be free at last. And freedom is
only the right to contribute. We want to serve and to share, to
labor and in turn consume that which is due to us. But you are
the only white man I have ever en-174
countered who realizes this terrible need of my people.
You see, Mister Singer? I got this music in me all the time. I
got to be a real musician. Maybe I don't know anything now,
but I will when I'm twenty. See, Mister Singer? And then I
mean to travel in a foreign country where there's snow.
Let's finish up the bottle. I want a small one. For we were
thinking of freedom. That's the word like a worm in my brain.
Yes? No? How much? How little? The word is a signal for
piracy and theft and cunning. We'll be free and the smartest
will then be able to enslave the others. But! But there is
another meaning to the word. Of all words this one is the most
dangerous. We who know must be wary. The word makes us
feel good—in fact the word is a great ideal. But it's with this
ideal that the spiders spin their ugliest webs for us.
The last one rubbed his nose. He did not come often and he
did not say much. He asked questions.
The four people had been coming to his rooms now for more
than seven months. They never came together—always alone.
And invariably he met them at the door with a cordial smile.
The want for Antonapoulos was always with him—just as it
had been the first months after his friend had gone—and it
was better to be with any person than to be too long alone. It
was like the time years ago when he had made a pledge to
Antonapoulos (and even written it on a paper and tacked it on
the wall above his bed)—a pledge that he would give up
cigarettes, beer, and meat for one month. The first days had
been very bad. He could not rest or be still. He visited
Antonapoulos so much at the fruit store that Charles Parker
was unpleasant to him. When he had finished all the engraving
on hand he would dawdle around the front of the store with
the watchmaker and the salesgirl or wander out to some soda
fountain to drink a Coca-Cola. In those days being near any
stranger was better than thinking alone about the cigarettes
and beer and meat that he wanted.
At first he had not understood the four people at all. They
talked and they talked—and as the months went on they talked
more and more. He became so used to their lips that he
understood each word they said. And then after
175
a while he knew what each one of them would say before he
began, because the meaning was always the same.
His hands were a torment to him. They would not rest. They
twitched in his sleep, and sometimes he awoke to find them
shaping the words in his dreams before his face. He did not
like to look at his hands or to think about them. They were
slender and brown and very strong. In the years before he had
always tended them with care. In ihe winter he used oil to
prevent chapping, and he kept the cuticles pushed down and
his nails always filed to the shape of his finger-tips. He had
loved to wash and tend his hands. But now he only scrubbed
them roughly with a brush two times a day and stuffed them
back into his pockets.
When he walked up and down the floor of his room he would
crack the joints of his fingers and jerk at them until they
ached. Or he would strike the palm of one hand with the fist of
the other. And then sometimes when he was alone and his
thoughts were with his friend his hands would begin to shape
the words before he knew about it. Then when he realized he
was like a man caught talking aloud to himself. It was almost
as though he had done some moral wrong. The shame and the
sorrow mixed together and he doubled his hands and put them
behind him. But they would not let him rest.
Singer stood in the street before the house where he and
Antonapoulos had lived. The late afternoon was smoky and
gray. In the west there were streaks of cold yellow and rose. A
ragged winter sparrow flew in patterns against the smoky sky
and at last came to light on a gable of the house. The street
was deserted.
His eyes were fixed on a window on the right side of the
second story. This was then-front room, and behind was the
big kitchen where Antonapoulos had cooked all their meals.
Through the lighted window he watched a woman move back
and forth across the room. She was large and vague against
the light and she wore an apron. A man sat with the evening
newspaper in his hand. A child with a slice of bread came to
the window and pressed his nose against the pane. Singer saw
the room just as he had left176
it—with the large bed for Antonapoulos and the iron cot for
himself, the big overstuffed sofa and the camp chair. The
broken sugar bowl used for an ash tray, the damp spot on the
ceiling where the roof leaked, the laundry box in the corner.
On late afternoons like this there would be no light in the
kitchen except the glow from the oil-burners of the big stove.
Antonapoulos always turned the wicks so that only a ragged
fringe of gold and blue could be seen inside each burner. The
room was warm and full of the good smells from the supper.
Antonapoulos tasted the dishes with his wooden spoon and
they drank glasses of red wine. On the linoleum rug before the
stove the flames from the burners made luminous reflections
—five little golden lanterns. As the milky twilight grew darker
these little lanterns were more intense, so that when at last the
night had come they burned with vivid purity. Supper was
always ready by that time and they would turn on the light and
draw their chairs to the table.
Singer looked down at the dark front door. He thought of them
going out together in the morning and coming home at night.
There was the broken place in the pavement where
Antonapoulos had stumbled once and hurt his elbow. There
was the mailbox where their bill from the light company came
each month. He could feel the warm touch of his friend's arm
against his fingers.
The street was dark now. He looked up at the window once
more and he saw the strange woman and the man and the child
in a group together. The emptiness spread in him. All was
gone. Antonapoulos was away; he was not here to remember.
The thoughts of his friend were somewhere else. Singer shut
his eyes and tried to think of the asylum and the room that
Antonapoulos was in tonight. He remembered the narrow
white beds and the old men playing slapjack in the corner. He
held his eyes shut tight, but that room would not become clear
in his mind. The emptiness was very deep inside him, and
after a while he glanced up at the window once more and
started down the dark sidewalk where they had walked
together so many times.
It was Saturday night. The main street was thick with people.
Shivering Negroes in overalls loitered before the windows of
the ten-cent store. Families stood in line be
177
fore the ticket box of the movie and young boys and girls
stared at the posters on display outside. The traffic from the
automobiles was so dangerous that he had to wait a long time
before crossing the street.
He passed the fruit store. The fruits were beautiful inside the
windows—bananas, oranges, alligator pears, bright little
cumquats, and even a few pineapples. But Charles Parker
waited on a customer inside. The face of Charles Parker was
very ugly to him. Several times when Charles Parker was
away he had entered the store and stood around a long while.
He had even gone to the kitchen in the back where
Antonapoulos made the candies. But he never went into the
store while Charles Parker was inside. They had both taken
care to avoid each other since that day when Antonapoulos
left on the bus. When they met in the street they always turned
away without nodding. Once when he had wanted to send his
friend a jar of his favorite tupelo honey he had ordered it from
Charles Parker by mail so as not to be obliged to meet him.
Singer stood before the window and watched the cousin of his
friend wait on a group of customers. Business was always
good on Saturday night. Antonapoulos sometimes had to work
as late as ten o'clock. The big automatic popcorn popper was
near the door. A clerk shoved in a measure of kernels and the
corn whirled inside the case like giant flakes of snow. The
smell from the store was warm and familiar. Peanut hulls were
trampled on the floor.
Singer passed on down the street. He had to weave his way
carefully in the crowds to keep from being jostled. The streets
were strung with red and green electric lights because of the
holidays. People stood in laughing groups with their arms
about each other. Young fathers nursed cold and crying babies
on their shoulders. A Salvation Army girl in her red-and-blue
bonnet tinkled a bell on the corner, and when she looked at
Singer he felt obliged to drop a coin into the pot beside her.
There were beggars, both Negro and white, who held out caps
or crusty hands. The neon advertisements cast an orange glow
on the faces of the crowd.
He reached the corner where he and Antonapoulos had once
seen a mad dog on an August afternoon. Then he passed the
room above the Army and Navy Store where178
Antonapoulos had had his picture taken every pay-day. He
carried many of the photographs in his pocket now. He turned
west toward the river. Once they had taken a picnic lunch and
crossed the bridge and eaten in a field on Hie other side.
Singer walked along the main street for about an hour. In all
the crowd he seemed the only one alone. At last he took out
his watch and turned toward the house where he lived.
Perhaps one of the people would come this evening to his
room. He hoped so.
He mailed Antonapoulos a large box of presents for
Christmas. Also he presented gifts to each of the four people
and to Mrs. Kelly. For all of them together he had bought a
radio and put it on the table by the window. Doctor Copeland
did not notice the radio. Biff Brannon noticed it immediately
and raised his eyebrows. Jake Blount kept it turned on all the
time he was there, at the same station, and as he talked he
seemed to be shouting above the music, for the veins stood out
on his forehead. Mick Kelly did not understand when she saw
the radio. Her face was very red and she asked him over and
over if it was really his and whether she could listen. She
worked with a dial for several minutes before she got it to the
place that suited her. She sat leaning forward in her chair with
her hands on her knees, her mouth open and a pulse beating
very fast in her temple. She seemed to listen all over to
whatever it was she heard. She sat there the whole afternoon,
and when she grinned at him once her eyes were wet and she
rubbed them with her fists. She asked him if she could come
in and listen sometimes when he was at work and he nodded
yes. So for the next few days whenever he opened the door he
found her by the radio. Her hand raked through her short
rumpled hair and there was a look in her face he had never
seen before.
One night soon after Christmas all four of the people chanced
to visit him at the same time. This had never happened before.
Singer moved about the room with smiles and refreshments
and did his best in the way of politeness to make his guests
comfortable. But something was wrong.
Doctor Copeland would not sit down. He stood in the
179
doorway, hat in hand, and only bowed coldly to the others.
They looked at him as though they wondered why he was
there. Jake Blount opened the beers he had brought with him
and the foam spilled down on his shirtfront. Mick Kelly
listened to the music from the radio. Biff Brannon sat on the
bed, his knees crossed, his eyes scanning the group before him
and then becoming narrow and fixed.
Singer was bewildered. Always each of them had so much to
say. Yet now that they were together they were silent. When
they came in he had expected an outburst of some kind. In a
vague way he had expected this to be the end of something.
But in the room there was only a feeling of strain. His hands
worked nervously as though they were pulling things unseen
from the air and binding them together.
Jake Blount stood beside Doctor Copeland. 'I know your face.
We run into each other once before—on the steps outside.'
Doctor Copeland moved his tongue precisely as though he
clipped out his words with scissors. 'I was not aware that we
were acquainted,' he said. Then his stiff body seemed to
shrink. He stepped back until he was just outside the threshold
of the room.
Biff Brannon smoked his cigarette composedly. The smoke
lay in thin layers across the room. He turned to Mick and
when he looked at her a blush reddened his face. He half-
closed his eyes and in a moment his face was bloodless once
more. 'And how are you getting on with your business now?'
'What business?' Mick asked suspiciously.
'Just the business of living,' he said. 'School—and so forth.'
'O.K., I reckon,' she said.
Each one of them looked at Singer as though in expectation.
He was puzzled. He offered refreshments and smiled.
Jake rubbed his lips with the palm of his hand. He left off
trying to make conversation with Doctor Copeland and sat
down on the bed beside Biff. 'You know who it is that used to
write those bloody warnings in red chalk on the fences and
walls around the mills?'180
181
.No,' Biff said. 'What bloody warnings?'
'Mostly from the Old Testament I been wondering about that for
a long time.'
Each person addressed his words mainly to the mute. Their
thoughts seemed to converge in him as the spokes of a wheel lead
to the center hub.
The cold has been very unusual,' BifE said finally. The other day
I was looking through some old records and I found that in the
year 1919 the thermometer got down to ten degrees Fahrenheit.
It was only sixteen degrees this morning, and that's the coldest
since the big freeze that year.'
There were icicles hanging off the roof of the coal house this
morning,' Mick said.
cWe didn't take in enough money last week to meet the payroll,'
Jake said.
They discussed the weather some more. Each one seemed to be
waiting for the others to go. Then on an impulse they all rose to
leave at the same time. Doctor Cope-land went first and the
others followed him immediately. When they were gone Singer
stood alone in the room, and as he did not understand the
situation he wanted to forget it He decided to write to
Antonapoulos that night
The fact that Antonapoulos could not read did not prevent
Singer from writing to him. He had always known that his friend
was unable to make out the meaning of words on paper, but as
the months went by he began to imagine that perhaps he had
been mistaken, that perhaps Antonapoulos only kept his
knowledge of letters a secret from everyone. Also, it was possible
there might be a deaf-mute at the asylum who could read his
letters and then explain them to his friend. He thought of several
justifications for his letters, for he always felt a great need to
write to his friend when he was bewildered or sad. Once written,
however, these letters were never mailed. He cut out the comic
strips from the morning and evening papers and sent them to his
friend each Sunday. And every month he mailed a postal money
order. But the long letters he wrote to Antonapoulos
accumulated in his pockets until he would destroy them.
When the four people had gone, Singer slipped on his
warm gray overcoat and his gray felt hat and left his room. He always
wrote his letters at the store. Also, he had promised to deliver a
certain piece of work the next morning, and he wanted to finish it
now so that there would be no question of delay. The night was sharp
and frosty. The moon was full and rimmed with a golden light. The
rooftops were black against the starlit sky. As he walked he thought
of ways to begin his letter, but he had already reached the store
before the first sentence was clear in his mind. He let himself into the
dark store with his key and switched on the front lights.
He worked at the very end of the store. A cloth curtain separated his
place from the rest of the shop so that it was like a small private
room. Besides his workbench and chair there was a heavy safe in the
corner, a lavatory with a greenish mirror, and shelves full of boxes
and worn-out clocks. Singer rolled up the top of his bench and
removed from its felt case the silver platter he had promised to have
ready. Although the store was cold he took off his coat and turned up
the blue-striped cuffs of his shirt so that they would not get in his
way.
For a long time he worked at the monogram in the center of the
platter. With delicate, concentrated strokes he guided the scriver on
the silver. As he worked his eyes had a curiously penetrating look of
hunger. He was thinking of his letter to his friend Antonapoulos.
Midnight had passed before the work was finished. When he put the
platter away his forehead was damp with excitement. He cleared his
bench and began to write. He loved to shape words with a pen on
paper and he formed the letters with as much care as if the paper had
been a plate of silver.
My Only Friend:
I see from our magazine that the Society meets this year at a
convention in Macon. They will have speakers and a four-course
banquet. I imagine it. Remember we always planned to attend one of
the conventions but we never did. I wish now that we had. I wish we
were going to this one and I have imagined how it would be. But of
course I could never go without you. They will come from many
states and they will all be full of words and long dreams from the182
heart. There is also to be a special service at one of the
churches and some kind of a contest with a gold medal for the
prize. I write that I imagine all this. I both do and do not. My
hands have been still so long that it is difficult to remember
how it is. And when I imagine the convention I think of all the
guests being like you, my Friend.
I stood before our home the other day. Other people live in it
now. Do you remember the big oak tree in front? The
branches were cut back so as not to interfere with the
telephone wires and the tree died. The limbs are rotten and
there is a hollow place in the trunk. Also, the cat here at the
store (the one you used to stroke and fondle) ate something
poisonous and died. It was very sad.
Singer held the pen poised above the paper. He sat for a long
while, erect and tense, without continuing the letter. Then he
stood up and lighted himself a cigarette. The room was cold
and the air had a sour stale odor—the mixed smells of
kerosene and silver polish and tobacco. He put on his overcoat
and muffler and began writing again with slow determination.
You remember the four people I told you about when I was
there. I drew their pictures for you, the black man, the young
girl, the one with the mustache, and the man who owns the
New York Cafe. There are some things I should like to tell
you about them but how to put them in words I am not sure.
They are all very busy people. In fact they are so busy that it
will be hard for you to picture them. I do not mean that they
work at their jobs all day and night but that they have much
business in their minds always that does not let them rest.
They come up to my room and talk to me until I do not
understand how a person can open and shut his or her mouth
so much without being weary. (However, the New York Cafe
owner is different—he is not just like the others. He has a very
black beard so that he has to shave twice daily, and he owns
one of these electric razors. He watches. The others all have
something
183
they hate. And they all have something they love more than
eating or sleeping or wine or friendly company. That is why
they are always so busy.)
The one with the mustache I think is crazy. Sometimes he
speaks his words very clear like my teacher long ago at the
school. Other times he speaks such a language that I cannot
follow. Sometimes he is dressed in a plain suit, and the next
time he will be black with dirt and smelling bad and in the
overalls he wears to work. He will shake his fist and say ugly
drunken words that I would not wish you to know about. He
thinks he and I have a secret together but I do not know what
it is. And let me write you something hard to believe. He can
drink three pints of Happy Days whiskey and still talk and
walk on his feet and not wish for the bed. You will not believe
this but it is true.
I rent my room from the girl's mother for $16 per month. The
girl used to dress in short trousers like a boy but now she
wears a blue skirt and a blouse. She is not yet a young lady. I
like her to come and see me. She comes all the time now that I
have a radio for them. She likes music. I wish I knew what it
is she hears. She knows I am deaf but she thinks I know about
music.
The black man is sick with consumption but there is not a
good hospital for him to go to here because he is black. He is a
doctor and he works more than anyone I have ever seen. He
does not talk like a black man at all. Other Negroes I find it
hard to understand because their tongues do not move enough
for the words. This black man frightens me sometimes. His
eyes are hot and bright. He asked me to a party and I went. He
has many books. However, he does not own any mystery
books. He does not drink or eat meat or attend the movies.
Yah Freedom and pirates. Yah Capital and Democrats, says
the ugly one with the mustache. Then he contradicts himself
and says, Freedom is the greatest of all ideals. I just got to get
a chance to write this music in me and be a musician. I got to
have a chance says the girl. We are not allowed to serve, says
the184
black Doctor. That is the Godlike need for my people. Aha,
says the owner of the New York Cafe". He is a thoughtful one.
That is the way they talk when they come to my room. Those
words in their heart do not let them rest, so they are always
very busy. Then you would think when they are together they
would be like those of the Society who meet at the convention
in Macon this week. But that is not so. They all came to my
room at the same time today. They sat like they were from
different cities. They were even rude, and you know how I
have always said that to be rude and not attend to the feelings
of others is wrong. So it was like that. I do not understand, so I
write it to you because I think you will understand. I have
queer feelings. But I have written of this matter enough and I
know you axe weary of it. I am also.
It has been five months and twenty-one days now. All of that
time I have been alone without you. The only thing I can
imagine is when I will be with you again. If I cannot come to
you soon I do not know what
Singer put his head down on the bench and rested. The smell
and the feel of the slick wood against his cheek reminded him
of his schooldays. His eyes closed and he felt sick. There was
only the face of Antonapoulos in his mind, and his longing for
his friend was so sharp that he held his breath. After some
time Singer sat up and reached for his pen.
The gift I ordered for you did not come in time for the
Christmas box. I expect it shortly. I believe you will like it and
be amused. I think of us always and remember everything. I
long for the food you used to make. At the New York Cafe it
is much worse than it used to be. I found a cooked fly in my
soup not long ago. It was mixed with the vegetables and the
noodles like letters. But that is nothing. The way I need you is
a loneliness I cannot bear. Soon I will come again. My
vacation is not due for six months more but I think I can
arrange it before then.
185
I think I will have to. I am not meant to be alone and without
you who understand.
Always,
JOHN SINGER
It was two o'clock in the morning before he was home again.
The big, crowded house was in darkness, but he felt his way
carefully up three flights of stairs and did not stumble. He
took from his pockets the cards he carried about with him, his
watch, and his fountain pen. Then he folded his clothes neatly
over the back of his chair. His gray-flannel pajamas were
warm and soft. Almost as soon as he pulled the blankets to his
chin he was asleep.
Out of the blackness of sleep a dream formed. There were dull
yellow lanterns lighting up a dark flight of stone steps.
Antonapoulos kneeled at the top of these steps. He was naked
and he fumbled with something that he held above his head
and gazed at it as though in prayer. He himself knelt halfway
down the steps. He was naked and cold and he could not take
his eyes from Antonapoulos and the thing he held above him.
Behind him on the ground he felt the one with the mustache
and the girl and the black man and the last one. They knelt
naked and he felt their eyes on him. And behind them there
were uncounted crowds of kneeling people in the darkness.
His own hands were huge windmills and he stared fascinated
at the unknown thing that Antonapoulos held. The yellow
lanterns swayed to and fro in the darkness and all else was
motionless. Then suddenly there was a ferment. In the
upheaval the steps collapsed and he felt himself falling
downward. He awoke with a jerk. The early light whitened the
window. He felt afraid.
Such a long time had passed that something might have
happened to his friend. Because Antonapoulos did not write to
him he would not know. Perhaps his friend had fallen and hurt
himself. He felt such an urge to be with him once more that he
would arrange it at any cost—and immediately.
In the post-office that morning he found a notice in his box
that a package had come for him. It was the gift he had
ordered for Christmas that did not arrive in time. The gift was
a very fine one. He had bought it on the install-186
187
ment plan to be paid for over a period of two years. The gift
was a moving-picture machine for private use, with a half-
dozen of the Mickey Mouse and Popeye comedies that
Antonapoulos enjoyed.
Singer was the last to reach the store that morning. He handed
the jeweler for whom he worked a formal written request for
leave on Friday and Saturday. And although there were four
weddings on hand that week, the jeweler nodded that he could
go.
He did not let anyone know of the trip beforehand, but on
leaving he tacked a note to his door saying that he would be
absent for several days because of business. He traveled at
night, and the train reached the place of his destination just as
the red winter dawn was breaking.
In the afternoon, a little before time for the visiting hour, he
went out to the asylum. His arms were loaded with the parts of
the moving-picture machine and the basket of fruit he carried
his friend. He went immediately to the ward where he had
visited Antonapoulos before.
The corridor, the door, the rows of beds were just as he
remembered them. He stood at the threshold and looked
eagerly for his friend. But he saw at once that though all the
chairs were occupied, Antonapoulos was not there.
Singer put down his packages and wrote at the bottom of one
of his cards, 'Where is Spiros Antonapoulos?' A nurse came
into the room and he handed her the card. She did not
understand. She shook her head and raised her shoulders. He
went out into the corridor and handed the card to everyone he
met. Nobody knew. There was such a panic in him that he
began motioning with his hands. At last he met an interne in a
white coat. He plucked at the interne's elbow and gave him the
card. The interne read it carefully and then guided him
through several halls. They came to a small room where a
young woman sat at a desk before some papers. She read the
card and then looked through some files in a drawer.
Tears of nervousness and fear swam in Singer's eyes. The
young woman began deliberately to write on a pad of paper,
and he could not restrain himself from twisting around to see
immediately what was being written about his friend.
Mr. Antonapoulos has been transferred to the infirmary. He is
ill with nephritis. I will have someone show you the way.
On the way through the corridors he stopped to pick up the
packages he had left at the door of the ward. The basket of
fruit had been stolen, but the other boxes were intact. He
followed the interne out of the building and across a plot of
grass to the infirmary.
Antonapoulos! When they reached the proper ward he saw
him at the first glance. His bed was placed in the middle of the
room and he was sitting propped with pillows. He wore a
scarlet dressing-gown and green silk pajamas and a turquoise
ring. His skin was a pale yellow color, his eyes very dreamy
and dark. His black hair was touched at the temples with
silver. He was knitting. His fat fingers worked with the long
ivory needles very slowly. At first he did not see his friend.
Then when Singer stood before him he smiled serenely,
without surprise, and held out his jeweled hand.
A feeling of shyness and restraint such as he had never known
before came over Singer. He sat down by the bed and folded
his hands on the edge of the counterpane. His eyes did not
leave the face of his friend and he was deathly pale. The
splendor of his friend's raiment startled him. On various
occasions he had sent him each article of the outfit, but he had
not imagined how they would look when all combined.
Antonapoulos was more enormous than he had remembered.
The great pulpy folds of his abdomen showed beneath his silk
pajamas. His head was immense against the white pillow. The
placid composure of his face was so profound that he seemed
hardly to be aware mat Singer was with him.
Singer raised Ms hands timidly and began to speak. His
strong, skilled fingers shaped the signs with loving precision.
He spoke of the cold and of the long months alone. He
mentioned old memories, the cat that had died, the store, the
place where he lived. At each pause Antonapoulos nodded
graciously. He spoke of the four people and the long visits to
his room. The eyes of his friend were moist and dark, and in
them he saw the little rectangled pictures of himself that he
had watched a thousand times. The188
warm blood flowed back to his face and his hands quickened.
He spoke at length of the black man and the one with the
jerking mustache and the girl. The designs of his hands shaped
faster and faster. Antonapoulos nodded with slow gravity.
Eagerly Singer leaned closer and he breathed with long, deep
breaths and in his eyes there were bright tears.
Then suddenly Antonapoulos made a slow circle in the air
with his plump forefinger. His finger circled toward Singer
and at last he poked his friend in the stomach. The big Greek's
smile grew very broad and he stuck out his fat, pink tongue.
Singer laughed and his hands shaped the words with wild
speed. His shoulders shook with laughter and his head hung
backward. Why he laughed he did not know. Antonapoulos
rolled his eyes. Singer continued to laugh riotously until his
breath was gone and his fingers trembled. He grasped the arm
of his friend and tried to steady himself. His laughs came slow
and painfully like hiccoughs.
Antonapoulos was the first to compose himself. His fat little
feet had untucked the cover at the bottom of the bed. His smile
faded and he kicked contemptuously at the blanket. Singer
hastened to put things right, but Antonapoulos frowned and
held up his finger regally to a nurse who was passing through
the ward. When she had straightened the bed to his liking the
big Greek inclined his head so deliberately that the gesture
seemed one of benediction rather than a simple nod of thanks.
Then he turned gravely to his friend again.
As Singer talked he did not realize how the time had passed.
Only when a nurse brought Antonapoulos his supper on a tray
did he realize that it was late. The lights in the ward were
turned on and outside the windows it was almost dark. The
other patients had trays of supper before them also. They had
put down their work (some of them wove baskets, others did
leatherwork or knitted) and they were eating listlessly.
Besides Antonapoulos they all seemed very sick and colorless.
Most of them needed a haircut and they wore seedy gray
nightshirts slit down the back. They stared at the two mutes
with wonder.
Antonapoulos lifted the cover from his dish and inspected the
food carefully. There was fish and some vege
189
tables. He picked up the fish and held it to the light in the
palm of his hand for a thorough examination. Then he ate with
relish. During supper he began to point out the various people
in the room. He pointed to one man in the corner and made
faces of disgust. The man snarled at him. He pointed to a
young boy and smiled and nodded and waved his plump hand.
Singer was too happy to feel embarrassment. He picked up the
packages from the floor and laid them on the bed to distract
his friend. Antonapoulos took off the wrappings, but the
machine did not interest him at all. He turned back to his
supper.
Singer handed the nurse a note explaining about the movie.
She called an interne and then they brought in a doctor. As the
three of them consulted they looked curiously at Singer. The
news reached the patients and they propped up on their elbows
excitedly. Only Antonapoulos was not disturbed.
Singer had practiced with the movie beforehand. He set Dp
the screen so that it could be watched by all the patients. Then
he worked with the projector and the film. The nurse took out
the supper trays and the lights in the ward were turned off. A
Mickey Mouse comedy flashed on the screen.
Singer watched his friend. At first Antonapoulos was startled.
He heaved himself up for a better view and would have risen
from the bed if the nurse had not restrained him. Then he
watched with a beaming smile. Singer could see the other
patients calling out to each other and laughing. Nurses and
orderlies came in from the hall and the whole ward was in
commotion. When the Mickey Mouse was finished Singer put
on a Popeye film. Then at the conclusion of this film he felt
that the entertainment had lasted long enough for the first
time. He switched on the light and the ward settled down
again. As the interne put the machine under his friend's bed he
saw Antonapoulos slyly cut his eyes across the ward to be
certain that each person realized that the machine was his.
Singer began to talk with his hands again. He knew that he
would soon be asked to leave, but the thoughts he had stored
in his mind were too big to be said in a short time. He talked
with frantic haste. In the ward there was an old man whose
head shook with palsy and who picked feebly190
t
at his eyebrows. He envied the old man because he lived with
Antonapoulos day after day. Singer would have exchanged
places with him joyfully.
His friend fumbled for something in his bosom. It was the
little brass cross that he had always worn. The dirty string had
been replaced by a red ribbon. Singer thought of the dream
and he told that, also, to his friend. In his haste the signs
sometimes became blurred and he had to shake his hands and
begin all over. Antonapoulos watched him with his dark,
drowsy eyes. Sitting motionless in his bright, rich garments he
seemed like some wise king from a legend.
The interne in charge of the ward allowed Singer to stay for an
hour past the visiting time. Then at last he held out his thin,
hairy wrist and showed him his watch. The patients were
settled for sleep. Singer's hand faltered. He grasped his friend
by the arm and looked intently into his eyes as he used to do
each morning when they parted for work. Finally Singer
backed himself out of the room. At the doorway his hands
signed a broken farewell and then clenched into fists.
During the moonlit January nights Singer continued to walk
about the streets of the town each evening when he was not
engaged. The rumors about him grew bolder. An old Negro
woman told hundreds of people that he knew the ways of
spirits come back from the dead. A certain piece-worker
claimed that he had worked with the mute at another mill
somewhere else in the state—and the tales he told were
unique. The rich thought that he was rich and the poor
considered him a poor man like themselves. And as there was
no way to disprove these rumors they grew marvelous and
very real. Each man described the mute as he wished him to
be.
8
HY?
The question flowed through Biff always, unnoticed, like the
blood in his veins. He thought of people and of objects and of
ideas and the question was in him. Midnight, the dark
morning, noon. Hitler and the rumors of
191
war. The price of loin of pork and the tax on. beer. Especially
he meditated on the puzzle of the mute. Why, for instance, did
Singer go away on the train and, when he was asked where he
had been, pretend that he did not understand the question?
And why did everyone persist in thinking the mute was
exactly as they wanted him to be —when most likely it was all
a very queer mistake? Singer sat at the middle table three
times a day. He ate what was put before him—except cabbage
and oysters. In the battling tumult of voices he alone was
silent. He liked best little green soft butter beans and he
stacked them in a neat pile on the prongs of his fork. And
sopped their gravy with his biscuits.
Biff thought also of death. A curious incident occurred. One
day while rummaging through the bathroom closet he found a
bottle of Agua Florida that he had overlooked when taking
Lucile the rest of Alice's cosmetics. Meditatively he held the
bottle of perfume in his hands. It was four months now since
her death—and each month seemed as long and full of leisure
as a year. He seldom thought of her.
Biff uncorked the bottle. He stood shirtless before the mirror
and dabbled some of the perfume on his dark, hairy armpits.
The scent made him stiffen. He exchanged a deadly secret
glance with himself in the mirror and stood motionless. He
was stunned by the memories brought to him with the
perfume, not because of their clarity, but because they
gathered together the whole long span of years and were
complete. Biff rubbed his nose and looked sideways at
himself. The boundary of death. He felt in him each minute
that he had lived with her. And now their life together was
whole as only the past can be whole. Abruptly Biff turned
away.
The bedroom was done over. His entirely now. Before it had
been tacky and flossy and drab. There were always stockings
and pink rayon knickers with holes in them hung on a string
across the room to dry. The iron bed had been flaked and
rusty, decked with soiled lace boudoir pillows. A bony mouser
from downstairs would arch its back and rub mournfully
against the slop jar.
All of this he had changed. He traded the iron bed for a studio
couch. There was a thick red rug on the floor, and192
he had bought a beautiful cloth of Chinese blue to hang on the
side of the wall where the cracks were worst. He had unsealed
the fireplace and kept it laid with pine logs. Over the mantel
was a small photograph of Baby and a colored picture of a
little boy in velvet holding a ball in his hands. A glassed case
in the corner held the curios he had collected—specimens of
butterflies, a rare arrowhead, a curious rock shaped like a
human profile. Blue-silk cushions were on the studio couch,
and he had borrowed Lucile's sewing-machine to make deep
red curtains for the windows. He loved the room. It was both
luxurious and sedate. On the table there was a little Japanese
pagoda with glass pendants that tinkled with strange musical
tones in a draught.
In this room nothing reminded him of her. But often he would
uncork the bottle of Agua Florida and touch the stopper to the
lobes of his ears or to his wrists. The smell mingled with his
slow ruminations. The sense of the past grew in him.
Memories built themselves with almost architectural order. In
a box where he stored souvenirs he came across old pictures
taken before their marriage. Alice sitting in a field of daisies.
Alice with him in a canoe on the river. Also among the
souvenirs there was a large bone hairpin that had belonged to
his mother. As a little boy he had loved to watch her comb and
knot her long black hair. He had thought that hairpins were
curved as they were to copy the shape of a lady and he would
sometimes play with them like dolls. At that time he had a
cigar box full of scraps. He loved the feel and colors of
beautiful cloth and he would sit with his scraps for hours
under the kitchen table. But when he was six his mother took
the scraps away from him. She was a tall, strong woman with
a sense of duty like a man. She had loved him best. Even now
he sometimes dreamed of her. And her worn gold wedding
ring stayed on his finger always.
Along with the Agua Florida he found in the closet a bottle of
lemon rinse Alice had always used for her hair. One day he
tried it on himself. The lemon made his dark, white-streaked
hair seem fluffy and thick. He liked it. He discarded the oil he
had used to guard against baldness and rinsed with the lemon
preparation regularly. Certain
193
whims that he had ridiculed in Alice were now his own. Why?
Every morning Louis, the colored boy downstairs, brought
him a cup of coffee to drink in bed. Often he sat propped on
the pillows for an hour before he got up and dressed. He
smoked a cigar and watched the patterns the sunlight made on
the wall. Deep hi meditation he ran his forefinger between his
long, crooked toes. He remembered.
Then from noon until five in the morning he worked
downstairs. And all day Sunday. The business was losing
money. There were many slack hours. Still at meal-times the
place was usually full and he saw hundreds of acquaintances
every day as he stood guard behind the cash register.
'What do you stand and think about all the time?' Jake Blount
asked him. 'You look like a Jew in Germany.'
'I am an eighth part Jew,' Biff said. 'My Mother's grandfather
was a Jew from Amsterdam. But all the rest of my folks that I
know about were Scotch-Irish.'
It was Sunday morning. Customers lolled at the tables and
there were the smell of tobacco and the rustle of newspaper.
Some men in a corner booth shot dice, but the game was a
quiet one.
'Where's Singer?' Biff asked. 'Won't you be going up to his
place this morning?'
Blount's face turned dark and sullen. He jerked his head
forward. Had they quarreled—but how could a dummy
quarrel? No, for this had happened before. Blount hung
around sometimes and acted as though he were having an
argument with himself. But pretty soon he would go—he
always did—and the two of them would come in together,
Blount talking.
'You live a fine life. Just standing behind a cash register. Just
standing with your hand open.'
Biff did not take offense. He leaned his weight on his elbows
and narrowed his eyes. 'Let's me and you have a serious talk.
What is it you want anyway?'
Blount smacked his hands down on the counter. They were
warm and meaty and rough. 'Beer. And one of them kittle
packages of cheese crackers with peanut butter in the
inside.'194
'That's not what I meant,' Biff said. 'But well come around to it
later.'
The man was a puzzle. He was always changing. He still
drank like a crazy fish, but liquor did not drag him down as it
did some men. The rims of his eyes were often red, and he had
a nervous trick of looking back startled over his shoulder. His
head was heavy and huge on his thin neck. He was the sort of
fellow that kids laughed at and dogs wanted to bite. Yet when
he was laughed at it cut him to the quick—he got rough and
loud like a sort of clown. And he was always suspecting that
somebody was laughing.
Biff shook his head thoughtfully. 'Come,' he said. "What
makes you stick with that show? You can find something
better than that. I could give you a part-time job here.
'
'Christamighty! I wouldn't park myself behind that cash box if
you was to give me the whole damn place, lock, stock, and
barrel.
'
There he was. It was irritating. He could never have friends or
even get along with people.
Talk sense,' Biff said. 'Be serious.
'
A customer had come up with his check and he made change.
The place was still quiet. Blount was restless. Biff felt him
drawing away. He wanted to hold him. He reached for two A-
l
cigars on the shelf behind the counter and offered Blount
a
smoke. Warily his mind dismissed one question after another,
and then finally he asked:
'If you could choose the time in history you could have lived,
what era would you choose?
'
Blount licked his mustache with his broad, wet tongue. 'If you
had to choose between being a stiff and never asking another
question, which would you take?
'
'Sure enough,' Biff insisted. 'Think it over.
'
He cocked his head to one side and peered down over his long
nose. This was a matter he liked to hear others talk about.
Ancient Greece was his. Walking in sandals on the edge of the
blue Aegean. The loose robes girdled at the waist. Children.
The marble baths and the contemplations in the temples.
'Maybe with the Incas. In Peru.
'
Biff's eyes scanned over him, stripping him naked. He
saw Blount burned a rich, red brown by the sun, his face
smooth and hairless, with a bracelet of gold and precious
stones on his forearm. When he closed his eyes the man was
a
good Inca. But when he looked at him again the picture fell
away. It was the nervous mustache that did not belong to his
face, the way he jerked his shoulder, the Adam's apple on his
thin neck, the bagginess of his trousers. And it was more than
that.
'Or maybe around 1775.
'
"That was a good time to be living,' Biff agreed.
Blount shuffled his feet self-consciously. His face was rough
and unhappy. He was ready to leave. Biff was alert to detain
him. 'Tell me—why did you ever come to this town anyway?
'
He knew immediately that the question had not been a politic
one and he was disappointed with himself. Yet it was queer
how the man could land up in a place like this.
'It's the God's truth I don't know.
'
They stood quietly for a moment, both leaning on the counter.
The game of dice in the corner was finished. The first dinner
order, a Long Island duck special, had been served to the
fellow who managed the A. and P. store. The radio was turned
halfway between a church sermon and a swing band.
Blount leaned over suddenly and smelled Biff's face.
'Perfume?
'
'Shaving lotion,' Biff said composedly.
He could not keep Blount longer. The fellow was ready to go.
He would come in with Singer later. It was always like this.
He wanted to draw Blount out completely so that he could
understand certain questions concerning him. But Blount
would never really talk—only to the mute. It was a most
peculiar thing.
"Thanks for the cigar,' Blount said. 'See you later.
'
'So long.
'
Biff watched Blount walk to the door with his rolling, sailor-
like gait. Then he took up the duties before him. He looked
over the display in the window. The day's menu had been
pasted on the glass and a special dinner with all the trimmings
was laid out to attract customers. It looked bad. Right nasty.
The gravy from the duck had run into the cranberry sauce and
a fly, was stuck in the dessert.196
'Hey, Louis!' he called. 'Take this stuff out of the window.
And bring me that red pottery bowl and some fruit.
'
He arranged the fruits with an eye for color and design. At last
the decoration pleased him. He visited the kitchen and had
a
talk with the cook. He lifted the lids of the pots and sniffed the
food inside, but without heart for the matter. Alice always had
done this part. He disliked it. His nose sharpened when he saw
the greasy sink with its scum of food bits at the bottom. He
wrote down the menus and the orders for the next day. He was
glad to leave the kitchen and take his stand by the cash
register again.
Lucile and Baby came for Sunday dinner. The little Md was
not so good now. The bandage was still on her head and the
doctor said it could not come off until next month. The
binding of gauze in place of the yellow curls made her head
look naked.
'Say hello to Uncle Biff, Hon,' Lucile prompted.
Baby bridled fretfully. 'Hello to Unca Biff Hon,' she gassed.
She put up a struggle when Lucile tried to take off her Sunday
coat. 'Now you just behave yourself,' Lucile kept saying. "You
got to take it off or you'll catch pneumonia when we go out
again.. Now you just behave yourself.
'
Biff took the situation in charge. He soothed Baby with a ball
of candy gum and eased the coat from her shoulders. Her
dress had lost its set in the struggle with Lucile. He
straightened it so that the yoke was in line across her chest He
retied her sash and crushed the bow to just the right shape
with his fingers. Then he patted Baby on her little behind. 'We
got some strawberry ice cream today,' he said.
'Bartholomew, you'd make a mighty good mother.
'
Thanks,' Biff said. That's a compliment'
We just been to Sunday School and church. Baby, say the
verse from the Bible you learned for your Uncle Biff.
'
The kid hung back and pouted. 'Jesus wept,' she said finally.
The scorn that she put in the two words made it sound like
a
terrible thing.
'Want to see Louis?' Biff asked. 'He's back in the kitchen.
'
'I wanna see Willie. I wanna hear WMe play the harp.
'
"Now, Baby, you're just trying yourself,' Lucile said im
patiently. 'You know good and well that Willie's not here.
Willie was sent off to the penitentiary.
'
'But Louis,' Biff said. 'He can play the harp, too. Go tell him to
get the ice cream ready and play you a tune.
'
Baby went toward the kitchen, dragging one heel on the floor.
Lucile laid her hat on the counter. There were tears in her
eyes. 'You know I always said this: If a child is kept clean and
well cared for and pretty then that child will usually be sweet
and smart. But if a child's dirty and ugly then you can't expect
anything much. What I'm trying to get at is that Baby is so
shamed over losing her hair and that bandage on her head that
it just seems like it makes her cut the buck all the time. She
won't practice her elocution—she won't do a thing. She feels
so bad I just can't manage her.'
'If you'd quit picking with her so much she'd be all right.'
At last he settled them in a booth by the window. Lucile had a
special and there was a breast of chicken cut up fine, cream of
wheat, and carrots for Baby. She played with her food and
spilled milk on her little frock. He sat with them until the rush
started. Then he had to be on his feet to keep things going
smoothly.
People eating. The wide-open mouths with the food pushed in.
What was it? The line he had read not long ago. Life was only
a matter of intake and alimentation and reproduction. The
place was crowded. There was a swing band on the radio.
Then the two he was waiting for came in. Singer entered the
door first, very straight and swank in his tailored Sunday suit.
Blount followed along just behind his elbow. There was
something about the way they walked that struck him. They
sat at their table, and Blount talked and ate with gusto while
Singer watched politely. When the meal was finished they
stopped by the cash register for a few minutes. Then as they
went out he noticed again there was something about their
walking together that made him pause and question himself.
What could it be? The suddenness with which the memory
opened up deep down in his mind was a shock. The big deafmute moron whom Singer used to walk with sometimes on the
way to work. The sloppy Greek who made candy for Charles
Parker.198
The Greek always walked ahead and Singer followed. He had
never noticed them much because they never came into the
place. But why had he not remembered this? Of all times he
had wondered about the mute to neglect such an angle. See
everything in the landscape except the three waltzing
elephants. But did it matter after all?
Biff narrowed his eyes. How Singer had been before was not
important. The thing that mattered was the way Blount and
Mick made of him a sort of home-made God. Owing to the
fact he was a mute they were able to give him all the qualities
they wanted him to have. Yes. But how could such a strange
thing come about? And why?
A one-armed man came hi and Biff treated him to a whiskey
on the house. But he did not feel like talking to anyone.
Sunday dinner was a family meal. Men who drank beer by
themselves on weeknights brought their wives and little kids
with them on Sunday. The highchair they kept in the back was
often needed. It was two-thirty and though many tables were
occupied the meal was almost over. Biff had been on his feet
for the past four hours and was tired. He used to stand for
fourteen or sixteen hours and not notice any effects at all. But
now he had aged. Considerably. There was no doubt about it.
Or maybe matured was the word. Not aged—certainly not—
yet. The waves of sound in the room swelled and subsided
against his ears. Matured. His eyes smarted and it was as
though some fever in him made everything too bright and
sharp.
He called to one of the waitresses: 'Take over for me will you,
please? I'm going out.'
The street was empty because of Sunday. The sun shone
bright and clear, without warmth. Biff held the collar of his
coat close to his neck. Alone in the street he felt out of pocket.
The wind blew cold from the river. He should turn back and
stay in the restaurant where he belonged. He had no business
going to the place where he was headed. For the past four
Sundays he had done this. He had walked in the neighborhood
where he might see Mick. And there was something about it
that was—not quite right. Yes. Wrong. He walked slowly
down the sidewalk opposite the house
where she lived. Last Sunday she had been reading the funny
papers on the front steps. But this time as he glanced swiftly
toward the house he saw she was not there. But tilted the brim
of his felt hat down over his eyes. Perhaps she would come
into the place later. Often on Sunday after supper she came for
a hot cocoa and stopped for a while at the table where Singer
was sitting. On Sunday she wore a different outfit from the
blue skirt and sweater she wore on other days. Her Sunday
dress was wine-colored silk with a dingy lace collar. Once she
had had on stockings—with runs in them. Always he wanted
to set her up to something, to give to her. And not only
a
sundae or some sweet to eat—but something real. That was all
he wanted for himself—to give to her. Biff's mouth hardened.
He had done nothing wrong but in him he felt a strange guilt.
Why? The dark guilt in all men, unreck-oned and without
a
name.
On the way home Biff found a penny lying half concealed by
rubbish in the gutter. Thriftily he picked it up, cleaned the
coin with his handkerchief, and dropped it into the black
pocket purse, he carried. It was four o'clock when he reached
the restaurant. Business was stagnant. There was not a single
customer in the place.
Business picked up around five. The boy he had recently hired
to work part time showed up early. The boy's name was Harry
Minowitz. He lived in the same neighborhood with Mick and
Baby. Eleven applicants had answered the ad in the paper, but
Harry seemed to be best bet. He was well developed for his
age, and neat. Biff had noticed the boy's teeth while talking to
him during the interview. Teeth were always a good
indication. His were large and very clean and white. Harry
wore glasses, but that would not matter in the work. His
mother made ten dollars a week sewing for a tailor down the
street, and Harry was an only child.
'Well,' Biff said. 'You've been with me a week, Harry. Think
you're going to like it?' 'Sure, sir. Sure I like it.
'
Biff turned the ring on his finger. 'Let's see. What time do you
get off from school?' "Three o'clock, sir.'200
'Well, that gives you a couple of hours for study and
recreation. Then here from six to ten. Does that leave you
enough time for plenty of sleep?
'
'Plenty. I don't need near that much.
'
'You need about nine and a half hours at your age, son. Pure,
wholesome sleep.
'
He felt suddenly embarrassed. Maybe Harry would think it
was none of his business. Which it wasn't anyway. He started
to turn aside and then thought of something.
.You go to Vocational?'
Harry nodded and rubbed his glasses on his shirtsleeve.
'Let's see. I know a lot of girls and boys there. Alva Richards
—I know his father. And Maggie Henry. And a
kid named Mick Kelly------' He felt as though his ears
had caught afire. He knew himself to be a fool. He wanted to
turn and walk away and yet he only stood there, smiling and
mashing his nose with his thumb. 'You know her?' he asked
faintly.
'Sure, I live right next door to her. But in school I'm a senior
while she's a freshman.'
Biff stored this meager information neatly in his mind to be
thought over later when he was alone. 'Business will be quiet
here for a while,' he said hurriedly. Til leave it with you. By
now you know how to handle things. Just watch any
customers drinking beer and remember how many they've
drunk so you won't have to ask them and depend on what they
say. Take your time making change and keep track of what
goes on.'
Biff shut himself in his room downstairs. This was the place
where he kept his files. The room had only one small window
and looked out on the side alley, and the air was musty and
cold. Huge stacks of newspapers rose up to the ceiling. A
home-made filing case covered one wall. Near the door there
was an old-fashioned rocking-chair and a small table laid with
a pair of shears, a dictionary, and a mandolin. Because of the
piles of newspaper it was impossible to take more than two
steps in any direction. Biff rocked himself in the chair and
languidly plucked the strings of the mandolin. His eyes closed
and he began to sing in a doleful voice:
201
I went to the animal fair.
The birds and the beasts were there,
And the old baboon by the light of the moon
Was combing his auburn hair.
He finished with a chord from the strings and the last sounds
shivered to silence in the cold air.
To adopt a couple of little children. A boy and a girl. About
three or four years old so they would always feel like he was
their own father. Their Dad. Our Father. The little girl like
Mick (or Baby?) at that age. Round cheeks and gray eyes and
flaxen hair. And the clothes he would make for her—pink
crgpe de Chine frocks with dainty smocking at the yoke and
sleeves. Silk socks and white buckskin shoes. And a little red-
velvet coat and cap and muff for winter. The boy was dark and
black-haired. The little boy walked behind him and copied the
things he did. In the summer the three of them would go to a
cottage on the Gulf and he would dress the children in their
sun suits and guide them carefully into the green, shallow
waves. And then they would bloom as he grew old. Our
Father. And they would come to him with questions and he
would answer them.
Why not?
Biff took up his mandolin again. 'Tum-ti-tim-ti-tee, ti-tee, the
wedd-ing of the painted doll' The mandolin mocked the
refrain. He sang through all the verses and wagged his foot to
the time. Then he played 'K-K-K-Katie,' and 'Love's Old
Sweet Song.' These pieces were like the Agua Florida in the
way they made him remember. Everything. Through the first
year when he was happy and when she seemed happy even
too. And when the bed came down with them twice in three
months. And he didn't know that all the time her brain was
busy with how she could save a nickle or squeeze out an extra
dime. And then him with Rio and the girls at her place. Gyp
and Madeline and Lou. And then later when suddenly he lost
it. When he could lie with a woman no longer. Mothero-eod!
So that at first it seemed everything was gone.
Lucile always understood the whole set-up. She knew the kind
of woman Alice was. Maybe she knew about him,202
too. Lucile would urge them to get a divorce. And she did all a
person could to try to straighten out their messes.
Biff winced suddenly. He jerked his hands from the strings of
the mandolin so that a phrase of music was chopped off. He
sat tense in his chair. Then suddenly he laughed quietly to
himself. What had made him come across this? Ah, Lordy
Lordy Lord! It was the day of his twenty-ninth birthday, and
Lucile had asked him to drop by her apartment when he
finished with an appointment at the dentist's. He expected
from this some little remembrance—a plate of cherry tarts or a
good shirt. She met him at the door and blindfolded his eyes
before he entered. Then she said she would be back in a
second. In the silent room he listened to her footsteps and
when she had reached the kitchen he broke wind. He stood in
the room with his eyes blindfolded and pooted. Then all at
once he knew with horror he was not alone. There was a titter
and soon great rolling whoops of laughter deafened him. At
that minute Lucile came back and undid his eyes. She held a
caramel cake on a platter. The room was full of people. Leroy
and that bunch and Alice, of course. He wanted to crawl up
the wall. He stood there with his bare face hanging out,
burning hot all over. They kidded him and the next hour was
almost as bad as the death of his mother— the way he took it.
Later that night he drank a quart of
whiskey. And for weeks after------Motherogod!
Biff chuckled coldly. He plucked a few chords on his
mandolin and started a rollicking cowboy song. His voice was
a mellow tenor and he closed his eyes as he sang. The room
was almost dark. The damp chill penetrated to his bones so
that his legs ached with rheumatism. .
At last he put away his mandolin and rocked slowly in . the
darkness. Death. Sometimes he could almost feel it in the
room with him. He rocked to and fro in the chair. What did he
understand? Nothing. Where was he headed? Nowhere. What
did he want? To know. What? A mean-ing. Why? A riddle.
Broken pictures lay like a scattered jigsaw puzzle in his head.
Alice soaping in the bathtub. Mussolini's mug. Mick pulling
the baby in a wagon. A roast turkey on display. Blount's
mouth. The face of Singer. He felt himself wait
f
ing. The room was completely dark. From the kitchen he
could hear Louis singing.
Biff stood up and touched the arm of his chair to still its
rocking. When he opened the door the hall outside was very
warm and bright. He remembered that perhaps Mick would
come. He straightened his clothes and smoothed back his hair.
A warmth and liveliness returned to him. The restaurant was
in a hubbub. Beer rounds and Sunday supper had begun. He
smiled genially to young Harry and settled himself behind the
cash register. He took in the room with a glance like a lasso.
The place was crowded and humming with noise. The bowl of
fruit in the window was a genteel, artistic display. He watched
the door and continued to examine the room with a practiced
eye. He was alert and intently waiting. Singer came finally
and wrote with his silver pencil that he wanted only soup and
whiskey as he had a cold. But Mick did not come.
9
i5 HE never even had a nickel to herself any more. They were
that poor. Money was the main thing. All the time it was
money, money, money. They had to pay through the nose for
Baby Wilson's private room and private nurse. But even that
was just one bill. By the time one thing was paid for
something else always would crop up. They owed around two
hundred dollars that had to be paid right away. They lost the
house. Their Dad got a hundred dollars out of the deal and let
the bank take over the mortgage. Then he borrowed another
fifty dollars and Mister Singer went on the note with him.
Afterward they had to worry about rent every month instead
of taxes. They were mighty near as poor as factory folks. Only
nobody could look down on them.
Bill had a job in a bottling plant and made ten dollars a week.
Hazel worked as a helper in a beauty parlor for eight dollars.
Etta sold tickets at a movie for five dollars. Each of them paid
half of what they earned for their keep. Then the house had six
boarders at five dollars a head. And Mister Singer, who paid
his rent very prompt. With what their Dad picked up it all
came to about two hundred204
dollars a month—and out of that they had to feed the six
boarders pretty good and feed the family and pay rent for the
whole house and keep up the payments on the furniture.
George and her didn't get any lunch money now. She had to
stop the music lessons. Portia saved the leftovers from the
dinner for her and George to eat after school. All the time they
had their meals in the kitchen. Whether Bill and Hazel and
Etta sat with the boarders or ate in the kitchen depended on
how much food there was. In the kitchen they had grits and
grease and side meat and coffee for breakfast. For supper they
had the same thing along with whatever could be spared from
the dining-room. The big kids griped whenever they had to eat
in the kitchen. And sometimes she and George were
downright hungry for two or three days.
But this was in the outside room. It had nothing to do with
music and foreign countries and the plans she made. The
winter was cold. Frost was on the windowpanes. At night the
fire in the living-room crackled very warm. All the family sat
by the fire with the boarders, so she had the middle bedroom
to herself. She wore two sweaters and a pair of Bill's outgrown
corduroy pants. Excitement kept her warm. She would bring
out her private box from under the bed and sit on the floor to
work.
In the big box there were the pictures she had painted at the
government free art class. She had taken them out of Bill's
room. Also in the box she kept three mystery books her Dad
had given her, a compact, a box of watch parts, a rhinestone
necklace, a hammer, and some notebooks. One notebook was
marked on the top with red crayon— PRIVATE. KEEP OUT.
PRIVATE—and tied with a string.
She had worked on music in this notebook all the winter. She
quit studying school lessons at night so she could have more
time to spend on music. Mostly she had written just little
tunes—songs without any words and without even any bass
notes to them. They were very short. But even if the tunes
were only half a page long she gave them names and drew her
initials underneath them. Nothing in this book was a real piece
or a composition. They were just songs in her mind she
wanted to remember. She named
them how they reminded her—'Africa' and 'A Big Fighf and
The Snowstorm.'
She couldn't write the music just like it sounded in her mind.
She had to thin it down to only a few notes; otherwise she got
too mixed up to go further. There was so much she didn't
know about how to write music. But maybe after she learned
how to write these simple tunes fairly quick she could begin to
put down the whole music in her mind.
In January she began a certain very wonderful piece called
'This Thing I Want, I Know Not What' It was a beautiful and
marvelous song—very slow and soft. At first she had started
to write a poem along with it, but she couldn't think of ideas to
fit the music. Also it was hard to get a word for the third line
to rhyme with what. This new song made her feel sad and
excited and happy all at once. Music beautiful as this was hard
to work on. Any song was hard to write. Something she could
hum in two minutes meant a whole week's work before it was
down in the notebook—after she had figured up the scale and
the time and every note.
She had to concentrate hard and sing it many times. Her voice
was always hoarse. Her Dad said this was because she had
bawled so much when she was a baby. Her Dad would have to
get up and walk with her every night when she was Ralph's
age. The only thing would hush her, he always said, was for
him to beat the coal scuttle with a poker and sing 'Dixie.'
She lay on her stomach on the cold floor and thought. Later on
—when she was twenty—she would be a great world-famous
composer. She would have a whole symphony orchestra and
conduct all of her music herself. She would stand up on the
platform in front of the big crowds of people. To conduct the
orchestra she would wear either a real man's evening suit or
else a red dress spangled with rhine-stones. The curtains of the
stage would be red velvet and M.K. would be printed on them
in gold. Mister Singer would be there, and afterward they
would go out and eat fried chicken. He would admire her and
count her as his very best friend. George would bring up big
wreaths of flowers to the stage. It would be in New York City
or else in a foreign country. Famous people would point at her
—206
CARSON McCULLBRS
Carole Lombard and Arturo Toscanini and Admiral Byrd.
And she could play the Beethoven symphony any time she
wanted to. It was a queer thing about this music she had heard
last autumn. The symphony stayed inside her always and grew
little by little. The reason was this: the whole symphony was
in her mind. It had to be. She had heard every note, and
somewhere in the back of her mind the whole of the music
was still there just as it had been played. But she could do
nothing to bring it all out again. Except wait and be ready for
the times when suddenly a new part came to her. Wait for it to
grow like leaves grow slowly on the branches of a spring oak
tree.
In the inside room, along with music, there was Mister Singer.
Every afternoon as soon as she finished playing on the piano
in the gym she walked down the main street past the store
where he worked. From the front window she couldn't see
Mister Singer. He worked in the back, behind a curtain. But
she looked at the store where he stayed every day and saw the
people he knew. Then every night she waited on the front
porch for him to come home. Sometimes she followed him
upstairs. She sat on the bed and watched him put away his hat
and undo the button on bis collar and brush his hair. For some
reason it was like they had a secret together. Or like they
waited to tell each other things that had never been said
before.
He was the only person in the inside room. A long time ago
there had been others. She thought back and remembered how
it was before he came. She remembered a girl way back in the
sixth grade named Celeste. This girl had straight blonde hair
and a turned-up nose and freckles. She wore a red-wool
jumper with a white blouse. She walked pigeon-toed. Every
day she brought an orange for little recess and a blue tin box
of lunch for big recess. Other kids would gobble the food they
had brought at little recess and then were hungry later—but
not Celeste. She pulled off the crusts of her sandwiches and
ate only the soft middle part. Always she had a stuffed hardboiled egg and she would hold it in her hand, mashing the
yellow with her thumb so that the print of her finger was left
there.
Celeste never talked to her and she never talked to Celeste.
Although that was what she wanted more than anything else.
At night she would lie awake and think about
207 Celeste. She would plan that they were best friends and
think about the time when Celeste could come home with her
to eat supper and spend the night. But that never happened.
The way she felt about Celeste would never let her go up and
make friends with her like she would any other person. After a
year Celeste moved to another part of town and went to
another school.
Then there was a boy called Buck. He was big and had
pimples on his face. When she stood by him in line to march
in at eight-thirty he smelled bad—like bis britches needed
airing. Buck did a nose dive at the principal once and was
suspended. When he laughed he lifted his upper lip and shook
all over. She thought about him like she had thought about
Celeste. Then there was the lady who sold lottery tickets for a
turkey raffle. And Miss Anglin, who taught the seventh grade.
And Carole Lombard in the movies. All of them.
But with Mister Singer there was a difference. The way she
felt about him came on her slowly, and she could not think
back and realize just how it happened. The other people had
been ordinary, but Mister Singer was not The first day he rang
the doorbell to ask about a room she had looked a long time
into his face. She had opened the door and read over the card
he handed her. Then she called her Mama and went back in
the kitchen to tell Portia and Bubber about him. She followed
him and her Mama up the stairs and watched him poke the
mattress on the bed and roll up the shades to see if they
worked. The day he moved she sat on the front porch banisters
and watched him get out of the ten-cent taxi with his suitcase
and his chessboard. Then later she listened to him thump
around in his room and imagined about him. The rest came in
a gradual way. So that now there was this secret feeling
between them. She talked to him more than she had ever
talked to a person before. And if he could have talked he
would have told her many things. It was like he was some kind
of a great teacher, only because he was a mute he did not
teach. In the bed at night she planned about how she was an
orphan and lived with Mister Singer—just the two of them in
a foreign house where in the winter it would snow. Maybe in a
little Switzerland town with the high glaciers and the
mountains all around. Where rocks were208
CARSON McCULLERS
on top of all the houses and the roofs were steep and pointed.
Or in France where the people carried home bread from the
store without its being wrapped. Or in the foreign country of
Norway by the gray winter ocean.
In the morning the first thing she would think of him. Along
with music. When she put on her dress she wondered where
she would see him that day. She used some of Etta's perfume
or a drop of vanilla so that if she met him in the hall she
would smell good. She went to school late so she could see
him come down the stairs on his way to work. And in the
afternoon and night she never left the house if he was there.
Each new thing she learned about him was important. He kept
his toothbrush and toothpaste in a glass on his table. So
instead of leaving her toothbrush on the bathroom shelf she
kept it in a glass, also. He didn't like cabbage. Harry, who
worked for Mister Brannon, mentioned that to her. Now she
couldn't eat cabbage either. When she learned new facts about
him, or when she said something to him and he wrote a few
words with his silver pencil, she had to be off by herself for a
long time to think it over. When she was with him the main
thought in her mind was to store up everything so that later
she could live it over and remember.
But in the inside room with music and Mister Singer was not
all. Many things happened in the outside room. She fell down
the stairs and broke off one of her front teeth. Miss Minner
gave her two bad cards in English. She lost a quarter in a
vacant lot, and although she and George hunted for three days
they never found it This happened:
One afternoon she was studying for an English test out on the
back steps. Harry began to chop wood over on his side of the
fence and she hollered to him. He came and diagrammed a
few sentences for her. His eyes were quick behind his horn
rimmed glasses. After he explained the English to her he stood
up and jerked his hands in and out the pockets of his
lumberjack. Harry was always full of energy, nervous, and he
had to be talking or doing something every minute.
'You see, there's just two things nowadays,' he said.
He liked to surprise people and sometimes she didn't know
how to answer him.
'It's the truth, there's just two things ahead nowadays.
'
.What?'
'Militant Democracy or Fascism.'
'Don't you like Republicans?'
'Shucks,' Harry said. 'That's not what I mean.'
He had explained all about the Fascists one afternoon. He told
how the Nazis made little Jew children get down on their
hands and knees and eat grass from the ground. He told about
how he planned to assassinate Hitler. He had it all worked out
thoroughly. He told about how there wasn't any justice or
freedom hi Fascism. He said the newspapers wrote deliberate
lies and people didn't know what was going on in the world.
The Nazis were terrible—everybody knew that. She plotted
with him to kill Hitler. It would be better to have four or five
people in the conspiracy so that if one missed him the others
could bump him off just the same. And even if they died they
would all be heroes. To be a hero was almost like being a
great musician.
'Either one or the other. And although I don't believe in war
I'm ready to fight for what I know is right'
'Me too,' she said. 'I'd like to fight the Fascists. I could dress
up like a boy and nobody could ever telL Cut my hair off and
all.'
It was a bright winter afternoon. The sky was blue-green and
the branches of the oak trees in the back yard were black and
bare against this color. The sun was warm. The day made her
feel full of energy. Music was hi her mind. Just to be doing
something she picked up a ten-penny nail and drove it into the
steps with a few good wallops. Their Dad heard the sound of
the hammer and came out in his bathrobe to stand around
awhile. Under the tree there were two carpenter's horses, and
little Ralph was busy putting a rock on top of one and then
carrying it over to the other one. Back and forth. He walked
with his hands out to balance himself. He was bowlegged and
his diapers dragged down to his knees. George was shooting
marbles. Because he needed a haircut his face looked thin.
Some of his permanent teeth had already come—but they
were210
small and blue like he had been eating blackberries. He
drew a line for taw and lay on his stomach to take aim for the
first hole. When their Dad went back to his watch work he
carried Ralph with him. And after a while George went off
into the alley by himself. Since he shot Baby he wouldn't
buddy with a single person.
'I got to go,' Harry said. 'I got to be at work before six.' 'You
like it at the cafe? Do you get good things to eat free?'
'Sure. And all kinds of folks come in the place. I like it better
than any job I ever had. It pays more.'
'I hate Mister Brannon,' Mick said. It was true that even
though he never said anything mean to her he always spoke in
a rough, funny way. He must have known all along about the
pack of chewing-gum she and George swiped that time. And
then why would he ask her how her business was coming
along—like he did up in Mister Singer's room? Maybe he
thought they took things regular. And they didn't. They
certainly did not. Only once a little water-color set from the
ten-cent store. And a nickel pencil-sharpener.
'I can't stand Mister Brarmon.'
'He's all right,' Harry said. 'Sometimes he seems a right queer
kind of person, but he's not crabby. When you get to know
him.'
'One thing I've thought about,' Mick said. 'A boy has a better
advantage like that than a girl. I mean a boy can usually get
some part-time job that don't take him out of school and leaves
him time for other things. But there's not jobs like that for
girls. When a girl wants a job she has to quit school and work
full time. I'd sure like to earn a couple of bucks a week like
you do, but there's just not any way.'
Harry sat on the steps and untied his shoestrings. He pulled at
them until one broke. 'A man comes to the caf6 named Mr.
Blount. Mr. Jake Blount. I like to listen to him. I learn a lot
from the things he says when he drinks beer. He's given me
some new ideas.'
'I know him good. He comes here every Sunday.'
Harry unlaced his shoe and pulled the broken string to even
lengths so he could tie it in a bow again. 'Listen'—he
rubbed his glasses on his lumberjack in a nervous way— 'You
needn't mention to him what I said. I mean I doubt if he would
remember me. He don't talk to me. He just talks to Mr. Singer.
He might think it was funny if you —you know what I mean.'
'O.K.' She read between the words that he had a crush on
Mister Blount and she knew how he felt. 'I wouldn't mention
it.'
Dark came on. The moon, white like milk, showed in the blue
sky and the air was cold. She could hear Ralph and George
and Portia in the kitchen. The fire in the stove made the
kitchen window a warm orange. There was the smell of smoke
and supper.
'You know this is something I never have told anybody,' he
said. 'I hate to realize about it myself.'
.What?'
'You remember when you first began to read the newspapers
and think about the things you read?'
'Sure.'
'I used to be a Fascist. I used to think I was. It was this way.
You know all the pictures of the people our age in Europe
marching and singing songs and keeping step together. I used
to think that was wonderful. All of them pledged to each other
and with one leader. All of them with the same ideals and
marching in step together. I didn't worry much about what was
happening to the Jewish minorities because I didn't want to
think about it. And because at the time I didn't want to think
like I was Jewish. You see, I didn't know. I just looked at the
pictures and read what it said underneath and didn't
understand. I never knew what an awful thing it was. I thought
I was a Fascist. Of course later on I found out different.'
His voice was bitter against himself and kept changing from a
man's voice to a young boy's.
'Well, you didn't realize then------' she said.
'It was a terrible transgression. A moral wrong.'
That was the way he was. Everything was either very right or
very wrong—with no middle way. It was wrong for anyone
under twenty to touch beer or wine or smoke a cigarette. It
was a terrible sin for a person to cheat on a test, but not a sin
to copy homework. It was a moral wrong212
for girls to wear lipstick or sun-backed dresses. It was a
terrible sin to buy anything with a German or Japanese label,
no matter if it cost only a nickel.
She remembered Harry back to the time when they were kids.
Once his eyes got crossed and stayed crossed for a year. He
would sit out on his front steps with his hands between his
knees and watch everything. Very quiet and cross-eyed. He
skipped two grades in grammar school and when he was
eleven he was ready for Vocational. But at Vocational when
they read about the Jew in 'Ivanhoe' the other kids would look
around at Harry and he would come home and cry. So his
mother took him out of school. He stayed out for a whole year.
He grew taller and very fat. Every time she climbed the fence
she would see him making himself something to eat in his
kitchen. They both played around on the block, and sometimes
they would wrestle. When she was a kid she liked to fight with
boys— not real fights but just in play. She used a combination
jujitsu and boxing. Sometimes he got her down and sometimes
she got him. Harry never was very rough with anybody. When
little kids ever broke any toy they would come to him and he
always took the time to fix it. He could fix anything. The
ladies on the block got him to fix their electric lights or
sewing-machines when something i went wrong. Then when
he was thirteen he started back | at Vocational and began to
study hard. He threw papers and worked on Saturdays and
read. For a long time she didn't see much of him—until after
that party she gave. He was very changed.
'Like this,' Harry said. 'It used to be I had some big . ambition
for myself all the time. A great engineer or a great doctor or
lawyer. But now I don't have it that way. . All I can think
about is what happens in the world now. i About Fascism and
the terrible things in Europe—and on f the other hand
Democracy. I mean I can't think and work on what I mean to
be in life because I think too much about this other. I dream
about killing Hitler every night And I wake up in the dark very
thirsty and scared of some-■ thing—I don't know what'
She looked at Harry's face and a deep, serious feeling made
her sad. His hair hung over his forehead. His upper lip was
thin and tight, but the lower one was thick and it
213
trembled. Harry didn't look old enough to be fifteen. With the
darkness a cold wind came. The wind sang up in the oak trees
on the block and banged the blinds against the side of the
house. Down the street Mrs. Wells was calling Sucker home.
The dark late afternoon made the sadness heavy inside her. I
want a piano—I want to take music lessons, she said to
herself. She looked at Harry and he was lacing his thin fingers
together in different shapes. There was a warm boy smell
about him.
What was it made her act like she suddenly did? Maybe it was
remembering the times when they were younger. Maybe it
was because the sadness made her feel queer. But anyway all
of a sudden she gave Harry a push that nearly knocked him off
the steps. 'S.O.B. to your Grandmother,' she hollered to him.
Then she ran. That was what kids used to say in the
neighborhood when they picked a fight Harry stood up and
looked surprised. He settled his glasses on his nose and
watched her for a second. Then he ran back to the alley.
The cold air made her strong as Samson. When she laughed
there was a short, quick echo. She butted Harry with her
shoulder and he got a holt on her. They wrestled hard and
laughed. She was the tallest but his hands were strong. He
didn't fight good enough and she got him on the ground. Then
suddenly he stopped moving and she stopped too. His
breathing was warm on her neck and he was very still. She felt
his ribs against her knees and his hard breathing as she sat on
him. They got up together. They did not laugh any more and
the alley was very quiet. As they walked across the dark back
yard for some reason she felt funny. There was nothing to feel
queer about, but suddenly it had just happened. She gave him
a little push and he pushed her back. Then she laughed again
and felt all right.
'So long,' Harry said. He was too old to climb the fence, so he
ran through the side alley to the front of his house.
'Gosh it's hot!' she said. 'I could smother in here.'
Portia was warming her supper in the stove. Ralph
banged his spoon on his high-chair tray. George's dirty
little hand pushed up his grits with a piece of bread and
his eyes were squinted in a faraway look. She helped her-214
self to white meat and gravy and grits and a few raisins and
mixed them up together on her plate. She ate three bites of
them. She ate until all the grits were gone but still she wasn't
full.
She had thought about Mister Singer all the day, and as soon
as supper was over she went upstairs. But when she reached
the third floor she saw that his door was open and his room
dark. This gave her an empty feeling.
Downstairs she couldn't sit still and study for the English test.
It was like she was so strong she couldn't sit on a chair in a
room the same as other people. It was like she could knock
down all the walls of the house and then march through the
streets big as a giant.
Finally she got out her private box from under the bed. She lay
on her stomach and looked over the notebook. There were
about twenty songs now, but she didn't feel satisfied with
them. If she could write a symphony! For a whole orchestra—
how did you write that? Sometimes several instruments played
one note, so the staff would have to be very large. She drew
five lines across a big sheet of test paper—the lines about an
inch apart. When a note was for violin or 'cello or flute she
would write the name of the instrument to show. And when
they all played the same note together she would draw a circle
around them. At the top of the page she wrote SYMPHONY in
large letters. And under that MICK KELLY. Then she couldn't go
any further.
If she could only have music lessons!
If only she could have a real piano!
A long time passed before she could get started. The tunes
were in her mind but she couldn't figure how to write them. It
looked like this was the hardest play in the world. But she
kept on figuring until Etta and Hazel came into the room and
got into bed and said she had to turn the light off because it
was eleven o'clock.
10
-T OR six weeks Portia had waited to hear from William. Every
evening she would come to the house and ask Doctor
Copeland the same question: 'You seen anybody who
215
gotten a letter from Willie yet?' And every night he was
obliged to tell her that he had heard nothing.
At last she asked the question no more. She would come into
the hall and look at him without a word. She drank. Her
blouse was often half unbuttoned and her shoestrings loose.
February came. The weather turned milder, then hot. The sun
glared down with hard brilliance. Birds sang in the bare trees
and children played out of doors barefoot and naked to the
waist. The nights were torrid as in midsummer. Then after a
few days winter was upon the town again. The mild skies
darkened. A chill rain fell and the air turned dank and bitterly
cold. In the town the Negroes suffered badly. Supplies of fuel
had been exhausted and there was a struggle everywhere for
warmth. An epidemic of pneumonia raged through the wet,
narrow streets, and for a week Doctor Copeland slept at odd
hours, fully clothed. Still no word came from William. Portia
had written four times and Doctor Copeland twice.
During most of the day and night he had no time to think. But
occasionally he found a chance to rest for a moment at home.
He would drink a pot of coffee by the kitchen stove and a deep
uneasiness would come in him. Five of his patients had died.
And one of these was Augustus Benedict Mady Lewis, the
little deaf-mute. He had been asked to speak at the burial
service, but as it was his rule not to attend funerals he was
unable to accept this invitation. The five patients had not been
lost because of any negligence on his part. The blame was in
the long years of want which lay behind. The diets of
cornbread and sowbelly and syrup, the crowding of four and
five persons to a single room. The death of poverty. He
brooded on this and drank coffee to stay awake. Often he held
his hand to his chin, for recently a slight tremor in the nerves
of his neck made his head nod unsteadily when he was tired.
Then during the fourth week of February Portia came to the
house. It was only six o'clock in the morning and he was
sitting by the fire in the kitchen, warming a pan of milk for
breakfast. She was badly intoxicated. He smelled the keen,
sweetish odor of gin and his nostrils widened with disgust. He
did not look at her but busied him-216
self with his breakfast. He crumpled some bread in a bowl and
poured over it hot milk. He prepared coffee and laid the table.
Then when he was seated before his breakfast he looked at
Portia sternly. 'Have you had your morning meal?'
'I not going to eat breakfast,' she said.
'You will need it. If you intend to get to work today;'
'I not going to work.'
A dread came in him. He did not wish to question her further.
He kept his eyes on his bowl of milk and drank from a spoon
that was unsteady in his hand. When he had finished he
looked up at the wall above her head. 'Are you tongue-tied?'
'I going to tell you. You going to hear about it. Just as soon as
I able to say it I going to tell you.'
Portia sat motionless in the chair, her eyes moving slowly
from one corner of the wall to the other. Her arms hung down
limp and her legs were twisted loosely about each other.
When he turned from her he had for a moment a perilous
sense of ease and freedom, which was more acute because he
knew that soon it was to be shattered. He mended the fire and
warmed his hands. Then he rolled a cigarette. The kitchen was
in a state of spotless order and cleanliness. The saucepans on
the wall glowed with the light of the stove and behind each
one there was a round, black shadow.
'It about Willie.'
'I know.' He rolled the cigarette gingerly between his palms.
His eyes glanced recklessly about him, greedy for the last
sweet pleasures.
'Once I mentioned to you this here Buster Johnson were at the
prison with Willie. Us knowed him before. He were sent home
yestiddy.' 'So?'
'Buster been crippled for life.'
His head quavered. He pressed his hand to his chin to steady
himself, but the obstinate trembling was difficult to control.
'Last night these here friends come round to my house and say
that Buster were home and had something to tell
me about Willie. I run all the way and this here is what he
said.'
'Yes.'
'There were three of them. Willie and Buster and this other
boy. They were friends. Then this here trouble come up.'
Portia halted. She wet her finger with her tongue and then
moistened her dry lips with her finger. 'It were something to
do with the way this here white guard picked on them all the
time. They were out on roadwork one day and Buster he
sassed back and then the other boy he try to run off in the
woods. They taken all three of them. They taken all three of
them to the camp and put them in this here ice-cold room.'
He said yes again. But his head quavered and the word
sounded like a rattle in his throat.
'It were about six weeks ago,' Portia said. 'You remember that
cold spell then. They put Willie and them boys in this room
like ice.'
Portia spoke in a low voice, and she neither paused between
words nor did the grief in her face soften. It was like a low
song. She spoke and he could not understand. The sounds
were distinct in his ear but they had no shape or meaning. It
was as though his head were the prow of a boat and the
sounds were water that broke on him and then flowed past. He
felt he had to look behind to find the words already said.
'. . . and their feets swolled up and they lay there and struggle
on the floor and holler out. And nobody come. They hollered
there for three days and three nights and nobody come.'
'I am deaf,' said Doctor Copeland. 'I cannot understand.'
'They put our Willie and them boys in this here ice-cold room.
There were a rope hanging down from the ceiling. They taken
their shoes off and tied their bare feets to this rope. Willie and
them boys lay there with their backs on the floor and their
feets in the air. And their, feets swolled up and they struggle
on the floor and holler out. It were ice-cold in the room and
their feets froze. Their feets swolled up and they hollered for
three nights and three days. And nobody come.'218
Doctor Copeland pressed his head with his hands, but still the
steady trembling would not stop. 'I cannot hear what you say.'
'Then at last they come to get them. They quickly taken Willie
and them boys to the sick ward and their legs were all swolled
and froze. Gangrene. They sawed off both our Willie's feet.
Buster Johnson lost one foot and the other boy got well. But
our Willie—he crippled for life now. Both his feet sawed off.'
The words were finished and Portia leaned over and struck her
head upon the table. She did not cry or moan, but she struck
her head again and again on the hard-scrubbed top of the
table. The bowl and spoon rattled and he removed them to the
sink. The words were scattered in his mind, but he did not try
to assemble them. He scalded the bowl and spoon and washed
out the dish-towel. He picked up something from the floor and
put it somewhere.
'Crippled?' he asked. 'William?'
Portia knocked her head on the table and the blows had a
rhythm like the slow beat of a drum and his heart took up this
rhythm also. Quietly the words came alive and fitted to the
meaning and he understood.
'When will they send him home?'
Portia leaned her drooping head on her arm. 'Buster don't
know that. Soon afterward they separate all three of them in
different places. They sent Buster to another camp. Since
Willie only haves a few more months he think he liable to be
home soon now.'
They drank coffee and sat for a long time, looking into each
other's eyes. His cup rattled against his teeth. She poured her
coffee into a saucer and some of it dripped down on her lap.
'William------' Doctor Copeland said. As he pronounced
the name his teeth bit deeply into his tongue and he moved his
jaw with pain. They sat for a long while. Portia held his hand.
The bleak morning light made the windows gray. Outside it
was still raining.
'If I means to get to work I better go on now,' Portia said.
He followed her through the hall and stopped at the hat-rack
to put on his coat and shawl. The open door let in a
219
gust of wet, cold air. Highboy sat out on the street curb with a
wet newspaper over his head for protection. Along the
sidewalk there was a fence. Portia leaned against this as she
walked. Doctor Copeland followed a few paces after her and
his hands, also, touched the boards of the fence to steady
himself. Highboy trailed behind them.
He waited for the black, terrible anger as though for some
beast out of the night. But it did not come to him. His bowels
seemed weighted with lead, and he walked slowly and
lingered against fences and the cold, wet walls of buildings by
the way. Descent into the depths until at last there was no
further chasm below. He touched the solid bottom of despair
and there took ease.
In this he knew a certain strong and holy gladness. The
persecuted laugh, and the black slave sings to his outraged
soul beneath the whip. A song was in him now—although it
was not music but only the feeling of a song. And the sodden
heaviness of peace weighted down his limbs so that it was
only with the strong, true purpose that he moved. Why did he
go onward? Why did he not rest here upon the bottom of
utmost humiliation and for a while take his content?
But he went onward.
.Uncle,' said Mick. 'You think some hot coffee would make
you feel better?'
Doctor Copeland looked into her face but gave no sign that he
heard. They had crossed the town and come at last to the alley
behind the Kellys' house. Portia had entered first and then he
followed. Highboy remained on the steps outside. Mick and
her two little brothers were already in the kitchen. Portia told
of William. Doctor Copeland did not listen to the words but
her voice had a rhythm—a start, a middle, and an end. Then
when she was finished she began all over. Others came into
the room to hear.
Doctor Copeland sat on a stool in the corner. His coat and
shawl steamed over the back of a chair by the stove. He held
his hat on his knees and his long, dark hands moved nervously
around the worn brim. The yellow insides of his hands were
so moist that occesionally he wiped them with a handkerchief.
His head trembled, and all of his muscles were stiff with the
effort to make it be still.220
Mr. Singer came into the room. Doctor Copeland raised up his
face to him. 'Have you heard of this?' he asked. Mr. Singer
nodded. In his eyes there was no horror or pity or hate. Of all
those who knew, his eyes alone did not express these
reactions. For he alone understood this thing.
Mick whispered to Portia, "What's your father's name?
'
'He named Benedict Mady Copeland.
'
Mick leaned over close to Doctor Copeland and shouted in his
face as though he were deaf. 'Benedict, don't you think some
hot coffee would make you feel a little better?
'
Doctor Copeland started.
'Quit that hollering,' Portia said. 'He can hear well as you can.
'
'Oh,' said Mick. She emptied the grounds from the pot and put
the coffee on the stove to boil again.
The mute still lingered in the doorway. Doctor Copeland still
looked into his face. 'You heard?
'
'What'll they do to those prison guards?' Mick asked.
'Honey, I just don't know,' Portia said. 'I just don't know.
'
'I'd do something. Fd sure do something about it.
'
'Nothing us could do would make no difference. Best thing us
can do is keep our mouth shut'
"They ought to be treated just like they did Willie and them.
Worse. I wish I could round up some people and kill those
men myself.
'
"That ain't no Christian way to talk,' Portia said. 1Js can just
rest back and know they going to be chopped up with
pitchforks and fried everlasting by Satan.
'
'Anyway Willie can still play his harp.
'
'With both feets sawed off that about all he can do.
'
The house was full of noise and unrest. In the room above the
kitchen someone was moving furniture about. The dining-
room was crowded with boarders. Mrs. Kelly hurried back and
forth from the breakfast table to the kitchen. Mr. Kelly
wandered about in a baggy pair of trousers and a bathrobe.
The young Kelly children ate greedily in the kitchen. Doors
banged and voices could be heard in all parts of the house.
Mick handed Doctor Copeland a cup of coffee mixed with
watery milk. The milk gave the drink a gray-blue sheen. Some
of the coffee had sloshed over into the saucer,
so first he dried the saucer and the rim of the cup with his
handkerchief. He had not wanted coffee at all.
'I wish I could kill them,' Mick said.
The house quieted. The people in the dining-room went out to
work. Mick and George left for school and the baby was shut
into one of the front rooms. Mrs. Kelly wrapped a towel
around her head and took a broom with her upstairs.
The mute still stood in the doorway. Doctor Copeland gazed
up into his face. 'You know of this?' he asked again. The
words did not sound—they choked in his throat—but his eyes
asked the question all the same. Then the mute was gone.
Doctor Copeland and Portia were alone. He sat for some time
on the stool in the corner. At last he rose to go.
*You sit back down, Father. Us going to stay together this
morning. I going to fry some fish and have egg-bread and
potatoes for the dinner. You stay on here, and then I means to
serve you a good hot meal.'
'You know I have calls.'
'Less us just this one day. Please, Father. I feels like I going to
really bust loose. Besides, I don't want you messing around in
the streets by yourself.'
He hesitated and felt the collar of his overcoat. It was very
damp. 'Daughter, I am sorry. You know I have visits.'
Portia held his shawl over the stove until the wool was hot.
She buttoned his coat and turned up the collar about his neck.
He cleared his throat and spat into one of the squares of paper
that he carried with him in his pocket Then he burned the
paper in the stove. On the way out he stopped and spoke to
Highboy on the steps. He suggested that Highboy stay with
Portia if he could arrange to get leave from work.
The air was piercing and cold. From the low, dark skies the
drizzling rain fell steadily. The rain had seeped into the
garbage cans and in the alley there was the rank odor of wet
refuse. As he walked he balanced himself with the help of a
fence and kept his dark eyes on the ground.
He made all the strictly necessary visits. Then he attended to
office patients from noon until two o'clock. Afterward he sat
at his desk with his fists clenched tight. But it was useless to
try to cogitate on this thing.222
He wished never again to see a human face. Yet at the same
time he could not sit alone in the empty room. He put on his
overcoat and went out again into the wet, cold street. In his
pocket were several prescriptions to be left at the pharmacy.
But he did not wish to speak with Marshall Nicolls. He went
into the store and laid the prescriptions upon the counter. The
pharmacist turned from the powders he was measuring and
held out both his hands. His thick lips worked soundlessly for
a moment before he gained his poise.
'Doctor,' he said formally. "You must be aware that I and all
our colleagues and the members of my lodge and church—we
have your sorrow uppermost in our minds and wish to extend
to you our deepest sympathy.'
Doctor Copeland turned shortly and left without a word. That
was too little. Something more was needed. The strong, true
purpose, the will to justice. He walked stiffly, his arms held
close to his sides, toward the main street. He cogitated without
success. He could think of no white person of power in all the
town who was both brave and just. He thought of every
lawyer, every judge, every public official with whose name he
was familiar—but the thought of each one of these white men
was bitter in his heart. At last he decided on the judge of the
Superior Court. When he reached the courthouse he did not
hesitate but entered quickly, determined to see the judge that
afternoon.
The wide front hall was empty except for a few idlers who
lounged in the doorways leading to the offices on either side.
He did not know where he could find the judge's office, so he
wandered uncertainly through the building, looking at the
placards on the doors. At last he came to a narrow passage.
Halfway through this corridor three white men stood talking
together and blocked the way. He drew close to the wall to
pass, but one of them turned to stop him.
What you want?'
"Will you please tell me where the judge's office is located?'
The white man jerked his thumb toward the end of the
passage. Doctor Copeland recognized him as a deputy sheriff.
They had seen each other dozens of times but the deputy did
not remember him. All white people looked
similar to Negroes but Negroes took care to differentiate
between them. On the other hand, all Negroes looked similar
to white men but white men did not usually bother to fix the
face of a Negro in their minds. So the white man said, What
you want, Reverend?'
The familiar joking title nettled him. 1 am not a minister,' he
said, 'I am a physician, a medical doctor. My name is Benedict
Mady Copeland and I wish to see the judge immediately on
urgent business.'
The deputy was like other white men in that a clearly
enunciated speech maddened him. 'Is that so?' he mocked. He
winked at his friends. Then I am the deputy sheriff and my
name is Mister Wilson and I tell you the judge is busy. Come
back some other day.'
'It is imperative that I see the judge,' Doctor Copeland said. 'I
will wait.'
There was a bench at the entrance of the passage and he sat
down. The three white men continued to talk, but he knew that
the sheriff watched him. He was determined not to leave.
More than half an hour passed. Several white men went freely
back and forth through the corridor. He knew that the deputy
was watching him and he sat rigid, his hands pressed between
his knees. His sense of prudence told him to go away and
return later in the afternoon when the sheriff was not there.
All of his life he had been circumspect in his dealings with
such people. But now something in him would not let him
withdraw.
'Come here, you!' the deputy said finally.
His head trembled, and when he arose he was not steady on
his feet. 'Yes?'
What you say you wanted to see the judge about?'
'I did not say,' said Doctor Copeland. 'I merely said that my
business with him was urgent.'
.You can't stand up straight. You been drinking liquor, haven't
you? I smell it on your breath.
'
"That is a lie,' said Doctor Copeland slowly. 1 have not——
'
The sheriff struck him on the face. He fell against the wall.
Two white men grasped him by the arm and dragged him
down the steps to the main floor. He did not resist.
'That's the trouble with this country,' the sheriff said. These
damn biggity niggers like him.'224
He spoke no word and let them do with him as they would. He
waited for the terrible anger and felt it arise in him. Rage
made him weak, so that he stumbled. They put him into the
wagon with two men as guards. They took him to the station
and then to the jail. It was only when they entered the jail that
the strength of his rage came to him. He broke loose suddenly
from their grasp. In a corner he was surrounded. They struck
him on the head and shoulders with their clubs. A glorious
strength was in him and he heard himself laughing aloud as he
fought He sobbed and laughed at the same time. He kicked
wildly with his feet. He fought with his fists and even struck
at them with his head. Then he was clutched fast so that he
could not move. They dragged him foot by foot through the
hall of the jail. The door to a cell was opened. Someone
behind kicked him in the groin and he fell to his knees on the
floor.
In the cramped cubicle there were five other prisoners— three
Negroes and two white men. One of the white men was very
old and drunk. He sat on the floor and scratched himself. The
other white prisoner was a boy not more than fifteen years of
age. The three Negroes were young. As Doctor Copeland lay
on the bunk looking up into their faces he recognized one of
them.
'How come you here?' the young man asked. 'Ain't you Doctor
Copeland?'
He said yes.
*My name Dary White. You taken out my sister's tonsils last
year.'
The icy cell was permeated with a rotten odor. A pail
brimming with urine was in a corner. Cockroaches crawled
upon the walls. He closed his eyes and immediately he must
have slept, for when he looked up again the small barred
window was black and a bright light burned in the hall. Four
empty tin plates were on the floor. His dinner of cabbage and
cornbread was beside him.
He sat on the bunk and sneezed violently several times. When
he breathed the phlegm rattled in his chest. After a while the
young white boy began to sneeze also. Doctor Copeland ran
out of squares of paper and had to use sheets from a notebook
in his pocket. The white boy
leaned over the pail in the corner or simply let the water run
from his nose onto the front of his shirt. His eyes were dilated,
his clear cheeks flushed. He huddled on the edge of a bunk
and groaned.
Soon they were led out to the lavatory, and on their return
they prepared for sleep. There were six men to occupy four
bunks. The old man lay snoring on the floor. Dary and another
boy squeezed into a bunk together.
The hours were long. The light in the hall burned his eyes and
the odor in the cell made every breath a discomfort. He could
not keep warm. His teeth chattered and he shook with a hard
chill. He sat up with the dirty blanket wrapped around him and
swayed to and fro. Twice he reached over to cover the white
boy, who muttered and threw out his arms in sleep. He
swayed, his head in his hands, and from his throat there came
a singing moan. He could not think of William. Nor could he
even cogitate upon the strong, true purpose and draw strength
from that. He could only feel the misery in him.
Then the tide of his fever turned. A warmth spread through
him. He lay back, and it seemed he sank down into a place
warm and red and full of comfort.
The next morning the sun came out. The strange Southern
winter was at its end. Doctor Copeland was released. A little
group waited outside the jail for him. Mr. Singer was there.
Portia and Highboy and Marshall Nicolls were present also.
Their faces were confused and he could not see them clearly.
The sun was very bright.
'Father, don't you know that ain't no way to help our Willie?
Messing around at a white folks' courthouse? Best thing us
can do is keep our mouth shut and wait.'
Her loud voice echoed wearily in his ears. Thev climbed into a
ten-cent taxicab, and then he was home and his face pressed
into the fresh white pillow.
M
ICK could not sleep all night. Etta was sick, so she had to sleep
in the living-room. The sofa was too narrow and short. She
had nightmares about Willie. Nearly a month had gone by
since Portia had told about what they226
had done to him—but still she couldn't forget it. Twice in the
night she had these bad dreams and woke up on the floor. A
bump came out on her forehead. Then at six o'clock she heard
Bill go to the kitchen and fix his breakfast. It was daylight, but
the shades were down so that the room was half-dark. She felt
queer waking up in the living-room. She didn't like it. The
sheet was twisted around her, half on the sofa and hah* on the
floor. The pillow was in the middle of the room. She got up
and opened the door to the hall. Nobody was on the stairs. She
ran in her nightgown to the back room.
'Move over, George.' K
The kid lay in the very center of the bed. The night had been
warm and he was naked as a jay bird. His fists were shut tight,
and even in sleep his eyes were squinted like he was thinking
about something very hard to figure out. His mouth was open
and there was a little wet spot on the pillow. She pushed him.
'Wait------' he said in his sleep.
'Move over on your side.' .Wait------Lemme just finish
this here dream—this
here------'
She hauled him over where he belonged and lay down close to
him. When she opened her eyes again it was late, because the
sun shone in through the back window. George was gone.
From the yard she heard kids' voices and the sound of water
running. Etta and Hazel were talking in the middle room. As
she dressed a sudden notion came to her. She listened at the
door but it was hard to hear what they said. She jerked the
door open quick to surprise them.
They were reading a movie magazine. Etta was still in bed.
She had her hand halfway over the picture of an actor. 'From
here up don't you think he favors that boy who used to date
with------'
'How you feel this morning, Etta?' Mick asked. She looked
down under the bed and her private box was still in the exact
place where she had left it
'A lot you care,' Etta said.
'You needn't try to pick a fight'
Etta's face was peaked. There was a terrible pain in her
stomach and her ovary was diseased. It had something
227
to do with being unwell. The doctor said they would have to
cut out her ovary right away. But their Dad said they would
have to wait. There wasn't any money.
.How do you expect me to act, anyway?' Mick said. *I ask you
a polite question and then you start to nag at me. I feel like I
ought to be sorry for you because you're sick, but you won't let
me be decent. Therefore I naturally get mad.' She pushed back
the bangs of her hair and looked close into the mirror. 'Boy!
See this bump I got! I bet my head's broke. Twice I fell out
last night and it seemed to me like I hit that table by the sofa. I
can't sleep in the living-room. That sofa cramps me so much I
can't stay in it'
'Hush that talking so loud,'Hazel said.
Mick knelt down on the floor and pulled out the big box. She
looked carefully at the string that was tied around it. 'Say,
have either of you fooled with this?'
'Shoot!' Etta said. 'What would we want to mess with your
junk for?'
'You just better not. I'd kill anybody that tried to mess with my
private things.'
'Listen to that,' Hazel said. "Mick Kelly, I think you're the
most selfish person I've ever known. You don't care a thing in
the world about anybody but------'
'Aw, poot!' She slammed the door. She hated both of them.
That was a terrible thing to think, but it was true.
Her Dad was in the kitchen with Portia. He had on bis
bathrobe and was drinking a cup of coffee. The whites of his
eyes were red and his cup rattled against his saucer. He
walked round and round the kitchen table.
'What time is it? Has Mister Singer gone yet?'
.He been gone, Hon,' Portia said. 'It near about ten o'clock.'
Ten o'clock! Golly! I never have slept that late before.*
*What you keep in that big hatbox you tote around with you?'
Mick reached into the stove and brought out half a dozen
biscuits. 'Ask me no questions and Til tell you no lies. A bad
end comes to a person who pries.*
If there's a little extra milk I think Til just have it poured over
some crumbled bread,' her Dad said. 'Grave yard soup. Maybe
that will help settle my stomach.'228
Mick split open the biscuits and put slices of fried white meat
inside them. She sat down on the back steps to eat her
breakfast. The morning was warm and bright. Spare-ribs and
Sucker were playing with George in the back yard. Sucker
wore his sun suit and the other two kids had taken off all their
clothes except their shorts. They were scooting each other
with the hose. The stream of water sparkled bright in the sun.
The wind blew out sprays of it like mist and in this mist there
were the colors of the rainbow. A line of clothes flapped in the
wind—white sheets, Ralph's blue dress, a red blouse and
nightgowns—wet and fresh and blowing out in different
shapes. The day was almost like summer-time. Fuz2y little
yellowjackets buzzed around the honeysuckle on the alley
fence.
"Watch me hold it up over my head!' George hollered. 'Watch
how the water runs down.'
She was too full of energy to sit still. George had filled a meal
sack with dirt and hung it to a limb of the tree for a punching
bag. She began to hit this. Puck! Pock! She hit it in time to the
song that had been in her mind when she woke up. George had
mixed a sharp rock in the dirt and it bruised her knuckles.
'Aoow! You skeeted the water right in my ear. It's busted my
eardrum. I can't even hear.' 'Gimme here. Let me skeet some.'
Sprays of the water blew into her face, and once the kids
turned the hose on her legs. She was afraid her box would get
wet, so she carried it with her through the alley to the front
porch. Harry was sitting on his steps reading the newspaper.
She opened her box and got out the notebook. But it was hard
to settle her mind on the song she wanted to write down.
Harry was looking over in her direction and she could not
think.
She and Harry had talked about so many things lately. Nearly
every day they walked home from school together. They
talked about God. Sometimes she would wake up in the night
and shiver over what they had said. Harry was a Pantheist.
That was a religion, the same as Baptist or Catholic or Jew.
Harry believed that after you were dead and buried you
changed to plants and fire and dirt and clouds and water. It
took thousands of years and then finally you were a part of all
the world. He said he thought
229
that was better than being one single angel. Anyhow it was
better than nothing.
Harry threw the newspaper into his hall and then came over.
'It's hot like summer,' he said. 'And only March.'
'Yeah. I wish we could go swimming.'
'We would if there was any place.'
There's not any place. Except that country club pool.'
'I sure would like to do something—to get out and go
somewhere.'
"Me too,' she said, 'Wait! I know one place. It's out in the
country about fifteen miles. It's a deep, wide creek in the
woods. The Girl Scouts have a camp there in the summertime. Mrs. Wells took me and George and Pete and Sucker
swimming there one time last year.'
If you want to I can get bicycles and we can go tomorrow. I
have a holiday one Sunday a month.'
'Well ride out and take a picnic dinner,' Mick said.
'O.K. ITl borrow the bikes.'
It was time for him to go to work. She watched him walk
down the street. He swung his arms. Halfway down the block
there was a bay tree with low branches. Harry took a running
jump, caught a limb, and chinned himself. A happy feeling
came in her because it was true they were real good friends.
Also he was handsome. Tomorrow she would borrow Hazel's
blue necklace and wear the sfflc dress. And for dinner they
would take jelly sandwiches and Nehi. Maybe Harry would
bring something queer, because they ate orthodox Jew. She
watched him until he turned the corner. It was true that he had
grown to be a very good-looking fellow.
Harry in the country was different from Harry sitting on the
back steps reading the newspapers and thinking about Hitler.
They left early in the morning. The wheels he borrowed were
the kind for boys—with a bar between the legs. They strapped
the lunches and bathing-suits to the fenders and were gone
before nine o'clock. The morning was hot and sunny. Within
an hour they were far out of town on a red clay road. The
fields were bright and ereen and the sharp smell of pine trees
was in the air. Harry talked in a very excited way. The warm
wind blew into their faces. Her mouth was very dry and she
was hungry.230
'See that house up on the hill there? Less us stop and get some
water.'
'No, we better wait. Well water gives you typhoid.'
'I already had typhoid. I had pneumonia and a broken leg and a
infected foot.'
'I remember.'
'Yeah,' Mick said. 'Me and Bill stayed in the front room when
we had typhoid fever and Pete Wells would run past on the
sidewalk holding his nose and looking up at the window. Bill
was very embarrassed. All my hair came out so I was bald-
headed.'
'I bet we're at least ten miles from town. We've been riding an
hour and a half—fast riding, too.'
'I sure am thirsty,' Mick said. 'And hungry. What you got in
that sack for lunch?'
'Cold liver pudding and chicken salad sandwiches and pie.'
That's a good picnic dinner.' She was ashamed of what she had
brought. 'I got two hard-boiled eggs—already stuffed—with
separate little packages of salt and pepper. And sandwiches—
blackberry jelly with butter. Everything wrapped in oil paper.
And paper napkins.'
'I didn't intend for you to bring anything,' Harry said. *My
Mother fixed lunch for both of us. I asked you out here and
all. We'll come to a store soon and get cold drinks.'
They rode half an hour longer before they finally came to the
filling-station store. Harry propped up the bicycles and she
went in ahead of him. After the bright glare the store seemed
dark. The shelves were stacked with slabs of white meat, cans
of oil, and sacks of meal. Flies buzzed over a big, sticky jar of
loose candy on the counter.
.What kind of drinks you got?' Harry asked.
The storeman started to name them over. Mick opened the ice
box and looked inside. Her hands felt good in the cold water.
'I want a chocolate Nehi. You got any of them?
'
'Ditto,' Harry said. 'Make it two.
'
'No, wait a minute. Here's some ice-cold beer. I want a bottle
of beer if you can treat as high as that' Harry ordered one for
himself, also. He thought it was
231
a sin for anybody under twenty to drink beer—but maybe he
just suddenly wanted to be a sport. After the first swallow he
made a bitter face. They sat on the steps in front of the store.
Mick's legs were so tired that the muscles in them jumped.
She wiped the neck of the bottle with her hand and took a
long, cold pull. Across the road there was a big empty field of
grass, and beyond that a fringe of pine woods. The trees were
every color of green—from a bright yellow-green to a dark
color that was almost black. The sky was hot blue.
'I like beer,' she said. 'I used to sop bread down in the drops
our Dad left. I like to lick salt out my hand while I drink. This
is the second bottle to myself I've ever had.'
The first swallow was sour. But the rest tastes good.'
The storeman said it was twelve miles from town. They had
four more miles to go. Harry paid him and they were out in the
hot sun again. Harry was talking loud and he kept laughing
without any reason.
'Gosh, the beer along with this hot sun makes me dizzy. But I
sure do feel good,' he said.
'I can't wait to get in swimming.'
There was sand in the road and they had to throw all their
weight on the pedals to keep from bogging. Harry's shirt was
stuck to his back with sweat. He still kept talking. The road
changed to red clay and the sand was behind them. There was
a slow colored song in her mind—one Portia's brother used to
play on his harp. She pedaled in time to it.
Then finally they reached the place she had been looking for.
"This is it! See that sign that says PRIVATE? We got to climb
the bob-wire fence and then take that path there—see!'
The woods were very quiet. Slick pine needles covered the
ground. Within a few minutes they had reached the creek. The
water was brown and swift. Cool. There was no sound except
from the water and a breeze singing high up in the pine trees.
It was like the deep, quiet woods made them timid, and they
walked softly along the bank beside the creek.
'Don't it look pretty.'
Harry laughed. 'What makes you whisper? Listen here!'232
He clapped his hand over his mouth and gave a long Indian
whoop that echoed back at them. 'Come on. Let's jump in the
water and cool off.'
'Aren't you hungry?'
'O.K. Then we'll eat first. We'll eat half the lunch now and half
later on when we come out'
She unwrapped the jelly sandwiches. When they were finished
Harry balled the papers neatly and stuffed them into a hollow
tree stump. Then he took his shorts and went down the path.
She shucked off her clothes behind a bush and struggled into
Hazel's bathing-suit The suit was too small and cut her
between the legs.
"You ready?' Harry hollered.
She heard a splash in the water and when she reached the bank
Harry was already swimming. 'Don't dive yet until I find out if
there are any stumps or shallow places,' he said. She just
looked at his head bobbing in the water. She had never
intended to dive, anyway. She couldn't even swim. She had
been in swimming only a few times in her life—and then she
always wore water-wings or stayed out of parts that were over
her head. But it would be sissy to tell Harry. She was
embarrassed. All of a sudden she told a tale:
'I don't dive any more. I used to dive, high dive, all the time.
But once I busted my head open, so I can't dive any more.' She
thought for a minute. 'It was a double jack-knife dive I was
doing. And when I came up there was blood all in the water.
But I didn't think anything about it and just began to do
swimming tricks. These people were hollering at me. Then I
found out where all this blood in the water was coming from.
And I never have swam good since.'
Harry scrambled up the bank. 'Gosh! I never heard about that.'
She meant to add on to the tale to make it sound more
reasonable, but instead she just looked at Harry. His skin was
light brown and the water made it shining. There were hairs
on his chest and legs. In the tight trunks he seemed very
naked. Without his glasses his face was wider and more
handsome. His eyes were wet and blue. He was looking at her
and it was like suddenly they got embarrassed.
233
The water's about ten feet deep except over on the other bank,
and there it's shallow.',
'Less us get going. I bet that cold water feels good.'
She wasn't scared. She felt the same as if she had got caught at
the top of a very high tree and there was nothing to do but just
climb down the best way she could—a dead-calm feeling. She
edged off the bank and was in ice-cold water. She held to a
root until it broke in her hands and then she began to swim.
Once she choked and went under, but she kept going and
didn't lose any face. She swam and reached the other side of
the bank where she could touch bottom. Then she felt good.
She smacked the water with her fists and called out crazy
words to make echoes.
Watch here!'
Harry shimmied up a tall, thin little tree. The trunk was limber
and when he reached the top it swayed down with him. He
dropped into the water.
'Me too! Watch me do it!'
"That's a sapling.'
She was as good a climber as anybody on the block. She
copied exactly what he had done and hit the water with a hard
smack. She could swim, too. Now she could swim O.K.
They played follow the leader and ran up and down the bank
and jumped in the cold brown water. They hollered and
jumped and climbed. They played around for maybe two
hours. Then they were standing on the bank and they both
looked at each other and there didn't seem to be anything new
to do. Suddenly she said:
'Have you ever swam naked?'
The woods was very quiet and for a minute he did not answer.
He was cold. His titties had turned hard and purple. His lips
were purple and his teeth chattered. 'I—I don't think so.'
This excitement was in her, and she said something she didn't
mean to say. 'I would if you would. I dare you to.'
Harry slicked back the dark, wet bangs of his hair. 'O.K.'
They both took off their bathing-suits. Harry had his back to
her. He stumbled and his ears were red. Then they turned
toward each other. Maybe it was half an hour they stood there
—maybe not more man a minute.234
Harry pulled a leaf from a tree and tore it to pieces. 'We better
get dressed.'
All through the picnic dinner neither of them spoke. They
spread the dinner on the ground. Harry divided everything in
half. There was the hot, sleepy feeling of a summer afternoon.
In the deep woods they could hear no sound except the slow
flowing of the water and the songbirds. Harry held his stuffed
egg and mashed the yellow with his thumb. What did that
make her remember? She heard herself breathe.
Then he looked up over her shoulder. "Listen here. I think
you're so pretty, Mick. I never did think so before. I don't
mean I thought you were very ugly—I just mean that------'
She threw a pine cone in the water. 'Maybe we better start
back if we want to be home before dark.'
'No,' he said. 'Let's lie down. Just for a minute.'
He brought handfuls of pine needles and leaves and gray
moss. She sucked her knee and watched him. Her fists were
tight and it was like she was tense all over.
'Now we can sleep and be fresh for the trip home.'
They lay on the soft bed and looked up at the dark-green pine
clumps against the sky. A bird sang a sad, clear song she had
never heard before. One high note like an oboe —and then it
sank down five tones and called again. The song was sad as a
question without words.
'I love that bird,' Harry said. 'I think it's a vireo.'
'I wish we was at the ocean. On the beach and watching the
ships far out on the water. You went to the beach one summer
—exactly what is it like?'
His voice was rough and low. Well—there are the waves.
Sometimes blue and sometimes green, and in the bright sun
they look glassy. And on the sand you can pick up these little
shells. Like the kind we brought back in a cigar box. And over
the water are these white gulls. We were at the Gulf of
Mexico—these cool bay breezes blew all the time and there
it's never baking hot like it is here. Always------'
'Snow,' Mick said. 'That's what I want to see. Cold, white
drifts of snow like in pictures. Blizzards. White, cold snow
that keeps falling soft and falls on and on and on through all
the winter. Snow like in Alaska.'
235
They both turned at the same time. They were close against
each other. She felt him trembling and her fists were tight
enough to crack. 'Oh, God,' he kept saying over and over. It
was like her head was broke off from her body and thrown
away. And her eyes looked up straight into the blinding sun
while she counted something in her mind. And then this was
the way.
This was how it was.
They pushed the wheels slowly along the road. Harry's head
hung down and his shoulders were bent. Their shadows were
long and black on the dusty road, for it was late afternoon.
'Listen here,' he said.
'Yeah.
'
"We got to understand this. We got to. Do you—any?
'
'I don't know. I reckon ndt.
'
'Listen here. We got to do something. Let's sit down.
'
They dropped the bicycles and sat by a ditch beside the road.
They sat far apart from each other. The late sun burned down
on their heads and there were brown, crumbly ant beds all
around them.
'We got to understand this,' Harry said.
He cried. He sat very still and the tears rolled down Ms white
face. She could not think about the thing that made him cry.
An ant stung her on the ankle and she picked it up in her
fingers and looked at it very close.
'It's this way,' he said. 1 never had even kissed a girl before.
'
'Me neither. I never kissed any boy. Out of the family.
*
'That's all I used to think about—was to kiss this certain girl.
I
used to plan about it during school and dream about it at night.
And then once she gave me a date. And I could tell she meant
for me to kiss her. And I just looked at her in the dark and
I
couldn't That was all I had thought about—to kiss her—and
when the time came I couldn't.'
She dug a hole in the ground with her finger and buried the
dead ant.
It was all my fault. Adultery is a terrible sin any way you look
at it. And you were two years younger than me and just a
kid.'236
237
"No, I wasn't. I wasn't any kid. But now I wish I was, though.'
'listen here. If you think we ought to we can get married—
secretly or any other way.'
Mick shook her head. 'I didn't like that. I never will marry with
any boy.'
'I never will marry either. I know that And I'm not just saying
so—it's true.'
His face scared her. His nose quivered and his bottom lip was
mottled and bloody where he had bitten it. His eyes were
bright and wet and scowling. His face was whiter than any
face she could remember. She turned her head from him.
Things would be better if only he would just quit talking. Her
eyes looked slowly around her—at the streaked red-and-white
clay of the ditch, at a broken whiskey bottle, at a pine tree
across from them with a sign advertising for a man for county
sheriff. She wanted to sit quiet for a long time and not think
and not say a word.
'I'm leaving town. I'm a good mechanic and I can get a job
some other place. If I stayed home Mother could read this in
my eyes.'
Tell me. Can you look at me and see the difference?'
Harry watched her face a long time and nodded that he could.
Then he said:
There's just one more thing. In a month or two IT1 send you
my address and you write and tell me for sure whether you're
all right.'
.How you mean?' she asked slowly.
He explained to her. 'All you need to write is "O.K." and then
TO know.'
They were walking home again, pushing the wheels. Their
shadows stretched out giant-sized on the road. Harry was bent
over like an old beggar and kept wiping his nose on his sleeve.
For a minute there was a bright, golden glow over everything
before the sun sank down behind the trees and their shadows
were gone on the road before them. She felt very old, and it
was like something was heavy inside her. She was a grown
person now, whether she wanted to be or not.
They had walked the sixteen miles and were in the dark alley
at home. She could see the yellow light from their kitchen.
Harry's house was dark—his mother had not
come home. She worked for a tailor in a shop on a side street.
Sometimes even on Sunday. When you looked through the
window you could see her bending over the machine in the
back or pushing a long needle through the heavy pieces of
goods. She never looked up while you watched her. And at
night she cooked these orthodox dishes for Harry and her.
'Listen here------' he said.
She waited in the dark, but he did not finish. They shook
hands with each other and Harry walked up the dark alley
between the houses. When he reached the sidewalk he turned
and looked back over his shoulder. A light shone on his face
and it was white and hard. Then he was gone.
'This here is a riddle,' George said.
'I listening.'
Two Indians was walking on a trail. The one in front was the
son of the one behind but the one behind was not his father.
What kin was they?'
'Less see. His stepfather.'
George grinned at Portia with his little square, blue teeth.
'His uncle, then.'
'You can't guess. It was his mother. The trick is that you don't
think about a Indian being a lady.'
She stood outside the room and watched them. The doorway
framed the kitchen like a picture. Inside it was homey and
clean. Only the light by the sink was turned on and there were
shadows in the room. Bill and Hazel played black-jack at the
table with matches for money. Hazel felt the braids of her hair
with her plump, pink fingers while Bill sucked in his cheeks
and dealt the cards in a very serious way. At the sink Portia
was drying the dishes with a clean checked towel. She looked
thin and her skin was golden yellow, her greased black hair
slicked neat. Ralph sat quietly on the floor and George.was
trying a little harness on him made out of old Christmas tinsel.
This here is another riddle, Portia. If the hand of a clock
points to half-past two------'
She went into the room. It was like she had expected them to
move back when they saw her and stand around238
239
in a circle and look. But they just glanced at her. She sat down
at the table and waited.
'Here you come traipsing in after everbody done finished
supper. Seem to me like I never will get off from work.'
Nobody noticed her. She ate a big plateful of cabbage and
salmon and finished off with junket. It was her Mama she was
thinking about. The door opened and her Mama came in and
told Portia that Miss Brown had said she found a bedbug in
her room. To get out the gasoline.
'Quit frowning like that, Mick. You're coming to the age
where you ought to fix up and try to look the best you can.
And hold on—don't barge out like that when I speak with you
—I mean you to give Ralph a good sponge bath before he goes
to bed. Clean his nose and ears good.'
Ralph's soft hair was sticky with oatmeal. She wiped it with a
dishrag and rinched his face and hands at the sink. Bill and
Hazel finished their game. Bill's long fingernails scraped on
the table as he took up the matches. George carried Ralph off
to bed. She and Portia were alone in the kitchen.
'Listen! Look at me. Do you notice anything different?' 'Sure I
notice, Hon.'
Portia put on her red hat and changed her shoes. Well—?'
'Just you take a little grease and rub it on your face. Your nose
already done peeled very bad. They say grease is the best
thing for bad sunburn.'
She stood by herself in the dark back yard, breaking off pieces
of bark from the oak tree with her fingernails. It was almost
worse this way. Maybe she would feel better if they could
look at her and tell. If they knew.
Her Dad called her from the back steps. "Mick! Oh, Mick!'
.Yes, sir.' 'The telephone."
George crowded up close and tried to listen in, but she pushed
him away. Mrs. Minowitz talked very loud and excited.
'My Harry should be home by now. You know where he is?
'
*No, ma'am.
'
'He said you two would ride out on bicycles. Where should he
be now? You know where he is?' 'No, ma'am,' Mick said
again.
N.
12
ow that the days were hot again the Sunny Dixie Show was
always crowded. The March wind quieted. Trees were thick
with their foliage of ocherous green. The sky was a cloudless
blue and the rays of the sun grew stronger. The air was sultry.
Jake Blount hated this weather. He thought dizzily of the long,
burning summer months ahead. He did not feel well. Recently
a headache had begun to trouble him constantly. He had
gained weight so that his stomach developed a little pouch. He
had to leave the top button of his trousers undone. He knew
that this was alcoholic fat, but he kept on drinking. Liquor
helped the ache in his head. He had only to take one small
glass to make it better. Nowadays one glass was the same to
him as a quart. It was not the liquor of the moment that gave
him the kick—but the reaction of the first swallow to all the
alcohol which had saturated his blood during these last
months. A spoonful of beer would help the throbbing in his
head, but a quart of whiskey could not make him drunk.
He cut out liquor entirely. For several days he drank only
water and Orange Crush. The pain was h'ke a crawling worm
in his head. He worked wearily during the long afternoons and
evenings. He could not sleep and it was agony to try to read.
The damp, sour stink in his room infuriated him. He lay
restless in the bed and when at last he fell asleep daylight had
come.
A dream haunted him. It had first come to him four months
ago. He would awake with terror—but the strange point was
that never could he remember the contents of this dream. Only
the feeling remained when his eyes were opened. Each time
his fears at awakening were so identical that he did not doubt
but what these dreams were the same. He was used to dreams,
the grotesque nightmares240
of drink that led him down into a madman's region of disorder,
but always the morning light scattered the effects of these wild
dreams and he forgot them.
This blank, stealthy dream was of a different nature. He
awoke and could remember nothing. But there was a sense of
menace that lingered in him long after. Then he awoke one
morning with the old fear but with a faint remembrance of the
darkness behind him. He had been walking among a crowd of
people and in his arms he carried something. That was all he
could be sure about. Had he stolen? Had he been trying to
save some possession? Was he being hunted by all these
people around him? He did not think so. The more he studied
this simple dream the less he could understand. Then for some
time afterward the dream did not return.
He met the writer of signs whose chalked message he had seen
the past November. From the first day of their meeting the old
man clung to him like an evil genius. His name was Simms
and he preached on the sidewalks. The winter cold had kept
him indoors, but in the spring he was out on the streets all day.
His white hair was soft and ragged on his neck and he carried
around with him a woman's big silk pocketbook full of chalk
and Jesus ads. His eyes were bright and crazy. Simms tried to
convert him.
'Child of adversity, I smell the sinful stink of beer on thy
breath. And you smoke cigarettes. If the Lord had wanted us
to smoke cigarettes He would have said so in His Book. The
mark of Satan is on thy brow. I see it. Repent. Let me show
you the light."
Jake rolled up his eyes and made a slow pious sign in the air.
Then he opened his oil-stained hand. 'I reveal this only to you,'
he said in a low stage voice. Simms looked down at the scar in
his palm. Jake leaned closer and whispered: 'And there's the
other sign. The sign you know. For I was born with them.'
Simms backed against the fence. With a womanish gesture he
lifted a lock of silver hair from his forehead and smoothed it
back on his head. Nervously his tongue licked the corners of
his mouth. Jake laughed.
'Blasphemer!' Simms screamed. 'God will get you. You and all
your crew. God remembers the scoffers. He
watches after me. God watches everybody but He watches me
the most. Like He did Moses. God tells me things in the night.
God will get you.
'
He took Simms down to a corner store for Coca-Colas and
peanut-butter crackers. Simms began to work on him again.
When he left for the show Simms ran along behind him.
'Come to this corner tonight at seven o'clock. Jesus has
a
message just for you.
'
The first days of April were windy and warm. White clouds
trailed across the blue sky. In the wind there was the smell of
the river and also the fresher smell of fields beyond the town.
The show was crowded every day from four in the afternoon
until midnight. The crowd was a tough one. With the new
spring he felt an undertone of trouble.
One night he was working on the machinery of the swings
when suddenly he was roused from thought by the sounds of
angry voices. Quickly he pushed through the crowd until he
saw a white girl fighting with a colored girl by the ticket booth
of the flying-jinny. He wrenched them apart, but still they
struggled to get at each other. The crowd took sides and there
was a bedlam of noise. The white girl was a hunchback. She
held something tight in her hand.
1 seen you,' the colored girl yelled. 'I ghy beat that hunch off
your back, too.
'
'Hush your mouth, you black nigger!
'
'Low-down factory tag. I done paid my money and I ghy ride.
White man, you make her give me back my ticket.
'
'Black nigger slut!
'
Jake looked from one to the other. The crowd pressed close.
There were mumbled opinions on every side.
'I seen Lurie drop her ticket and I watched this here white lady
pick it up. That the truth,' a colored boy said.
"No nigger going to put her hands on no white girl while------
.
"You quit that pushing me. I ready to hit back even if your
skin do be white.
'
Roughly Jake pushed into the thick of the crowd. 'All right!
'
he yelled. "Move on—break it up. Every damn242
one of you.' There was something about the size of his fists
that made the people drift sullenly away. Jake turned back to
the two girls.
'This here the way it is,' said the colored girl. 1 bet I one of the
few peoples here who done saved over fifty cents till Friday
night. I done ironed double this week. I done paid a good
nickel for that ticket she holding. And now I means to ride.5
Jake settled the trouble quickly. He let the hunchback keep the
disputed ticket and issued another one to the colored girl. For
the rest of that evening there were no more quarrels. But Jake
moved alertly through the crowd. He was troubled and uneasy.
In addition to himself there were five other employees at the
show—two men to operate the swings and take tickets and
three girls to manage the booths. This did not count Patterson.
The show-owner spent most of his time playing cards with
himself in his trailer. His eyes were dull, with the pupils
shrunken, and the skin of his neck hung in yellow, pulpy folds.
During the past few months Jake had had two raises in pay. At
midnight it was his job to report to Patterson and hand over
the takings of the evening. Sometimes Patterson did not notice
him until he had been in the trailer for several minutes; he
would be staring at the cards, sunk in a stupor. The air of the
trailer was heavy with the stinks of food and reefers. Patterson
held his hand over his stomach as though protecting it from
something. He always checked over the accounts very
thoroughly.
Jake and the two operators had a squabble. These men were
both former doffers at one of the mills. At first he had tried to
talk to them and help them to see the truth. Once he invited
them to a pool room for a drink. But they were so dumb he
couldn't help them. Soon after this he overheard the
conversation between them that caused the trouble. It was an
early Sunday morning, almost two o'clock, and he had been
checking the accounts with Patterson. When he stepped out of
the trailer the grounds seemed empty. The moon was bright.
He was thinking of Singer and the free day ahead. Then as he
passed by the swings he heard someone speak his name. The
two oper
I
ators had finished work and were smoking together. Jake
listened.
'If there's anything I hate worse than a nigger it's a Red.'
'He tickles me. I don't pay him no mind. The way he struts
around. I never seen such a sawed-off runt. How tall is he, you
reckon?'
'Around five foot But he thinks he got to tell everybody so
much. He oughta be in jail. That's where. The Red Bolshivik.'
'He just tickles me. I can't look at him without laughing.'
'He needn't act biggity with me.'
Jake watched them follow the path toward Weavers Lane. His
first thought was to rush out and confront them, but a certain
shrinking held him back. For several days he fumed in silence.
Then one night after work he followed the two men for several
blocks and as they turned a corner he cut in front of them.
'I heard you,' he said breathlessly. 'It so happened I heard
every word you said last Saturday night. Sure I'm a Red. At
least I reckon I am. But what are you?' They stood beneath a
street light. The two men stepped back from him. The
neighborhood was deserted. 'You pasty-faced, shrunk-gutted,
ricket-ridden little rats! I could reach out and choke your
stringy necks—one to each hand. Runt or no, I could lay you
on this sidewalk where they'd have to scrape you up with
shovels.'
The two men looked at each other, cowed, and tried to walk
on. But Jake would not let them pass. He kept step with them,
walking backward, a furious sneer on his face.
'All I got to say is this: In the future I suggest you come to me
whenever you feel the need to make remarks about my height,
weight, accent, demeanor, or ideology. And that last is not
what I take a leak with either—case you don't know. We will
discuss it together.'
Afterward Jake treated the two men with angry contempt.
Behind his back they jeered at him. One afternoon he found
that the engine of the swings had been deliberately damaged
and he had to work three hours overtime to fix it. Always he
felt someone was laughing at him. Each time he heard the girls
talking together he drew himself up straight and laughed
carelessly aloud to himself as though thinking of some private
joke.244
The warm southwest winds from the Gulf of Mexico were
heavy with the smells of spring. The days grew longer and the
sun was bright. The lazy warmth depressed him. He began to
drink again. As soon as work was done he went home and lay
down on his bed. Sometimes he stayed there, fully clothed and
inert, for twelve or thirteen hours. The restlessness that had
caused him to sob and bite his nails only a few months before
seemed to have gone. And yet beneath his inertia Jake felt the
old tension. Of all the places he had been this was the
loneliest town of all. Or it would be without Singer. Only he
and Singer understood the truth. He knew and could not get
the don't-knows to see. It was like trying to fight darkness or
heat or a stink in the air. He stared morosely out of his
window. A stunted, smoked-blackened tree at the corner had
put out new leaves of a bilious green. The sky was always a
deep, hard blue. The mosquitoes from a fetid stream that ran
through this part of the town buzzed in the room.
He caught the itch. He mixed some sulphur and hog fat and
greased his body every morning. He clawed himself raw and it
seemed that the itching would never be soothed. One night he
broke loose. He had been sitting alone for many hours. He had
mixed gin and whiskey and was very drunk. It was almost
morning. He leaned out of the window and looked at the dark
silent street. He thought of all the people around him.
Sleeping. The don't-knows. Suddenly he bawled out in a loud
voice: "This is the truth! You bastards don't know anything.
You don't know. You don't know!1
The street awoke angrily. Lamps were lighted and sleepy
curses were called to him. The men who lived in the house
rattled furiously on his door. The girls from a cat-house across
the street stuck their heads out of the windows.
'You dumb dumb dumb dumb bastards. You dumb dumb
dumb dumb------'
'Shuddup! ShuddupF
The fellows in the hall were pushing against the door: .You
drunk bull! You'll be a sight dumber when we get thu with
you.'
'How many out there?' Jake roared. He banged an
empty bottle on the windowsill. 'Come on, everybody. Come
one, come all. I'll settle you three at a time.'
'That's right, Honey,' a whore called.
The door was giving way. Jake jumped from the window and
ran through a side alley. 'Hee-haw! Hee-haw!' he yelled
drunkenly. He was barefooted and shirtless. An hour later he
stumbled into Singer's room. He sprawled on the floor and
laughed himself to sleep.
On an April morning he found the body of a man who had
been murdered. A young Negro. Jake found him in a ditch
about thirty yards from the showgrounds. The Negro's throat
had been slashed so that the head was rolled back at a crazy
angle. The sun shone hot on his open, glassy eyes and flies
hovered over the dried blood that covered his chest. The dead
man held a red-and-yellow cane with a tassel like the ones
sold at the hamburger booth at the show. Jake stared gloomily
down at the body for some time. Then he called the police. No
clues were found. Two days later the family of the dead man
claimed his body at the morgue.
At the Sunny Dixie there were frequent fights and quarrels.
Sometimes two friends would come to the show arm in arm,
laughing and drinking—and before they left they would be
struggling together in a panting rage. Jake was always alert.
Beneath the gaudy gaiety of the show, the bright lights, and
the lazy laughter, he felt something sullen and dangerous.
Through these dazed, disjointed weeks Simms nagged his
footsteps constantly. The old man liked to come with a
soapbox and a Bible and take a stand in the middle of the
crowd to preach. He talked of the second coming of Christ. He
said that the Day of Judgment would be October 2, 1951. He
would point out certain drunks and scream at them in his raw,
worn voice. Excitement made his mouth fill with water so that
his words had a wet, gurgling sound. Once he had slipped in
and set up his stand no arguments could make him budge. He
made Jake a present of a Gideon Bible, and told him to pray
on his knees for one hour each night and to hurl away every
glass of beer or cigarette that was offered him.
They quarreled over walls and fences. Jake had begun246
to carry chalk in his pockets, also. He wrote brief sentences.
He tried to word them so that a passerby would stop and
ponder over the meaning. So that a man would wonder. So
that a man would think. Also, he wrote short pamphlets and
distributed them in the streets.
If it had not been for Singer, Jake knew that he would have
left the town. Only on Sunday, when he was with his friend,
did he feel at peace. Sometimes they would go for a walk
together or play chess—but more often they spent the day
quietly in Singer's room. If he wished to talk Singer was
always attentive. If he sat morosely through the day the mute
understood his feelings and was not surprised. It seemed to
him that only Singer could help him now.
Then one Sunday when he climbed the stairs he saw that
Singer's door was open. The room was empty. He sat alone for
more than two hours. At last he heard Singer's footsteps on the
stairs.
'I was wondering about you. Where you been?*
Singer smiled. He brushed off his hat with a handkerchief and
put it away. Then deliberately he took his silver pencil from
his pocket and leaned over the mantelpiece to write a note.
'What you mean?' Jake asked when he read what the mute had
written. 'Whose legs are cut off?'
Singer took back the note and wrote a few additional
sentences.
'Huh!' Jake said. That don't surprise me.'
He brooded over the piece of paper and then crumpled it in his
hand. The listlessness of the past month was gone and he was
tense and uneasy. 'Huh!' he said again.
Singer put on a pot of coffee and got out his chessboard. Jake
tore the note to pieces and rolled the fragments between his
sweating palms.
'But something can be done about this,' he said after a while.
'You know it?
'
Singer nodded uncertainly.
'I want to see the boy and hear the whole story. When can you
take me around there?
'
Singer deliberated. Then he wrote on a pad of paper, 'Tonight.
'
Jake held his hand to his mouth and began to walk restlessly
around the room. 'We can do something.
'
13
247
J AKE and Singer waited on the front porch. When they pushed
the doorbell there was no sound of a ring in the darkened
house. Jake knocked impatiently and pressed his nose against
the screen door. Beside him Singer stood wooden and smiling,
with two spots of color on his cheeks, for they had drunk a
bottle of gin together. The evening was quiet and dark. Jake
watched a yellow light shaft softly through the hall. And
Portia opened the door for them.
'I certainly trust you not been waiting long. So many folks
been coming that us thought it wise to untach the bell. You
gentlemens just let me take you hats—Father been mighty
sick.'
Jake tiptoed heavily behind Singer down the bare, narrow hall.
At the threshold of the kitchen he stopped short The room was
crowded and hot. A fire burned in the small wood stove and
the windows were closed tight. Smoke mingled with a certain
Negro smell. The glow from the stove was the only light in the
room. The dark voices he had heard back in the hall were
silent.
"These here are two white gentlemens come to inquire about
Father,' Portia said. 'I think maybe he be able to see you but I
better go on in first and prepare him.'
Jake fingered his thick lower lip. On the end of his nose there
was a latticed impression from the front screen door. 'That's
not it,' he said. 'I come to talk with your brother.'
The Negroes in the room were standing. Singer motioned to
them to be seated again. Two grizzled old men sat down on a
bench by the stove. A loose-limbed mulatto lounged against
the window. On a camp cot in a corner was a boy without legs
whose trousers were folded and pinned beneath his stumpy
thighs.
'Good evening,' Jake said awkwardly. 'Your name Copeland?
'
The boy put his hands over the stumps of his legs and shrank
back close to the wall. 'My name Willie.
'
'Honey, don't you worry none,' said Portia. 'This here is Mr.
Singer that you heard Father speak about. And this other white
gentleman is Mr. Blount and he a very close friend of Mr.
Singer. They just kindly come to inquire248
about us in our trouble.' She turned to Jake and motioned to
the three other people in the room. This other boy leaning on
the window is my brother too. Named Buddy. And these here
over by the stove is two dear friends of my Father. Named Mr.
Marshall Nicolls and Mr. John Roberts. I think it a good idea
to understand who all is in a room with you.
'
Thanks,' Jake said. He turned to Willie again. 'I just want you
to tell me about it so I can get it straight in my mind.
'
This the way it is,' Willie said. 'I feel like my feets is still
hurting. I got this here terrible misery down in my toes. Yet
the hurt in my feets is down where my feets should be if they
were on my 1-1-legs. And not where my feets is now. It a hard
thing to understand. My feets hurt me so bad all the time and
I
don't know where they is. They never given them back to me.
They s-somewhere more than a hundred m-miles from here.
'
'I mean about how it all happened,' Jake said.
Uneasily Willie looked up at his sister. 'I don't remember—
very good.
'
'Course you remember, Honey. You done already told us over
and over.
'
'Well------' The boy's voice was timid and sullen. *Us
were all out on the road and this here Buster say something to
the guard. The w-white man taken a stick to him. Then this
other boy he tries to run off. And I follow him. It all come
about so quick I don't remember good just how it were. Then
they taken us back to the camp and------
'
'I know the rest,' Jake said. 'But give me the names and
addresses of the other two boys. And tell me the names of the
guards.
'
'Listen here, white man. It seem to me like you meaning to get
me into trouble.
'
Trouble!' Jake said rudely. "What in the name of Christ do you
think you're in now?
'
'Less us quiet down,' Portia said nervously. "This here the way
it is, Mr. Blount. They done let Willie off at the camp before
his time were served. But they done also impressed it on him
not to—I believe you understand what us means. Naturally
Willie he scared. Naturally us means to
249
be careful—'cause that the best thing us can do. We already
got enough trouble as is.
'
'What happened to the guards?
'
Them w-white men were fired. That what they told me.
'
'And where are your friends now?
'
"What friends?
'
.Why, the other two boys.'
They n-not my friends,' Willie said. 'Us all has had a big
falling out'
'How you mean?'
Portia pulled her earrings so that the lobes of her ears
stretched out like rubber. "This here what Willie means. You
see, during them three days when they hurt so bad they
commenced to quarrel. Willie don't ever want to see any of
them again. That one thing Father and Willie done argued
about already. This here Buster------'
"Buster got a wooden leg,' said the boy by the window. 1 seen
him on the street today.'
This here Buster don't have no folks and it were Father's idea
to have him move on in with us. Father want to round up all
the boys together. How he reckons us can feed them I sure
don't know.'
That ain't a good idea. And besides us was never very good
friends anyway.' Willie felt the stumps of his legs with his
dark, strong hands. 'I just wish I knowed where my f-f-feets
are. That the main thing worries me. The doctor never given
them back to me. I sure do wish I knowed where they are.'
Jake looked around him with dazed, gin-clouded eyes.
Everything seemed unclear and strange. The heat in the
kitchen dizzied him so that voices echoed in his ears. The
smoke choked him. The light hanging from the ceiling was
turned on but, as the bulb was wrapped in newspaper to dim
its strength, most of the light came from between the chinks of
the hot stove. There was a red glow on all the dark faces
around him. He felt uneasy and alone. Singer had left the
room to visit Portia's father. Jake wanted him to come back so
that they could leave. He walked awkwardly across the floor
and sat down on the bench between Marshall Nicolls and John
Roberts.
'Where is Portia's father?' he asked.250
'Doctor Copeland is in the front room, sir,' said Roberts.
'Is he a doctor?
'
"Yes, sir. He is a medical doctor.
'
There was a scuffle on the steps outside and the back door
opened. A warm, fresh breeze lightened the heavy air. First
a
tall boy dressed hi a linen suit and gilded shoes entered the
room with a sack in his arms. Behind him came a young boy
of about seventeen.
'Hey, Highboy. Hey there, Lancy,' Willie said. 'What you all
brought me?
'
Highboy bowed elaborately to Jake and placed on the table
two fruit jars of wine. Lancy put beside them a plate covered
with a fresh white napkin.
This here wine is a present from the Society,' Highboy said.
'And Lancy's mother sent some peach puffs.
'
'How is the Doctor, Miss Portia?' Lancy asked.
.Honey, he been mighty sick these days. What worries me is
he so strong. It a bad sign when a person sick as he is
suddenly come to be so strong.' Portia turned to Jake. 'Don't
you think it a bad sign, Mr. Blount?'
Jake stared at her dazedly. 'I don't know.'
Lancy glanced sullenly at Jake and pulled down the cuffs of
his outgrown shirt. 'Give the Doctor my family's regards.'
'Us certainly do appreciate this,' Portia said. "Father was
speaking of you just the other day. He haves a book he wants
to give you. Wait just one minute while I get it and rinch out
this plate to return to your Mother. This were certainly a
kindly thing for her to do.'
Marshall Nicolls leaned toward Jake and seemed about to
speak to him. The old man wore a pair of pin-striped trousers
and a morning coat with a flower in the buttonhole. He cleared
his throat and said: 'Pardon me, sir—but unavoidably we
overheard a part of your conversation with William regarding
the trouble he is now in. Inevitably we have considered what
is the best course to take.'
'You one of his relatives or the preacher in his church?'
.No, I am a pharmacist. And John Roberts on your left is
employed in the postal department of the government.'
'A postman,' repeated John Roberts.
'With your permission------' Marshall Nicolls took a yellow
silk handkerchief from his pocket and gingerly blew
251
his nose. 'Naturally we have discussed this matter extensively.
And without doubt as members of the colored race here in this
free country of America we are anxious to do our part toward
extending amicable relationships.'
We wish always to do the right thing,' said John Roberts.
'And it behooves us to strive with care and not endanger this
amicable relationship already established. Then by gradual
means a better condition will come about.'
Jake turned from one to the other. 'I don't seem to follow you.'
The heat was suffocating him. He wanted to get out. A film
seemed to have settled over his eyeballs so that all the faces
around him were blurred.
Across the room Willie was playing his harp. Buddy and
Highboy were listening. The music was dark and sad. When
the song was finished Willie polished his harp on the front of
his shirt. 'I so hungry and thirsty the slobber in my mouth done
wet out the tune. I certainly will be glad to taste some of that
boogie-woogie. To have something good to drink is the only
thing m-made me forget this misery. If I just knowed where
my f-feets are now and could drink a glass of gin ever night I
wouldn't mind so much.'
'Don't fret, Hon. You going to have something,' Portia said.
'Mr. Blount, would you care to take a peach puff and a glass of
wine?'
'Thanks,' Jake said. 'That would be good.'
Quickly Portia laid a cloth on the table and set down one plate
and a fork. She poured a large tumblerful of the wine. 'You
just make yourself comfortable here. And if you don't mind
I
going to serve the others.
'
The fruit jars were passed from mouth to mouth. Before
Highboy passed a jar to Willie he borrowed Portia's lipstick
and drew a red line to set the boundary of the drink. There
were gurgling noises and laughter. Jake finished his puff and
carried his glass back with him to his place between the two
old men. The home-made wine was rich and strong as brandy.
Willie started a low dolorous tune on his harp. Portia snapped
her fingers and shuffled around the room.
Jake turned to Marshall Nicolls. *You say Portia's father is
a
doctor?
'
"Yes, sir. Yes, indeed. A skilled doctor.'252
'What's the matter with him?
'
The two Negroes glanced warily at each other.
'He were in an accident,' said John Roberts.
'What kind of an accident?
'
'A bad one. A deplorable one.
'
Marshall Nicolls folded and unfolded his silk handkerchief.
'As we were remarking a while ago, it is important not to
impair these amicable relations but to promote them in all
ways earnestly possible. We members of the colored race
must strive in all ways to uplift our citizens. The Doctor in
yonder has strived in every way. But sometimes it has seemed
to me like he had not recognized fully enough certain
elements of the different races and the situation.
'
Impatiently Jake gulped down the last swallows of his wine.
'Christ' sake, man, speak out plain, because I can't understand
a thing you say.
'
Marshall Nicolls and John Roberts exchanged a hurt look.
Across the room Willie still sat playing music. His lips
crawled over the square holes of the harmonica like fat,
puckered caterpillars. His shoulders were broad and strong.
The stumps of his thighs jerked in time to the music. Highboy
danced while Buddy and Portia clapped out the rhythm.
Jake stood up, and once on his feet he realized that he was
drunk. He staggered and then glanced vindictively around
him, but no one seemed to have noticed. 'Where's Singer?' he
asked Portia thickly.
The music stopped. 'Why, Mr. Blount, I thought you knowed
he was gone. While you were sitting at the table with your
peach puff he come to the doorway and held out his watch to
show it were time for him to go. You looked straight at him
and shaken your head. I thought you knowed that.'
'Maybe I was thinking about something else.' He turned to
Willie and said angrily to him: 'I never did even get to tell you
what I come here for, I didn't come to ask you to do anything.
All I wanted—all I wanted was this. You and the other boys
were to testify what happened and I was to explain why. Why
is the only important thing—not what. I would have pushed
you all around in a wagon and you would have told your story
and afterward I would have ex
253
plained why. And maybe it might have meant something.
Maybe it------'
He felt they were laughing at him. Confusion caused him to
forget what he had meant to say. The room was full of dark,
strange faces and the air was too thick to breathe. He saw a
door and staggered across to it. He was in a dark closet
smelling of medicine. Then his hand was turning another
doorknob.
He stood on the threshold of a small white room furnished
only with an iron bed, a cabinet, and two chairs. On the bed
lay the terrible Negro he had met on the stairs at Singer's
house. His face was very black against the white, stiff pillows.
The dark eyes were hot with hatred but the heavy, bluish lips
were composed. His face was motionless as a black mask
except for the slow, wide flutters of his nostrils with each
breath.
'Get out,' the Negro said.
'Wait------' Jake said helplessly. 'Why do you say that?'
'This is my house.'
Jake could not draw his eyes away from the Negro's terrible
face. 'But why?'
'You are a white man and a stranger.'
Jake did not leave. He walked with cumbersome caution to
one of the straight white chairs and seated himself. The Negro
moved his hands on the counterpane. His black eyes glittered
with fever. Jake watched him. They waited. In the room there
was a feeling tense as conspiracy or as the deadly quiet before
an explosion.
It was long past midnight. The warm, dark air of the spring
morning swirled the blue layers of smoke in the room. On the
floor were crumpled balls of paper and a half-empty bottle of
gin. Scattered ashes were gray on the counterpane. Doctor
Copeland pressed his head tensely into the pillow. He had
removed his dressing-gown and the sleeves of his white cotton
nightshirt were rolled to the elbow. Jake leaned forward in his
chair. His tie was loosened and the collar of his shirt had
wilted with sweat Through the hours there had grown between
them a long, exhausting dialogue. And now a pause had come.
'So the time is ready for------' Jake began.254
But Doctor Copeland interrupted him. 'Now it is perhaps
necessary that we------' he murmured huskily. They
halted. Each looked into the eyes of the other and waited. 'I
beg your pardon,' Doctor Copeland said.
'Sorry,' said Jake. 'Go on.'
'No, you continue.'
'Well------' Jake said. 'I won't say what I started to say.
Instead we'll have one last word about the South. The
strangled South. The wasted South, The slavish South.'
'And the Negro people.'
To steady himself Jake swallowed a long, burning draught
from the bottle on the floor beside him. Then deliberately he
walked to the cabinet and picked up a small, cheap globe of
the world that served as a paperweight. Slowly he turned the
sphere in his hands. 'All I can say is this: The world is full of
meanness and evil. Huh! Three fourths of this globe is in a
state of war or oppression. The liars and fiends are united and
the men who know are isolated and without defense. But! But
if you was to ask me to point out the most uncivilized area on
the face of this globe I would point here------'
'Watch sharp,' said Doctor Copeland. 'You're out in the ocean.'
Jake turned the globe again and pressed his blunt, grimy
thumb on a carefully selected spot. 'Here. These thirteen
states. I know what I'm talking about. I read books and I go
around. I been in every damn one of these thirteen states. I've
worked in every one. And the reason I think like I do is this:
We live in the richest country in the world. There's plenty and
to spare for no man, woman, or child to be in want. And in
addition to this our country was founded on what should have
been a great, true principle—the freedom, equality, and rights
of each individual. Huh! And what has come of that start?
There are corporations worth billions of dollars—and
hundreds of thousands of people who don't get to eat. And
here in these thirteen states the exploitation of human beings
is so that—that it's a thing you got to take in with your own
eyes. In my life I seen things that would make a man go cra2y.
At least one third of all Southerners live and die no better off
than the lowest peasant in any European Fascist
255
state. The average wage of a worker on a tenant farm is only
seventy-three dollars per year. And mind you, that's the
average! The wages of sharecroppers run from thirty-five to
ninety dollars per person. And thirty-five dollars a year means
just about ten cents for a full day's work. Everywhere there's
pellagra and hookworm and anaemia. And just plain, pure
starvation. But!' Jake nibbed his lips with the knuckles of his
dirty fist. Sweat stood out on his forehead. 'But!' he repeated.
Those are only the evils you can see and touch. The other
things are worse. I'm talking about the way that the truth has
been hidden from the people. The things they have been told
so they can't see the truth. The poisonous lies. So they aren't
allowed to know.'
'And the Negro,' said Doctor Copeland. 'To understand what is
happening to us you have to------'
Jake interrupted him savagely. 'Who owns the South?
Corporations in the North own three fourths of all the South.
They say the old cow grazes all over—in the south, the west,
the north, and the east. But she's milked in just one place. Her
old teats swing over just one spot when she's full. She grazes
everywhere and is milked in New York. Take our cotton mills,
our pulp mills, our harness factories, our mattress factories.
The North owns them. And what happens?' Jake's mustache
quivered angrily. 'Here's an example. Locale, a mill village
according to the great paternal system of American industry.
Absentee ownership. In the village is one huge brick mill and
maybe four or five hundred shanties. The houses aren't fit for
human beings to live in. Moreover, the houses were built to be
nothing but slums in the first place. These shanties are nothing
but two or maybe three rooms and a privy— built with far less
forethought than barns to house cattle. Built with far less
attention to needs than sties for pigs. For under this system
pigs are valuable and men are not. You can't make pork chops
and sausage out of skinny little mill kids. You can't sell but
half the people these days. But a pig------'
'Hold on!' said Doctor Copeland. 'You are getting off on a
tangent. And besides, you are giving no attention to the very
separate question of the Negro. I cannot get a256
word in edgeways. We have been over all this before, bat it is
impossible to see the full situation without including us
Negroes.'
'Back to our mill village,' Jake said. 'A young linthead begins
working at the fine wage of eight or ten dollars a weeks at
such times as he can get himself employed. He marries. After
the first child the woman must work in the mill also. Their
combined wages come to say eighteen dollars a week when
they both got work. Huh! They pay a fourth of this for the
shack the mill provides them. They buy food and clothes at a
company-owned or dominated store. The store overcharges on
every item. With three or four younguns they are held down
the same as if they had on chains. That is the whole principle
of serfdom. Yet here in America we call ourselves free. And
the funny thing is that this has been drilled into the heads of
sharecroppers and lintheads and all the rest so hard that they
really believe it. But it's taken a hell of a lot of lies to keep
them from knowing.'
'There is only one way out------' said Doctor Cbpeland.
'Two ways. And only two ways. Once there was a time when
this country was expanding. Every man thought he had a
chance. Huh! But that period has gone—and gone for good.
Less than a hundred corporations have swallowed all but a
few leavings. These industries have already sucked the blood
and softened the bones of the people. The old days of
expansion are gone. The whole system of capitalistic
democracy is—rotten and corrupt. There remains only two
roads ahead. One: Fascism. Two: reform of the most
revolutionary and permanent kind.'
'And the Negro. Do not forget the Negro. So far as I and my
people are concerned the South is Fascist now and always has
been.'
'Yeah.'
"The Nazis rob the Jews of their legal, economic, and cultural
life. Here the Negro has always been deprived of these. And if
wholesale and dramatic robbery of money and goods has not
taken place here as in Germany, it is simply because the Negro
has never been allowed to accrue wealth in the first place.'
'That's the system,' Jake said.
'The Jew and the Negro,' said Doctor Copeland bitter
257
ry. The history of my people will be commensurate with the
interminable history of the Jew—only bloodier and more
violent. Like a certain species of sea gull. If you capture one
of the birds and tie a red string of twine around his leg the rest
of the flock will peck him to death.'
Doctor Copeland took off his spectacles and rebound a wire
around a broken hinge. Then he polished the lenses on his
nightshirt. His hand shook with agitation. 'Mr. Singer is a
Jew.'
'No, you're wrong there.'
'But I am positive that he is. The name, Singer. I recognized
his race the first time I saw him. From his eyes. Besides, he
told me so.'
'Why, he couldn't have,' Jake insisted. "He's pure Anglo-Saxon
if I ever saw it. Irish and Anglo-Saxon.'
.But------
'
'I'm certain. Absolutely.
'
'Very well,' said Doctor Copeland. 'We will not quarrel.
'
Outside the dark air had cooled so that there was a chill in the
room. It was almost dawn. The early morning sky was deep,
silky blue and the moon had turned from silver to white. All
was still. The only sound was the clear, lonely song of
a
spring bird in the darkness outside. Though a faint breeze
blew in from the window the air in the room was sour and
close. There was a feeling both of tenseness and exhaustion.
Doctor Copeland leaned forward from the pillow. His eyes
were bloodshot and his hands clutched the counterpane. The
neck of his nightshirt had slipped down over his bony
shoulder. Jake's heels were balanced on the rungs of his chair
and his giant hands folded between his knees in a waiting and
childlike attitude. Deep black circles were beneath his eyes,
his hair was unkempt. They looked at each other and waited.
As the silence grew longer the tenseness between them
became more strained.
At last Doctor Copeland cleared his throat and said: 'I am
certain you did not come here for nothing. I am sure we have
not discussed these subjects all through the night to no
purpose. We have talked of everything now except the most
vital subject of all—the way out. What must be done.'
They still watched each other and waited. In the face of258
259
each there was expectation. Doctor Copeland sat bolt upright
against the pillows. Jake rested his chin in his hand and leaned
forward. The pause continued. And then hesitantly they began
to speak at the same time.
'Excuse me,' Jake said. 'Go ahead.
'
'No, you. You started first.
'
'Go on.
'
'Pshaw!' said Doctor Copeland. 'Continue.
'
Jake stared at him with clouded, mystical eyes. It's this way.
This is how I see it. The only solution is for the people to
know. Once they know the truth they can be oppressed no
longer. Once just half of them know the whole fight is won.
'
'Yes, once they understand the workings of this society. But
how do you propose to tell them?
'
'Listen,' Jake said. 'Think about chain letters. If one person
sends a letter to ten people and then each of the ten people
sends letters to ten more—you get it?' He faltered. 'Not that
I
write letters, but the idea is the same. I just go around telling.
And if in one town I can show the truth to just ten of the don'tknows, then I feel like some good has been done. See?
'
Doctor Copeland looked at Jake in surprise. Then he snorted.
'Do not be childish! You cannot just go about talking. Chain
letters indeed! Knows and don't-knows!
'
Jake's lips trembled and his brow lowered with quick anger.
'O.K. What have you got to offer?
'
'I will say first that I used to feel somewhat as you do on this
question. But I have learned what a mistake that attitude is.
For half a century I thought it wise to be patient.
'
'I didn't say be patient.
'
'In the face of brutality I was prudent. Before injustice I held
my peace. I sacrificed the things in hand for the good of the
hypothetical whole. I believed in the tongue instead of the fist.
As an armor against oppression I taught patience and faith in
the human soul. I know now how wrong I was. I have been
a
traitor to myself and to my people. All that is rot. Now is the
time to act and to act quickly. Fight cunning with cunning and
might with might'
'But how?' Jake asked. 'How?
'
'Why, by getting out and doing things. By calling
crowds of people together and getting them to demonstrate.
'
'Huh! That last phrase gives you away— "getting them to
demonstrate." What good will it do if you get them to
demonstrate against a thing if they don't know. You're trying
to stuff the hog by way of his ass.
'
'Such vulgar expressions annoy me,' Doctor Copeland said
prudishly.
'For Christ' sake! I don't care if they annoy you or not'
Doctor Copeland held up his hand. 'Let us not get so
overheated,' he said. 'Let us attempt to see eye to eye with
each other.
'
'Suits me. I don't want to fight with you.
'
They were silent. Doctor Copeland moved his eyes from one
corner of the ceiling to the other. Several times he wet his lips
to speak and each time the word remained half-formed and
silent in his mouth. Then at last he said: 'My advice to you is
this. Do not attempt to stand alone.
'
'But------
'
'But, nothing,' said Doctor Copeland didactically. "The most
fatal thing a man can do is try to stand alone.
'
'I see what you're getting at.
'
Doctor Copeland pulled the neck of his nightshirt up over his
bony shoulder and held it gathered tight to his throat. 'You
believe in the struggle of my people for their human rights?'
The Doctor's agitation and his mild and husky question made
Jake's eyes brim suddenly with tears. A quick, swollen rush of
love caused him to grasp the black, bony hand on the
counterpane and hold it fast. 'Sure,' he said.
"The extremity of our need?'
'Yes.'
"The lack of justice? The bitter inequality?'
Doctor Copeland coughed and spat into one of the squares of
paper which he kept beneath his pillow. 'I have a program. It is
a very simple, concentrated plan. I mean to focus on only one
objective. In August of this year I plan to lead more than one
thousand Negroes in this county on a march. A march to
Washington. All of us together in one solid body. If you will
look in the cabinet yonder you will see a stack of letters which
I have written260
this week and will deliver personally.' Doctor Copeland slid
his nervous hands up and down the sides of the narrow bed.
'You remember what I said to you a short while ago? You will
recall that my only advice to you was: Do not attempt to stand
alone.'
'I get it,' Jake said.
*But once you enter this it must be all. First and foremost.
Your work now and forever. You must give of your whole self
without stint, without hope of personal return, without rest or
hope of rest.'
'For the rights of the Negro in the South.'
'In the South and here in this very county. And it must be
either all or nothing. Either yes or no.'
Doctor Copeland leaned back on the pillow. Only his eyes
seemed alive. They burned in his face like red coals. The fever
made his cheekbones a ghastly purple. Jake scowled and
pressed his knuckles to his soft, wide, trembling mouth. Color
rushed to his face. Outside the first pale light of morning had
come. The electric bulb suspended from the ceiling burned
with ugly sharpness in the dawn.
Jake rose to his feet and stood stiffly at the foot of the bed. He
said flatly: 'No. That's not the right angle at all. I'm dead sure
it's not. In the first place, you'd never get out of town. They'd
break it up by saying it's a menace to public health—or some
such trumped-up reason. They'd arrest you and nothing would
come of it. But even if by some miracle you got to
Washington it wouldn't do a bit of good. Why, the whole
notion is crazy.'
The sharp rattle of phlegm sounded in Doctor Cope-land's
throat. His voice was harsh. 'As you are so quick to sneer and
condemn, what do you have to offer instead?'
'I didn't sneer,' Jake said. 'I only remarked that your plan is
crazy. I come here tonight with an idea much better than that. I
wanted your son, Willie, and the other two boys to let me push
them around in a wagon. They were to tell what happened to
them and afterward I was to tell why. In other words, I was to
give a talk on the dialectics of capitalism—and show up all of
its lies. I would explain so that everyone would understand
why those boys' legs were cut off. And make everyone who
saw them know.'
'Pshaw! Double pshaw!' said Doctor Copeland furious
261
ly. 1 do not believe you have good sense. If I were a man who
felt it worth my while to laugh I would surely laugh at that.
Never have I had the opportunity to hear of such nonsense
first hand.'
They stared at each other in bitter disappointment and anger.
There was the rattle of a wagon in the street outside. Jake
swallowed and bit his lips. 'Huh!' he said finally. 'You're the
only one who's crazy. You got everything exactly backward.
The only way to solve the Negro problem under capitalism is
to geld every one of the fifteen million black men in these
states.'
'So that is the kind of idea you harbor beneath your ranting
about justice.'
'I didn't say it should be done. I only said you couldn't see the
forest for the trees.' Jake spoke with slow and painful care.
'The work has to start at the bottom. The old traditions
smashed and the new ones created. To forge a whole new
pattern for the world. To make man a social creature for the
first time, living in an orderly and controlled society where he
is not forced to be unjust in order to survive. A social tradition
in which------'
Doctor Copeland clapped ironically. 'Very good,' he said. 'But
the cotton must be picked before the cloth is made. You and
your crackpot do-nothing theories can------'
'Hush! Who cares whether you and your thousand Negroes
straggle up to that stinking cesspool of a place called
Washington? What difference does it make? What do a few
people matter—a few thousand people, black, white, good or
bad? When the whole of our society is built on a foundation of
black lies.'
'Everything!' Doctor Copeland panted. 'Everything!
Everything!
'Nothing!'
"The soul of the meanest and most evil of us on this earth is
worth more in the sight of justice than------'
'Oh, the Hell with it!' Jake said. 'Balls!'
'Blasphemer!' screamed Doctor Copeland. 'Foul blasphemer!'
Jake shook the iron bars of the bed. The vein in his forehead
swelled to the point of bursting and his face was dark with
rage. 'Short-sighted bigot!'262
'White------' Doctor Copeland's voice failed him. He
struggled and no sound would come. At last he was able to
bring forth a choked whisper: 'Fiend.'
The bright yellow morning was at the window. Doctor
Copeland's head fell back on the pillow. His neck twisted at a
broken angle, a fleck of bloody foam on his lips. Jake looked
at him once before, sobbing with violence, he rushed headlong
from the room.
14
N<
ow she could not stay in the inside room. She had to be around
somebody all the time. Doing something every minute. And if
she was by herself she counted or figured with numbers. She
counted all the roses on the living-room wall-paper. She
figured out the cubic area of the whole house. She counted
every blade of grass in the back yard and every leaf on a
certain bush. Because if she did not have her mind on numbers
this terrible afraidness came in her. She would be walking
home from school on these May afternoons and suddenly she
would have to think of something quick. A good thing—very
good. Maybe she would think about a phrase of hurrying jazz
music. Or that a bowl of jello would be in the refrigerator
when she got home. Or plan to smoke a cigarette behind the
coal house. Maybe she would try to think a long way ahead to
the time when she would go north and see snow, or even
travel somewhere in a foreign land. But these thoughts about
good things wouldn't last. The jello was gone in five minutes
and the cigarette smoked. Then what was there after that? And
the numbers mixed themselves up in her brain. And the snow
and the foreign land were a long, long time away. Then what
was there?
Just Mister Singer. She wanted to follow him everywhere. In
the morning she would watch him go down the front steps to
work and then follow along a half a block behind him. Every
afternoon as soon as school was over she hung around at the
corner near the store where he worked. At four o'clock he
went out to drink a Coca-Cola. She watched him cross the
street and go into the drugstore and finally come out again.
She followed him home from
263
work and sometimes even when he took walks. She always
followed a long way behind him. And he did not know.
She would go up to see him in his room. First she scrubbed
her face and hands and put some vanilla on the front of her
dress. She only went to visit him twice a week now, because
she didn't want him to get tired of her. Most always he would
be sitting over the queer, pretty chess game when she opened
the door. And then she was with him.
'Mister Singer, have you ever lived in a place where it snowed
in the winter-time?'
He tilted his chair back against the wall and nodded.
'In some different country than this one—in a foreign place?'
He nodded yes again and wrote on his pad with his silver
pencil. Once he had traveled to Ontario, Canada—across the
river from Detroit Canada was so far up north that the white
snow drifted up to the roofs of the houses. That was where the
Quints were and the St. Lawrence River. The people ran up
and down the streets speaking French to each other. And far
up in the north there were deep forests and white ice igloos.
The arctic region with the beautiful northern lights.
"When you was in Canada did you go out and get any fresh
snow and eat it with cream and sugar? Once I read where it
was mighty good to eat that way.'
He turned his head to one side because he didn't understand.
She couldn't ask the question again because suddenly it
sounded silly. She only looked at him and waited. A big, black
shadow of his head was on the wall behind him. The electric
fan cooled the thick, hot air. All was quiet. It was like they
waited to tell each other things that had never been told
before. What she had to say was terrible and afraid. But what
he would tell her was so true that it would make everything all
right. Maybe it was a thing that could not be spoken with
words or writing. Maybe he would have to let her understand
this in a different way. That was the feeling she had with him.
'I was just asking you about Canada—but it didn't amount to
anything, Mister Singer.'
Downstairs in the home rooms there was plenty of trouble.
Etta was still so sick that she couldn't sleep264
crowded three in a bed. The shades were drawn and the dark
room smelled bad with a sick smell. Etta's job was gone, and
that meant eight dollars less a week besides the doctor's bill.
Then one day when Ralph was walking around in the kitchen
he burned himself on the hot kitchen stove. The bandages
made his hands itch and somebody had to watch him all the
time else he would bust the blisters. On George's birthday they
had bought him a little red bike with a bell and a basket on the
handlebars. Everybody had chipped in to give it to him. But
when Etta lost her job they couldn't pay, and after two
installments were past due the store sent a man out to take the
wheel away. George just watched the man roll the bike off the
porch, and when he passed George kicked the back fender and
then went into the coal house and shut the door.
It was money, money, money all the time. They owed to the
grocery and they owed the last payment on some furniture.
And now since they had lost the house they owed money there
too. The six rooms in the house were always taken, but
nobody ever paid the rent on time.
For a while their Dad went over every day to hunt another job.
He couldn't do carpenter work any more because it made him
jittery to be more than ten feet off the ground. He applied for
many jobs but nobody would hire him. Then at last he got this
notion.
'It's advertising, Mick,' he said. Tve come to the conclusion
that's all in the world the matter with my watch-repairing
business right now. I got to sell myself. I got to get out and let
people know I can fix watches, and fix them good and cheap.
You just mark my words. Fm going to build up this business
so I'll be able to make a good living for this family the rest of
my life. Just by advertising.'
He brought home a dozen sheets of tin and some red paint. For
the next week he was very busy. It seemed to him like this was
a hell of a good idea. The signs were all over the floor of the
front room. He got down on his hands and knees and took
great care over the printing of each letter. As he worked he
whistled and wagged his head. He hadn't been so cheerful and
glad in months. Every now and then he would have to dress in
his good suit and go around the corner for a glass of beer to
calm himself. On the signs at first he had:
265
Wilbur Kelly
Watch Repairing
Very Cheap and Expert
*Mick, I want them to hit you right bang in the eye. To stand
out wherever you see them.'
She helped him and he gave her three nickels. The signs were
O.K. at first. Then he worked on them so much that they were
ruined. He wanted to add more and more things —in the
corners and at the top and bottom. Before he had finished the
signs were plastered all over with 'Very Cheap' and 'Come At
Once' and 'You Give Me Any Watch And I Make It Run.'
'You tried to write so much in the signs that nobody will read
anything,' she told him.
He brought home some more tin and left the designing up to
her. She painted them very plain, with great big block letters
and a picture of a clock. Soon he had a whole stack of them. A
fellow he knew rode him out in the country where he could
nail them to trees and fenceposts. At both ends of the block he
put up a sign with a black hand pointing toward the house.
And over the front door there was another sign.
The day after this advertising was finished he waited in the
front room dressed in a clean shirt and a tie. Nothing
happened. The jeweler who gave him overflow work to do at
half price sent in a couple of clocks. That was all. He took it
hard. He didn't go out to look for other jobs any more, but
every minute he had to be busy around the house. He took
down the doors and oiled the hinges— whether they needed it
or not. He mixed the margarine for Portia and scrubbed the
floors upstairs. He worked out a contraption where the water
from the ice box could be drained through the kitchen
window. He carved some beautiful alphabet blocks for Ralph
and invented a little needle-threader. Over the few watches
that he had to work on he took great pains.
Mick still followed Mister Singer. But she didn't want to. It
was like there was something wrong about her following after
him without his knowing. Two or three days she played hookv
from school. She walked behind him when he went to work
and hung around on the corner near his266
267
store all day. When he ate his dinner at Mister Brannon's she
went into the caf6 and spent a nickel for a sack of peanuts.
Then at night she followed him on these dark, long walks. She
stayed on the opposite side of the street from him and about a
block behind. When he stopped, she stopped also—and when
he walked fast she ran to keep up with him. So long as she
could see him and be near him she was right happy. But
sometimes this queer feeling would come to her and she knew
that she was doing wrong. So she tried hard to keep busy at
home.
She and her Dad were alike in the way that now they always
had to be fooling with something. She kept up with all that
went on in the house and the neighborhood. Spare-rib's big
sister won fifty dollars at a movie bank night. Baby Wilson
had the bandage off her head now, but her hair was cut short
like a boy's. She couldn't dance in the soiree this year, and
when her mother took her to see it Baby began to yell and cut
up during one of the dances. They had to drag her out of the
Opera House. And on the sidewalk Mrs. Wilson had to whip
her to make her behave. And Mrs. Wilson cried, too. George
hated Baby. He would hold his nose and stop up his ears when
she passed by the house. Pete Wells ran away from home and
was gone three weeks. He came back barefooted and very
hungry. He bragged about how he had gone all the way to
New Orleans.
Because of Etta, Mick still slept in the living-room. The short
sofa cramped her so much that she had to make up sleep in
study hall at school. Every other night Bill swapped with her
and she slept with George. Then a lucky break came for them.
A fellow who had a room upstairs moved away. When after a
week had gone by and nobody answered the ad in the paper,
their Mama told Bill he could move up to the vacant room.
Bill was very pleased to have a place entirely by himself away
from the family. She moved in with George. He slept like a
little warm kitty and breathed very quiet.
She knew the night-time again. But not the same as in the last
summer when she walked in the dark by herself and listened
to the music and made plans. She knew the night a different
way now. In bed she lay awake. A queer
afraidness came to her. It was like the ceiling was slowly
pressing down toward her face. How would it be if the house
fell apart? Once their Dad had said the whole place ought to
be condemned. Did he mean that maybe some night when they
were asleep the walls would crack and the house collapse?
Bury them under all the plaster and broken glass and smashed
furniture? So that they could not move or breathe? She lay
awake and her muscles were stiff. In the night there was
creaking. Was that somebody walking —somebody else
awake besides her—Mister Singer?
She never thought about Harry. She had made up her mind to
forget him and she did forget him. He wrote that he had a job
with a garage in Birmingham. She answered with a card
saying 'O.K.' as they had planned. He sent his mother three
dollars every week. It seemed like a very long time had passed
since they went to the woods together.
During the day she was busy in the outside room. But at night
she was by herself in the dark and figuring was not enough.
She wanted somebody. She tried to keep George awake. 'It
sure is fun to stay awake and talk in the dark. Less us talk
awhile together.
'
He made a sleepy answer.
'See the stars out the window. If s a hard thing to realize that
every single one of those little stars is a planet as large as the
earth.
'
*How do they know that?
'
They just do. They got ways of measuring. That's science.
'
'I don't believe in it'
She tried to egg him on to an argument so that he would get
mad and stay awake. He just let her talk and didn't seem to pay
attention. After a while he said:
'Look, Mick! You see that branch of the tree? Don't it look
like a pilgrim forefather lying down with a gun in his hand?
'
'It sure does. That's exactly what it's like. And see over there
on the bureau. Don't that bottle look like a funny man with
a
hat on?
'
.Naw,' George said. 'It don't look a bit like one to me.'
She took a drink from a glass of water on the floor. 'Less me
and you play a game—the name game. You can be It if you
want to. Whichever you like. You can choose.'268
f
269
He put his little fists up to his face and breathed in a quiet,
even way because he was falling asleep.
'Wait, George!' she said. "This'll be fun. I'm somebody
beginning with an M. Guess who I am.
'
George sighed and his voice was tired. 'Are you Harpo
Marx?
'
'No, Fm not even in the movies.
'
'I don't know.
'
'Sure you do. My name begins with the letter M and I live in
Italy. You ought to guess this.
'
George turned over on his side and curled up in a ball.
;
He did not answer.
'My name begins with an M but sometimes I'm called a
f
name beginning with D. In Italy. You can guess.
'
The room was quiet and dark and George was asleep. She
pinched him and twisted his ear. He groaned but did not
awake. She fitted in close to him and pressed her face against
his hot little naked shoulder. He would sleep all through the
night while she was figuring with decimals.
Was Mister Singer awake in his room upstairs? Did the ceiling
creak because he was walking quietly up and down, drinking
a
cold orange crush and studying the chess men laid out on the
table? Had ever he felt a terrible afraidness like this one? No.
He had never done anything wrong. He had never done wrong
and his heart was quiet in the nighttime. Yet at the same time
he would understand.
If only she could tell him about this, then it would be better.
She thought of how she would begin to tell him. Mister Singer
—I know this girl not any older than I am— Mister Singer,
I
don't know whether you understand a thing like this or not—
Mister Singer. Mister Singer. She said his name over and over.
She loved him better than anyone in the family, better even
than George or her Dad. It was a different love. It was not like
anything she had ever felt in her life before.
In the mornings she and George would dress together and talk.
Sometimes she wanted very much to be close to George. He
had grown taller and was pale and peaked. His soft, reddish
hair lay raggedly over the tops of his little ears. His sharp eyes
were always squinted so that his face had a strained look. His
permanent teeth were coming in, but they were blue and far
apart like his baby teeth had
.
been. Often his jaw was crooked because he had a habit of
feeling out the sore new teeth with his tongue.
'Listen here, George,' she said. 'Do you love me?
'
'Sure. I love you O.K.
'
It was a hot, sunny morning during the last week of school.
George was dressed and he lay on the floor doing his number
work. His dirty little fingers squeezed the pencil tight and he
kept breaking the lead point. When he was finished she held him
by the shoulders and looked hard into his face. 'I mean a lot. A
whole lot.'
'Lemme go. Sure I love you. Ain't you my sister?'
'I know. But suppose I wasn't your sister. Would you love me
then?'
George backed away. He had run out of shirts and wore a dirty
pullover sweater. His wrists were thin and blue-veined. The
sleeves of the sweater had stretched so that they hung loose and
made his hands look very small.
'If you wasn't my sister then I might not know you. So I couldn't
love you.'
.But if you did know me and I wasn't your sister.
'
*But how do you know I would? You can't prove it.
'
.Well, just take it for granted and pretend.
'
'I reckon I would like you all right. But I still say you can't
prove-------
'
'Prove! You got that word on the brain. Ptove and trick.
Everything is either a trick or it's got to be proved. I can't stand
you, George Kelly. I hate you.
'
'O.K. Then I don't like you none either.
'
He crawled down under the bed for something.
*What you want under there? You better leave my things alone.
If I ever caught you meddling in my private box I'd bust your
head against the side of the wall. I would. I'd stomp on your
brains.
'
George came out from under the bed with his spelling book. His
dirty little paw reached in a hole in the mattress where he hid his
marbles. Nothing could faze that kid. He took his time about
choosing three brown agates to take with him. 'Aw, shucks,
Mick,' he answered her. George was too little and too tough.
There wasn't any sense in loving him. He knew even less about
things than she did.
School was out and she had passed every subject—some with
A
plus and some by the skin of her teeth. The days270
were long and hot. Finally she was able to work hard at music
again. She began to write down pieces for the violin and
piano. She wrote songs. Always music was in her mind. She
listened to Mister Singer's radio and wandered around the
house thinking about the programs she had heard.
.What ails Mick?' Portia asked. 'What kind of cat is it got her
tongue? She walk around and don't say a word. She not even
greedy like she used to be. She getting to be a regular lady
these days.'
It was as though in some way she was waiting—but what she
waited for she did not know. The sun burned down glaring
and white-hot in the streets. During the day she either worked
hard at music or messed with kids. And waited. Sometimes
she would look all around her quick and this panic would
come in her. Then in late June there was a sudden happening
so important that it changed everything.
That night they were all out on the porch. The twilight was
blurred and soft. Supper was almost ready and the smell of
cabbage floated to them from the open hall. All of them were
together except Hazel, who had not come home from work,
and Etta, who still lay sick in bed. Their Dad leaned back in a
chair with his sock-feet on the banisters. Bill was on the steps
with the kids. Their Mama sat on the swing fanning herself
with the newspaper. Across the street a girl new in the
neighborhood skated up and down the sidewalk on one roller
skate. The lights on the block were just beginning to be turned
on, and far away a man was calling someone.
Then Hazel come home. Her high heels clopped up the steps
and she leaned back lazily on the banisters. In the half-dark
her fat, soft hands were very white as she felt the back of her
braided hair. 'I sure do wish Etta was able to work,' she said. 'I
found out about this job today.'
'What kind of a job?' asked their Dad. 'Anything I could do, or
just for girls?'
'Just for a girl. A clerk down at Woolworth's is going to get
married next week.'
"The ten-cent store------' Mick said.
'You interested?'
The question took her by surprise. She had just been
271
thinking about a sack of wintergreen candy she had bought
there the day before. She felt hot and tense. She rubbed her
bangs up from her forehead and counted the first few stars.
Their Dad flipped his cigarette down to the sidewalk. .No,' he
said. 'We don't want Mick to take on too much responsibility
at her age. Let her get her growth out. Her growth through
with, anyway.'
'I agree with you,' Hazel said. 'I really do think it would be a
mistake for Mick to have to work regular. I don't think it
would be right.'
Bill put Ralph down from his lap and shuffled his feet on the
steps. 'Nobody ought to work until they're around sixteen.
Mick should have two more years and finish at Vocational—if
we can make it.'
'Even if we have to give up the house and move down in mill
town,' their Mama said. 'I rather keep Mick at home for a
while.'
For a minute she had been scared they would try to corner her
into taking the job. She would have said she would run away
from home. But the way they took the attitude they did
touched her. She felt excited. They were all talking about her
—and in a kindly way. She was ashamed for the first scared
feeling that had come to her. Of a sudden she loved all of the
family and a tightness came in her throat.
'About how much money is in it?' she asked.
Ten dollars.'
Ten dollars a week?'
'Sure,' Hazel said. 'Did you think it would be only ten a
month?'
'Portia don't make but about that much.'
'Oh, colored people------' Hazel said.
Mick rubbed the top of her head with her fist That's a whole
lot of money. A good deal.'
'It's not to be grinned at,' Bill said. "That's what I make.'
Mick's tongue was dry. She moved it around in her mouth to
gather up spit enough to talk. Ten dollars a week would buy
about fifteen fried chickens. Or five pairs of shoes or five
dresses. Or installments on a radio.' She thought about a
piano, but she did not mention that aloud.272
'It would tide us over,' their Mama said. *But at the same time
I rather keep Mick at home for a while. Now,
when Etta------'
'Wait!' She felt hot and reckless. 'I want to take the job. I can
hold it down. I know I can.' 'Listen to little Mick,' Bill said.
Their Dad picked his teeth with a matchstick and took his feet
down from the banisters. 'Now, let's not rush into anything. I
rather Mick take her time and think this out. We can get along
somehow without her working. I mean
to increase my watch work by sixty per cent soon as------'
'I forgot,' Hazel said. 'I think there's a Christmas bonus every
year.'
Mick frowned. "But I wouldn't be working then. I'd be in
school. I just want to work during vacation and then go back
to school.' 'Sure,' Hazel said quickly.
"But tomorrow I'll go down with you and take the job if I can
get it'
It was as though a great worry and tightness left the family. In
the dark they began to laugh and talk. Their Dad did a trick for
George with a matchstick and a handkerchief. Then he gave
the kid fifty cents to go down to the corner store for Coca-
Colas to be drunk after supper. The smell of cabbage was
stronger in the hall and pork chops were frying. Portia called.
The boarders already waited at the table. Mick had supper in
the dining-room. The cabbage leaves were limp and yellow on
her plate and she couldn't eat. When she reached for the bread
she knocked a pitcher of iced tea over the table.
Then later she waited on the front porch by herself for Mister
Singer to come home. In a desperate way she wanted to see
him. The excitement of the hour before had died down and she
was sick to the stomach. She was going to work in a ten-cent
store and she did not want to work there. It was like she had
been trapped into something. The job wouldn't be just for the
summer—but for a long time, as long as she could see ahead.
Once they were used to the money coming in it would be
impossible to do without again. That was the way things were.
She stood in the dark and held tight to the banisters. A long
time passed and Mister Singer still did not come. At eleven
o'clock she
went out to see if she could find him. But suddenly she got
frightened in the dark and ran back home.
Then in the morning she bathed and dressed very careful.
Hazel and Etta loaned her the clothes to wear and primped her
to look nice. She wore Hazel's green silk dress and a green hat
and high-heeled pumps with silk stockings. They fixed her
face with rouge and lipstick and plucked her eyebrows. She
looked at least sixteen years old when they were finished.
It was too late to back down now. She was really grown and
ready to earn her keep. Yet if she would go to her Dad and tell
him how she felt he would tell her to wait a year. And Hazel
and Etta and Bill and their Mama, even now, would say that
she didn't have to go. But she couldn't do it. She couldn't lose
face like that. She went up to see Mister Singer. The words
came all in a rush:
'Listen—I believe I got this job. What do you think? Do you
think it's a good idea? Do you think it's O.K. to drop out of
school and work now? You think it's good?'
At first he did not understand. His gray eyes half-closed and
he stood with his hands deep down in his pockets. There was
the old feeling that they waited to tell each other things that
had never been told before. The thing she had to say now was
not much. But what he had to tell her would be right—and if
he said the job sounded O.K. then she would feel better about
it. She repeated the words slowly and waited.
'You think it's good?'
Mister Singer considered. Then he nodded yes.
She got the job. The manager took her and Hazel back to a
little office and talked with them. Afterward she couldn't
remember how the manager looked or anything that had been
said. But she was hired, and on the way out of the place she
bought ten cents' worth of Chocolate and a little modeling clay
set for George. On June the fifth she was to start work. She
stood for a long while before the window of Mister Singer's
jewelry store. Then she hung around on the corner.TT4
CARSON Me CULLERS
15
_l HE time had come for Singer to go to Antonapoulos again.
The journey was a long one. For, although the distance
between them was something less than two hundred miles, the
train meandered to points far out of the way and stopped for
long hours at certain stations during the night. Singer would
leave the town in the afternoon and travel all through the night
and until the early morning of the next day. As usual, he was
ready far in advance. He planned to have a full week with his
friend this visit. His clothes had been sent to the cleaner's, his
hat blocked, and his bags were in readiness. The gifts he
would carry were wrapped in colored tissue paper—and in
addition there was a deluxe basket of fruits done up in
cellophane and a crate of late-shipped strawberries. On the
morning before his departure Singer cleaned his room. In his
ice box he found a bit of left-over goose liver and took it out
to the alley for the neighborhood cat. On his door he tacked
the same sign he had posted there before, stating that he would
be absent for several days on business. During all these
preparations he moved about leisurely with two vivid spots of
color on his cheekbones. His face was very solemn.
Then at last the hour for departure was at hand. He stood on
the platform, burdened with his suitcases and gifts, and
watched the train roll in on the station tracks. He found
himself a seat in the day coach and hoisted his luggage on the
rack above his head. The car was crowded, for the most part
with mothers and children. The green plush seats had a grimy
smell. The windows of the car were dirty and rice thrown at
some recent bridal pair lay scattered on the floor. Singer
smiled cordially to his fellow-travelers and leaned back in his
seat. He closed his eyes. The lashes made a dark, curved
fringe above the hollows of his cheeks. His right hand moved
nervously inside his pocket
For a while his thoughts lingered in the town he was leaving
behind him. He saw Mick and Doctor Copeland and Jake
Blount and Biff Brannon. The faces crowded in on him out of
the darkness so that he felt smothered. He thought of the
quarrel between Blount and the Negro. The
275
nature of this quarrel was hopelessly confused in his mind —but each
of them had on several occasions broken out into a bitter tirade
against the other, the absent one. He had agreed with each of them in
turn, though what it was they wanted him to sanction he did not
know. And Mick —her face was urgent and she said a good deal that
he did not understand in the least. And then Biff Brannon at the New
York Caf6. Brannon with his dark, iron-like jaw and his watchful
eyes. And strangers who followed him about the streets and
buttonholed him for unexplainable reasons. The Turk at the linen
shop who flung his hands up in his face and babbled with his tongue
to make words the shape of which Singer had never imagined before.
A certain mill foreman and an old black woman. A businessman on
the main street and an urchin who solicited soldiers for a whorehouse
near the river. Singer wriggled his shoulders uneasily. The train
rocked with a smooth, easy motion. His head nodded to rest on his
shoulder and for a short while he slept.
When he opened his eyes again the town was far behind him. The
town was forgotten. Outside the dirty window there was the brilliant
midsummer countryside. The sun slanted in strong, bronze-colored
rays over the green fields of the new cotton. There were acres of
tobacco, the plants heavy and green like some monstrous jungle
weed. The orchards of peaches with the lush fruit weighting down the
dwarfed trees. There were miles of pastures and tens of miles of
wasted, washed-out land abandoned to the hardier weeds. The train
cut through deep green pine forests where the ground was covered
with the slick brown needles and the tops of the trees stretched up
virgin and tall into the sky. And farther, a long way south of the
town, the cypress swamps—with the gnarled roots of the trees
writhing down into the brackish waters, where the gray, tattered moss
trailed from the branches, where tropical water flowers blossomed in
dankness and gloom. Then out again into the open beneath the sun
and the indigo-blue sky.
Singer sat solemn and timid, his face turned fully toward the window.
The great sweeps of space and the hard, elemental coloring almost
blinded him. This kaleidoscopic variety of scene, this abundance of
growth and color,276
seemed somehow connected with his friend". His thoughts
were with Antonapoulos. The bliss of their reunion almost
stifled him. His nose was pinched and he breathed with quick,
short breaths through his slightly open mouth.
Antonapoulos would be glad to see him. He would enjoy the
fresh fruits and the presents. By now he would be out of the
sick ward and able to go on an excursion to the movies, and
afterward to the hotel where they had eaten dinner on the first
visit. Singer had written many letters to Antonapoulos, but he
had not posted them. He surrendered himself wholly to
thoughts of his friend.
The half-year since he had last been with him seemed neither
a long nor a short span of time. Behind each waking moment
there had always been his friend. And this submerged
communion with Antonapoulos had grown and changed as
though they were together in the flesh. Sometimes he thought
of Antonapoulos with awe and self-abasement, sometimes
with pride—always with love unchecked by criticism, freed of
will. When he dreamed at night the face of his friend was
always before him, massive and gentle. And in his waking
thoughts they were eternally united.
The summer evening came slowly. The sun sank down behind
a ragged line of trees in the distance and the sky paled. The
twilight was languid and soft. There was a white full moon,
and low purple clouds lay over the horizon. The earth, the
trees, the unpainted rural dwellings darkened slowly. At
intervals mild summer lightning quivered in the air. Singer
watched all of this intently until at last the night had come,
and his own face was reflected in the glass before him.
Children staggered up and down the aisle of the car with
dripping paper cups of water. An old man in overalls who had
the seat before Singer drank whiskey from time to time from a
Coca-Cola bottle. Between swallows he plugged the bottle
carefully with a wad of paper. A little girl on the right combed
her hair with a sticky red lollipop. Shoeboxes were opened
and trays of supper were brought in from the dining-car.
Singer did not eat. He leaned back in his seat and kept
desultory account of all that went on around him. At last the
car settled down. Children lay on the broad plush seats and
slept, while men and women
277
doubled up with their pillows and rested as best they could.
Singer did not sleep. He pressed his face close against the
glass and strained to see into the night. The darkness was
heavy and velvety. Sometimes there was a patch of moonlight
or the flicker of a lantern from the window of some house
along the way. From the moon he saw that the train had turned
from its southward course and was headed toward the east.
The eagerness he felt was so keen that his nose was too
pinched to breathe through and his cheeks were scarlet. He sat
there, his face pressed close against the cold, sooty glass of
the window, through most of the long night journey.
The train was more than an hour late, and the fresh, bright
summer morning was well under way when they arrived.
Singer went immediately to the hotel, a very good hotel where
he had made reservations in advance. He unpacked his bags
and arranged the presents he would take to Antonapoulos on
the bed. From the menu the bellboy brought him he selected a
luxurious breakfast—broiled bluefish, hominy, French toast,
and hot black coffee. After breakfast he rested before the
electric fan in his underwear. At noon he began to dress. He
bathed and shaved and laid out fresh linen and his best
seersucker suit At three o'clock the hospital was open for
visiting hours. It was Tuesday and the eighteenth of July.
At the asylum he sought Antonapoulos first in the sick ward
where he had been confined before. But at the doorway of the
room he saw immediately that his friend was not there. Next
he found his way through the corridors to the office where he
had been taken the time before. He had his question already
written on one of the cards he carried about with him. The
person behind the desk was not the same as the one who had
been there before. He was a young man, almost a boy, with a
half-formed, immature face and a lank mop of hair. Singer
handed him the card and stood quietly, his arms heaped with
packages, his weight resting on his heels.
The young man shook his head. He leaned over the desk and
scribbled loosely on a pad of paper. Singer read what he had
written and the spots of color drained from his cheekbones
instantly. He looked at the note a long time,278
his eyes cut sideways and his head bowed. For it was written
there that Antonapoulos was dead.
On the way back to the hotel he was careful not to crush the
fruit he had brought with him. He took the packages up to his
room and then wandered down to the lobby. Behind a potted
palm tree there was a slot machine. He inserted a nickel but
when he tried to pull the lever he found that the machine was
jammed. Over this incident he made a great to-do. He
cornered the clerk and furiously demonstrated what had
happened. His face was deathly pale and he was so beside
himself that tears rolled down the ridges of his nose. He
flailed his hands and even stamped once with his long,
narrow, elegantly shoed foot on the plush carpet. Nor was he
satisfied when his coin was refunded, but insisted on checking
out immediately. He packed his bag and was obliged to work
energetically to make it close again. For in addition to the
articles he had brought with him he carried away three towels,
two cakes of soap, a pen and a bottle of ink, a roll of toilet
paper, and a Holy Bible. He paid his bill and walked to the
railway station to put his belongings in custody. The train did
not leave until nine in the evening and he had the empty
afternoon before him.
This town was smaller than the one in which he lived. The
business streets intersected to form the shape of a cross. The
stores had a countrified look; there were harnesses and sacks
of feed in half of the display windows. Singer walked
listlessly along the sidewalks. His throat felt swollen and he
wanted to swallow but was unable to do so. To relieve this
strangled feeling he bought a drink in one of the drugstores.
He idled in the barber shop and purchased a few trifles at the
ten-cent store. He looked no one full in the face and his head
drooped down to one side like a sick animal's.
The afternoon was almost ended when a strange thing
happened to Singer. He had been walking slowly and
irregularly along the curb of the street. The sky was overcast
and the air humid. Singer did not raise his head, but as he
passed the town pool room he caught a sidewise glance of
something that disturbed him. He passed the pool room and
then stopped in the middle of the street. Listlessly he retraced
his steps and stood before the open
279
door of the place. There were three mutes inside and they
were talking with their hands together. All three of them were
coatless. They wore bowler hats and bright ties. Each of them
held a glass of beer in his left hand. There was a certain
brotherly resemblance between them.
Singer went inside. For a moment he had trouble taking his
hand from his pocket. Then clumsily he formed a word of
greeting. He was clapped on the shoulder. A cold drink was
ordered. They surrounded him and the fingers of their hands
shot out like pistons as they questioned him.
He told his own name and the name of the town where he
lived. After that he could think of nothing else to tell about
himself. He asked if they knew Spiros Antonapoulos. They
did not know him. Singer stood with his hands dangling loose.
His head was still inclined to one side and his glance was
oblique. He was so listless and cold that the three mutes in the
bowler hats looked at him queerly. After a while they left him
out of their conversation. And when they had paid for the
rounds of beers and were ready to depart they did not suggest
that he join them.
Although Singer had been adrift on the streets for half a day
he almost missed his train. It was not clear to him how this
happened or how he had spent the hours before. He reached
the station two minutes before the train pulled out, and barely
had time to drag his luggage aboard and find a seat. The car he
chose was almost empty. When he was settled he opened the
crate of strawberries and picked them over with finicky care.
The berries were of a giant size, large as walnuts and in full-
blown ripeness. The green leaves at the top of the rich-colored
fruit were like tiny bouquets. Singer put a berry in his mouth
and though the juice had a lush, wild sweetness there was
already a subtle flavor of decay. He ate until his palate was
dulled by the taste and then rewrapped the crate and placed it
on the rack above him. At midnight he drew the window-
shade and lay down on the seat. He was curled in a ball, his
coat pulled over his face and head. In this position he lay in a
stupor of half-sleep for about twelve hours. The conductor had
to shake him when they arrived.
Singer left his luggage in the middle of the station floor. Then
he walked to the shop. He greeted the jeweler for whom he
worked with a listless turn of his head. When280
he went out again there was something heavy in his pocket For a
while he rambled with bent head along the streets. But the
unrefracted brilliance of the sun, the humid heat, oppressed him. He
returned to his room with swollen eyes and an aching head. After
resting he drank a glass of iced coffee and smoked a cigarette. Then
when he had washed the ash tray and the glass he brought out a pistol
from his pocket and put a bullet in his chest.
Part Three
August 21,1939
Morning
J. WILL not be hurried,' Doctor Copeland said. 'Just let me be. Kindly
allow me to sit here in peace a moment.'
'Father, us not trying to rush you. But it time now to get gone from
here.'
Doctor Copeland rocked stubbornly, his gray shawl drawn close
around his shoulders. Although the morning was warm and fresh, a
small wood fire burned in the stove. The kitchen was bare of all
furniture except the chair in which he sat. The other rooms were
empty, too. Most of the furniture had been moved to Portia's house,
and the rest was tied to the automobile outside. All was in readiness
except his own mind. But how could he leave when there was neither
beginning nor end, neither truth nor purpose in his thoughts? He put
up his hand to steady his trembling head and continued to rock
himself slowly in the creaking
chair.
Behind the closed door he heard their voices: 'I done all I can. He
determined to sit there till he good and ready to leave.'
'Buddy and me done wrapped the china plates and------'
'Us should have left before the dew dried,' said the old man. 'As is,
night liable to catch us on the road.'
Their voices quieted. Footsteps echoed in the empty hallway and he
could hear them no more. On the floor beside him was a cup and
saucer. He filled it with coffee from the pot on the top of the stove.
As he rocked he drank
281282
283
the coffee and warmed his fingers in the steam. This could not
truly be the end. Other voices called wordless in his heart. The
voice of Jesus and of John Brown. The voice of the great
Spinoza and of Karl Marx. The calling voices of all those who
had fought and to whom it had been vouchsafed to complete
their missions. The grief-bound voices of his people. And also
the voice of the dead. Of the mute Singer, who was a
righteous white man of understanding. The voices of the weak
and of the mighty. The , rolling voice of his people growing
always in strength and in power. The voice of the strong, true
purpose. And in answer the words trembled on his lips—the
words which ' are surely the root of all human grief—so that
he almost said aloud: 'Almighty Host! Utmost power of the
universe! I have done those things which I ought not to have
done and left undone those things which I ought to have done.
So this cannot truly be the end.'
He had first come into the house with her whom he loved.
And Daisy was dressed in her bridal gown and wore a white
lace veil. Her skin was the beautiful color of dark honey and
her laughter was sweet. At night he had shut himself in the
bright room to study alone. He had tried to cogitate and to
discipline himself to study. But with Daisy near him there was
a strong desire in him that would not go away with study. So
sometimes he surrendered to these feelings, and again he bit
his lips and meditated with the books throughout the night.
And then there were Hamilton and Karl Marx and William
and Portia. All lost. No one remained.
And Madyben and Benny Mae. And Benedine Madine and
Mady Copeland. Those who carried his name. And those
whom he had exhorted. But out of the thousands of them
where was there one to whom he could entrust the mission and
then take ease? ,
All of his life he had known it strongly. He had known the
reason for his working and was sure in his heart because he
knew each day what lay ahead of him. He would go with his
bag from house to house, and on all things he would talk to
them and patiently explain. And then in the night he would be
happy in the knowledge that the day had been a day of
purpose. And even without Daisy and Hamilton and Karl
Marx and William and Portia he
could sit by the stove alone and take joy from this knowledge.
He would drink a pot of turnip-green liquor and eat a pone of
cornbread. A deep feeling of satisfaction would be in him
because the day was good.
There were thousands of such times of satisfaction. But what
had been their meaning? Out of all the years he could think of
no work of lasting value.
After a while the door to the hall was opened and Portia came
in. 'I reckon I going to have to dress you like a baby,' she said.
'Here your shoes and socks. Let me take off your bedroom
shoes and put them on. We got to get gone from here pretty
soon.'
'Why have you done this to me?' he asked bitterly.
'What I done to you now?'
'You know full well that I do not want to leave. You pressed
me into saying yes when I was in no fit condition to make a
decision. I wish to remain where I have always been, and you
know it.'
'Listen to you carry on!' Portia said angrily. 'You done
grumbled so much that I nearly worn out. You done fumed
and fussed so that I right shamed for you.'
'Pshaw! Say what you will. You only come before me like
a
gnat. I know what I wish and will not be pestered into doing
that which is wrong.
'
Portia took off his bedroom shoes and unrolled a pair of clean
black cotton socks. 'Father, less us quit this here argument. Us
have all done the best we know how. It entirely the best plan
for you to go out with Grandpapa and Hamilton and Buddy.
They going to take good care of you and you going to get
well.
'
'No, I will not,' said Doctor Copeland. 'But I would have
recovered here. I know it.
'
'Who you think could pay the note on this here house? How
you think us could feed you? Who you think could take care
you here?
'
'I have always managed, and I can manage yet.
'
'You just trying to be contrary.
'
'Pshaw! You come before me like a gnat. And I ignore you.
'
'That certainly is a nice way to talk to me while I trying to put
on your shoes and socks.
'
'I am sorry. Forgive me, Daughter.'284
'Course you sorry,' she said. 'Course we both sorry. Us can't
afford to quarrel. And besides, once we get you settled on the
farm you going to like it. They got the prettiest vegetable
garden I ever seen. Make my mouth slobber to think about it.
And chickens and two breed sows and eighteen peach trees.
Ypu just going to be crazy about it there. I sure do wish it was
me could get a chance to go.
'
'I wish so, too.
'
'How come you so determined to grieve?
'
'I just feel that I have failed,' he said.
'How you mean you done failed?
'
'I do not know. Just leave me be, Daughter. Just let me sit here
in peace a moment.
'
'O.K. But us got to get gone from here pretty soon.
'
He would be silent. He would sit quietly and rock in the chair
until the sense of order was in him once more. His head
trembled and his backbone ached.
'I certainly hope this,' Portia said. 'I certainly hope that when
I
dead and gone as many peoples grieves for me as grieves for
Mr. Singer. I sure would like to know I were going to have as
sad a funeral as he had and as many peoples------'
'Hush!' said Doctor Copeland roughly. "You talk too much.'
But truly with the death of that white man a dark sorrow had
lain down in his heart. He had talked to him as to no other
white man and had trusted him. And the mystery of his suicide
had left him baffled and without support. There was neither
beginning nor end to this sorrow. Nor understanding. Always
he would return in his thoughts to this white man who was not
insolent or scornful but who was just. And how can the dead
be truly dead when they still live in the souls of those who are
left behind? But of all this he must not think. He must thrust it
from him now.
For it was discipline he needed. During the past month the
black, terrible feelings had arisen again to wrestle with his
spirit. There was the hatred that for days had truly let him
down into the regions of death. After the quarrel with Mr.
Blounti the midnight visitor, there had been in him a
murderous darkness. Yet now he could not clearly recall those
issues which were the cause of their dispute. And
285
then the different anger that came in him when he looked on
the stumps of Willie's legs. The warring love and hatred —
love for his people and hatred for the oppressors of his people
—that left him exhausted and sick in spirit
'Daughter,' he said. 'Get me my watch and coat. I am going.'
He pushed himself up with the arms of the chair. The floor
seemed a far way from his face and after the long time in bed
his legs were very weak. For a moment he felt he would fall.
He walked dizzily across the bare room and stood leaning
against the side of the doorway. He coughed and took from his
pocket one of the squares of paper to hold over his mouth.
'Here your coat,' Portia said. 'But it so hot outside you not
going to need it.'
He walked for the last time through the empty house. The
blinds were closed and in the darkened rooms there was the
smell of dust. He rested against the wall of the vestibule and
then went outside. The morning was bright and warm. Many
friends had come to say good-bye the night before and in the
very early morning—but now only the family was congregated
on the porch. The wagon and the automobile were parked out
in the street.
'Well, Benedict Mady,' the old man said. 'I reckon yoa ghy be
a little bit homesick these first few days. But won't be long.
'
'I do not have any home. So why should T be homesick?
*
Portia wet her lips nervously and said: 'He coming back
whenever he get good and ready. Buddy will be glad to ride
him to town in the car. Buddy just love to drive.
'
The automobile was loaded. Boxes of books were tied to the
running-board. The back seat was crowded with two chairs
and the filing case. His office desk, legs in the air, had been
fastened to the top. But although the car was weighted down
the wagon was almost empty. The mule stood patiently,
a
brick tied to his reins.
'Karl Marx,' Doctor Copeland said. 'I^ook sharp. Go over the
house and make sure that nothing is left. Bring the cup I left
on the floor and my rocking-chair.
'
'Less us get started. I anxious to be home by dinnertime,
'
Hamilton said.286
At last they were ready. Highboy cranked the automobile.
Karl Marx sat at the wheel and Portia, Highboy, and William
were crowded together on the back seat.
'Father, suppose you set on Highboy's lap. I believe you be
more comfortable than scrouged up here with us and all this
furniture.
'
*No, it is too crowded. I would rather ride in the wagon.
'
'But you not used to the wagon,' Karl Marx said. 'It going to be
very bumpy and the trip liable to take all day.
'
"That does not matter. I have ridden in many a wagon before
this.
'
'Tell Hamilton to come with us. I sure he rather ride in the
automobile.
'
Grandpapa had driven the wagon into town the day before.
They brought with them a load of produce, peaches and
cabbages and turnips, for Hamilton to sell in town. All except
a sack of peaches had been marketed.
'Well, Benedict Mady, I see you riding home with me,' the old
man said.
Doctor Copeland climbed into the back of the wagon. He was
weary as though his bones were made of lead. His head
trembled and a sudden spasm of nausea made him lie down
flat on the rough boards.
'I right glad you coming,' Grandpapa said. 'You understand I
always had deep respect for scholars. Deep respect I able to
overlook and forget a good many things if a man be a scholar.
I very glad to have a scholar like you in the fambly again.'
The wheels of the wagon creaked. They were on the way. 'I
will return soon,' Doctor Copeland said. 'After only a month or
two I will return.'
'Hamilton he a right good scholar. I think he favors you some.
He do all my figuring on paper for me and he read the
newspapers. And Whitman I think he ghy be a scholar. Right
now he able to read the Bible to me. And do number work.
Small a child as he is. I always had a deep respect for
scholars.'
The motion of the wagon jolted his back. He looked up at the
branches overhead, and then when there was no shade he
covered his face with a handkerchief to shield his eyes from
the sun. It was not possible that this could be the end. Always
he had felt in him the strong, true
287
purpose. For forty years his mission was his life and his life
was his mission. And yet all remained to be done and nothing
was completed.
*Yes, Benedict Mady, I right glad to have you with us again. I
been waiting to ask you about this peculiar feeling in my right
foot. A queer feeling like my foot gone to sleep. I taken 666
and rubbed it with liniment. I hoping you will find me a good
treatment.'
'I will do what I can.'
.Yes, I glad to have you. I believe in all Hnfolks sticking
together—blood kin and marriage kin. I believe in all us
struggling along and helping each other out, and some day us
will have a reward in the Beyond.'
'Pshaw!' Doctor Copeland said bitterly. 'I believe in justice
now.'
'What that you say you believe in? You speak so hoarse I ain't
able to hear you.'
'In justice for us. Justice for us Negroes.1
'That right.'
He felt the fire in him and he could not be still. He wanted to
sit up and speak in a loud voice—yet when he tried to raise
himself he could not find the strength. The words in his heart
grew big and they would not be silent But the old man had
ceased to listen and there was no one to hear him.
.Git, Lee Jackson. Git, Honey. Pick up your feets and quit this
here poking. Us got a long way to go.'
Afternoon
J AKE ran at a violent, clumsy pace. He went through Weavers
Lane and then cut into a side alley, climbed a fence, and
hastened onward. Nausea rose in his belly so that there was
the taste of vomit in his throat. A barking dog chased beside
him until he stopped long enough to threaten it with a rock.
His eyes were wide with horror and he held his hand clapped
to his open mouth.
Christ! So this was the finish. A brawl. A riot. A fight with
every man for himself. Bloody heads and eyes cut with broken
bottles. Christ! And the wheezy music of the flying-28$
jinny above the noise. The dropped hamburgers and cotton
candy and the screaming younguns. And him in it all. Fighting
blind with the dust and sun. The sharp cut of teeth against his
knuckles. And laughing. Christ! And the feeling that he had
let loose a wild, hard rhythm in him that wouldn't stop. And
then looking close into the dead black face and not knowing.
Not even knowing if he had killed or not. But wait. Christ!
Nobody could have stopped it.
Jake slowed and jerked his head nervously to look behind him.
The alley was empty. He vomited and wiped his mouth and
forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. Afterward he rested for a
minute and felt better. He had run for about eight blocks and
with short cuts there was about half a mile to go. The
dizziness cleared in his head so that from all the wild feelings
he could remember facts. He started off again, this time at a
steady jog.
Nobody could have stopped it. All through the summer he had
stamped them out like sudden fires. All but this one. And this
fight nobody could have stopped. It seemed to blaze up out of
nothing. He had been working on the machinery of the swings
and had stopped to get a glass of water. As he passed across
the grounds he saw a white boy and a Negro walking around
each other. They were both drunk. Half the crowd was drunk
that afternoon, for it was Saturday and the mills had run full
time that week. The heat and the sun were sickening and there
was a heavy stink in the air.
He saw the two fighters close in on each other. But he knew
that this was not the beginning. He had felt a big fight coming
for a long time. And the funny thing was he found time to
think of all this. He stood watching for about five seconds
before he pushed into the crowd. In that short time he thought
of many things. He thought of Singer. He thought of the sullen
summer afternoons and the black, hot nights, of all the fights
he had broken up and the quarrels he had hushed.
Then he saw the flash of a pocketknife in the sun. He
shouldered through a knot of people and jumped on the back
of the Negro who held the knife. The man went down with
him and they were on the ground together. The smell of sweat
on the Negro was mixed with the heavy dust in
289
his lungs. Someone trampled on his legs and his head was
kicked. By the time he got to his feet again the fight had
become general. The Negroes were fighting the white men and
the white men were fighting the Negroes. He saw clearly,
second by second. The white boy who had picked the fight
seemed a kind of leader. He was the leader of a gang that
came often to the show. They were about sixteen years old
and they wore white duck trousers and fancy rayon polo shirts.
The Negroes fought back as best they could. Some had razors.
He began to yell out words: Order! Help! Police! But it was
like yelling at a breaking dam. There was a terrible sound in
his ear—terrible because it was human and yet without words.
The sound rose to a roar that deafened him. He was hit on the
head. He could not see what went on around him. He saw only
eyes and mouths and fists—wild eyes and half-closed eyes,
wet, loose mouths and clenched ones, black fists and white.
He grabbed a knife from a hand and caught an upraised fist.
Then the dust and the sun blinded him and the one thought in
his mind was to get out and find a telephone to call for help.
But he was caught. And without knowing when it happened he
piled into the fight himself. He hit out with his fists and felt
the soft sqush of wet mouths. He fought with his eyes shut and
his head lowered. A crazy sound came out of his throat. He hit
with all his strength and charged with his head like a bull.
Senseless words were in his mind and he was laughing. He did
not see who he hit and did not know who hit him. But he knew
that the line-up of the fight had changed and now each man
was for himself.
Then suddenly it was finished. He tripped and fell over
backward. He was knocked out so that it may have been a
minute or it may have been much longer before he opened his
eyes. A few drunks were still fighting but two dicks were
breaking it up fast. He saw what he had tripped over. He lay
half on and hah* beside the body of a young Negro boy. With
only one look he knew that he was dead. There was a cut on
the side of his neck but it was hard to see how he had died in
such a hurry. He knew the face but could not place it. The
boy's mouth was open and his eyes were open in surprise. The
ground was littered with papers and broken bottles and
trampled hamburgers. The head was290
broken off one of the jinny horses and a booth was destroyed.
He was sitting up. He saw the dicks and in a panic he started
to run. By now they must have lost his track.
There were only four more blocks ahead, and then he would
be safe for sure. Fear had shortened his breath so that he was
winded. He clenched bis fists and lowered his head. Then
suddenly he slowed and halted. He was alone in an alley near
the main street. On one side was the wall of a building and he
slumped against it, panting, the corded vein in his forehead
inflamed. In his confusion he had run all the way across the
town to reach the room of his friend. And Singer was dead. He
began to cry. He sobbed aloud, and water dripped down from
his nose and wet his mustache.
A wall, a flight of stairs, a road ahead. The burning sun was
like a heavy weight on him. He started back the way he had
come. This time he walked slowly, wiping his wet face with
the greasy sleeve of his shirt. He could not stop the trembling
of his lips and he bit them until he tasted blood.
At the corner of the next block he ran into Simms. The old
codger was sitting on a box with his Bible on his knees. There
was a tall board fence behind him, and on it a message was
written with purple chalk.
He Died to Save You
Hear the Story of His Love and Grace
Every Nite 7.15 P.M.
The street was empty. Jake tried to cross over to the other
sidewalk, but Simms caught him by the arm.
'Come, all ye disconsolate and sore of heart. Lay down your
sins and troubles before the blessed feet of Him who died to
save you. Wherefore goest thou, Brother Blount?
'
"Home to hockey,' Jake said. 'I got to hockey. Does the
Saviour have anything against that?
'
'Sinner! The Lord remembers all your transgressions. The
Lord has a message for you this very night.
'
'Does the Lord remember that dollar I gave you last week?
'
'Jesus has a message for you at seven-fifteen tonight. You be
here on time to hear His Word.
'
291
Jake licked his mustache. 'You have such a crowd every night
I can't get up close enough to hear.
'
"There is a place for scoffers. Besides, I have had a sign that
soon the Saviour wants me to build a house for Him. On that
lot at the corner of Eighteenth Avenue and Sixth Street.
A
tabernacle large enough to hold five hundred people. Then
you scoffers will see. The Lord prepareth a table before me in
the presence of mine enemies; he anoint-eth my head with oil.
My cup runneth------
'
'I can round you up a crowd tonight,' Jake said.
'How?
'
'Give me your pretty colored chalk. I promise a big crowd.
'
'I've seen your signs,' Simms said. ' "Workers! America Is the
Richest Country in the World Yet a Third of Us Are Starving.
When Will We Unite and Demand Our Share?"—all that.
Your signs are radical. I wouldn't let you use my chalk.
'
'But I don't plan to write signs.
'
Simms fingered the pages of his Bible and waited
suspiciously.
Til get you a fine crowd. On the pavements at each end of the
block I'll draw you some good-looking naked floozies. All in
color with arrows to point the way. Sweet, plump, bare-
tailed------'
'Babylonian!' the old man screamed. 'Child of Sodom! God
will remember this.'
Jake crossed over to the other sidewalk and started toward the
house where he lived. 'So long, Brother.'
'Sinner,' the old man called. 'You come back here at seven-
fifteen sharp. And hear the message from Jesus that will give
you faith. Be saved.'
Singer was dead. And the way he had felt when he first heard
that he had killed himself was not sad—it was angry. He was
before a wall. He remembered all the innermost thoughts that
he had told to Singer, and with his death it seemed to him that
they were lost. And why had Singer wanted to end his life?
Maybe he had gone insane. But anyway he was dead, dead,
dead. He could not be seen or touched or spoken to, and the
room where they had spent so many hours had been rented to
a girl who292
worked as a typist. He could go there no longer. He was alone.
A wall, a flight of stairs, an open road.
Jake locked the door of his room behind him. He was hungry
and there was nothing to eat. He was thirsty and only a few
drops of warm water were left in the pitcher by the table. The
bed was unmade and dusty fluff had accumulated on the floor.
Papers were scattered all about the room, because recently he
had written many short notices and distributed them through
the town. Moodily he glanced at one of the papers labeled
'The T.W.O.C. Is Your Best Friend.' Some of the notices
consisted of only one sentence, others were longer. There was
one full-page manifesto entitled "The Affinity Between Our
Democracy and, Fascism.'
For a month he had worked on these papers, scribbling them
during working hours, typing and making carbons on the
typewriter at the New York Caf6, distributing them by hand.
He had worked day and night. But who read them? What good
had any of it done? A town this size was too big for any one
man. And now he was leaving.
But where would it be this time? The names of cities called to
him—Memphis, Wilmington, Gastonia, New Orleans. He
would go somewhere. But not out of the South. The old
restlessness and hunger were in him again. It was different
this time. He did not long for open space and freedom—just
the reverse. He remembered what the Negro, Copeland, had
said to him, 'Do not attempt to stand alone.' There were times
when that was best.
Jake moved the bed across the room. On the part of the floor
the bed had hidden there were a suitcase and a pile of books
and dirty clothes. Impatiently he began to pack. The old
Negro's face was in his mind and some of the words they had
said came back to him. Copeland was crazy. He was a fanatic,
so that it was maddening to try to reason with him. Still the
terrible anger that they had felt that night had been hard to
understand. Copeland knew. And those who knew were like a
handful of naked soldiers before an armed battalion. And what
had they done? They had turned to quarrel with each other.
Copeland was wrong—yes—he was crazy. But on some points
they might be able to work together after all. If they didn't talk
too much. He would go and see him. A sudden urge to
293
hurry came in him. Maybe that would be the best thing after
all. Maybe that was the sign, the hand he had so long awaited.
Without pausing to wash the grime from his face and hands he
strapped his suitcase and left the room. Outside the air was
sultry and there was a foul odor in the street. Clouds had
formed in the sky. The atmosphere was so still that the smoke
from a mill in the district went up in a straight, unbroken line.
As Jake walked the suitcase bumped awkwardly against his
knees, and often he jerked his head to look behind him.
Copeland lived all the way across the town, so there was need
to hurry. The clouds in the sky grew steadily denser, and
foretold a heavy summer rain before nightfall.
When he reached the house where Copeland lived he saw that
the shutters were drawn. He walked to the back and peered
through the window at the abandoned kitchen. A hollow,
desperate disappointment made his hands feel sweaty and his
heart lose the rhythm of its beat He went to the house on the
left but no one was at home. There was nothing to do except
to go to the Kelly house and question Portia.
He hated to be near that house again. He couldn't stand to see
the hatrack in the front hall and the long flight of stairs he had
climbed so many times. He walked slowly back across the
town and approached by way of the alley. He went in the rear
door. Portia was in the kitchen and the little boy was with her.
'No, sir, Mr. Blount,' Portia said. 'I know you were a mighty
good friend of Mr. Singer and you understand what Father
thought of him. But we taken Father out in the country this
morning and I know in my soul I got no business telling you
exactly where he is. If you don't mind I rather speak out and
not minch the matter.'
'You don't have to minch anything,' Jake said. 'But why?'
'After the time you come to see us Father were so sick us
expected him to die. It taken us a long time to get him able to
sit up. He doing right well now. He going to get a lot stronger
where he is now. But whether you understand this or not he
right bitter against white peoples just now and he very easy to
upset. And besides, if you don't mind294
speaking out, what you want with Father, anyway?'
'Nothing,' Jake said. 'Nothing you would understand.'
'Us colored peoples have feelings just like anybody else. And I
stand by what I said, Mr. Blount. Father just a sick old colored
man and he had enough trouble already. Us got to look after
him. And he not anxious to see you—I know that.'
Out in the street again he saw that the clouds had turned a
deep, angry purple. In the stagnant air there was a storm smell.
The vivid green of the trees along the sidewalk seemed to steal
into the atmosphere so that there was a strange greenish glow
over the street. All was so hushed and still that Jake paused
for a moment to sniff the air and look around him. Then he
grasped his suitcase under his arm and began to run toward
the awnings of the main street. But he was not quick enough.
There was one metallic crash of thunder and the air chilled
suddenly. Large silver drops of rain hissed on the pavement.
An avalanche of water blinded him. When he reached the New
York Cafe his clothes clung wet and shriveled to his body and
his shoes squeaked with water.
Brannon pushed aside his newspaper and leaned his elbows on
the counter. 'Now, this is really curious. I had this intuition
you would come here just after the rain broke. I knew in my
bones you were coming and that you would make it just too
late.' He mashed his nose with this thumb until it was white
and flat. 'And a suitcase?'
'It looks like a suitcase,' Jake said. 'And it feels like a suitcase.
So if you believe in the actuality of suitcases I reckon this is
one, all right.'
'You ought not to stand around like this. Go on upstairs and
throw me down your clothes. Louis will run over them with a
hot iron.'
Jake sat at one of the back booth tables and rested his head in
his hands. 'No, thanks. I just want to rest here and get my wind
again.'
'But your lips are turning blue. You look all knocked up.'
'I'm all right. What I want is some supper.'
'Supper won't be ready for half an hour,' Brannon said
patiently.
295
'Any old leftovers will do. Just put them on a plate. You don't
even have to bother to heat them.'
The emptiness in him hurt. He wanted to look neither
backward nor forward. He walked two of his short, chunky
fingers across the top of the table. It was more than a year now
since he had sat at this table for the first time. And how much
further was he now than then? No further. Nothing had
happened except that he had made a friend and lost him. He
had given Singer everything and then the man had killed
himself. So he was left out on a limb. And now it was up to
him to get out of it by himself and make a new start again. At
the thought of it panic came in him. He was tired. He leaned
his head against the wall and put his feet on the seat beside
him.
'Here you are,' Brannon said. 'This ought to help out.'
He put down a glass of some hot drink and a plate of chicken
pie. The drink had a sweet, heavy smell. Jake inhaled the
steam and closed his eyes. 'What's in it?'
'Lemon rind rubbed on a lump of sugar and boiling water with
rum. It's a good drink.'
'How much do I owe you?'
'I don't know offhand, but I'll figure it out before you leave.'
Jake took a deep draught of the toddy and washed it around in
his mouth before swallowing. 'You'll never get the money,' he
said. 'I don't have it to pay you—and if I did I probably
wouldn't anyway.'
'Well, have I been pressing you? Have I ever made you out a
bill and asked you to pay up?'
'No,' Jake said. 'You been very reasonable. And since I think
about it you're a right decent guy—from the personal
perspective, that is.'
Brannon sat across from him at the table. Something was on
his mind. He slid the salt-shaker back and forth and kept
smoothing his hair. He smelled like perfume and his striped
blue shirt was very fresh and clean. The sleeves were rolled
and held in place by old-fashioned blue sleeve garters.
At last he cleared his throat in a hesitating way and said: 'I
was glancing through the afternoon paper just before you
came. It seems you had a lot of trouble at your place
today.'296
That's right. What did it say?'
"Wait. I'll get it.' Brannon fetched the paper from the counter
and leaned against the partition of the booth. 'It says on the
front page that at the Sunny Dixie Show, located so and so,
there was a general disturbance. Two Negroes were fatally
injured with wounds inflicted by knives. Three others suffered
minor wounds and were taken for treatment to the city
hospital. The dead were Jimmy Macy and Lancy Davis. The
wounded were John Hamlin, white, of Central Mill City,
Various Wilson, Negro, and so forth and so on. Quote: "A
number of arrests were made. It is alleged that the disturbance
was caused by labor agitation, as papers of a subversive nature
were found on and about the site of disturbance. Other arrests
are expected shortly."' Brannon clicked his teeth together. 'The
set-up of this paper gets worse every day. Subversive spelled
with a u in the second syllable and arrests with only one r.'
"They're smart, all right,' Jake said sneeringly. * "Caused by
labor agitation." That's remarkable.
'
'Anyway, the whole thing is very unfortunate.
'
Jake held his hand to his mouth and looked down at his empty
plate.
'What do you mean to do now?
*
Tm leaving. I'm getting out of here this afternoon.
'
Brannon polished his nails on the palm of his hand. "Well, of
course it's not necessary—but it might be a good thing. Why
so headlong? No sense in starting out this time of day.
'
'I just father.
'
'I do not think it behooves you to make a new start. At v the
same time why don't you take my advice on this? Myself—I'm
a conservative and of course I think your opinions are radical.
But at the same time I like to know all sides of a matter.
Anyway, I want to see you straighten out. So why don't you go
some place where you can meet a few people more or less like
yourself? And then settle down?
'
Jake pushed his plate irritably away from him. 'I don't know
where I'm going. Leave me'alone. I'm tired.
'
Brannon shrugged his shoulders and went back to the counter.
297
He was tired enough. The hot rum and the heavy sound of the
rain made him drowsy. It felt good to be sitting safe in a booth
and to have just eaten a good meal. If he wanted to he could
lean over and take a nap—a short one. Already his head felt
swollen and heavy and he was more comfortable with his eyes
closed. But it would have to be a short sleep because soon he
must get out of here.
'How long will this rain keep on?'
Brannon's voice had drowsy overtones. 'You can't tell— a
tropical cloudburst. Might clear up suddenly—or— might thin
a little and set in for the night.'
Jake laid his head down on his arms. The sound of the rain
was nice the swelling sound of the sea. He heard a clock tick
and the far-off rattle of dishes. Gradually his hands relaxed.
They lay open, palm upward, on the table.
Then Brannon was shaking him by the shoulders and looking
into his face. A terrible dream was in his mind. 'Wake up,'
Brannon was saying. 'You've had a nightmare. I looked over
here and your mouth was open and you were groaning and
shuffling your feet on the floor. I never saw anything to equal
it.'
The dream was still heavy in his mind. He felt the old terror
that always came as he awakened. He pushed Brannon away
and stood up. 'You don't have to tell me I had a nightmare. I
remember just how it was. And Fve had the same dream for
about fifteen times before.'
He did remember now. Every other time he had been unable to
get the dream straight in his waking mind. He had been
walking among a great crowd of people—like at the show. But
there was also something Eastern about the people around
him. There was a terrible bright sun and the people were half-
naked. They were silent and slow and their faces had a look in
them of starvation. There was no sound, only the sun, and the
silent crowd of people. He walked among them and he carried
a huge covered basket. He was taking the basket somewhere
but he could not find the place to leave it And in the dream
there was a peculiar horror in wandering on and on through
the crowd and not knowing where to lay down the burden he
had carried in his arms so long.
'What was it?' Brannon asked. 'Was the devil chasing you?'298
Jake stood up and went to the mirror behind the counter. His
face was dirty and sweaty. There were dark circles beneath his
eyes. He wet his handkerchief under the fountain faucet and
wiped off his face. Then he took out a pocket comb and neatly
combed his mustache.
'The dream was nothing. You got to be asleep to understand
why it was such a nightmare.'
The clock pointed to five-thirty. The rain had almost stopped.
Jake picked up his suitcase and went to the front door. 'So
long. I'll send you a postcard maybe.'
'Wait,' Brannon said. 'You can't go now. It's still raining a
little.'
'Just dripping off the awning. I rather get out of town before
dark.'
'But hold on. Do you have any money? Enough to keep going
for a week?'
'I don't need money. I been broke before.' Brannon had an
envelope ready and in it were two twenty-dollar bills. Jake
looked at them on both sides and put them in his pocket. 'God
knows why you do it. You'll never smell them again. But
thanks. I won't forget.' 'Good luck. And let me hear from you.'
'Adios.1 'Good-bye.'
The door closed behind him. When he looked back at the end
of the block, Brannon was watching from the sidewalk. He
walked until he reached the railroad tracks. On either side
there were rows of dilapidated two-room houses. In the
cramped back yards were rotted privies and lines of torn,
smoky rags hung out to dry. For two miles there was not one
sight of comfort or space or cleanliness. Even the earth itself
seemed filthy and abandoned. Now and then there were signs
that a vegetable row had been attempted, but only a few
withered collards had survived. And a few fruitless, smutty fig
trees. Little younguns swarmed in this filth, the smaller of
them stark naked. The sight of this poverty was so cruel and
hopeless that Jake snarled and clenched his fists.
He reached the edge of town and turned off on a highway.
Cars passed him by. His shoulders were too wide and his arms
too long. He was so strong and ugly that no one wanted to take
him in. But maybe a truck would stop
299
before long. The late afternoon sun was out again. Heat made
the steam rise from the wet pavement. Jake walked steadily.
As soon as the town was behind a new surge of energy came
to him. But was this flight or was it onslaught? Anyway, he
was going. All this to begin another time. The road ahead lay
to the north and slightly to the west. But he would not go too
far away. He would not leave the South. That was one clear
thing. There was hope in him, and soon perhaps the outline of
his journey would take form.
Evening
W HAT good was it? That was the question she would like to
know. What the hell good was it. All the plans she had made,
and the music. When all that came of it was this trap—the
store, then home to sleep, and back at the store again. The
clock in front of the place where Mister Singer used to work
pointed to seven. And she was just getting off. Whenever
there was overtime the manager always told her to stay.
Because she could stand longer on her feet and work harder
before giving out than any other girL
The heavy rain had left the sky a pale, quiet blue. Dark was
coming. Already the lights were turned on. Automobile horns
honked in the street and the newsboys hollered out the
headlines in the papers. She didn't want to go home. If she
went home now she would lie down on the bed and bawl. That
was how tired she was. But if she went into the New York
Caf6 and ate some ice cream she might feel O.K. And smoke
and be by herself a little while.
The front part of the caf6 was crowded, so she went to the
very last booth. It was the small of her back and her face that
got so tired. Their motto was supposed to be 'Keep on your
toes and smile.' Once she was out of the store she had to frown
a long time to get her face natural again. Even her ears were
tired. She took off the dangling green earrings and pinched the
lobes of her ears. She had bought the earrings the week before
—and also a silver bangle bracelet. At first she had worked in
Pots and Pans, but now they had changed her to Costume
Jewelry.
'Good evening, Mick,' Mister Brannon said. He wiped300
the bottom of a glass of water with a napkin and set it on
the table.
'I want me a chocolate sundae and a nickel glass of draw
beer.'
'Together?' He put down a menu and pointed with Ms
little finger that wore a lady's gold ring. 'See—here's some
nice roast chicken or some veal stew. Why don't you have
a little supper with me?'
'No, thanks. All I want is the sundae and the beer. Both
plenty cold.'
Mick raked her hair from her forehead. Her mouth was
open so that her cheeks seemed hollow. There were these
two things she could never believe. That Mister Singer had
killed himself and was dead. And that she was grown and
had to work at Woolworth's.
She was the one who found him. They had thought the noise
was a backfire from a car, and it was not until the next day
that they knew. She went in to play the radio. The blood was
all over his neck and when her Dad came he pushed her out
of the room. She had run into the dark and hit herself with her
fists. And then the next night he was in a coffin in the living-
room. The undertaker had put rouge and lipstick on his face
to make him look natural. But he didn't look natural. He was
very dead. And mixed with the smell of flowers there was this
other smell so that she couldn't stay in the room. But
through ail those days she held down the job. She wrapped
packages and handed them across the counter and rung the
money in the till. She walked when she was supposed to walk
and ate when she sat down to the table. Only at first when she
went to bed at night she couldn't sleep. But now she slept like
she was supposed to, also.
Mick turned sideways in the seat so that she could cross
her legs. There was a run in her stocking. It had started
while she was walking to work and she had spit on it Then
later the run had gone farther and she had stuck a little
piece of chewing-gum on the end. But even that didn't
help. Now she would have to go home and sew. It was hard
to know what she could do about stockings. She wore them
out so fast Unless she was the kind of common girl that
would wear cotton stockings.
301
She oughtn't to have come in here. The bottoms of her shoes
were clean worn out. She ought to have saved the twenty cents
toward a new half-sole. Because if she kept on standing on a
shoe with a hole in it what would happen? A blister would
come on her foot. And she would have to pick it with a burnt
needle. She would have to stay home from work and be fired.
And then what would happen?
'Here you are,' said Mister Brannon. 'But I never heard of such
a combination before.'
He put the sundae and the beer on the table. She pretended to
clean her fingernails because if she noticd him he would start
talking. He didn't have this grudge against her any more, so he
must have forgotten about the pack of gum. Now he always
wanted to talk to her. But she wanted to be quiet and by
herself. The sundae was O.K., covered all over with chocolate
and nuts and cherries. And the beer was relaxing. The beer
had a nice bitter taste after the ice cream and it made her
drunk. Next to music beer was best.
But now no music was in her mind. That was a funny thing. It
was like she was shut out from the inside room. Sometimes a
quick little tune would come and go—but she never went into
the inside room with music like she used to do. It was like she
was too tense. Or maybe because it was like the store took all
her energy and time. Wool-worth's wasn't the same as school.
When she used to come home from school she felt good and
was ready to start working on the music. But now she was
always tired. At home she just ate supper and slept and then
ate breakfast and went off to the store again. A song she had
started in her private notebook two months before was still not
finished. And she wanted to stay in the inside room but she
didn't know how. It was like the inside room was locked
somewhere away from her. A very hard thing to understand.
Mick pushed her broken front tooth with her thumb. But she
did have Mister Singer's radio. All the installments hadn't been
paid and she took on the responsibility. It was good to have
something that had belonged to him. And maybe one of these
days she might be able to set aside a little for a second-hand
piano. Say two bucks a week. And she wouldn't let anybody
touch this private piano but her —only she might teach
George little pieces. She would302
keep it in the back room and play on it every night. And all
day Sunday. But then suppose some week she couldn't make a
payment. So then would they come to take it away like the
little red bicycle? And suppose like she wouldn't let them.
Suppose she hid the piano under the house. Or else she would
meet them at the front door. And fight. She would knock
down both the two men so they would have shiners and broke
noses and would be passed out on the hall floor.
Mick frowned and rubbed her fist hard across her forehead.
That was the way things were. It was like she was mad all the
time. Not how a kid gets mad quick so that soon it is all over
—but in another way. Only there was nothing to be mad at.
Unless the store. But the store hadn't asked her to take the job.
So there was nothing to be mad at. It was like she was
cheated. Only nobody had cheated her. So there was nobody
to take it out on. However, just the same she had that feeling.
Cheated.
But maybe it would be true about the piano and turn out O.K.
Maybe she would get a chance soon. Else what the hell good
had it all been—the way she felt about music and the plans
she had made in the inside room? It had to be some good if
anything made sense. And it was too and it was too and it was
too and it was too. It was some good.
All right!
O.K!
Some good.
Night
/\LL was serene. As Biff dried his face and hands a breeze
tinkled the glass pendants of the little Japanese pagoda on the
table. He had just awakened from a nap and had smoked his
night cigar. He thought of Blount and wondered if by now he
had traveled far. A bottle of Agua Florida was on the
bathroom shelf and he touched the stopper to his temples. He
whistled an old song, and as he descended the narrow stairs
the tune left a broken echo behind him. Louis was supposed to
be on duty behind the counter.
303
But he had soldiered on the job and the place was deserted.
The front door stood open to the empty street. The clock on
the wall pointed to seventeen minutes before midnight. The
radio was on and there was talk about the crisis Hitler had
cooked up over Danzig. He went back to the kitchen and
found Louis asleep in a chair. The boy had taken off his shoes
and unbuttoned his trousers. His head drooped on his chest. A
long wet spot on his shirt showed that he had been sleeping a
good while. His arms hung straight down at his sides and the
wonder was that he did not fall forward on his face. He slept
soundly and there was no use to wake him. The night would
be a quiet one.
Biff tiptoed across the kitchen to a shelf which held a basket
of tea olive and two water pitchers full of zinnias. He carried
the flowers up to the front of the restaurant and removed the
cellophane-wrapped platters of the last special from the
display window. He was sick of food. A window of fresh
summer flowers—that would be good. His eyes were closed as
he imagined how it could be arranged. A foundation of the tea
olive strewn over the bottom, cool and green. The red pottery
tub filled with the brilliant zinnias. Nothing more. He began to
arrange the window carefully. Among the flowers there was a
freak plant, a zinnia with six bronze petals and two red. He
examined this curio and laid it aside to save. Then the window
was finished and he stood in the street to regard his
handiwork. The awkward stems of the flowers had been bent
to just the right degree of restful looseness. The electric lights
detracted, but when the sun rose the display would show at its
best advantage. Downright artistic.
The black, starlit sky seemed close to the earth. He strolled
along the sidewalk, pausing once to knock an orange peel into
the gutter with the side of his foot. At the far end of the next
block two men, small from the distance and motionless, stood
arm in arm together. No one else could be seen. His place was
the only store on all the street with an open door and lights
inside.
And why? What was the reason for keeping the place open all
through the night when every other cafe in the town was
closed? He was often asked that question and could never
speak the answer out in words. Not money.304
Sometimes a party would come for beer and scrambled eggs
and spend five or ten dollars. But that was rare. Mostly they
came one at a time and ordered little and stayed long. And on
some nights, between the hours of twelve and five o'clock, not
a customer would enter. There was no profit in it—that was
plain.
But he would never close up for the night—not as long as he
stayed in the business. Night was the time. There were those
he would never have seen otherwise. A few came regularly
several times a week. Others had come into the place only
once, had drunk a Coca-Cola, and never returned.
Biff folded his arms across his chest and walked more slowly.
Inside the arc of the street light his shadow showed angular
and black. The peaceful silence of the night settled in him.
These were the hours for rest and meditation. Maybe that was
why he stayed downstairs and did not sleep. With a last quick
glance he scanned the empty street and went inside.
The crisis voice still talked on the radio. The fans on the
ceiling made a soothing whirl. From the kitchen came the
sound of Louis snoring. He thought suddenly of poor Willie
and decided to send him a quart of whiskey sometime soon.
He turned to the crossword puzzle in the newspaper. There
was a picture of a woman to identify in the center. He
recognized her and wrote the name—Mona Lisa—across the
first spaces. Number one down was a word for beggar,
beginning with m and nine letters long. Mendicant. Two
horizontal was some word meaning to remove afar off. A six-
letter word beginning with e. Elapse? He sounded trial
combinations of letters aloud. Eloign. But he had lost interest
There were puzzles enough without this kind. He folded and
put away the paper. He would come back to it later.
He examined the zinnia he had intended to save. As he held it
in the palm of his hand to the light the flower was not such a
curious specimen after all. Not worth saving. He plucked the
soft, bright petals and the last one came out on love. But who?
Who would he be loving now? No one person. Anybody
decent who came in out of the street to sit for an hour and
have a drink. But no one person. He
THE HEART IS A LONELY HtTNTER
305
had known his loves and they were over. Alice, Madeline and
Gyp. Finished. Leaving him either better or worse. Which?
However you looked at it.
And Mick. The one who in the last months had lived so
strangely in his heart. Was that love done with too? Yes. It
was finished. Early in the evenings Mick came in for a cold
drink or a sundae. She had grown older. Her rough and
childish ways were almost gone. And instead there was
something ladylike and delicate about her that was hard to
point out. The earrings, the dangle of her bracelets, and the
new way she crossed her legs and pulled the hem of her skirt
down past her knees. He watched her and felt only a sort of
gentleness. In him the old feeling was gone. For a year this
love had blossomed strangely. He had questioned it a hundred
times and found no answer. And now, as a summer flower
shatters in September, it was finished. There was no one.
Biff tapped his nose with his forefinger. A foreign voice was
now speaking over the radio. He could not decide for certain
whether the voice was German, French, or Spanish. But it
sounded like doom. It gave him the jitters to listen to it. When
he turned it off the silence was deep and unbroken. He felt the
night outside. Loneliness gripped him so that his breath
quickened. It was far too late to call Lucile on the telephone
and speak to Baby. Nor could he expect a customer to enter at
this hour. He went to the door and looked up and down the
street. All was empty and dark.
'Louis!' he called. 'Are you awake, Louis?'
No answer. He put his elbows on the counter and held his
head in his hands. He moved his dark bearded jaw from side
to side and slowly his forehead lowered in a frown.
The riddle. The question that had taken root in him and would
not let him rest. The puzzle of Singer and the rest of them.
More than a year had gone by since it had started. More than a
year since Blount had hung around the place on his first long
drunk and seen the mute for the first time. Since Mick had
begun to follow him in and out. And now for a month Singer
had been dead and buried. And the riddle was still in him, so
that he could not be tranquil.306
307
There was something not natural about it all—something like
an ugly joke. When he thought of it he felt uneasy and in some
unknown way afraid.
He had managed about the funeral. They had left all that to
him. Singer's affairs were in a mess. There were installments
due on everything he owned and the beneficiary of his life
insurance was deceased. There was just enough to bury him.
The funeral was at noon. The sun burned down on them with
savage heat as they stood around the open dank grave. The
flowers curled and turned brown in the sun. Mick cried so
hard that she choked herself and her father had to beat her on
the back. Blount scowled down at the grave with his fist to his
mouth. The town's Negro doctor, who was somehow related to
poor Willie, stood on the edge of the crowd and moaned to
himself. And there were strangers nobody had ever seen or
heard of before. God knows where they came from or why
they were there.
The silence in the room was deep as the night itself. Biff stood
transfixed, lost in his meditations. Then suddenly he felt a
quickening in him. His heart turned and he leaned his back
against the counter for support. For in a swift radiance of
illumination he saw a glimpse of human struggle and of valor.
Of the endless fluid passage of humanity through endless
time. And of those who labor and of those who—one word—
love. His soul expanded. But for a moment only. For in him he
felt a warning, a shaft of terror. Between the two worlds he
was suspended. He saw that he was looking at his own face in
the counter glass before him. Sweat glistened on his temples
and his face was contorted. One eye was opened wider than
the other. The left eye delved narrowly into the past while the
right gazed wide and affrighted into a future of blackness,
error, and ruin. And he was suspended between radiance and
darkness. Between bitter irony and faith. Sharply he turned
away.
'Louis!' he called. 'Louis! Louis!'
Again there was no answer. But, motherogod, was he a
sensible man or was he not? And how could this terror throttle
him nice this when he didn't even know what caused it? And
would he just stand here like a jittery ninny or would he pull
himself together and be reasonable? For
after all was he a sensible man or was he not? Biff wet his
handkerchief beneath the water tap and patted his drawn,
tense face. Somehow he remembered that the awning had not
yet been raised. As he went to the door his walk gained
steadiness. And when at last he was inside again he composed
himself soberly to await the morning sun.
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