“But I want my wife back now,” Daddy says. “God take so long to—”
“Mr. Howard, that’s blasphemous,” Reverend Simmons says.
“I don’t want blaspheme Him,” Daddy says. “But I’m in a mess. I’m in a big mess. I want my wife.”
“I’d suggest you kneel down sometime,” Reverend Simmons says. “That always helps in a family.”
Reverend Simmons looks at me like he’s feeling sorry for me, then he goes on back up the quarter. I can see his coattail hitting him round the knees.
“You coming in this yard, Sonny?” Mama calls.
“I’m with Daddy,” I say.
Mama goes back in the house and Gran’mon and them follow her.
“When you want one of them preachers to do something for you, they can’t do a doggone thing,” Daddy says. “Nothing but stand up in that churchhouse and preach ’bout Heaven. I hate to go to that old hoo-doo woman, but I reckon there ain’t nothing else I can do. You want go back there with me, Sonny?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Come on,” Daddy says.
Daddy takes my hand and me and him leave the fire.
When I get ’way down the quarter I look back and see the fire still burning. We cross the railroad tracks and I can see the people cutting cane. They got plenty cane all on the ground.
“Get me piece of cane, Daddy,” I say.
“Sonny, please,” Daddy says. “I’m thinking.”
“I want piece of two-ninety,” I say.
Daddy turns my hand loose and jumps over the ditch. He finds a piece of two-ninety and jumps back over. Daddy takes out a little pocketknife and peels the cane. He gives me a round and he cut him off a round and chew it. I like two-ninety cane because it’s soft and sweet and got plenty juice in it.
“I want another piece,” I say.
Daddy cuts me off another round and hands it to me.
“I’ll be glad when you big enough to peel your own cane,” he says.
“I can peel my own cane now,” I say.
Daddy breaks me off three joints and hands it to me. I peel the cane with my teeth. Two-ninety cane is soft and it’s easy to peel.
Me and Daddy go round the bend, and then I can see Madame Toussaint’s house. Madame Toussaint’s got a’ old house, and look like it want to fall down any minute. I’m scared of Madame Toussaint. Billy Joe Martin say Madame Toussaint’s a witch, and he say one time he seen Madame Toussaint riding a broom.
Daddy pulls Madame Toussaint’s little old broken-down gate open and we go in the yard. Me and Daddy go far as the steps, but we don’t go up on the gallery. Madame Toussaint’s got plenty trees round her house, little trees and big trees. And she got plenty moss hanging on every tree. I see a pecan over there on the ground but I’m scared to go and pick it up. Madame Toussaint’ll put bad mark on me and I’ll turn to a frog or something. I let Madame Toussaint’s little old pecan stay right where it is. And I go up to Daddy and let him hold my hand.
“Madame Toussaint?” Daddy calls.
Madame Toussaint don’t answer. Like she ain’t there.
“Madame Toussaint?” Daddy calls again.
“Who that?” Madame Toussaint answers.
“Me,” Daddy says. “Eddie Howard and his little boy Sonny.”
“What you want, Eddie Howard?” Madame Toussaint calls from in her house.
“I want talk to you,” Daddy says. “I need little advice on something.”
I hear a dog bark three times in the house. He must be a big old dog because he’s sure got a heavy voice. Madame Toussaint comes to the door and cracks it open.
“Can I come in?” Daddy says.
“Come in, Eddie Howard,” Madame Toussaint says.
Me and Daddy go up the steps and Madame Toussaint opens the door for us. Madame Toussaint’s a little bitty little old woman and her face is brown like cowhide. I look at Madame Toussaint and I walk close ’side Daddy. Me and Daddy go in the house and Madame Toussaint shuts the door and comes back to her fireplace. She sits down in her big old rocking chair and looks at me and Daddy. I look round Daddy’s leg at Madame Toussaint, but I let Daddy hold my hand. Madame Toussaint’s house don’t smell good. It’s too dark in here. It don’t smell good at all. Madame Toussaint ought to have a window or something open in her house.
“I need some advice, Madame Toussaint,” Daddy says.
“Your wife left you,” Madame Toussaint says.
“How you know?” Daddy asks.
“That’s all you men come back here for,” Madame Toussaint says. “That’s how I know.”
Daddy nods his head. “Yes,” he says. “She done left me and staying with another man.”
“She left,” Madame Toussaint says. “But she’s not staying with another man.”
“Yes, she is,” Daddy says.
“She’s not,” Madame Toussaint says. “You trying to tell me my business?”
“No, ma’am,” Daddy says.
“I should hope not,” Madame Toussaint says.
Madame Toussaint ain’t got but three old rotten teeth in her mouth. I bet you she can’t peel no cane with them old rotten teeth. I bet you they’d break off in a hard piece of cane.
“I need advice, Madame Toussaint,” Daddy says.
“You got money?” Madame Toussaint asks.
“I got some,” Daddy says.
“How much?” she asks Daddy. She’s looking up at Daddy like she don’t believe him.
Daddy turns my hand loose and sticks his hand down in his pocket. He gets all his money out his pocket and leans over the fire to see how much he’s got. I see some matches and piece of string and some nails in Daddy’s hand. I reach for the piece of string and Daddy taps me on the hand with his other hand.
“I got about seventy-five cents,” Daddy says. “Counting them pennies.”
“My price is three dollars,” Madame Toussaint says.
“I can cut you a load of wood,” Daddy says. “Or make grocery for you. I’ll do anything in the world if you can help me, Madame Toussaint.”
“Three dollars,” Madame Toussaint says. “I got all the wood I’ll need this winter. Enough grocery to last me till summer.”
“But this all I got,” Daddy says.
“When you get more, come back,” Madame Toussaint says.
“But I want my wife back now,” Daddy says. “I can’t wait till I get more money.”
“Three dollars is my price,” Madame Toussaint says. “No more, no less.”
“But can’t you give me just a little advice for seventy-five cents?” Daddy says. “Seventy-five cents worth? Maybe I can start from there and figure something out.”
Madame Toussaint looks at me and looks at Daddy again.
“You say that’s your boy?” she says.
“Yes, ma’am,” Daddy says.
“Nice-looking boy,” Madame Toussaint says.
“His name’s Sonny,” Daddy says.
“Hi, Sonny,” Madame Toussaint says.
“Say ‘Hi’ to Madame Toussaint,” Daddy says. “Go on.”
“Hi,” I say, sticking close to Daddy.
“Well, Madame Toussaint?” Daddy says.
“Give me the money,” Madame Toussaint says. “Don’t complain to me if you not satisfied.”
“Don’t worry,” Daddy says. “I won’t complain. Anything to get her back home.”
Daddy leans over the fire again and picks the money out of his hand. Then he reaches it to Madame Toussaint.
“Give me that little piece of string,” Madame Toussaint says. “It might come in handy sometime in the future. Wait,” she says. “Run it ’cross the left side of the boy’s face three times, then pass it to me behind your back.”
“What’s that for?” Daddy asks.
“Just do like I say,” Madame Toussaint says.
“Yes, ma’am,” Daddy says. Daddy turns to me. “Hold still, Sonny,” he says. He rubs the little old dirty piece of cord over my face, and then he sti
cks his hand behind his back.
Madame Toussaint reaches in her pocket and takes out her pocketbook. She opens it and puts the money in. She opens another little compartment and stuffs the string down in it. Then she snaps the pocketbook and puts it back in her pocket. She picks up three little green sticks she got tied together and starts poking in the fire with them.
“What’s the advice?” Daddy asks.
Madame Toussaint don’t say nothing.
“Madame Toussaint?” Daddy says.
Madame Toussaint still don’t answer him, she just looks down in the fire. Her face is red from the fire. I get scared of Madame Toussaint. She can ride all over the plantation on her broom. Billy Joe Martin say he seen her one night riding ’cross the houses. She was whipping her broom with three switches.
Madame Toussaint raises her head and looks at Daddy. Her eyes’s big and white, and I get scared of her. I hide my face ’side Daddy’s leg.
“Give it up,” I hear her say.
“Give what up?” Daddy says.
“Give it up,” she says.
“What?” Daddy says.
“Give it up,” she says.
“I don’t even know what you talking ’bout,” Daddy says. “How can I give up something and I don’t even know what it is?”
“I said it three times,” Madame Toussaint says. “No more, no less. Up to you now to follow it through from there.”
“Follow what from where?” Daddy says. “You said three little old words: ‘Give it up.’ I don’t know no more now than I knowed ’fore I got here.”
“I told you you wasn’t go’n be satisfied,” Madame Toussaint says.
“Satisfied?” Daddy says. “Satisfied for what? You gived me just three little old words and you want me to be satisfied?”
“You can leave,” Madame Toussaint says.
“Leave?” Daddy says. “You mean I give you seventy-five cents for three words? A quarter a word? And I’m leaving? No, Lord.”
“Rollo?” Madame Toussaint says.
I see Madame Toussaint’s big old black dog get up out of the corner and come where she is. Madame Toussaint pats the dog on the head with her hand.
“Two dollars and twenty-five cents more and you get all the advice you need,” Madame Toussaint says.
“Can’t I get you a load of wood and fix your house for you or something?” Daddy says.
“I don’t want my house fixed and I don’t need no more wood,” Madame Toussaint says. “I got three loads of wood just three days ago from a man who didn’t have money. Before I know it I’ll have wood piled up all over my yard.”
“Can’t I do anything?” Daddy says.
“You can leave,” Madame Toussaint says. “I ought to have somebody else dropping round pretty soon. Lately I’ve been having men dropping in three times a day. All of them just like you. What they can do to make their wives love them more. What they can do to keep their wives from running round with some other man. What they can do to make their wives give in. What they can do to make their wives scratch their backs. What they can do to make their wives look at them when they talking to her. Get out my house before I put the dog on you. You been here too long for seventy-five cents.”
Madame Toussaint’s big old jet-black dog gives three loud barks that makes my head hurt. Madame Toussaint pats him on the back to calm him down.
“Come on, Sonny,” Daddy says.
I let Daddy take my hand and we go over to the door.
“I still don’t feel like you helped me very much, though,” Daddy says.
Madame Toussaint pats her big old jet-black dog on the head and she don’t answer Daddy. Daddy pushes the door open and we go outside. It’s some cold outside. Me and Daddy go down Madame Toussaint’s old broken-down steps.
“What was them words?” Daddy asks me.
“Hanh?”
“What she said when she looked up out of that fire?” Daddy asks.
“I was scared,” I say. “Her face was red and her eyes got big and white. I was scared. I had to hide my face.”
“Didn’t you hear what she told me?” Daddy asks.
“She told you three dollars,” I say.
“I mean when she looked up,” Daddy says.
“She say, ‘Give it up,’ ” I say.
“Yes,” Daddy says. “ ‘Give it up.’ Give what up? I don’t even know what she’s talking ’bout. I hope she don’t mean give you and Amy up. She ain’t that crazy. I don’t know nothing else she can be talking ’bout. You don’t know, do you?”
“Uh-uh,” I say.
“ ‘Give it up,’ ” Daddy says. “I don’t even know what she’s talking ’bout. I wonder who them other men was she was speaking of. Johnny and his wife had a fight the other week. It might be him. Frank Armstrong and his wife had a round couple weeks back. Could be him. I wish I knowed what she told them.”
“I want another piece of cane,” I say.
“No,” Daddy says. “You’ll be pee-ing in bed all night tonight.”
“I’m go’n sleep with Uncle Al,” I say. “Me and him go’n sleep in his bed.”
“Please, be quiet, Sonny,” Daddy says. “I got enough troubles on my mind. Don’t add more to it.”
Me and Daddy walk in the middle of the road. Daddy holds my hand. I can hear a tractor—I see it across the field. The people loading cane on the trailer back of the tractor.
“Come on,” Daddy says. “We going over to Frank Armstrong.”
Daddy totes me ’cross the ditch on his back. I ride on Daddy’s back and I look at the stubbles where the people done cut the cane. Them rows some long. Plenty cane’s laying on the ground. I can see cane all over the field. Me and Daddy go over where the people cutting cane.
“How come you ain’t working this evening?” a man asks Daddy. The man’s shucking a big armful of cane with his cane knife.
“Frank Armstrong round anywhere?” Daddy asks the man.
“Farther over,” the man says. “Hi, youngster.”
“Hi,” I say.
Me and Daddy go ’cross the field. I look at the people cutting cane. That cane is some tall. I want another piece, but I might wee-wee in Uncle Al’s bed.
Me and Daddy go over where Mr. Frank Armstrong and Mrs. Julie’s cutting cane. Mrs. Julie got overalls on just like Mr. Frank got. She’s even wearing one of Mr. Frank’s old hats.
“How y’all?” Daddy says.
“So-so, and yourself?” Mrs. Julie says.
“I’m trying to make it,” Daddy says. “Can I borrow your husband there a minute?”
“Sure,” Mrs. Julie says. “But don’t keep him too long. We trying to reach the end ’fore dark.”
“It won’t take long,” Daddy says.
Mr. Frank and them got a little fire burning in one of the middles. Me and him and Daddy go over there. Daddy squats down and let me slide off his back.
“What’s the trouble?” Mr. Frank asks Daddy.
“Amy left me, Frank,” Daddy says.
Mr. Frank holds his hands over the fire.
“She left you?” he says.
“Yes,” Daddy says. “And I want her back, Frank.”
“What can I do?” Mr. Frank says. “She’s no kin to me. I can’t go and make her come back.”
“I thought maybe you could tell me what you and Madame Toussaint talked about,” Daddy says. “That’s if you don’t mind, Frank.”
“What?” Mr. Frank says. “Who told you I talked with Madame Toussaint?”
“Nobody,” Daddy says. “But I heard you and Julie had a fight, and I thought maybe you went back to her for advice.”
“For what?” Mr. Frank says.
“So you and Julie could make up,” Daddy says.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Mr. Frank says. “I done heard everything. Excuse me, Sonny. But your daddy’s enough to make anybody cuss.”
I look up at Daddy, and I look back in the fire again.
“Please, Frank,” Daddy says. “I?
??m desperate. I’m ready to try anything. I’ll do anything to get her back in my house.”
“Why don’t you just go and get her?” Mr. Frank says. “That makes sense.”
“I can’t,” Daddy says. “Mama won’t let me come in the yard. She even took a shot at me once today.”
“What?” Mr. Frank says. He looks at Daddy, and then he just bust out laughing. Daddy laughs little bit, too.
“What y’all talked about, Frank?” Daddy asks. “Maybe if I try the same thing, maybe I’ll be able to get her back, too.”
Mr. Frank laughs at Daddy, then he stops and just looks at Daddy.
“No,” he says. “I’m afraid my advice won’t help your case. You got to first get close to your wife. And your mother-in-law won’t let you do that. No, mine won’t help you.”
“It might,” Daddy says.
“No, it won’t,” Mr. Frank says.
“It might,” Daddy says. “What was it?”
“All right,” Mr. Frank says. “She told me I wasn’t petting Julie enough.”
“Petting her?” Daddy says.
“You think he knows what we talking ’bout?” Mr. Frank asks Daddy.
“I’ll get him piece of cane,” Daddy says.
They got a big pile of cane right behind Daddy’s back, and he crosses the row and gets me a stalk of two-ninety. He breaks off three joints and hands it to me. He throws the rest of the stalk back.
“So I start petting her,” Mr. Frank says.
“What you mean ‘petting her’?” Daddy says. “I don’t even know what you mean now.”
“Eddie, I swear,” Mr. Frank says. “Stroking her. You know. Like you stroke a colt. A little horse.”
“Oh,” Daddy says. “Did it work?”
“What you think?” Mr. Frank says, grinning. “Every night, a little bit. Turn your head, Sonny.”
“Hanh?”
“Look the other way,” Daddy says.
I look down the row toward the other end. I don’t see nothing but cane all over the ground.
“Stroke her a little back here,” Mr. Frank says. I hear him hitting on his pants. “Works every time. Get along now like two peas in one pod. Every night when we get in the bed—” I hear him hitting again. “—couple little strokes. Now everything’s all right.”
“You was right,” Daddy says. “That won’t help me none.”