“It’s about time you showed up here,” Angelina said. “You done forgot I’m still alive, Phillip?”
“No, Nanane,” he said. After taking off his hat and coat and laying them on the bed by the door, he came to the fireplace and kissed Angelina on the forehead. He spoke to Loretta, then he sat down in one of the chairs between them.
“How’ve you been, Nanane?”
“Don’t look like it matter to you much.”
He smiled at her. She would complain whether he came here once a day or once a year.
“I hear you fell,” she said.
“That sure gets around.”
“What you doing falling, Phillip?” she asked him.
“I don’t know. Tired,” he said.
“Tired?” she said. “Somebody big and strong like you tired enough to go round here falling?”
Phillip turned to the other woman.
“How are you, Sis Williams?” he asked her.
“Fine. Yourself?”
“I’m feeling better,” he said.
“What brought you out here in weather like this?” Angelina asked him from the other side. “Don’t tell me you come all the way from St. Adrienne just to see me?”
“I did,” he said, opening out his hands toward the fire.
“I know better,” Angelina said. “You want some of these goobers? Hand him some of them goobers there, Lo-re-ta.”
Loretta Williams gave Phillip a handful of peanuts out of an aluminum bread pan that she had on the floor by her chair. The peanuts had been roasted in the hot ashes in the fireplace.
“Somebody cutting wood in the back?” Phillip asked.
“Louis and them cutting me some wood,” Angelina said. “You don’t never come out here.”
“You ought to get a heater,” he told her.
“I don’t want no heater,” she said. “And I don’t like the way you looking neither. You don’t look right. Look at him there, Lo-re-ta. He still don’t look right. That gal still don’t know how to look after you, Phillip, after all these years?”
“Alma is my wife, Nanane, and she knows how to look after me,” Phillip said. “She’s got nothing to do with how I look.”
“Lean over here, let me feel your forrid,” Angelina said.
“I’m all right, Nanane.”
“Feel his forrid for me there, Lo-re-ta.”
Loretta Williams got up heavily and placed the palm of a dry, well-callused hand against Phillip’s forehead.
“Hot all right,” she said.
“It’s that fire,” Phillip said.
“Can be,” Loretta said, and moved back to her chair.
Phillip broke open the shells with his thumb and forefinger, and ate the peanuts while staring into the fire. He knew that his godmother was still watching him, and he was glad the other woman was there.
“Phillip, anything going on in St. Adrienne you don’t want me to know about?” Angelina asked him.
“Nothing’s going on,” he said, looking into the fire and not at her.
“Some of them Cajuns been threatening you again, Phillip?”
“Cajuns?” he said, looking at her.
“Cajuns. Sure—Cajuns. You don’t know what a Cajun is?”
“No, nobody been threatening me, Nanane,” he said.
“Then how come you didn’t call me when you fell?”
“You don’t have a telephone, Nanane.”
“Lisa got a phone there.”
“Lisa live a mile from here.”
“She got them children. Can’t they walk?”
He looked at the small, very old woman sitting back in the chair with the blanket spread over her legs. He loved her very much, and he wished he could tell her everything. But just as he had been unable to say it to anyone else, he couldn’t say it to her either.
“I’m sitting up in my house, and Louis come here telling me you done fell. I’m here waiting and waiting for some kind of news—nothing. Not a word. I woulda come there myself, wasn’t for my rheumatism acting up.”
Phillip had turned from her and was looking down at the fire again.
“Now you come here in all this bad weather,” she went on. “Look at me when I talk to you, Phillip. I ain’t just talking for my good health.”
He looked at her.
“You don’t want talk in front of Lo-re-ta there? You want her to go stand in the kitchen? It got fire in that stove, it’s warm back there.”
“I don’t mind,” Loretta said.
“Keep your seat, Sis Williams,” Phillip said. He turned back to his godmother. “There’s nothing to talk about, Nanane. I just came out here because I wanted to see you.”
She continued to watch him. She was still eating the peanuts, chewing them only with her front teeth, which were brown and crooked.
“Have it your own way,” she said. “I’m coming to St. Adrienne soon as I can get around. Something ain’t right in St. Adrienne, and I ’tend to find out what it is.”
He turned from her and looked down at the fire again. To his right, Loretta Williams sat talking to herself. “Goobers ain’t what they used to be. Nothing inside these shells.” She cracked open the peanut shells louder than either Phillip or Angelina did, and Phillip thought she was doing this purposely, since she was not in the conversation.
Phillip could hear the men laughing and talking while they chopped wood behind the house. He would have liked to go out there and take his turn with the axe. It had been like that once—years ago. He and other young men had gone from house to house to help out each other. It was always easier and more fun than working alone. Together they could laugh and talk. The work was never too hard, and the weather was never too cold. Reckless years. Not caring years. Only fun-loving years.
He had quit eating the peanuts now, and he was staring in the fire and shaking his head.
“Phillip, what’s wrong with you?” Angelina asked. “Phillip?”
He turned to her. “I was dreaming. You said something, Nanane?”
She looked at him a while without saying anything. She wanted him to know that when she was talking she wanted his undivided attention. She also wanted him to know that she believed there was something wrong in St. Adrienne.
“I said, Chippo saw Johanna.”
“Chippo?” he said. For a moment it didn’t mean anything, because he was still half dreaming. Even when he heard her mentioning Johanna’s name, he thought it was just his mind playing tricks. But then he remembered that the boy had said something about a man coming to the house. And he remembered that while Chippo was in the Merchant Marine he used to ship out to sea from the West Coast. “Chippo?” he said. “Chippo?”
“Yes. Chippo,” Angelina said, watching him suspiciously.
It was Chippo who took them away, he remembered. It was Chippo who drove them to the road that day in the wagon. You’re saying that it was Chippo who sent him back here? Brought him back here? But why? Why? “Chippo?” he said. “Chippo Simon?”
“You know any other Chippo?” Angelina asked. “Phillip, what’s wrong with you?”
“Chippo?” he whispered to himself. He looked at her, his face intense, trembling. He leaned closer to her. “When?”
“A month ago.”
“A month ago? He saw her a month ago?”
“That’s what I hear,” Angelina said. “What you so all wound up about? You ain’t seen her in years, or even tried to see her.”
“How can I get in touch with Chippo? Where is Chippo?”
“How do I know? I don’t keep Chippo in my pocket.”
“But you said—”
“I didn’t say he told it to me. Louis and them heard it in Baton Rouge.”
“From who? From Chippo?”
“What you so interested in Chippo for all of a sudden? What’s the matter with you, Phillip? You act like you going crazy.”
“I have to see Chippo,” he said. “How can I get in touch with Chippo?”
“Lo-re-ta,
go to that back door and call Louis in here,” Angelina said. “That’s ’nough wood.”
Loretta Williams groaned as she stood up and walked heavily across the floor back into the kitchen. Phillip swung his chair around and watched her open the back door and speak to the men in the yard. He could hardly wait for them to come inside. Loretta was in front again, walking as slowly and heavily as before. Louis followed her, and two younger men, Jack and Coon, came up single file behind him. All three carried an armload of wood. After laying the wood in the corner, they came to the front of the fireplace. Phillip had already stood up. Before shaking hands with him, Louis rubbed his hand hard across his pant leg. The other two younger men, Jack and Coon, did the same. The three of them were dressed in everyday work clothes—khakis and denims—and they couldn’t understand why Phillip, wearing a suit as usual, wanted to shake their hands. They were not church-goers, they didn’t follow his civil rights program, and he had never been so friendly toward them before. After shaking hands, Jack and Coon moved back from the fireplace. They were not comfortable around Phillip Martin.
“Nanane told me you saw Chippo Simon,” Phillip said to Louis.
“In Baton Rouge last week,” Louis said.
“And he had seen Johanna—a lady I used to know—out there in California?”
“Yes sir, that what he said.”
“Did he see any of my children?”
“I didn’t hear him say nothing ’bout children,” Louis said.
“You saw him at his house?”
“A liquor store on East Boulevard.”
“You sure it was Chippo?”
“Yes sir; Chippo; that one eye,” Louis said, touching under his own eye.
“Chippo,” Phillip said thoughtfully. “Chippo. I had just been thinking about Chippo. Listening to y’all chopping wood out there, I was sitting here thinking about how me and Chippo used to chop wood like that. Yeah—Chippo. Chippo Simon. Wouldn’t it be Chippo? Of all people—Chippo.”
“There he go again,” Angelina said. “ ‘Chippo. Chippo Simon. Wouldn’t it be Chippo? Of all people Chippo.’ Wouldn’t it be Chippo for what, Phillip? Phillip, what’s wrong with you? Minute ago you couldn’t talk; now you like a parrot and can’t stop saying Chippo.”
“The sun is breaking through the clouds,” Phillip said, still looking at Louis.
“What?” Angelina said.
“Louis, wasn’t that sun coming out out there?”
“Well, er, to be factual, Rev, er—”
“Look at me, Louis.” Angelina said. “You see any sun coming out out there? Now, ’fore you start lying, know who you lying to.”
“Well, er, to be factual, Miss Angy, I, er—”
“Give me a shot out of that bottle, Louis,” Phillip said.
“Bottle, Rev?”
“The one in your back pocket.”
“Now, Rev—” Louis laughed. “You know I quit drinking.”
“What were you doing in that liquor store?” Phillip asked. “What’s that on your breath now—frost?”
“Coon?” Louis said, not taking his eye off Phillip.
Coon took the bottle out of his own back pocket and unscrewed the cap and wiped off the mouth of the bottle on his khaki shirtsleeve. The left shirtsleeve was filthy, so he used the right one, which was just as dirty. Finally, he wiped off the bottle with the heel of his thumb, which wasn’t too much better, and passed it to Phillip. Phillip turned it up without hesitating.
“Phillip, you done gone plumb crazy?” Angelina screamed at him.
“I used to be able to take it just like you see me there,” Phillip told Louis.
“Yes sir,” Louis said.
“You much younger than me, Louis, but I’m sure you heard how I used to take it. Me and Chippo. And I used to beat Chippo too.”
“Now, wait a minute there, Rev,” Louis said. Louis was becoming more and more familiar with Phillip now that Phillip was drinking out of his bottle. “I done heard that Chippo could really put it away. Matter of fact, they say he used to beat Red James, and Red James could—”
“I know what they say, I know what they say, Louis,” Phillip said, waving the bottle. “But I used to beat him. Wine, whiskey, gin—name it, and I’d beat him every time.”
He turned up the bottle again. “Me and Chippo,” he said, after bringing the bottle down. “It had to be Chippo. All them days we used to drink together, play ball together, roam together. Used to go courting together—everything. Then I joined the church, and he just kept on going on his own way. But we brothers still. Soul brothers—that’s what you call it, don’t you?”
“Yes sir.”
“That was me and Chippo—soul brothers. So it had to be Chippo. Chippo.”
“Phillip, you losing your mind?” Angelina asked him. “You hear me talking to you, Phillip?”
He took another quick drink from the bottle and passed it back to Coon. Now he turned and looked down at his godmother and started laughing. Everybody was watching him. Louis was proud that Phillip had drunk from his bottle, and he laughed with him. Phillip moved quickly toward his godmother and jerked her chair up off the floor. Angelina screamed and held onto the arms of the rocker. Loretta jumped up and stood back against the wall. The men laughed, and Louis told Angelina to hold tight. Phillip spun around with her two or three times, then set the chair back on the floor. The men were still laughing, but Loretta pressed herself closer to the wall. Angelina, who had caught her breath by now, was looking up at Phillip.
“Kneel down here, Phillip,” she said to him.
He was slightly drunk, and also a little dizzy from spinning round the room. He stood back blinking at her a moment, before kneeling by the chair and laying his head in her lap.
“What’s the matter, Phillip?” she said, rubbing the side of his face. “Tell Nanane what’s the matter.”
“Just happy,” he whispered. “Happy to hear Chippo’s back.”
8
Later that evening Phillip drove back to St. Adrienne still thinking about Chippo. Tomorrow he would go into Baton Rouge to find him, and Chippo would explain everything to him. When he came into town he stopped at the St. Adrienne bake shop and ordered a chocolate cake. Tony, the little Italian baker, had heard about his fall and commented on how fast he had recovered. Phillip told him that a little sun was peeping through the clouds. Tony had been outside to dump a garbage can only a few minutes before, and the sky had looked as black as ever. Maybe the minister had some hidden meaning in the words sun and cloud. After taking his money for the cake the baker told Phillip that he wished him the best of luck with Old Chenal on Friday. He said Chenal was a disgrace, and all the good white people of St. Adrienne were ashamed of him. Phillip wanted to say, “To hell with Chenal. My mind is on something more important than all your Chenals.” He nodded, gratefully, to the baker, then took the little chocolate cake out to the car and drove home.
When he turned off Choctaw Drive onto St. Anne Street, he noticed the car of his assistant pastor, Jonathan Robillard, parked before his house. Alma was standing on the porch when he drove into the yard. She held the screen door open for him as he came up the steps. He could see that she was worried, and that she had been crying.
“Something the matter?” he asked her.
“Mr. Howard and them inside, waiting to see you.”
“See me about what?”
“What do you think, Phillip?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you, Phillip?”
He gave her the box with the cake and went by her into the house. Five members of the St. Adrienne Civil Rights Committee were waiting for him when he came in. Tall, gray-headed Howard Mills sat on the couch with his hat on his knee. Mack Henderson, a small baldheaded man, sat beside Mills. Peter Hebert, who had been trimming his fingernails with a small pearl-handled knife, was the third man on the couch. Sitting in a chair next to him was the secretary of the committee, a light-skinned, heavy-set man called Aaron Brown
. Jonathan Robillard was the only one in the room not sitting. He had been pacing the floor the past half hour, and now he stood away from all the others near the piano. Everyone looked at Phillip when he came into the room, but no one said anything until after he spoke.
“Gentlemen.”
“Reverend.”
Everyone except Jonathan spoke to Phillip. Jonathan was angry.
“Something the matter?” Phillip asked.
“Seems like Chenal up there having himself a little party,” Mills said.
“A party?” Phillip said, taking off his hat and overcoat and handing them to Alma, who had followed him inside. Alma took the things from him, but she didn’t leave the room.
“ ’Varice daughter say he’s up there handing out cigars to men, cup cakes to the ladies,” Mills said. “Even gived them a hour off to celebrate. ’Varice daughter telephoned my house while all the celebrating was going on.”
“Celebrating?” Phillip asked.
“Celebrating,” Mills said, nodding his gray head. “And from what I hear your name’s on everybody’s lip. Seems like you got a lot of white folks up there all a sudden. Counting Chenal.”
Phillip looked at all the men on the couch. All except little baldheaded Mack Henderson looked back at him. Mack Henderson kept his head bowed, holding his hat with both hands between his knees. Phillip turned to Jonathan, who was standing by the piano. Jonathan looked at him with disgust.
“I heard you preached well Sunday,” Phillip said to him.
“I did the best I could with the short notice I had.”
But it was obvious to Phillip that Jonathan didn’t want to talk about preaching now.
“Sometimes short notices is all you have,” Phillip said. “You have to make the best of it.”
It was obvious that Jonathan didn’t want to hear any philosophy either.
“Phillip turned to Alma.
“Where’re the children?”
“In the back.”
“Keep them back there. Elijah’s here?”
“He was. He left.”
“He went up to the Congo Room to get drunk,” Jonathan said, behind Phillip. “He was too ashamed to face you.”
Phillip didn’t look round at him. “Keep the children in the back,” he told Alma.