He drank some of the hot coffee and set the cup back down. He was staring at the woman but not seeing her. He was oblivious to everything round him. A moment after he had drunk the coffee he couldn’t remember if he had raised the cup to his mouth.
He was still thinking about the ones at home. He was thinking about Mills and the others now. He could understand why they couldn’t understand. If someone had told him a month ago—no, a week ago—that he would be sitting here tonight waiting for Chippo to explain something that had happened in his life more than twenty years ago he wouldn’t have been able to believe that either.
But why was he here? Why? Why couldn’t he just forget it like the rest did? Men see their bastards walking by the house every day—some even joke about it. He had done the same. This was not his only child out of wedlock. He had children that he knew of by three or four other women. And he had been as proud of it as any other man. So why was he here now? Why was he sitting in this cold little café waiting for Chippo? What could Chippo give him? What could Chippo say?
Maybe nothing, he told himself. But maybe he can tell me his name. And that would be more than I know.
The coffee was cold when he raised the cup to his mouth this time. And as he set the cup back down on the table he noticed the woman staring at him. No, not at him, but at someone behind him. He glanced back over his shoulder. The old man from the other booth was standing over him. He was a thin, brown-skinned man who could have been in his seventies or even eighties. The old black overcoat he wore was much too big and hung too far to one side. A Bible of wrinkled brown leather was stuck under his right armpit. The man looked very tired, his eyes watery and bloodshot.
“It’s all right,” Phillip told the woman.
“I don’t mind if he come in here to warm, but I don’t want him bothering my customers,” the woman said.
“It’s no bother,” Phillip said. “Can we have another cup of coffee?”
The woman brought the coffee urn and an extra cup to the table. The old man had sat down on the bench opposite Phillip.
“Reverend Peters, ain’t I done warned you?” the woman said. “Ain’t I done warned you? I said, ain’t I done warned you, Reverend Peters?”
The old man acted as if he didn’t even hear the woman. He sat there looking slyly at Phillip and smiling.
“I’m glad to have company,” Phillip said.
“This ain’t no church, Reverend Peters,” the woman said. “How many times I done told you that? How many times, Reverend Peters?”
The old man ignored her. Phillip paid for the coffee and she went back behind the counter.
Peters laid his Bible on the table, and held his cup with both hands to drink his coffee. He set the cup back down and looked at Phillip.
“You look like a man of the Gospel?” he said.
Phillip nodded. “Yes.”
“Not from round here though?”
“Across the river. St. Adrienne,” Phillip said.
“Didn’t get the name?”
“Phillip Martin.”
“I see,” Peters said.
He didn’t know Phillip. He drank from his coffee, holding the cup with both hands as you would hold a chalice.
Phillip didn’t like the way Peters looked at him from over the rim of the cup. He knew that Peters had been watching him a long time before coming to the table.
“You looking for somebody, ain’t you?” Peters asked.
“Yes,” Phillip said.
“I knowed it,” Peters said. “A man of your quality don’t sit in a place like this. This used to be a nice place, but no more. A few old people come in. Children sometime—but they don’t respect nobody. No respect in children these days. And the old place going down, down, down.”
“It still looks all right,” Phillip said, and looked round the room. Everything in the room, from the hat and coat rack by the door to the chairs and tables all seemed too old and worn. Phillip noticed in several places where paint had peeled away from the walls.
“I reckon it’s better than nothing, ’specially in weather like this,” Peters said, looking round the room too. He looked at the things the way you look at them when you have seen them many, many times before. “But nothing like it used to be—nothing,” he said, and looked at Phillip again. “I can remember when it was so nice, so nice. Who is it you looking for, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Phillip started to say Chippo Simon, but he told Peters he was looking for his son.
“Live here in Baton Rouge?” Peters asked.
“I left him in St. Adrienne,” Phillip said.
“And you looking—” he stopped.
He seemed to have some idea what Phillip was talking about. He covered Phillip’s hand on the table with his own. The skin of his long brown fingers was the same color as the leather of his Bible, and just as wrinkled.
“He bothering you?” the woman asked from behind the counter.
“No,” Phillip said.
“You better mind yourself there, Reverend Peters,” the woman said. “I’m warning you.”
Reverend Peters withdrew his hand.
“You asked Him to help you?” he asked Phillip.
“Yes,” Phillip said, looking directly at Peters.
Peters saw something in Phillip’s face that he didn’t like. He started to speak but changed his mind. He looked down at the table and began drawing little marks on the cup with the tip of his finger. The marks he drew looked to Phillip like small crosses. He looked back at Phillip, his bloodshot eyes seeming even more watery now. He was trying to think of something encouraging to say.
“Sometime it takes time, time—years.”
“Years?” Phillip said. “I don’t have years. I don’t even have days. We don’t even have hours, Peters. We don’t have any time at all.”
“He will bring him back to you if you have faith,” Peters said.
“Will He, Peters?”
Peters nodded his head. “If you have faith.”
“Did you hear about the killing today?” Phillip asked.
“All Baton Rouge heard about it,” Peters said.
“Sitting at the table eating,” Phillip said. “Mama, brothers, sisters. Where was Turner?”
“They been separated.”
“I picked up the papers the other day—yesterday, day before—I forget now. Story about a black boy frozen in a ditch of water. No papers. Nothing on him to tell who he was.”
“Happens all the time,” Peters said philosophically.
Phillip nodded. “Yes. All the time. Every day. About a month ago I was talking to a newspaper man—a man who’s covered executions all over the South. Not just here in Louisiana—Texas, Mississippi, Georgia—all over. He’s seen fifty, sixty of them. Most of them, black men. Said he never heard one called daddy’s name at that last hour. Heard mama called, heard gran’mon, nanane—Jesus, God. Not one time he heard daddy called. Why not, Peters?”
“They called on God—that was good,” Peters said.
“ ‘Daddy,’ Peters. I’m saying ‘daddy.’ ”
“He works in mysterious ways,” Peters said. “Keep the faith, man. Never doubt.”
“There’s a gap between us and our sons, Peters, that even He,” Phillip said, nodding toward the Bible, “even He can’t seem to close.”
“No such gap, man,” Peters said, his watery eyes staring sadly at Phillip. “No such thing.”
“He bothering you?” the woman asked, as if she had just wakened up and noticed that they were still there.
“We’re just talking,” Phillip said.
“You behave yourself there, Reverend Peters,” the woman said.
“She’s a good woman,” Peters said to Phillip. “I’m cold, I come here; I’m hungry, I come here.”
“It’s good to have a friend—somewhere you can go—somebody you can talk to.”
“We all have a friend,” Peters said, and looked at his Bible. He looked at it a long time before tur
ning back to Phillip. “We all have a friend,” he said, nodding his head.
Phillip could see that he would not reach Peters no matter how much he tried to explain.
“I’m here to find a man named Chippo Simon,” he said.
“I know Chippo Simon,” Peters said.
“You seen him today?”
“Today? No. But I musta seen him yesterday. How can Chippo help you?”
Phillip shook his head. “It’s a long, long story, Peters.”
“You went by his house? You know where he lives?” Peters asked.
“I been there. He’s not at home.”
“You tried Jimmy’s liquor store—Terrace and East Boulevard? He hangs round in there a lot.”
“I haven’t been there yet—I’ll try it,” Phillip said.
He drank the last of his coffee, then shook hands with Peters and stood up.
“Leaving?” the woman asked from behind the counter.
“Yes,” Phillip said.
“Hope he didn’t bother you too much.”
“No bother at all,” Phillip said. “I’m glad we met. Good night.”
“Come back soon,” the woman said. “Dettie cooks the best Creole food in town. Ask anybody.”
Phillip promised her that he would. Driving back up the street, he thought he would go by Chippo’s house again. He was hoping that he would not see the woman, but when he pulled up before the door he could see her standing behind the screen as if she had never moved.
“He ain’t there,” she said, when he got out of the car.
“I just want to leave him a note,” Phillip told her.
He climbed the two steps up to the porch, and stuck the piece of paper in the crack of the door. On the paper, he had written: Phil. Be back later.
“You think he might be at Jimmy’s liquor store?” he asked the woman.
“Good’s any other place to look for him,” she said. “Just tell him he better bring me my money on back here. I don’t want have to call the law.”
“How much does he owe you?” Phillip asked.
“He know,” the woman said.
“I thought maybe I could pay you,” Phillip said. He thought at least this would get the woman out of the cold.
“I don’t want your money, I want my own,” she said.
Phillip got back into his car and drove up to East Boulevard. He drove by the liquor store twice, trying to see through the glass door the people inside. After going by the second time he parked his car across the street so that he could watch the door. He was doubtful about going in there. This was a place where you not only bought your liquor, but where you drank it too. There would be men in there drinking, maybe even drunk, and anything could happen in a place like that. But if he didn’t go in there, where else would he find Chippo? He knew him too well to go looking for him in church.
He sat watching the door. Each time the door opened, he could hear loud talking and laughing. After about ten minutes, he got out of the car and crossed the street.
The store was warm, crowded, noisy. Two youths played the pin ball machines against the wall. Another youth and an older man with a dead cigar stub in his mouth shot bumper pool on a table in the center of the room. The youth was beating the old man badly and teasing him. The old man pretended he didn’t mind, but anyone watching the game could see that he was angry. Another group of men stood at the far end of the room. Most of the noise in the place came from that corner. Phillip could hear one man’s shrill insistent voice above all the others. Then everyone would burst out laughing. The louder they laughed, the louder and more insistent the voice became. The louder he talked, the more uproariously the others laughed at him.
Other men stood at the counter drinking. One man or several would buy a half pint or a pint of whiskey, and the clerk behind the counter would serve them a pitcher of water and a bowl of ice with the bottle. Each man would then fix his own drink the way he wanted it.
No one paid any attention to Phillip when he first came into the store, and he moved closer to the counter and waited for one of the clerks to notice him. There were two clerks behind the counter. One was a tall, slim mulatto, who wore a clean white jacket. The other one was shorter, darker, and his white apron looked as if it belonged to a garage mechanic more than it did a bartender. Both of the clerks kept busy, serving and keeping the counter dry. At the same time, they laughed and joked with the other men at the far end of the room.
Phillip stood at the counter listening to the laughing and joking round him and remembered the many evenings when he and Chippo had done the same thing. He couldn’t see too many changes between now and the way things were then. Maybe there were fancier lights and pictures on the jukebox and pin ball machines, and there were more black athletes and entertainers advertising beer and whiskey, but other than that he saw very few changes. Looking at the posters against the wall, he noticed one above the jukebox which he read to himself: NO WOMEN ALLOWED. BY ORDER OF THE HEALTH DEPARTMENT. Phillip smiled to himself and looked for other posters like this one, but there weren’t any.
“Help you?” the clerk in the white jacket asked him.
“You Jimmy?” Phillip asked.
“Yeah, I’m Jimmy,” the mulatto said.
“I’m looking for Chippo Simon,” Phillip said. “Seen him around?”
Phillip used the same tone of language that he heard the others using round him.
“Chippo was in here earlier,” Jimmy said. “Round two, I reckon. Ain’t seen him since.”
“You know where I might find him?” Phillip asked.
“You checked his house?”
“Yeah. He wasn’t there.”
“You tried next door? Wait.” Jimmy turned from Phillip and called the other clerk. The clerk wearing the dirty apron came toward him with several empty beer cans which he threw in a garbage can under the counter. He then wiped his hand on the apron. “Little Man?” Phillip heard Jimmy asking him. “You know if Chippo still fucking that old gal—Alice Seaberry?”
“Last I heard,” Little Man said.
Jimmy turned back to Phillip.
“Chippo got this old gal live next door to him, you tried her?”
“I talked to her. She didn’t know where he was.”
“Anybody round here know where Chippo went?” Jimmy asked the men in the store. “Man here looking for Chippo Simon. Cue Stick, you was talking to Chippo—he told you were he was going?”
Cue Stick was the old man who was losing the pool game. He had been sighting at one ball the last couple of minutes. Now he stopped and looked back at Jimmy.
“Can’t you not bother a man when he’s gambling?” he said angrily.
“You ain’t gambling, nigger, you getting a schooling,” Jimmy said. “Anybody else in here seen Chippo? Frank, you seen Chippo?”
“I think him and California went cross the river,” Frank said. Frank was a short dark man with a hoarse-sounding voice. He wore a derby over his shaven head. “If Chippo’s got a dime, he’ll be over there somewhere,” he said.
“Anybody in here know if Chippo got any money?” Jimmy asked the men in the store.
“Had a few bucks on him this morning,” someone else said at the counter. “Claimed some woman gived it to him.”
“Best place to look for Chippo, cross the river,” Jimmy said to Phillip. “Probably find him gambling over there somewhere.”
“You wouldn’t know where he gambles?” Phillip asked. “This is important.”
“Don’t some of y’all in here know where Chippo gambles?” the mulatto asked in a loud voice. “Sweet Brown, you gamble with Chippo and California all the time, tell the man here where they gamble.”
Sweet Brown was tall and brown-skinned. He wore a brown cashmere overcoat, a brown hat, a brown suit, and his shirt and tie were also brown. He looked round slowly and shrugged his shoulders at Jimmy.
“Try ’em all,” he said, gesturing with both hands. All his fingers had rings on them, and his fin
gernails were long and well manicured. “Try Hebert. Try Domico. Try Red Top. Try Sill. Try any place that got a table—if Chippo got a dime.”
“Or can borrow a dime—or steal one for that matter,” Frank, wearing the derby, said.
“Chippo can be almost anywhere, mister,” Jimmy said to Phillip. “No telling about Chippo Simon.”
The group of men at the far end of the room burst out laughing again, and the one who had been talking loud moved away in disgust. He was short, thin, and very black. He wore khaki trousers, an Army field jacket, an Army field cap, and combat boots. When he got closer, Phillip could see that he was in his early or mid-twenties. His narrow, tight-skinned black face was shining with sweat, and there was a big scar across his left temple.
“Leaving us, Billy?” someone out of the crowd asked.
“Niggers will be niggers,” Billy said.
The men laughed.
“Billy, don’t leave,” Jimmy said, from behind the counter. “Here, have a beer. One on the house. Little Man, get Billy a Falstaff out of there.”
When Billy came up even with Phillip he stopped and shook his head.
“Niggers go’n be niggers. For the rest of they lives they go’n be niggers—you hear me?”
Phillip could see that Billy was angry, but he didn’t know what to say to him. He didn’t want to get into anything without knowing what it was all about.
“Here’s your beer, Billy,” Jimmy said. “Don’t get mad; they just playing with you.”
“That’s niggers for you,” Billy said to Phillip, not to Jimmy. “When they march them in the gas chamber niggers go’n still be just playing.”
“Billy’s trying to organize a little army round here,” the man with the derby said. “Him and couple other boys been training round that bayou over there on Pichot Plantation. Pichot catch you over there, he go’n shoot the hell out all of y’all.”
“Go to hell, niggers,” Billy said, and started toward the door. He pushed the door open but turned around and came back to the counter. “No, I don’t mean that,” he said seriously. “I don’t mean that.” He took the beer off the counter and drank. The men watched him and laughed. “Y’all my brothers,” he said. “I must always remember that. Y’all still my brothers. I hope y’all wake up. Wake up, brothers, ’fore it’s too late.”