“That’s when I heard the noise—the bed. I had thought all the time it wasn’t nobody in the house but me and her. I know the storekeeper had told me about a ‘him’ who stayed there with her, but I hadn’t seen ‘him.’ I didn’t see him or hear him that first day, and didn’t hear him that second time either, till I mentioned where you was preaching. That’s when I heard the bed. Like somebody had been laying in one place a long, long time—and when he heard what I said he turned over. No sound from him himself, just the screeching of the bed when he turned over.
“I had my back to the door, and I looked quick back over my shoulder. But nothing. Not another sound. Quiet, quiet. I kept my head that way, I don’t know how long, but nothing. I looked back at her. She made ’tend she hadn’t heard a thing. She even act like I hadn’t even looked around. After we had been sitting there a while, not saying a thing, I asked her about the children.
“She told me the youngest boy and the girl was living in New York. Both married, both had a nice little family, and she heard from them all the time. Etienne, her oldest, was there with her. Everybody was doing just fine, just fine. Be sure to tell the people back home she was doing just fine, just fine.
“I didn’t believe her. Not a bit. That’s why I went back to the store to leave her some money. Both the man and his wife was behind the counter. Both watched me when I come in, like they knowed I was coming back. I took twenty dollars out my wallet and handed it to the woman. She didn’t even wait for me to tell her what it was for. “ ‘How come you didn’t give it to her yourself?’ she asked.
“ ‘She wouldn’ta took it,’ I said.
“The old woman still looked at me. Didn’t even nod her head. But she knowed what I was talking ’bout.
“ ‘When she come in the store I want you to—’ But I didn’t need to finish.
“ ‘I know,’ the old woman said. ‘She’ll get it in grocery.’
“ ‘A little this time, a little next time, till it’s all gone,’ I said.
“ ‘I know how to do it,’ the old lady said.
“Now both her and her husband just looked at me. They knowed why I was back.
“ ‘Well, I think I’ll just go on up,’ she said.
“ ‘Mama?’ He stopped her.
“They looked at each other a long time, then she looked at me.
“ ‘What part Louisiana you say you from?’ she asked.
“ ‘St. Raphael Parish.’
“ ‘Where’s that?’ she wanted to know.
“ ‘Between Lafayette and Baton Rouge, on the St. Charles River.’
“ ‘We know people from out that way,’ she said. ‘Honorable people.’
“ ‘I understand,’ I said.
“ ‘Do you?’
“ ‘Yes.’
“She nodded her head. And looked back at her husband.
“ ‘Sure, Papa,’ she said, and went upstairs.
“ ‘We knowed you was coming back,’ he told me. ‘Me and Mama talked ’bout it Tuesday night after you left here. We talked ’bout it today after she come over here and bought the food to cook. How was the food?’
“ ‘Good,’ I said.
“ ‘Yes. We knowed you was coming back,’ he said. ‘Mama say we can trust you. Me, I don’t know. Can I?’
“ ‘She’s my friend,’ I said. ‘Her husband was my best friend.’
“ ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’m sure glad to hear that. ’Cause you see he was the cause of it all.’
“ ’Cause of what?’ I asked.
“ ‘The trouble. What else?’
“ ‘What trouble?’
“ ‘I see,’ he said. ‘She didn’t tell you ’bout the trouble. I bet you didn’t get to see him either.’
“ ‘I didn’t see nobody but her,’ I said. ‘But I think I heard somebody in that room.’
“ ‘A crypt,’ he said.
“ ‘A crypt?’
“ ‘A crypt.’
“ ‘Why?’
“ ‘That’s what I want you to tell me,’ he said.
“ ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Wait now.’
“ ‘Nobody else been able to tell me,’ he said.
“ ‘Wait,’ I said.
“ ‘No, you wait,’ he said.
“He told me he had been knowing her ’bout fifteen years—ever since she first come to California. He remembered the day she got there, with nothing but her children and couple of beat-up old suitcases. That evening she come in his store to buy sausage and bread for sandwiches. His wife was behind the counter, and she invited her and the children to take supper with them that night. While she was there she told the old lady she needed work. She would do anything ’cause she didn’t have any money. The old lady promised her credit at the store till she found a job. A week later she found housework for some white people. These people, Greeks, had a son called Mathias, studying law at a school there in Frisco. In the evenings he taught games and exercises at the YMCA, and every day he would take the children over there. Antoine and Justine would go with him, but Etienne had to work, help bring money in the house. He was the man of the house. The man of the house. She told it to him that day he left from here. She told it to him right there in front of me. When you didn’t come out of Tut’s house that day, she told him that till you did come back to them he was go’n be man of the house. She took him by the hand, looking straight in his face—a scared, confused little boy. I told her then it wasn’t right. I told her he wasn’t but a chap himself, and it wasn’t right. I told her there’d be other men, and she oughtn’t force this burden on him. But she didn’t hear a word I said.”
Chippo stopped and drank. Phillip who had raised his glass a couple of times was now holding the glass with both hands and staring over it at the floor. For a while he wasn’t aware that Chippo had stopped talking. He had not been only listening to what Chippo was saying, but he was trying to picture in his mind things that Chippo was probably not telling him. His mind was constantly shifting from the house in San Francisco to the boy sitting beside him in the car today. Several times his mind had lingered on the boy too long, and he had missed some of the things that Chippo had said, but he never asked him to repeat anything. He probably wouldn’t have been able to say anything even if he had tried. It was only when he realized that Chippo had stopped talking, that there had been silence a minute or two, that he looked at him again.
“What?” he said.
“The men.”
“Go on.”
“I don’t like talking ’bout this.”
“Go on.”
“There was more than one, there was more than two.”
“Go on.”
“The storekeeper didn’t know how many,” Chippo said, looking closely at Phillip to let him know he found this unpleasant to talk about.
“Go on, Chippo,” Phillip said.
“Never one too long. Two, three months, then he had to go. Be a long time when there wasn’t one. Then another one—two, three months, then he was gone. The reason, none of them could be number one. She let them know that from the start. Number one was still in Louisiana. They could stay a while if they wanted to, then they had to get out.
“The last one wasn’t a man, he was scum. Shooting pool was his trade, but he would do anything. From pushing dope to pimping to robbing the church—that was Quick George. They say he had been in that house no more than a month, when he turned from the mon to the daughter.”
Chippo stopped again and looked at Phillip. “I’m telling you what the storekeeper said to me—nothing more. I wasn’t there. I talked to nobody else. I’m telling it to you the way he told it to me. She wouldn’t tell me nothing. He didn’t want tell me nothing, and I didn’t want tell you either. But I wanted to know what had happened, just like you want to know. I’m just telling it to you the way he told it to me. Lord knows I hate telling it. It’s nothing somebody like talking ’bout.”
Chippo waited for him to say something. He didn’t. His jaws set tight, his eye
s staring down at the floor, he waited. Chippo looked at him, drew in a deep breath, and exhaled harshly through his mouth.
“They heard Etienne and Antoine out there in the street fighting. His wife sent him out there to break it up. ’Fore he could reach them, Antoine had jumped up from the ground and was running. When he got closer he saw Etienne bleeding. He tried to get him back to the store, but Etienne got away from him and started running after his brother. Etienne running after Antoine, the storekeeper running after Etienne. Two blocks away from the pool hall where Quick George hung out, they heard the first shot. Two, three seconds later, another one. When they got there, Antoine was standing over Quick George with the .45 still pointed at his head. Etienne pushed his way through the crowd and tried to take the gun.
“ ‘It was me,’ he said.
“ ‘It’s too late now,’ Antoine told him.
“ ‘No, it’s not too late,’ Etienne said. ‘It was me. Everybody in here seen it was me. Didn’t all y’all see it was me?’
“ ‘It’s too late,’ Antoine said. He went to the bar and told the bartender to call the law.
“According to the storekeeper, this what happened. The boys had come in the house a few minutes earlier and seen their sister laying on the bed crying. They didn’t have to ask what had happened, they could see the dress, they could see the sheet. Etienne sat on the bed and took her in his arms, rocking and crying. Antoine went for the gun. (The storekeeper got all this from the young white lawyer who defended the boy later.) Antoine tried to push the gun on his brother. Etienne was the oldest, the man of the house, it was his job to do it.
“ ‘Go kill that dog,’ Antoine told him.
“ ‘This for the law,’ Etienne said.
“ ‘Law?’ Antoine said. ‘Law? There ain’t no law when you rape a black girl. The raper was enticed. This the only law,’ he said, pushing the gun on him.
“ ‘No,’ Etienne said.
“Antoine tried to push the gun on him a third time. ‘I say take it and go kill that dog.’
“ ‘No,’ Etienne said. ‘This for the law.’
“ ‘Then I’ll do it for you,’ Antoine said.
“They started fighting over the gun in the house. Etienne fighting to keep it there, Antoine fighting to use it. They fought in the house, out the door, in the street. That’s how the storekeeper and his wife heard the noise. By the time he come out the store, Antoine had hit Etienne, and now Antoine was looking for Quick George.
“Quick George was shooting pool. Antoine shot as he come through the door. The first bullet missed. Maybe he was nervous, maybe he wanted to scare him ’fore he killed him. The bullet hit everything on that table but Quick George. The next one …
“She had been saving money in a jar. For what? For what? Days her and them children had gone hungry; years patches on top of patches on their clothes; a jar full of pennies, nickels, dimes, wrinkled dollar bills. She brought the jar to the storekeeper and asked him to take her to see the young lawyer that she had been working for. The lawyer told her to keep the money, let the expense fall on the state. He himself would work with the lawyer the state appointed—no charge at all.”
Phillip was moving his body back and forth in the chair as someone might rock in a rocker. Not looking at Chippo, staring beyond him, rocking back and forth. Chippo stopped to look at him. But Phillip was unaware that Chippo was no longer speaking.
“Is that how he got here?” Chippo asked.
Phillip nodded his head, but he seemed only half aware that Chippo was talking to him.
“He musta stole that money,” Chippo said. “I’m sure she—”
“Go on.”
“I wouldn’t believe it even if she told me herself. That woman loved you. It was him. Him. I know definitely it was him.”
“Go on,” Phillip said. “Go on.”
“Man, you must believe that.”
Phillip was not looking at him, he was waiting for him to go on.
Chippo, almost totally exasperated, watched him for a moment and started talking again.
“The boy got five years. The storekeeper said every week somebody went to see him. The young lawyer would take the family one time, the storekeeper or somebody else would take them the next time.
“Antoine and Justine was closer now than they had ever been. They would move away from Johanna and Etienne to whisper to each other. Antoine had nothing to say to his mama at all. If she asked him how he felt, he was all right. If she asked him if they was treating him good, it was always yes. If she asked him if he needed anything, it was always no. He had nothing to say to her. Nothing.
“Him and Etienne would talk. He had even forgiven Etienne for not taking the gun. But now he was the man, and he let Etienne know it. When he pulled that trigger, then he was the man. His sister, the way she looked at him, let him know that he was the man. Even Johanna. Even Etienne himself let him know that he was the man now.
“Justine stayed at the house with Johanna and Etienne till Antoine got out. Then both of them left. The last time anybody saw them was five, six years ago. They don’t write to their mon or their brother. They write to the young lawyer who defended Antoine in court, and he tells Johanna ’bout them.
“After Antoine and Justine left, the people saw less and less of Johanna and Etienne. Johanna sometime, but Etienne hardly ever. One day the old lady, the storekeeper’s wife, went over there and asked her about him.
“ ‘In there,’ she said, nodding toward the room. Nothing else. Not another word. ‘In there.’
“The same thing happened the second time, the third time. If the old lady stayed there long enough, she might hear him come out the room and go in the kitchen to eat. Always by himself. They didn’t even eat together any more. The old lady had gone there when Johanna was eating, and he would be in his room. If he ate while she was there, she would hear him washing his plate quiet quiet, using little water as he could, then back to his room. One time when he was sick, the old lady made Johanna let her in there to see him. In the room, a narrow bunk, a little chest of drawers, nails against the wall to hang his clothes—that was all. A crypt.
“Why he went in there? Who knows? Did Johanna make him go in there? Did he go in on his own? Who knows for sure? I believe he went in there out of guilt. He wasn’t the man of the house no more, and he didn’t want act like he was.
“At night he went out walking. The people saw him. Then back to the house—to the room—laying there woke, listening, waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting for what? Another chance? He had failed his sister. What was he waiting for—to defend mama? That’s why he lay there waiting? What other reason?
“Then I knocked …”
Chippo stopped. He was tired. He had drunk the last of the whiskey in his glass. Now he rolled the empty glass round in the palms of both hands while he stared down at the heater.
“That’s what the storekeeper told me,” he said, looking at Phillip. “Exactly how he told it to me. After he was through he told me never repeat this where it might hurt her. Well, I’m glad now I told you. I can go to Reno now and see the old people, and I don’t have to feel guilty ’bout holding nothing from them. I feel good about it. Yes. Like somebody done gone to confession.”
Phillip looked at him. “That’s how you feel?”
“Exactly,” Chippo said.
Phillip nodded his head. “I see,” he said. “I see. It musta been a heavy burden to carry, Chippo.”
11
For a long time now they were quiet. Chippo was tired, drained of all physical strength, but his mind relieved. Relieved of a burden, as he had said, as one’s mind is relieved after going to confession. The body was still tired though, from wandering, gambling through the evening and the night, and especially from talking about something that he didn’t find pleasant. He pulled out an old brass-covered watch to check the time. It was five minutes to two.
“I ought to be going,” Phillip said.
He was just as tired as
Chippo. But where Chippo’s mind had been relieved of a burden by talking about it, Phillip now felt a heavier burden by hearing it.
“You going?” Chippo asked him.
“Before it get any later. We have to talk again.”
“Talk about what, man?”
Phillip shook his head. “I don’t know. But we have to talk again.”
“Why don’t you stay here tonight and rest?”
“Rest?” Phillip said. His forehead wrinkled as if the word was foreign to him. “Rest?”
“You can use some rest.”
“Yes, I can use some rest.”
“Then stay here,” Chippo said. “Nothing that can’t wait till tomorrow.”
“This can’t wait, Chippo,” Phillip said.
“It waited this long.”
“It’s waited too long, Chippo,” Phillip said, and looked at him. “Don’t you see? It’s waited too long.”
“And you go’n make it up tonight?”
“You got to start sometime.”
Chippo leaned over and got the bottle and poured just a little whiskey into his glass.
“What’s been done been done, man,” he said, after he had drunk. “A terrible thing happened, yes; but you can’t do a thing ’bout it. My honest opinion—forget it.”
Phillip laughed. It was not a time to laugh. Chippo watched him. He laughed again, a deep, strange chest laugh.
“You know how hard I been trying to forget it?” he asked Chippo. Chippo didn’t answer him. “I went to religion to forget it. I prayed and prayed and prayed to forget it. I tried to wipe out everything in my past, make my mind blank, start all over. I thought the good work I was doing with the church, with the people, would make up for all the things I had done in the past. Till one day I looked cross my living room.… Forget it? If it was that easy, you think I’d be sitting here with you now?” he asked, and shook his head. “But from the moment I saw him in that house—I fell, Chippo. I fell. When I saw him in that room my legs buckled, and I fell. When I got up—I didn’t tell them I fell because I recognized my son in the house.”
“Wait,” Chippo said.
Phillip told him about the party, and how Etienne happened to be there.