“My son,” he said.
“Come again?”
“My son,” he said, looking at Nolan.
“You pulling my leg?” Nolan asked.
“You knew his mother,” Phillip said. “Johanna Rey. Reno Plantation.”
“Johanna? Johanna? Johanna?” Nolan said, thinking.
“They left from here about twenty years ago,” Phillip said. “Maybe little—”
“Rey? Rey? Rey?” Nolan went on. “Yes, I recall Reys there at Reno. Yes. The old one, the mama, didn’t she cook for Dr. Morgan there for years?”
“For years,” Phillip said.
Nolan nodded his head. He looked at Phillip, grinning. “Well, well,” he said. “Scratch my back and call me Kelly.”
He got up from the desk and went to the water jug in the corner of the room. Phillip heard the water bubbling as Nolan filled the paper cup. After drinking, he dropped the cup into the wastepaper basket and came back to his desk.
“Yes sir, scratch my back and call me Kelly,” he said again.
He was watching Phillip, and Phillip was looking past him toward the wooden lattice behind the windowpanes. He wasn’t feeling well at all. Maybe he had made a mistake coming here like this. Maybe he should have talked with his attorney, Anthony McVay. Anthony could have gotten the boy out of here without any problems, and he probably would have paid much less bail.
“Let’s start all over,” Nolan said. “Let’s start with why he’s staying at Virginia’s and not with you. Look to me like he ought to be in his father’s house.”
“I suppose that’s how it ought to be,” Phillip said.
“Well?”
“He’s been there once,” Phillip said.
“But he’s not staying there? Why? No room?”
“I could make room, if that was all.”
“Then why isn’t he there?” Nolan asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What you mean you don’t know? Haven’t you asked him?”
“I haven’t said a word to him.”
Nolan leaned forward on the desk and squinted at Phillip.
“What the hell is going on round here?” he asked. “You taking me for a damn fool or something?”
“I’m telling you the truth,” Phillip said. “I ain’t said a word to him—not one. That’s why I’m here to get him out—so we can talk.”
Nolan didn’t know whether to believe Phillip or not. He sat back in the chair and watched him a moment. Phillip had begun sweating.
“Let’s start all over,” Nolan said. “Y’all ain’t talked, y’all ain’t seen each other in over twenty years—and he had to be a little nothing when he left from here—how you know he’s your son?”
“I know my blood,” Phillip said.
“Your blood?”
“My blood.”
“I see,” Nolan said, squinting from behind the desk at Phillip. “Your blood.”
“How much is it?” Phillip asked.
“Depends on what I have on my hand,” Nolan said. “He might be a killer. Might be a rapist—though I don’t think he’s got the strength for that. But he could be a thief. Draft-dodger? Psycho? He could be almost anything. No papers. See, I don’t know what I have on my hand.”
“He’s my son,” Phillip said. “And he come here to see me.” He started to tell Nolan about the dream, but he thought it was best to keep this to himself. “We just haven’t had a chance to talk yet,” he said. “He’s no killer, no rapist—nothing like that. Just my son.”
Nolan nodded his head. “Just your son?”
“Yes,” Phillip said. “My son.”
“How do you know he wants to go with you?” Nolan asked. “According to you, y’all ain’t said a word to each other in the week he’s been here—how you know he wants to say something to you now?”
“I think he rather be with me than in here.”
“I ain’t too sure of that,” Nolan said. “I done picked up many who rather stay in jail. We’ll ask him.” He looked at the door. “Sidney?”
The deputy opened the door and came in.
“Go open Jenkin cell, bring me that boy out of there.”
The deputy left. Nolan looked at Phillip.
“If he want to go, I’ll set bail.”
“I’ll pay anything,” Phillip said.
Nolan grinned. “Trying to bribe me, Phillip?” he asked.
“I just want my son.”
“I don’t think he is your son,” Nolan said. “I heard you fell the other day—been working too hard. You getting up there in age, old fellow. How old are you now?”
“Couple years older than you.”
“That’s why I take it easy,” Nolan said. “You ought to do the same. Slow up.”
“My falling didn’t have nothing to do with being tired,” Phillip said. “I’m in good shape.”
“Not according to Cecil LeBeau,” Nolan said. “Not according to Octave Bacheron.”
Phillip reached into his inside coat pocket to get his checkbook. “How much?” he asked again.
“Still think he’s your son, not just your mind playing tricks, huh?”
“He’s my son,” Phillip said. “How much?”
“All depends on whether he wants to go.”
“He’ll have to go if you tell him to go.”
“Want him that bad, huh?”
“Yes,” Phillip said. He had already taken out the checkbook. Now he was reaching for his pen.
“He’s yours,” Nolan said.
“How much?”
“No money.”
Phillip had already opened the checkbook to start writing, but now he stopped, the pen still poised.
“Don’t bother Chenal,” Nolan said.
“What do you mean?”
“Just don’t go up there Friday.”
“I have to go to Chenal Friday,” Phillip said.
“Don’t,” Nolan said.
“What about those people out there?”
“That’s your problem.”
“No, this is my problem in here,” Phillip said. “I’m willing to pay money for my problem in here. I can’t take from them people what they been working for for so long. We just about changed everything in this town—except Chenal. He’s the only one still holding out, the only one won’t go along. I can’t do that to my people.”
“Maybe you don’t want the boy much as you think you do,” Nolan said. “Well?”
Phillip began trembling. Not so much from anger as from total disbelief of what he was hearing from Nolan.
“We always been straight with each other,” he said. “We always had problems—in our business we go’n have problems—but we always handled it like men.”
“True,” Nolan said, nodding his head.
“Then why this?”
“You asking a favor,” Nolan said. “I’m offering a favor for a favor. This weather is too bad for a man my age, or your age, too, to be out there.”
“I have money here,” Phillip said, showing him the checkbook.
“I know you have money,” Nolan said. “The rich give you money and expensive jewelry. Look at your wrist, look at your fingers. The poor, they give you whatever they can scrape up. I know all about your money.”
“I have a right to bail him out,” Phillip said.
“I have some rights too, Phillip,” Nolan said. “I have the right to hold a suspicious character.”
“Suspicious of what?”
“I’ll find something,” Nolan said. “No papers, no home address, no job—loitering. He could be a psycho. He looks a little off.”
“I can always get my lawyer,” Phillip said.
Nolan wanted to grin, but he didn’t. Neither did he say anything; he just nodded toward the telephone. Phillip didn’t look at it.
“That’s right,” Nolan said. “This personal, not political. They can’t blow it up like they can do a demonstration. Go on, call him and see. See what he cares about blood kin. The only ti
me they care about blood is when it’s running in the street. They don’t give a damn for your kin. Try him. Go on, call him.”
The deputy pushed the door open to come into the room, but Nolan waved him back.
“Well?” he said to Phillip. “You want him or not?”
“Can I have some water?” Phillip asked.
“Jug’s over there,” Nolan said, nodding his head. “Help yourself.”
While Phillip was at the water jug, Nolan picked up the newspapers and propped his feet on the desk again. Phillip drank two cups of water and came back to the chair. He started to sit down, but he changed his mind. He stood before the desk with his hat in his hand. Nolan was still reading the papers, his feet still on the desk.
“I can’t do that to my people,” Phillip said.
“It’s up to you,” Nolan said. “I’ll tell Sidney to take him back.”
“Can’t I even talk to him?”
“No.”
Phillip stared down at Nolan, shaking his head.
“Why you doing this to me?” he asked. “Why you persecuting me?”
Nolan let his feet slide away from the desk as he folded the papers and laid them aside. He had controlled himself long as he could.
“Persecuting you?” he said. “Persecuting you how?”
“You know this all they have out there,” Phillip said. “What else do they have?”
“That whole damn thing is over with,” Nolan said. “Over with. When they nailed that coffin down on King, that demonstrating was over with. All you doing now is bullshitting the people, that’s all. It’s over with.”
“Maybe for the young,” Phillip said. “But the old—that’s all they have.”
“They better find something else,” Nolan said. “That bullshit’s over with. Well, you want him or not? I don’t have all day.”
“I won’t be able to stop the people,” Phillip said.
“No?” Nolan said. “Sidney?” he called.
The deputy pushed the door open.
“Take that boy back to that cell—and lock it.”
“Wait,” Phillip said. “Can’t I speak to him just one second?”
“No,” Nolan said.
The deputy pulled the door shut.
“Wait,” Phillip said.
The deputy stood in the outer room with his hand on the door knob. Nolan sat behind his desk looking up at Phillip, waiting.
“You won’t take money?” Phillip asked again.
“I think I made myself clear,” Nolan said. “You want him, or you don’t want him?”
Phillip looked down at Nolan and nodded his head.
“I always thought you was different,” he said. “Just go to show how wrong a man can be.”
7
The deputy pushed the door open, and Phillip’s heart started racing as he watched his son come into the room. He wore the big overcoat unfastened and the cap stuffed down into one of the pockets. His thin, patchy beard was as nappy as the hair on his head. Phillip reached his hand out toward him, but he went by as if Phillip was not even there. Nolan, who had been watching both of them, was trying to find some kind of resemblance between the two, but he could find nothing.
“Reverend here paid a lot to get you out,” he said. “Claims you his son. Well?”
“I don’t know,” the boy answered him. He was standing directly in front of Nolan, but he spoke so quietly that even Nolan could hardly hear him.
“Well, I reckon you got a point there,” Nolan said. “Something none of us can be sure of. What’s your name, boy?”
“Robert X.”
“In here, boy, you say ‘yes sir’ and ‘no sir,’ ” Nolan said.
“Robert X—sir.”
“Before it was X?” Nolan asked him.
“I went by my mother’s name.” He spoke quietly, unemotionally, looking down at the desk and not at Nolan.
“Her name?” Nolan asked.
“Sims.”
“Sims?”
“Yes sir. Sims,” he said, nodding his head.
“Not Rey? Not Martin?”
He shook his head this time. “Sims—sir.”
Nolan looked at Phillip. “You never married her, did you?” But he knew Phillip had not married the woman, and he didn’t wait for an answer. He turned back to the boy before him.
“What you doing here, Sims—X—whatever you call yourself?”
“I like to be addressed as Robert X, sir,” he said, looking at Nolan for the first time. It was not a demand, he was merely emphasizing that Robert X was his only name.
“What you doing here, Robert X?” Nolan asked, after looking him over a moment. He had searched his face for defiance, he wanted defiance, but he found none. Not only did the boy’s face not show emotion, he seemed incapable of having any.
“I’m on my way to a conference,” he said. “Sir.”
“I didn’t hear ’bout no conference here in St. Adrienne.”
“I’m here to meet a man.”
“This the man?” Nolan asked, nodding toward Phillip.
The boy didn’t turn his head.
“A man,” he said, looking only at Nolan.
“I see,” Nolan said. “You know, Sims—Robert X—we got ways of making people talk. I’ve cracked tougher nuts than you.”
The boy looked down at him without answering. Nolan still searched his face for defiance but couldn’t find any.
“Well,” he said, “you not my problem any more, you his now. Just make sure you stay on the other side of them tracks. I don’t want have to pick you up again—we understand each other?”
“Yes sir.”
Nolan jerked his head toward the door.
“Wait out there.”
The boy turned away from the desk without ever looking at Phillip and left the room.
“Well?” Nolan said. “You still want him?”
“He’s my son.”
“He sure don’t look like you,” Nolan said. “You sure you didn’t hit your head when you fell?”
“I ought to know my blood,” Phillip said.
“Well, keep your blood back there long as you want him, then put him on the first thing smoking. I don’t want him in this town.”
“Anybody else have to know about this?” Phillip asked.
“They’ll have to know before Friday,” Nolan said.
“Let me tell them my way.”
“Sure,” Nolan said. “Long as they don’t come up here starting trouble. It’s too cold to go out there arresting people. Especially old people who ought to be home by the fire. We understand each other, Phillip?”
Phillip looked down at him and nodded his head. “We understand each other, Sheriff. We understand each other well.”
“Good,” Nolan said, and picked up his papers. “Long as we understand each other.”
When Phillip came into the outer room he saw the boy standing by the front desk. The two deputies went on with their work as if nothing was going on round them. The deputy at the front desk was still looking through papers, just as he was doing when Phillip first came in. The one in back was still typing with two fingers. Phillip nodded for the boy to leave and followed him out into the hall.
“They treat you all right?” he asked.
The boy pulled the cap out of the coat pocket and put it on his head. He didn’t bother to answer.
“I want us to go for a ride,” Phillip said. “I want us to talk.”
The cool air off the St. Charles River hit them as they came outside. They passed by the statue of the Confederate soldier and the three flags and walked across the sea-shell-covered parking lot over to the car.
“We can get something to eat if you want,” Phillip said. “We can pick up a box lunch and—”
But there was no point going on, because the boy wasn’t listening to him. He opened the door for him to get into the car, then he went round to the other side. He drove out of St. Adrienne without knowing or caring where he was going. On his left w
as the St. Charles River, high, muddy, and gray, the waves flowing far upon the bank, splashing against the trunks of the cypress and willow trees before receding back into the river again. The small, black poules d’eau floating lightly, effortlessly, on the high waves would duck under in search of food, then bob up some fifteen or twenty feet away. They would look around jerkily for a couple of seconds and go back down again. On the other side of the road were the gray unpainted farmhouses and an occasional antebellum Creole house sitting on blocks seven or eight feet above the ground. Pecan, live-oak, and cypress trees grew in many of the yards, as well as alongside the road, and sometimes the Spanish moss hung so low overhead you could almost reach out and touch it.
Since leaving St. Adrienne, Phillip had been trying to think of a way to start a conversation with his son. Then he caught him looking out at the houses on his side of the road.
“Them old houses you see there, they been there for years and years,” he told him. “You know why they built them up like that?”
He didn’t get an answer.
“Years, years ago, water used to cover everything,” he went on. “So they had to put the houses high up on blocks to keep out the water. Today we got the spillways, thank God; you can build your house any way you want.”
But now that he had mentioned the houses, the boy, whom he could never call Robert X, had no more interest in them and turned his head.
Phillip drove about five miles along the river, then he turned off the highway onto a narrow blacktop road that led them into the canefields. The cane had been cut, hauled away, the leaves had been burned off, leaving the ground black from the fire. On either side of the road, about a quarter of a mile away, was the beginning of the swamps. The trees from this distance looked like an impenetrable black wall bordering the fields.
Phillip drove another couple of miles, then parked the car near a large old oak tree beside the road. The limbs of the tree, thick with leaves and heavily laden with Spanish moss, hung all the way over the road into the other field. Not a house was in sight from here, and no one could be seen in the fields either, so Phillip thought this was a good place to sit and talk. But after sitting there a while, fumbling with his hands and watching the boy, he still didn’t know where or how to begin.
The boy hadn’t said a word since leaving the sheriff’s office. He sat as far away from Phillip as he could and stared out at the tree just ahead of the car. Phillip could see the nervous thumping of the jaw muscles underneath the scraggly beard.