“How do you like this?” she asked me. She was holding up a white scarf with polka dots.
“It’s beautiful,” the white salesgirl said.
Pauline smiled at her respectfully, but she still looked at me. She wanted me to tell her how I thought Sidney Bonbon was going to like the scarf.
“Nice,” I said.
When we came to the stockings, she said, “Like these?”
I looked at the stockings and looked down at her legs. “Yep. Very much,” I said.
Pauline smiled at me. The little white salesgirl glanced down at Pauline’s legs and didn’t raise her head for a while. When you looked at Pauline’s legs and looked at her legs you could see why she wasn’t in a hurry to look up. Pauline bought a belt for Bonbon, then we left. When we got back to the truck, Bonbon was asleep. His white cowboy hat was pulled over his face.
“Hi,” Pauline said.
Bonbon pushed the cowboy hat back and looked at us.
“Make it back, huh?” he said, sitting up.
We got into the truck. Pauline gave Bonbon the little white box with the belt. He opened the box and looked at the belt, then he reached over to put it in the dash drawer.
“Ain’t you putting it on?” Pauline said. She was acting just like a wife again.
He didn’t answer her. I saw the forty-five in the dash drawer when the door popped open. Bonbon put the belt in there and slammed the door back.
“Where we go?” he said.
“Home,” Pauline said, like she was mad.
Bonbon looked at me. “Geam?”
“I’m with y’all,” I said.
“Y’all didn’t talk?”
I waited for Pauline to answer.
“We talked,” she said, looking at him like she was mad. “I asked Jim how he liked my stockings, how he liked my scarf. I bought some things for the children and I asked him how he liked that. I asked him how he liked your belt. He said he liked all of them.”
Bonbon squinted down at Pauline from under that cowboy hat. You could tell that Pauline wasn’t giving him the answers he wanted to hear. Pauline started looking out at the other cars on the parking lot. Bonbon just kept on looking down at her. I sat against the door, waiting. I hoped they wouldn’t start anything. That was something I didn’t want to be around.
“Geam, you know a good place we can drink?” Bonbon asked me.
“I think so.”
Bonbon paid the parking lot attendant and drove out on the street. We found a bar where a lot of mulattoes hung out. The bar was cool and dark. We sat at a table against the wall and I ordered a set-up. The set-up was a pint of whiskey, a bowl of ice, and a pitcher of water. The waitress brought it over. She was one of those pretty Creole gals with a lot of that jet black hair hanging over her shoulders. When I paid her I looked up at her cream-color face, and she smiled back at me. I told her to keep the change. She nodded and left.
“Lover-boy,” Pauline said.
“She’s pretty,” I said.
I opened the pint of whiskey and set it on the table. Bonbon didn’t look like he was going to fix a drink for him or Pauline, so I asked Pauline if she wanted me to fix her one. She said yes, and I fixed it and handed it to her. She nodded and said it was just right.
“Fix you one?” I asked Bonbon.
“Yeah,” he said.
I fixed it and Pauline handed it to him. He didn’t say thanks or anything. He drank and set the glass on the table. His white cowboy hat was on the table, too.
I fixed a drink for myself and took a good swallow.
“Ah, this is the life,” I said.
I thought this would get a conversation going, but nothing happened. All three of us just sat there looking at the other people in the place. You had some black skin in there, but most of them were mulattoes. I supposed they took Bonbon for a mulatto, too. He was darker than many of them.
We finished one drink and started another one. Pauline tried to start a conversation with Bonbon, but he just sat there looking at the other people. I remembered he had brought the gun out of the truck with him. You could see the print of it stuck under his shirt. He needed it everywhere he went. He needed it around his own Cajuns, he needed it around the Negroes in the field, and even needed it around these mulattoes who didn’t know him at all. He was a man who needed a gun no matter where he was.
“Hi,” Pauline said softly to him.
Bonbon didn’t look at her. He was still looking at the other people in the place.
“Hi,” she said, softly again.
He looked at her from the side. She put her small hand on his big hand that was holding the glass. Then she started rubbing her finger over his wrist. She said something to him very softly and he leaned over to hear what she had said. She made him lean even closer to her so she could whisper in his ear. She put her hand on his shoulder and whispered in his ear a long time. Then he picked up his glass and drank. She kept on looking at him. She looked at him so long he had to look back at her again. He didn’t look straight at her, he looked at her from the side. But even from that side glance you could see how much he cared for her. For a second there they looked at each other like they were the only two people in the place. Just him and her in this cool, dark place, all by themselves.
I moved my chair back and that broke the spell. That reminded him of everything. That reminded him that he was white and she was black. That reminded him of the mulattoes in the place. That reminded him of the white people outside who didn’t go for this kind of mixing in public.
“Where you going, Geam?” he said.
“Down the block a piece. I know a gal down there.”
“You got a gal here. The one give us that whiskey.”
“No, I’m going down the block,” I said, walking off.
“Geam?” he said. Two long strides and he was ’side me. “Geam, this a good place?”
“You don’t have to worry.”
“I mean for us?”
“It’s a good place,” I said. I nodded toward the bar. “Talk to that fat man at the other end of the bar. He’ll fix you up.”
“You talk to him.”
I shook my head. “No sir.”
He looked at me hard. He didn’t like it when I said I wasn’t going to be his pimp. He glanced over his shoulder at Vincent deLong who owned the place, then he looked at me again. He didn’t know how to go to a man like Vincent deLong, that’s why he wanted me to do it. That’s why he had wanted Pauline to talk to me before. He was helpless in a case like this. He wanted to be with her—yes, you could tell from watching them at the table how much he loved her and wanted to be with her; but he had to go to a black man, in a respectful way, and ask that black man for a room. He didn’t know how to do that. He didn’t know how to talk to a black man unless he was giving orders.
“I’ll see you,” I said, and went out.
30
I didn’t have a girl down the block, but I wasn’t going to sit at that table and watch them play with each other. I wasn’t going to be his pimp—and I wasn’t going to sit in that bar while they laid together in one of deLong’s rooms, either.
I went to another bar a couple blocks away and got myself a beer. I sat at a table by myself. There were other people in the place, laughing and talking—some of them dancing—but I didn’t pay them any mind. I was thinking about Bonbon and Pauline, and I was thinking about Marcus and Louise. And I thought to myself it was the Old Man. He created them. He didn’t create the situation because He knew all the time they would do that themselves. He created them and created me and said, “All right, that’ll be your hell. Look after them.”
“Why me?” I probably said. “Why me? I like doing just what they like doing. Why do I have to give it up and—”
“Shut up,” He probably said.
But maybe it didn’t happen like that at all. Maybe He didn’t care how it went. He had stopped caring long ago. He didn’t even shake his head any more when He saw them doing something
they didn’t have any business doing. Just like He didn’t shake His head when He made a bad move playing chess (by Himself); or when He overlooked a play in solitaire. He just took it like it was part of the game.
No, it wasn’t the Old Man. I had put my own self in this predicament. I had come to this plantation myself, when my woman left me for another man in New Orleans and when I was too shame-face to go back home. I had heard that Hebert needed a man who could handle tractors and I had come here for the job. No, it wasn’t the Old Man, it was me. It was me when I showed Bonbon I was good with any machine he had there. Maybe if I hadn’t showed him how good I was he wouldn’t have put so much trust in me. He wouldn’t have treated me different from the way he treated all the others. He wouldn’t have told me things about himself, things about his family—things he never told anybody else. No, I had to show him how good I could handle tractors. And every time I did, he told me a little bit more. But I’m not saying he told me everything. I’m not saying he put all his trust in me—because I don’t think he trusted himself that much. What I’m saying is that he looked to me as somebody he could talk to. He needed to talk to somebody. By the time I came there he had cut himself off from everybody there except Pauline. He went hunting and fishing with his brothers, but he had little to do with the rest of the people. And the reason was Pauline. The others didn’t mind if he had this black woman. Everybody expected the white overseer to have a black woman—even his wife expected that. But when he started neglecting his wife for this black woman, then that was a different thing. The whites didn’t like that at all, and the Negroes giggled about it. Bonbon knew how both sides felt, and he knew he couldn’t go to either of them. So when I, a stranger, came along—somebody who knew all about tractors and trucks—he was glad to have somebody to talk to. At first he talked only about the machines on the plantation. But as we got to know each other, he told me about other things. He told me about his fishing and hunting. He told me about fights among the Cajuns on the river. He told me about how poor he was as a child. He told me he had never gotten any more than a third-grade education. He never talked to me about Pauline or Louise, but he told me about Louise’s people that he hated. And every so often he would say something about Pauline’s two little boys that he was very proud of. I’m not saying that Bonbon went rattling off at the mouth about all these things. What I’m saying is that Bonbon needed somebody to talk to just like anybody else needs somebody to talk to. And since I knew all about trucks and tractors, I was the person he chose.
I finished one beer and ordered another one. Then I sat back at my table again. No, it wasn’t the Old Man. Just like it wasn’t the Old Man who had stuck Marcus on me. If I had told Bonbon that night I was too busy to go to Baton Rouge, I wouldn’t have met Miss Julie Rand. But, no, I had to go. And once I got there and saw what she was doing to me, I didn’t have the nerve to turn her down. Knew what Marcus was, knew he would stick a Texas jack in me just as soon as speak to me, and still I let myself be fooled into taking the job.
No, it wasn’t the Old Man. The Old Man didn’t have a thing in the world to do with it. It was me—it was my face. Anybody who sees this face feels like he ought to just use it.
After I finished my second beer, I went back to deLong’s place. The truck was still there, but when I went inside I didn’t see Bonbon or Pauline. I asked the waitress about them. She nodded to deLong at the end of the bar. I asked him.
“In the house there,” he said. “Your friend?”
“My overseer. Plantation across the river.”
“I see,” deLong said. “Yeah, he asked me that room, I give it to him. I see he bring his gun.”
“Yeah, he keeps a gun,” I said.
“Poor sonofabitch,” deLong said. “Bad, a man need a gun all the time—no?”
“It’s bad,” I said.
DeLong shook his head.
“How long they got the room for?” I asked him.
“Couple hours.”
“How long they been in there?”
“Little more than one hour.”
“I’ll be back.”
I didn’t go back to the same bar. I went to a smaller one round the corner and a block up. I had a beer there and came on back. DeLong said he had checked the room and Bonbon was sleeping.
“The woman say they stay another hour,” deLong said.
I went back to the second bar and came back an hour later. DeLong was just coming in the bar from making his rounds. He had this big white house to the left of the bar and he rented rooms for just this reason. He didn’t have girls in there, that was against the law, but you could bring your own girl and get the room. On Mondays and Fridays you could see all the sheets hanging out on the line in the back yard.
“Woke now, but he stay another hour,” deLong said. “Crazy ’bout that black woman—no?”
“Yes,” I said.
DeLong laughed. He had a mouth full of gold teeth. I had a beer at the bar just so I could look at the waitress again. Then I went outside and sat in the truck.
31
After I drove away, Aunt Margaret went back to the gallery and sat in her rocking chair. She said Tite sat in her lap a while, then Tite wanted to go out in the yard where Marcus was working. She didn’t want Tite out there, but Tite started wiggling so much in her lap, she had to let her go.
“Don’t come back here crying you sting your leg on a nettle, you hear me?” she said to Tite.
Tite didn’t answer. Aunt Margaret watched her go across the yard where Marcus was working. Marcus stopped a moment to say something to her, then he started working again. Tite started jumping.
“That child go’n work herself up there and make her heart pump too fast,” Aunt Margaret thought. “Tite?” she called. “Petite?”
Tite jumped again.
“What’s wrong with that child out there?” Aunt Margaret called to Marcus.
“Nothing,” he said.
He got the broom from against the fence and gave it to her. But the broom was so heavy, Tite could hardly move it.
“You see that boy trying to work that child and hurt her,” Aunt Margaret said to herself. “Come here, Tite,” she called.
Tite didn’t answer.
“Tite?” she called.
“Non,” Tite said over her shoulder. “Non, non, non.”
“Like mama, like daughter, huh?” Aunt Margaret thought. “You don’t know what it is right now, but give you ten, ’leven more years, you’ll be wanting the same thing.… Ehh, Lord, look where my mind at,” she thought. “I ought to do some ironing while I’m up here, save me from doing it next week. But that stension cord won’t reach the gallery, and I got to keep my eyes on that boy.”
Aunt Margaret said she sat there, looking at him and Tite raking the leaves. Tite was having trouble moving the big push-broom, and she started jumping again. Marcus went to the tree to break off a limb.
“Convict, what you think you doing?” Aunt Margaret jumped out of her chair and hollered at Marcus.
“Getting her a little broom,” he said.
He gave it to Tite and Tite started sweeping with that. Aunt Margaret stood at the end of the gallery watching them a while, then she moved back to her chair by the door.
“My heart go’n be worser than this child heart ’fore this day is over,” she said to herself.
Aunt Margaret had been sitting out there about an hour when Louise came out of the bedroom and went back in the kitchen. After getting a drink of water out of the icebox, Louise went out on the back gallery and laid down on the cot. Aunt Margaret could see just her feet, her toes sticking up.
“You can lay down anywhere you want, on anything you want; long as you lay down in the back and he rake them leaves in the front,” Aunt Margaret thought.
Now, she was watching both of them—Louise’s bare feet one second and Marcus raking the leaves the next second. Tite was working right beside Marcus. Every time he pushed out the rake and drew it in, Tite pushed out h
er little branch and drew it back. Her white hair looked like a white piece of rag stuck up on a stick.
Aunt Margaret said she thought about her ironing again. She knew the extension cord couldn’t reach the gallery, but if she ironed in the living room, she could always see Louise laying down on the cot. And she figured that watching one or the other was just as good as watching both of them. She had just stood up to go inside when she saw Marshall Hebert’s car coming down the quarter. Marshall slowed up long enough to look at the boy through the fence, then he went on. Aunt Margaret went to the back gallery to get the ironing board. She had to lean over Louise and the cot to get the ironing board out of the corner. Louise was laying there, looking through a magazine. She didn’t look up once. She flipped through the magazine like she had gone through it a thousand times, like she knew all the time what was on the next page even before she got there. Aunt Margaret said after she had pulled the board from among all the shovels and hoes and rakes and axes, she looked down at Louise again. Louise wore a thin green blouse and a white pleated skirt. Instead of buttoning the blouse all the way down, she had tied the two ends in a knot, leaving part of her belly showing. Her white skirt, that didn’t go much farther than her knees when she was standing up, was way up her thighs now. Aunt Margaret looked down at her painted toenails and looked back at the magazine. She wanted to look at Louise’s face, but Louise wouldn’t lower the magazine far enough.
Aunt Margaret went back in the living room with the ironing board. She got the iron off the mantelpiece and connected it to the light socket that hung down from the ceiling. While the iron was getting hot, she went out on the gallery to check on Marcus. Marcus and Tite were coming toward the house.