“He don’t have a mama or a daddy,” she was saying. “His mama died and his daddy just ran off and left him. I did my best to raise him right, but you can see I’m old.”
I nodded. That old lady could sure talk sorrowfully when she wanted to.
“You will look after him, won’t you?” she said.
“I’ll advise him,” I said. “But I can’t make him do what he don’t want to do. I’ll do my best.”
“Yes, I appreciate that,” she said. “I would go and stay with him myself, but my children don’t want me on that plantation any more. I stay sick lately. Right now I’m very sick, Mr. Kelly.”
“You look good,” I said.
“Ahh, Mr. Kelly,” she said, smiling. I could see she didn’t have any teeth. Then she stopped smiling and just looked at me a while. “No, Mr. Kelly, it’s only a matter of time now. But I’ve made peace with my Maker.”
I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do, either. I think I made a slight nod.
“How do you get along with Mr. Marshall?” she asked me.
“We speak when we meet,” I said. “Other than that we don’t have much to do with each other.”
“Do you know Sidney Bonbon has something on him?”
“No ma’am, I didn’t know that.”
“Yes,” she said, nodding. “That’s why I had to leave. I had been the Hebert cook forty years. Cooked for three generations of them. Sidney Bonbon got something on him and put Pauline there in my place.”
“What did Bonbon get on him?” I asked.
Miss Julie rocked in that little chair now nearly a minute, just studying me. She didn’t want to tell me, I could see that, and maybe she had already said too much. You see, I was only thirty-three years old, still a child, and children shouldn’t know too much about other people’s business. Especially when it was about somebody important as Marshall Hebert. But Miss Julie needed me to look after Marcus, and she knew I knew how bad she needed me.
“Two people got killed long ago. People say Bonbon did it for Mr. Marshall …”
Miss Julie didn’t stop rocking to say this. You could see how much she hated to say it or even think about it. She didn’t tell me to keep it to myself, but her eyes warned me to never repeat it again. She went on rocking in that little chair, her old brown slippers barely touching the floor.
“So that’s it,” I thought. “So that’s why Bonbon steals half of everything that grows on that plantation. Marshall can’t do a thing about it. So that’s—but wait. Wait just one minute. You know about it, too, don’t you? Is that the reason he got Marcus out of jail?” I had been trying to figure out something all the way from Hebert into Baton Rouge. “Why?” I kept on asking myself. “Why? Who is this boy and why?” I knew that white men bonded colored boys out of jail for a few hundred dollars and worked them until they had gotten all their money back two and three times over. But I was trying to figure out why Marshall Hebert would do this when he already had more people than he needed. Now I knew. This little old lady had the finger on him, too.
“No, it’s not what you thinking, Mr. Kelly,” she said. “That white man been good to me. I went to him ’cause I didn’t have nowhere else to turn.”
I nodded, but I didn’t believe her. To me she was a little old gangster just like Bonbon was. She was even worst than Bonbon. Bonbon was white and you expect this of white people. But she was my own race—and a woman, too.
“Sidney still messing round with Pauline down the quarter?” Miss Julie asked.
“Yes ma’am,” I said, eying her just like I would any other gangster.
“How are those children?”
“Pretty big boys.”
“And his own wife up the quarter, she got any?”
“That one little girl,” I said.
She nodded. “He’s more crazy ’bout Pauline than he is his own wife,” she said.
“Pauline knows that,” I said.
“Huh,” Miss Julie said. Then she started looking at me like she knew more about life than somebody like me would ever know. “You think there will ever be a time?” she asked.
I didn’t know what she was talking about.
“When him and Pauline will be able to live together like they want.”
“They live pretty good already,” I said.
“Still go and come like he want?”
“Just like he want.”
“And his wife know all about it?”
“Yes ma’am. All she got to do is come to that gate and look down the quarter. She can see that truck or that horse down there almost any time he’s not home.”
“I feel sorry for her, not for Pauline,” Miss Julie said. “Pauline go’n look after herself. That other one, I don’t think she got ’nough sense to do it.”
We got quiet after that. Miss Julie was rocking in that little chair and studying me again. Her little old black, wrinkled face was sad and thoughtful, but at the same time very wise. I’m sure she knew everything about me already. She knew I would look after Marcus, she knew I wouldn’t say anything about Marshall and Bonbon—though I was sure everybody on the plantation knew about it just like she did. Miss Julie looked at me so long, I turned my head and looked at the pictures on the wall. I wasn’t interested in her biblical pictures, I just didn’t feel comfortable with her looking at me like that. Old people look at you like that for two reasons. One, when you’ve done something wrong. The other is when they want you to do something for them. The thing they want you to do usually turns out to be a burden. The heavier the burden, the longer they look at you. And Miss Julie looked at me a long, long time.
“Yes,” she said, like she was sure of me now. I didn’t look at her, because I knew why she had said it. She said it once more, then she stopped the chair from rocking “Marcus ought to be through bathing. Let’s go eat some ice cream.”
I was so glad she had said that I nearly jumped out of that chair. But I had enough good manners to let her go out of the room before I did.
3
Marcus was through bathing, all right; he had even put on a suit and he was sitting at the table, eating. Clorestine brought me and Miss Julie some ice cream and pie to the table. George and the children were sitting on the couch, looking through a magazine.
“You planning on going somewhere?” I asked Marcus.
“A short piece,” he said.
“Yes?” I said.
“Yes,” he said, looking at me.
He had on a white sharkskin suit. His shirt and his tie were blue, but the tie little darker than the shirt. A silver tie clip held the tie and the shirt together. Marcus looked at me for about long as it take you to chew two or three times, then he turned from me again. He thought he had got his point over. I looked at the old lady who had been saying what a good boy he was.
“You won’t be long, will you, Marcus?” she said. “That boy might have friends out there and they might …”
She stopped because he wasn’t even listening. When he got through eating, he got up from the table and went to George sitting on the couch.
“Borrow your keys, George?” he said.
George didn’t answer him; he didn’t even look at him.
“George, can I borrow the keys to your car?” Marcus said again.
George raised his head this time.
“You think you doing the right thing?” he said. “That white man done put up money to get you out and—”
“Man, just lend me the keys,” Marcus said. “You don’t have to preach to me.”
George got the keys out of his pocket and handed them to Marcus. I thought I had seen and heard enough, and when he went out the door I went after him. I caught up with him just as he went down the steps.
“A second,” I said.
“Hurry up,” he said. “I’m late.”
“Where you think you’re going, Marcus?”
“I got a date,” he said.
“You got a date
on that plantation,” I said.
“I’ll see you later,” he said, turning to leave.
I jerked him back around.
“Don’t you never do that no more,” he said, threatening me.
“What would you do, boy? What?”
“Plenty,” he said.
I got so mad with him then, I wanted to slam him up against that truck. I had raised my hands to grab him when I noticed Miss Julie had come to the door. Marcus turned from me and went to the car and drove up the street. I stood there watching the car until it had turned left on the other street; then I went back inside.
“Be little patient with him, he’s all right,” Miss Julie said.
“He’ll pay for it, not me,” I said.
“What y’all doing in the field, now?” George asked me.
“Pulling corn,” I said. I sat at the table and started eating again.
“That’s some mean work, huh?” George asked.
“I drive the tractor and I have an umbrella,” I said. “The ones walking behind that trailer got the mean part of it.”
“You can’t tell him nothing,” George said.
“You got to have little patient,” Miss Julie said.
“Patient, patient, patient,” George said. “You been saying patient ever since he been staying here. It ain’t done a bit o’ good.”
“And suppose you didn’t have a mama to raise you, you think you be any better?”
“I’d least listen to people trying to help me,” George said.
“Marcus is a good boy,” Miss Julie said, eating ice cream. “He’s a good boy,” she said again.
Marcus got back around midnight, and by the time we finished loading the truck it was twelve thirty. George and Clorestine and the children had gone to bed long ago, but Miss Julie had waited up with me. She went to Marcus and put her arms around him and started crying when he got ready to leave. She told him to be sure to come back and see her next week sometime. She told him if he didn’t come to see her, then she was coming to see him. Marcus didn’t say a word. He let her hold him and cry over him, but he didn’t open his mouth. She followed us to the door and waved again just before I drove away. Marcus didn’t even look back; he just sat there like he was half dead. From the way his clothes was smelling, I wouldn’t have doubted he wasn’t.
When we got back to the plantation, I helped Marcus unload his clothes and the bed. There wasn’t any light in the room so I loaned him an old lantern that I had in the kitchen. We put the bed together, then I took the truck back up the quarter. Bonbon’s house and the yard were black and quiet. The dog didn’t even bark when I parked the truck there. I put the keys in the dash drawer and went back down the quarter. Marcus was still up when I came to the house. I went to my room and got ready for bed.
“There ain’t a closet or a chifforobe or nothing in here,” he said, from the other side.
“You can hang those things up tomorrow,” I said.
“I want put them up tonight,” he said.
I didn’t say any more because I was mad already for staying in Baton Rouge so long. I got on my knees and made the Sign of the Cross, then I got into bed. Long time ago I used to say the whole prayer, but that was long ago when I was young and when I thought the Old Man was going to do it all for me. But now I know I have to do it for myself. Still, I make the Sign of the Cross every night to stay in practice. Who knows? Maybe I’ll go back to the full thing again some day.
“You got a hammer and some nails?” Marcus said. He was in my room now, standing right over my head. I could smell that whore reek in his clothes.
“Get out of here, boy,” I told him. “If you don’t want to sleep, please, let me sleep.”
“I got to hang up my clothes,” he said.
“Hang them up where?” I said.
“I found this,” he said, holding it over my face. I couldn’t see what it was, but I figured it was a piece of wire.
“You figuring on doing any nailing here tonight? You know it’s after one o’clock?”
“I got to hang up my clothes,” he said.
I looked up at him in the dark. I could hardly see him, but I could smell that whore reek in his clothes.
“Go back there in the kitchen and turn that light on,” I said. “You’ll find a hammer and a can of nails under the table. Go round there and do all the nailing you want. But I’m jerking your ass out of that bed tomorrow morning at four thirty.”
Marcus got the things out of the kitchen and went back to his side and started nailing. He must have nailed against that wall a whole hour before he had strung up that one little piece of wire.
4
Billie Jean used to shake me a long time to get me up in the morning, but now my Billie is gone and I have to make it by myself. Where are you, Billie Jean, and what are you doing now, my little chicken? Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, I hope you’re making him happy as you used to make me. It was good then, wasn’t it? It was up near Pointe Coupee, and it was good, wasn’t it? But my little chicken wanted New Orleans—Pointe Coupee was too slow; and once she got in New Orleans she wanted more than what daddy could give her. So baby found another prince. Well, that’s the way it rolls; that’s the way it rolls. Daddy’s got nothing against you, baby. Daddy understands about life, he always have. Little chickens need fur coats, perfume, silk dresses and silk drawers; and when daddy can’t afford these things, chicken must look somewhere else. Well, that’s the way it goes, and God go with you, little chicken.
I sat on the side of the bed, thinking about her and remembering four, five, six years back. Remembering the nights coming in from the field and the big tub of hot water waiting for me, and Billie washing my back, and then us in that old Ford, heading for town. And dancing and dancing until late, and then hurrying back to that bed and loving, loving, loving until morning. Then hitting that field again, half dead, and then back, and the tub of hot water, and the dancing, and the loving. For how many years—two? three?—then it was over. Daddy wasn’t able to keep up the pace, and baby had to find somebody who could. Is daddy bitter? No, daddy’s not bitter at all. All that’s part of this big old thing called life. Daddy is not bitter, baby. Come back now and he’ll say yes to you. Maybe that’s why he hangs around here. It reminds him a little of the old place, and he figures that one day you might pass by and decide to stop, and then … Stop dreaming, Frank James Kelly. It’s getting close to five o’clock and another day is breaking.
I made the Sign of the Cross, not the whole prayer, and got into my khakis. After cooking up some grits and eggs and making a big pot of coffee, I sat in the back door and ate breakfast. The sun hadn’t come up yet, but there was still enough light out there to see. I could see how the dew made the grass bend over. I could see my little gray pecan tree, my old leaning picket fence, and the old toilet that looked like it was ready to tumble over with the first light breeze. “One of these Saturdays I’m going to fix it,” I told myself. But I had been saying that a couple of years now and I still hadn’t done a thing.
I could hear the rest of the “quarter getting up, too. I could hear Aunt Emma feeding her chickens and hollering at Saint Mark Brown’s dog, saying, “You trifling thing, get away from here; get away from here, you trifling thing. You worser than that old paw-owner yours.”
A second later I heard the dog hollering; then I heard Saint Mark Brown saying, “Leave that dog ’lone, you goddamn hag.” And I could hear Aunt Emma saying: “Then keep him out this yard. Keep him ’way from my chickens, the old egg-eater.” And farther up the quarter and farther down the quarter I could hear the rest of the place getting up, too.
The sun wasn’t up yet, but it was getting lighter and lighter, and I knew it was about time I got up the quarter and cranked up Red Hannah. But first I had to get Playboy on his feet. So I got myself a cold drink of water, then I poured up another cupful to take round the other side. I had to go back through my front room and across the gallery to come into his room. And,
oh, he had everything hanging so pretty-like. He had his suits, his shirts, his ties all on a little line. Then he had six or seven pairs of dress shoes up against the wall in a nice little row. Then he had his suitcases stacked neatly in the corner. And him? Sleeping. Laying there snoring like a six-month-old baby. I looked down at him a few seconds, then I kicked against the bed.
“All right, hit it.”
He didn’t move; didn’t budge; didn’t even grunt.
I shook him. “All right, let’s go.”
He grunted this time, but he didn’t move. I shook him again. He grunted, but he didn’t move. So I grabbed him by the shoulder and rolled him off that bed down on the floor. He laid there looking up at me and rubbing his eyes. Since I had brought the cup of cold water in there, I thought I might as well use it; so I calmly poured it over his still-sleepy face. That woke him up, all right; he jumped up with his fist ready. I had put the cup on the mantelpiece and I was ready for him.
“Well?” I said.
“I’m go’n get you for that,” he said.
“What’s stopping you now?” I said.
“I’m go’n get you,” he said. “You just wait and see.”
“Sure,” I said. “You can use my washpan in the kitchen to finish washing your face. I’ve got some food on the stove if you want to eat. You better if you know what’s good for you.”
“I don’t need nobody to feed me.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “I have some khakis round there, too; pants and shirt. They might be a little big, but there won’t be any womenfolks watching you out there.”
“If you trying to buy your way out, you better think about something else,” he said.
“Uh-huh,” I said. “Listen, I’m going up there to get that tractor. By the time I get back I expect you to be through eating—that’s if you want to eat—and I expect you to be waiting out there at that gate.”
“Or you go’n put your white boss on me, whitemouth?”
“I’m trying to keep him off your ass,” I said. “You can take my advice or you can forget it, that’s up to you.”