Chaneysville Incident (14 page)

“ ‘I guess,’ he says, ‘if I’da knowed how you was feelin’, I wouldn’ta give you such a hard time ’bout that Berry girl.’ An’ then he told me the whole damned story: how he was drivin’ down to the railway depot in Cumberland to pick up a load a stuff for some white man, an’ how he saw this girl walkin’ along the road, an’ he offered her a ride, even though she was white an’ it was the middle a the South County, on accounta she smiled at him jest like he was anybody else, an’ how she talked to him jest like a woman oughta talk to a man, how she wasn’t puttin’ herself above him. An’ he told me how he quit hurryin’ the horses along, jest so he could stretch out talkin’ to her. An’ he told me how he finely drove her right up to her door an’ she ast him to get down an’ have a taste a cider, an’ how he done it, an’ how she poured it for him an’ set with him at the table, an’ how that girl had walked him out to the wagon an’ told him how much she had liked talkin’ to him, an’ how much she had always dreamed about talkin’ to somebody the way they talked to each other, an’ that she hoped he’d come back. He told me how he kissed her, with his heart beatin’ hell outa his chest half from excitement an’ half from fear. An’ he told me how he whipped them horses over them mountains, half the time thinkin’ like a colored man that jest finished kissin’ a white girl, wonderin’ if maybe hadn’t somebody seen it, or if maybe it wasn’t some kinda trap, an’ the other half thinkin’ like a man oughta think about a woman, never mind what color she was. He told me he knowed that last didn’t make no sense, on accounta he knowed he was down there in the South County, an’ headin’ into what useta be slave territory, an’ he knowed he shoulda been hatin’ jest as hard as he could, but all it took was a glass a cider an’ a young girl’s kiss, an’ he was ready to forget everything he knowed. He told me all that, an’ I listened to him. An’ when he was done tellin’ me we went over an’ got on the road an’ walked on back. An’ we never spoke of any of it again. Not never.

“Well, if it hadda been up to me, wouldn’t nobody a spoke about it, on accounta this wasn’t jest a little piece a trouble Josh was fixin’ to get hisself into. An’ it was surely the wrong time to do it—I don’t guess there’s ever been a right one, but this surely was the wrong one. Folks don’t recall too good anymore, or they don’t want to, but ’round here the Klu Klux Klan was a perty big thing. Jest about then the Republicans an’ the Klan was the big parties, an’ the Klan managed to elect the sheriff. So if it hadda been up to me the whole thing woulda stayed mighty quiet. But it wasn’t up to me. The word got out someways. An’ once it was out, wasn’t no question how it spread; them biddies up to the church done it. Them bitches’d spread anything ’ceptin’ their legs for their husbands. I swear, you want to keep somethin’ quiet, the onliest way to do it is to pass a law against sewin’ circles an’ tea parties. Better yet, get rid a the women. Anyways, they spread it.

“Truth was, when it come out it wasn’t all that bad. They thought Josh was foolin’ with some piece a white trash, which scandalized the women, but hell, none a us woulda give a damn, an’ sure wasn’t nobody tellin’ the white folks, so when I heard that story, I done all I could to keep folks thinkin’ it; tole ’em the truth. Said Josh wasn’t cattin’ around, he’d found hisself a white girl that had a good family an’ went to church an’ didn’t have no mustache nor harelip nor gimp leg or nothin’ an’ she loved him. Well, didn’t nobody believe it, an’ I figured if the truth ever did come out they still wouldn’t believe it. Only problem was Mose. He was liable to catch on to the truth. An’ that was gonna be trouble, ’cause Mose didn’t have no love for white folks. He’d sell to ’em, an’ he’d buy from ’em when he had to, an’ he’d talk to ’em if there wasn’t no way around it, but he sure as hell wasn’t goin’ to think too much a Josh fallin’ in love with one of ’em. But as it turned out, what Josh was up to was so far offa Mose’s line a thinkin’ he couldn’t even guess at it. An’ I sure as hell didn’t want to tell him. But the time come when I had to.

“Way it fell out was like this. The whole thing went on clean through the summer. The talk was gettin’ louder an’ Josh was gettin’ moonier. Mostly he wasn’t around. When he was, he’d show up down to Hawley’s an’ lose his money an’ grin like a fool. He’d carry Mose’s ’shine aroun’ an’ deliver it an’ never take a taste. Three different times I knowed about, gals he’d been carryin’ on with up the country someplace come a huntin’ for him, so fired up they come up the Hill walkin’ bowlegged, an’ they left the same way—he wouldn’t have nothin’ to do with ’em. It was sad. Went on like that through the hot months, into the fall. Then things got a little easier. The talk started to die down a little bit—some girl’s belly started to show ’fore they got her to the altar, an’ them biddies had that to go on about—an’ I figgered maybe it was gonna turn out okay, Josh’d come to his senses ’fore the dam busted loose. But jest about the time the first frost hit the ground he come to see me, an’ when he tole me why he come, I knowed that dam was gonna be bustin’ mighty quick, an’ it wasn’t no millpond it was holdin’ back, it was a Goddamned cesspool.

“He come in the mornin’ an’ we set out there underneath the oak tree drinkin’ spring water an’ eatin’ cold chicken by way a breakfast, an’ he told me how what he’d been doin’ was goin’ down there to the South County to work for that girl’s daddy, helpin’ in the fields an’ forkin’ manure an’ I don’t know what all, jest so’s he’d have a chance to see her, an’ how they’d had their chances, but they hadn’t done nothin’ but talk, she jest loved to talk, an’ he didn’t want nothin’ else from her, on accounta there’d be time enough for that. That there made me set up, on accounta I could see it comin’ but I couldn’t believe it. So I left him tell me about how he’d spent three months stayin’ away from other women an’ cleanin’ everything he owned, an’ cleanin’ up his mind—gettin’ hisself worthy, was the way he put it—an’ then he’d gone down there one night an’ asted that girl to marry him, an’ how she said she would, an’ how he figured that maybe, since her daddy had seen how he could work, an’ had always treated him fair, maybe it would be all right with him. An’ how he was fixin’ to go down there an ast the man if he could marry his daughter.

“I tell you, Johnny, I jest set there. Finely I says to him—an’ I knowed I was walkin’ on marshy ground, but the way I seen it, he was fixin’ to go marchin’ over quicksand—‘Josh, does this girl know you ain’t as white as you look?’ But he didn’t get all huffy like he usually done whenever somebody made mention of the fact that he wasn’t ’xactly what you’d call dark-skinned. He said, yeah, she knew; matter of fact, that was jest about the first thing she ast him, on accounta he looked colored, ’cept for his skin. So I says to him, ‘You mean you let her talk to you like that? Like you was some kinda funny-lookin’ animal?’ An’ he says, ‘It wasn’t like that. She was jest…curious.’ Well, I knowed then he was too far gone for me to hope to talk sense into him, but I knowed I had to try, so I said to him, ‘Josh, I don’t know. I ain’t said nothin’ ’bout none a this, mostly on accounta so far as I can see it ain’t done nobody no harm, ’ceptin’ a couple country girls. But what you’re talkin’ about now…’ He held up his hand an’ says, ‘I know what I’m sayin’.’ I looked at him, an’ I says, ‘I ain’t sure you do. You’re settin’ there happiern a pig in a garbage pile on accounta you love the girl an’ the girl loves you, an’ you think maybe her daddy ain’t gonna get too upset at the thought of a colored man for a son-in-law an’ pickaninnies for grandchildren. You figure you found somebody white that’s worth takin’ serious. Well, maybe you have. Maybe that girl ain’t never gonna look at you an’ think nigger, an’ maybe her family ain’t neither. But you talkin’ ’bout the South County, an’ you an’ me both know ain’t nothin’ good come outa the South County—’ ‘I know that,’ he says, ‘I been knowin’ it. An’ I tell you, Jack, it ain’t too much different from the North County.’ Well, he had a point there, but not much a one, an’ I says, ‘North, south, east, west, any way from Sunday. What you think is gonna happen when the neighbors find out?’ He was quiet there for a minute; he hadn’t taken that into account. ‘Well,’ he says finely, ‘maybe we’ll have to move away.’ ‘Yeah,’ I says. ‘Take her away from the folks she loves. She’s gonna end up hatin’ you, for sure. She will think nigger, for sure. An’ where you gonna go? East? West? North? Clear to Goddamn Canada? Same damn story. Colored man an’ a white woman, an’ sooner or later somebody’s gonna say somethin’, an’ it’ll set her to thinkin’. Or maybe you’ll have babies by that time; somebody’ll say somethin’ to them. An’ you know you—you can’t let nothin’ like that go by ’thout you say somethin’ too, an’ that’s jest how the end’s gonna start.’ He thought about that for a while, an’ then he looks at me an’ says, ‘I’ll tell you, Jack, from the day I was born I hated everything white, jest on accounta I couldn’t see good an’ didn’t look right. An’ you know how folks has treated me over the years. Well, I got even now, ’cause if there’s one thing I can sure do, it’s pass for white.’

“I jest set there. I couldn’t say nothin’. I couldn’t even think. What the man was talkin’ ’bout doin’ jest plain turned ma stomach. Finely I said, ‘If this girl’s so good, how come you don’t get her to pass for colored?’ He jest looked at me; he couldn’t even begin to see what I was gettin’ at. ‘Damnit,’ I says, ‘you listen to me—’ An’ he put up his hand again an’ stopped me. ‘Jack,’ he says, ‘I made up ma mind. I’m gonna go down there an’ get this thing set up decent an’ formal an’ proper, an’ when we get that done good an’ right we’ll set down an’ we’ll figure out what to do about the rest of it.’ An’ he got up an’ walked away.

“Well, I set there a long time, thinkin’ ’bout how you could grow up right ’side a man an’ not know a damn thing about what made him do what he done, an’ how any way you cut it, Josh had a right to go to hell any damn way he wanted. By the time I got done thinkin’ ’bout that, it was time to go to work. So I did.

“Shined me quite a few shoes that day; it was the dusty time a the year an’ fellas’d come down from the courthouse three an’ four times a day, jest to get the dust knocked off. There was a lot more of ’em than usual too, on accounta the boots was in town. The reglar fellas, see, the judge an’ the sheriff an’ the county commissioners an’ the lawyers an’ whatnot, them was what I called the shoes, on accounta that’s what they wore. They was always around, on accounta most of ’em had offices in the courthouse or on the Square, or somewheres. But what I called the boots—on accounta that’s what
they
wore—didn’t have no offices. They was the ones that went out to the townships an’ made sure things got done the way the shoes wanted ’em done. Some of ’em was around as much as the shoes was—a couple of ’em hung around the Alliquippa, settin’ up in the lobby, an’ every oncet in a while somebody’d come in an’ give ’em somethin’ to take to somebody else, if you get ma meanin’—but most of ’em stayed clear a town, lessen there was somethin’ goin’ on. But I knowed ’em all anyways, on accounta I might forget a face, but I don’t never forget a pair a shoes. Or a pair a boots.

“So between the shoes gettin’ dust knocked off ’em an’ the boots—which was there, I figgered, on accounta elections was comin’ up—there was a lot more shinin’ to do, an’ that was fine with me, on accounta there ain’t nothin’ like workin’ hard an’ steady to make your mind work. An’ I needed to work mine. On accounta oncet I quit thinkin’ ’bout stoppin’ Josh I started thinkin’ ’bout the South County.

“I knowed the South County. I had reason to know it. If there was anyplace in this whole part a the country a colored man would want to steer clear of, the South County was it. All them folks down there had come up from Maryland an’ Virginia, an’ some of ’em didn’t know the Civil War was over, or, leastways, didn’t know which side won. Anyways, I was thinkin’ maybe I oughta get maself together an’ go on down there with Josh. An’ I was thinkin’, too, that maybe I ought to let Mose in on what was goin’ on, ’cause sure God if there was gonna be any kinda trouble, we was gonna need Mose. But on the other hand, I more or less give Josh ma word that I wasn’t gonna say nothin’ to nobody, least of all Mose. So I polished an’ I pondered. Wasn’t payin’ too much attention to what them fellas was sayin’; most times it didn’t amount to a hill a beans anyways, an’ when it did, I usually knowed it ’fore they did. But ’long ’bout one o’clock, one a the fools that worked in some damn office or other, shufflin’ papers in between takin’ bribes, come over an’ set his butt up there an’ tells me to shine, but ’fore I can get started good he leans over an’ gives me that fishy-eyeball look white folks toss at you when they’re tryin’ to act dangerous. I can’t recall his name now; I do recollect that he bought his shoes outa the Montgomery Ward catalog, an’ his heels was always run over, an’ I recall he was so damn stupid they caught him takin’ bribes. Now I think on it, he mighta been so damn dumb he wasn’t takin’ bribes, so the rest a them crooks had to make it look like he was, jest to get shut a him. Anyways, he leans over an’ he says to me, ‘Jack,’ he says, ‘I want you to know you’re a good fella. You’re a credit to your race.’ Well, I thanked him kindly an’ kept on shinin’; when they start with that it’s best to jest ignore ’em; they don’t mean no harm. But he wasn’t through. ‘Jack,’ he says, ‘I want you to know some folks come to me today, astin’ ’bout you. Seems they heard some colored boy was nosin’ ’round with a young lady down in Southampton.’
That
made me stop polishin’. But I managed to play dumb. ‘Southampton?’ I says. ‘Why, I wouldn’t be seein’ no gal down there. Ain’t a colored family—’ ‘I said a young
lady
, Jack,’ he says. ‘Well, like I was sayin’… ‘Oh,’ I says. Like I jest caught on. ‘Well, you ain’t got to worry none, Jack,’ he says. ‘I told them folks that you was too much a credit to your race to be actin’ that way towards a young lady. Now ain’t that the truth?’ Well, I was about ready to fall offa ma stool, but leastways I could keep ma head down an’ shine, so I says, ‘Yes, sir, that surely is the truth.’ He says, ‘Well, I’m glad to hear it. On accounta these folks was mighty upset. Bad enough, boy even thinkin’ ’bout interferin’ with a young lady, but the way they tell it, he’s been bein’ perty slick, goin’ down there to Southampton an’ actin’ like he was workin’ for the young lady’s father, an’ then hangin’ ’round down there, tryin’ to talk that young lady into doin’ unspeakable things. You wouldn’t know any niggers that slick, would you, Jack?’ Well, there was enough trouble brewin’ ’thout me startin’ a pot, but I wasn’t about to take that crap from nobody. So I put the polish down an’ I stood up an’ I looked him right in the eye an’ I said, ‘Mister, I don’t
know
no niggers.’ Well, he faded clean to pale white, jest like a catfish’s belly. That’s when white folks scare me; when they gets that fishbelly white color. Unpredictable as a copperhead, an’ could be the bite’s poison too; I couldn’t say. But he got up an’ he didn’t say a damn thing. He jest looked at me, ’sif to say, If I had me a book, your name would sure God be in it, an’ then he went away.