Dark Don't Catch Me (15 page)

Between them a silence hangs now; Major seems to slam everything she hands him onto the plank table, in a contemptuous gesture; letting the forks she had just given him fall out of his hands and clank against the wood; some landing on the ground under the table. She sighs.

“Pick those up, Major,” she says tersely. “Now they'll have to be washed.”

“Yes, ma'am.” He bends to retrieve them slowly. Then, pausing as he holds them, waiting for her to notice he has stopped what they are doing together, he says when she glances over at him, “Miz Hooper?”

“Well?”

“I'd just like to say one thing.”

Suddenly in that second before Vivian Hooper starts to answer Major, intending to say: “All right, Major, but hurry. We have guests waiting and I can't be here helping you the whole time,” Thad's voice cracks the silence.

“Hey, boy, what the hell you think this is?”

Major turns and stares at Hooper. “Sir?”

“People back there waiting for some more spring water, Major!”

“I was helping Miz Hooper, sir.” “You mean she was helping you.”

“Yes, sir.” He speaks tiredly again, perpetually tired and resigned in his tone, his shoulders sagging, stance impatient and slumping.

“You get that jug and get on back there, Major. When you finish with that, you can do the rest of what's here by yourself. Mrs. Hooper don't need to be overseeing the job!”

“Yes, sir.”

Major puts the forks on the table, and goes to lug the jug down to the campfire. When he is out of hearing distance, Hooper says: “I'm getting damn tired of that boy. Working for that Northerner hasn't done him any good.”

“Shhh, honey, Marianne'll hear.”

Hooper regards her coldly. “What you doing back here in the bushes with him anyway?” “No, Thad, don't start — ”

“How come you decided to wear
that?”
He flicks his thumb against her flesh above her bosom.

She looks down at the blue cotton dress, its neck cut in an expansive oval shape dipping down near the crease of the beginning of her breasts, its waist tight, the skirt full and three times petticoated underneath.

“There's nothing wrong with it,” she says. “It's pretty, I think.”

“For some kind of ballroom, maybe. Not an outdoor barbecue.”

“I suppose I should be buttoned up to the neck.” “Wouldn't hurt. If you're gonna be back in the bushes helping a nigger!” “Thank you.”

“You asked for it. Viv, you keep asking for it — for it and a lot of its.”

“What started you off today, Thad. Can you tell me that?”

“I come home on a day like today and get sassed by an uppity nigger because my kid done to his sister what he's probably done to her three nights a week and all day Sunday, and then I walk upstairs and get worse sass out of the mother of my children, lying around half naked on the bed with the door wide open!”

Vivian Hooper shuts her eyes and thinks, God help his lies, stands impassively. She knows he has more to say.

“And I'm never going to forget what you insinuated about Thel; what you insinuated about me and Thel.”

“Huh?” She opens her eyes immediately, staring incredulously at her husband's fury-ridden face. “What, Thad?”

“That's right, act like you didn't say anything of the kind. The way you act about everything! Pretend you're just little Miss Innocence! Well, we know better, don't we, Vivian?” He smiles sardonically as he stands in front of her, looking down at her.
“Don't
we?”

“I wish I knew what's eating at you, Thad. I don't don't know when you've ever carried on this way this long.”

“Oh, yeah. Yeah-uh! You don't know what's eating me. You make all sorts of dirty insinuations about Thel not being virtuous, and you — ”

“My God, I never said that — ”

“Shut up, will you! Will you close your mouth like a lady should? If you kept it shut you wouldn't let what's in you out for people to see and just get sick at. Well, Vivian, let me tell you something. I'm going to forgive what you said about Thel because I have to. I'm married to you, and you're mother to my kids. I'm obliged to forgive the remark, but I'm never going to forget it.”

They look at one another silently. From behind them the voices of their guests sound in the night's cool air, and the slight breeze rustles the branches of the queen-of-China trees; the campfire crackles in the background, and the candles fight the frail wind whipping them.

Thad Hooper says: “I want that dress off before you rejoin our guests.”

She puts her hand on the round button at her bosom. “Yes, Thad, I'll take it off right now.”

With a sudden swift movement of his arm, his palm cracks across her jaw, the impact of it sending her to the ground.

Behind him, Major Post's voice says: “They got all the water they need now, Mr. Hooper. I'll finish up here.”

Hooper stalks past the startled boy wordlessly.

For a moment Major just looks down at her, sitting on the ground, her hands covering her face. Then he goes over to her, asks gently, “Miz Hooper? Can I help, ma'am?”

“He's mean.” She seems to say it to herself, though she says, “Major, he's mean, and his mind is rotten. Oh God.”

“Can I help you, ma'am?” He bends a little, as if to offer his hand to pull her back to her feet, but waiting for her permission.

“He hurt me, Major. He really hurt me.” “Are you hurt, ma'am? Can I — ”

“Yes, I'm hurt. I'm really hurt. I can't be doctored for this one, Major. Here, Major — here, help me — ” She gives him her hand, and the boy takes it, tugs her up, stands beside her as she pushes back the wisps of raven hair that have fallen around her face. She rubs her cheeks with her palms, and the spot on her jaw where Thad Hooper had struck her. She stands then as though thinking very hard, oblivious to anything else, one hand supporting her as she leans against the plank table, the other dangling listlessly at her side.

Major waits for a while behind her. Then he says softly: “Is there anything I can do, ma'am?”

“Hmm?” She looks at him. “No. No, there's nothing.”

“I'm real sorry, Miz Hooper.”

She purses her lips, pondering a moment. Then removes her hand from the table and straightens herself.

“I'll wash off these forks, Miz Hooper,” Major says. “Then I guess Hus will be fixing to serve.”

“Yes,” Vivian Hooper says. “I'm going on up to the house. Yes, tell Hus to go ahead and serve when she's ready, Major.”

“You want us to wait on you, don't you, Miz Hooper?”

“No.”

• • •

As Thad Hooper enters the circle, he seats himself between Storey and Kate Bailey, slapping Storey across the back. “Hey, boy, you all tanked up on that bourbon? Hi, Kate. You look mighty pretty tonight.”

“Where's Viv?” Storey asks.

Thad says, “She'll be along. How's the band coming, Kate?”

Kate Bailey's thin face brightens at the mention of the band. She sits cross-legged, her yellow cotton skirt smoothed over her knees, the matching blouse open at the neck where there is a double strand of white beads which her fingers touch lightly as she talks.

“We all hope Vivie will take up an instrument one of these days, Thad.”

“Why, I was mentioning only this afternoon I thought she should.”

“Band does a whale of good,” Storey muses. “But I don't know. I just can't see Viv tooting a horn.”

His wife glances at him questioningly. “Now, that's a right silly thing to say, Storey.”

“Oh, I don't mean it no way special. It's just that Viv is so — ”

“I guess you think she's too wild, ah, Stor?” Hooper laughs. “Hell, no, I didn't mean nothing of the kind. Wild? Viv?” “Some get that impression. Girl can't help because she's pretty,” Hooper says.

“G'wan, Thad. Viv wild?” “Sure. Some think so, I guess.”

Kate says, “Why it's quite to the contrary. She seems too much like a city lady, is what Storey means, I guess. Though, law, we got Marianne Ficklin playing in our band, and she's from New York City.”

“Where
is
Viv anyway, Thad?”

“You're mighty impatient. Guess I got to look out for you.” Hooper laughs again and nudges Kate. “How about that, Kate? You and me got to watch out we don't get cut right outa the picture.”

“What we really need,” Kate says, “is a saxophone player. It'd improve us a whole lot.”

“I was by to see you s'afternoon, Thad. Got off early over at the mill. Viv tell you?”

“Naw, she didn't. See what I mean? I got to watch right sharp ‘fore my best buddy cuts me out.”

“Of course Clara Sell plays sax some, but tuba's her specialty and we really need both.”

“Yeah, I was by around three o'clock. Viv told me you was up to the grave.”

“You know, Storey, it's funny. You're the only one that ever calls her that, Viv …” Hooper chuckles. “Sort of like a pet name.”

“Oh, I always called her that. From way back I have.”

“Hear that, Kate?” Hooper grins at Storey's wife, who looks at him somewhat bemused. “I think way back they were kind of sweet on each other.”

Kate Bailey shrugs; puzzled at the way Thad is laboring the joke.

“Aw, hell, Thad! You was always my idol, f'Chrissake.” “Why all this talk suddenly?” Kate says.

“We're just teasing,” Thad answers.

Kate says, “Maybe I can go and help Vivie?”

“To tell you the truth, Kate, Vivie's in a little tizzy, sort of. Oh, she'll get over it. She'll be along soon enough.”

“You and her had a spat?” Bailey asks.

“Naw, nothing like that. Just some words.”

“Maybe we all ought to sing,” Kate suggests, “and pep everybody up.”

Opposite the Baileys and Thad, across the fire, Joh, Guessie, the Ficklins and Colonel Pirkle discuss the moonshine crackdown. Marianne Ficklin's thoughts wander from Colonel's words — “… but out at the one I was visiting this afternoon they got a number ten upright boiler in good condition, and a two-hundred gallon pre-heater and pre-heater unit …” — to: thoughts of Major Post, as her eyes follow the dark, tall, sturdy figure of the young boy, the young black boy-man, as he goes back up the hill from the spring, lugging the stew pail. Big nigger, she thinks; big virile strong kind that push against you up North; knee you on a subway with their big strong knees in you. And she thinks of how this morning he was afraid to take a cool drink, so scared he left the ashcans on the lawn and went, scared because he's wild and he knows he's wild with that nigger blood pulsing through his big body. And she thinks of how tomorrow he will come to the house, cap in hand. “What do you want me to do, ma'am?” and of how she could say, “What would you like to do, Major? If you could. Tell me. Go on, Major. I dare you.” Big strong, kneeing nigger, the kind that puts his knee right in you during a rush hour — once she had let one do it, just to see. Get a black ape out of the Alabama cotton fields and put him on the 8th Avenue at 5:15 any evening and the nigger in him can't help finding a white girl to rub against; it's all hidden down here behind the goddam sneaking-around servility. “Yes, Miz Ficklin” — but underneath thinking, I got something you want bad, baby. South
or
North, never mind, big strong kneeing niggers know what they got and what you want.

“… don't you think so, Marianne?” Colonel Pirkle's voice crashes through the wall of thoughts.

“I certainly do, Colonel,” she answers quickly. “And before I forget, Colonel. I think your editorial about getting rid of the Naked Hag, in last Wednesday's journal was very well put!”

“Well,” Colonel says, “thank you. The way I figure, we got to do something and do it fast. Now, what the Supreme Court says we should do
isn't
that something, to my way of thinking. Not going to solve the problem by a decree which overnight throws down a long line of Supreme Court decisions under which the separate schools were built in the first place!”

Bill Ficklin says: “Hell, Colonel, in a way we have to do things overnight or they'll never get done. You
know
that. You think we'd ever desegregate our schools if such a decree weren't made?”

“Eventually, yes. Yes, Fick. Every generation we've narrowed the gulf between the niggers and us. But the Supreme Court's got no right to insist that in every place, and without regard to circumstances, the whole burden of solving the most difficult of social and political problems, should be thrown at one single generation of school children. You oughtta know that, Fick, as superintendent. You oughtta know what'd happen if we were desegregated in Paradise tomorrow. Why hell, there'd be fifteen black niggers to every white kid. How you think it'd work out?”

“It'd sure be a mess,” Marianne Ficklin says. “That's why I say what we got to do is build a new, modern, good nigger school. And make the white school a private school. Hell, we're good Southerners; we're obliged to take care of our niggers!”

“But will we?” Ficklin says. “That's all.” Guessie Green, who has been listening silently, says in her mild, soft tone, “I believe we
will.
In Paradise we've always loved our Nigraws; we've been tolerant of all their traits, and loved them just like they were our own children.”

Her husband, the reverend, nods in agreement. “It's all in the Bible. The Lord said of the children of Cain that he'd put a mark on ‘em and all their children would be the servants of servants. We're God's servants and they're our servants, and it's the Christian thing to do to look out for our help, cause we're all good folks here in Paradise. Not like some Southern villages. We're Christians.” He puts his arm around his wife affectionately. “Guessie and I were talking driving out here. The only way to sell tolerance of the Nigraw is to be tolerant of his traits. And we got to sell tolerance, cause it's Christian.”