Of Love and Dust (12 page)

The other room was still hot and crowded, but no matter where you turned people were dancing. The music was blaring all over the place. I stood in there a while talking to Jack Claiborn who was leaning on the mantelpiece; then I went in the kitchen. The kitchen wasn’t so crowded but it was twice as hot. Josie was dishing up a bowl of gumbo for a man standing at the window.

“How’s the beer?” I asked Josie.

“They been drinking it hot,” she said.

“I better get one,” I said.

“Get him one, Tick,” Josie said to Tick-Tock.

“Get yourself one, too,” I said to Tick-Tock.

Tick-Tock opened the bottles on an opener against the wall and gave me mine. It was cool but it was long ways from cold.

“Your boy Marcus got through unloading that corn,” Tick-Tock said to me. “He came down the quarter few minutes ago. Jim, why don’t you make him leave Pauline alone. Not that nobody go’n tell Mr. Sidney, but he might catch him hisself.”

“I’ve talked to him already,” I said, “and he won’t listen. If Bonbon catch him, it’ll just be his hard luck.”

A few minutes later Pauline came in. She stopped in the
front room to talk a while; then as she started into the kitchen one of the Aguillard brothers came out of the other room and asked her to dance. She danced with him to a couple records, then she came on back where we were.

“Oh, it’s hot,” she said. She was fanning with a little white handkerchief. “Hi, Jim.”

“How’s it going?”

“It’s burning up.”

“Beer?” I said.

“I don’t mind.”

“Not cold.”

“I’ll take anything. Then I have to go. Left the children by themself.”

“Let Aunt Ca’line look after them.”

“Who’ll look after Aunt Ca’line?” Pauline said.

I smiled at her and she smiled back. I looked at her a long time to let her know how much I liked her. But she already knew how much I liked her, and she also knew I knew that there was somebody else in her life.

I bought her another beer; then she bought two pralines for the twins and left. Tick-Tock had told her she ought to get somebody to walk home with her, but she told Tick-Tock that she had left the gallery light on and she would be all right.

Just after Pauline walked out of the house a squabble broke out in the room where the men were gambling. It sounded like somebody had overturned the gambling table. Then it sounded like somebody picked up somebody else and slammed him against the wall. There was a lot of tussling in there a while, then everybody came out. They were still arguing but nobody was throwing any punches. That is, nobody threw a punch until Marcus came in there and hit Murphy Bacheron up ’side the head.

But I’m getting a little ahead of myself here. I was talking about Pauline. As she went out of the yard, who should she see coming down the quarter but Marcus. I wasn’t there, I didn’t see it, but Aunt Ca’line and Pa Bully were still on the gallery, and Aunt Ca’line talked about it later. Josie’s gallery light was on and Pauline’s gallery light was on, so Aunt Ca’line could see the two people coming toward each other. They came closer and closer, and Aunt Ca’line could see how Pauline was moving toward the ditch to get out of his way. But Marcus moved there, too. Then they stopped. Pauline wanted to pass by but Marcus wouldn’t let her. They were standing just outside the fence, and Aunt Ca’line could hear them talking.

“Let me pass, Marcus,” Pauline was saying. “I’m telling you, now.”

“What he got on you?” Marcus said. “What’s the matter with you, woman?”

“I’m telling you, let me pass,” Pauline said.

“What’s the matter with you?” he said. “I been working up there all night like a slave, like a dog—and all on ’count of him. What’s the matter with you?”

“I’m telling you,” she said. “Let me pass.”

He moved closer.

“Don’t you put your hands on me,” she said. “I mean it, don’t you put your hands on me, you killer.”

He hit her and knocked her down. She got up.

“If I tell him, he’ll kill you for this. He’ll kill you.”

“You white man bitch,” he said. He hit her again. She fell again.

“Leave that woman ’lone, boy,” Pa Bully hollered at him.

“Mr. Grant,” Aunt Ca’line said, warningly.

“You hear me out there, boy?” Pa Bully called.

Pauline was up again.

“You bitch,” Marcus said to her. “You bloody whore.”

She was running toward the gate now.

“You whore,” he called to her.

She was running in the yard now. She ran in the house and locked the door. He stood there a while looking at the house; then he went on.

When Marcus came into Josie’s house, everything stopped. Everybody stopped dancing, everybody stopped talking—they stopped everything to look at him. They hadn’t heard the noise outside, but they had heard about him. And now here he was in person.

Marcus pushed his way back into the kitchen. He wore a pair of white pants and a blue silk shirt. He wore a brown plaited-cloth belt round his waist. He had on black and white shoes.

“What you know, buddy?” I said to him.

“Give me a beer,” he said to Josie.

“I’m out,” Josie said.

He didn’t believe she was out. He thought she didn’t want to sell him any.

“She’s out,” I said.

“What you got?” Marcus said. “Give me some whiskey. You want anything?” he asked me.

“I’ll take a shot,” I said.

“Give me some whiskey,” he told Josie.

Josie got the bottle out of the safe and poured me and him a shot.

“Fifty cents,” she said.

Marcus paid her. Then he downed his drink quickly and asked for another one.

“You want another one?” he asked me.

“No,” I said. “This is good.”

“Just took that for old buddy sake, huh?” he said.

“Take it easy, boy,” I said.

“Fuck it,” he said.

“I don’t like that kind of talk in here,” Josie said.

“No?” Marcus said.

“No,” Josie said, looking hard at him and meaning it. And she had that bottle in her hand to back her up.

“Pour,” Marcus said.

She poured. He paid her and drunk it down.

“Give me another one,” he said.

“You had enough, Marcus,” I said.

“Yeah?” he said. “Pour,” he told Josie.

“This your last one,” Josie said. “I don’t want your money.”

“What’s the matter with my money?” he said.

“Nothing,” I said. “Come on, let’s—”

“Take your fucking hands off me,” he said, knocking my hand away.

“All right, buddy,” I said.

He downed the drink Josie had poured him; then he just stood there breathing deep and hard. I thought he had drunk that whiskey too fast and it had shot up to his brains. I asked him what was the matter, but he turned away from me. He started toward the front like he was definitely going somewhere; then all of a sudden, like he had just remembered he didn’t have any place in the world to go, he stopped, looked quickly each way, then slammed Murphy Bacheron up ’side the head. I supposed he hit Murphy because Murphy was closest to him, but he couldn’t have picked a worse choice.

22
 

For about five seconds—it looked more like five minutes—nobody moved. Because nobody thought Murphy had been hit, and that included Murphy. Nobody who knew Murphy was crazy enough to hit him, so it took about five seconds for everybody to realize what had happened. Then it started—Murphy screamed. Not from pain—no, Marcus hadn’t hurt him that much; he screamed because all of a sudden he realized he hadn’t had a good fight in about a year. So he screamed and hit Black Ned. He didn’t hit Marcus—he wanted to save Marcus for later; he hit Black Ned. When Black Ned got up, he hit Jocko Thompson. Jocko didn’t go down, and he rammed his fist into one of the Aguillard boys’s stomach. One of the other brothers saw what Jocko did and hit Jocko in the back.

Now, I was no more than a couple feet away from that back door when Marcus hit Murphy Bacheron, but by the time Murphy hit Black Ned I was halfway across the kitchen. I wasn’t trying to get there, I still don’t know how it happened. I’ve been in house fights and bar fights, and I know the best thing for you to do is get out quick as you can. That probably was in my mind (I’m sure it was), but some kind of way I found myself halfway across the kitchen. I wasn’t fighting, mind you, I was just trying to get back to that door.
But like a man trying to swim against a stiff wind, every time I got close, the crowd would knock me back.

“Goddamn you,” I heard Josie saying. “Goddamn you, Snuke Johnson.”

Josie was cursing Snuke Johnson and trying to push her way toward Marcus at the same time. But there was a crowd of people between her and Marcus, and every time she pushed one foot forward, the crowd pushed her that far back.

“You sonofabitch you, Snuke Johnson,” she said, still trying to get to Marcus. “You sonofabitch you.”

Then somebody got thrown against the wall, and a bunch of pans and spoons and pots and cups and tops all fell down.

“Who hit me? Now, who hit me?” I heard Sun Brown saying. “Who hit me? I want to know the exact man who hit me. I ain’t after hitting nobody but the exact man who hit me. I’m a peace-loving and—”

I heard a hit and a groan.

“Oh Lord, now I’m mad,” Sun said. “The same sonofagun done hit me again.”

Then somebody else got slammed against the wall and something else fell—probably a tub.

“Oh goddoggit, I’m the maddest man in the house now,” I heard Sun Brown saying.

“Snuke Johnson, you sonofabitch,” I heard Josie saying. “You sonofabitch you.”

All this time I was pulling on people, pushing on people, squeezing through people, trying to get to that back door. Nothing happened to me until I was one step from it, until I could smell the good air, until I had cocked up my leg to jump. Then somebody said, “Don’t leave us now, Kelly, the fun just starting.” And he or somebody else cracked me over the shoulder with something that felt like a rolling pin. As I started down—I wasn’t out—but as I started down I grabbed
hold to the first thing I touched. It was soft and fleshy but I didn’t care.

“Get your hands off my ass,” I heard a woman saying from a long way off. “You horny son—goddamn you, get your hands down.”

I wanted to tell the woman I wasn’t after feeling her ass. All I wanted was to stay on my feet long enough to reach that door because I was afraid if I went down I was going to be trampled to death. I was screaming these words inside, but they wouldn’t come out. They wouldn’t even come out in a whisper.

“Get ’em down,” she said, hitting me on the hands. “Goddamn it, I mean, get ’em down.”

I recognized Josie’s voice and I tried to explain why I was holding on, but the words still wouldn’t come out. And she went right on hitting me. She beat me on one hand for a while, then she twist to the other side and beat me on the other hand. Finally I went down. I didn’t move for a couple seconds, then I started crawling toward the door. Before I could get there somebody fell on me and knocked me flat on my face.

“Kelly,” Black Ned said, and hit me on the same shoulder that the other person had hit me with the rolling pin. “You wouldn’t get me that beer, huh, you no-good sonofabitch.”

He hit me in the side and ’cross the head. Before I could hit him back he was already up in the air. It had happened so quick, I didn’t see it happening. One second he was on the floor hitting me ’cross the head, the next second he was in the air kicking like a fish on a string. Somebody had him by the collar with one hand, slapping him around with the other.

I tried to crawl toward that back door again, but with so many legs around me I didn’t know if I was going toward
the door or the window. Then somebody picked up the tub of ice water that the beer had been in and dumped all that on my back.

“Oh Lord,” I screamed.

I tried to push myself up, but somebody else fell on me. This one was softer and heavier than Black Ned, so I figured it wasn’t him again. It wasn’t; it was Josie.

“You sonofabitch you, Snuke Johnson,” she said. “You sonofabitch you.”

“I’m not Snuke Johnson, Josie,” I said.

“You sonofabitch you, Snuke Johnson,” she said, looking at me. “You sonofabitch you.”

I thought Josie had finally gone crazy. I pushed myself up real slowly, then I reached down and pulled her up.

“You all right, Josie?” I said.

“You sonofabitch you, Snuke Johnson,” she said, turning from me. “You sonofabitch you.”

“That’s the way you fight, Kelly?” one of the Aguillard boys said next to me. He swung but I blocked it and clipped him before his punch got through. He went down on the floor like somebody had grabbed both of his ankles.

Just about then Jocko Thompson threw Black Ned on that hot stove, and Black Ned sprung up in the air almost to the ceiling. While he was coming back down, somebody stuck his fist under Black Ned’s chin and Black Ned slammed against the stove again. This time he disconnected the pipe. The pipe fell first, then the stove came down. By then, though, one of the Aguillard brothers had seen what I had done to his other brother and he clipped me ’side the ear and down I went.

“You again, Kelly?” the one on the floor said, and hit me in the chest.