Place Called Estherville (5 page)

“Of course, you are,” he said, embarrassed. “I mean, I know you are. What I meant was, you’re much better looking than the average girl around town, white or colored. That’s the way I wanted you to understand it, Kathyanne.”

He could see her shaking her head at him. “That doesn’t make any difference, Mr. George,” she said as though gently chiding him. “I’m still a good girl.”

George knew he could not stop now, no matter what she could think of saying. He had gone too far and had built up too many expectations to let anything she could say change his mind. Boldly he went toward her. Kathyanne recognized the meaning of the gesture, but she made no attempt to stop him or even to evade him. She moved backward resignedly until she was standing against the wall. While he stood there listening to the rasping sound of his own breathing, he wondered why she did not plead or struggle. It would have given him the opportunity he needed in order to justify himself. As each second passed, the greater became his inferior feeling. He knew he had to do something right away to keep from feeling completely debased in her presence.

He reached out and grasped her arms.

“I can’t help it, Kathyanne,” he told her, making a desperate appeal to her. “It’s something I can’t stop—a good-looking girl like you—”

“Mr. George, do you think it would make a difference if I were a white girl?” she asked unhurriedly. “Or do you think it doesn’t matter because I’m a Negro?”

“I don’t care what you are—that doesn’t matter at all—I can’t let you go now. It’s not what I think about it, anyway—it’s the way I feel.”

She still made no attempt to plead or struggle, but he thought he detected a contemptuous smile on her lips. Regardless of that, he felt greatly superior to her now, because she had admitted she was not white like him.

“You don’t think you’d have that light color—if there hadn’t been some white man, do you Kathyanne?”

She was watching him with the same unblinking gaze.

“Your father was a white man,” he continued contentiously. “Anybody can see that, and you know it, too. It’s the way things are. Colored girls ought to know that by now.”

Kathyanne still said nothing, but he could read the hopelessness of her thoughts in her sparkling eyes. She stood pressed tightly against the wall unable to escape now even if she had tried. George knew he was more frightened than she was.

“It’s different with us,” he told her with the feeling that he had to make some explanation of his conduct. “We don’t want white girls having anything to do with a black. But it’s all right for—”

“I know how you feel about it, Mr. George. You don’t have to say that. I understand.”

“You do?”

“I think I do.”

She had become so acquiescent that he was suspicious.

“You won’t tell my wife, will you, Kathyanne?” he asked anxiously.

“No,” she assured him. “That wouldn’t do any good.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“I’ll have to leave when Miss Norma comes home. I couldn’t stay here and work for her after this.”

“It’ll be your own fault for giving up your job,” he told her, nettled by her reply. “You may never get another job this good again.”

He could see that she was worried. All at once he was regretful of what had happened, but he felt that he had to dominate her at any cost, because otherwise he was afraid he would never be able to forget as long as he lived that he had been shamed by a mulatto girl.

T
HE NARROW ALLEY
behind the Singfield house at night was dark and unlighted, besides being cluttered with trash barrels and garbage cans, but it was the shortest way home, and for several months Ganus had been in the habit of going through the alley to Poinsettia Street when he finished work. Generally, it was after eight-thirty when he left, and by the time he had walked through town to Aunt Hazel’s house in the quarter it was nine o’clock or later.

Twice lately somebody had thrown rocks at him when he was about halfway through the alley, and, afraid of being hit on the head in the dark, he had run all the way home. He had not said anything about it to Aunt Hazel or Kathyanne, because he did not wish them to worry, and he hoped that whoever had been throwing rocks at him would not do it any more. For a whole week he had gone the longer way around, through the lighted streets, and after that he thought it was safe, if he walked fast all the way, to go through the alley again.

It was almost nine o’clock when he turned out the kitchen lights, locked the house door, and went through the backyard gate to the alley. It was a chilly spring evening, and he shivered in the night air after having been so long in the warm kitchen. He wished he had worn a sweater to work that morning. He stood at the gate for several minutes; then, hearing nothing out of the ordinary, he started walking rapidly toward Poinsettia Street. He avoided stumbling over one of the overturned trash barrels, and was within sight of the street lights at the end of the alley when a heavy jagged stone, coming from somewhere out of the darkness, hit him a glancing but painful blow just above his left ear. He staggered against the wooden fence at the rear of the Pillson house, stunned by the rock, but he managed to stay on his feet by clinging to the paling. Before he had a chance to run, four boys were standing in front of him. He did not recognize any of them at first, but he could see that all except one were about his own size. The smallest boy, who was between ten and eleven years old, was watching him with wild-eyed dismay. Ganus backed against the fence and pressed his hand against his throbbing head. He could see with a dim consciousness that two of the boys had large rocks grasped in their hands. The other two were carrying heavy sticks. The little boy, suddenly putting both hands behind his back as though ashamed to be seen with a stick, dropped it on the ground. He came closer, peering intently at Ganus. It was then that he recognized Robbie Gunsby, who lived in the next block and who had come to the Singfields’ kitchen door several times recently and asked Ganus to play marbles with him in the backyard. Robbie was a thin, freckle-faced, tow-headed boy with light blue eyes and a wide friendly grin. His father was a mail carrier. Ganus wondered if Robbie Gunsby would ever ask him to shoot marbles again.

“That’s him,” he heard one of the older boys say in a loud whisper. “It’s him, all right.”

Ganus could feel a warm wet trickle on his cheek and he tried to wipe it away with the palm of his hand. He had never been cornered like this by white boys before, but he had heard other Negro boys talk about it and he knew how cruelly white boys sometimes treated them. His first thought was to run before they threw more rocks at him or hit him with the sticks, but he was afraid they might hurt him worse if he tried to get away and was caught again.

“What’re you doing out so late at night?” one of the larger boys asked him.

“I just now got through my work,” Ganus answered as quietly as he could, hoping he could persuade them to let him leave. “I was just on my way home. I wish you’d let me go now. I wasn’t bothering anybody. You white boys oughtn’t to chunk rocks at folks like that.”

“Pete, you going to let one of them talk to you that way?” somebody said with a challenging snicker.

“Maybe he don’t know any better,” Pete Tilghman, the tallest of the four boys, said with a jeering laugh. Pete, whose father owned a brickyard, played center on the high-school basketball team. “He ought to be learned better than to keep on talking like that after he answers questions. Boy, you talk mighty big for a nigger, don’t you? Who do you think you are, anyhow?”

He wanted to say something in defense of himself, if only to try to make them understand that he did not intend to appear arrogant or presumptuous, but he decided it would be better not to say anything just then.

“I’ll learn him a lesson, Pete,” Hank Newgood, the boy with the heavy stick, said. Hank had quit school in the tenth grade. He hit the principal, one morning during recess, with a baseball bat, and his father, who operated a sawmill on Indian Creek south of town, said he already had enough schooling anyway. Hank drew back his arm as if to hit Ganus on the head with the stick. “I’ll only have to whang him once with this club, and that’ll stop him from growing up to be a back-talking nigger.”

“Wait a minute, Hank,” Pete said, holding his arm. “I want to ask him something first.” Pete dropped the large rock he had been holding. “What’s your right name, boy?”

“Ganus Bazemore.”

“That’s a funny name,” Vern Huff said. “How’d you ever get a queer name like that? Who gave it to you?”

“Now, hold on, Vern,” Hank said, pushing him aside. “I want to be sure this’s the right nigger. I don’t want to waste time on the wrong one.”

“That’s him, I told you,” Vern tried to convince him. “He’s the one I saw through the crack in the garage. I know him when I see him.”

Ganus, becoming frightened, not knowing what Vern was talking about, tried to move away. Hank hit him on the face as hard as he could with his fist. Ganus fell against the fence, dropping to his knees for a moment, and then slowly got to his feet. He could see Robbie Gunsby watching him and he wanted to ask Robbie to make the boys stop. Robbie was on the verge of crying, and he wondered if the little boy could do anything to help him.

“We’d better tie him up, Hank, before he gets away,” Pete said.

“Hell, he won’t try that again,” Hank said, laughing confidently. “He knows what’ll be coming to him the next time if he does.” He drew up his fist in a threatening gesture. “Do you work for Mr. Charley Singfield, boy?”

“Yes, sir, I work for him,” he answered promptly.

“Didn’t I tell you so, Hank?” Vern said. “Why didn’t you listen to me? I’d know that nigger in the bottom of a coal mine on a cloudy night.”

Robbie pulled at Hank’s sleeve. “What are you going to do now, Hank?” he asked in a trembling voice. “Pete hit him with a rock, and you’ve hit him once with your fist. He’s bleeding where the rock hit him. You shouldn’t hurt him any more. He never did anything to anybody. You leave him alone now, Hank Newgood!”

Hank shoved Robbie away. “Look who’s talking!” he said with a contemptuous laugh. “What’s the matter with you, Robbie? What’d you come along for if you’re going to act like a sissy?”

“I thought we were just going to scare him and then stop. I like Ganus. He shoots marbles with me in Mr. Singfield’s backyard everytime I ask him to. You stop hurting him now.”

“Aw, dry up, Robbie!” he said, scowling and making a threatening motion with his hand. He turned to Ganus. “What that nigger needs is his gizzard cut out. I’ve got a knife to cut it out, too.” He took a long bone-handled knife from his pocket and snapped it open. “All niggers all over the country ought to have their gizzards cut out.”

“Wait a minute, Hank,” Pete Tilghman said, pushing him aside. “I want to find out something first.” He faced Ganus and asked, “Boy, where’d you come from? Where’d you live before you moved to town?”

“Out near Blackburn’s Mill in the country.”

“Say ‘sir’ when you talk to me, nigger!”

“Out near Blackburn’s Mill, please, sir.”

“That’s Mister Blackburn’s Mill to you, boy!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why’d you move to Estherville?”

“To go to work, please, sir.”

“Why didn’t you stay out there in the country, where you belonged, and go to work?”

“My mother died and I moved to town to live with Aunt Hazel.”

Pete snickered. “Hank, reckon he wants us to blubber because some old nigger woman died?”

“It’d be just like a coon,” Hank agreed.

Pete came closer, watching him cautiously. Ganus drew himself as far back against the fence as he could.

“Come on, Hank,” Pete said, waving his arm. “Let’s give him what’s coming to him and stop all this jawing. It’s getting late. My folks’ll be mad as hell if I don’t get home soon. I told them I was going to the movies.”

“That’s what I say,” Vern Huff said. “Let’s give it to him, Hank.”

Hank jabbed the knife at Ganus several times, gradually coming closer. Ganus squeezed against the wooden palings, trying to get beyond the range of the knife. Hank suddenly lunged forward and jabbed the point of the blade into Ganus’ thigh.

“Please, sir, white folks,” he pleaded, “don’t hurt me with that knife. I haven’t done anything.”

“You stop hurting him, Hank,” Robbie said, his lips trembling.

“Just listen to the nigger try to lie out of it, Pete,” Vern said, ignoring Robbie Gunsby. “You’d know he’s a bad nigger by the way he’s started lying already.”

“He’s got a funny way of talking, ain’t he?” Pete remarked, trying to imitate Ganus’ speech. “He sounds like he thinks he’s one of these educated niggers. What makes you talk like that, boy?”

“It’s the only way I know how,” he answered quickly.

“Have you ever been to school?”

“Yes, sir. I went to the colored grade school out at—at—in the country out there.”

“So that’s where you got that educated talk. Why’d you waste all that time going to school instead of working? What good do you think it’s going to do you?”

“I don’t know,” he said, afraid to speak any more than necessary.

“Hear that, Hank?” Pete asked. “He says he’s educated, but he don’t know why. Maybe he figured on being a nigger preacher.”

“I’ll bet he figured he could move to town and talk to white girls if he had an education,” Vern said.

“Drop your pants, boy,” Hank ordered.

He looked from one face to the other. “Please, sir, what do you want me to do that for?” he asked, trembling.

“Never mind what for,” Vern told him. “You’d better skin off those breeches in a hurry and quit that arguing.”

He unbuckled his trousers with nervous fingers and let them fall to the ground.

Robbie pulled at Pete’s arm. “Why’d Hank make Ganus do that, Pete?” he asked. “Why does Ganus have to take his pants off?”

“Step out of those breeches, nigger,” he told Ganus, ignoring Robbie. “And hurry up about it, too. When I say something, I mean it.”

Ganus was quick to obey. He stepped out of his pants and hurriedly pressed his body back against the fence as Hank’s knifeblade flashed close to him.