Three Days Before the Shooting ... (149 page)

“So now you can’t accept your young friend’s son because you hate his father, is that it?”

“No, that’s
not
it! It’s because he’s changed. I loved that child, and after he was taken from me there was nothing I could do but accept it. So I tried to make myself forget him. I even told myself that after what I did to him he’d never
think
of coming back. But after all my years of hoping that he’d found some kind of happiness by living with his own flesh and blood, he’s back here asking me about his mother and father….”

“So I take it that you didn’t throw him out, that you talked with the man….”

“Yes, I did. I finally calmed down enough to be polite, which Cliofus helped by being so happy to see him.”

“And what did he want?”

“He wanted me to tell him about his mother, and then he wanted me to tell him who his daddy was….”

“And so?”

“About his mother I was able to tell him the truth, that I knew her from the time she was a baby. Back when her folks used to bring her along when they drove into town for visits. It wasn’t so often, because being Natives they lived on one of the reservations with their Indian kinfolks. But when he asked me how he came to live with me, I had to lie. I told him that when his mother realized that she was going to die she asked me to take him so that he could be brought up in
the city where the schools were better. The truth was that she gave him to me out of shame. Shame over what had happened to her, over what that boy of yours had done to her. Can you understand why I felt that I had to lie?”

“Yes,” Hickman said, “I think I do—but what did you tell him about his father?”

“What
could
I tell him, Alonzo? I told him that I didn’t know his father, that I never met the man. Which was the truth. I never did. But then I had to lie again by telling him that at the time his mother died his daddy was away somewhere working on a job—only I didn’t tell him about the moving-picture part. And when he wanted to know why his mother hadn’t left him with his father instead of with me I had to lie again. It meant protecting that scoundrel but I told him that I guessed that it was because losing his wife had broken his father’s heart. That after hearing about his young wife dying so sudden he got so upset that he couldn’t stand to see this town again. But for all my lying it didn’t work….”

“He already knew the truth?”

“Maybe not for sure, but he sensed it. Because the next thing I know he’s asking me if his parents were married….”

“And what did you tell him?”

“With him coming at me so sincere and so sudden, what could I tell him? I told him that they weren’t but that they intended to be, and that the reason his father was away when his mother died was that he was off raising money so that they could get married and set up housekeeping. A.Z., I know how terrible it sounds, but I had to tell him
something
. So I lied, but for all my lying I don’t think he believed me. He just looked kind of sick and strange and didn’t say anything for a while. So I tried to lift his spirits by recalling how things were after he came to live with me. Cliofus took over at that point, talking about things he and the rest of the boys used to do. And then I told him of how after a while his father got on his feet and began sending me checks so I could take better care of him. Which was

[SMOKING]

THE TRUTH.
I
GAVE
the devil his due for that, but I didn’t go into the rest because now that the boy had found his way back home I figured that he remembered….”

[“But why?”
^*

Suddenly Janey looked up as though she had forgotten his presence.

“Why?” she said. “Did you ask me
why?”

“Yes, why,” Hickman said, seeing Janey’s eyes widen as she struck the table with her fan, shouting, “WHY? Alonzo, how can you sit there and ask me that? Haven’t you understood anything I’ve been telling you? It’s because he’s WHITE! And has
been
white for
years
!”

“But, Janey, didn’t he always look …”

“… No, Alonzo, NO! Not that kind of white, that’s not what I’m talking about. Back then he was white
-looking
, yes; but he was one of us, a Negro; now he’s white and one of
them
. Then he had
our
manners and
our
ways; now he has theirs—you know what I mean! I’m not talking about skin color, I’m talking about attitude, about what a person expects out of life and what he stands for … what he has come to stand for through living. Back then he was just a white
colored
child, but now he’s a white
white man
—don’t you see?”

Poor Janey
, Hickman thought with a nod,
somehow she’s stumbled through the curtain of color and landed up to her eyeballs in all the old race-based confusion—Bliss again…. Take away the lips, the hair, the talk, the rhythm and high behind—and what do you have? A mammy-made American Adam shaped out of this terrible American confusion…. Neither white nor black but as much a mystery as when some folks hear thick lips

give voice to Shakespeare, Lincoln, or the Word…
.

“… He had been white for so long a time that as I stared at him and tried to get myself together it came over me that maybe he was really being white-folks cute and mean. That by coming back here unannounced he was letting me know that he had risen above everything I had done to do away with his connections to us…. That all that smoke from those smoldering coals which I lit in trying to make his leaving easier hadn’t meant a thing. I did it for his own sake, thinking that any memory he had of his life here with us would have been long dead and buried, but now it was like he was getting down on his knees just so he could let us see him rise above us … Like he was bragging to me and Cliofus about his charity and his forgiveness. So I told myself, No, this simply cannot be!”

“… But wait,” Hickman said, “you’re going too fast—what’s this business about fire and smoke?”

“… Still, there he was, a grown white man looking at me with a smile on his face, and all of a sudden my body felt like it was turning to dust and my dress and apron become sackcloth and ashes. Then everything got blurred and I could only see him in outline—not only because of my tears, but because my eyes no longer wanted me to see what my heart couldn’t bear to accept….”

“But I don’t understand,” Hickman said. “Why were you so upset by what should have been a happy reunion?”

“It was because living white had
changed
him, that’s why…. And because I simply couldn’t accept the idea of that dear little boy who had been one of us, the little boy I had loved and cared for, turning into this grown white man who was standing there in his fine clothes claiming to be that child! It was enough to drive me crazy!

“Still, even though he was only a blur I kept trying to get holt of myself and deal with his claim, but my nose kept smelling his white folks’ smell, and my ears kept being jarred by that Northern white folks’ talk they were hearing in his tone of voice and his accent—all of which was happening at one and the same time. But for all my straining the one thing that I
couldn’t see
or smell or hear was a trace of the child I had loved. Do you understand? I could neither hear him, or see, or feel him!”

“But, Janey, he
had come
back….”

“… Yes! That’s right! Yes! After all that pain that his leaving us had cost both of us, and against everything I had done to see to it that he wouldn’t even
think
of it, much less
want it
, he had to come back!”

“Janey,” Hickman said, “you’re leaving something out; You have to be….”

“I know, I know,” Janey sighed, “and it’s not doing a bit of good….”

“So why don’t you tell me?”

“Because if I did you’d have to listen to something terrible….”

“Well, I’m here, and I’ve heard terrible things before; even things like rape, incest, murder, and lynching. It goes with my job; so since I’ve heard of unwed mothers, why don’t you go back and fill me in on this girl you didn’t mention in your letter. I take it that she was his mother—why didn’t you write me about her?”

“Because I was upset and felt it was enough to warn you that out here where you least expected it some old bones were being stirred up. But I didn’t want to go too far because I felt that when the father ran away and you tried so hard to find him and couldn’t, you’d suffered enough. So why tell you what he’d done out here and make it worse?”

“But since you are my friend, why didn’t you let
me
be the judge of that?”

Sighing, Janey shook her head. “Oh, Alonzo, hadn’t I already caused you enough misery by turning you down? It wasn’t that I didn’t think about telling you, but what good would it have done? Could you have raised the child’s mother up from the grave? Could you have made that man come back here and own up to being the child’s father? No!”

“But I would have tried, I would have at least done something for that baby….”

“Yes, but you forget that when it happened we weren’t in touch with one another. And what’s more, you couldn’t catch up with the one who ruined her, and since he must have known what happened and that she had killed herself he probably figured that if he turned up out here again somebody would have cut his throat for him just as she had cut her own….”

Feeling suddenly numb, Hickman leaned forward, gazing into Janey’s tear-wet face.

“When did all this happen?”

“Back in the twenties, the early twenties….”

“And you mean to tell me that for all those years you let me come in here and play with that baby—the light-skinned one—and wouldn’t tell me who his daddy was? I can’t believe it….”

“No, Alonzo, I didn’t. But I would have; I was always prepared to tell you, and that’s the truth. All you had to do was to ask. That was all you had to do. Every time you came—and you remember that it wasn’t often in those days—I was just waiting for you to look at that child and say something about his resemblance to the other one when he was about that age. And if you had I was prepared to tell you. But you didn’t, and therefore I decided to just let the dry bones rest in peace while nature took its course.”

“Well, you did, but now it’s
human
nature we have to deal with…. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I didn’t want you to know what that boy had done….”

“You were protecting me?”

“Yes, I guess I was. But I also remembered your saying something about what ought to be done with white men who ruin colored girls, and I was tempted to tell you then—just to hear what you’d say when you knew that it was him who had done it, that he was the child’s father. I mean what would you have said if the man only
looked
white, if it was a case in which no one knew or cared if he were white or black. But then I asked myself why should I hurt you some more. At the time you were very upset about something that had happened back in Georgia, so why add something that nothing could be done about to it? Beside, I felt that it might have turned you against the baby and I didn’t want that to happen.

“Anyway, and no matter how things turned out, you have to understand that I loved that baby. I loved him just as you loved his no-good father. I loved him and looked after him as though he was my own. And as far as I knew at that time his father could have been dead, or turned into a hobo like some of these ole puddn’- headed white men who’re always knocking on the back door asking for something to eat. That’s right! As far as I knew he could have been like one of them who’ll beg a colored woman for something to eat and then be too white-folks proud to come in and sit down like a decent human being and eat it….”

“I thought that kind of thing—hoboing, I mean—stopped with the war; is it still happening?”

“Not like it was back then, but sometimes.”

“And you’re still charitable?”

“Now don’t you go starting in on me, A.Z. Yes, I am. My religion teaches me to help the poor and the needy, and I do. They’re welcome to share whatever I have, but you might as well know that I won’t feed them unless they have the decency to recognize that they’re my guests. It’s simply a matter of sharing whatever the good Lord put here in my house to be shared. But as dirty and down-and-out as most of them are, some are just too white-folks proud to act decent. Not all, because some have enough sense to respect me as a giver and
have been known to come back for more. That’s all I ask, but although I’m ashamed to admit it, whenever one comes knocking with his hand out and then refuses to come in and sit down like he’s been taught good manners I think about that child’s father and it fair ruins my day.”

“So you couldn’t accept the boy because you hate his father, was that it?”

“No, that’s not it, it was that he had changed. I loved that child and after he was taken from me there was nothing I could do but accept it. So I tried to make myself forget him. I even told myself that after what I did to him he’d never come back, but after all the years of my thinking that he had found some kind of happiness by living with his own flesh and blood, he’s back here asking me about his mother and father….”

“So I take it that you didn’t throw him out, that you talked with the man …”

“Yes, I finally calmed down enough to be polite; which Cliofus helped by being so happy to see him.”

“And what did he want?”

“He wanted me to tell him about his mother, and then he wanted to know who his daddy was.”

“And?”

“About his mother I could tell him the truth, that I knew her from the time she was a baby; back when her folks brought her along when they came to town for a visit. It wasn’t often because being Natives, they lived on one of the reservations with their Indian kinfolks. But when he asked me how he came to live with me I had to lie by telling him that when his mother realized that she was going to die she asked me to take him so that he could be brought up here in the city where the schools were better. There I lied, because she gave him to me out of shame over what had happened to her. Can you understand why I felt I had to do it?”