Three Days Before the Shooting ... (153 page)

“I’m still confused,” Janey said, “I really don’t know. But for one thing, he wasn’t like anyone around here—white
or
colored….”

“What do you mean?”

“He was so
white
, Alonzo; so
ofay-acting.”

“But you should have expected that….”

“I know, but before they took him he talked and acted like us, while now he has their manners … and … and …”

“And what?”

“Well, A.Z., the only way I know to put it is to say that he acted crazy….”

“Was that how Cliofus reacted?”

“No, but Cliofus wasn’t here to hear our talk, he had gone to see his doctor.”

“All right, so you say he sounded crazy. But what kind of crazy? Crazy insane, or crazy odd? Or was it something like when a white man tries to communicate with one of us and gets his words scrambled and his signals crossed?”

“Something like that. It was like we lived in two different worlds and spoke different languages. Maybe instead of ‘crazy’ I mean ‘emotional,’ but he sounded like one of these spoiled white kids. And like some who’re much younger than him; the rich ones who have everything and don’t know what to do with it. I guess what I’m trying to say is that he acted
mad
. I mean like he was angry mad. Not loud and noisy mad, but like a person who’s been hurt and cried over it and then stopped crying and got quietly mad at the world….”

“So what did he say?”

“Alonzo, it was something that nobody who’d had the right upbringing would ever even
think
of saying. And more than his coming back it was that which upset me. After asking me to tell him who his father was and I couldn’t he said, ‘If I ever find the son of a bitch who gave me this color I’ll kill him!’

“
…
kill him? He actually said
that?”

“Yes! Those were his very words, and I don’t have to tell you what it did to me. I was knocked off my feet because it was the last thing I expected to hear him say about his own
father
. And all the more because for all those years I had thought he’d been
living
with his father. But I tell you, the way he said it made my blood run cold. He sounded like he really meant it, and now you know why I wrote you. Anyway, I tried to tell him that he ought not to say things like that, but he was so worked up that after asking me what right I had to be telling him such a thing he rushed out of here like I’d slapped his face….”

“Are you sure that he wasn’t just blowing off steam, saying it out of frustration?”

“As sure as I’m sitting here. He had a look in his eyes like he meant what he said.”

Shaking his head, Hickman was silent as he listened to the barking of a dog somewhere in the street.

“Alonzo, what are you thinking?” Janey said.

“I’m thinking that he might have come back with more than one purpose in mind. And if he did—well, this thing is more serious than I expected….”

“But of course it’s serious, A.Z., why else did you think I wore out my fingers writing you that letter? I couldn’t give one hoot in hell over what happens to that scoundrel of a father, whatever he calls himself, but I don’t want that boy to get into trouble. No, sir! I have enough on my conscience as it is. Therefore I was hoping that you’d know how to get in touch with that man and warn him. You do know how to reach him, don’t you?”

For a moment Hickman was silent, asking himself,
Do I? After all our attempts to keep tabs on him, do I really?

“You do, don’t you? Because I truly hope so….”

“I’m not so sure, but I think I might.”

“Why ‘might’?”

“Because to tell you the truth, he’s kept out of my sight as carefully as he seems to have avoided his son. Did the boy say where he’d been living after all this time?”

“No, we didn’t get into that. I guess he was too mad. But after thinking about it I figured that what they did was to take him from me and put him in the hands of somebody else, some white person up North. He sure dresses well and doesn’t appear to be having any money problems. In fact, he looked wealthy. And I mean white-folks wealthy.”

“It’s possible, because the father has money—but why would the man refuse to make himself known, uproot the boy from the only life he knew and then keep behind the scene and out of the picture? Why play hide-and-seek with his child?”

“But A.Z., wasn’t that what he did to you?”

“Yes, I suppose he did. But as you remember in those days life in this country was much harder for us than it is today. And besides all that he was rebelling against me. I suppose after working the revival circuits with me and seeing how unfair life could be for folks like us he decided that things would be better on the other side of the line. So after a while I came to accept that as his reason for crossing over. And whether he was right or wrong we have to consider that he had a choice that’s denied folks who look like us. And so, having the credentials for crossing over, he used them.”

“Yes, and betrayed you.”

“Call it what you will, it happened and I suffered. But what I can’t understand is why he would uproot the boy, his own child, and place him among strangers, and then
abandon
him. If what the boy told you is true, he didn’t even give him a concrete cause for rebellion—or at least not a healthy one. Did the boy leave town?”

“Oh, no, because the next day Love told me that he’d been asking him the same questions about his mother and father.”

“And was Love able to tell him anything?”

“All I know is that he could tell him a lot about his mother, because they were
both Natives. But I doubt if he knows much about the father. Although he
was
around town when they were making that movie. What worries me about his going to Love is that Love might have loaded him down with some of his lies….”

“Did the boy come back here after talking with Love?”

“Not to the house, maybe because he’s sorry he left here so angry. But I’ve seen him standing across the street looking over here like he wanted to. Made me so nervous from worrying over what he might do that I wrote to you. Which ought to explain why I didn’t feel that I could come right out and tell you what he said about his father. I would have been committing the sin of bearing false witness, because after all he hadn’t done anything except say what he’d
like to
do. I’m so thankful that you read between the lines, A.Z., so very thankful.”

“Even so,
I’m
the one to be thankful; because although I don’t know this little man of yours I’m much more mixed up in this thing than you could ever be. Maybe I should have a talk with Love….”

“That old infidel lives! Why bother with him?”

“Because he might be able to tell me what the young fellow is thinking….”

“Well, if you do may the good Lord help you….”

“Now, Janey, as you very well know, the Lord’s will is His will—so what’s bothering you?”

“Because Love is one of the biggest liars that ever made a mess of the truth, that’s what! And whatever he told that boy or decides to tell you is bound to cause trouble….”

“Why trouble?”

“I don’t know, A.Z., but Love’s the kind who’ll insist that black is white and white is black and set out to prove it. And being a Native he thinks he’s so much better than anyone else, white, colored, or in between, that he’ll tell them
anything
and expect them to believe it.”

“You make him sound like a true, dyed-in-the-wool American, so I’ll keep that in mind. But after what you’ve been telling me, our learning what he said to this visitor of yours might be important. Where can I find him?”

“Find who?”

“This Native who’s called Love New.”

“Right here in town, Lord help us. He lives in a section called Whitby’s Court, but if you want
my
opinion everybody would be better off if the lying old heathen was still living with his Indians!”

[LOVECOU[R]T]

F
OLLOWING
J
ANEY’S DIRECTIONS
, he walked north and then east, feeling the heat as he made his way through streets that were vaguely familiar.

So, Hickman
, he mused,
you fly out here on what you expected to be an overnight visit
and now you’re finding that things are much more complicated than you expected. And all because a white-looking stranger turns up at Janey’s claiming to be the child she lost years ago. But while Janey rejects the man’s story and seems unyielding, Cliofus accepts him as his childhood friend—and that raises a few troublesome questions
.

Why would a stranger present himself as Janey’s lost “little man”? And if he wasn’t, why is Janey so upset by his visit? Is it because the child in question looked white and she still feels guilty over what she did to make it easier for him to leave her and his foster brothers? Because any child who’d been tied in a bag and smoked like a ham is unlikely to forget it. Therefore if he was that child he’s probably forgiven her. So what’s keeping her from accepting him?

But then there’s the question of why, after living all these years in the East, he now claims he’s never laid eyes on his father! What kind of man would separate his son from the only mother he knew, have a lawyer tell her that it was being done so that the little boy could have the advantages of living in a white environment, and then abandon him to the care of strangers? Which must have been upsetting for the child, but that the man would then refuse to have personal contact with his son is so unbelievable that the son’s telling Janey that he’d like to find the man and kill him makes it sound true. And then, heaven help us, things proceed to take a truly weird turn in
my
direction
.

Because while Janey rejects her visitor as though he’s some kind of counterfeit prodigal son, she then adds to the confusion by suggesting that the child taken East by his father’s lawyer might have been the illegitimate son of the man
I
began training as a minister when
he
was a child…
.

What a mind-blowing mess! Years ago that marvelous little preacher of mine runs away, and now, way late, this grown-up “little man” of Janey’s turns up in search of someone who might or might not have been his daddy. So with him seeking a father and me seeking a son the old game of hide-and-go-seek turns into a footrace with none of the players having the slightest idea of where the finish line lies or what will take place once we reach it…. But one thing is certain: If Janey’s visitor ever finds his father and fulfills his threat … well, may the good Lord help us, fathers, sons, and everyone who’s involved in this nasty confusion…
.

Which makes a man wonder if there were ever creatures on God’s green earth more mixed up than us Americans?

No, Hickman, never! Because given their mammy-made tendency to go berserk over questions concerning their mixed blood and scrambled identities, they turn reality into a raving nightmare!

Just look at this thing: Here we have a fellow who claims to have been the white-looking baby who once lived with Janey. And now, years after being taken East where he had the good fortune of growing up as a well-fed white boy, he’s back here telling his black foster mother that he’d like to
kill
the man who made it possible by giving him a white complexion! How’s that for turning things inside out and upside down?

Maybe that’s what educated folks mean when they talk about this so-called American dilemma. Because usually when a light-skinned Negro gets mistaken for white he keeps quiet and exploits it as a means for going after freedoms denied people of darker complexions. As
a
white
black American he makes his peace with being accepted as one thing on the outside when he’s something else—whatever that might be—on the inside. Which could be unsettling but in many ways rewarding. Then, like the little fellow I thought I knew fairly well, he covers his tracks and leaves the question of his true identity up to the eyes of his various beholders. Meanwhile, he thinks, Behold the man if you can, and gets on with his living
.

Yeah, but what about his opposite?

Now that’s somewhat different. Because if a
white
white American has a hint that
his
blood contains a
black
gene or two he’ll foam at the mouth and go looking for scapegoats. And I mean with anything from Supreme Court decisions to high-powered rifles
.

Right! And that’s the grain of truth in that barbershop lie they told during the Depression about a passenger in a train wreck who had his brain mangled so bad that it almost killed him. You remember?

How can I forget since you enjoyed it so much? With the wreck taking place down South in unsettled country, the doctors who rushed in to save the man were forced to replace his brain with whatever was handy. So they improvised, and after hours of sawing and stitching they performed the first brain transplant in medical history. And so successfully that it was acclaimed a miracle
.

So everybody was amazed, and especially the patient, who praised American medicine for making it possible for his being alive and kicking. Then he bragged about being reborn with faster reactions, clearer vision, a sharper nose, and more sensitive hearing. But then the news hit the papers, and when he learned that he’d been saved by the brain of a hound—and a
black
hound at that—right away he was out on the street raising hell and threatening to sue the railroad and kill his physicians
.

Why? Because now he claims that a few days after he recovered he was blasted by sensations so strange and inhuman that they damn near undid him. Then he squalls like a baby and howls like a hound, and when he’s pressed to explain he replies with tears flooding his eyes that now not only does he have a powerful urge to chase rabbits, but that no matter how hard he tries to resist he’s obsessed by a notion that bullshit is health food!