still again. I entered the sitting room and turned on the light. I put
my vest on. The gasoline was faint now, barely noticeable, and in the
mirror the stain didnt show. Not like my eye did, anyway. I put on my
coat. Shreve’s letter crackled through the cloth and I took it out and
examined the address, and put it in my side pocket. Then I carried the
watch into Shreve’s room and put it in his drawer and went to my room
and got a fresh handkerchief and went to the door and put my hand on the
light switch. Then I remembered I hadnt brushed my teeth, so I had to
open the bag again. I found my toothbrush and got some of Shreve’s paste
and went out and brushed my teeth. I squeezed the brush as dry as I
could and put it back in the bag and shut it, and went to the door
again. Before I snapped the light out I looked around to see if there
was anything else, then I saw that I had forgotten my hat. I’d have to
go by the postoffice and I’d be sure to meet some of them, and they’d
think I was a Harvard Square student making like he was a senior. I had
forgotten to brush it too, but Shreve had a brush, so I didnt have to
open the bag any more.
APRIL SIXTH, 1928
Once a bitch always a bitch, what I say. I says you’re lucky if her
playing out of school is all that worries you. I says she ought to be
down there in that kitchen right now, instead of up there in her room,
gobbing paint on her face and waiting for six niggers that cant even
stand up out of a chair unless they’ve got a pan full of bread and meat
to balance them, to fix breakfast for her. And Mother says,
“But to have the school authorities think that I have no control over
her, that I cant—”
“Well,” I says, “You cant, can you? You never have tried to do anything
with her,” I says, “How do you expect to begin this late, when she’s
seventeen years old?”
She thought about that for a while.
“But to have them think that . . . I didn’t even know she had a report
card. She told me last fall that they had quit using them this year. And
now for Professor Junkin to call me on the telephone and tell me if
she’s absent one more time, she will have to leave school. How does she
do it? Where does she go? You’re down town all day; you ought to see her
if she stays on the streets.”
“Yes,” I says, “If she stayed on the streets. I dont reckon she’d be
playing out of school just to do something she could do in public,” I
says.
“What do you mean?” she says.
“I dont mean anything,” I says. “I just answered your question.” Then
she begun to cry again, talking about how her own flesh and blood rose
up to curse her.
“You asked me,” I says.
“I dont mean you,” she says. “You are the only one of them that isn’t a
reproach to me.”
“Sure,” I says, “I never had time to be. I never had time to go to
Harvard like Quentin or drink myself into the ground like Father. I had
to work. But of course if you want me to follow her around and see what
she does, I can quit the store and get a job where I can work at night.
Then I can watch her during the day and you can use Ben for the night
shift.”
“I know I’m just a trouble and a burden to you,” she says, crying on the
pillow.
“I ought to know it,” I says. “You’ve been telling me that for thirty
years. Even Ben ought to know it now. Do you want me to say anything to
her about it?”
“Do you think it will do any good?” she says.
“Not if you come down there interfering just when I get started,” I
says. “If you want me to control her, just say so and keep your hands
off. Everytime I try to, you come butting in and then she gives both of
us the laugh.”
“Remember she’s your own flesh and blood,” she says.
“Sure,” I says, “that’s just what I’m thinking of—flesh. And a little
blood too, if I had my way. When people act like niggers, no matter who
they are the only thing to do is treat them like a nigger.”
“I’m afraid you’ll lose your temper with her,” she says.
“Well,” I says, “You haven’t had much luck with your system. You want me
to do anything about it, or not? Say one way or the other; I’ve got to
get on to work.”
“I know you have to slave your life away for us,” she says. “You know if
I had my way, you’d have an office of your own to go to, and hours that
became a Bascomb. Because you are a Bascomb, despite your name. I know
that if your father could have forseen—”
“Well,” I says, “I reckon he’s entitled to guess wrong now and then,
like anybody else, even a Smith or a Jones.” She begun to cry again.
“To hear you speak bitterly of your dead father,” she says.
“All right,” I says, “all right. Have it your way. But as I haven’t got
an office, I’ll have to get on to what I have got. Do you want me to say
anything to her?”
“I’m afraid you’ll lose your temper with her,” she says.
“All right,” I says, “I wont say anything, then.”
“But something must be done,” she says. “To have people think I permit
her to stay out of school and run about the streets, or that I cant
prevent her doing it. . . . Jason, Jason,” she says, “How could you. How
could you leave me with these burdens.”
“Now, now,” I says, “You’ll make yourself sick. Why dont you either lock
her up all day too, or turn her over to me and quit worrying over her?”
“My own flesh and blood,” she says, crying. So I says,
“All right. I’ll tend to her. Quit crying, now.”
“Dont lose your temper,” she says. “She’s just a child, remember.”
“No,” I says, “I wont.” I went out, closing the door.
“Jason,” she says. I didn’t answer. I went down the hall. “Jason,” she
says beyond the door. I went on down stairs. There wasn’t anybody in the
diningroom, then I heard her in the kitchen. She was trying to make
Dilsey let her have another cup of coffee. I went in.
“I reckon that’s your school costume, is it?” I says. “Or maybe today’s
a holiday?”
“Just a half a cup, Dilsey,” she says. “Please.”
“No, suh,” Dilsey says, “I aint gwine do it. You aint got no business
wid mo’n one cup, a seventeen year old gal, let lone whut Miss Cahline
say. You go on and git dressed for school, so you kin ride to town wid
Jason. You fixin to be late again.”
“No she’s not,” I says. “We’re going to fix that right now.” She looked
at me, the cup in her hand. She brushed her hair back from her face, her
kimono slipping off her shoulder. “You put that cup down and come in
here a minute,” I says.
“What for?” she says.
“Come on,” I says. “Put that cup in the sink and come in here.”
“What you up to now, Jason?” Dilsey says.
“You may think you can run over me like you do your grandmother and
everybody else,” I says, “But you’ll find out different. I’ll give you
ten seconds to put that cup down like I told you.”
She quit looking at me. She looked at Dilsey. “What time is it, Dilsey?”
she says. “When it’s ten seconds, you whistle. Just a half a cup.
Dilsey, pl—”
I grabbed her by the arm. She dropped the cup. It broke on the floor and
she jerked back, looking at me, but I held her arm. Dilsey got up from
her chair.
“You, Jason,” she says.
“You turn me loose,” Quentin says, “I’ll slap you.”
“You will, will you?” I says, “You will will you?” She slapped at me. I
caught that hand too and held her like a wildcat. “You will, will you?”
I says. “You think you will?”
“You, Jason!” Dilsey says. I dragged her into the diningroom. Her kimono
came unfastened, flapping about her, damn near naked. Dilsey came
hobbling along. I turned and kicked the door shut in her face.
“You keep out of here,” I says.
Quentin was leaning against the table, fastening her kimono. I looked at
her.
“Now,” I says, “I want to know what you mean, playing out of school and
telling your grandmother lies and forging her name on your report and
worrying her sick. What do you mean by it?”
She didn’t say anything. She was fastening her kimono up under her chin,
pulling it tight around her, looking at me. She hadn’t got around to
painting herself yet and her face looked like she had polished it with a
gun rag. I went and grabbed her wrist. “What do you mean?” I says.
“None of your damn business,” she says. “You turn me loose.”
Dilsey came in the door. “You, Jason,” she says.
“You get out of here, like I told you,” I says, not even looking back.
“I want to know where you go when you play out of school,” I says. “You
keep off the streets, or I’d see you. Who do you play out with? Are you
hiding out in the woods with one of those damn slick-headed jellybeans?
Is that where you go?”
“You—you old goddamn!” she says. She fought, but I held her. “You damn
old goddamn!” she says.
“I’ll show you,” I says. “You may can scare an old woman off, but I’ll
show you who’s got hold of you now.” I held her with one hand, then she
quit fighting and watched me, her eyes getting wide and black.
“What are you going to do?” she says.
“You wait until I get this belt out and I’ll show you,” I says, pulling
my belt out. Then Dilsey grabbed my arm.
“Jason,” she says, “You, Jason! Aint you shamed of yourself.”
“Dilsey,” Quentin says, “Dilsey.”
“I aint gwine let him,” Dilsey says, “Dont you worry, honey.” She held
to my arm. Then the belt came out and I jerked loose and flung her away.
She stumbled into the table. She was so old she couldn’t do any more
than move hardly. But that’s all right: we need somebody in the kitchen
to eat up the grub the young ones cant tote off. She came hobbling
between us, trying to hold me again. “Hit me, den,” she says, “ef nothin
else but hittin somebody wont do you. Hit me,” she says.
“You think I wont?” I says.
“I dont put no devilment beyond you,” she says. Then I heard Mother on
the stairs. I might have known she wasn’t going to keep out of it. I let
go. She stumbled back against the wall, holding her kimono shut.
“All right,” I says, “We’ll just put this off a while. But dont think
you can run it over me. I’m not an old woman, nor an old half dead
nigger, either. You damn little slut,” I says.
“Dilsey,” she says, “Dilsey, I want my mother.”
Dilsey went to her. “Now, now,” she says, “He aint gwine so much as lay
his hand on you while Ise here.” Mother came on down the stairs.
“Jason,” she says, “Dilsey.”
“Now, now,” Dilsey says, “I aint gwine let him tech you.” She put her
hand on Quentin. She knocked it down.
“You damn old nigger,” she says. She ran toward the door.
“Dilsey,” Mother says on the stairs. Quentin ran up the stairs, passing
her. “Quentin,” Mother says, “You, Quentin.” Quentin ran on. I could
hear her when she reached the top, then in the hall. Then the door
slammed.
Mother had stopped. Then she came on. “Dilsey,” she says.
“All right,” Dilsey says, “Ise comin. You go on and git dat car and wait
now,” she says, “so you kin cahy her to school.”
“Dont you worry,” I says. “I’ll take her to school and I’m going to see
that she stays there. I’ve started this thing, and I’m going through
with it.”
“Jason,” Mother says on the stairs.
“Go on, now,” Dilsey says, going toward the door. “You want to git her
started too? Ise comin, Miss Cahline.”
I went on out. I could hear them on the steps. “You go on back to bed
now,” Dilsey was saying, “Dont you know you aint feeling well enough to
git up yet? Go on back, now. I’m gwine to see she gits to school in
time.”
I went on out the back to back the car out, then I had to go all the way
round to the front before I found them.
“I thought I told you to put that tire on the back of the car,” I says.
“I aint had time,” Luster says. “Aint nobody to watch him till mammy git
done in de kitchen.”
“Yes,” I says, “I feed a whole damn kitchen full of niggers to follow
around after him, but if I want an automobile tire changed, I have to do
it myself.”
“I aint had nobody to leave him wid,” he says. Then he begun moaning and
slobbering.
“Take him on round to the back,” I says. “What the hell makes you want
to keep him around here where people can see him?” I made them go on,
before he got started bellowing good. It’s bad enough on Sundays, with
that damn field full of people that haven’t got a side show and six
niggers to feed, knocking a damn oversize mothball around. He’s going to
keep on running up and down that fence and bellowing every time they
come in sight until first thing I know they’re going to begin charging
me golf dues, then Mother and Dilsey’ll have to get a couple of china
door knobs and a walking stick and work it out, unless I play at night
with a lantern. Then they’d send us all to Jackson, maybe. God knows,
they’d hold Old Home week when that happened.
I went on back to the garage. There was the tire, leaning against the
wall, but be damned if I was going to put it on. I backed out and turned
around. She was standing by the drive. I says,
“I know you haven’t got any books: I just want to ask you what you did
with them, if it’s any of my business. Of course I haven’t got any right
to ask,” I says, “I’m just the one that paid $11.65 for them last
September.”
“Mother buys my books,” she says. “There’s not a cent of your money on
me. I’d starve first.”
“Yes?” I says. “You tell your grandmother that and see what she says.
You dont look all the way naked,” I says, “even if that stuff on your
face does hide more of you than anything else you’ve got on.”
“Do you think your money or hers either paid for a cent of this?” she
says.
“Ask your grandmother,” I says. “Ask her what became of those checks.
You saw her burn one of them, as I remember.” She wasn’t even listening,
with her face all gummed up with paint and her eyes hard as a fice
dog’s.
“Do you know what I’d do if I thought your money or hers either bought
one cent of this?” she says, putting her hand on her dress.
“What would you do?” I says, “Wear a barrel?”
“I’d tear it right off and throw it into the street,” she says. “Dont
you believe me?”
“Sure you would,” I says. “You do it every time.”
“See if I wouldn’t,” She says. She grabbed the neck of her dress in both
hands and made like she would tear it.
“You tear that dress,” I says, “And I’ll give you a whipping right here
that you’ll remember all your life.”
“See if I dont,” she says. Then I saw that she really was trying to tear
it, to tear it right off of her. By the time I got the car stopped and
grabbed her hands there was about a dozen people looking. It made me so
mad for a minute it kind of blinded me.
“You do a thing like that again and I’ll make you sorry you ever drew
breath,” I says.
“I’m sorry now,” she says. She quit, then her eyes turned kind of funny
and I says to myself if you cry here in this car, on the street, I’ll
whip you. I’ll wear you out. Lucky for her she didn’t, so I turned her
wrists loose and drove on. Luckily we were near an alley, where I could
turn into the back street and dodge the square. They were already
putting the tent up in Beard’s lot. Earl had already given me the two
passes for our show windows. She sat there with her face turned away,
chewing her lip. “I’m sorry now,” she says. “I dont see why I was ever
born.”
“And I know of at least one other person that dont understand all he
knows about that,” I says. I stopped in front of the school house. The
bell had rung, and the last of them were just going in. “You’re on time
for once, anyway,” I says. “Are you going in there and stay there, or am
I coming with you and make you?” She got out and banged the door.
“Remember what I say,” I says, “I mean it. Let me hear one more time
that you were slipping up and down back alleys with one of those damn
squirts.”
She turned back at that. “I dont slip around,” she says. “I dare anybody
to know everything I do.”
“And they all know it, too,” I says. “Everybody in this town knows what
you are. But I wont have it anymore, you hear? I dont care what you do,
myself,” I says, “But I’ve got a position in this town, and I’m not
going to have any member of my family going on like a nigger wench. You
hear me?”
“I dont care,” she says, “I’m bad and I’m going to hell, and I dont
care. I’d rather be in hell than anywhere where you are.”
“If I hear one more time that you haven’t been to school, you’ll wish
you were in hell,” I says. She turned and ran on across the yard. “One
more time, remember,” I says. She didn’t look back.
I went to the postoffice and got the mail and drove on to the store and
parked. Earl looked at me when I came in. I gave him a chance to say
something about my being late, but he just said,
“Those cultivators have come. You’d better help Uncle Job put them up.”
I went on to the back, where old Job was uncrating them, at the rate of
about three bolts to the hour.
“You ought to be working for me,” I says. “Every other no-count nigger
in town eats in my kitchen.”
“I works to suit de man whut pays me Sat’dy night,” he says. “When I
does dat, it dont leave me a whole lot of time to please other folks.”
He screwed up a nut. “Aint nobody works much in dis country cep de
boll-weevil, noways,” he says.
“You’d better be glad you’re not a boll-weevil waiting on those
cultivators,” I says. “You’d work yourself to death before they’d be
ready to prevent you.”
“Dat’s de troof,” he says, “Boll-weevil got tough time. Work ev’y day in
de week out in de hot sun, rain er shine. Aint got no front porch to set
on en watch de wattermilyuns growin and Sat’dy dont mean nothin a-tall
to him.”
“Saturday wouldn’t mean nothing to you, either,” I says, “if it depended
on me to pay you wages. Get those things out of the crates now and drag
them inside.”
I opened her letter first and took the check out. Just like a woman. Six
days late. Yet they try to make men believe that they’re capable of
conducting a business. How long would a man that thought the first of
the month came on the sixth last in business. And like as not, when they
sent the bank statement out, she would want to know why I never
deposited my salary until the sixth. Things like that never occur to a
woman.
“I had no answer to my letter about Quentin’s easter dress. Did
it arrive all right? I’ve had no answer to the last two letters
I wrote her, though the check in the second one was cashed with
the other check. Is she sick? Let me know at once or I’ll come
there and see for myself. You promised you would let me know
when she needed things. I will expect to hear from you before
the 10th. No you’d better wire me at once. You are opening my
letters to her. I know that as well as if I were looking at you.
You’d better wire me at once about her to this address.”
About that time Earl started yelling at Job, so I put them away and went
over to try to put some life into him. What this country needs is white
labour. Let these damn trifling niggers starve for a couple of years,
then they’d see what a soft thing they have.
Along toward ten oclock I went up front. There was a drummer there. It
was a couple of minutes to ten, and I invited him up the street to get a
coca-cola. We got to talking about crops.
“There’s nothing to it,” I says, “Cotton is a speculator’s crop. They
fill the farmer full of hot air and get him to raise a big crop for them
to whipsaw on the market, to trim the suckers with. Do you think the
farmer gets anything out of it except a red neck and a hump in his back?
You think the man that sweats to put it into the ground gets a red cent
more than a bare living,” I says. “Let him make a big crop and it wont
be worth picking; let him make a small crop and he wont have enough to
gin. And what for? so a bunch of damn eastern jews, I’m not talking
about men of the jewish religion,” I says, “I’ve known some jews that
were fine citizens. You might be one yourself,” I says.
“No,” he says, “I’m an American.”
“No offense,” I says. “I give every man his due, regardless of religion
or anything else. I have nothing against jews as an individual,” I says.
“It’s just the race. You’ll admit that they produce nothing. They follow
the pioneers into a new country and sell them clothes.”
“You’re thinking of Armenians,” he says, “aren’t you. A pioneer wouldn’t
have any use for new clothes.”
“No offense,” I says. “I dont hold a man’s religion against him.”
“Sure,” he says, “I’m an American. My folks have some French blood, why
I have a nose like this. I’m an American, all right.”
“So am I,” I says. “Not many of us left. What I’m talking about is the
fellows that sit up there in New York and trim the sucker gamblers.”
“That’s right,” he says. “Nothing to gambling, for a poor man. There
ought to be a law against it.”
“Dont you think I’m right?” I says.
“Yes,” he says, “I guess you’re right. The farmer catches it coming and
going.”
“I know I’m right,” I says. “It’s a sucker game, unless a man gets
inside information from somebody that knows what’s going on. I happen to
be associated with some people who’re right there on the ground. They
have one of the biggest manipulators in New York for an adviser. Way I
do it,” I says, “I never risk much at a time. It’s the fellow that
thinks he knows it all and is trying to make a killing with three
dollars that they’re laying for. That’s why they are in the business.”
Then it struck ten. I went up to the telegraph office. It opened up a
little, just like they said. I went into the corner and took out the
telegram again, just to be sure. While I was looking at it a report came
in. It was up two points. They were all buying. I could tell that from
what they were saying. Getting aboard. Like they didn’t know it could go
but one way. Like there was a law or something against doing anything
but buying. Well, I reckon those eastern jews have got to live too. But
I’ll be damned if it hasn’t come to a pretty pass when any damn
foreigner that cant make a living in the country where God put him, can
come to this one and take money right out of an American’s pockets. It
was up two points more. Four points. But hell, they were right there and
knew what was going on. And if I wasn’t going to take the advice, what
was I paying them ten dollars a month for. I went out, then I remembered
and came back and sent the wire. “All well. Q writing today.”
“Q?” the operator says.
“Yes,” I says, “Q. Cant you spell Q?”
“I just asked to be sure,” he says.
“You send it like I wrote it and I’ll guarantee you to be sure,” I says.
“Send it collect.”
“What you sending, Jason?” Doc Wright says, looking over my shoulder.
“Is that a code message to buy?”
“That’s all right about that,” I says. “You boys use your own judgment.
You know more about it than those New York folks do.”
“Well, I ought to,” Doc says, “I’d a saved money this year raising it at
two cents a pound.”
Another report came in. It was down a point.
“Jason’s selling,” Hopkins says. “Look at his face.”
“That’s all right about what I’m doing,” I says. “You boys follow your
own judgment. Those rich New York jews have got to live like everybody
else,” I says.
I went on back to the store. Earl was busy up front. I went on back to
the desk and read Lorraine’s letter. “Dear daddy wish you were here. No
good parties when daddys out of town I miss my sweet daddy.” I reckon
she does. Last time I gave her forty dollars. Gave it to her. I never
promise a woman anything nor let her know what I’m going to give her.
That’s the only way to manage them. Always keep them guessing. If you
cant think of any other way to surprise them, give them a bust in the
jaw.
I tore it up and burned it over the spittoon. I make it a rule never to
keep a scrap of paper bearing a woman’s hand, and I never write them at
all. Lorraine is always after me to write to her but I says anything I
forgot to tell you will save till I get to Memphis again but I says I
dont mind you writing me now and then in a plain envelope, but if you
ever try to call me up on the telephone, Memphis wont hold you I says. I
says when I’m up there I’m one of the boys, but I’m not going to have
any woman calling me on the telephone. Here I says, giving her the forty
dollars. If you ever get drunk and take a notion to call me on the
phone, just remember this and count ten before you do it.
“When’ll that be?” she says.
“What?” I says.
“When you’re coming back,” she says.
“I’ll let you know,” I says. Then she tried to buy a beer, but I
wouldn’t let her. “Keep your money,” I says. “Buy yourself a dress with
it.” I gave the maid a five, too. After all, like I say money has no
value; it’s just the way you spend it. It dont belong to anybody, so why
try to hoard it. It just belongs to the man that can get it and keep it.
There’s a man right here in Jefferson made a lot of money selling rotten
goods to niggers, lived in a room over the store about the size of a
pigpen, and did his own cooking. About four or five years ago he was
taken sick. Scared the hell out of him so that when he was up again he
joined the church and bought himself a Chinese missionary, five thousand
dollars a year. I often think how mad he’ll be if he was to die and find
out there’s not any heaven, when he thinks about that five thousand a
year. Like I say, he’d better go on and die now and save money.
When it was burned good I was just about to shove the others into my
coat when all of a sudden something told me to open Quentin’s before I
went home, but about that time Earl started yelling for me up front, so
I put them away and went and waited on the damn redneck while he spent
fifteen minutes deciding whether he wanted a twenty cent hame string or
a thirty-five cent one.
“You’d better take that good one,” I says. “How do you fellows ever
expect to get ahead, trying to work with cheap equipment?”
“If this one aint any good,” he says, “why have you got it on sale?”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t any good,” I says, “I said it’s not as good as
that other one.”
“How do you know it’s not,” he says. “You ever use airy one of them?”