Strange Fruit, page 19
The old piano in the parlor—wonder where it went to—whatever became of it—You’d go in and lay your head on the keys—you’d hide yourself there—and Mamie would find you and hold you against her, saying half words through her crooked teeth—Old Mamie—you hadn’t seen her in years—you must have been a funny little fool—a crazy kid—
“And I know you want it. We’ll have a beautiful old country place. You’ll like that—”
He stopped the swing.
“You’ll like that, won’t you? It will be fun to have our own place, our own things. I’ve always loved collecting antiques—”
God yes! Have your own things—have what belongs to you—
“Tracy … What’s the matter? You aren’t listening.
“Sorry, honey. I’m listening.” He turned, looked at the girl by his side in the swing, touched her hair, took her hand. “We must get your ring tomorrow. Or shall we send to Atlanta or New York for a nicer one? Perhaps we should.” He had found her third finger now and was softly rubbing the nail. “After all … it won’t be easy to find one good enough.”
“But I’ve already found one that suits me. At Ferguson’s.
Tracy laughed.
“Why are you laughing?”
Yes, why do you laugh! “Oh, I don’t know. The old fox probably had it there ready for us.”
Dot smiled. “Maybe so. Anyway it’s there. I’ve often looked at it. It’s simple, not expensive. I like it.”
“Good! We’ll go first thing in the morning and get it. That suit you?”
“Of course.”
Tracy stood up. “Better be going. The neighbors will be talking if I spend the night on your porch.” He laughed again. “Good night. Dot. You’re a nice kid.”
“Good night, darling.”
He stooped, kissed her lightly, suddenly rumpled her hair, as he used to do when they were in grammar school together, turned quickly, ran down the steps.
It wouldn’t be so bad. She was a nice decent girl who would make a comfortable pleasant home for him. After all, what more should you expect! They’d be by themselves in the country, he’d hunt in the fall—take her with him sometimes, pretty good shot, Dot … and all right in the woods. Kill hogs in the winter, put up meat, hams, shoulders, make sausage, put up some syrup in the fall. There’d be the planting in the spring. Most anybody likes to see about planting in the spring. He’d manage.
He crossed the railroad to his side of College Street, pulled a piece of moss from an oak limb, walked on. The moon was coming up now, though lawns were still dark. Front porches silent. A low hum here and there from unseen voices. A swing creaked on the Harris porch. Harriet and Bill Adams. She’d fool Bill. He might as well stop wasting his time and money on her. She’d never marry a Maxwell boy. Too ambitious, too restless to stop at Maxwell. He turned again, started toward his own home, tearing the moss, dropping the shreds on the sidewalk.
He’d manage. There’d be children. Maybe. Maybe he would like that. Hate it or like it. You couldn’t be sure. Be funny to have them. How the devil would you go about raising one! Dot would know. Yeah … she’d know … like every woman knows. They always know exactly how it’s done. Think they’re born knowing. Or learn it during coition, maybe. And the less orgasm, the more they learn about child-raising. Seems to work that way. Well, by God he wouldn’t let her bully his kid. He’d see to that. Leave him alone, let the kid raise himself—
He laughed. Sort of getting ahead of schedule. Well … it wasn’t so baa. There’d be no more rows with Mother. Things ought to be peaceful. Things ought to be … Now … maybe she’d feel a little pride … maybe she’d like a grandson. Things hadn’t been too easy for her … he’d trampled pretty hard on her hopes and plans all his life. Maybe a grandson … would sort of make up for everything … take him in on Sundays, let her play with him … do her good … After all, things hadn’t been smooth for her. Dad—Dad’s all right but none too easy to live with, maybe. Lets things slide so. Always Mother who looked after the money—turned it into more. Shrewd, as Dad was easy. Bought a block of nigger shanties in Macon, against Dad’s advice, and made money on them. Cleaned up on them. Always niggers needing houses and Mother smart enough to know it. Mother pretty shrewd. Sends out Dad’s bills and, what’s more, collects them. Manages everything. Now she’s going through a bad time, Dad said, on a strain, change of life. Some women lost their minds at menopause, he’d heard of it. Gus Rainey’s mother lost hers—in Milledgeville now. Gus said all she did was stand in a corner, walk four steps out, turn, walk back again. The livelong day! All she did. Every time Gus went to see her, it tore him up like a baby. You could tell when Gus had been up there. Ordinarily he’d shortweight the fussy women who were so particular about their meat cuts, smiling and talking soft to them as he slipped his hand on the scales. But after a Sunday at Milledgeville, he threw in a little extra on every order. Red-eyed, wiping his nose across his bloodied white coat sleeve, he’d humble himself even to cranky old Mrs. Reid when on other days he’d be muttering some obscenity about kicking the goddam old bitch in the—
And then Monday night Gus would get drunk. Hog drunk.
Four steps out … four steps back … God … if Mother were to do anything like that—you couldn’t go through it.
Tracy had come now to the yellow house on the corner. He walked through the lawn, sat down on the porch steps. A light was in Mother’s room upstairs. He wouldn’t go in—yet. Hot. Terrible night. Mosquitoes better than the heat inside.
Everything settled now—but Nonnie. Nonnie … a piece of unfinished business … Maybe she’d want to go North. She’d get along better there—it would be better for everybody. End the whole thing. Finish it! Mother … Dot … they’d been damned nice, come to think about it. You ought to play straight with them—if you’re going into this at all. If you’re joining the church, at least make a try at being decent. After all, you’ve never been much of a son to Mother. Maybe now you can show her you’ve got a little something she can be proud of—
You’ll begin a new life, Preacher Dunwoodie said today, a new life, Deen, with the pages bare. And for a second the words had snapped a chain in two. There’d be no more pulling …
Whatever you do, finish it!
Tracy lit a cigarette.
No more feeling. Strange. Done with. Through. Funny—not to feel anything. Relief. You make a decision. Things stop. Like cutting off your circulation. Numb. Relief.
Thing to do now, get it fixed up. It’d take money. A lot of money—to help Nonnie through the months she couldn’t work and her doctor’s bills. Later, he could give her more if she needed it. Dad offered to pay for Dot’s ring. Darned nice of him. You couldn’t ask him to do this too. After all, it was Mother who—Well, she had it, and it wouldn’t be a hardship on her to lend it to him! Borrow it from her, pay it back some day … She’d started this … might as well see it through.
Tracy laughed, rubbed his hands over his face, sighed. Might as well go in … have it over.
He threw away his cigarette.
One … two … three … four … turn. One … two … three … four … turn. One …
Good Lord! What had got that on his mind now! After all, he hadn’t done anything criminal—never been in jail—never killed a man—never robbed a bank. Why all the to-do? Just what had he done now that would put Mother under a strain? Dad talking other day, looking at him, as if it was all his fault. Mother—going through so much. You’d think to hear them talk that he’d spent his whole life so things would be hard for her at menopause. Why the devil do people hint things? Why don’t they come out and say what they mean?
God … you let yourself get shot up over nothing. Dad in his funny way probably didn’t mean a thing.
He had better go in now and speak to Mother before she turned off her light. Get everything settled tomorrow. Off your mind. He threw down the cigarette, stepped on it, went inside the house.
Tracy tapped on the door, opened it slowly.
His mother was brushing her hair.
“May I come in?”
Her plump white arm moved up and down in the shadows, the smoky blue crepe of her dressing gown falling away at the elbow. Mother wore the right clothes. Plain. Right. Wonder what kind of things Dot would wear. Lots of lace. Yeah, she’d wear lots of lace.
“Dad out?”
“At old Mrs. Reid’s.”
That’s good. Easier to talk here than downstairs. “You’d think he’d give her a little extra in that hypo one of these nights, wouldn’t you?” She won’t think that funny.
She smiled, continued brushing her hair. It used to be heavy and blonde; now gray and thinning, and shorter. Watching her, he had the feeling that he used to brush it for her when he was little. He still remembered the feel of it But he must have made it up. A pair of tweezers lay near the comb. She’d been pulling the hairs from that mole near her lip. Glad she wasn’t doing that now. It made him uneasy to watch her jerk at herself like that. Dangerous. Heard Dad tell her time and again it was dangerous. She’d put cream on her neck, and as her arm moved it glistened in the creases of flesh, catching the light. Every night she went through this ritual of cleansing and smoothing her body and making it as attractive as she knew how. Funny thing. Once he’d heard Harriet Harris say her mother spent an hour getting ready for bed. What did they do it for! What did they expect after they went to bed? Not a thing. “You see.” Harriet had explained, sounding a little drunk, though she wasn’t, “after a time, down South, there was a migration. Sex left its old habitat and moved to woman’s face.” They laughed—all these youngsters seemed to know so much, he’d thought, when he got home from France, and talked so glibly about what they knew or didn’t know. Dottie, older than this young crowd, had said on the walk home, “You mustn’t misjudge Harriet. She’s just indiscreet—doesn’t mean things the way they sound.” “Oh, she’s O.K..,” he’d said and laughed. “Nothing wrong with Harriet except she notices too much.”
“Why are you laughing?” his mother said, and smiled.
He smiled at her. “Oh, I think maybe I’m feeling pretty good.” He sat now on the arm of his father’s chair.
She was pulling the hairs from her brush, dropping them in the wastebasket. A wad of yellowish-gray hair. Old. She’s getting old. After all, her life hasn’t been so happy—it’s the least you can do—maybe she’d enjoy a grandson—maybe she’d enjoy coming out to your place—
Wonder how she’s feeling about me. What she’s thinking as she sits there brushing her hair. You … you have a picture of her in your mind … Wonder what kind of picture of you she has … Wonder what she thinks is her son … if she knows what her son is … what … All day you had expected her to say something. About Dot. About joining the church. Though it would have been embarrassing. It was better like this. No talk about it. No strain. You have given her what she wants; you know how she feels.
Her hand moved toward the tweezers. Good Lord, she’s going to do it right now. Women don’t have a bit of shyness.
“Don’t!” He hadn’t meant to say it. Now you feel like a fool.
His mother smiled, picked up a small bottle of alcohol, wet a piece of cotton, wiped off the tweezers. She’s going to do it, anyway.
“Mother,” he said, “Dot was telling me about the furniture. That’s nice of you to give it to us.”
“Your grandmother wanted you to have it.”
Grandmother … you’d always think of her … as real now as she was when alive … tall, thin, sharp-eyed, earrings sparkling and tinkling, brandishing her will all over the state, wherever Grandfather was sent to preach. “Leave the child alone,” the old lady used to say. “Alma, you drive him too hard!” “Mother, you must let me train my son in my own way. I insist!” “When you’re old as I am you’ll know a child wetting his pants isn’t the most critical moment in either his life or your own. After all, privies had their blessings. They did indeed! A water closet a hundred yards from the house made a little pants-wetting seem quite understandable.” “Mother! You forget children have ears!” “Tsssch-tssssch—I never forget anything!” And she had bent over and picked a pin off the floor without flexing her knees, straightened up, face mottled. “Son,” she said, “never marry a woman who has to bend her knees to pick up a pin. She’ll be a lump of wet flour on you in ten years.” Gave her daughter a triumphant look, for Alma was heavy and slow-moving, and left the room. He’d spent his summers in Macon after Grandfather died and Grandma went back to her old home on Hardaman Avenue. “Your grandfather was a deeply religious man, and the Lord’s good shepherd,” she’d said to him often, “but I must confess these parsonages are more like that place the good God consigns lost souls to than anything I can now think of. I’m glad to be home again, with no Missionary Circle hovering over me—even if I do have to pay taxes.”
“Wish we could have kept the old place,” he said now.
“The section’s changing. Better to have sold it when we did.”
“I suppose so. Mother—” the delay wasn’t making it easier—”could you let me have—some money?”
Alma laid the tweezers down, turned to her son, searched his face. Something had snapped tight in her eyes. “How much, Tracy?”
“Three hundred.”
“That is quite a lot of money.”
“I know. I hate to ask you. Maybe I can pay it back—when I get the farm going.” She hadn’t said a word about his going out on the farm.
“Why do you need it?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“For Dot’s ring?”
“Dad gave me money for that.”
“Then why do you need it?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“Have you asked your father for it?”
“No.”
“Why don’t you take it up with him?”
Tracy was counting things on the dresser—powder puff, comb, brush, mirror, scissors, cold cream—keep on counting—don’t have any feeling—
“Why, Tracy?”
“I’d rather not bother Dad.”
“You’ve been—gambling?”
Tracy looked at his mother. She had picked up the tweezers, laid them down again, now let her hands lie in her lap. Sure he’s been gambling! “You can call it that.” He lit a cigarette, tossed the match to the water-pitcher tray.
“Have you—told Dorothy?”
“It’s none of her business.”
“Everything that concerns you is Dorothy’s business now.”
“If you can’t let me have it, just say so, Mother. Let’s don’t argue about it.”
“I can let you have it, Tracy, but it displeases me for you to be stubborn. So secretive.”
She had picked up the tweezers again now and was sliding them between her fingers. “I have wanted to say this to you for a long time, but somehow—we don’t seem to have time for talks. It is very nice that you are going to marry Dorothy. It makes me very happy. She’s a fine girl, a fine good girl, and will make you a fine wife. But you will make her life miserable if you continue with her the kind of relationship which you have had here in the home with your family. You have never given us your confidence, Tracy.” She smiled to soften her words. “You know that. And it has made it hard—for all of us.”
Tracy felt unable to move. He was simply there. Staring at his mother. Like a fool. He had somehow thought she would be glad that he was marrying Dorothy, really glad, glad about the farm, glad about the church. And here she was, finding new faults to pick on. Always finding—
She was talking again and wiping the cold cream from her neck as she talked. “I’ll give you the check in the morning,” she said, “and then I want you to go straight to Dorothy and talk this whole thing over. Whatever the—escapade was, she’ll forgive you, and you’ll be starting out together as real partners. Dorothy can be a great help to you, Tracy, if you will let her. And you’ll find her a person who can—forgive things.”
Forgive things!
Tracy wheeled, walked out of the room. Turned toward a path so worn, so familiar, so effortlessly followed that he seemed to stand still while traveling it.
The moon was high, but if it had been pitch-dark he could not have seen less of blobs of houses, late pedestrians, of trees and sand. Blind to Maxwell and its connotations, he stumbled on, seeing one thing now, seeing only what awaited him at the end of his path. She’d be there. She’d be there waiting. Things would somehow right themselves in swift orientation as if you’d roused from a nightmare, and waiting a moment in the dark had found yourself and one by one the pieces of furniture in the room. Being within sound of Non’s voice would do that. It had always done that. It would do that now. Funny … how a thing like that could be. How you could go to her time and again, just to talk things over, and in the talking things would ease down for you. Never think sometimes of taking her body … Never cross your mind. Come to think of it, it’s queer. Maybe another damned queer thing about you—not like other white—
He stopped as if he had lost his way. White laughter rang in his ears.
He saw now that he was on the short cut through the gallberry bushes, knew he was listening to voices too far away for their words to be clear. Gus and the boys. Coming from the shanties behind the A.M.E. Church. Used to try to get him and the Harris boys and Clem Massey to go. They’d never gone. Never talked it over, never thought much. Hadn’t wanted to go. On the short cut that stretched like a thread between White Town and Black Town, he stood, halfway across the green. They must be in front of the old church. They’d meet beside the minnow pond. The glutted and the hungry. While these retire, let others come.
He laughed aloud. Back of him White Town. Back of him white women. All the white women in the world. Yeah … they tie their love around you like a little thin wire and pull, keep pulling until they cut you in two. That’s what they do. Back there, they’re asleep now, stretched out on their beds asleep, ruling the town. White goddesses. Pure as snow—dole out a little of their body to you—just a little—see—it’s poison—you can’t take but a few drops—don’t be greedy—do as I tell you—do as I tell you now—be good boy—do as I tell you—just a little now—Tracy!—that’s not nice—that’s not nice—
