‘I’m from Virginia, of course,’ he announced as though that were more important than a woman’s flesh.
‘I’m from Louisiana myself,’ Hallie went along. ‘Of course.’
‘What I mean is’ – he felt it time to be kind – ‘I’m a gentleman.’
‘I’m certain you are,’ Hallie told him he really was. ‘When you’re a lady yourself that’s something you can tell about a man right off.’
‘What I’m trying to say,’ he tried afresh, ‘I’m a Virginia gentleman.’
‘I don’t mean to be sarcastic, mister,’ Hallie promised him, ‘but so what?’
‘Why,’ he had never thought that being a Virginia gentleman might not be self-sufficing, ‘well, it means I can teach at Washington and Lee!’
‘It’s nice to have two jobs,’ Hallie was sure, ‘and in times like these amounts to a real curiosity.’
‘I’ll tell you what is a yet mightier curiosity,’ he got down to business at last, ‘and that’s the way old black mammies stick out in back—’ his voice took on a secret excitement – ‘the way she come by with a broom ’n most knocks you down – “Boy! – stay outa mah way when ah’m cleanin’, Boy” –’ n here she comes by again with bucket ’n mop – “Boy, when you gonna learn to behave? Didn’t ah tell you stay outa mah way? Boy!” –’ n you just about turn around ’n here comes Mammy back again – “Boy! You got nawthin’ to do all day but stand in mah path? You fixin’ to get y’se’f soaked?”’ He composed himself only with an effort.
‘Mister,’ Hallie asked gently, ‘how long you been in this condition?’
‘Since the day I broke the churn of course. Black Mammy’s been dead nineteen years – otherwise why would I feel this way? Hand and foot she waited on us and when that day come when all she could do was just to set in her old cane chair, there wasn’t a soul but myself to fetch her a glass of water.
‘“Mammy,” I told her, “you waited on me, I’m goin’ to wait on you. I’m takin’ care of my old black mammy.”
‘I slept by her chair, for she couldn’t lie down. When I woke at night I could reach out and touch the back of her skinny black hand and know if she was asleep or awake just by the touch. Mostly she’d be awake. You know what I’d ask her then?’
Hallie felt his hand on her own. ‘What you ask her then?’
‘I’d ask her, “You want anything, Black Mammy?” That’s just what I’d ask her.’
‘She must have been grateful for your care.’
He looked at Hallie so evenly. ‘More than I knew. For the very day she died she raised her weary old arm and give me a back-handed slap.’
‘You broke another churn on her?’
‘It was her way of letting me know that she had understood all along what her first back-handed slap, when I was ten years old, had done.’
‘She forgive you at last for breakin’ the churn?’ Hallie kept trying.
‘We were too grateful to one another for forgiving,’ he explained – ‘Don’t you think I know it was Black Mammy’s hand made a mammy-freak out of me? That I might have had a wife and family now if it hadn’t been for her hand? Yet I’m grateful to her still. Who else ever thought I was worth human care? I’m glad the porch was slippery.’
Hallie was lost.
‘Mister,’ she shook her head sadly, ‘I just don’t take your meaning.’
‘The water from the churn made the porch all wet. When its handle snapped she saw what I’d done and aimed her hand. I slipped and fell so she paddled me face down. I lay hollering, pretending she was half killing me. Black Mammy had a good strong hand. That was the first time I was made to behave.’
Hallie saw light faintly.
‘What happened exactly?’
‘Why, what happens when a man is having a girl, that’s what happened. And I’ve never been able to make it happen any other way since.’ He laughed in the watery light yet his face looked stricken.
‘I’m terribly tired, I don’t know why,’ he said and put his face in his hands.
It came to Hallie then that this wasn’t at all some monster of the nastier sort, but only some sort of lonely suckling boy playing Commander with his nose still running.
‘Mister,’ she told him quietly, ‘you don’t need a girl. You need a doctor.’
‘There aren’t any doctors for black-mammy freaks,’ he explained dryly, as though he’d tried looking one up in the city directory.
‘Then just try to rest,’ Hallie told him.
Fast as she could pin, Hallie was preparing Mama for the great impersonation.
‘You don’t think he stole his ship’s money, do you?’ Mama had to know. ‘He isn’t going to get us all in trouble, is he?’
‘You never made an easier dollar your whole enduring life,’ Hallie reassured her, ‘he’s just a green boy been kept on black titty too long. All you got to remember is this rapscallion keeps getting in your way. Just don’t hit him too hard – just hard enough to make it look good.’
‘You wont catch me hitting no member of our armed forces,’ and Mama stuck right there.
‘Getting whupped by his old black mammy is what he come here for – turn around so I can pin you.’ She began stuffing a small pillow into Mama’s bosom. ‘The more you stick out in front the more you stick out behind. I’ll have you sticking out so far you’ll look like Madame Queen.’
‘Girl, I was born in this country.’
It was plain Mama hadn’t caught the play even yet.
‘Mama,’ Hallie pleaded, ‘forget the man’s uniform. I’m trying to tell you he isn’t like other men.’
Mama stiffened like a retriever. ‘Honey, he aint one of them O-verts?’ – She was ready to rip off her handkerchief-head masquerade and run the whole O-vert navy out of town ‘I wont cater to them. Not for no amount.’
‘If he were he’d be better off,’ Hallie reassured her. ‘Now turn around,’ and pinned skirt over skirt till Mama, weighted down, sank heavily into a chair.
‘Honey, I’m starting to sweat,’ she complained.
‘Sweat till you shine,’ Hallie encouraged her, ‘but don’t show your face till I give you the sign.’ And stepped through the portiere.
Beneath the ruin of the gold-braid hat the King of the Indoor Thieves had collapsed at last, his undershirt tangled about his throat as if someone had tried to improve his manners by finishing him off altogether. He snored till his toes were spread, he stretched till he creaked in dreams of some final assault for an earth about to be his for keeps.
‘All of you stop talking out of the corners of your mouth like you were Edgar G. Robinson and everybody was in the can,’ Hallie quieted the woman – ‘You’ve got a guest tonight that means gold from way back, so try to show manners.’
For down the stair with an admiral’s tread came the hero of sea fights as good as won, looking like the dogs had had him under the house; with a gin glass latched to his hand.
Hallie crooked one finger toward the portiere.
Mama came forth with forehead shining, bandanna and broom, all sweat and Aunt Jemima, in the peppermint apron that hung like candy.
The second he saw her Navy dropped his glass. ‘I didn’t mean to do that,’ he apologized immediately, and began trying to clean the floor with his sleeve, glass, splinters, and all, making a worse mess than before.
(Long-ago Mammy who made me behave the day the big churn broke, who backhanded me to pretend she didn’t know something had broken forever. Who knew how it was going to be with me, and made me a little pie all my own. Who’s left to make me behave?)