How can he tell this to white men, I thought, when he knows they'll say that all Negroes do such things? I looked at the floor, a red mist of anguish before my eyes.
"And I caint stop -- although I got a feelin' somethin' is wrong. I git loose from the woman now and I'm runnin' for the clock. At first I couldn't git the door open, it had some kinda crinkly stuff like steel wool on the facing. But I gits it open and gits inside and it's hot and dark in there. I goes up a dark tunnel, up near where the machinery is making all that noise and heat. It's like the power plant they got up to the school. It's burnin' hot as iffen the house was caught on fire, and I starts to runnin', try-in' to git out. I runs and runs till I should be tired but ain't tired but feelin' more rested as I runs, and runnin' so good it's like flyin' and I'm flyin' and sailin' and floatin' right up over the town. Only I'm still in the tunnel. Then way up ahead I sees a bright light like a jack-o-lantern over a graveyard. It gits brighter and brighter and I know I got to catch up with it or else. Then all at once I was right up with it and it burst like a great big electric light in my eyes and scalded me all over. Only it wasn't a scald, but like I was drownin' in a lake where the water was hot on the top and had cold numbin' currents down under it. Then all at once I'm through it and I'm relieved to be out and in the cool daylight agin.
"I wakes up intendin' to tell the ole lady 'bout my crazy dream. Morning done come, and it's gettin' almost light. And there I am, lookin' straight in Matty Lou's face and she's beatin' me and scratchin' and tremblin' and shakin' and cryin' all at the same time like she's havin' a fit. I'm too surprised to move. She's cryin', 'Daddy, Daddy, oh Daddy,' just like that. And all at once I remember the ole lady. She's right beside us snorin' and I can't move 'cause I figgers if I moved it would be a sin And I figgers too, that if I don't move it maybe ain't no sin, 'cause it happened when I was asleep -- although maybe sometimes a man can look at a little ole pigtail gal and see him a whore -- you'all know that? Anyway, I realizes that if I don't move the ole lady will see me. I don't want that to happen. That would be worse than sin. I'm whisperin' to Matty Lou, tryin' to keep her quiet and I'm figurin' how to git myself out of the fix I'm in without sinnin'. I almost chokes her.
"But once a man gits hisself in a tight spot like that there ain't much he can do. It ain't up to him no longer. There I was, tryin' to git away with all my might, yet having to move without movin'. I flew in but I had to walk out. I had to move without movin'. I done thought 'bout it since a heap, and when you think right hard you see that that's the way things is always been with me. That's just about been my life. There was only one way I can figger that I could git out: that was with a knife. But I didn't have no knife, and if you'all ever seen them geld them young boar pigs in the fall, you know I knowed that that was too much to pay to keep from sinnin'. Everything was happenin' inside of me like a fight was goin' on. Then just the very thought of the fix I'm in puts the iron back in me.
"Then if that ain't bad enough, Matty Lou can't hold out no longer and gits to movin' herself. First she was tryin' to push me away and I'm tryin' to hold her down to keep from sinnin'. Then I'm pullin' away and shushin' her to be quiet so's not to wake her Ma, when she grabs holt to me and holds tight. She didn't want me to go then -- and to tell the honest-to-God truth I found out that I didn't want to go neither. I guess I felt then, at that time -- and although I been sorry since -- just 'bout like that fellow did down in Birmingham. That one what locked hisself in his house and shot at them police until they set fire to the house and burned him up. I was lost. The more wringlin' and twistin' we done tryin' to git away, the more we wanted to stay. So like that fellow, I stayed, I had to fight it on out to the end. He mighta died, but I suspects now that he got a heapa satisfaction before he went. I know there ain't nothin' like what I went through, I caint tell how it was. It's like when a real drinkin' man gits drunk, or when a real sanctified religious woman gits so worked up she jumps outta her clothes, or when a real gamblin' man keeps on gamblin' when he's losin'. You got holt to it and you caint let go even though you want to."
"Mr. Norton, sir," I said in a choked voice, "it's time we were getting back to the campus. You'll miss your appointments..."
He didn't even look at me. "Please," he said, waving his hand in annoyance.
Trueblood seemed to smile at me behind his eyes as he looked from the white man to me and continued.
"I couldn't even let go when I heard Kate scream. It was a scream to make your blood run cold. It sounds like a woman who was watchin' a team of wild horses run down her baby chile and she caint move. Kate's hair is standin' up like she done seen a ghost, her gown is hanging open and the veins in her neck is 'bout to bust. And her eyes! Lawd, them eyes. I'm lookin' up at her from where I'm layin' on the pallet with Matty Lou, and I'm too weak to move. She screams and starts to pickin' up the first thing that comes to her hand and throwin' it. Some of them misses me and some of them hits me. Little things and big things. Somethin' cold and strong-stinkin' hits me and wets me and bangs against my head. Somethin' hits the wall -- boom-a-loom-a-loom! -- like a cannon ball, and I tries to cover up my head. Kate's talkin' the unknown tongue, like a wild woman.
" 'Wait a minit, Kate,' I says. 'Stop it!'
"Then I hears her stop a second and I hears her runnin' across the floor, and I twists and looks and Lawd, she done got my double-barrel shotgun!
"And while she's foamin' at the mouth and cockin' the gun, she gits her speech.
" 'Git up! Git up!' she says.
" 'HEY! NAW! KATE!' I says.
" 'Goddam yo' soul to hell! Git up offa my chile!'
" 'But woman, Kate, lissen...'
" 'Don't talk, MOVE!'
" 'Down that thing, Kate!'
" 'No down, UP!'
" 'That there's buckshot, woman, BUCKshot!'
" 'Yes, it is!'
" 'Down it, I say!"
" 'I'm gon blast your soul to hell!'
" 'You gon hit Matty Lou!'
" 'Not Matty Lou -- YOU!'
" 'It spreads, Kate. Matty Lou!'
"She moves around, aimin' at me.
" 'I done warn you, Jim...'
" 'Kate, it was a dream. Lissen to me...'
" 'You the one who lissen -- UP FROM THERE!'
"She jerks the gun and I shuts my eyes. But insteada thunder and lightin' bustin' me, I hears Matty Lou scream in my ear,
" 'Mamma! Oooooo, MAMA!'
"I rolls almost over then and Kate hesitates. She looks at the gun, and she looks at us, and she shivers a minit like she got the fever. Then all at once she drops the gun, and ZIP! quick as a cat, she turns and grabs somethin' off the stove. It catches me like somebody diggin' into my side with a sharp spade. I caint breathe. She's throwin' and talkin' all at the same time.