"When I gits here everybody thinks I done run off. There's a heap of women here with Kate and I runs 'em out. And when I runs 'em out I sends the younguns out to play and locks the door and tells Kate and Matty Lou 'bout the dream and how I'm sorry, but that what done happen is done happen.
" 'How come you don't go on 'way and leave us?' is the first words Kate says to me. 'Ain't you done enough to me and this chile?'
" 'I caint leave you,' I says. 'I'm a man and man don't leave his family.'
"She says, 'Naw, you ain't no man. No man'd do what you did.'
" 'I'm still a man,' I says.
" 'But what you gon' do after it happens?' says Kate.
" 'After what happens?' I says.
" 'When yo black 'bomination is birthed to bawl yo wicked sin befo the eyes of God!' (She musta learned them words from the preacher.)
" 'Birth?' I says. 'Who birth?'
" 'Both of us. Me birth and Matty Lou birth. Both of us birth, you dirty lowdown wicked dog!'
"That liketa killed me. I can understand then why Matty Lou won't look at me and won't speak a word to nobody.
" 'If you stay I'm goin' over an' git Aunt Cloe for both of us,' Kate says. She says, 'I don't aim to birth no sin for folks to look at all the rest of my life, and I don't aim for Matty Lou to neither.'
"You see, Aunt Cloe is a midwife, and even weak as I am from this news I knows I don't want her foolin' with my womenfolks. That woulda been pilin' sin up on toppa sin. So I told Kate, naw, that if Aunt Cloe come near this house I'd kill her, old as she is. I'da done it too. That settles it. I walks out of the house and leaves 'em here to cry it out between 'em. I wanted to go off by myself agin, but it don't do no good tryin' to run off from somethin' like that. It follows you wherever you go. Besides, to git right down to the facts, there wasn't nowhere I could go. I didn't have a cryin' dime!
"Things got to happenin' right off. The nigguhs up at the school come down to chase me off and that made me mad. I went to see the white folks then and they gave me help. That's what I don't understand. I done the worse thing a man could ever do in his family and instead of chasin' me out of the county, they gimme more help than they ever give any other colored man, no matter how good a nigguh he was. Except that my wife an' daughter won't speak to me, I'm better off than I ever been before. And even if Kate won't speak to me she took the new clothes I brought her from up in town and now she's gettin' some eyeglasses made what she been needin' for so long. But what I don't understand is how I done the worse thing a man can do in his own family and 'stead of things gittin' bad, they got better. The nigguhs up at the school don't like me, but the white folks treats me fine."
HE WAS some farmer. As I listened I had been so torn between humiliation and fascination that to lessen my sense of shame I had kept my attention riveted upon his intense face. That way I did not have to look at Mr. Norton. But now as the voice ended I sat looking down at Mr. Norton's feet. Out in the yard a woman's hoarse contralto intoned a hymn. Children's voices were raised in playful chatter. I sat bent over, smelling the sharp dry odor of wood burning in the hot sunlight. I stared at the two pairs of shoes before me. Mr. Norton's were white, trimmed with black. They were custom made and there beside the cheap tan brogues of the farmer they had the elegantly slender well-bred appearance of fine gloves. Finally someone cleared his throat and I looked up to see Mr. Norton staring silently into Jim Trueblood's eyes. I was startled. His face had drained of color. With his bright eyes burning into Trueblood's black face, he looked ghostly. Trueblood looked at me questioningly.
"Lissen to the younguns," he said in embarrassment. "Playin' 'London Bridge's Fallin' Down.' "
Something was going on which I didn't get. I had to get Mr. Norton away.
"Are you all right, sir?" I asked.
He looked at me with unseeing eyes. "All right?" he said.
"Yes, sir. I mean that I think it's time for the afternoon session," I hurried on.
He stared at me blankly.
I went to him. "Are you sure you're all right, sir?"
"Maybe it's the heat," Trueblood said. "You got to be born down here to stand this kind of heat."
"Perhaps," Mr. Norton said, "it is the heat. We'd better go."
He stood shakily, still staring intently at Trueblood. Then I saw him removing a red Moroccan-leather wallet from his coat pocket. The platinum-framed miniature came with it, but he did not look at it this time.
"Here," he said, extending a banknote. "Please take this and buy the children some toys for me."
Trueblood's mouth fell agape, his eyes widened and filled with moisture as he took the bill between trembling fingers. It was a hundred-dollar bill.
"I'm ready, young man," Mr. Norton said, his voice a whisper.
I went before him to the car and opened the door. He stumbled a bit climbing in and I gave him my arm. His face was still chalk white.
"Drive me away from here," he said in a sudden frenzy. "Away!"
"Yes, sir."
I saw Jim Trueblood wave as I threw the car into gear. "You bastard," I said under my breath. "You no-good bastard! You get a hundred-dollar bill!"
When I had turned the car and started back I saw him still standing in the same place.
Suddenly Mr. Norton touched me on the shoulder. "I must have a stimulant, young man. A little whiskey."
"Yes, sir. Are you all right, sir?"
"A little faint, but a stimulant ..."
His voice trailed off. Something cold formed within my chest. If anything happened to him Dr. Bledsoe would blame me. I stepped on the gas, wondering where I could get him some whiskey. Not in the town, that would take too long. There was only one place, the Golden Day.
"I'll have you some in a few minutes, sir," I said.
"As soon as you can," he said.
Chapter 3
I saw them as we approached the short stretch that lay between the railroad tracks and the Golden Day. At first I failed to recognize them. They straggled down the highway in a loose body, blocking the way from the white line to the frazzled weeds that bordered the sun-heated concrete slab. I cursed them silently. They were blocking the road and Mr. Norton was gasping for breath. Ahead of the radiator's gleaming curve they looked like a chain gang on its way to make a road. But a chain gang marches single file and I saw no guards on horseback. As I drew nearer I recognized the loose gray shirts and pants worn by the veterans. Damn! They were heading for the Golden Day.
"A little stimulant," I heard behind me.