A Gathering of Old Men

by Ernest J. Gaines

  “Don’t you move, Janey,” I said.

  “What did you say?” Bea asked, looking up at me. Her little overpowdered white face was as wrinkled as a prune. Her blue-dyed hair was so thin you could see her gray skull. Only her grayish-blue eyes were still alive and youthful, but now angry. “What did you say?” she asked me again. “You told her ‘don’t’? This is not Seven Oaks, Miss, this is Marshall. At Marshall I say ‘don’t’ and I say ‘do.’ ” She looked at Janey just as hard as she had looked at me. “What are you waiting on?” she asked her.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Janey said, and went back inside.

  She must have had the drinks already mixed and sitting in the refrigerator, because she was back with two of them within a couple of minutes. The drink was made of gin and pink lemonade, garnished with a slice of orange, a cherry, a piece of lime, a sprig of mint, and a paper straw the color of a peppermint stick. I set my drink on the banister, but Bea couldn’t wait to get started on hers. It was her first drink of the day, and she was already running more than a half hour late. Janey and I stood there watching her.

  “Now, what did you say Candy did?” she asked. “That gal got spunk. Just like Grandpa Nate.”

  “My God,” I said. “My God, Beatrice. Candy just told me she killed somebody. Is that all you got to say, she’s just like her grandpa?”

  “My grandpa,” she said. “Her great-great grandpa. Her grandpa grandpa. About time she shot one of them Cajuns, messing up the land with those tractors. Yes, that gal’s got spunk in her.”

  I could see that I was wasting my time talking to Beatrice, and I turned to Janey. Janey was standing there looking down at her and biting her lips as if she were about to start crying again.

  “Hold up, Janey,” I told her. “I need somebody around here with me. Now you hold up now.”

  “I’m strong,” she said.

  “You better be strong,” I said. “Now, listen. I want nothing but answers. Nothing but answers. No questions. Answers. Who do you know don’t like Fix?”

  “Ma’am?” she said, drawing back and looking at me as though I were out of my mind. You would have thought I had just asked her who did she know who liked the devil.

  “I told you no questions, Janey, just answers,” I said. “We don’t have time for both of us to ask questions. I ask the questions, you answer them. Now, who do you know don’t like Fix?”

  “I don’t like him,” Bea said. “I’ve never liked him. Why we ever let that kind on this land, I don’t know. The land has not been the same since they brought those tractors here.”

  “Beatrice, please shut up,” I said. “Please. Please, Beatrice.” She raised the glass and sucked on the straw again. “Janey, who do you know don’t like Fix?”

  “I don’t know nobody do like Fix,” she said.

  “Do you think they hate him enough to stand up to Mapes?”

  “Ma’am?” she said.

  “Janey, I warned you,” I said. “Yes, or no. Will they stand, or won’t they stand up to Mapes with empty shotguns?”

  “I don’t know what you talking about, Miss Merle,” she said. She wanted to cry. “Please, Ma’am, I don’t know what you talking about.”

  “I’ll tell you what I’m talking about,” I told her. “I’ll tell you once, and I want answers from then on. You got a crazy thirty-year-old white gal down in the quarters claiming she just killed a white man. Now, I know she didn’t—and Mathu did. But she’s going to protect Mathu. She’s going to protect him even if she has to get every other black person in this state involved. She’s already got two old fools down there, Rufe and Johnny Paul, claiming they did it. But that’s not enough for her. She wants more. Ten, fifteen, twenty, a thousand more. She wants them to get twelve-gauge shotguns, number five shells, fire the guns, keep the empty shells, so that when Mapes points his finger at Mathu, they can all say— Who do you know don’t like Fix? Get them on that phone.”

  Now she started crying, bawling there like a lunatic. “Oh, Lord, have mercy, Jesus. Don’t make me do nothing like that. Please, Miss Merle. Please, Ma’am, Miss Merle, don’t make me do nothing like that.”

  I grabbed her in the collar and slapped her two or three times.

  “Don’t you tell me don’t make you do nothing like that,” I told her. “You think I’m having fun? You tell me who don’t like Fix or I start slapping some more. Now, who don’t like Fix?”

  She threw her head back, her black, round face quivering there like jelly, and the tears just pouring down her cheeks. I knew I was being unmerciful, taking out my frustration on her, but I didn’t care. If I was going to be in it, then they all would be in it. And if I had to slap her around to let her know she was going to be in it, then that was just too bad. “Who don’t like Fix?” I asked her again.

  “Clatoo, that’s for sure,” Bea said. “Bad blood been there for years.”

  I looked down at Bea, but she was already sucking on that straw again.

  I tried to remember what Fix had done to Clatoo. I knew most of the history of that river and of that parish the past fifty years. I tried to remember now what Fix and Clatoo had had it about. Then I remembered. It was not Fix, it was that crazy brother of his, Forest Boutan, who had tried to rape one of Clatoo’s sisters. She had defended herself by chopping him half dozen times with a cane knife. She didn’t kill him, but he was well marked for the rest of his days. And she was sent to the pen for the rest of hers, where after so many years she died insane. That happened just before the Second World War.

  “Clatoo still at Glenn?” I asked Janey.

  She was still trying to get away from me, but I was known to have two of the strongest hands in St. Raphael Parish.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” she said when she couldn’t break loose. “Still there, gardening.”

  “Has he got a phone?”

  “I, I, I—” she said.

  I yanked on the collar of her dress. “Speak up, dammit.”

  “He stay there with Emma,” she said, crying.

  “What name Emma goes under?”

  “Henderson,” she said. “I believe—yes, Ma’am. It’s Henderson.”

  I turned her loose, and she started rubbing the side of her neck.

  “I’m going in there and get that number out the phone book,” I told her. “You and Bea think up some more names. Think up a dozen of them. We might as well all go to jail—

  or all go to the crazy house—one. Where’s that phone book?”

  “On the table by the fireplace,” Janey said.

  “When I get through with Clatoo, you all better have me some more names ready,” I said. “You hear me, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” she said.

  “First, get me another drink,” Bea said, handing Janey the glass.

  “Lord, have mercy,” Janey said. “Don’t I have enough trouble already, Miss Bea?”

  “You take this glass and get in there and get me another drink,” Bea said. “I’ll help you with your names when you come back.”

  Janey took the glass, and I got my drink off the banister, and we went inside together. She went into the back to get Bea another drink, and I went to the phone to call Clatoo.

  Robert Louis Stevenson Banks

  aka

  Chimley

  Me and Mat was down there fishing. We goes fishing every Tuesday and every Thursday. We got just one little spot now. Ain’t like it used to be when you had the whole river to fish on. The white people, they done bought up the river now, and you got nowhere to go but that one little spot. Me and Mat goes there every Tuesday and Thursday. Other people uses it other days, but on Tuesday and Thursday they leaves it for us. We been going to that one little spot like that every Tuesday and Thursday the last ten, ’leven years. That one little spot. Just ain’t got nowhere else to go no more.

  We had been down there—oh, ’bout a hour. Mat had caught eight or nine good-size perches, and me about six—throw in a couple of sackalays there with the bunch. Me and
Mat was just sitting there taking life easy, talking low. Mat was sitting on his croker sack, I was sitting on my bucket. The fishes we had caught, we had them on a string in the water, keeping them fresh. We was just sitting there talking low, talking ’bout the old days.

  Then that oldest boy of Berto, that sissy one they called Fue, come running down the riverbank and said Clatoo said Miss Merle said that young woman at Marshall, Candy, wanted us on the place right away. She wanted us to get twelve-gauge shotguns and number five shells and she wanted us to shoot, but keep the empty shells and get there right away.

  Me and Mat looked at him standing there sweating—a great big old round-face, sissy-looking boy, in blue jeans and a blue gingham shirt, the shirt wet from him running.

  Mat said, “All that for what?”

  The boy looked like he was ready to run some more. Sweat just pouring down the side of his face. He was one of them great big old sissy-looking boys—round, smooth, sissy-looking face.

  He said: “Something to do with Mathu, and something to do with Beau Boutan dead in his yard. That’s all I know, all I want to know. Up to y’all now, I done done my part. Y’all can go and do like she say or y’all can go home, lock y’all doors, and crawl under the bed like y’all used to. Me, I’m leaving.”

  He turned.

  “Where you going?” Mat called to him.

  “You and no Boutan’ll ever know,” he called back.

  “You better run out of Louisiana,” Mat said to himself.

  The boy had already got out of hearing reach—one of them great big old sissy boys, running hard as he could go up the riverbank.

  Me and Mat didn’t look at each other for a while. Pretending we was more interested in the fishing lines. But it wasn’t fishing we was thinking about now. We was thinking about what happened to us after something like this did happen. Not a killing like this. I had never knowed in all my life where a black man had killed a white man in this parish. I had knowed about fights, about threats, but not killings. And now I was thinking about what happened after these fights, these threats, how the white folks rode. This what I was thinking, and I was sure Mat was doing the same. That’s why we didn’t look at each other for a while. We didn’t want to see what the other one was thinking. We didn’t want to see the fear in the other one’s face.

  “He works in mysterious ways, don’t He?” Mat said. It wasn’t loud, more like he was talking to himself, not to me. But I knowed he was talking to me. He didn’t look at me when he said it, but I knowed he was talking to me. I went on looking at my line.

  “That’s what they say,” I said.

  Mat went on looking at his line awhile. I didn’t have to look and see if he was looking at his line. We had been together so much, me and him, I knowed what he was doing without looking at him.

  “You don’t have to answer this ’less you want to, Chimley,” he said. He didn’t say that loud, neither. He had just jerked on the line, ’cause I could hear the line cut through the water.

  “Yeah, Mat?” I said.

  He jerked on the line again. Maybe it was a turtle trying to get at the bait. Maybe he just jerked on the line to do something ’stead of looking at me.

  “Scared?” he asked. His voice was still low. And he still wasn’t looking at me.

  “Yes,” I said.

  He jerked on the line again. Then he pulled in a sackalay ’bout long and wide as my hand. He rebaited the hook and spit on the bait for luck and throwed the line back out in the water. He didn’t look at me all this time. I didn’t look at him, either. Just seen all this out the corner of my eyes.

  “I’m seventy-one, Chimley,” he said after the line had settled again. “Seventy-one and a half. I ain’t got too much strength left to go crawling under that bed like Fue said.”

  “I’m seventy-two,” I said. But I didn’t look at him when I said it.

  We sat there awhile looking out at the lines. The water was so clean and blue, peaceful and calm. I coulda sat there all day long looking out there at my line.

  “Think he did it?” Mat asked.

  I hunched my shoulders. “I don’t know, Mat.”

  “If he did it, you know we ought to be there, Chimley,” Mat said.

  I didn’t answer him, but I knowed what he was talking about. I remembered the fight Mathu and Fix had out there at Marshall store. It started over a Coke bottle. After Fix had drunk his Coke, he wanted Mathu to take the empty bottle back in the store. Mathu told him he wasn’t nobody’s servant. Fix told him he had to take the bottle back in the store or fight.

  A bunch of us was out there, white and black, sitting on the garry eating gingerbread and drinking pop. The sheriff, Guidry, was there, too. Mathu told Guidry if Fix started anything, he was go’n protect himself. Guidry went on eating his gingerbread and drinking pop like he didn’t even hear him.

  When Fix told Mathu to take the bottle back in the store again, and Mathu didn’t, Fix hit him—and the fight was on. Worst fight I ever seen in my life. For a hour it was toe to toe. But when it was over, Mathu was up, and Fix was down. The white folks wanted to lynch Mathu, but Guidry stopped them. Then he walked up to Mathu, cracked him ’side the jaw, and Mathu hit the ground. He turned to Fix, hit him in the mouth, and Fix went down again. Then Guidry came back to the garry to finish his gingerbread and pop. That was the end of that fight. But that wasn’t the last fight Mathu had on that river with them white people. And that’s what Mat was talking about. That’s what he meant when he said if Mathu did it we ought to be there. Mathu was the only one we knowed had ever stood up.

  I looked at Mat sitting on the croker sack. He was holding the fishing pole with both hands, gazing out at the line. We had been together so much I just about knowed what he was thinking. But I asked him anyhow.

  “ ’Bout that bed,” he said. “I’m too old to go crawling under that bed. I just don’t have the strength for it no more. It’s too low, Chimley.”

  “Mine ain’t no higher,” I said.

  He looked at me now. A fine-featured, brown-skin man. I had knowed him all my life. Had been young men together. Had done our little running around together. Had been in a little trouble now and then, but nothing serious. Had never done what we was thinking about doing now. Maybe we had thought about it. Sure, we had thought about it. But we had never done it.

  “What you say, Chimley?” he said.

  I nodded to him.

  We pulled in the lines and went up the bank. Mat had his fishes in the sack; mine was in the bucket.

  “She want us to shoot first,” I said. “I wonder why.”

  “I don’t know,” Mat said. “How’s that old gun of yours working?”

  “Shot good last time,” I said. “That’s been a while, though.”

  “You got any number five shells?” Mat asked.

  “Might have a couple round there,” I said. “I ain’t looked in a long time.”

  “Save me one or two if you got them,” Mat said. “Guess I’ll have to borrow a gun, too. Nothing round my house work but that twenty-gauge and that old rifle.”

  “How you figuring on getting over there?” I asked him.

  “Clatoo, I reckon,” Mat said. “Try to hitch a ride with him on the truck.”

  “Have him pick me up, too,” I said.

  When we came up to my gate, Mat looked at me again. He was quite a bit taller than me, and I had to kinda hold my head back to look at him.

  “You sure now, Chimley?” he said.

  “If you go, Mat.”

  “I have to go, Chimley,” he said. “This can be my last chance.”

  I looked him in the eyes. Lightish-brown eyes. They was saying much more than he had said. They was speaking for both of us, though, me and him.

  “I’m going, too,” I said.

  Mat still looked at me. His eyes was still saying more than he had said. His eyes was saying: We wait till now? Now, when we’re old men, we get to be brave?

  I didn’t know how to answer
him. All I knowed, I had to go if he went.

  Mat started toward his house, and I went on in the yard. Now, I ain’t even stepped in the house good ’fore that old woman started fussing at me. What I’m doing home so early for? She don’t like to be cleaning fishes this time of day. She don’t like to clean fishes till evening when it’s cool. I didn’t answer that old woman. I set my bucket of fishes on the table in the kitchen; then I come back in the front room and got my old shotgun from against the wall. I looked through the shells I kept in a cigar box on top the armoire till I found me a number five. I blowed the dust off, loaded the old gun, stuck it out the window, turnt my head just in case the old gun decided to blow up, and I shot. Here come that old woman starting right back on me again.

  “What’s the matter with you, old man? What you doing shooting out that window, raising all that racket for?”

  “Right now, I don’t know what I’m doing all this for,” I told her. “But, see, if I come back from Marshall and them fishes ain’t done and ready for me to eat, I’m go’n do me some more shooting around this house. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

  She tightened her mouth and rolled her eyes at me, but she had enough sense not to get too cute. I got me two or three more number five shells, blowed the dust off them, and went out to the road to wait for Clatoo.

  Matthew Lincoln Brown

  aka

  Mat

  When I got home I handed my sack of fishes to Ella, and I went in the other room to phone Clatoo. Emma’s daughter Julie said Clatoo had just left the house, and asked me what was the matter. She said Miss Merle had called Clatoo on the phone and Clatoo had got his old shotgun and left in his truck, and she wanted me to tell her what was the matter. I told her if Clatoo didn’t tell her anything, I couldn’t tell her anything either, and I asked her if Clatoo told her where he was going. She said he didn’t tell her nothing, but she heard him over the phone telling Miss Merle something about Mr. Billy Washington and something about Mr. Jacob Aguillard. She told me I might be able to catch him either at Silo or the old Mulatto Place, and she asked me again what was the matter.