A Gathering of Old Men

by Ernest J. Gaines

  “How much more of this you going to take, Sheriff?” Griffin asked.

  “Go on, tell him, Sheriff,” Jacob said to Mapes. “I don’t think that little fellow knows what’s going on yet.”

  Mapes looked at Jacob a second; then he turned to Griffin. “Go check on Russell,” he said. “See if he made it back there. Tell him to stay there. This might take a while.”

  That little spare-butt, slack-pants deputy left the yard, walking all tough like he was ready to take somebody in. He probably couldn’t take Snookum to jail, if Snookum wanted to give him a fight.

  After he was on the radio a few minutes, he came on back in the yard and told Mapes that Russell had made it back there and Russell said everything was all right for now. Mapes told him to go back, get on the radio, and tell Hilly to patrol the highway along Marshall and don’t let anything suspicious come down here. That little deputy took in a deep breath and went back to the road talking to himself.

  I had been watching that little deputy so much I didn’t hear Gable when he first started speaking. He spoke so softly you had to be right on him to hear him. It was Glo I heard first. I heard her saying: “Careful, Gable. You know your heart. Careful, now.”

  Gable was standing on the other side of the steps, near Glo. He didn’t stay at Marshall; he stayed at Morgan. Near Big Man Bayou, in a little shotgun house, behind the willows there at Morgan. He had been staying there by himself some fifteen, twenty years. He went to church twice a month—Determination Sunday and Sacrament Sunday. You hardly seen him any other time. Just staying there behind them trees there at Morgan. Had his little garden, a few chickens—staying behind them trees. Last person in the world any of us woulda expected to see today was Gable.

  “He wasn’t but sixteen years old, half out his mind, still they put him in the ’lectric chair on the word of a poor white trash. They knowed what kind of gal she was. Knowed she had messed around with every man, black or white, on that river. But they put him in that chair ’cause she said he raped her. Even if he did, he was still no more than sixteen years old, and they knowed he was half out his mind.”

  “Be careful, Gable,” Glo told him. She reached out her hand to touch his arm, but he was too far away from her.

  “Called us and told us we could have him at ’leven, ’cause they was go’n kill him at ten. Told us we could have a undertaker waiting at the back door if we wanted him soon as it was over with. Is that something to say to a mother? Something to say to a father? ‘Come get him at ’leven, ’cause we go’n kill him at ten’—that’s something to say to—”

  His voice choked, and he stopped. I wouldn’t look at him. I was thinking back. It was ’31 or ’32—I believe ’32. Huey Long was in Washington at that time.

  I heard Glo again: “Be careful, Gable. Be careful, now.”

  “Saying how they hit that switch and hit that switch, but it didn’t work. And how when they unstrapped him and took him back to his cell, how he thought he was already dead and in Heaven. Monk Jack was a colored trustee, and Monk Jack said the boy said: ‘This here Heaven I’m in? Hanh? This Heaven? Y’all, this Heaven?’ Said the boy said: ‘Hi, Mr. So-and-So. Hi, Mr. So-and-So. Y’all made Heaven, too?’ Said he said: ‘Thank the Lord it’s over with. And it didn’t do no more than tickle me some. Didn’t hurt at all.’ Monk Jack said they told him: ‘No, nigger, you ain’t dead yet. But give us time.’

  “Monk Jack told us how they throwed the boy back in the cell, and how they started hitting and kicking and cussing that ’lectric chair to make it work. Two of them doing this while another one come outside and told me and the undertaker we could go back of town if we wanted to, ’cause it was go’n take a while yet. Saying that to me, his paw, while two more was in there hitting and kicking and cussing that thing to make it work.”

  “Gable, your heart,” Glo said, trying to reach him. But he was still too far away from her.

  “Monk said you could hear one, then the other one, cussing that chair all over the courthouse. Not one of them round there knowed what to do, and they had to send get somebody from Baton Rouge to come fix it. Then they brought the boy out, strapped him in, and pulled the switch. Monk said after it was all over with, them white folks walked out of that room like they was leaving a card game. They wasn’t even talking about it. It wasn’t worth talking about.

  “And what did I do about them killing my boy like that? What could a poor old nigger do but go up to the white folks and fall down on his knees? But, no, no pity coming there. Some went so far to say my boy shoulda been glad he died in the ’lectric chair ’stead at the end of a rope. They said at least he was treated like a white man. And it was best we just forgot all about it and him.

  “But I never forgot, I never forgot. It’s been over forty years now, but every day of my life, every night of my life, I go through that rainy day again.

  “And that’s why I kilt Beau, Mr. Sheriff,” Gable said to Mapes. “He was just like that trashy white gal. He was just like them who throwed my boy in that ’lectric chair and pulled that switch. No, he wasn’t born yet, but the same blood run in all their vein.”

  It was quiet after Gable got through talking. Even the children on the steps didn’t move. You couldn’t hear a bird, any kind of sound on the whole place. Mapes even kept the candy in his mouth still. The only thing that moved was the shadow from the house. It covered the yard now.

  The deputy came back in the yard and told Mapes that Hilly was go’n keep a close lookout at the front. Mapes didn’t look at him; he started moving the candy around in his mouth again. He was waiting for somebody else to say something.

  “Can I speak?” Jameson asked Mapes.

  Jameson was standing all by himself over by the far end of the garry. He wanted Mapes to know he wanted no part of us. Still Mapes looked at him like he hated him, too. Them ashes-color gray eyes looked hard as steel.

  “I didn’t know I was still in control here,” he said.

  “Ain’t you the sheriff?” Jameson said.

  “What’s that got to do with it?” Mapes asked him.

  “Get a gun if you want to talk, Jameson,” Clatoo said, from where he was sitting on the garry.

  “No, Mr. Clatoo,” Jameson said. “I won’t get a gun.”

  “Then you better shut up,” Clatoo said. “People with guns speak first here today.”

  “So she made you the leader?” Mapes asked Clatoo.

  Clatoo didn’t even look at him. And there ain’t nothing a white man hate more than for a nigger not to look at him when he speak to him.

  Clatoo looked at Coot. “Coot, look like you was getting ready to say something?”

  Coot was there in his old First World War Army uniform. The uniform was all wrinkled and full of holes, but Coot wore it like it was something brand new. He even had on the cap, and the medal. Any other time the people woulda been laughing at Coot dressed up like that.

  “I shot him,” Coot said.

  “So did my grandmon,” Mapes said.

  “I was the only man from this parish ever fit with the 369th,” Coot said. He didn’t even look at Mapes. He was over by the garden fence, looking down the quarters toward the fields. “The 369th was a all-colored outfit. You couldn’t fight side by side with these here white folks then. You had to get your training in France, take orders from French officers. They trained us good, and we helt our ground. Boy Houser, Minnycourt, Champagne—we helt our ground. We got decorated, kissed on the jaw—all that. And I was proud as I could be, till I got back home. The first white man I met, the very first one, one of them no-English-speaking things off that river, told me I better not ever wear that uniform or that medal again no matter how long I lived. He told me I was back home now, and they didn’t cotton to no nigger wearing medals for killing white folks. That was back in World War One. And they ain’t change yet—not a bit. Look what happened to Curt’s boy when he come home from World War Two. Because they seen him with that German girl’s picture, they caught hi
m—and all y’all remember what they did to him with that knife. Korea—the same thing. That colored boy had throwed his body on that grenade to protect his platoon. Still the politicians here wouldn’t let them bury him in Arlington like the rest of them was buried there. Vietnam, the same thing. It ain’t changed. Not at all.”

  When Coot was talking to you, he had this habit of rocking back and forth. Sitting or standing, he rocked back and forth, back and forth. Sometimes he would stop talking awhile, but he would never stop his rocking.

  “I used to put on my old uniform and look at myself in the chifforobe glass. I knowed I couldn’t wear it outside, but I could wear it round the house. Today I told myself I was go’n put it on and I was go’n sit out on my garry with my old shotgun, and I was go’n shoot the first person who laughed at me or told me I had to take it off. I sat there and sat there; nobody passed the house. After a while I told myself I felt like having me a rabbit for supper tonight, and I started out for the swamps. But after I hit that Poland Road, looked like something just started pulling me this way. Didn’t know what it was, but I couldn’t make my old feets go no other way but toward Marshall.”

  Coot was looking at Mapes now, but Mapes would not look back at him. Mapes was looking across Mathu’s garden, up the quarters. Maybe Coot had been telling the truth a second ago when he said he had put on his old uniform and went out on the garry, but Mapes knowed he was lying about the rest of it.

  Coot went on: “I was sitting here on the garry when he jumped that ditch with that gun. I told him—I said, ‘Hold it there, boy. Hold it there, now.’ But did he listen? It wasn’t nothing but a old nigger talking. Just another old nigger. Like them Germans thought. Them niggers won’t dare shoot us—we white. The 369th left lot of them laying in them trenches with stupid grins on they faces.”

  Coot went on rocking another minute after he finished talking. He was proud of his little speech. He looked at us to see how we felt. I nodded to him. Couple other people nodded to him. He was proud the people had listened to him.

  “Look down here, Jesus,” Jameson said, looking at us. “Look down here, please.”

  “He’s probably on their side,” Mapes said.

  “Don’t talk like that,” Jameson said to Mapes. “Don’t blaspheme Him at a time like this. Look like you ought to be doing your duty.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Mapes asked Jameson. “Want me to take Mathu in? You think I want this whole bunch of Medicare patients in Bayonne? With that crowd out there already getting drunk for that big game tomorrow?”

  “What you go’n do, just stay here and wait for Fix and his crowd?” Jameson asked Mapes.

  “Maybe I’ll have some luck,” Mapes said.

  “The only luck you might have is they don’t kill everybody,” Jameson said.

  “Old bootlicker, shut up,” Beulah said to Jameson.

  Jameson was a good ten, fifteen feet away from Beulah. Now he started toward her. But he wasn’t halfway before Beulah had jumped up from the steps and was waiting for him. She had balled her fists, and now she was winding them over and over, waiting for him. Jameson stopped quicker than he had started.

  “Come on, come on, you bootlicker,” Beulah said. She was winding her fists over and over. “I’ll whip you crazier than you already is, or I’ll put some sense in your head—one. Come on. You think Mapes knocked you down—you just come on here. Old possum-looking fool.”

  “Take it easy, Reverend,” Mapes said.

  “Can I shoot him, Dirty Red?” Rooster asked. “Or should I just let my wife beat him?”

  “Neither one of y’all do him anything,” Dirty Red said. “Let Snookum beat him if he open his mouth again. You’ll take care that little business for us, Snookum?”

  Snookum glanced at his grandmother to see how she felt, but from the way Glo looked back at him, he knowed he had better keep quiet.

  Mapes went to Jameson and put his arm round his shoulders.

  “Why don’t you go home, Reverend?” he said.

  “This is my place,” Jameson said, still looking at Beulah. He said it so quiet you couldn’t hardly hear him. He looked up at Mapes. “This is my place, Sheriff.”

  “Suit yourself,” Mapes said, and dropped his arm from Jameson’s shoulder.

  “Anybody else got any more to say?” Clatoo asked.

  Nobody answered. Mapes waited a second; then he started looking around.

  “You mean y’all ran out of stories?” he asked. “And I thought you were just getting warmed up.”

  “Nobody ain’t run out of nothing,” Beulah said. She went on looking at Jameson a while before she turned to Mapes. “You want me to start?” she asked Mapes. “You want any woman here to start? I can tell you things done happened to women round here make the hair stand on your head. You want me to start? All you got to say is yes. All you got to do is nod.”

  “No,” Mapes said. “I don’t care to listen to any more of these tall tales.” He looked around at all of us. “So this is payday, huh? And it’s all on Fix, huh? Whether he had anything to do with it or not, Fix must pay for everything ever happened to you, huh?”

  “He did his share of dirt,” Beulah said.

  “Fix didn’t rise up in the Senate to keep that boy out of Arlington,” Mapes said. “He never pulled the switch on that electric chair.” He turned to Bing and Ding, the two mulattoes standing close together. “And you, Ding,” he said. “That woman who poisoned your sister’s child was Sicilian, not Cajun. She had nothing to do with Fix.”

  “She lived on that river,” Ding said. “And he lived on that river. What’s the difference?”

  “That river, that river,” Corrine said.

  Everybody looked around. Nobody expected to hear anything from her. She hadn’t said one word since she’d been there, just sitting in that rocker, gazing out in the yard. She hadn’t moved but just one time since she had been there—to bring that spread to cover up Beau. Most of us had forgot she was even there.

  “That river,” she said again. “Where the people went all these years. Where they fished, where they washed they clothes, where they was baptized. St. Charles River. Done gived us food, done cleaned us clothes, done cleaned us soul. St. Charles River—no more, though. No more. They took it. Can’t go there no more.”

  She stopped. Never raised her head. Still gazing out there in the yard.

  “I can’t do what I used to do on that river myself,” Mapes told her. But she wasn’t listening. Maybe she didn’t even know Mapes was there. “I can’t fish on that river like I used to,” Mapes said. “I can’t hunt on that river like I used to. You blaming Fix for that, too? Then you blaming the wrong person. He’s as much victim of these times as you are. That’s why he’s back on that bayou now, because they took that river from him, too.”

  Corrine went on gazing out in the yard. I don’t think she even heard Mapes.

  But Beulah heard him. “He was on that river at one time,” she said. “And he sure did his share of dirt while he was there. Like drowning them two little children up the road.”

  “You’re talking about thirty-five, forty, fifty years ago, Beulah,” Mapes said. “And you got no proof Fix was mixed up in that.”

  “Now, ain’t that just like white folks?” Beulah said to us, but still looking at Mapes. “Black people get lynched, get drowned, get shot, guts all hanging out—and here he come up with ain’t no proof who did it. The proof was them two little children laying there in them two coffins. That’s proof enough they was dead. Least to black folks it’s proof enough they was dead. And let’s don’t be getting off into that thirty-five, forty, fifty years ago stuff, either. Things ain’t changed that much round here. In them demonstrations, somebody was always coming up missing. So let’s don’t be putting it all on no thirty-five, forty, fifty years ago like everything is so nicey-nicey now. No, his seeds is still around. Even if he is old now, the rest of them had their hands in some of that dirt.”

  “Then you
know more than I do,” Mapes said.

  “When it come to the kind of dirt been slung in this black woman’s face—yes, sir, Sheriff, I reckon I do know more than you do.”

  “And you’ll do anything to make me take you to jail, is that it?”

  “If you take Mathu, you taking me,” Beulah said.

  “I’m taking Mathu, sooner or later,” Mapes said. “And I’ll make room for you.”

  “I’ll be ready,” Beulah said. “Just let me go home and put on my clean dress.”

  “I’ll find a dress you can wear,” Mapes said. “And I’ll find a bucket and a mop, too.”

  “I ain’t no stranger to buckets and mops,” Beulah said. “Hoes, shovels, axes, cane knives, scythe blades, pickets, plows—and I can handle a gun, too, if I have to. I been in the pen before.”

  “You keep it up,” Mapes said, “and you’ll damned sure be going back.” He turned to Glo sitting on the steps. “And you, Glo?” he said. “And them children?”

  “I’m ready to go,” Glo said. “I’ll find somebody to look after them children.”

  “I don’t know about Toddy, but I’m ready to go,” Snookum said. He cracked his knuckles. “Wish I was just a little older so I coulda shot him.”

  “I thought you did,” Mapes said. “Or was it you who went up to the front and called everybody?”

  “I ain’t got no more to say,” Snookum said. “You can beat me with a hose pipe if you want.”

  He lowered his head. Mapes looked down at him awhile; then he nodded and turned to Candy. Candy was standing next to Mathu, who had sat down on the end of the step.

  “That’s how you organized it, all or none, huh?”

  “I shot him,” Candy said.

  “You letting them all call you a liar right in front your face?”

  “They’re doing it to protect me,” she said.

  “Sure,” Mapes said. “But before this day is over, don’t be surprised, now, if you find your name on the same, list with Fix’s.”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Candy asked him.

  “I can’t think of anything I’d like better,” Mapes said. He turned to his deputy. “Go check with Russell.”