Three Days Before the Shooting . . .

by Ralph Ellison

  “Wheew!” she said, “That was some thicket, Revern’ Bliss, and you went through it like a natural man. You all right now?”

  “Yes, mam,” he said. “But I want to go back to Daddy Hickman.”

  “Oh, he’ll be coming to get you soon, Revern’ Bliss. He knows where you’ll be. You’re not afraid of me are you?”

  “No, mam, but I have to go back and help him.”

  “I guess we can rest now,” she said, bending, and he felt the sand give beneath his feet. She was breathing hard. Her white dress made it easier to see in the dark, just as his white suit did. She was younger than Sister Wilhite and the others. And he thought, We are like ghosts on this road.

  “Of course you want to help, Revern’,” she said, “and as much as I’d like to have a little boy as smart as you, I know you’re a minister and not meant to be mine or anybody else’s. So don’t worry, Revern’ Bliss, because as soon as Revern’ gets through he’ll be coming after you. That woman needs a good beating for doing this to you….”

  She was breathing easier now and looking up and down the dark road.

  “She called me a funny name,” he said.

  “I could hear her yelling something when she broke in. What’d she call you?”

  “Cud worth …”

  “Cudworth—Revern’ Bliss, are you sure?”

  “I think so,” he said.

  “Well, I wouldn’t be surprised. Doing what she done it’s a wonder she didn’t call you Lazarus … or Peter Wheatstraw … Even Shorty George,” and she laughed. “The old heifer. They always slapping us with some name that don’t have nothing to do with us. The freckle-faced cow! You think you can walk now, Revern’ Bliss? My house is just up the road behind those trees up yonder. See, up there.”

  “Yes, mam, I can walk,” he said. But he couldn’t see her house, only a dark line of bushes and trees. This is a deep black night, he thought. She’s got eyes like a cat.

  “Walk over here on the side,” she said, “It’s firmer.”

  “She made the members afraid,” he heard himself saying.

  “Afraid? Now where’d you get that idea, Revern’ Bliss? As outraged as those sisters was and you talking about them being afraid? Were you afraid?”

  “Yes, mam,” he said, “but the sisters were hurting me. They were afraid too. I could smell them …”

  “Smell them? Well, did I ever!” She stopped, her hands on her hips, looking down into his face. “Revern’ Bliss, what are you talking about? You must be tired and near-half asleep, talking about smelling folks. Give me your hand so I can get you to bed.”

  She was annoyed now and he could feel the tug on his shoulder as she pulled him rapidly along. She doesn’t want me to know it, he thought, but they were afraid.

  “Revern’ Bliss, you are something,” she said.

  They went along a path through the trees, then they were climbing and suddenly there was the house on a hill in the dark. He could smell orange blossoms as she led him up to it, then they were going across the porch up to a doorway.

  “Stand right here a minute while I light the lamp,” she said. Then the room was lighted and she said, “Welcome to my house, Revern’ Bliss,” and he went in. She was fanning herself with a handkerchief and sighing. “Lord, what a hot evening and it had been going so good too—Revern’ Bliss, would you like a piece of cold watermelon before you go to bed?”

  “Yes, mam, thank you, mam,” he said. And he was glad that she wasn’t angry anymore.

  “You don’t think it’ll make you have to get up in the night, do you?”

  “Oh no, mam. Daddy Hickman lets me have watermelon at night all the time.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, mam. He gives me melon and ice cream too. You wouldn’t have any ice cream, would you, mam?”

  “No I don’t, Revern’ Bliss, bless your heart. But if you come back on Sunday I’ll make you a whole freezer full and bake you a cake, all for yourself. Would you like that, Revern’ Bliss?”

  “Yes, mam, I sure would,” he said. And she bent down and hugged him then and the woman smell came to him sharp and intriguing. Then her face left and she was smiling in the lamplight and beyond her head two tinted pictures of old folks frozen in attitudes of dreamy and remote dignity looked down from where they hung high on the wall in oval frames, seeming to float behind curved glass. They had the feel of the statues of the saints he’d seen in that white church in New Orleans. It was strange. And he could see the reflection of his shadowed face showing above her bending shoulders and against the side of her darkened head. He felt her about to lift him then and suddenly he hugged her. And in the warm surge that flowed over him, he kissed her cheek, then pulled quickly away.

  “Why, Revern’ Bliss, that was right sweet of you. I don’t remember ever being kissed by a minister before.” She smiled down at him. “Let’s us go get that melon,” she said.

  He felt the warmth of her hand as she led him out through a dark kitchen that sprang into shadow-shrouded light before them, placing the lamp on the blue oilcloth that covered the table, saying, “Come on, Revern’ Bliss.” And they went out into the dark, into the warm blast of the orange-blossom night and across the porch into the dark of the moon. Fireflies flickered before them as they moved across the yard.

  “It’s down in the well, Revern’ Bliss; it’s been down there cooling since yesterday.”

  She went up and leaned against the post that held the crosspiece, looking down into the wide dark mouth of the well, and he followed to stand beside her, looking at the rope curving up through the big iron pulley that hung above. And she said, “Look down there, Revern’ Bliss; look down at the water before I touch the rope and disturb it. You see those stars down there? You see them floating down there in the water?”

  And he boosted himself up the side, balancing on his elbows, as he looked down into the cool darkness. It was a wide well and there were the high stars, mirrored below in the watery sky, and he felt himself carried down and yet up. He seemed to fall down into the sky and to hang there, as though his darkened image floated among the stars. It was frightening and yet peaceful and close beside him he could hear her breathing.

  Then suddenly he heard himself saying, “I am the bright and morning star,” and peered below, hearing her give a low laugh and her voice above him saying serenely, “You are too, at that,” and she was touching his head.

  Then her hand left and she touched the rope and he could see the sky toss below, shuddering and breaking and splashing liquidly with a dark silver tossing. And he wanted to please her.

  “Look at them now,” he said. “See there, the morning stars are singing together.”

  And she said, “Why, I know where that’s from, it’s from the Book of Job, my daddy’s favorite book of the Bible. Do you preach Job too, Revern’ Bliss?”

  “Yes, mam. I preaches Job and Jeremiah too. Just listen to this: The word of the Lord came up to me, saying, ‘Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations…’ ”

  “Amen, Revern’ Bliss,” she said.

  “… Ah, Lord, God!” he said, making his voice strong and full, “‘How can I speak, when I am just a child,’ ”and it seemed to echo in the well, surprising him.

  “Now ain’t that wonderful?” she said. “Revern’ Bliss, do you understand all of that you just said?”

  “Not all of it, mam. Even grown preachers don’t understand all of it, and Daddy Hickman says we can only see as through a glass darkly.”

  “Ah yes,” she sighed. “There’s a heap of mystery about us people.”

  She was pulling the rope now and he could hear the low song of the pulley and the water dripping a little uneven musical scale a ping pong pitty-pat ping ping pong—pat back into the well, and he said,

  “Sure, I preaches Job,” and started to quote more of the scripture but he couldn’t remember how it st
arted. It’s the thirty-eighth chapter, seventh verse, he thought, that’s where it tells about the stars singing together….

  “Revern’ Bliss, this melon’s heavy,” she said. “Help me draw it up.” “Yes, mam,” he said, taking hold of the rope. And as he helped her he remembered some of it and said, “Gird up your loins like a man for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me….”He heard the pulley singing a different tune now and as the melon came up the water from the rope was running cool over his hands and his throat remembered some more of the lines and they came out hand over fist as the melon came up from the well:

  “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?

  Declare, if thou hast understanding.

  Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knoweth?

  Or who hath stretched the line upon it?

  Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened?

  Or who laid the cornerstone thereof?

  When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons

  Of God rejoiced?

  Or who shut up the sea with doors when it brake forth,

  As if it had issued out of the womb …?”

  Then she said, “There!” and he saw the melon come gleaming from the well and she reached out and pulled it over to the side, setting the bucket on the rim. He could hear it dripping a quiet wet little tune far below as she removed it from the bucket.

  “It’s a mystery to me how you manage to remember so much, Revern’ Bliss—Lord, but this sure is a heavy one we got us tonight! Come on over here where we can sit down.”

  So he followed her over the bare ground and sat on the floor of the porch beside the wet, cold melon, his feet dangling while she went into the kitchen. Behind him he could hear the opening of a drawer and the rattling of knives and forks, then she was back holding a butcher knife, the screen slamming sharply behind her.

  She said, “Would you like to cut the melon, Revern’ Bliss?”

  “Yes, mam, thank you, mam.”

  “I thought you would,” she said. “The men always want to do the cutting. So here it is, let’s see how you do it.”

  “Shall I plug it, mam?” he said, taking the knife.

  “Plug it? Plug this melon that I know is ripe? Listen to that,” she said, thumping it with her fingers.

  “Daddy Hickman always plugs his melons,” he said.

  “All right, Revern’ Bliss, if that’s the way it has to be, go ahead. I guess Revern’ has plugged him quite a few.”

  And he took the knife and felt the point go in hard and deep to the width of the blade; then again, and again, and again, making a square in the rind. He felt the blade go deep and deep and then deep and deep again. Then he removed the blade, just like Daddy Hickman did and stuck the point in the middle of the square and lifted out the wedge-shaped plug, offering it to her.

  “Thank you, Revern’ Bliss,” she said with a smile in her voice, and he could hear the sound of the juice as she tasted it.

  “See there, I knew it was ripe,” she said. “You try it.”

  It was cold and very sweet and the taste of it made him hurry. He cut two lengthwise pieces then, saying, “There you are, mam,” and watched her lift them out, giving him one and taking the other.

  And they sat there in the dark with the orange blossoms heavy around them, eating the cold melon. He tried spitting the seeds at the fireflies, hearing them striking the hard earth around the porch and the fireflies still blinking. Then Sister Georgia stopped eating.

  “Revern’ Bliss,” she said, “I don’t think we want to raise us any crop of melons this close to the porch, do you? ‘Cause after all, they’d just be under our feet and getting squashed all the time and everything.”

  “No’m, I don’t guess we do and I’m sorry, mam.”

  “Oh, that’s all right, Revern’ Bliss. You care for some salt?”

  “No’m, I like it just like it is.”

  “You really like it?”

  “Oh yes, mam! It’s ‘bout the sweetest, juiciest melon I ever et.”

  “Thank you, Revern’ Bliss. I told you it was a ripe one and I’m glad you like it.”

  “You sure told the truth, mam.”

  So they sat eating the melon and he watched the fireflies but held the slippery seeds in his fist. Then suddenly from far away he could hear boys’ voices floating to them. “Abernathy!” they called. “Hey, you, Abernathy!” and waited. There was no answer. Then it came again. “Where you at, ole big-headed, box-ankled Abernathy?” And she laughed, saying, “That Aber-nathy’ll be looking to fight them tomorrow, ‘cause he’s got a real big head and don’t like to be teased about it.”

  “Who’s Abernathy?” he said.

  “Oh, he’s a little ole mannish boy that lives down the road over yonder. You’ll see him tomorrow,” she said. “You’ll hear him too, ‘cause his head is big and he’s got a big deep voice just like a grown man.”

  He could hear the boys still calling as she talked on—until a grown woman’s voice came clear as a note through a horn, “Abernathy’s in bed, just where y’all ought to be. So clear on ‘way from here.”

  “And who is you?” a voice then called.

  “Who you think you is?” the woman’s voice said.

  “Don’t know and don’t care!”

  “Well, I’m his mother, and you heard what I just said.”

  “Well ‘scuse us, I thought you was his cousin,” the voice yelled, mocking her, and he could hear some of them laughing and running off into the night, calling “Hey, Abernathy—How’s your ma, Abernathy? Hey you, Abernathy’s ma, how’s old big-headed Abernathy?”

  “That part about being in bed goes for you too, Revern’ Bliss,” she said, “considering all you been through with that terrible woman and all. You sleepy?”

  “Yes, mam,” he said. He’d had enough of the melon and his stomach was tight. “Where must I put this melon rind, mam?” he said.

  “I’ll take care of it,” she said. “Don’t you think you better pee-pee before you go to bed? The privy’s right out there at the back of the lot.”

  “But I don’t have to now,” he said, thinking, She must think I’m a baby…. Body says the first thing a man has to learn is to hold his water.

  “Well, you will by the time you get your clothes off, so you go on and do it now.”

  “No,” he said, “because I don’t have it.”

  “Then you do it for me, Revern’ Bliss,” she said. “Because while you might know all about the Bible, I know all about little boys from having to take care of a couple on my job and even they ain’t the first. So now don’t be ashame and go make pee-pee. After all, I only have but one sofa and us don’t want to ruin it, do us now?”

  “No’m,” he said.

  So he walked back through the dark and came to grass and growing things and stopped, looking around. But then she called through the dark,

  “You can do it right there if you scaird to go clear to the back, Revern’ Bliss; just don’t do it on my lettus.”

  He didn’t answer, hearing her low laughter as he walked back until he could smell the hot dryness of lime and sun-shrunken wood. He paused before it but didn’t go in, standing looking down the hill where he could see a street light glowing near a house with a picket fence and a flowering tree. The blossoms were white and thick and motionless in the breathless dark and he stood looking at it and making a dull thudding upon the hard earth, his mind aware of the hush around him. Then he looked back toward the house and there was Sister Georgia, a black shadow in the door with the light behind her.

  “I told you so,” she said, her voice low but carrying to him sharp and clear. “I can hear you way up here. Sounded like a full-grown man.”

  And he could hear her laughing mysteriously, like the big girls when they teased him. He didn’t answer, there were no words to say when a lady teased you like that. He could feel the pulsing of his blood between his fingers and the orange blossoms came to him mixed wit
h the sharp smell of the lime. He turned and looked past the yard with the fence and the tree, to a row of houses where a single light showed. Then the confusion in the tent seemed to break through the surface of his mind, bringing a surge of fear and loneliness….

  “Come on in, Revern’ Bliss,” she called. “You can sleep on the sofa without my having to worry now. We’ll leave the door open so the breeze can cool you.”

  So he went back across the yard into the house and sat up on the sofa, looking around the room as she stood near the doorway, smiling. There was an old upright piano across the room and he went to it and struck a yellowed key, hearing the dull shimmer of its tone echoing sadly out of tune.

  “Don’t tell me you play on the piano too, Revern’ Bliss,” she said.

  “No, mam, but Daddy Hickman does.”

  “Oh, him,” she said, “Revern’ can do just about anything, and I suspect he has, too.”

  “He sure can do a heap of things,” he said, yawning.

  “Oh, Oh! Somebody’s sleepy; I better make down the bed.”

  He watched her go into a dark room and light a lamp, then he took off his shoes and socks, then his soiled white dress trousers. Then she came back with a sheet and pillow in her arms and he stood up, watching her spread the sofa and fluffing up the pillow and putting it in place. She left then and he could hear her humming softly and the sound of a bed cover being shaken as he removed his tie and shirt. In his undersuit now, he sat looking up at the people in the frames on the wall and at a paper fan with the picture of a colored angel pinned below them to the wallpaper. Wonder are they her mother and father, he thought. Daddy Hickman has some little pictures of his mother and father in his trunk…. He had a brother too.

  She came through the door with a glass of milk in her hand and gave it to him.

  “You tired, Revern’ Bliss?” she said.

  “Not very much, mam,” he said.

  “You lonesome?”

  “No, mam.”