Of Love and Dust

by Ernest J. Gaines

  24

  So now he was looking at Bonbon’s wife. I didn’t know it then—I mean I didn’t know he was doing it with the notion of taking it any farther. I thought he was looking at her just like all of us looked at her when we went by the house. We knew she wanted to give it to us—any of us who was crazy enough to come in there and get it—but we all knew the trouble that could follow.

  Marcus went back to the yard with me Monday evening, and when we came back down the quarter, Sidney Bonbon’s dog barked at us.

  “They got a dog, too, huh?” he said.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  I didn’t give it another thought after that. Anybody else who didn’t know about the dog would have asked that same question. But Marcus was already wondering how he was going to get by that dog into that house.

  But the funny thing about all this, Marcus didn’t know Louise had been looking at him for a week already. If he had, I doubt if he would have wanted Louise. Because, you see, he wanted her only for revenge. He wanted to get to her, not her getting to him. He wanted to clown for her, he probably would have stood on his head for her, probably would have walked on his hands for her—until he got into those drawers. Then that would have been the end. If they lynched him after, it wouldn’t have meant a thing. Because, you see, they couldn’t take away what he had got. No, he probably would have laughed at his lynchers.

  Marcus thought about all this Saturday evening while he was unloading those two trailers of corn; because before that time Marcus hadn’t given Louise a moment’s thought—not one. It was just Pauline. But up there unloading those trailers, things started changing. He saw Pauline again. She came out of the house and went across the yard, and she didn’t even glance at him. Yet, she stopped to talk to Bonbon, who met her between the house and the big gate. Marcus, pitching corn into the crib, could see them talking. The longer he watched them, the madder he got. Then she went out of the yard. He could see her slip through the thin dress. He could see how that slip clung to her slender body. He thought how he would be a completely different person with a lovely body like that to come home to. Then he realized that that body was for a white man, and he got mad again. He wanted to hurt her. He wanted to really hurt her. But how? Beat her up? Kill one of her children? Yes, yes, that would hurt her. But what would that do to Bonbon? Probably nothing. What did Bonbon care about two little mulatto children?

  Marcus pitched corn and thought. The hot corn dust had his eyes and body on fire.

  How could he hurt Bonbon? How? How? Wait; wait. Yes—sure. Bonbon had a wife, too, remember. Yes, that’s right, he had a wife. And some kind of way he would get to his wife. So let them lynch him—let them. What did he care.

  “No,” he thought; “they ain’t lynching me. I’m go’n run away from this goddamn place. That’s what I’m go’n do—but when? If I try now they’ll throw me in Angola for the rest of my life. It won’t be for no five years, it’ll be for the rest of my natural life. No, I can’t run now. I have to wait until that trial over. Then I’ll pick my chance …

  “But suppose they put that trial off for six months? Them white people can do what they want with a nigger. Suppose they put it off for six months? Then what? What then? No. No. Him there laying with her and me laying in that house knowing it—no; hell no. I’d rather die. I’d rather die.”

  Marcus had unloaded one trailer of corn and was on the second load when Marshall Hebert came from the store and looked up at him. This was the first time he had seen the big white man, but he knew who he was from hearing people talk. Marshall stood there looking up at him a few minutes; then he walked away. Marcus saw him pull a piece of moss from one of the trees, and after rolling it up into a ball, drop it on the ground. He walked across the yard toward the big gate and looked out in the road. But the road didn’t interest him, and he turned to look at Marcus. He must have stood by the gate a half hour watching Marcus work.

  After Marshall had gone, Marcus started thinking about Bonbon’s wife. The thought of taking out his revenge on Louise gave him extra strength to go on. Finally, a little after ten o’clock, he finished up and came down the quarter. And after taking a bath and coming outside, who should he see in the road but Pauline, walking by herself. He said if she had acted toward him the way a woman ought to act toward a man, everything about Bonbon’s wife would have been forgotten. But, no, when she saw him she acted like she had seen the devil himself. He said that’s why he hit her. He wanted to show her he was a man, not dirt. He said he was so mad with her he wanted to kill her, and, yet, at the same time, if she had given him a little smile, he would have been ready to kill Bonbon for her.

  25

  But now he was looking at Bonbon’s wife. He had been looking at her two days before I caught on to what was happening. Monday morning in the field, the two punks made him sweat just like they had made him sweat the week before. When Bonbon came out there in the evening he made him sweat again. But it looked like he didn’t mind. I didn’t know what had made the change. I didn’t know if Bonbon had got the best of him already, or if Murphy Bacheron had done it with that one punch last Saturday night. Tuesday it was the same: the punks in the morning, Bonbon in the evening. Then Wednesday night when we were coming back down the quarter we saw Louise standing near the gate.

  Louise was about twenty-five, but she was the size of the average twelve- or thirteen-year-old girl. Most of the time she wore the clothes of a thirteen-year-old girl—she wore skirts and blouses instead of dresses. She wore sandals instead of shoes. She never wore socks or stockings unless it was winter. Her hair was yellow (the same color with that hay in August) and her face was more cream-color than it was white. Her sad gray eyes were the only thing about her that made you feel Louise wasn’t a child. They had seen too much sorrow, they had seen it much too long.

  I had seen Louise up close only once, when Bonbon sent me from the field to get the gun. Aunt Margaret, the old lady in the quarter who worked for them, wasn’t up there that day, so Louise had to bring the gun to the gate. Louise didn’t say anything to me, her eyes didn’t invite me in; she just stood there with the gun hanging in her hand like she was waiting for me to make the first move. If I wanted to touch her face or her hair, if I wanted to kiss her or push her down, then go right on and do it. She wasn’t telling me to do it, but she wasn’t telling me not to do it, either. It was left up to me. Burl Colar told me she made him feel the same way once when Bonbon sent him there. But me and Burl both did the same thing; we got away from there quickly as we could. At the same time we were careful to keep people from thinking we were running.

  Louise wore a white dress that night when Marcus and I saw her, and under those black, moss-covered trees, she looked like a ghost standing there. At first I thought she was by herself, but as we came closer I saw she was holding Tite by the hand. Tite was her little three-year-old daughter.

  “Madame Bonbon,” Marcus said, and bowed to her.

  She didn’t answer. She was looking at him all the time, but she acted like she didn’t even hear him. When we got little farther down the quarter, I grabbed him by the arm and jerked him around.

  “What you meant back there?” I asked him.

  “All I did was speak to her,” he said.

  “You saw me speaking?”

  “I saw you trembling,” he said, grinning.

  I got mad with him then. I remembered all the other things he had pulled. I remembered that old woman telling me to look after him, to talk to him. I remembered only three days ago she wanted to go to Marshall Hebert again to beg Marshall to keep Bonbon from hurting him or killing him out there in the field. Right now I wanted to hit him so bad my hand started shaking.

  “I’m getting sick of you, Marcus, you hear me?”

  “All right,” he said.

  “What you mean by that?”

  “You getting sick of me—leave me alone.”

  We were standing face to face, no more than a foot or two apart. It was dark, b
ut I could see how the sweat and dirt had caked on his face. I wanted to hit him so bad then I wanted to knock his face clean.

  “You sonofabitch,” I said.

  I wanted him to curse me back so I could kick his ass good. He grinned.

  “You rotten sonofabitch,” I said.

  “Now, what you cussing me for?” he said. “All I did was speak to the poor little suffering thing—there you going round cussing me. They ought to have more love in this world.”

  “You sonofabitch,” I said.

  He shook his head and grinned. “Going on down the quarter, Jim?” he said.

  We started walking again. He walked a little ahead of me. Every now and then he glanced back at me and grinned.

  After I ate supper I came out on the gallery with my guitar. Few minutes later Marcus came out there and laid down in front of his door. He was laying on his back looking up at the tin roof. I didn’t know if he was listening to me playing the guitar or if he was still thinking about Louise up the quarter.

  “Marcus?” I said.

  He didn’t answer me and I called him again. This time he looked at me and grinned.

  “Listen,” I said, moving over where he was. I was going to talk to him in a different way now. I wasn’t going to get mad again, I was going to talk to him like you talk to a child. “We don’t want any trouble on this plantation, hear?” I said.

  “What kind of trouble?” he said.

  “The kind of trouble Bonbon would make if he caught you messing with his wife. Do you know what he would do if he caught you anywhere near that woman?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “He would lynch you. He would burn you alive. Him and his brothers would burn you alive. You and half of the people around here.”

  “I just spoke to her,” he said.

  “Is that all it’s going to be?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Is it?” I said.

  “I just spoke to the lady,” he said. “I see no harm in speaking to a person.”

  I could feel myself getting mad again. I didn’t want to, I don’t like to get mad. But something about Marcus made you mad no matter if you liked it or not.

  “Don’t fuck with that woman, Marcus,” I said. “You hear me?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You hear me, boy? I don’t want to have to kick your ass, now.”

  “Jim, please,” he said. “Just let me digest my food. Can’t a man lay down in peace and digest his food after he been working all day.”

  My hand sprung over his chest. I wanted to grab him, I wanted to shake him, I wanted to slam him against the wall. But my hand just hung over his chest, trembling.

  I got up from there and went to my side of the house, then I threw my guitar on the bed and went down to Josie’s. She had some cold beer there and I drank a couple bottles.

  “Tell that goddamn convict keep ’way from my place,” she said.

  “Tell him yourself,” I said, “I’m no goddamn messenger.”

  “What the hell’s wrong with you tonight?” she said.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Here’s your money.”

  I paid her and went out. I stood out in the road a long time, telling myself I ought to get away from here. “I don’t owe that old woman anything,” I said. “I ought to go pack my bags and get away from here. Sure as hell, that sonofabitch is going to start trouble before all this is over with.”

  26

  Now he was looking for her every time he went by the house; and every time he went by she was looking out for him, too. He had quit riding on the tractor with me; he was riding in the trailer on the corn now. But if I glanced back at him, I would see him watching out for her; if I looked toward the house I would see her sitting out there on the gallery. They would watch each other like that until they couldn’t see each other any more for the dust.

  But when I said Louise was watching Marcus, I don’t mean she made it clear to everybody what she was doing. She never ran to the end of the gallery or smiled or waved or anything like that. What she did was watch him from inside; I mean, she watched him by thinking the same way he was thinking. She knew he had seen her, he was noticing her, so all she had to do now was think the way he thought. No, she never moved, she never smiled, she never waved or anything; she just looked and thought and waited.

  Thursday night, Marcus and I were sitting out on the gallery when Bonbon went down the quarter in the truck. We saw the truck stop in front of Pauline’s house and we saw the lights go out. A minute or two later, after the dust had settled, Marcus stood up and went out of the yard. I didn’t have any idea where he was going—unless he was going up to the church. Sun Brown was the one who told me later what had happened. Sun Brown said he was in front of Joe Walker’s old empty house when he heard somebody calling Bonbon’s name in front of Bonbon’s gate. Sun Brown said it was too dark for him to see who it was, but he could hear the person clear as day. It wasn’t too loud, he said, but very, very clear: “Oh, Mr. Bonbon; oh, Mr. Bonbon.” Sun said he figured that the person had come from up the quarter, because if he had come from down the quarter he would have seen the truck parked in front of Pauline’s house. He said he started walking a little faster to tell the person that Bonbon wasn’t at home. But, he said, as he came up to the line fence (that oak tree) he saw Miss Louise coming down the walk toward the gate. And by the time he got to the gate where the person (the convict) was standing, Miss Louise was there, too. Louise had little white-head Tite by the hand. Sun said he heard the convict saying, “Mr. Bonbon home?” He said he could have easily told the convict that Mr. Bonbon was down the quarter at Pauline’s, but he figured that Miss Louise would do that much. He said he didn’t know if Miss Louise answered the convict or not. All she was doing when he went by was standing there holding Tite by the hand. He said he got all the way to the other line fence (that big pecan tree) and still he couldn’t hear if she had answered.

  Louise didn’t answer Marcus that night, Marcus told me later. She just stood there holding Tite by the hand, looking across the gate at him. He said he didn’t know what to make of the look—unless you want to call it dreamy. He said she made him feel like he could have done her anything and she wouldn’t have even made a sound. She wore the same white dress she had on the night before. The dress was tight round the waist and it had lace on the sleeves. Marcus said the dress made Louise look like a girl about twelve years old. He said he didn’t know before how little her waist was, how scrawny her arms and legs were.

  Marcus and Louise looked at each other, then Marcus looked down at the little girl Louise was holding by the hand. He said Tite was just standing there quiet-like, holding on to Louise’s hand like she might have been in a little dream all her own. He said he didn’t know at the time that she was sick with a bad heart.

  He looked at Louise again. She was still watching him in that wandering, dream-like way. He said she reminded him of a person who had been lost in the woods; she had been lost for days and days now and she had seen all kinds of things back there that looked like a human being, but none of them had turned out to be human, and now she was looking at him, wondering if he was.

  “I reckond Mr. Bonbon ain’t here?” he said.

  She still didn’t say anything—her face didn’t even change. She just stood there looking at him like she was wondering if one of them things in the woods had spoke.

  Tite leaned over and slapped at a mosquito on her leg. Marcus said Tite did it so slow, it looked like it took all of her strength just to bend forward.

  “Come, Judy,” Louise said.

  The next day Louise was on the gallery when we went by at twelve. She looked at Marcus when we were going up the quarter, she looked at him when we came back down. That evening he took his bath soon as he got home, and went up to the church. But he must have stayed there only a few minutes (he didn’t go inside, he stood outside and looked through the window); then he was going up the quarter again. And again Sun Brown saw h
im. No, he heard the same low, clear voice: “Oh, Mr. Bonbon; oh, Mr. Bonbon.” Sun was coming from up the quarter this time and he said he had just met Bonbon going toward the highway in the truck. So he figured that the person who was calling Bonbon now had come from down the quarter. Sun said as he came closer (he was by that big pecan tree) he saw Miss Louise coming out to the gate. So by the time he got to the gate, Louise and Tite were there, too. Sun said he thought, “Now that’s funny; that is funny.” He said he never thought that the convict had any idea ’bout getting into Bonbon’s yard—what fool would have thought that? He said what he meant by, “That’s funny; that is funny,” was that the same person was calling at Bonbon’s house two nights in a row only minutes after Bonbon had left. He said what made it even more funny was that that same person had been working round Bonbon all day both days. He said what was even funnier still was that this same person should have been the last person in the world to be looking for Bonbon after Bonbon had worked him like he had. But to cap everything, Sun said, was that Miss Louise had come out to the gate twice. He said she had never done that to anyone else long as he had been there, and he had been on the plantation twice as long as she had.

  Sun said by the time he got to the gate, Louise was there with little white-head Tite. But this time she was standing much closer. He said he heard the convict say, “Mr. Bonbon home?” He said again he didn’t know if she answered him or not. He strained his ears until he got to that other line fence (that big oak tree); then he stopped because he was too far away to hear anything anyhow.

  She didn’t say anything to him again that night, but Tite did.

  “Hello,” Tite said.

  “Hi,” he said. “What’s your name?”

  “Tite,” she said.

  “Didn’t your mama call you Judy?”

  “Judy,” Tite said.