Bishop wanted me to understand that any black person who would stick his foot in a door that slavery built would do almost anything.
43
Bishop drank his lemonade and looked down at the sun on the floor. When we first came back there the sun had barely reached the top step; now it had crossed the step and had come about a foot inside the kitchen. Bishop was looking down at the sun like he expected to see it move if he looked at it long enough. When a bunch of flies lit on the floor in front of him he watched the flies. When they flew away, he raised his head. Aunt Margaret was quiet all the time—just waving that big yellow straw hat before her face.
“I been seeing it coming ever since that boy came there,” Bishop said. “I could see it in the clothes he wore—them pink shirts, them two-tone shoes. I could see it in the way he rode on that tractor, the way he strutted across that yard. I saw the way he looked at that Cajun from the side. And Mr. Marshall saw it, too—and that’s when he started watching him. Every time the boy came to the yard, he put himself in a place to watch him. He even went riding in the quarter to look for him. Not ready to speak to him—not yet—just to look at him. Then last Saturday he made his move. He stood on the back gallery a long time before he went out there where he was. I watched them from the dining room. I kept saying, ‘No—Lord, please don’t let him, please don’t let him.’ I saw how the boy jerked around when he told the boy what he wanted him to do. I had a glass in my hand. The glass fell and broke.”
Bishop had spread the wet pocket handkerchief on his knee to dry out, but now he picked it up to wipe his face and neck. He looked at me long and sadly. His thick glasses made his eyes look bigger and sadder than they really were.
“He didn’t get Marcus out of jail to kill Bonbon, did he?”
Bishop frowned and groaned. He started shaking his head like he never would stop. Nothing else I could say could have hurt him more than that.
“He got him out for her,” he said. “For her. He got him out ’cause she came there crying. He didn’t know that boy from Adam. It was his clothes, the way he walked across that yard; it was the way he looked at that Cajun: these was the things that gived him the idea. No, he didn’t get him out to kill him. God knows, I wish he had never heard of that boy, or Miss Julie Rand.”
Bishop looked down at the floor again. Aunt Margaret went on fanning. Everything was quiet, while I waited for Bishop to go on.
“Exactly what is it Bonbon got on Marshall?” I asked.
Bishop raised his head slowly and looked at me. He didn’t like the way I said “Marshall”; I should have said “Mr. Marshall.” Then he started looking at me the way Miss Julie Rand had looked at me when I asked her that same question. He didn’t want to tell me what the bad blood was between Marshall and Bonbon. It would have been different if it was something just about Bonbon. Bonbon was a poor Cajun, and he would have talked about Bonbon all day. But things were a little different when they were about Mr. Marshall. At the same time, he knew he had to tell me because he needed me. He glanced at Aunt Margaret to see what she thought. Did she think it was all right to let Marshall and Bonbon’s secret out? Aunt Margaret was fanning and not looking at either Bishop or me. She had given up hope. The world was crazy. If she could save Tite out of all this madness, she would be satisfied. As for Marcus and Louise, and now Bonbon and Marshall, she had given up on them. So Bishop got no help from her at all. If he wanted to tell me, then it was up to him.
“Mr. Marshall had a brother called Bradford,” Bishop said. “He was a gambler, a big gambler, but he used to lose much more than he ever won. One night he lost a great deal more than he could ever pay back. He signed a letter to the man who had won the money, then he came home and packed up his clothes and left. Nobody knows where he went and nobody knows if he’s living or dead. A week or so after he left, the other man showed up with the letter, claiming his money. I heard him and Mr. Marshall squabbling over the money in the library. He left without getting the money, and a few weeks later he was killed in a saloon—another gambler killed him. The place was packed full of people and there was nothing but noise and moving with people trying to get out. While all this was going on, the second man was killed, too. Bonbon was there that night. People figure he killed the second man after he had put him up to kill that other one …”
Bishop let out his breath like he had been holding it in a long time. I waited for him to go on.
“He been doing anything he want ever since then,” Bishop said. “Mr. Marshall been trying to get him ’way from here ever since. He’s offered him money, but he won’t take it. He’s offered other people money to get Bonbon way from here, but they won’t take the money, either. Bonbon got too many brothers; and you can’t spend money from the grave.”
“So he makes Bonbon work Marcus like a slave so Marcus can get mad enough to kill him?” I said. “He can see how much Marcus already hates this place, and he thinks if he press him enough, sooner or later he will have to kill Bonbon …?”
Bishop lowered his head. It was the truth. But Bishop couldn’t ever say anything like that about Marshall Hebert. He would rather put it all on Marcus: Marcus’s clothes, his strutting, his side glances at Bonbon.
44
We talked for a couple of hours. Bishop wanted to know what we could do to keep this from happening. That’s why he had come down the quarter to see me. He felt so helpless up there in that big house, knowing all this was going on and knowing he couldn’t do a thing about it. I told him I didn’t know what to do. What could I do? What could any of us do? This whole thing was left up to Marcus. Marshall was only pushing him because he had somebody to push on. But I didn’t think he would push too hard and too long. As for making Bonbon kill Marcus if Marcus didn’t kill Bonbon, that was just to scare Marcus. Marshall wouldn’t dare let Bonbon kill for him again. He was still paying off for the first killing that Bonbon had done for him.
All the time Bishop and I sat there talking, Aunt Margaret sat on the other side of the table fanning with her straw hat. The longer we talked, the madder she got. All of a sudden she jumped up and put the hat on her head.
“You leaving, Brother Bishop?” she asked.
“Yes, Sister Margaret,” he said.
I moved my chair to the side to let them go by me. After Bishop had gotten his hat and umbrella off the bed, we went out on the gallery. Marcus was coming in the yard. He had on his blue shirt and black pants; he wore his cap and dark shades. Bishop and I looked at Marcus, but Aunt Margaret wouldn’t. She had given up on him. All she wanted to do now was save Tite (if that was possible). Bishop looked at Marcus like he wasn’t really seeing him. His mind was somewhere else—probably at the big house with Marshall Hebert. Marcus came up on the gallery and nodded to us and went in his room.
Bishop turned to me again. He had put on his hat, and now he held the umbrella and handkerchief in one hand. He held his other hand out to me. I felt how small and soft his hand was when I shook it.
“I hope I didn’t take too much of your time,” he said, looking very sad.
“No sir,” I said, shaking my head.
“Will you talk to the boy?”
“I’ve talked to him already,” I said. “But I’ll talk again.”
“If you can’t stop this, Mr. Kelly, I’m afraid what’ll happen to all of us,” Bishop said. “That boy touch Bonbon, them brothers go’n ride.”
He looked at me a long time to show me what that meant. Then he opened his umbrella and followed Aunt Margaret down the steps. He carried his handkerchief in the other hand. He started wiping his face and neck soon as he went out of the gate.
I stood at the end of the gallery watching them. Bishop looked so weak and scared walking there beside Aunt Margaret. Aunt Margaret was probably scared as he was, but she had extra strength to keep her going—extra strength she got from believing in God. Bishop went to church every Sunday, but he didn’t look to God for his strength. He looked to that big house up the quarter. And r
ight now that big house wasn’t setting on very solid ground.
I stayed on the gallery a while, then I went to Marcus’s room. He was laying on the bed in his shorts. We looked at each other, but we didn’t say anything. I went to the window where it was cooler and turned to look at him again. He was still watching me, waiting to hear what I had to say. I didn’t know what to say to Marcus.
“Something on your mind, Jim?” he said.
I just stood there looking at him. He sat up on the bed.
“Why did you go to Marshall the other night, Marcus?” I asked him.
“Tell him to get me off free,” he said. “I told him to get me off free and give me that field car and some money, and I was go’n take Louise ’way from here.”
I didn’t believe Marcus had said this to Marshall. You see, I knew the white people around that area. Knew them pretty good. I knew if a black man had said that, he wouldn’t have lived to come out of that room.
“I told him Bonbon was go’n have to come after us, and he was go’n be free of him.”
I still didn’t believe him.
“That’s why I went there,” he said.
I leaned back against the window to look at Marcus. Now I did believe him. I believed him because I remembered he had killed and it didn’t mean a thing. I believed him because I remembered he had fooled that dog and jumped through that window to get to Bonbon’s wife. I believed him because I remembered he had stuck his foot in that door—“that slavery had built.” I believed everything Marcus said. I just couldn’t understand why Marshall hadn’t killed him for saying it.
“He just stood there and let you say all that?”
“He told me to get the hell out his library. But I could see he was thinking ’bout what I had said.”
“He might be thinking about telling Bonbon what you had said, you ever thought about that?”
“That’s the last thing he’ll be thinking ’bout doing,” Marcus said. “He got to get rid of Bonbon, not me. I’m a nigger, me. I ain’t nothing but a nigger. Bonbon is the man.”
“And you think he’ll get you off free, to let you leave here with Louise?”
“He’ll get me off. Might let me wait a while—try to make me sweat—but he’ll get me off.”
“If he get you off, how does he know Bonbon’ll follow you?”
“Because Bonbon own people’ll kill him if he don’t. Because this is the South, and the South ain’t go’n let no nigger run away with no white woman and let that white husband walk around here scot-free. Not the South.”
“You think you know the South, huh?”
“I know that much ’bout it.”
“How about the part where the white man let the nigger get away with the white woman, Marcus?”
“He ain’t got no choice. He might not like it, but he ain’t got no choice. He got to get rid of Bonbon. Bonbon done stole too much from him, and he know long as Bonbon here Bonbon go’n keep on stealing. Not that Bonbon don’t have a right to steal after what he made Bonbon do. Yeah, I know he made Bonbon kill a man for him. Now, since Bonbon stealing to pay for the killing, he want somebody to kill Bonbon. Well, not this boy. I ain’t killing for him, I’m making him a safe and sound deal. Get me off and I’ll get her ’way from here and Bonbon’ll come after us. If that suit him, all right; if it don’t, fuck him; I’ll find another way to get out of this hole.”
“Marcus, do you want my advice about all this?”
“If you go’n say work here ten years, forget it.”
“That’s what I’m going to say, Marcus. Do your work and forget all these deals. They’ll never work out. All you can do is make things harder for yourself and for everybody else around here.”
“Things can’t get harder for me, Jim. I’m a slave here now. And things can’t get harder than slavery.”
“The pen can be harder.”
“I ain’t going to no pen. That’s why I got put here.”
“And that’s why you ought to do as well as you can.”
“Be a contented old slave, huh? That’s what you mean?”
“You’re not a slave here, Marcus. You’re just paying for something you did.”
“I don’t think I ought to pay for defending myself. And I ain’t go’n pay for killing that country-ass nigger. Black sonofabitch ought to don’t go round with pretty women if he know he can’t fight.”
“You trying to be funny, boy?”
“I ain’t trying to be funny. I just say I ain’t go’n pay for that chickenshit sonofabitch. Fuck him.”
“You don’t care if the whole world burn down, do you? Do you, Marcus?”
“Long as I ain’t caught in the flame, Jim,” he said.
I looked at him and I felt pity for him.
“Jim, why you keep arguing with me?” Marcus said. “You the only friend I got, and you keep arguing with me.”
“I want you to be a human being, Marcus.”
“I’m a human being. I just don’t look at things the way you do. You, you want care for everybody. Me, I don’t care for nobody but me. I been like that too long now to go round changing.”
“That’s not a good way to be, Marcus.”
“I can’t be no other way. Now, please, Jim, just let me ’lone. I need some rest. I’m tired.”
He laid back down.
45
Monday, about five o’clock, Marshall Hebert showed up in the field for the first time. I looked across the field and I could see the dust about a quarter of a mile away coming down the back road. Just in front of the dust was that ’41 Ford Marshall used for his field car. I looked over my shoulder at Bonbon riding horse behind Marcus. He looked across the field toward the dust, then he looked at me. I was much higher up than he was, so he looked at me so I could tell him who was coming. I didn’t have to call Marshall’s name, I just nodded my head. Bonbon wouldn’t have heard me anyhow, because the tractor was making too much noise. He turned the horse around and started back toward the other headland. We were pulling corn on the bayou now, and there were trees on the bayou at one end of the field. The trees were mostly gum, willow and cottonwood. You had a few ash and cypresses here and there. In the morning the shade from the trees was on the water, but in the evening the shade was on the headland. Bonbon knew that Marshall was going to park under the trees instead of at the end where there wasn’t any shade, and that’s why he had gone back the other way. Soon as he rode away, I slowed up the tractor. John and Freddie hollered at me to speed it up, but I didn’t pay them any mind. When I got to the end, I gave Marcus a couple minutes rest before I started back down the field again.
Marshall had already parked his car under the trees at the other headland. Bonbon had gotten off the horse to talk to him. I didn’t like to see them that close together. I didn’t think Marshall had come out there to say anything to Bonbon about Marcus—he couldn’t afford that. But if that wasn’t his reason, then what was it? Why wasn’t he at the front sitting on his gallery drinking like he always do?
I looked back over my shoulder. The two punks were right up on the trailer, pitching corn like two machines. They knew the big boss was out there, and now they had to show off for him. Marcus was about ten feet farther behind. He was dead tired. His pink shirt was wet and sticking to his chest.
“Move up,” Freddie called.
I turned to the front and looked at Marshall and Bonbon on the other headland. They were still talking. Bonbon held the bridle reins in one hand, and he was leaning on the car, talking to Marshall through the window.
The tractor putt-putt-putted on toward the headland. I didn’t feel good about seeing Marshall out there at all. I had a tightness in my chest. It came there soon as I saw that car headed in this direction.
“It’s probably nothing,” I told myself. “He’s probably asking him how long it’s going to take us to finish that corn. He want us to hurry so we can get into that hay before the bad weather. So stop being such a coward; stop it.…”
When I came up on the headland, Marshall drove the car closer to the tractor. I nodded to him, but he didn’t see me; he was already looking toward the back of the trailer. When Marcus finished out his row and came to the side of the trailer where the car was parked, I could see how Marshall started watching him. Marcus spoke, but Marshall didn’t answer. He had something in his mouth, probably a piece of candy, that he moved from one side of his mouth to the other. Every time his mind shifted from one thing to another, that piece of candy moved around in his mouth, too.
“How much you got, Geam?” Bonbon asked me.
He had led the horse up to the car again. He was standing a little to the front of the door where Marshall was sitting. He had made the horse turn so the horse wouldn’t stand between Marshall and the tractor. In this way I could see everybody. I could see Bonbon, I could see Marshall; and if I dropped my eyes a little, I could see Marcus against the trailer. I looked back at the corn in the trailer. It was about two foot from the top.
“Almost full,” I said.
“When you get back to the other end, hitch up and knock off,” Bonbon said.
“Right,” I said. “Freddie, one of y’all, go get the water jug.”
Freddie started up the headland. The jug was under one of the trees down by the water. When we pulled corn on the bayou, we always kept the jug close to the water where the ground was cooler. Before Freddie had gone ten feet, his girlfriend John had caught up with him. Then both of them went up the headland, giggling. Bonbon squinted at them, and I looked at them, too. I don’t think Marshall ever did; I don’t think he took his eyes off Marcus a second after Marcus came to that side of the trailer. Now he said something to Bonbon. Bonbon started looking at Marcus, too. But he didn’t look at Marcus in his usual hard way. He had quit that. Now, when he looked at Marcus, it was like he was trying to figure him out. He wanted to know why Marcus wore a pink shirt and brown pants when everybody else wore khakis; why he wore the cap when everybody else wore a straw hat; why he wore the black and white, low-cut shoes when everybody else wore brogans. Maybe Bonbon already knew why Marcus did this. This was Marcus’s way of showing how much he hated the place. The only trouble was nobody was getting hurt by it but himself. After studying Marcus from head to foot, Bonbon looked up the headland.
Of Love and Dust Page 18
