Of Love and Dust

by Ernest J. Gaines

  “When they let me out of jail, I promised myself I was go’n look out only for myself; and I wasn’t go’n expect no more from life than what I could do for myself. And nobody in this world need to expect no more from me than that.”

  “You can’t make it like that, Marcus,” I said. “They got the world fixed where you have to work with other people.”

  “Not me,” he said.

  “Yes, you, Marcus,” I said. “Yes, you. You, me and everybody else.”

  “Not me,” he said. “ ’cause I already know ’em. No matter what they say, it don’t add up to nothing but a big pile of shit. You do what you can do for yourself, and that’s all.”

  Up the quarter, the people were singing and praying in the church. I looked at Marcus, and I felt empty inside. I felt empty because he could not believe in God or friendship; I felt empty because I doubted if I believed in anything, either.

  50

  The next morning, when I came to the yard, Bonbon was there already. He told me Marcus wasn’t going in the field with me that morning, he had to go for his trial. He said Marcus would be out there that evening, though, so it wasn’t any need for me to get anybody in his place. At ten o’clock, he took Marcus to Bayonne in the truck. Marcus wore his black suit, his white shirt and his black and white shoes. The trial was at ten thirty. At eleven thirty the trial was over, and at ten minutes to twelve Bonbon had Marcus in the quarter again. When he stopped before the gate, he told Marcus to go in and change clothes because the honeymoon was over.

  Charlie Jordan lived right across the road from us. Charlie was sitting out on his gallery with his right foot in a pan of Epsom salt water. Charlie said he could see how Bonbon and Marcus were talking to each other, then glaring at each other, but he didn’t know what it was all about. Marcus walked away from the truck. Bonbon watched him a few seconds, then he swung the truck around and went speeding back up the quarter. Charlie said the dust in the road was flying so much you couldn’t see the house next to yours. Bonbon went up to the big house and knocked on the screen door, but he jerked the door open before anybody could answer.

  “Where is the old man?” he said to Bishop.

  Bishop went to get Marshall. When they came back in the kitchen, Pauline was there, too. She stood by the stove, pretending to be busy.

  “Yes?” Marshall said.

  “What’s with that boy down there?” Bonbon said.

  “What boy?” Marshall said.

  “The one I take to Bayonne.”

  “Did he say anything to you?”

  “He say something to me, all right,” Bonbon said. “He’s innocent and don’t have to go back in that field.”

  “He is innocent,” Marshall said. “I just got a call from Bayonne.”

  “Innocent?” Bonbon said.

  “Yes,” Marshall said. “Didn’t you go to the trial?”

  “I got other things to do,” Bonbon said. “When they start deciding these things at trial?”

  “I thought they always did,” Marshall said.

  “Yes?” Bonbon said.

  “Yes,” Marshall said. “But maybe I’ve been wrong all these years.”

  Now they just looked at each other. Bonbon knew Marshall was lying. He knew Marshall had it fixed from the start. Marshall knew Bonbon knew this. Bonbon turned to leave, and Marshall stopped him again. Bonbon didn’t turn around this time, he looked over his shoulder at Marshall.

  “I want you to take me somewhere this evening,” Marshall said. “To see that bull there of Jacques. Be here at six o’clock.”

  Bonbon went out. Marshall went back up the hall. Bishop and Pauline stood in the kitchen looking at each other. Pauline said, “Innocent? Innocent? Did he say he was innocent?” Bishop didn’t answer her. Bishop didn’t like Pauline at all, but this was not the reason he didn’t answer her now. He didn’t answer her because he felt too weak to answer her. He felt too weak to be standing there, too. He should have been laying down with a cold towel on his forehead.

  Pauline heard the tractor coming up the quarter and she came out in the yard to meet me. She was at the crib when I drove up there. That was the first time since I had been on that plantation when I wasn’t glad to see Pauline. I parked the tractor in front of the crib and jumped down to see what she wanted.

  “What’s going on, Jim,” she asked me.

  “What’s the matter?” I said.

  “Marcus innocent.”

  “He is?” I said.

  “You mean he don’t pay for killing that boy?” she asked.

  “I guess not—if he’s innocent,” I said.

  “What’s going on, Jim?” she said, looking straight at me. “What’s going on round here?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Yes, you do,” she said. “What’s going on round here, Jim?”

  “Keep out of this, Pauline,” I said.

  “Keep out of what?” she said.

  “Just keep out of everything,” I said, turning away from her.

  She grabbed me by the arm.

  “What’s going on, Jim? What’s going on round here?”

  She was squeezing my arm. Any other time I would have liked this. Right now I was just scared.

  “Keep out of this, please, Pauline,” I said. “Keep out of this.”

  “What’s going on, Jim?”

  “Even if you knew, you couldn’t do a thing about it, Pauline,” I said.

  “Is it something to do with Sidney?”

  “Bonbon’s wife,” I said.

  “What is it, Jim?”

  “You keep your mouth shut, now.”

  “What is it?”

  “Marcus and Louise running away from here tonight.”

  Pauline covered her mouth with her hand. I could see how her eyes were thinking. I could see how she couldn’t believe this and how, after a while, she did believe it. Then I could see how she was asking herself, “Why? Why? Why?”—then I could see her answering her own question. Her hand came slowly from her mouth.

  “I see,” she said. “I see. And me?”

  “You’ll have to get away from here, too,” I said.

  “Go where? Do what?”

  “Don’t you have people?”

  The way she looked at me, I could see she didn’t want to go round her people. And maybe, after the way she had been living with Bonbon, her people didn’t want her there, either.

  “Don’t stay up here tonight, Pauline,” I said. “There might be trouble.”

  She didn’t answer me; she didn’t care any more.

  “You heard me?” I said to her.

  She didn’t answer. She looked down at the ground. She didn’t care about anything any more.

  “Go back inside, Pauline. You don’t have anything on your head,” I said.

  She looked up at me now. I could see she didn’t care about anything. She turned from me and went back toward the house.

  When I came out in the road, I could see the truck parked in front of Bonbon’s house. As I came closer, I saw Bonbon coming out in the road to wave me down. I stopped the tractor and Bonbon came closer to talk over the noise the tractor was making. I jumped down to hear him better.

  “Take Jonas with you,” he said.

  “Something the matter?”

  “That boy went free.”

  “Free?” I said.

  “Free,” he said. “They had it rigged from the start. The boy he kill don’t mean a thing.”

  “Maybe the boy was wrong,” I said.

  “No, they had it rigged,” Bonbon said. “Even if the boy was wrong, you just don’t go free, Geam. They had it rigged. There, they got me working that boy out there and they laughing at me behind my back. They make me the fool.”

  “They haven’t started with you yet,” I thought. “Wait until tomorrow this time.”

  “Take Jonas,” he said.

  “You’ll be out later?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Little work I got to ’tend to down
the river. Got to take the old man somewhere this evening.”

  I nodded.

  “Listen, Geam,” he said. “Y’all take it easy out there. Corn getting thinner and we ought to finish by the weekend anyhow. How far you from that ditch now?”

  “I don’t know. Fifteen, eighteen rows.”

  “Go to the ditch and knock off,” he said.

  “Right.”

  I started to get back on the tractor. He stopped me again.

  “Geam?” he said. “What you think ’bout that? You think he ought to go free?”

  “What can I say? That’s the way they work it.”

  “Yeah, you right,” Bonbon said. “Me and you—what we is? We little people, Geam. They make us do what they want us to do, and they don’t tell us nothing. We don’t have nothing to say ’bout it, do we, Geam?”

  “Not very much,” I said.

  “Take Jonas,” he said.

  I got back on the tractor and drove away. When I looked over my shoulder I saw him going back in the yard. He walked with his head down. He was still thinking about what they had done to him.

  51

  Marcus was at the house when I got there. He was laying down on the bed in his room. He had packed everything but the clothes he was going to wear that night. His brown pants and blue silk shirt were hanging on a coat hanger against the wall. His gray shoes were on the floor by the window. Marcus was laying on the bed in nothing but his shorts.

  “Well, it’s over,” he said, when I came in the room.

  “Heard about it.”

  “Yeah, it’s over,” he said, smiling.

  “Want a beer?” I asked him.

  “I put a few more bottles in there,” he said. “Went over to Josie and got a few more.”

  “You and Josie speaking now?”

  “Yeah, we made up. I told her I was checking out of here this evening. Told her with who and she started laughing.”

  “You told her you and Louise were leaving together?”

  “Yeah. She didn’t believe me at first. She believe me now, though.”

  “You take a big chance, Marcus.”

  “Well, who go’n tell?” he said.

  He followed me around the other side. He still didn’t have on a thing but his shorts.

  “Hungry?” I asked him.

  “No,” he said. “Might eat later. I warmed it up for you.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I could smell the food soon as I walked in the kitchen. I had cooked up some beef meat the night before, and I had seasoned it down with onion and bell pepper. I had cooked up a pot of rice to go with it. After washing my face and hands, I dished up my dinner and sat down at the table. Marcus had already opened up two bottles of beer.

  “Yeah, this is it,” he said again.

  “Here’s to you,” I said, raising my bottle.

  He raised his bottle, too. I ate and looked at him. I could still feel that tightness in me. It was in me all morning. No matter what I thought, no matter what I said, it wouldn’t leave.

  “Listen, Marcus,” I said. “You free, huh?”

  “Yeah. Free.”

  “Then why don’t you take off now?”

  “Take off?”

  “Yeah. Now.”

  “How ’bout her?”

  “That’s another man’s wife, Marcus,” I said. “And she’s a white woman.”

  “So?” he said.

  “Listen, Marcus,” I said. “Do you really care anything for that woman?”

  “Yeah,” he said. He didn’t say it too strongly, though.

  “Do you, Marcus?”

  “Yeah,” he said, a little stronger. “Yeah, I think I do. Yeah, I do. Maybe I didn’t till just now—till you asked me. Now, I know I love her. It wouldn’t be the same ’thout her. Yeah, I love her—love that little woman. Ain’t claiming she much to look at—nobody in his right mind can honestly say that; but I love her anyhow. ’Cause I know she love me. Ain’t never had nobody to love me like that. Warming up food for me and bringing it to the bed. Crying like that over me …”

  “Nothing can change your mind, now?”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “Before, all you wanted was to get away from here.”

  “Now, I want bo’ of us to get ’way from here,” he said. “She much slave here as I was.”

  “Can’t you leave and send for her? I mean, leave right now and send for her?”

  “How can she ever get out of here by herself?” he said. “She can’t even get out of that yard ’fore somebody round here spot her and tell. She told me herself she ain’t been out of that yard in over a year. I think that’s why I love her—I don’t know. I guess y’all didn’t know I had that kind of heart, did y’all?”

  I didn’t answer him, I just looked at him. He was sweating on the nose.

  “Six more hours in this quarter, and good-bye,” he said. “Good-bye Louisiana, good-bye South.”

  “I hope you change your mind and take off now,” I said. “I don’t feel good about all this waiting.”

  “Can’t do it,” he said. He drank some beer. “She need me. She need my arms round her. Told me that herself. She said, ‘Marky-poo—’ that’s what she call me when we by usself. She said, ’Marky-poo, ’thout you I’ll go crazy.’ That’s what she told me. ‘’Thout you I’ll go crazy, Marky-poo. I need your arms round me. I need your arms round me all the time, Marky-poo.’ ”

  He stretched out his arm and looked at it.

  “Pretty good arm, huh?” he said.

  I nodded. He was the same Marcus. No matter whatever happened, he was still going to be the same Marcus.

  “Say she like the color my arms,” he said, twisting his arm one way, then the other way.

  “Did she?” I said.

  “What she said,” he said, still looking at his arm. Then he looked at me. “Sweet little woman just like you see her there,” he said. “Can be a little devil at time, though; just like any other woman.”

  “Well, I guess I said all I can. I hope you’ll change your mind, but I guess I can’t make you.”

  “No, no use talking ’bout it,” he said.

  I finished eating and sat there drinking another beer with him.

  “Who taking my place?” he asked.

  “Fellow named Jonas,” I said.

  “Oh, yeah, that slow-walking nigger,” he said. “Talk slow, too.”

  “Yeah, he’s pretty slow,” I said.

  “Well, long as he don’t work slow,” Marcus said. “Them freaks out there’ll kill him.” He laughed. “Them two freaks sure didn’t like me. Well, they can have it. They b’longs out there, I don’t. And you don’t, either, Jim.”

  “Nobody’s wife asked for my arms.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t have too much trouble,” Marcus said.

  I sat there, looking at him. I still didn’t feel good about him hanging round here like that. When I got ready to go back in the field, I told him I would come in early enough to see him off. He said he would like that. We shook hands. He squeezed my hand pretty hard. After I had gone out in the road and cranked up the tractor, I looked back at him again. He stood in the door, waving at me.

  52

  Aunt Ca’line said the whole evening was just too quiet. She said usually it was quiet after everybody had gone back in the field, leaving just the old people and the small children in the quarter, but this day was particularly quiet. She said she mentioned the quietness to Pa Bully several times and he nodded his head. Since they knew about the trial and what Marcus was supposed to do later (Josie had already spread the news), she and Pa Bully could do no more than just look at each other. Pa Bully tried to hide his fear just like she tried to pretend she was braver than what she was; but after you’ve been living with another person so long, there’s not too much he doesn’t already know about you. The sun was at the back of the house, so they sat out on the front gallery. The housework she had to do (“little cleaning, little cooking”) she had do
ne since that morning, so now all she had to do was sit out on the gallery with her husband. When it got cooler, maybe she would go out in her garden.

  “ ’Member the time they lynched Coon boy,” Pa Bully said. He was going to say more, but Aunt Ca’line looked at him to make him stop. As she said later, she remembered the day herself. The air smelt just like it did today, the place was quiet just like it was today, and it was clear and bright and hot just like it was today. So she didn’t want to hear about it.

  Charlie Jordan said since the sun was on his front gallery, he sat in a chair just inside the front door. Every time the sun moved a little closer toward him, he moved a little farther inside the room. But each time he moved his chair, he made sure he kept it so he could look at Marcus on the other side of the road. He said the foot he had stuck that nail in this morning was still hurting him, and he had tied a piece of salt meat on the foot to draw the soreness out. If it wasn’t for this, he would have been in the cotton field with his children. But since he couldn’t go out there, then he just sat in his room with his chair facing the door, watching Marcus. Like Pa Bully and Aunt Ca’line, he had already heard about the trial and he had heard what Marcus was supposed to do this evening. He was scared and at the same time he was proud of Marcus. Marcus had got away with something most of the people around there would have been afraid to think about. He saw Marcus come out on the gallery and stand with his hands on his hips. After looking up and down the quarter, he went back in again. Charlie could see him pacing the floor just inside the room. Then a few minutes later he was on the gallery again, this time with a bottle of beer. He was still in his shorts. Charlie said he would stand in one place awhile, then he would start pacing the gallery. Then he would go in my room or his room. Every time he went in my room he came back with a bottle of beer, Charlie said.