by J.F. Powers
“You heard him,” Skeeter says.
“No, suh,” Old Ivy says, and we seed him in the service window.
“Guess maybe he’s deef,” Skeeter says. “You old coon, I hope you ain’t blind!” And Skeeter grabs a bottle of beer and lams it at Old Ivy’s head. Old Ivy ducks and the big end of the bottle sticks in the wall and don’t break. It is just beaverboard, the wall.
All us boys gets the same idee and we starts heaving the beer bottles through the window where Old Ivy was standing, but ain’t no more.
“Hit the nigger baby!”
“Nigger in the fence!”
We keeps this up until we done run out of bottles, all except Skeeter that’s been saving one. “Hey, wait,” he says. “It’s all right now, Grampaw. Come on, old boy, you can come out now.”
But Old Ivy don’t show hisself. I am wondering if he got hit on a rebound.
“Damn it, boy,” Skeeter says. “Bring us some food. Or you want us to come back in there?”
“Suh?” It’s that old suh again. “Yes, suh,” Old Ivy says in the kitchen, but we don’t see him.
Then we do. And Skeeter, he lets go the last bottle with all he’s got. It hits Old Ivy right in the head. That was a mean thing Skeeter done, I think, but then I see it’s only the cook’s hat Old Ivy’s got in his hand that got hit. He was holding it up like his head is inside, but it ain’t.
The boys all laughs when they seed what Old Ivy done to fool Skeeter.
“Like in war when you fool the enemy,” Clyde says.
“That’s a smart nigger,” I say.
“So that’s a smart nigger, huh?” Skeeter says. “I’ll take and show you what I do to smart niggers that gets smart with me!”
“Cut it out,” Clyde says. “Leave him alone. He ain’t hurting nothing. You just leave that old coon be.” That is Clyde for you, always sticking up for somebody, even a nigger.
Clyde and me goes into the next room looking for a place to heave, as Clyde has got to. It is awful dark, but pretty soon our eyes gets used to it, and we can see some tables and chairs and a juke box and some beer signs on the walls. It must be where they do their dancing. I am just standing there ready to hold Clyde’s head, as he is easing hisself, when I begins to hear a piano like a radio is on low. I can just barely pick it out, a couple a notes at a time, sad music, blues music, nigger music.
It ain’t no radio. It is a piano on the other side of the room. I am ready to go and look into it when Clyde says, “It ain’t nothing.” Ain’t nothing! Sometimes I can’t understand Clyde for the life of me. But I already got my own idee about the piano.
About then Skeeter and Ace comes in the room yelling for Clyde in the dark, saying the boys out front is moving on to the next place. We hear a hell of a racket out by the bar, like they broke the mirror, and then it’s pretty still and we know they is almost all left.
Skeeter gives us one more yell and Ace says, “Hey, Clyde, you fall in?” They is about to leave when Skeeter, I guess it is, hears the piano just like we been hearing it. All this time Clyde has got his hand over my mouth like he don’t want me to say we is there.
Skeeter calls Old Ivy and says he should turn on the lights, and when Old Ivy starts that suh business again Skeeter lays one on him that I can hear in the dark.
So Old Ivy turns on the lights, a lot of creepy greens, reds, and blues. Then Clyde and me both seed what I already guessed—it’s the Bailey nigger playing the piano—and Skeeter and Ace seed it is him and we all seed each other.
And right then, damn if the nigger don’t start in to sing a song. Like he didn’t know what was what! Like he didn’t know what we come for! That’s what I call a foxy nigger.
Skeeter yells at him to stop singing and to come away from the piano. He stops singing, but he don’t move. So we all goes over to the piano.
“What’s your name, nigger?” Skeeter says.
“Bailey,” Sleep says, reading Skeeter’s lips.
Old Ivy comes over and he is saying a lot of stuff like, “That boy’s just a borned fool. Just seem like he got to put his foot in it some kind of way.”
Sleep hits a couple a notes light on the piano that sounds nice and pretty.
“You know what we come for?” Skeeter says.
Sleep hits them same two notes again, nice and pretty, and shakes his head.
“Sure you don’t know, boy?” Clyde says.
Sleep is just about to play them notes again when Skeeter hits him across the paws with a fungo bat. Then Sleep says, “I spect you after me on account of that Miss Beck I fish out of the river.”
“That’s right,” Skeeter says. “You spect right.”
“You know what they is saying uptown, Sleep?” I say.
“I heard,” Sleep says.
“They is saying,” I say, “you raped Clara and throwed her in the river to cover up.”
“That’s just a lie,” Sleep says.
“Who says it’s a lie?” Clyde says.
“That’s just a white-folks lie,” Sleep says. “It’s God’s truth.”
“How you going to prove it?” Clyde says.
“Yeah,” I say. “How you going to prove it?”
“How you going to prove it to them, son?” Old Ivy says.
“Here, ain’t I?” Sleep says.
“Yeah, you’s here all right, nigger,” Skeeter says, “but don’t you wish you wasn’t!”
“If I’m here I guess I got no call to be scared,” Sleep says. “Don’t it prove nothing if I’m here, if I didn’t run away? Don’t that prove nothing?”
“Naw,” Skeeter says. “It don’t prove nothing. It’s just a smart nigger trick.”
“Wait till Miss Beck come to and talk,” Sleep says. “I ain’t scared.”
“No,” Old Ivy says, “you ain’t scared. He sure ain’t scared a bit, is he, Mr Bullen? That’s a good sign he ain’t done nothing bad, ain’t it, Mr Bullen?”
“Well,” Clyde says. “I don’t know about that . . .”
Skeeter says, “You sure you feel all right, Clyde?”
“What you mean you don’t know, Clyde?” Ace says. “Clara is knocked up and this is the bastard done it!”
“Who the hell else, Clyde?” I say. I wonder is Clyde dreaming or what.
“He ain’t a bad boy like that, Mr Bullen,” Old Ivy says, working on Clyde.
“I tell you what,” Clyde says.
“Aw, stop it, Clyde,” Skeeter and Ace both says. “We got enough!”
“Shut up!” Clyde says and he says it like he mean it.
“Listen to what Mr Bullen got to say,” Old Ivy says.
“This is the way I seed it,” Clyde says. “This ain’t no open-and-shut case of rape—leastways not yet it ain’t. Now the law—”
Skeeter cuts in and says, “Well, Clyde, I’ll see you the first of the week.” He acts like he is going to leave.
“Come back here,” Clyde says. “You ain’t going to tell no mob nothing till I got this Bailey boy locked up safe in the county jail waiting judgment.”
“O.K., Clyde,” Skeeter says. “That’s different. I thought you was going to let him get away.”
“Hell, no!” Clyde says. “We got to see justice did, ain’t we?”
“Sure do, Clyde,” Skeeter says.
Ace says, “He’ll be nice and safe in jail in case we got to take up anything with him.”
I knowed what they mean and so do Old Ivy. He says, “Better let him go right now, Mr Bullen. Let him run for it. This other way they just going to bust in the jailhouse and take him out and hang him to a tree.”
“The way I seed it,” Clyde says, “this case has got to be handled according to the law. I don’t want this boy’s blood on my hands. If he ain’t to blame, I mean.”
“That’s just what he ain’t, Mr Bullen,” Old Ivy says. “But it ain’t going to do no good to put him in that old jailhouse.”
“We’ll see about that,” Clyde says.
“Oh, sure. Hell,
yes!” Skeeter says. “We don’t want to go and take the law in our own hands. That ain’t our way, huh, Ace?”
“Cut it out,” Clyde says.
“Maybe Miss Beck feel all right in the morning, son, and it going to be all right for you,” Old Ivy says to Sleep. The old coon is crying.
So we takes Sleep in Clyde’s car to the county jail. We makes him get down on the floor so’s we can put our feet on him and guard him better. He starts to act up once on the way, but Skeeter persuades him with the fungo bat in the right place, conk, and he is pretty quiet then.
Right after we get him behind bars it happens.
Like I say, Clyde is acting mighty peculiar all night, but now he blows his top for real. That’s what he does all right—plumb blows it. It is all over in a second. He swings three times—one, two, three—and Skeeter and Ace is out cold as Christmas, and I am holding this fat eye. Beats me! And I don’t mind telling you I laid down quick with Skeeter and Ace, like I was out, till Clyde went away. Now you figure it out.
But I ain’t preferring no charges on Clyde. Not me, that’s his best friend, even if he did give me this eye, and Skeeter ain’t, that needs Bullen’s for his business, or Ace.
What happens to who? To the jig that said he pulled Clara out of the river?
You know that big old slippery elm by the Crossing? That’s the one. But that ain’t how I got the eye.
THE OLD BIRD, A LOVE STORY
UNEMPLOYED AND ELDERLY Mr Newman sensed there were others, some of them, just as anxious as he was to be put on. But he was the oldest person in the room. He approached the information girl, and for all his show of business, almost brusqueness, he radiated timidity. The man in front of him asked the girl a question, which was also Mr Newman’s.
“Are they doing any hiring today?”
The girl gave the man an application, a dead smile, and told him to take a seat after he had filled the application out.
An answer, in any event, ready on her lips, she regarded Mr Newman. Mr Newman thought of reaching for an application and saying, “Yes, I’ll take a seat,” making a kind of joke out of the coincidence—the fellow before him looking for a job, too—only he could see from the others who had already taken seats it was no coincidence. They all had that superior look of people out of work.
“Got an application there for a retired millionaire?” Mr Newman said, attempting jauntiness. That way it would be easier for her to refuse him. Perhaps it was part of her job to weed out applicants clearly too old to be of any use to the company. Mr Newman had a real horror of butting in where he wasn’t wanted.
The girl laughed, making Mr Newman feel like a regular devil, and handed him an application. The smile she gave him was alive and it hinted that things were already on a personal basis between him and her and the company.
“You’ll find a pen at the desk,” she said.
Mr Newman’s bony old hand clawed at his coat pocket and unsnapped a large ancient fountain pen. “I carry my own! See?” In shy triumph he held up the fountain pen, which was orange. He unscrewed it, put it together, and fingered it as though he were actually writing.
But the girl was doing her dead smile at the next one.
Mr Newman went over to the desk. The application questioned him: Single? Married? Children of your own? Parents living? Living with parents? Salary (expect)? Salary (would take)? Mr Newman made ready with his fountain pen and in the ensuing minutes he did not lie about his age, his abilities, or past earnings. The salary he expected was modest. He was especially careful about making blots with his pen, which sometimes flowed too freely. He had noted before he started that the application was one of those which calls for the information to be printed. This he had done. Under “DO NOT WRITE BELOW THIS LINE” he had not written.
Mr Newman read the application over and rose to take it to the information girl. She pointed to a bench. Hesitating for a moment, Mr Newman seemed bent on giving it to her. He sat down. He got up. His face distraught, he walked unsteadily over to the girl.
Before she could possibly hear him, he started to stammer, “I wonder . . . maybe it will make a difference,” his voice both appealing for her mercy and saying it was out of the question—indeed he did not desire it—that she should take a personal interest in him. Then he got control, except for his eyes, which, without really knowing it, were searching the girl’s face for the live smile, like the first time.
“I used green ink,” he said limply.
“Let’s see.” The girl took the application, gave both sides a darting scrutiny, looking for mistakes.
“Will it make any difference? If it does and I could have another application, I could—” Mr Newman had his orange fountain pen out again, as though to match the green on its tip with the ink on the application and thus fully account for what had come about.
“Oh no, I think that’ll be all right,” the girl said, finally getting the idea. “We’re not that fussy.” Mr Newman, however, still appeared worried. “No, that’s fine—and neat, too,” the girl said. “Mr Newman.” She had spoken his name and there was her live smile. Mr Newman blushed, then smiled a little himself. With perspiring fingers he put the fountain pen together and snapped it in his pocket.
The girl returned the application. Mr Newman, lingering on, longed to confide in her, to tell her something of himself—why, for instance, he always used green ink; how famous and familiar a few years ago the initials “C. N.” in green had been at the old place. Like his friend Jack P. Ferguson (died a few years back, it was in the papers) and the telegram. “Telegram” Ferguson, he was called, because he was always too busy to write. Green ink and telegrams, the heraldry of business. He wanted to tell her of the old days—the time he met Elbert Hubbard and Charley Schwab at a banquet.
Then on this side of the old days he saw a busy girl, busy being busy, who could never understand.
“I thank you,” he said, going quickly back to his place on the bench to wait. He sat there rereading his application. Under “DO NOT WRITE BELOW THIS LINE” were some curious symbols. He guessed at their significance: CLN (Clean?); DSPN (Disposition?); PRSNLTY (Personality, no doubt about that one); PSE (Poise?); FCW (?); LYL (Loyal?); PSBLE LDR (Possible Leader); NTC (?). His fingers were damp with perspiration, and for fear he would present an untidy application, he laid it on his lap and held his hands open at his sides, letting them get cool and dry in case he had to shake hands with the interviewer.
When they were ready to see him, Mr Newman hustled into a small glass office and stood before a young man. A sign with wooden letters indicated that he was Mr Shanahan. Mr Shanahan was reading a letter. Mr Newman did not look directly at Mr Shanahan: it was none of Mr Newman’s business—Mr Shanahan’s letter—and he did not want to seem curious or expectant of immediate attention. This was their busy season.
Mr Shanahan, still reading the letter, had noiselessly extended a hand toward Mr Newman. A moment later, only then, Mr Newman saw the hand. Caught napping! A bad beginning! He hastened to shake the hand, recoiled in time. Mr Shanahan had only been reaching out for the application. Mr Newman gave it to Mr Shanahan and said, “Thank you,” for some reason.
“Ah, yes. Have a seat.” Mr Shanahan rattled the application in one hand. “What kind of work did you want to do?” Evidently he expected no answer, for he went on to say, “I don’t have to tell you, Mr Newman, there’s a labor shortage, especially in non-defense industries. That, and that alone, accounts for the few jobs we have to offer. We’re an old-line house.”
“Yes,” Mr Newman said.
“And there aren’t any office jobs,” Mr Shanahan continued. “That’s the kind of work you’ve always done?”
“Yes, it is,” Mr Newman said. Mr Shanahan sucked a tooth sadly.
Mr Newman was ready now for the part about the company letting him know later.
“How’d you like a temporary job in our shipping room?” Mr Shanahan said, his eyes suddenly watchful.
For an instan
t Mr Newman succeeded in making it plain that he, like any man of his business experience, was meant for better things. A moment later, in an interesting ceremony which took place in his heart, Mr Newman surrendered his well-loved white collar. He knew that Mr Shanahan, with that dark vision peculiar to personnel men, had witnessed the whole thing.
“Well . . .” he said.
Mr Shanahan, the game bagged and bumping from his belt, got cordial now. “How are you, pretty handy with rope?”
He said it in such a flattering way that Mr Newman trembled under the desire to be worthy. “Yes, I am,” he said.
“But can you begin right away?” It was the final test.
“Yes, I can!” Mr Newman said, echoing some of Mr Shanahan’s spirit. “You bet I can!”
“Well then, follow me!”
Mr Shanahan guided Mr Newman through a maze of departments. On an elevator, going down, he revealed what the job paid to start. Mr Newman nodded vigorously that one could not expect too much to start. Mr Shanahan told him that he didn’t have to tell him that they were a firm known far and wide for fair dealing and that if (for any reason) Mr Newman ever left them, it should be easy to get another position, and . . . Out of the elevator and in the lower depths, Mr Shanahan said he would like to make sure Mr Newman understood the job was only temporary. After the Christmas holidays things were pretty slow in their line. Otherwise, they would be glad to avail themselves of his services the year round. However, the experience Mr Newman would get here might very well prove invaluable to him in later life. Mr Newman nodded less vigorously now.
They came to a long table, flat against a wall, extending around a rafterish room fitted out for packing: tough twine and hairy manila rope on giant spools, brown paper on rollers, sticking tape bearing the company’s name, crest, and slogan: “A modern house over 100 years young.”
Several men were packing things. Mr Shanahan introduced Mr Newman to one of them.
“This is your boss, Mr Hurley. This is Mr Newman. Mr Newman’s pretty handy with rope. Ought to make an A-1 packer.”
“Well . . .” Mr Newman said, embarrassed before the regular packers.
