by Ann Petry
There were parts of an envelope over near the bedroom door, too. Or was it his imagination? No, they were partly torn and they were real. Two of them. Had they fallen off the desk when he was moving it or had Min dropped them and left them there, so he would know that she had seen them?
He walked up and down the room. There must be some way he could figure this thing out. This way he was left holding the bag and the kid would go free, and Lutic Johnson would go on sleeping with that white bastard. Only he mustn’t think about that, he got all confused whenever he did, got so he couldn’t do anything, couldn’t even move, just like he was paralyzed.
After all, it was only Min’s word against his. She was the one who got the key made and there couldn’t be much longer to wait before the kid got caught. All he had to do was bide his time, and if Min said anything, why, he would say that she was the one who’d done the stealing.
That was it. He could see himself now in front of the Judge. ‘I tell you that woman hated me.’ He’d point right at her. He could see her eyes blink and she would crouch away from him all down in a heap, so that she looked like a bag of old clothes. ‘Yes, sir, she hated me. And so she moved out and tried to get me in trouble. She was the one who done the stealin’ and she done it because she was dead set on gettin’ even with me. All she ever caused me was trouble. Used to take my money every time I turned around. I saw them letters for the first time when she left.’
That would be his story, and it was a good one. There wasn’t any point in his getting himself all worked up. He was still safe, and there wasn’t a thing she could do that would really harm him, and if she actually did start any trouble, why, his story would land her behind jail bars. He’d leave those torn letters right there where they were. They would show he was innocent, because if he’d been guilty, why, the first thing he would have done would have been to burn them up.
Now that was settled, he’d look in the bedroom and see how she left things. With a woman like her there was no telling what she’d take that wasn’t hers.
He glanced around the room, carefully avoiding the place where the cross had hung over the bed. The furniture was all here. He looked in the closet. It was empty. There was nothing—no bit of dust, no worn-out shoe or old discarded hat—nothing to indicate that Min had ever used it. The floor boards were scrubbed so clean and white they re-emphasized the closet’s emptiness. The coat hangers dangling from the hooks in the back of the closet had been dusted. They looked as though they had never been used.
‘I oughtta put some clothes on ’em,’ he said, aloud.
He turned away from the closet. The dresser was bare and clean, too. Min’s worn hairbrush and toothless piece of comb had always been on the right-hand side; and a long-handled celluloid mirror used to be on the opposite cover. They were gone, and so was the towel she kept on top of the dresser. The bare, ugly wood was exposed.
He looked at himself in the mirror and then, with no intention, no conscious effort, his eyes went toward the bed, hunted for the cross. He gave a start. She had left it behind.
‘God damn her,’ he said. ‘She left it here to haunt me.’
He looked again. No. The cross was gone, but while it hung there the walls had darkened with grime and dust, so when it was removed its outline was left clear and sharp on the wall—an outline the exact size and shape of the cross itself.
It was everywhere in the room. He saw it again and again plain before his eyes. She had conjured him with it—conjured him and the apartment and gone. He left the room hastily and slammed the door shut behind him.
He walked restlessly through the living room, the kitchen, in and out of the bathroom, listening to the empty echo of his own footsteps. He could see the cross on the floor in front of his feet; it appeared suddenly over the kitchen stove; he had to look twice before he saw that it wasn’t actually suspended from the center of the ceiling in the narrow confine of the bathroom.
Min had done this to him. And if he went on like this, seeing crosses all about him and never being certain whether they were real or figments of his imagination, he would go to pieces. But he didn’t have to stay here. He paused in the middle of the living room to enumerate all the reasons why he should live somewhere else. He’d be away from the constant, malicious surveillance of Mrs. Hedges. He wouldn’t have to see Lutie Johnson going back and forth to work with her head up in the air, never glancing in his direction, looking straight ahead as though he were a piece of dirt that would soil her eyes.
Nobody liked him much here, either. The folks weren’t friendly. Well, when the white agent came around next week, he’d tell him he was quitting. The thought of leaving made him feel free. He could still have his revenge, too. Because wherever he went he’d make it a point to keep in with Bub and eventually the little bastard would get caught.
This place was too small, anyway. He’d find a house where the super’s apartment looked out on the street, a place that had a front window where he could sit down when he had any spare time and see what was going on outside.
The thought of a front window made him suddenly hungry for the sight of people, eager to watch their movements. He would go outside and stand awhile. And he’d get well out of sight of Mrs. Hedges’ window, around near the front of the building where she couldn’t look at him.
It was mighty cold standing outside. The people who went by moved along at a brisk pace. He picked out young women and watched them closely, thinking that now that he was free, now that Min was gone, he could get himself any one of these girls who swung past. It was too bad it was winter and they had on thick concealing coats, because it was difficult to get an accurate picture of just what they looked like.
They moved past without glancing at him or, if they did glance at him, they looked away before he could catch their eyes. He shifted his attention across the street where a group of men talked and laughed together in the thin sunlight.
If he should join them, try to get into the conversation, they would stop talking. He’d never acquired the knack of small talk and after a while his silence would weigh on them so heavily that the conversation would slow up, grow halting, and then die completely. The men would drift away. It always happened.
Maybe if he could think of a story, something to hold their attention, they would stay put. It was a jolly little group. He could catch phrases here and there. ‘Man, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet,’ and then the voice of the man who spoke would grow fainter and the little group drew closer to the one who talked.
He started talking to himself, softly, under his breath, rehearsing what he would say. ‘Man, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet,’ he said.
It sounded so good that he repeated it. ‘Man, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet. You oughtta work in one of them houses’—he’d gesture toward this house. ‘You don’t never know what a fool woman is goin’ to think of next. Why, one time one of ’em come runnin’ down the stairs, hollerin’ there was a mouse in the dumb-waiter and what was I goin’ to do about it. Well, man, I told her—’
He was so intent on the slow unfolding of his story that he was completely unaware of the two white men who had stopped in front of him until the shorter of the two spoke.
‘You the Super in this building?’
‘What’s it to you?’ He hadn’t had time to look them over and he was instantly on the defensive because they had caught him off guard.
‘Post-office investigators.’ The pale sunlight glinted on a badge.
This was what he’d been waiting for. His eyes followed the badge until it disappeared inside the man’s coat pocket. ‘Yeah,’ he said. His voice was thick, not quite intelligible, because there was a beating inside his head from the blood pounding there and the same beating was inside his throat, blurring his voice. ‘Yeah,’ he repeated, ‘I’m the Super.’
‘Any of the tenants complain about letters being stolen?’
‘Nope.’ He had to be careful what he said. He had to go slow. Take it easy. ‘I’m aroun
d too much for anybody to do any stealin’.’
‘That’s funny. There’ve been complaints from almost every house in the block except this one.’ They were turning away.
‘Say, listen,’ he said. He talked slowly as though the idea had just come to him, and he was feeling it out in his mind. ‘There’s a kid lives in this house’—he indicated the building in back of him with a motion of his head. ‘He’s always runnin’ in and out of the hallways up and down the street. I seen him every afternoon after school and wondered what he was doin’. Could be him.’
The men exchanged dubious glances. ‘Might as well hang around. If you see him go past, call him over to you and put your hand on his shoulder.’
‘Okay.’
Jones waited impatiently as he watched the kids swarming into the street. School was out and Bub ought to be coming along. Maybe he wouldn’t come. Just when everything was fixed, he probably wouldn’t come, just to spite him. That was the way everything turned out.
Then Bub came running through the crowded street. His school books were swinging from a strap. He ducked and dodged through the crowd, never allowing anyone to impede his progress, never slackening his pace, twisting, turning, coming swiftly.
‘Hi, Bub,’ Jones called.
The boy stopped, looked around, saw the Super.
‘Hi, Supe,’ he said eagerly. He walked over to him. ‘How come you’re out on this side today?’
‘Air’s better over here,’ Jones said. Bub grinned appreciatively. Jones placed a heavy hand on the boy’s shoulder, kept it there. Yes. The men were watching. They were standing a little way off, near the curb. ‘You oughtta start work right now,’ he said.
‘Okay, Captain.’ Bub lifted his hand in salute.
He darted across the street, lingered on the sidewalk for a moment, and then disappeared through the doorway of an apartment house.
The white men followed him. ‘Listen,’ the shorter one said. ‘If we catch this kid, we got to get him in the car fast. These streets aren’t safe.’
The other man nodded. They, too, disappeared into the building. Jones, watching from across the street, licked his lips while he waited. A few minutes later, he saw the men come out of the house with Bub between them. One of them held a letter in his hand. The white envelope showed up clearly. The boy was crying, trying to pull away from them.
There was a short, sharp struggle when they reached the sidewalk. Bub wriggled out of their hands and for a fraction of a second it looked as though he would get away.
The people passing stopped to stare. The men lounging against the side of the building straightened up. Their faces were alert, protesting, angry.
‘Hey, look. They got a colored kid with them.’
The sight of the people edging toward the car parked at the curb set the two men to moving with speed, with haste, with a dispatch that landed Bub on the seat between them, closed the car door. Then the car was off up the street.
‘What happened?’
‘What’d he do?’
‘I dunno.’
‘Who were they?’
‘I dunno. Two strange white men.’
The car disappeared swiftly, not pausing for the red light at the corner. The people stared after it. The men who had been leaning against the building walked back to the building slowly, but they didn’t resume their lounging positions. They stood up straight, silent, motionless, looking in the direction the car had taken.
Slowly, reluctantly, the people moved off. Finally the men leaned their weight against the building; other men resumed their lounging on the stoops. And each one was left with an uneasy sense of loss, of defeat. It made them break off suddenly in the midst of a sentence to look in the direction the car had taken. Even after it was dark, they kept staring up the street, disturbed by the memory of the boy between the two white men.
Long after the car had gone, Jones stayed in front of the building. That was that. Even Junto couldn’t get him out of it. They had caught him red-handed and there wasn’t any way of fixing such cases. The little bastard would do time in reform school sure as he was standing there. He’d fixed her good. He’d fixed her plenty good.
He couldn’t move away from here now. He had to stay and watch her and laugh at her efforts to get Bub out of it. Maybe there was some way of letting her know he had a hand in it. The more he thought about it, the more excited he became. He’d stay on here and one of these days she’d ring his bell and say, ‘I come down to call on you, Mr. Jones. It’s kind of lonesome upstairs with the boy gone and everything.’ And he’d slam the door shut in her face, but first he’d tell her what he thought of her and how he’d had a hand in fixing her.
‘You—you—’ he began, but the rest of the words, the words saying exactly what he thought of her, refused to come out. He might as well go inside. His feet were tired. He felt tired all over from the excitement, from the satisfaction of having her where he wanted her. His head ached a little, too, because of the way the blood had pounded through it.
‘Bub’s kind of late today, ain’t he?’ Mrs. Hedges hailed him as he went past her window.
‘I dunno,’ he said gruffly. She couldn’t know anything. He’d never talked to Bub out here on the street. And just now, when he talked with the white men, he had been well out of earshot. It was impossible for her to know what he had done.
Perhaps he had been right in the beginning and she could really read his mind. The thought frightened him so that he stumbled in his haste to get inside, away from that queer speculative look in her eyes. No matter what she knew, he couldn’t leave here until he saw Lutie Johnson all broken up by what had happened to her kid. He just wouldn’t stand outside on the street any more. That way he’d be safe, because it was a sure thing Mrs. Hedges couldn’t read his mind through the walls of the house.
Mrs. Hedges stopped Lutie as she came home from work. ‘Dearie,’ she said, ‘they’re waitin’ for you.’
‘Who?’ Lutie said.
‘Detectives. Two of ’em. Upstairs.’
‘What do they want?’ she asked.
‘It’s about Bub, dearie.’
‘What about him?’ she said sharply. ‘What about him?’
‘Seems he’s been taking letters from mail boxes. They caught him at it this afternoon, dearie.’
‘Oh, my God!’ she said.
And then she was running up the stairs, going up flight after flight, not pausing to catch her breath, not stopping on the landings, but running, running, running, without thought, senselessly, up and up the stairs, with her heart pounding as she forced herself to go faster and faster, pounding until there was a sharp pain in her chest. She didn’t think as she ran, but she kept saying, Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! over and over in her mind.
The two men standing outside the door of her apartment talked as they waited.
‘Every time I come in one of these dumps, I can’t help thinking they’re not fit for pigs to live in, let alone people.’
The other shrugged. ‘So what?’ They were both silent, and the one who had shrugged his shoulders continued, ‘Mebbe you don’t know that a white man ain’t safe in one of these hallways by himself.’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
‘I dunno.’
They were silent again. And then one of them said, ‘Wonder what the mother looks like,’ idly, aimlessly, passing the time.
‘Probably some drunken bitch. They usually are.’
‘Hope she doesn’t start screaming and bring the whole joint down on our ears.’ He looked uneasily at the battered wood of the closed doors that lined the hall.
When Lutie reached the top floor, she was panting so that for a moment she couldn’t talk. ‘Where is he?’ she demanded. She looked around the hall. ‘Where is he? Where is he?’ she asked hysterically.
‘Take it easy, lady. Take it easy,’ one of them said.
‘Don’t get excited. He’s down at the Children’s Shelter. You can see him tomorrow,�
� said the other, as he extended a long, white paper. It crackled as he placed it in her hand.
Then they left, jostling against each other in their haste to get down the stairs.
She tried to read what it said on the paper and the print wavered and changed shape, grew larger and then smaller. The stiff paper refused to stay still because her hands were shaking. She flattened it against the wall, and looked at it until she saw that it said something about a hearing at Children’s Court.
Children’s Court. Court. Court. Court meant lawyer. She had to get a lawyer. She started down the stairs, walking slowly, stiffly. Her knees refused to bend, her legs refused to go fast. Her legs felt brittle. As though whatever had made them work before had suddenly disappeared, and because it was gone they would break easily, just snap in two if she forced them to go quickly.
She had thought Bub would be waiting there at the top of the stairs. But he was in the Children’s Shelter. She tried to visualize what kind of place it could be and gave up the effort.
Bub would go to reform school. She stopped on the fourth-floor landing to look at the thought, to examine it, to get used to it. Bub would go to re-form school. And she reached out and touched the wall with her hand, then leaned the weight of her body against it because her legs were trembling, the muscles quivering, knees buckling.
Her thoughts were like a chorus chanting inside her head. The men stood around and the women worked. The men left the women and the women went on working and the kids were left alone. The kids burned lights all night because they were alone in small, dark rooms and they were afraid. Alone. Always alone. They wouldn’t stay in the house after school because they were afraid in the empty, silent, dark rooms. And they should have been playing in wide stretches of green park and instead they were in the street. And the street reached out and sucked them up.
