Georgia Boy

by Erskine Caldwell

  My old man cut his eyes around and glanced up the street towards Mrs. Howard’s house on the corner.

  “There’s a mirror inside,” he said, talking in a low voice as though he didn’t want anybody else to hear him.

  “Come on, then,” the girl said, pulling him by the arm.

  She picked up her suitcase and went inside with my old man right behind her. After they were inside Handsome came out of the kitchen and we hurried to the far side of the house where we could look through one of the windows.

  “What did I tell you?” the girl said. “Didn’t I tell you it was a beauty? I’ll bet you never had a tie like that in all your life before.”

  “I reckon you’re right, at that,” Pa said. “It’s sure a beauty, all right. It sort of sets me off, don’t it?”

  “Of course,” she said, standing behind my old man and looking over his shoulder into the mirror. “Here, let me tie a better knot in it for you.”

  She went around in front of my old man and drew the knot tighter under his chin. Then she just stood there with her hands on his shoulders and smiled up at him. My old man stopped looking at himself in the mirror and looked at her. Handsome began getting fidgety.

  “Mis’ Martha’ll be coming home almost any minute now,” he said. “Your Pa ought to take care. There’s liable to be a big fuss if Mis’ Martha comes home while he’s standing in there like that fooling around with that necktie. I wish I had them dishes all done so I could go and take my day off before Mis’ Martha gets back.”

  My old man leaned over and smelled the air over the girl’s head and put his arms around her waist.

  “How much do you get for it?” he asked her.

  “Fifty cents,” she told him.

  Pa shook his head from side to side.

  “I ain’t got fifty cents to my name,” he said sadly.

  “Oh, now, come on and loosen up,” she said, shaking him hard. “Fifty cents isn’t anything at all.”

  “But I just ain’t got it,” he told her, getting a tighter grip around her waist. “I just ain’t, that’s all.”

  “Don’t you know where you can get it?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Handsome groaned.

  “I wish your Pa would stop messing around over that old necktie like that,” he said. “I just know ain’t nothing good’s going to come out of it. I feel in my bones that something bad’s going to come along, and it looks like I’m always the one who gets in trouble when something like that happens. I declare, I wish my day off had started long before that girl came here with them neckties.”

  The girl put her arms around my old man’s neck and squeezed herself up against him. They stood that way for a long time.

  “I think maybe I could get me a half-a-dollar somewheres,” my old man told her. “I’ve just been thinking about it. I feel maybe I can, after all.”

  “All right,” she said, taking her arms down and backing away. “Hurry and get it.”

  “Will you wait right here till I come back?” he asked.

  “Of course. But don’t stay away too long.”

  My old man started backing towards the door.

  “You wait right here where you are,” he told her. “Don’t budge a single inch from this room. I’ll be back before you know it.”

  In barely any time at all he came running out on the back porch.

  “Handsome!” he shouted. “Handsome Brown!”

  Handsome groaned as if he were getting ready to die.

  “What you want with me on my day off, Mr. Morris?” he said, sticking his head around the corner of the house.

  “Never mind what I want,” Pa told him, hurrying down the steps. “You come on with me like I tell you. Hurry up, now!”

  “What we aiming to do, Mr. Morris?” Handsome said. “Mis’ Martha told me to be sure and do them dishes in the kitchen before she got back. I can’t do nothing else but that when she done told me to do it.”

  “The dishes can wait,” my old man said. “They’ll get dirty after we eat off them the next time, anyway.” He grabbed Handsome by the sleeve and pulled him towards the street. “Get a hustle on and do like I tell you.”

  We went down the street with Handsome trotting to keep up. When we got to Mr. Tom Owens’ house, we turned into the yard. Mr. Owens was hoeing witch grass out of his garden.

  “Tom,” Pa shouted over the fence, “I’ve decided to let Handsome work for you a day like you wanted. He’s ready to start in right away!”

  He pushed Handsome inside Mr. Owens’ garden and made him hurry up between the rows of cabbages and turnips to where Mr. Owens was.

  “Give Handsome the hoe, Tom,” Pa said, taking it away from Mr. Owens and shoving it at Handsome.

  “But, Mr. Morris, ain’t you clear forgot about this being my day off?” Handsome said. “I declare, I just naturally don’t want to hoe that old witch grass, anyway.”

  “Shut up, Handsome,” Pa said, turning and shaking him hard by the shoulder. “Mind your own business.”

  “But I is minding my own business, Mr. Morris,” Handsome said. “Ain’t it my business when I have a day off coming to me?”

  “You’ve got a whole lifetime ahead of you to take a day off in,” Pa told him. “Now, start grubbing out that witch grass like I told you.”

  Handsome raised the hoe and let the blade fall on a bunch of witch grass. The growth was so wiry and tough that the hoe blade bounced a foot off the ground when it struck it.

  “Now, Tom,” Pa said, turning around, “give me the fifty cents.”

  “I ain’t going to pay him till he does a day’s work,” Mr. Owens said, shaking his head. “Suppose he don’t do a half-a-dollar’s worth of work? I’d be cheating myself if I went and paid out the money and then found out he wasn’t worth it”

  “You don’t have to worry about that part of it,” Pa said. “I’ll see to it that you get your money’s worth out of Handsome. I’ll be back here ever so often just to stand over him and see to it that he’s doing the work like he ought to for the pay he’s getting.”

  “Mr. Morris, please, sir?” Handsome said, looking at Pa.

  “What is it, Handsome?” he asked.

  “I don’t want to have to hoe this old witch grass, please, sir. I want, my day off.”

  Pa gave Handsome a hard look and pointed at the hoe with his foot.

  “Now, just give me the fifty cents, Tom,” he said.

  “What makes you in such a big hurry to collect the pay before the work’s done?”

  “I’ve got something that has got to be settled right away. Now, if you’ll just hand me the money, Tom—”

  Mr. Owens watched Handsome hitting the witch grass with the blade for a while, and then he put, his hand into his overalls pocket and took out a handful of nails, screws, and small change. He hunted through the pile until he had picked out half-a-dollar in nickels and dimes.

  “This’ll be the last time I’ll ever hire that colored boy to do anything for me if he don’t do a good hard day’s work,” he told Pa.

  “You won’t regret hiring Handsome,” Pa said. “Handsome Brown’s one of the hardest workers I ever seen anywhere.”

  Mr. Owens handed Pa the money and put the rest of the pile back into his pocket. As soon as my old man had the money, he started for the gate.

  “Mr. Morris, please, sir?” Handsome said.

  “What do you want now, Handsome?” Pa shouted back at him. “Don’t you see how busy I am?”

  “Could I get off sort of early this afternoon and have a little bit of my day off?”

  “No!” Pa shouted back. “I don’t want to hear no more talk about taking a day off, anyway. You don’t never see me taking a day off, do you?”

  My old man was in such a hurry by that time that he didn’t wait to say anything more even to Mr. Owens. He hurried back up the street and ran into the house. He latched the screen door on the way in.

  The girl was sitting on the bed folding neckties one
by one and laying them in her suitcase. She looked up when Pa ran into the room.

  “Here’s the money, just like I said!” he told her. He sat down on the bed beside her and dropped the nickels and dimes into her hand. “It didn’t take me no time at all to collect it.”

  The girl put the money in her purse, folded some more ties, and pulled her stockings up around her knees.

  “Here’s you tie,” she said, picking the bright green and yellow one up from the bed and putting it into Pa’s hand. The tie fell on the floor at his feet.

  “But, ain’t you going—” he said, surprised, looking at her hard.

  “Ain’t I going to do what?” she said right back.

  My old man stared at her with his mouth hanging open. She bent over and folded the rest of the ties and put them into the suitcase.

  “Well, I thought maybe you’d put it around my neck and tie it again like you did just a little while ago,” he said slowly.

  “Listen,” she said. “I made the sale, didn’t I? What else do you want for fifty cents? I’ve got this whole town to cover between now and night. How many sales do you think I’d make if I spent all my time tying neckties around people’s necks after I’d already made me a sale?”

  “But—but—I thought—” my old man stammered.

  “You thought what?”

  “Well, I kind of thought maybe you’d—I thought maybe you’d want to tie it around my neck again—”

  “Oh, yeah?” she laughed.

  She got up and slammed the cover on her suitcase. My old man sat where he was, watching her while she picked it up and walked out of the room. The front door slammed and we could hear her running down the steps. In no time at all she was all the way down the street in front of Mr. Owens’ house and was turning into his yard.

  My old man sat on the bed for a long time looking at the green and yellow necktie on the floor. After a while he stood up and kicked it with all his might across the room, and then he went out on the back porch and sat down on the steps where he could stretch out in the sun again.

  XI. My Old Man’s Political Appointment

  WE WERE SITTING on our front porch after supper when Ben Simons came up the street and turned into our yard. My old man had been feeling bad all evening and hadn’t said much out loud, although I could hear him mumbling to himself from time to time. All the trouble had started that morning when Ma jumped on him for not having a job of any kind, and for not even going out to look for one. She had scolded him from one end of the backyard to the other, complaining because she had to take in washing and ironing all the time and because he seldom ever earned any money. Ma’s scolding had got under, my old man’s skin after a while, and he told her if that was the way she felt about it, he would go out and make some money and show her just what he could do when he was pushed. Right away he sent Handsome and me out to get orders for blackberries. He told us to get as many orders as we could and to come back and tell him how many gallons all the orders added up to. Handsome and I spent the whole afternoon going all over town from one house to the next asking people if they wanted to buy some fresh blackberries. Most of them did, because the price was cheap, considering the fact that my old man had told us to tell people that the berries would be clean and that there wouldn’t be any ants crawling around among them. He had figured out in his head that if he could sell twenty-five gallons of berries at twenty-five cents a gallon he would make a little over six dollars. He said that was a lot of money for anybody to earn in just one day, and that when he collected it and showed it to Ma, she would be so surprised she would take back all the mean things she had said in the backyard that morning. Handsome and I had finally got orders for twenty gallons, provided they were delivered by supper time the next day. Pa was a little disappointed when we came back and told him we had got orders for only twenty gallons, because he said that meant he would earn a measly five dollars instead of more than six, which he had been counting on. However, he said that was still a lot of money for a day’s work, and he told Handsome and me to go out to the country bright and early the next morning and start picking. When Ma heard about it, she came right out and put her foot down hard. She told my old man she wasn’t going to let Handsome and me break our backs picking berries for him to sell, and that, besides, it would take us nearly a week to pick twenty gallons. Pa accused Ma of hampering him, and all through supper that night they didn’t say a single word to each other. When we went out on the front porch, my old man started in mumbling to himself. He was still doing it when Ben Simons, the town marshal, came into the yard.

  “Good evening, folks,” Ben said, coming up the steps.

  “Howdy, Ben,” Pa said. “Come on in and set.

  Ma didn’t say anything right away, because she was always suspicious of politicians like Ben Simons until she found out what it was they wanted.

  “Nice cool evening, ain’t it, Mrs. Stroup?” Ben said, feeling in the dark for a chair.

  “I reckon,” Ma. said.

  Nobody said anything for a while. Ben cleared his throat several times, sounding as if he wanted to say something but was halfway afraid to open his mouth.

  “Busy these days, Ben?” Pa asked him.

  “I sure am, Morris,” he said right away, opening up just as if he had been waiting for somebody to give him a chance to talk. “I declare, it looks like I never have time any more to sit down for a minute’s rest. I snatch a little sleep, and I grab a little something to eat, and the rest is all work, work, work, from early morning until late at night. My wife was telling me only the day before yesterday that I was going to put myself in the grave twenty years ahead of time if I didn’t stop working so hard. I have to patrol the streets, keep the jail cleaned up, make arrests, keep my eyes open for bail-jumpers, and the Lord only knows what else. I’m worn to a frazzle, Morris.”

  “Maybe you need somebody to help you out,” my old man said. “Now, take me for example. I’ve got a little free time now and then. True, it ain’t much, because I’m kept pretty busy just watching out for my own affairs, but I could spare a little time every once in a while, if it would help you out any.”

  Ben leaned forward in his chair.

  “To tell the truth, that’s what I came up here tonight to see you about, Morris,” he said. “I’m glad you mentioned it.”

  “Ben Simons,” Ma spoke up, “I don’t know what you’re up to, but whatever it is, it had better not be anything shady like the last trouble you got Morris into. I don’t want to hear of any more of your money-making schemes like selling family-sized expanding coffins. Nobody in his right mind would want to have a coffin opened up and expanded every time another member of the family died.”

  “What I had in mind ain’t nothing at all like that, Mrs. Stroup,” Ben said. “What I’m speaking about now is a political appointment.”

  “What kind of a political appointment?” she asked, stopping her rocking chair and sitting quiet and straight.

  “It’s like this,” Ben said. “The town council met last night and voted to enforce the ordinance against dogs running loose in the streets. Only two days ago I had to track down and shoot a dog that had gone mad, and the town council thinks it’s dangerous to have so many dogs running wild. They told me to enforce the ordinance and lock up every stray dog I found on the street. Right away I told the members that I had all I could handle as it was, and they agreed to appoint an investigator of waifs and strays.”

  “An investigator of waifs and strays!” Ma said, rising up out of her seat. “Do you mean to sit there, Ben Simons, and say that my husband is the type of man who ought to be a dog-catcher! I’ve a good mind to ask you to leave my house!”

  “Now, wait a minute, Mrs. Stroup,” Ben pleaded. “It wasn’t my idea at all, in the beginning. One of the council members himself suggested that Morris was the ideal citizen to have the appointment, and they voted—”

  “Dogs do have a habit of following me around,” my old man said. “I’ve noticed it al
l my life. It looks like dogs just naturally take to me—”

  “Shut up, Morris!” Ma shouted at him. “I’ve never heard of such a humiliating thing!”

  “But, Mrs. Stroup,” Ben said, “a great many famous politicians have started out being dog-catchers. As a matter of fact, most big senators, congressmen, and sheriffs started their political careers as dog-catchers. There’s scarcely a high office-holding politician in the country today, who didn’t begin his career by being a dog-catcher.”

  “I don’t believe it!” Ma said. “I’ve always had a higher regard for politicians than that.”

  “Politics is a queer sort of thing,” Ben said. “The same rules that apply to other occupations don’t seem to hold true to politics. A politician can start out early in his career being a dog-catcher and live it down almost in no time at all. That’s what makes politics the kind of occupation it is.”

  Ma was silent after that, and I could hear her rocker begin squeaking again. It was easy to know that she was thinking hard about what Ben had said.

  “The more I think about it,” my old man spoke up, “the more I like the idea. I’ve been thinking for a long time that I ought to take a bigger hand in public life. Just drifting along from day to day, doing a little here and a bit there, don’t amount to so much, after all.”

  “Then you ought to accept this appointment, Morris,” Ben said quickly. “It will be a big thing for you. You ought to do it.”

  My old man sat still and tried to see Ma’s face in the dark. She was still rocking back and forth and making the chair squeak as regularly as water dripping from a spigot.

  “Well,” Pa said slowly, watching Ma as best he could in the dim light, “I reckon it’s something I ought to accept.” He waited to hear what Ma was going to do. She paid no attention at all to what he had said. “I’ll accept the appointment.”

  Ben got up.

  “That’s fine, Morris,” he said quickly, moving across the porch toward the steps. “That’s fine. I’m glad to hear you say that. I’ll expect to see you downtown in the morning right after breakfast.”