The Morning and the Evening

by Joan Williams

  She did not answer. She had not answered him all morning. When he opened his eyes to daytime, for the first time in the forty years of his life he had not heard her in the house. He knew it was home. The window was by the bed, and above his head was where the rain had come and spread long brown streaks that dried and peeled.

  He got out of bed and went along the long hall, his feet cool on the bare floor, until he came to the room that was hers. He sat down watching; then it was two days, and he was tired. He got up, thinking how the cat ate mice that died and the dog went under the house with snakes; a cow down by the pond had stayed until there was nothing left but bones the buzzards had left.

  He went outdoors, aware of the long, hot grass reaching after his legs as he crossed the yard. The chickens ran at him angrily, flew up at his knees and pecked the rounded toes of his worn-out brogans. He looked up at the sun, went inside the feed house and after a while came out with the right gunny sack. He stood, a tall thin figure against the sunlight, still except for the swinging arc of his arm spreading the feed about him. When it was done, he put the sack back exactly right and went on down to the back of the yard. He picked up a chick that came running in a great fright from inside the little shed when he opened the door. He held its soft yellow roundness close to him, sitting on the hole that pinched his bottom. And he tried to tell the animal in great dry sobs, but he knew no words for loss.

  Finally he was crying for her. He came out blowing his nose on his sleeve and he set the chick down; still stooping, he watched as it ran toward the feed, crazy-like, on its little thin legs. Then going on, he began to remember what she had always told him, and he zipped up his overalls. He hesitated at the steps leading up to the porch and looked at the house. It seemed dark inside after the brightness behind him, and he sat down on the steps and began to pull at the long summer-smelling grass crowding around them. The blades were slick and green and broke open wetly as his nail pressed into them. He sat a long time pulling them one by one, pressing them open, and then laying them neatly in a pile alongside him. Birds quietly stole pecans from the heavy greenness of the tree just beyond the gate, and at that instant a thin brown-and-white hound appeared in the empty road from the depths of the orchard and trotted in a sidelong fashion toward the gate; working it open with his nose, the dog came on into the yard, sniffing. Having nosed the pile of grass blades, it sat back on its haunches watching, hot and dusty, its red tongue lolling sideways out of a space between his teeth. Presently the man rose and walked out again into the yard from which he had just come, his eyes fixed where they had been for some time, as if to move them would be to forget. He walked to where the two-days-hung sheets idled stiffly in the one breath of air that stirred. He fumbled about them for some time, but finally his fingers found their answer and he began to pull them gently from the line. Crumpling them between his two great hands, he carried them carefully toward the house and gained the porch and was entering the house itself when its silence stopped him. He offered the sheets and withdrew them; offered them again anyway while the enormous tears that were his kind came down his cheeks. Behind him the hound, which had not yet moved, rose at the sound that spoke to it and, ambling to the man’s heels, sat again on its haunches and, lifting its head, began a similar sound.

  Then he turned for the first time, seeming to notice the dog, and looking down at it, was silent. The dog hushed too; it looked up eagerly, its drooling mouth open again. And then he heard the rumblings of his own stomach.

  He stood a long time not knowing what to do. In his whole life he had never fixed food. Shortly, as if led by something unseen, he went the length of the house and entered the kitchen, with the dog just after him.

  Someone had been there recently. Two places were laid opposite each other on the small oilcloth-covered table. The cover to a jar of grape jelly had slipped askew and black ants filled the empty half. He smelled oilcloth and crackers stored against wetness in an old wooden cabinet propped against the far wall. He went to it and opened the doors; then the smell of confined bread was even stronger. He saw cold biscuits and corn bread wedges on a chipped white plate, and he took the plate down, already crowding food into his mouth. The dog whined and he threw it a biscuit; the dog gulped it whole, then twitched its behind, whining again. He threw it the last corn bread and watched as the dog wolfed it, scattering crumbs in all directions. He stood, waiting, listening; in the silence, he heard a fly buzz. Presently something led him to the other side of the house to the screened porch. He lowered a bucket into the cistern and brought up water and they both drank from the dipper.

  Sometime in the late afternoon, after he had gone many times into her room and looked at her and come out again and walked around the house and returned again and repeated the whole process, he found himself going down the road on his way to town. At each bend in the road he turned back, his face screwed up as he faced the sun’s setting, his arm raised and gesturing, his throat convulsive, and the empty countryside filled with all the sounds he could utter: telling her he was going for help. Then, going on, he stopped again, each time uttering the sounds again, but sometimes gently, and with a meaning so different the sounds themselves sounded different; stooping, holding out his hand, trying to snap his fingers, calling the dog that had fled with a great yelp after the first time it had entered her room with him and sniffed around the bed.

  The sun had gone by the time he entered town, but there were several hours of daylight left yet. The sun’s passing made the day a little cooler and the shirt stuck wetly to his back began to dry as he gained the wooden sidewalks of the town and with a high loping step picked his way between the broken planks.

  “Here he comes,” called someone from the porch of the first store.

  “Where you been, Jake?” called somebody else sitting in the circle of cane-bottomed chairs.

  As he came up to the little store, another man said, “You been up to Memphis going to town, Jake?” and everybody laughed.

  The first man shot a long brown stream of tobacco over his stomach and into the grass. “Naw,” he said, “I bet he’s been up to Washington, D. C., helping out there, hey, Jake?” and everybody laughed so hard Cotter May had a terrible fit of coughing.

  The mute stood shaking his head, saying the sound that was n.

  “He says naw,” somebody said, and somebody else said, “Well, where you been at, Jake?”

  He hung his head and went on. Somebody called after him, “You ain’t crazy, are you, Jake?” and somebody else called the answer, “Naw, but you ain’t far from it are you, Jake?” And this time the laughter was drowned out by the sound of flying gravel as a car from the country tore through town too fast.

  He was alone until he crossed the side road and came to the next store. Nothing but a hound was on the porch. He tried to step over it, but miscalculated distance as he often did and stepped on its tail. He felt a great rush of pity, but at the dog’s yowling someone opened the screen door into him and he forgot the dog.

  “Oh, it’s just a houn’,” the woman said, and stepped aside. “How you, Jake?” she said as he came in; then, shifting a large sack of groceries, she started for the door; but he brushed at her arm, afraid to touch it, remembering not to touch anyone; tears came with his effort and when he opened his mouth, nothing came out except saliva.

  “Ooo, I declare to my soul,” the woman said, turning away. She was quite large, going down the walk in a dress patterned all over with large purple poppies. He felt dizzy watching the design in motion as she walked away. Someone spoke to him from behind the counter, a face kind and familiar. “Jake, do you want to go to the bathroom? It’s right back there through that door.” He stood just inside the store shaking his head, trying to seek control over crying. The tears welled in his eyes as he stood blinking; finally they welled over.

  “You take him, Thomas,” the woman said. A little Negro boy seated on a pile of feed sacks stared at her openmouthed and said, “Naw sir, Miss Loma, he liable to h
ave warts.”

  “Oh, get on out of here,” she said, and the little boy picked up a bottle of orange pop and fled. Taking Jake’s elbow, she propelled him to his duty. He performed it. When he returned, she scanned to see that he had closed his fly.

  “You wanna banana caramel, Jake?” she said, reaching into the mottled case. He shook his head. Her hand moved from one box of candy to another, touching them lightly. “Candy ice cream cone? Sour ball? Baseball sucker? Not licorice,” she said, turning up her nose. He shook his head each time. “Sure you do,” she said, and her hand returned to the caramels, deciding for him. She took one of the hard yellow squares from the case and put it into his hand. He stood looking down at it. “Here,” she said, and took it and removed the slick waxed paper. Then she put it into his hand again, and as soon as he smelled its sweetness, saliva formed in his mouth and he felt hunger pains in his stomach. He put it into his mouth. Two men stopped a small tractor outside the door and came inside with a heavy clumping of boots and a terrible smell of sweat. They took Cokes out of the ice case and settled down into chairs. Miss Loma leaned over the counter and talked to them, stopping several times for children who came for popsicles, or for ladies who had forgotten several little things when they shopped in the morning, or who just wanted a cold Coke. Jake stood at his spot. If someone spoke to him, he rolled his eyes in their direction. The candy was a large unmelting hump in his cheek. Once a little boy howled, “You got mumps, Jake!” and the little girl with him ran screaming into the road.

  “If he weren’t the preacher’s boy, I declare to my soul, I don’t know what all I wouldn’t do to that child,” Miss Loma said, and shook her head. She picked up the empty bottles the men had left and put them into the Coke case. “Where’s your Ma, Jake?” she said. “She didn’t shop Monday.”

  His eyes and mouth opened in a round surprised manner, the candy fell from inside his cheek into the center of his mouth, and his teeth fell shut over it. Suddenly the sweetness began to flow down his throat, and pressed against the roof of his mouth, the caramel began to melt—it was suddenly soft-feeling, and he touched it experimentally with his tongue.

  “Good?” Miss Loma said. “Want another?” But she was busy straightening up at that moment and did not get it.

  He knew that there was something besides the candy; it had been just within reach and now hung just out of it. As best he could, he searched for it. But he could not push aside the taste, the smell, the feel of the candy, and he could know fully only one thing at a time. Miss Loma was leading him to the door now, telling him it was time for him to go home, time to close the store. He suddenly stood on the porch and watched the door closed in his face. The candy was still too large for him to speak. Miss Loma stood inside motioning him down the road, her face a round white circle against the dark interior.

  He turned finally. A few pink tinges remained in the sky, but for the most part it was rain-gray. He walked in the twilight through the almost empty town. Miss Alma, the postmistress, was rocking on her front porch and said, “Evenin’, Jake.” Behind her, her lamp was a warm yellow spot in the growing dark. Crickets in the deep grass along the roadside began to sound. Ahead, a man was pumping water for his horse in a little shed set in the center of town; the clang of the iron pump was loud in the supper-hour quiet, as was even the rush of water and the sound of the horse’s drinking. “Evenin’, Jake,” the man said and doffed his hat. “How’s your Ma?” And he turned back to the horse, expecting no answer. He did not even see Jake stop and stand and look. He got on his horse and rode away in the opposite direction, leaving behind a cloud of dust that filtered through Jake’s nostrils, seeped even through his lips closed tightly over the candy, flavoring it with dust and grit, and hurt in his eyes, until the postmistress called gently through the near dark, “Get out of the dust, Jake.”

  Then he moved, his gaunt figure continuing in its funny high loping step down the middle of the road. He turned off the main road and down the side one that he would follow to its very end. He passed all the houses and went for some time along the road that narrowed until it was hardly big enough for one car; on each side was a narrow ditch, weed-filled, and beyond them nothing but gullies and pasture land; occasionally he smelled wild plum and honeysuckle and once the tickling, pepperish smell of tiny wild roses; but mostly he smelled the stink of ragweed and simply the heavy grassy smell of summer. His shoes hurt him and a rock had bruised an instep through one thin sole. He was feeling the pain of it when suddenly he gave a little choking sound and with a last flood of sweetness the candy slipped down the back of his throat and left his mouth, at last, free. For a while he could think only of that and went over and over the surprise of losing the candy. But then he suddenly sat down on the side of the road and, with his head hung down between his knees, moaned over and over all that he had wanted to say. Spent at last, he got up and continued on the road until he came up against the gate. He stood outside and looked at the dark house. It was the first time in his life there had been no one to meet him and no lamp lit. When he had passed through the gate he went forward hesitantly, his mouth hung open, his hands groping toward the side of the house, though dark had not yet come full. He entered, closing the door softly behind him, and faced down the long dark hall expecting still that someone would come into it. He went its length and reached the kitchen and saw it still as he had quit it a long time ago. He went into all the rooms of the house, hers among them, and looked at her without surprise, and continued to look about the house, still expecting someone. At last he did not know what to do with himself, though he knew the ritual that should be followed. He went finally and got into bed, all her warnings clear in his head. He looked once toward the lamp, but he did not touch it.

  The next morning he found milk and bread and butter. He went out across the yard to the hen house and carried in eggs in a worn enamel pan, but once inside, he put them in the center of the table, not knowing what else to do with them. He was sitting at the kitchen table, still in the clothes he had slept in, very carefully using a knife to put butter on his bread, when he heard a truck stop. He put all the bread in his mouth and sat very quietly, chewing. He heard the car door slam, and presently he heard the scrape of the screen door being pulled open across the floor; then he heard heavy footsteps. He was hidden by the door when someone came into the room next to him—the dining room, where the icebox was kept. He could see slightly between the doorframe and the door as the big colored man struggled to lift the fifty pounds of ice into the box. Then he slung the tongs over his shoulder and called, “Missus, it’s Preacher with the ice.”

  In the silence afterward, Jake could hear the man’s heavy breathing. He knew who the man was and why he was there. He knew that now it was going to be all right. Presently, the man moved to the door of the bedroom and called, “Hello, Missus.”

  Jake could hear the alarm clock ticking in there. Then he could hear the heavy steps of the man going away, and his voice, fainter, calling, “It’s Preacher.”

  Then the man was on the front porch. He heard the door slam behind him. And he knew how it would look: the empty porch, the stilled swing, ahead the empty road and quiet flat land; and the field, still too, rising in the distance to a road where you could see the white steeple of the church. He thought he heard a bird sing, and he could feel the warmth of the day flush on his face as he knew the man could; sweat stood out on his forehead. Presently he heard the man open the front door to reenter the house, and he stood up and went down the hall, meaning neither to be quiet nor to make noise, but the man did not hear him. He was in her room, bending over the bed. Jake stood outside the door, watching. He heard the man’s heavy intake of breath, watched as he held her arm a moment, then let it fall quickly. He drew the sheet up over her face. He came into the hall and followed it to the kitchen. Jake was seated again at the table, a piece of bread halfway to his mouth. He looked up at the man without sound or expression, and the man gazed back at him silently. Once he opene
d his mouth as if to say something, but then he closed it and his head gave a little shake. He leaned against the doorframe and wiped his face with a handkerchief; then he sort of half blew his nose and shook his head again and went on out the back door. Jake heard the flutter and squawking of chickens and heard the man spreading their feed. For a while he heard nothing, then the man’s voice farther away calling, “Su pig pig pig,” and the sound of corncobs falling into their trough. In a little while he came back up the short hill, puffing from the climb, and passed the back door and said, “No time now for a cow.” He stood at the bottom of the back steps and called up, “You stay there. You stay there. You hear, Mister Jake?”

  He buttered a slice of bread and put it into his mouth. It was then, while he was chewing, he knew that sometime before he had heard the truck drive away. He got up and went down the hall and took the sheet away from her face. Then he returned to his seat in the kitchen.

  When the first ones to hear the news came, he was still sitting there: still eating the loaf of bread and the hand-shaped mound of white butter.

  “You eat that whole loaf up, Jake?” said one of the ladies.

  When he looked up, there was a whole brood of them looking at him from a semicircle; their brightness almost frightened him. They wore flowered dresses and colored glass beads; their cheeks were red spots and their mouths narrow red lines; their faces were freshly powdered, and some were the color of flour while others were like peaches in bloom. One lady, with bracelets that slid down her arm when she reached out, took the bread away from him, though he was still hungry.

  “Oh, the poor thing,” said another. “Do you think he knows?”