Mozart and Leadbelly

by Ernest J. Gaines

  “Like me to do that?” he said.

  “Uh-huh. You like me to do it to you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Let’s come up here and do it all the time,” I said.

  “Sinning, too?” he said.

  “You like to sin?” I said.

  “Uh-huh,” he said.

  And he passed his tongue over my face and under my neck and I started laughing, and I quit and did him that and he started laughing. Then he quit laughing and did it to me, and I laughed again. And then the trapdoor shot up and they said, “There they is. Just like Skinny Nancy said.”

  “Bring ’em down here,” Miss Charlotte said. “And Jackson better not run. I mean he better not run. Bring ’em down here.”

  They grabbed us by the ankles and dragged us to that trapdoor and started dropping us to the floor like we was sacks of potatoes. Somebody was there to catch me, but nobody caught him and he hit the floor. She grabbed my ear and grabbed him and started up the road with us, with a big drove of ’em following behind and more coming out on the gallery to watch us go by. And me hollering there like I was crazy, and him not hollering at all but just doing all his might to get loose. She had a good grip on both of us—but that still didn’t keep him from trying, or keep me from hollering, “I got a splinter in my tail, I got a splinter in my tail, I got a splinter in my tail, I want that splinter out my tail.” And just hollering:

  “I want that splinter out, I want that splinter out, I want that splinter out my tail.” But her never saying a word—just carrying us by our ears. And me just a-hollering, and him over there still trying to break loose. Jerking and jerking and jerking, and me just hollering. When she got to the house, she made three of ’em hold him ’cause two couldn’t, ’cause he kept hitting and kicking every time they got close. Then three of ’em jumped on him and held him down.

  “All right, miss,” she said. “Come on and get yours first.”

  I started hollering louder: “You going to whip me and I got a splinter in my tail, I want that splinter out my tail.”

  “All right,” she said. “Where it at, and there better be one, and a good one, too, if you know what’s good for you. Point to it. Touch the spot.”

  “It hurt if I touch it,” I said.

  “Point then,” she said.

  “Right there,” I said, pointing. “See it?”

  “All right,” she said. “It’s a little one, but I’ll get it out. One of y’all standing ’round there find me a needle. Heaten it and bring it back here when it’s cold so I can get the splinter out. But that ain’t going to keep the strop off your tail, miss. I’m going to give you something today you going to remember the rest of your life. Ain’t big enough to wipe your nose and you laying up in the loft. I fix you. If y’all knowed what y’all was doing it’d be something else. But you don’t know. Hurry up and bring me that needle. I want give ’em their medicine ’fore they forget what they getting it for.”

  That was the worst whipping I ever got in my life, and his was worser ’cause he wouldn’t cry. And that was one thing ’bout them old people: if you didn’t cry they beat you till the sun went down. And if it was already down they beat you till it come up again. They made you cry, all right. After a while you was glad to cry.

  The thing me and him done gone through when we was small can’t be changed by something like Lillian. I ain’t going to believe he love Lillian till he tell me he love her. When he do, I’ll believe him. But if he don’t, I’ll never believe it. They can say just what they want to say. I don’t care.

  III

  I got the broom and went outside to sweep the gallery off. I didn’t have to go up to the big house till I got ready, and I thought after I had swept off the gallery I’d go up to Dora till I got ready to go to work. When I came outside I saw Jackson coming down the road. I thought he was going to Madame Bayonne’s house, but when he passed it I figured him and Brother had somewhere to go and he was going down there to see if Brother was ready. Then when he got in front of our house he turned and came up the walk. He hadn’t seen me yet and I ran inside and stuck the broom in a corner and pulled off the apron I was wearing. But I had to be doing something when he came in. I got a dishrag and took a stack of plates out of the safe and started wiping ’em out. I heard him come up on the gallery and knock on the door, and I told him to come in.

  “Hi, what you know?” he said, coming back in the kitchen.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “I see you’re busy,” he said.

  “Just thought I’d clean up some,” I said. “Can I get you a chair to sit down?”

  “No, I’d rather stand,” he said, and went to the back door, where it was more cooler. “It’s going to be hot again today.”

  “Yeah, once this heat start setting in.”

  “Where’s Herb?” he asked.

  “Working.”

  “Don’t you go to work today?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t go till late,” I said. “All I have to do is make a cake today. And I don’t have to go till I get ready.”

  He turned and looked outside, and his back was to me. He was wearing a brown shirt and a pair of brown pants. The shirt had short sleeves, but he still had ’em rolled up some.

  I wiped the plate and put it in the safe. And I got another one and started wiping it out.

  “How’s Miss Charlotte?”

  “Okay,” he said, looking out in the yard. I knowed he was looking at all the weeds we had out there, and I had asked Dad a hundred times to chop ’em down. I had kept the little ones down ’side the walk back there, but I wasn’t going to hurt myself trying to chop down them big weeds. That was a man’s job.

  I carried the plate to the safe, and I got one more and wiped it out. When I finished this, I folded the rag and stuck it in the safe drawer. Jackson heard me pushing the drawer, and he glanced over his shoulder.

  “Finished work?” he said, smiling.

  “Yes.”

  “Would you like to go for a walk somewhere?” he asked. “I would like to talk to you.”

  “All right.”

  I went to my room to get my hat. He owe me some kind of explanation for all he been doing, I thought in there, and this walk I been waiting for since he been here. I thank God it done come at last.

  I put my hat on and went back to the kitchen where he was.

  He glanced at my hat when I came back in there, and then we left. I wanted all of ’em to see us together, now, and soon as we went out the gate I saw Nancy deRogers come out on her gallery to watch us. And I saw Emmy peeping from behind a curtain at us when we was passing by their place. But she didn’t come out on the gallery the way Nancy did. When we got down to Mr. James Martin, Mrs. Sarah was sitting out on the gallery shelling a pan of beans. She raised her arm to wave at us. We waved back. She asked Jackson how Miss Charlotte was. Jackson said she was all right.

  “That’s good,” Mrs. Sarah said. “I’ll probably go up there after I get dinner done.” That was the last house along the stream, and after we passed it we was back in the field. There wasn’t any trees here, like there was along the stream. There was just sugarcane on both side of us. The sugarcane went so far, and then you came to corn, and then to cotton. On the other side of the cotton was the pasture where Mr. Boudreau and ’em kept their cattles. They had trees along the pasture, and I reckoned that’s where we was going. I tried to think what he wanted to talk to me ’bout. Just last night I seen him going over there, and he knowed I seen him, so what it was he wanted to talk ’bout? Did he want to tell me to keep out his business? I didn’t think that was it, ’cause look to me like if that was it, he would’ve been mad when he came to the house. But he wasn’t mad at all. Just the other way ’round.

  I didn’t know what he had on his mind, but this was my chance, and I was going to speak my piece today. I was going to ask all the questions I had been storing up and I was going to tell him what I thought. I just wanted the Lord to give me strength, and I w
as going to speak my piece.

  I hoped what he had to say was something good, and if it was, soons I went back, I was going straight to old Emmy and tell her all ’bout it. Just day ’fore yesterday she was saying he wasn’t this, he wasn’t that; and I was a fool for being that way ’bout him. I sure felt good when I passed by there and seen her peeping from behind that curtain. She thought nobody seen her there, but I did. I knowed she was going to be there, and that’s why I made it my business to look that way when we was passing.

  I bet you her and Nancy deRogers was going to have a big talk ’bout what happened. I could just hear ’em right now. I bet you she had already gone over to Nancy’s house.

  Well, let ’em talk all they wanted. I wanted to be looking in her face when I told her he proposed to me. That would be something. I bet you her mouth’d fall open a foot. And then me and him’d go to Bayonne and get the ring. And every time I seen her in the road I’d flash it in her face. I’d be the happiest person in the world if that’s what it was. I’d show it to every last one of ’em. All of ’em. Everyone who been saying I’m a fool. Dad, ’specially. I’d show it to him every time he looked my way. I’d keep it shiny and every time he looked at me it’d be flashing.

  I ought to not get my hopes up that high, I thought. It could’ve been anything. It didn’t have to be a proposal. Maybe he wanted to ask me if I wanted to go to Bayonne to a show, or maybe he wanted to ask me if I want to go to New Orleans one day with him and Brother. But if it was no more ’an that, he could’ve asked me that at home, couldn’t he? Did he have to come way across here for that? It must’ve been something big he wanted to say. Something—and he didn’t want to be stopped with somebody running in the house. But I better stop thinking ’bout it, I thought. I’d find out soon enough.

  IV

  “That looks like a good place to sit down,” Jackson said.

  We’d turned off the road and went over to the tree, and he took out his pocket handkerchief and spread it out on the ground for me to sit on.

  “No. You,” I said.

  “These things are already dirty,” he said. “Sitting on the ground can’t make them look any worse.”

  “They look all right,” I said.

  “That’s because of the shade,” he said. “You can’t see the dirt in the shade.”

  I sat on the handkerchief and spread out my dress. I was wearing a white dress with lots of big flowers in it. I think it was Miss Charlotte who had give me the cloth. And I had made the dress myself.

  When I sat down, Jackson moved back and sat against the tree.

  “Watch for ants, there,” I said.

  Jackson leaned forward and looked at the tree, and then he leaned back ’gainst it again.

  “None,” he said, stretching out his legs and looking at me. I looked over at him, and then I looked down the field like I saw something down there I was interested in. There wasn’t nothing down there, but I just couldn’t look at him when he was looking at me like that. If he wasn’t I could look at him all day, ’cause I like to look at him. But I couldn’t look at him at all if he was looking at me at the same time.

  “Why haven’t you gotten married?” he said.

  “Me?” I said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Never found nobody,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Did you look for somebody?”

  “I guess not.”

  “You can’t find anyone unless you look for him.”

  “How come you ain’t married?” I said, looking at him.

  “Oh, I’m married,” he said.

  “You married?” I said.

  “Of course.”

  “When you got married?” I said.

  Jackson laughed, and I laughed, too. I thought he was really telling me the truth.

  “No, I’m not married,” he said.

  “How come?”

  “I never found anyone I would like to be married to.”

  “Lillian’s there,” I said. And I looked at him to see what he was going to say to that.

  “I’m afraid I’m not Lillian’s kind, as far as marriage goes. And I don’t think she’s my kind either—as far as marriage goes.”

  “You don’t love her?”

  “No,” he said.

  “What you go over there for, then?”

  “Where else can you go ’round here?”

  “It got other places to go to.”

  “Name one,” he said.

  “They got Bayonne, there,” I said.

  “I don’t like Bayonne,” he said.

  They sure got more there ’an they got over here, I said to myself.

  “You ever go to Bayonne?” he asked.

  “Sometimes.”

  “With your boyfriend?”

  “By myself,” I said. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just don’t have one,” I said.

  “You mean you don’t have one now?”

  “I never had one,” I said.

  “Come, now.”

  “None I cared for.”

  “But you did have some.”

  “I didn’t care for any of ’em,” I said.

  “Not one?”

  “No,” I said. “Not one of ’em.”

  A bird flew from ’cross the pasture and lit on one of the cotton stalks. He hit the stalk pretty hard, and it bent forward with him. Look like he was going to fall off, but he held on tight. But he didn’t stay there for long. He just came there to rest, and then he flew away again. A green pecan fell out the tree and landed in the middle by us. I looked at it laying there in the middle, but all the time I could feel Jackson still looking at me.

  “Why did you stay here, Mary Louise?” he said. “Don’t you have people in the city?”

  “I got some there,” I said.

  “Then why didn’t you go to them and go on and finish school?”

  “I wanted to stay here.”

  “Why? To work in some white woman’s kitchen all your life?”

  “That wasn’t my reason.”

  “What was it?”

  I raised my head and looked at him, and then I looked away again.

  “Mary Louise,” he said.

  “What?” I said, with my head still down.

  I wasn’t going to look at him again, ’cause I knowed now he wasn’t going to say he loved me, and he wasn’t going to propose to me. He wasn’t going to ask me to go to a show or to New Orleans with him. He wasn’t going to ask me none of that. He just wanted me back there so he could talk to me like I was a child and he was somebody older. Like he knowed the answer to everything.

  “Do you remember when we were small?”

  I nodded.

  “We loved each other. You remember how much we loved each other?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I went away. How old was I? I was twelve, wasn’t I? And you were what? How old were you?”

  I didn’t answer him.

  “Hanh?”

  “I don’t know. Ten, I guess.”

  “That’s right. You were ten, and I was twelve. And that’s been ten years. Ten long years. And lots of things can change in ten years. Don’t you agree?”

  No, I didn’t agree, but I didn’t say it. It hadn’t changed with me, and I wasn’t going to say it had, ’cause it hadn’t. He wanted me to say it so his conscience would be clear, but I wasn’t going to say it.

  “Did you expect me to come back after ten years and pick up where we left off? Did you, Mary Louise?”

  I still didn’t answer him. And after that he was quiet, and just looking at me. I picked up some dirt and rubbed it between my fingers.

  “It can’t ever be like that again,” I heard him saying.

  A drop of water fell in the place where I had got the dirt from. I raised my hand and wiped my eyes, but I kept my head down all the time.

  “Time changes people,�
�� he said. “Everybody changes. I expected to come back here and find you married.”

  “To who?” I said.

  “I don’t know. Somebody.”

  He went on, but I didn’t hear him no more. I still had the dirt in my hand, and I stirred it ’round with my fingers.

  At first I tried to hold my crying back, but it wasn’t no use; I just let it come the way it wanted to. I wasn’t shamed to cry in front of him. I had cried in front of him before; and this time was just like the others. Like we was still small, and he had never been anywhere.

  He moved from ’gainst the tree and came over where I was. He started talking to me, but I didn’t try to make out what he was saying. All I could think about was what a fool I had been. How right everybody else was, and how wrong I was all this time. I couldn’t think of nothing else.

  Did he think I liked going up to that white woman’s house every day? Did he think I liked taking her ’buses? Or them white men telling me anything they wanted or pinching me ever’ time they passed by? Did he think I liked that—or Dad fussing at me both night and day? And all the rest of ’em there making fun of me when there wasn’t anybody else to pick on? Did he think I liked that? He put his arms ’round my shoulders and pulled me closer to him, but I knowed why he did it, and I jerked myself away.

  “I don’t need your pity.”

  “I wasn’t trying to pity you.”

  “Take it to somebody else. Take it to them yellow bitches you like to go ’round. Just don’t bring it to me.”

  I got to my feet and stood right over him. I hoped there was something close by I could hit him with. I couldn’t see a thing, and I drawed back and hit him with my fist hard as I could. I hit him again, and I hit him again, and he didn’t even try to get out my way. He just sat there with his head down, not even flinching.

  I turned and started running toward the end. I was crying too hard to watch where I was going, and I stumbled and fell. I got up and started running again. I didn’t know why I was running; I just had to run.

  When I got to the road up by the stream I looked back, but I couldn’t see him. I passed my hand over my face, and tried to look like nothing had happened back there. Mrs. Sarah looked at me when I passed by her house, but I made ’tend I didn’t see her.

  When I got home I went to my room and locked the door. I just wanted to be by myself so I could think what a fool I had been. All my life I had been nothing but a fool for people.