by Packer, Vin
It was not anything Vivian could comprehend. It was something, Thad believes, few could appreciate — to lose half of yourself, to have what was joined to you sliced and stolen as though you had done something to deserve it, as though it were a punishment for something you had done. And to ask why all your life and never find an answer. But Thel dead, her body rotten under clay, the young body of a girl given to the dirt while you stand helpless. Why?
In the darkness Thad Hooper frowns, chasing away these thoughts, forcing himself to concentrate on the business at hand — right now, on Hus, how he must handle her and cope with her stubborn wrath. Hooper contends there’s no harmony in a house in which the servants are disgruntled; an ornery nigger can create chaos, and while Major is easily enough threatened back into toeing the mark, Hussie isn’t. If she’s mad enough, the stew kettle will fall to the ground accidentally, the contents spilled and wasted; the pig will slip off the spit into the dust at its side; or some other damage will happen “by mistake” in the preparations for the evening.
At the top of the hill, Hooper mops his brow with the sleeve of his blue wool sweater; then strolls toward the fire and the pit where Hussie stands stirring the stew.
He calls, “Hi, Hus, how you?”
Hus doesn’t answer him; puffs of white smoke start from her corncob and spiral up into the night air. She stirs more vigorously, a squat little black woman with wild white woolly hair cropped short and close like a man’s. She is black and gnarled and sassy, an “independent Nigra” those in Paradise describe her, and smile tolerantly at that fact, for Hussie Post is very old, born, as she recalls, on the first clear Sunday after General Lee surrendered.
Thad Hooper grins as he comes closer to her; grins and stands arms akimbo as he stares down into the big iron kettle where the Brunswick stew is cooking; and in the pit beside it, the pig roasting over the embers. He and Hussie Post are the only two in sight; the guests are all down below the brow of the hill, and Major too, capturing water from the spring for them to use to chase the bourbon, and helping set up the plank table for eating.
“Hey now, Hus — you mad at me? Huh?” Thad asks as he watches her manipulate the long-handled ladle.
Hus shrugs; she won’t answer him.
“Now, didn’t you and me always get along, Hussie Post? Didn’t we, hmm? ‘Member last week when you was ailing and Bissy mentioned to me ‘bout that leak in you-all’s roof? Didn’t I see it got fixed so the rain isn’t going to leak in there any more?”
The old woman looks up from the stew to Hooper, takes her pipe out of her mouth, and spits over her shoulder. “Dat roof didn’t leak in dere, Mr. Thad,” she says. “When it rained it rained in dere, and it leaked outside.”
“Well, I got it fixed, didn’t I?” Thad Hooper answers, guffawing, always breaking up over Hussie’s wry humor. “Now didn’t I, Hus?”
“I spect you did, Mr. Thad.”
“You and me always got along, Hus, didn’t we? Now what’d I do to make you mad at me, hmm?”
“If you knock de nose, Mr. Thad, the eye cry.”
The Negro proverb is well known to Hooper. Hurt one in the family, hurt all. He sticks his large hands down into the pockets of his khaki and rocks back and forth gently on his heels, watching the moon off in the sky gilding the cotton fields and outlining the willowy branches of the black pines and dogwoods.
“I spoke to little Thad, Hus,” he says, “but now you know kids. They get at that age. An’ if a little girl tease ‘em, they going to do as they please with her.”
“White kids do as they please; colored do as they can.”
“Hussie, I’m surprised at you talking that way! You lived in Paradise all your life, now haven’t you? You know this is a right friendly town to all folks. We always looked out for you and your family, now, you know that. Why, kids get into all sorts of things, Hus, but it don’t stop folks from getting along.”
“Little girl had to go to the doctor,” Hus grumbles.
Thad smiles. “Oh? Well, now why didn’t you say so in the first place, Hus?”
“I tole Miz Hooper all ‘bout it, Mr. Thad.”
“Well, Mrs. Hooper should have told you we’ll pay Doc James whatever he charged you, Hus. Don’t be worrying about that, for heaven’s sake. We’ll pay that bill, Hus. Even though little Thad was only half to blame. But you got to tell the little girl not to be asking for trouble. Hear?”
Hussy answers, “Doc James didn’t charge nothin’.”
“Well, then, why are we carrying on so about it, hmmm? Tell you what, Hus. I’m going to see you get a dollar for your trouble tonight. Mrs. Hooper and I appreciate your coming up here to do this for us when you been so sick and all, Hus.”
“Got no choice ‘bout earnin’ a livin’ if I ain’t studying dyin’, Mr. Thad,” Hus says.
Thad Hooper chuckles. “Yeah, you’re right there, all right, Hussie. There’s none of us that has.”
He stands quietly beside the old woman, watching the ladle turn up chicken and corn and squirrel, and smelling the pungent aroma of the mustard and vinegar and sugar; red pepper and celery, all intermingling with the good odor of the pig nearby in the pit.
“Sure smells good,” he says.
He glances at the old woman, whose expression is stony, her eyes fixed steadily on the stew’s liquid, the pipe puffing in short quick clouds of white smoke, her wizened brow wrinkled in one long frown. Reaching into his back pocket, Thad Hooper feels for his wallet, pulls it out with a flourish, holding it up to the fire’s light and picking out a dollar. With a quick movement of his long arm, he shoves the money into the pocket of Hussie’s patched black apron. Hussie ignores the gesture, bland and indifferent as before.
“Yes sir, Hussie!” Hooper says putting the wallet back. “It sure smells good.” He stands there a moment longer. “You sure fix the best stew around here, Hus,” he says. “Yeah, you do!”
Then finally he turns away from the pot and the pit and the old Negro woman, and ambles back down the hill to the spring, whistling a little and snapping his fingers.
When he is out of sight, Hussie Post hawks again, aiming the spittle so it lands inside the kettle; puts her pipe back between her gums, and wields the ladle in the blending of the stew.
• • •
Besides the Hoopers that night at the barbecue, there are Joh and Guessie Greene, Bill and Marianne Ficklin, Storey and Kate Bailey, and Colonel Pirkle, who came without Ada. All of them, except Vivian, sit in the circle with its campfire center, swirl whisky and talk. Over at the plank table, Vivian helps Major Post set out the paper plates and silverware, napkins, and salt and peppers. They stand beside one another near the queen-of-China trees, two candles giving them light; and the moon off in the west helping.
“You seem solemn, Major,” she says, handing him a stack of plates. “I’m sorry. Sorry you’re solemn, and sorry you have a reason to be.”
“I always thought well of you, Miz Hooper.”
“We’ve always gotten along, haven’t we, Major?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Major, you have a good mind, don’t you? What I mean is, you’re more intelligent than most nig — nigra people, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know that’s smart to own up to, Miz Hooper.”
“Well, do you know what I mean when I say that I don’t condone little Thad’s behavior?” She hesitates; wondering if she should have brought up the subject to this boy, no more than a boy, really; still, with his grown-up ways, more like a white man than a colored boy, but nigger-like in his sullen, close-mouthed resenting. “By condone, I mean — ”
Major interrupts. “I know the meaning of condone, ma’am. You don’t have to explain.”
“Major, I didn’t question that.” She is irritated for even having broached the subject now; smarting at his defensive hint of belligerence and his glum tone. “You make it hard for anyone to talk with you.”
“I’m sorry, Miz Hooper. I know that. And I know yo
u mean well — you more than anyone around here. I didn’t mean to sound like I did. I just get the anger all boiled up in me sometimes. When my grandmother told me about my sister, I just saw red, ma’am, and I still see it.”
“Of course, I’m not saying little Thad was all to blame,” Vivian Hooper says, “but no matter who had what share in the blame, I regret the incident.”
Major says nothing to that and she thinks she detects some stiffening in his attitude again, a sudden withdrawal which is difficult for her to appreciate. This spasmodic hostility which lately seems almost a trait of Major’s irks Vivian Hooper. It’s just as though Major were totally unwilling to be accepted as an above-average colored person, wanting, instead, acceptance as a white. Perhaps Thad is right in his theory that regardless of the Negro’s brain power, and despite the fact a few seem to possess uncommon intelligence, a white’s never got to let them think they’re anything but black; particularly in places like Paradise where the niggers outnumber the whites four to one. A white’s got to treat a nigger like a nigger, or the nigger will lose respect for the white and start to take advantage of the white, drop the “sir” and “ma’am” and show his shoulder to the white, and sass him. And if enough of them got away with it, if enough whites dropped their guards, the niggers could just take over.
But Vivian Hooper likes Major and wants to treat him right; yet he has an annoying effect on her which seems to result in her feeling somehow obliged to apologize to him for any little thing that goes wrong — like last week, going out of her way to explain to Major why the roofer hadn’t been able to get to their shack on Monday; had to postpone patching their roof until Wednesday, and Major answering bluntly: “Well, Miz Hooper, I’m sorrier than you, cause Hus is getting rained on. Could just as well find a roofer who could come on time if we had the money!” knowing Thad had chosen Ed Blake to do the job because Ed owed Thad a favor and wouldn’t charge him. Major’s reactions to her attempts to placate him — and why did he somehow make her feel she had to! — inevitably make her regret she puts herself in the position of patronizing this nigger.
Between them a silence hangs now; Major seems to slam everything she hands him onto the plank table, in a contemptuous gesture; letting the forks she had just given him fall out of his hands and clank against the wood; some landing on the ground under the table. She sighs.
“Pick those up, Major,” she says tersely. “Now they’ll have to be washed.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He bends to retrieve them slowly. Then, pausing as he holds them, waiting for her to notice he has stopped what they are doing together, he says when she glances over at him, “Miz Hooper?”
“Well?”
“I’d just like to say one thing.”
Suddenly in that second before Vivian Hooper starts to answer Major, intending to say: “All right, Major, but hurry. We have guests waiting and I can’t be here helping you the whole time,” Thad’s voice cracks the silence.
“Hey, boy, what the hell you think this is?”
Major turns and stares at Hooper. “Sir?”
“People back there waiting for some more spring water, Major!”
“I was helping Miz Hooper, sir.” “You mean she was helping you.”
“Yes, sir.” He speaks tiredly again, perpetually tired and resigned in his tone, his shoulders sagging, stance impatient and slumping.
“You get that jug and get on back there, Major. When you finish with that, you can do the rest of what’s here by yourself. Mrs. Hooper don’t need to be overseeing the job!”
“Yes, sir.”
Major puts the forks on the table, and goes to lug the jug down to the campfire. When he is out of hearing distance, Hooper says: “I’m getting damn tired of that boy. Working for that Northerner hasn’t done him any good.”
“Shhh, honey, Marianne’ll hear.”
Hooper regards her coldly. “What you doing back here in the bushes with him anyway?” “No, Thad, don’t start — ”
“How come you decided to wear that?” He flicks his thumb against her flesh above her bosom.
She looks down at the blue cotton dress, its neck cut in an expansive oval shape dipping down near the crease of the beginning of her breasts, its waist tight, the skirt full and three times petticoated underneath.
“There’s nothing wrong with it,” she says. “It’s pretty, I think.”
“For some kind of ballroom, maybe. Not an outdoor barbecue.”
“I suppose I should be buttoned up to the neck.” “Wouldn’t hurt. If you’re gonna be back in the bushes helping a nigger!” “Thank you.”
“You asked for it. Viv, you keep asking for it — for it and a lot of its.”
“What started you off today, Thad. Can you tell me that?”
“I come home on a day like today and get sassed by an uppity nigger because my kid done to his sister what he’s probably done to her three nights a week and all day Sunday, and then I walk upstairs and get worse sass out of the mother of my children, lying around half naked on the bed with the door wide open!”
Vivian Hooper shuts her eyes and thinks, God help his lies, stands impassively. She knows he has more to say.
“And I’m never going to forget what you insinuated about Thel; what you insinuated about me and Thel.”
“Huh?” She opens her eyes immediately, staring incredulously at her husband’s fury-ridden face. “What, Thad?”
“That’s right, act like you didn’t say anything of the kind. The way you act about everything! Pretend you’re just little Miss Innocence! Well, we know better, don’t we, Vivian?” He smiles sardonically as he stands in front of her, looking down at her. “Don’t we?”
“I wish I knew what’s eating at you, Thad. I don’t don’t know when you’ve ever carried on this way this long.”
“Oh, yeah. Yeah-uh! You don’t know what’s eating me. You make all sorts of dirty insinuations about Thel not being virtuous, and you — ”
“My God, I never said that — ”
“Shut up, will you! Will you close your mouth like a lady should? If you kept it shut you wouldn’t let what’s in you out for people to see and just get sick at. Well, Vivian, let me tell you something. I’m going to forgive what you said about Thel because I have to. I’m married to you, and you’re mother to my kids. I’m obliged to forgive the remark, but I’m never going to forget it.”
They look at one another silently. From behind them the voices of their guests sound in the night’s cool air, and the slight breeze rustles the branches of the queen-of-China trees; the campfire crackles in the background, and the candles fight the frail wind whipping them.
Thad Hooper says: “I want that dress off before you rejoin our guests.”
She puts her hand on the round button at her bosom. “Yes, Thad, I’ll take it off right now.”
With a sudden swift movement of his arm, his palm cracks across her jaw, the impact of it sending her to the ground.
Behind him, Major Post’s voice says: “They got all the water they need now, Mr. Hooper. I’ll finish up here.”
Hooper stalks past the startled boy wordlessly.
For a moment Major just looks down at her, sitting on the ground, her hands covering her face. Then he goes over to her, asks gently, “Miz Hooper? Can I help, ma’am?”
“He’s mean.” She seems to say it to herself, though she says, “Major, he’s mean, and his mind is rotten. Oh God.”
“Can I help you, ma’am?” He bends a little, as if to offer his hand to pull her back to her feet, but waiting for her permission.
“He hurt me, Major. He really hurt me.” “Are you hurt, ma’am? Can I — ”
“Yes, I’m hurt. I’m really hurt. I can’t be doctored for this one, Major. Here, Major — here, help me — ” She gives him her hand, and the boy takes it, tugs her up, stands beside her as she pushes back the wisps of raven hair that have fallen around her face. She rubs her cheeks with her palms, and the spot on her jaw where Thad Hooper had
struck her. She stands then as though thinking very hard, oblivious to anything else, one hand supporting her as she leans against the plank table, the other dangling listlessly at her side.
Major waits for a while behind her. Then he says softly: “Is there anything I can do, ma’am?”
“Hmm?” She looks at him. “No. No, there’s nothing.”
“I’m real sorry, Miz Hooper.”
She purses her lips, pondering a moment. Then removes her hand from the table and straightens herself.
“I’ll wash off these forks, Miz Hooper,” Major says. “Then I guess Hus will be fixing to serve.”
“Yes,” Vivian Hooper says. “I’m going on up to the house. Yes, tell Hus to go ahead and serve when she’s ready, Major.”
“You want us to wait on you, don’t you, Miz Hooper?”
“No.”
• • •
As Thad Hooper enters the circle, he seats himself between Storey and Kate Bailey, slapping Storey across the back. “Hey, boy, you all tanked up on that bourbon? Hi, Kate. You look mighty pretty tonight.”
“Where’s Viv?” Storey asks.
Thad says, “She’ll be along. How’s the band coming, Kate?”
Kate Bailey’s thin face brightens at the mention of the band. She sits cross-legged, her yellow cotton skirt smoothed over her knees, the matching blouse open at the neck where there is a double strand of white beads which her fingers touch lightly as she talks.
“We all hope Vivie will take up an instrument one of these days, Thad.”
“Why, I was mentioning only this afternoon I thought she should.”
“Band does a whale of good,” Storey muses. “But I don’t know. I just can’t see Viv tooting a horn.”
