Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick

by Zora Neale Hurston

  He grew silent and pensive. Matty accounted for this by her ever-ready explanation of conjuration. Alfred said nothing, but smoked and puttered about the barn more than ever. Stella accused her husband of indifference and pouting. At last John decided to bring matters to a head and broached the subject to his wife.

  “Stella, dear, I want to go roving about the world for a spell, would you stop here with Papa and Mama and wait for me to come back?”

  “John, is you crazy sho ’nuff? If you don’t want me, say so, an’ I kin go home to mah folks.”

  “Stella, darling, I do want you, but I want to go away too. I can have both if you’ll let me. We’ll be so happy when I return.”

  “Now, John, you cain’t push me off one side like that. You didn’t hafta marry me. There’s a plenty others that would hev been glad enhuff tuh get me. You know ah want educated befo han’.”

  “Don’t make me too conscious of my weakness, Stella. I know I should have never married you with my inclinations, but its done now. No use to talk about what is past. I love you and I want to keep you, but I can’t stifle that longing for the open road, rolling seas, for peoples and countries I have never seen. I’m suffering too, Stella, I’m paying for my rashness in marrying before I was ready. I’m not trying to shirk my duty—you’ll be well taken care of in the meanwhile.”

  “John, folks allus said you was queer and tol me not to marry yuh, but ah jes loved yuh so ah couldn’t help it, an now to think you wants tuh sneak off an’ leave me.”

  “But I’m coming back, darling. Listen, Stella—” But the girl would not. Matty came in and Stella fell into her arms weeping. John’s mother immediately took up arms against him. The two women carried on such an effective war against him for the next few days that finally Alfred was forced to take his son’s part.

  “Matty, let dat boy alone ah tell yuh! Ef he wuz uh homeboddy he’d be drove ’way by you-all’s racket.”

  “Well, Alf, dats all we po’ wommen kin do. We wants our husbands an’ our sons. John’s got a wife now, an’ he ain’t got no business to be talkin’ bout goin’ nowhere. I ’lowed dat marryin’ Stella would settle him.”

  “Yas, das all you wimmen study ’bout—settlin’ some man. You takes all de get-up, out of ’em. Jes let uh fellah mak a motion lak gettin’ somewhere an’ some ’oman’ll begin tuh hollah ‘Stop theah! wheres you goin’? don’t fuhgit you b’long tuh me!’”

  “My Gawd! Alf! What you reckon Stella’s gwine do? Let John walk off an leave huh?”

  “Naw. Git outer huh foolishness an’ go ’long wid him. He’d take huh.”

  “Stella ain’t got no call tuh go crazy ’cause John is. She ain’t no woman tuh be floppin’ roun’ from place tuh place lak some uh dese reps follerin’ uh section gang.”

  The man turned abruptly from his wife and stood in the kitchen door. A blue haze hung over the river and Alfred’s attention seemed fixed upon this. In reality his thoughts were turned inward. He was thinking of the numerous occasions upon which he and his son had sat on the fallen log at the edge of the water and talked of John’s proposed travels. He had encouraged his son, given him every advantage his poor circumstances would permit. And now John was home-tied.

  The young man suddenly turned the corner of the house and approached his father.

  “Hello, Papa.”

  “’Lo, Son.”

  “Where’s Mama and Stella?”

  The older man merely jerked his thumb toward the interior of the house and once more gazed pensively toward the river. John entered the kitchen and kissed his mother fondly.

  “Great news, Mama.”

  “What now.”

  “Got a chance to join the Navy, Mama, and go all around the world. Ain’t that grand!”

  “John, you shorely ain’t gointer leave me and Stella, is yuh?”

  “Yes, I think I am, I know how both of you feel, but I know how I feel also. You preach to me the gospel of self-sacrifice for the happiness of others, but you are unwilling to practice any of it youself. Stella can stay here—I am going to support her and spend all the time I can with her. I am going; that’s settled, but I want to go with your blessing. I want to do something worthy of a strong man. I have done nothing so far but look to you and Papa for everything. Let me learn to strive and think—in short, be a man.”

  “Naw, John, Ah’ll nevah give mah consent. I know you’s hard headed jus lak you Paw, but if you leave dis place ovah mah head, ah nevah wants you tuh come back heah no mo. Ef I wuz laid on de coolin’ board, ah doan’ want yun standin’ ovah me, young man. Doan never come neah mah grave, you ongrateful wretch!”

  Mrs. Redding arose and flung out of the room. For once, she was too incensed to cry. John stood in his tracks, his eyes dilated with terror at his mother’s pronouncement. Alfred, too, was moved. Mrs. Redding banged the bed-room door violently and startled John slightly. Alfred took his son’s arm saying softly, “Come, son, let’s go down to the river.”

  At the water’s edge they halted for a short space before seating themselves on the log. The sun was setting in a purple cloud. Hundreds of mosquito hawks darted here and there, catching gnats and being themselves caught by the lightening-swift bull-bats. John abstractedly snapped in two the stalk of a slender young bamboo. Taking no note of what he was doing, he broke it into short lengths and tossed them singly into the stream. The old man watched him silently for a while, but finally he said, “Oh, yes, my boy, some ships get tangled in the weeds.”

  “Yes, Papa, they certainly do; I guess I’m beaten—might as well surrender.”

  “Nevah say die. Yuh nevah kin tell what will happen.”

  “What can happen? I have courage enough to make things happen, but what can I do against Mama! What man wants to go on a long journey with his mother’s curses ringing in his ears? She doesn’t understand. I’ll wait another year, but I am going because I must.”

  Alfred threw an arm about his son’s neck and drew him nearer but he quickly removed it. Both men instantly drew apart, ashamed for having been so demonstrative. The father looked off to the wood-lot and asked with a reminiscent smile, “Son, do you remember showing me the tree dat looked lak a skeleton head?”

  “Yes I do. It’s still there. I look at it sometimes when things have become too painful for me at the house, and I run down here to cool off and think.”

  “You wuz always imaginin’ things, John, things that nobody else evah thought on.”

  “Oh, yes, I’m a dreamer. I have such wonderfully complete dreams, Papa. They never come true. But even as my dreams fade, I have others.”

  The men arose without more conversation. Possibly they feared to trust themselves to speech. As they walked leisurely toward the house Alfred remarked the freshness of the breeze.

  “It’s about time the rains set in,” added his son. “The year is wearin’ on.”

  After a gloomy supper, John strolled out into the spacious front yard and seated himself beneath a China-berry tree. The breeze had grown a trifle stronger since sunset and continued down from the southwest. Matty and Stella sat on the deep front porch, but Alfred joined John under the tree. The family was divided into two armed camps and the hostilities had reached that stage where no quarter could be asked or given.

  About nine o’clock an automobile came flying down the dusty white road and halted at the gate. A white man slammed the gate and hurried up the walk towards the house, but stopped abruptly before the men under the China-berry tree. It was Mr. Hill, the builder of the new bridge that spanned the river.

  “Howdy John, howdy Alf, I’m mighty glad I found you; I am in trouble.”

  “Well, now, Mist. Hill,” answered Alfred slowly but pleasantly, “we’se glad you foun’ us too. What trouble could you be having now?”

  “It’s the bridge. The weather bureau says that the rains will be upon us in forty-eight hours. If it catches the bridge as it is now, I’m afraid all my work of the past five months will be swept away, to say not
hing of half a million of dollars’ worth of labor and material. I’ve got all my men at work now and I thought to get as many extra hands as I could to help out tonight and tomorrow. We can make her weather tight in that time if I can get about twenty more.”

  “I’ll go Mister Hill,” said John with a great deal of energy. “I don’t want Papa out on that bridge—too dangerous.”

  “Good for you, John!” cried the white man. “Now if I had a few more men of your brawn, I could build an entirely new bridge in forty-eight hours. Come on and jump into the car. I am taking the men down as I find them.”

  “Wait a minute. I must put on my blue jeans. I won’t be long.” John arose and strode to the house. He knew his mother and wife had overheard everything, but he paused for a moment to speak to them.

  “Mama, I am going to work all night on the bridge.”

  There was no answer. He turned to his wife.

  “Stella, don’t be lonesome, I’ll be home at daybreak.”

  His wife was as silent as his mother. John stood for a moment on the steps, then resolutely strode past the women and into the house. A few minutes later he emerged clad in his blue jeans and brogans. This time he said nothing to the silent figures rocking back and forth on the porch. But when he was a few feet from the steps he called back, “Bye Mama, bye Stella,” and hurried down the walk to where his father sat.

  “So long, Papa. I’ll be home around seven.”

  Alfred roused himself and stood. Placing both hands upon his son’s broad shoulders he said softly, “Be keerful, son don’t fall or nothin’.”

  “I will, Papa. Don’t you get into a quarrel on my account.”

  John hurried on to the waiting car and was whirled away.

  Alfred sat for a long time beneath the tree where his son had left him and smoked on. The women soon went in doors. On the night breeze were borne the mingled scents of jasmine, of roses, of damp earth, of the river, of the pine forest near by. A solitary whip-poor-will sent forth his plaintive call from the nearby shrubbery. A giant owl hooted and screeched from the wood lot. The calf confined in the barn bleated and was answered by his mother’s sympathetic “Moo” from his pen.

  Around ten o’clock the breeze freshened, growing stiffer until midnight when it became a gale. Alfred fastened the doors and bolted the wooden shutters at the windows. The three persons sat about a round table in the kitchen upon which stood a bulky kerosene lamp, flickering and sputtering in the wind that came through the numerous cracks in the walls. The wind rushed down the chimney blowing puffs of ashes about the room. It banged the cooking utensils on the walls. The drinking gourd hanging outside the door played a weird tattoo, hallow and unearthly, against the thin wooden wall.

  The man and the women sat silently. Even if there had been no storm they would not have talked. They could not go to bed because the women were afraid to retire during a storm and the man wished to stay awake and think of his son. Thus they sat: the women hot with resentment toward the man and terrified by the storm, the man hardly mindful of the tempest, but eating his heart out in pity for his boy. Time wore heavily on.

  And now a new element of terror was added. A screech-owl alighted on the roof and shivered forth his doleful cry. Possibly he had been blown out of his nest by the wind. Matty started up at the sound but fell back in her chair pale as death. “My Gawd!” She gasped, “dats a sho’ sign of death.”

  Stella hurriedly thrust her hand in the salt jar and threw some into the chimney of the lamp. The color of the flame changed from yellow to blue-green, but this burning of the salt did not have the desired effect—to drive away the bird from the roof. Matty slipped out of her blue calico wrapper and turned it wrong side out before replacing it. Even Alfred turned one sock.

  “Alf,” said Matty, “what do you reckon’s gonna happen from this?”

  “How do ah know, Matty?”

  “Ah wisht John hadner went way from heah tuh night.”

  “Huh.”

  Outside the tempest raged. The palms rattled dryly, and the giant pines groaned and sighed in the grip of the wind. Flying leaves and pine-mast filled the air. Now and then a brilliant flash of lightning disclosed a bird being blown here and there with the wind. The prodigious roar of the thunder seemed to rock the earth. Black clouds hung so low that the tops of the pines among them moaned slowly before the wind and made the darkness awful. The screech-owl continued his tremulous cry.

  The wind ceased and the rain commenced. Huge drops clattered down upon the shingle roof like buckshot and ran from the eaves in torrents. It entered the house through the cracks in the walls and under the doors. It was a deluge in volume and force, but subsided before morning. The sun came up brightly on the havoc of the wind and rain, calling forth millions of feathered creatures. The white sand everywhere was full of tiny cups dug out by the force of the falling rain drops. The rims of the little depressions crunched noisily underfoot.

  At daybreak Mr. Redding set out for the bridge. He was uneasy. On arriving he found that the river had risen twelve feet during the cloudburst and was still rising. The slow St. John was swollen far beyond its banks and rushing on to the sea like a mountain stream, sweeping away houses, great blocks of earth, cattle, trees, in short, anything that came within its grasp. Even the steel framework of the new bridge was gone.

  The siren of the fibre factory was tied down for half an hour, announcing the disaster to the country side. When Alfred arrived therefore he found nearly all the men of the district there.

  The river, red and swollen, was full of floating debris. Huge trees were swept along as relentlessly as chicken coops and fence rails. Some steel piles were all that was left of the bridge.

  Alfred went down to a group of men who were fishing members of the ill-fated construction gang out of the water. Many were able to swim ashore unassisted. Wagons backed up and were hurriedly driven away loaded with wet, shivering men. Two men had been killed outright; others seriously wounded. Three men had been drowned. At last all had been accounted for except John Redding. His father ran here and there, asking for him or calling him. No one knew where he was. No one remembered seeing him since daybreak.

  Dozens of women had arrived at the scene of the disaster by this time. Matty and Stella, wrapped in woolen shawls, were among them. They rushed to Alfred in alarm and asking where was John.

  “Ah doan’ know,” answered Afred impatiently, “that’s what ah’m tryin’ to fin’ out now.”

  “Do you reckon he’s run away?” asked Stella thoughtlessly.

  Matty bristled instantly.

  “Naw,” she answered sternly, “he ain’t no sneak.”

  The father turned to Fred Mimms, one of the survivors, and asked him where John was and how had the bridge been destroyed.

  “You see,” said Mimms, “when dat terrible win’ come up we wuz out ’bout de middle of the river. Some of us wuz on de bridge, some on de derrick. De win’ blowed so hahd we could skeercely stan’; and Mist. Hill tol’ us tuh set down fuh a speel. He’s afraid some of us mought go overboard. Den all of a sudden de lights went out—guess de wires wuz blowed down. We wuz all skeered tuh move for slippin’ overboard. Den dat rain commenced—and ah nevah seed such a downpour since the flood. We set dere an’ someone begins tuh pray. Lawd, how we did pray tuh be spared! Den somebody raised a song and we sung, you hear me. We sung from the bottom of our hearts till daybreak. When the first light come we couldn’t see nothin’ but fog everywhere. You couldn’t tell which wuz water an’ which wuz lan’. But when de sun come up de fog began to lift, and we could see da water. Dat fog was so thick an’ so heavy dat it was huggin’ dat river lak a windin’ sheet. And when it rose we saw dat de river had rose way up durin’ the rain. My Gawd, Alf, it was running high—so high it nearly teched de bridge an red as blood, so much clay, you know, from lan’ she done overflowed. Coming down stream, as fast as ’press train, was three big pine trees. De fust one wasn’t forty feet from us and there wasn’t no chance to do
nothin’ but pray. De fust one struck us and shock de whole works, an’ befo it could stop shakin’ the other two hit us an’ down we went. Ah thought ah’d never see home again.”

  “But Mimms, where’s John?”

  “Ah ain’t seen him, Alf, since de logs struck us. Mebee he’s swum ashore, mebbe dey picked him up. What’s dat floatin’ way out dere in de water?”

  Alfred shaded his eyes with his guarded brown hand, and gazed out into the stream. Sure enough there was a man floating on a piece of timber. He lay prone upon his back. His arms were outstretched and the water washed over his brogans, but his feet were lifted out of the water whenever the timber was buoyed up by the stream. His blue overalls were nearly torn from his body. A heavy piece of steel or timber had struck him in falling, for his left side was laid open by the thrust. A great jagged hole, wherein the double fists of a man might be thrust, could plainly be seen from the shore. The man was John Redding.

  Everyone seemed to see him at once. Stella fell to the wet earth in a faint. Matty clung to her husband’s arm weeping hysterically. Alfred stood very erect with his wife clinging tearfully to him, but he said nothing. A single tear hung on his lashes for a time, then trickled slowly down his wrinkled brown cheek.

  “Alf! Alf!” screamed Matty, “dere’s our son. Ah knowed when ah heard dat owl las’ night.”

  “Ah see ’im Matty,” returned her husband softly.

  “Why is yuh standin’ heah? Go git mah boy.”

  The men were manning a boat to rescue the remains of John Redding when Alfred spoke again.

  “Mah po boy, his dreams never come true.”

  “Alf,” complained Matty, “why doan’t-cher hurry an’ git mah boy. Doan’t-cher see he’s floatin’ on off?”

  Her husband paid her no attention, but addressed himself to the rescue party.

  “You all stop. Leave my boy go on. Doan stop ’im. He wants tuh go. Ah’m happy ’cause dis mawnin’ mah boy is going tuh sea, he’s goin’ tuh sea.”