Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick

by Zora Neale Hurston

  “We come heah on very important business,” he said. “Stan’ up dere, Jim Weston. You is charged wid ’ssaultin’ Dave Carter here wid a mule bone, and robbin’ him uh his wild turkey. Is you guilty or not guilty.”

  Jim arose, looked insolently around the room and answered the charge. “Yes, Ah hit him and took de turkey cause it wuz mine. Ah hit him and Ahll hit him again, but it wasnt no crime this time.”

  His Honor’s jaw dropped. There was surprise on the faces of all the Baptist section, surprise and perplexity. Gloating and laughter from the Methodists. Simms pulled Jim’s coattail.

  “Set down Jim,” he cooed, “youse one of mah lambs! Setdown. Yo’ shepard will show them that walks in de darkness wid sinners and republicans de light.”

  Jim sat down and the pastor got to his feet.

  “Lookah heah, Jim, this aint for no foolishness. Do you realize dat if youse found guilty, youse gonna be run outa town?”

  “Yeah,” Jim answered without rising. “But Ah aint gonna be found no guilty. You caint find me.” There was a pleasurable stir on his side of the house. The Baptists were still in the coma which Jim’s first statement had brought on.

  “Ah say too, he aint guilty,” began Rev. Simms with great unction in his tones. “Ah done been to de cot-house at Orlando an’ set under de voice of dem lawyers an’ heard ’em law from mornin’ tell night. They says yuh got tuh have a weepon befo’ you kin commit uh ’ssault. Ah done read dis heah Bible fum lid tuh lid (he made a gesture to indicate the thoroughness of his search) and it aint in no Bible dat no mule bone is a weepon, an’ it aint in no white folks law neither. Therefo’ Brother Mayor, Ah ast you tuh let Jim go. You gotta turn ’im loose, cause nobody kin run ’im outa town when he aint done no crime.”

  A deep purple gloom settled down upon the Mayor and his follows. Over against this the wild joy of the Methodists. Simms already felt the reins of power in his hands. Over the protest of the Mayor he raised a song and he and his followers sang it with great gusto.

  “Oh Mary dont you weep, dont you mourn

  Oh Mary, dont you weep dont you mourn

  Pharaoh’s army got drownded

  O-O-oh Mary, dont you weep”

  The troubled expression on the face of the Baptist leader, Rev. Long, suddenly lifted. He arose while yet the triumphant defense is singing its hallelujah. Mayor Clarke quieted the tumult with difficulty. Simms saw him rise but far from being worried, he sank back upon the seat, his eyes half closed, hands folded fatly across his fat stomach. He smirked. Let them rave! He had built his arguments on solid rock, and the gates of Baptist logic could not prevail against it!

  When at last he got the attention of the assembly, he commanded Dave to stand.

  “Ah jus want you all tuh take a look at his head. Anybody kin see dat big knot dat Jim put on dere.” Jim, the Rev. Simms, and all his communicants laughed loudly at this, but Long went on calmly. “Ah been tuh de cot-house tuh Orlando an’ heard de white folks law as much as any body heah. And dey dont ast whether de thing dat a person gits hurt wid is uh weepon or not. All dey wants tuh fin’ out is, ‘did it hurt?’ Now you all kin see dat mule bone did hurt Dave’s head. So it must be a weepon cause it hurt ’im.—”

  Rev. Simms had his eyes wide open now. He jumped to his feet.

  “Never mind bout dem white folks laws at O’landa, Brother Long. Dis is a colored town. Nohow we oughter run by de laws uh de Bible. Dem white folks laws dont go befo’ whuts in dis sacred book.”

  “Jes’ hold yo’ hot potater, Brother Simms, Ahm comin’ tuh dat part right now. Jes lemme take yo’ Bible a minute.”

  “Naw, indeed. You oughter brought one of yo’ own if you got one. Furthemo’ Brother Mayor, we got work to do. Wese workin’ people. Dont keep us in heah too long. Dis case is through wid.”

  “Oh, naw it aint,” the Mayor disagreed, “you done talked yo’ side, now you got tuh let Brother Long talk his. So fur as de work is concerned, it kin wait. One thing at a time. Come on up heah in yo’ pulpit an’ read yo’ own Bible, Brother Long. Dont mind me being up heah.”

  Long ascended the pulpit and began to turn the leaves of the large Bible. The entire assembly slid forward to the edges of the seat.

  “Ah done proved by de white folks law dat Jim oughter be run outa town an’ now Ahm gointer show by de Bible—”

  Simms was on his feet again. “But Brother Mayor—”

  “Set down Simms” was all the answer he got. “Youse entirely outa order.”

  “It says heah in Judges 15:16 dat Samson slewed a thousand Philistines wid de jaw-bone of a ass,” Long drawled.

  “Yas, but this wasnt no ass, this was a mule,” Simms objected.

  “And now dat bring us to de main claw uh dis subjick. It sho want no ass, but everybody knows dat a donkey is de father of every mule what ever wuz born. Even little chillen knows dat. Everybody knows dat dat little as a donkey is, dat if he is dangerous, his great big mule son is mo’ so. Everybody knows dat de further back on a mule you goes, de mo’ dangerous he gits. Now if de jawbone is as dangerous as it says heah in de Bible, by de time you gits clear back tuh his hocks hes rank pizen.”

  “AMEN!! Specially Brazzle’s ol’ mule,” put in Hambo.

  “An’ dat makes it double ’ssault an’ batt’ry,” Long continued. “Therefo’ Brother Mayor, Ah ast dat Jim be run outa town fuh ’ssaultin Dave wid a deadly weepon an’ stealin’ his turkey while de boy wuz unconscious.”

  It was now the turn of the Baptists to go wild. The faint protests of Simms were drowned in the general uproar.

  “I’ll be henfired if he aint right!” the Mayor exclaimed when he could make himself heard. “This case is just as plain as day.”

  Simms tried once more. “But Brother Mayor—”

  “Aw be quiet, Simms. You done talked yo’self all outa joint already.” His Honor cut him short. “Jim Weston, you git right outa mah town befo sundown an’ dont lemme ketch you back heah under two yeahs, neither. You folks dats so rearin’ tuh fight, gwan outside an’ fight all you wants tuh. But dont use no guns, no razors nor no mule-bones. Cote’s dismissed.”

  A general murmur of approval swept over the house. Clarke went on, unofficially, as it were. “By ziggity, dat ol’ mule been dead three years an’ still kickin’! An’ he done kicked more’n one person outa whack today.” And he gave Simms one of his most personal looks.

  Muttsy

  The piano in Ma Turner’s back parlor stuttered and wailed. The pianist kept time with his heel and informed an imaginary deserter that “she might leave and go to Halimufack, but his slow-drag would bring her back,” mournfully with a memory of tom-toms running rhythm through the plaint.

  Fewclothes burst through the portieres, a brown chrysalis from a dingy red cocoon, and touched the player on the shoulder.

  “Say Muttsy,” he stage whispered, “Ma’s got a new lil’ biddy in there—just come. And say—her foot would make all of dese Harlem babies a Sunday face.”

  “Whut she look like?” Muttsy drawled, trying to maintain his characteristic pose of indifference to the female.

  “Brown skin, patent leather grass on her knob, kinder tallish. She’s a lil’ skinny,” he added apologetically, “but ah’m willing to buy corn for that lil’ chicken.”

  Muttsy lifted his six feet from the piano bench as slowly as his curiosity would let him and sauntered to the portieres for a peep.

  The sight was as pleasing as Fewclothes had stated—only more so. He went on in the room which Ma always kept empty. It was her receiving room—her “front.”

  From Ma’s manner it was evident that she was very glad to see the girl. She could see that the girl was not overjoyed in her presence, but attributed that to southern greenness.

  “Who you say sentcher heah, dearie?” Ma asked, her face trying to beam, but looking harder and more forbidding.

  “Uh-a-a man down at the boat landing where I got off—North River. I jus’ come in on the boat.”


  Ma’s husband from his corner spoke up.

  “Musta been Bluefront.”

  “Yeah, musta been him,” Muttsy agreed.

  “Oh, it’s all right, honey, we New Yorkers likes to know who we’se takin’ in, dearie. We has to be keerful. Whut did you say yo’ name was?”

  “Pinkie, yes mam, Pinkie Jones.”

  Ma stared hard at the little old battered reticule the girl carried for luggage—not many clothes if that was all—she reflected. But Pinkie had everything she needed in her face—many, many trunks full. Several of them for Ma. She noticed the cold-reddened knuckles of her bare hands too.

  “Come on upstairs to yo’ room—thass all right ’bout the price—we’ll come to some ’greement tomorrow. Jes’ go up and take off yo’ things.”

  Pinkie put back the little rusty leather purse of another generation and followed Ma. She didn’t like Ma—her smile resembled the smile of the Wolf in Red Riding Hood. Anyway back in Eatonville, Florida, “ladies,” especially old ones, didn’t put powder and paint on the face.

  “Forty-dollars-Kate sure landed a pippin’ dis time,” said Muttsy sotto voce, to Fewclothes back at the piano. “If she ain’t, then there ain’t a hound dawk in Georgy. Ah’m goin’ home an’ dress.”

  No one else in the crowded back parlor let alone the house knew of Pinkie’s coming. They danced on, played on, sang their “blues,” and lived on hotly their intense lives. The two men who had seen her—no one counted ole man Turner—went on playing too, but kept an ear cocked for her coming.

  She followed Ma downstairs and seated herself in the parlor with the old man. He sat in a big rocker before a copper-lined gas stove, indolence in every gesture.

  “Ah’m Ma’s husband,” he announced by way of making conversation.

  “Now you jus’ shut up!” Ma commanded severely. “You gointer git yo’ teeth knocked down yo’ thoat yit for runnin’ yo’ tongue. Lemme talk to dis gal—dis is mah house. You sets on the stool un do nothin’ too much tuh have anything to talk over!”

  “Oh, Lawd,” groaned the old man feeling a knee that always pained him at the mention of work. “Oh, Lawd, will you sen’ yo’ fiery chariot an’ take me ’way from heah?”

  “Aw shet up!” the woman spit out. “Lawd don’t wantcher—devil wouldn’t have yuh.” She peered into the girl’s face and leaned back satisfied.

  “Well, girlie, you kin be a lotta help tuh me ’round dis house if you takes un intrus’ in things—oh Lawd!” She leaped up from her seat. “That’s mah bread ah smell burnin! . . .”

  No sooner had Ma’s feet cleared the room than the old man came to life again. He peered furtively after the broad back of his wife.

  “Know who she is,” he asked Pinkie in an awed whisper. She shook her head. “You don’t? Dat’s Forty-dollars-Kate!”

  “Forty-dollars-Kate?” Pinkie repeated open eyed. “Naw, I don’t know nothin’ ’bout her.”

  “Sh-h,” cautioned the old man. “Course you don’t. I fuhgits you ain’t nothin’ tall but a young ’un. Twenty-five years ago they all called her dat ’cause she wuz ‘Forty-dollars-Kate.’ She sho’ wuz some p’utty ’oman—great big robus’ lookin’ gal. Men wuz glad ’nough to spend forty dollars on her if dey had it. She didn’t lose no time wid dem dat didn’t have it.”

  He grinned ingratiatingly at Pinkie and leaned nearer.

  “But you’se better lookin’ than she ever wuz, you might—taint no tellin’ what you might do ef you git some sense. I’m a gointer teach you, here?”

  “Yessuh,” the girl managed to answer with an almost paralyzed tongue.

  “Thass a good girl. You jus’ lissen to me an’ you’ll pull thew alright.”

  He glanced at the girl sitting timidly upon the edge of the chair and scolded.

  “Don’t set dataway,” he ejaculated. “Yo’ back bone ain’t no ram rod. Kinda scooch down on the for’ard edge uh da chear lak dis.” (He demonstrated by “scooching” forward so far that he was almost sitting on his shoulder-blades.) The girl slumped a trifle.

  “Is you got a job yit?”

  “Nawsuh,” she answered slowly, “but I reckon I’ll have one soon. Ain’t been in town a day yet.”

  “You looks kinda young—kinda little biddy. Is you been to school much?”

  “Yessuh, went thew eight reader. I’m goin’ again when I get a chance.”

  “Dat so? Well ah reckon ah kin talk some Latin tuh yuh den.” He cleared his throat loudly, “Whut’s you entitlum?”

  “I don’t know,” said the girl in confusion.

  “Well den, whut’s yo’ entrimmins,” he queried with a bit of braggadocio in his voice.

  “I don’t know,” from the girl, after a long awkward pause.

  “You chillun don’t learn nothin’ in school dese days. Is you got to ‘goes into’ yit?”

  “You mean long division?”

  “Ain’t askin’ ’bout de longness of it, dat don’t make no difference,” he retorted.

  “Sence you goin’ stay heah ah’ll edgecate yuh—do yuh know how to eat a fish—uh nice brown fried fish?”

  “Yessuh,” she answered quickly, looking about for the fish.

  “How?”

  “Why, you jus’ eat it with corn bread,” she said, a bit disappointed at the non-appearance of the fish.

  “Well, ah’ll tell yuh,” he patronized. “You starts at de tail and liffs de meat off de bones sorter gentle and eats him clear tuh de head on dat side; den you turn ’im ovah an’ commence at de tail agin and eat right up tuh de head; den you push dem bones way tuh one side an’ takes another fish an’ so on ’till de end—well, ’till der ain’t no mo’!”

  He mentally digested the fish and went on. “See,” he pointed accusingly at her feet, “you don’t even know how tuh warm yoself! You settin’ dere wid yo’ feet ev’y which a way. Dat ain’t de way tuh git wahm. Now look at mah feet. Dass right put bofe big toes right togethah—now shove ’em close up tuh de fiah; now lean back so! Dass de way. Ah knows uh heap uh things tuh teach yuh sense you gointer live heah—ah learns all of ’em while de ole lady is paddlin’ roun’ out dere in de yard.”

  Ma appeared at the door and the old man withdrew so far into his rags that he all but disappeared. They went to supper where there was fried fish but forgot all rules for eating it and just ate heartily. She helped with the dishes and returned to the parlor. A little later some more men and women knocked and were admitted after the same furtive peering out through the merest crack of the door. Ma carried them all back to the kitchen and Pinkie heard the clink of glasses and much loud laughter.

  Women came in by ones and twos, some in shabby coats turned up about the ears, and with various cheap but showy hats crushed down over unkempt hair. More men, more women, more trips to the kitchen with loud laughter.

  Pinkie grew uneasy. Both men and women stared at her. She kept strictly to her place. Ma came in and tried to make her join the others.

  “Come on in, honey, a lil’ toddy ain’t gointer hurt nobody. Evebody knows me, ah wouldn’t touch a hair on yo’ head. Come on in, dearie, all th’ men wants tuh meetcher.”

  Pinkie smelt the liquor on Ma’s breath and felt contaminated at her touch. She wished herself back home again even with the ill treatment and squalor. She thought of the three dollars she had secreted in her shoe—she had been warned against pickpockets—and flight but where? Nowhere. For there was no home to which she could return, nor any place she knew of. But when she got a job, she’d scrape herself clear of people who took toddies.

  A very black man sat on the piano stool playing as only a Negro can with hands, stamping with his feet and the rest of his body keeping time.

  “Ahm gointer make me a graveyard of mah own

  Ahm gointer make me a graveyard of mah own

  Carried me down on de smoky Road”—

  Pinkie, weary of Ma’s maudlin coaxing, caught these lines as she was being pulled and coaxed into the kitchen. Everyone in there was sh
aking shimmies to music, rolling eyes heavenward as they picked imaginary grapes out of the air, or drinking. “Folkes,” shouted Ma. “Look a heah! Shut up dis racket! Ah wantcher tuh meet Pinkie Jones. She’s de bes’ frien’ ah got.” Ma flopped into a chair and began to cry into her whiskey glass.

  “Mah comperments!” The men almost shouted. The women were less, much less enthusiastic.

  “Dass de las’ run uh shad,” laughed a woman called Ada, pointing to Pinkie’s slenderness.

  “Jes’ lak a bar uh soap aftah uh hard week’s wash,” Bertha chimed in and laughed uproariously. The men didn’t help.

  “Oh, Miss Pinkie,” said Bluefront, removing his Stetson for the first time. “Ma’am, also Ma’am, ef you wuz tuh see me settin’ straddle of uh Mud-cat leadin’ a minner whut ud you think?”

  “I-er, oh I don’t know suh. I didn’t know you—or anybody could ride uh fish.”

  “Stick uh roun’ me, baby, an you’ll wear diamon’s.” Bluefront swaggered. “Look heah lil’ Pigmeat, youse some sharp! If you didn’t had but one eye ah’d think you wuz a needle—thass how sharp you looks to me. Say, mah right foot is itchin’. Do dat mean ah’m goingter walk on some strange ground wid you?”

  “Naw, indeedy,” cut in Fewclothes. “It jes’ means you feet needs to walk in some strange water—wid a lil’ Red Seal Lye thowed in.”

  But he was not to have a monopoly. Fewclothes and Shorty joined the chase and poor Pinkie found it impossible to retreat to her place beside the old man. She hung her head, embarrassed that she did not understand their mode of speech; she felt the unfriendly eyes of the women, and she loathed the smell of liquor that filled the house now. The piano still rumbled and wailed that same song—

  “Carried me down on de Smoky Road

  Brought me back on de coolin’ board

  Ahm gointer make me a graveyard of mah own.”