Five Smooth Stones

by Ann Fairbairn

  "Something like that, I guess."

  Sudsy sighed. "I wish I'd been there. I never get to have any fun. Why'd you only hit him once?"

  "Look, all I wanted to do was knock him out. That's all. No sense beating a guy up for something I guess he can't help."

  "All I have to say is, better luck next time."

  David remembered the revulsion he had felt when his fingers touched the skin of Randy's neck. But he said, "Jeez, Suds, if I thought that—don't say things like that, man."

  Nehemiah's reaction was different. When he said "I told you—" David jumped him.

  "Don't give me that T told you so' stuff. You never told me anything like that."

  "Told you to stay clear of being so palsy with the whites, didn't I? Said they'd cut your throat?"

  "Listen, Ne'miah, if there was one thing that bastard was not trying to do it was cut my throat You've got it wrong end up. And for gosh sake, you think we haven't got queers? First time anything like that happened to me, I was ten years old. And the guy was a big truck driver with nine kids. And blacker than you. I ran like hell for home."

  "Well," said Nehemiah, "if you're going to get buggered you might as well stick to your own."

  The next time he saw Hunter, he said: "Don't come barging in again asking me to be a Good Samaritan. Next time drive your queer friends home yourself. Just come in and listen."

  "No. Maybe I'm nuts. If there's someplace I want to go real bad, and can't go because I'm a Negro, I'll pass. I've got to want to go damned bad, and I'm ashamed of doing it, but I will. But I won't do it there. I won't go in there and sit and drink and know if you didn't work there you couldn't sit with me, know damned well the only reason they let you sit at the tables during intermission is because it sells more drinks."

  David decided against going home for Thanksgiving, much as he wanted to, because if he did it would cut into the money he'd been saving for Christmas. Nehemiah was spending the holiday with relatives in Dayton; Tom was going home and taking Chuck with him, and Sudsy planned to go home too. Sara was spending the holiday with the Knudsens.

  On Tuesday, Beanie Benford asked Sudsy to stay after class. David waited just outside the door of the classroom, leaning against the corridor wall, trying to catch Benford's words. He hoped Suds wasn't going to catch hell for low grades. Suds had been feeling lousy for a long time; one cold after another, sniffling and coughing, turning down trips to the city unless he had a date with a girl. David hoped Beanie would lay off the guy until after the holidays, and the first words he heard made him tighten his jaw muscles in exasperation.

  "I've never singled you out as a student with any great potentials as a mathematician," Benford said. "My despairing hope has been to make it possible for you to work out the simple problems you'll encounter in your chosen profession."

  The sarcastic bastard, thought David, then straightened and edged closer to the door at the next words. "But I cannot, with a clear conscience, give a sick student the grades you've been earning this fall. I'd like to think it would be impossible for a healthy, literate young man to make such a poor showing." Through the crack in the door David saw a bony black hand flick out, rest for a second on Sudsy's forehead, heard Benford say: "You're running a fever right now, Sutherland. I'm calling the Infirmary. You'll go there from here. I'll notify the dean's office."

  David could not see it, but he knew Sudsy's mouth had set in the familiar stubborn line, so at variance with the plump, boyish face. He heard a mumbled phrase, "Going home tomorrow," and then Benford's voice. "All the more reason, Sutherland." He raised his voice. "Champlin!" and when David entered he said, "Go to the Infirmary with Sutherland. Take his books to bis room if they keep him there, and follow through."

  "Yes, sir," said David, and grinned at Sudsy. "Come on, Stoopid." He turned to speak to Benford, but the professor had already disappeared through the door behind the blackboard.

  Half an hour later he stood beside Sudsy's bed in one of the cubicles in the contagious ward of the Infirmary. The nurse had said "probably flu," and put in a call for the doctor. She silenced Sudsy's protests by threatening to undress him herself, and looked quite capable of doing it.

  "If you'd done what they told you to a long time ago-come back here for a checkup when you had that cold—you wouldn't be here now," said David self-righteously.

  "Go to hell," said Sudsy.

  David picked up the books on the dresser, asked, "Need anything?"

  "Cigarettes."

  "Will they—"

  "The hell with 'will they.' Shove 'em through the window."

  David walked to the window, found himself looking over a small parking circle in the rear, and beyond that to the main roadway just before it branched at the entrance to the quadrangle. Emory Hall was catercorner across from him. He tossed a half-empty package of cigarettes on the bed, said, "O.K., leave it unlocked."

  Dean Goodhue was coming up the walk to the main entrance as David left. The dean's pipe was in his mouth, and he did not remove it; said around it, "Good morning, David." He slowed down as he drew opposite. "We have a sick student, I hear. Sutherland. Too bad. How is he?"

  "The doctor's been sent for," said David. "The nurse thinks it's probably flu. She made him go to bed. I guess he's got a fever."

  "Pity," said Goodhue. "Just at the holiday. I'll see what I can do for him." He continued up the steps, dismissing David, giving the impression that he was taking over now and all would be well.

  ***

  The day after Thanksgiving, Clifton Sutherland walked past Emory Hall and did not see it. There was no sun, and the small, circumscribed area of the world through which he moved was gray sky and white snow, the dark brown of barren trees, and the dull, cold-looking red brick of the campus buildings. Snow was piled on the balustrades of their steps, and their cornices were coifed in white, like nuns. He smelled woodsmoke and knew that in the lounges of some of the dormitories fires were crackling. The cold nipped through his duffel coat and the heavy sweater beneath it. He cut through the passageway between Emory Hall and the corner dormitory building, but before he reached its end he began to cough, and stopped until the paroxysm passed. He stood for a moment, looking at a patch of unmelted snow beneath a tree beside the walk, and at the irregular red spot that stained it. It was not the dull red of the brick walls around him but a red that, like a paste jewel's, glistens but does not glow.

  He did not knock at David's door in Quimby House because he did not want to be told to "Come in!" He wanted to open a door without knocking, to walk in without waiting, and find someone there; specifically, David.

  David was sitting behind the card table in the center of the room, face hidden behind a wide-open newspaper. Sudsy said, "David," and the newspaper lowered abruptly, then dropped as the dark surprised face was above him, smiling.

  "Sudsy! What're you doing here? When'd you get sprung? Don't just stand there. Come in and sit."

  He was taking books from the seat of the big leather chair, but before he could finish Sudsy sat suddenly, abruptly, on the edge of the couch.

  "O.K., O.K., have it your own way. Why don't you stay in out of the cold, man? Want a nip?"

  "No," said Sudsy. "Not a nip. Not a lousy little nip."

  "Baby want a bottle?"

  Sudsy's eyes lighted. "Where'd you get a bottle?"

  David nodded to the door to the upper room. "My neighbors. They went home for the holiday. Left it on my bureau with a note—'Get lost.' Mighty fine college spirit, I call it."

  He was opening the bottle now, eyes on Sudsy's face, the beginning of a puzzled frown on his forehead. When he had the cap off he held the bottle out to the other, but Sudsy shook his head. "Got a glass?"

  "What the heck!" David went to the washstand, rinsed a glass, and poured whiskey into it with a generous hand. He watched Sudsy drink, then shudder violently, and his frown deepened. "It's not that bad," he said. He put the bottle to his own lips, took a moderate drink, and waited for the other
to speak.

  Sudsy crossed his arms over his chest, hugging himself, then leaned forward so that his forearms rested on his knees. He looked at David's feet, at the leather slippers and dark socks with the diamonds of bright colors woven into them, and knew he would never forget the pattern. When he spoke at last his head snapped back as though controlled by a spring.

  "I've got TB," he said. "David."

  David had often said to Sudsy, in telling anecdotes about New Orleans friends, "Man, he changed color right now!" Sudsy had always thought it a manner of speaking; now, looking at David, he saw it happen. He saw the eyes change, too, and the pain in the eyes was in the voice when David spoke.

  "So-so, Suds," he said. "It's all right. For Chris'sake, man, it's all right. It's nothing today. Nothing. Where's your head, man? You know that."

  Sudsy said, "I've got to pack, David."

  "Now? You've got to pack right now? Right now?"

  "Right now. I just walked out of the Infirmary. They said I had to stay till they telephoned my dad in the morning. But I walked out the back door when no one was around. I'm going home."

  "Listen! Suds, listen! We've got to talk first. You shouldn't have walked out like that. You crazy? You should have waited until they released you."

  "You scared of me?"

  David slammed the bottle he was holding down on the table. "Big-mouth!"

  "Sorry, David."

  David walked around the table to sit where he had been sitting when Sudsy came in, tilting his chair back, hands in his pockets. He looked big and competent, and relaxed, all except his eyes. The eyes were darker than Suds had ever thought of them as being, and there were circles under them he had not noticed before. David said, "Pour another drink and rest yourself, Sudsy."

  Sudsy took the bottle, raised it halfway to his lips, then lowered it abruptly and picked up his glass from the floor.

  "Lawd!" groaned David. "Lawdalmighty! We've been drinking out of the same bottle for more than a year. Now he has to have a glass." He took another glass from the shelf beside the washstand and walked over to Sudsy. "Keep pouring, man. I've got me a thirst, too."

  "I've just been told," said Sudsy. "Drinking glasses. Eating utensils. Dishes. You'd think they'd know that a guy with a famous doctor for a father would know about these things, wouldn't you? But no, they had to spell it out for me. Somehow, you never think you'll be the one with the plague."

  "Going a long way back, aren't you, pal?" asked David quietly. "Plague! No one's called tuberculosis the plague since long before you were a fat little something in diapers. My grandfather would say it: 'You're talking foolish, son. You're talking downright foolish.'"

  He was seated again now, and he leaned forward across the table, elbows splayed out, shoulders hunched around his ears, hands clasped, his chin almost touching them. His eyes brooded on Sudsy.

  "My grandfather has a good friend drives a colored cab. Just before I came back here this fall he asked me and Gramp if we wanted to drive out to the airport with him when he went to meet someone—some friend. Colored can't ride in the airport limousines in New Orleans. That would be getting too damned cosmopolitan. When we got there the plane was late and we stood around, and Ambrose—that's Gramp's friend—decided he wanted a drink. He said the bar wasn't segregated and he went in, but Gramp wouldn't go. Gramp wouldn't ever go anywhere, or let me go anywhere, he thought there was a chance of being humiliated. I mean more'n you are just breathing in and out. Know what happened?"

  "They wouldn't serve him. David, will you—"

  "Yeah. They served him. Finally. When the bartender had worn the bar top down a couple of inches polishing it off, he came over and said, 'Waddyawant?' Just like that. Growled it. Ambrose said, 'Whiskey straight; water back.' And he put five dollars on the bar. You know what that red-necked bastard did?"

  "Threw it in his face. David—"

  "How you talk! They not like that in N'Awlins. They loves their nigras. Don't y'all know that in N'Awlins we their people? 'Ouah people'—that's what they calls us in N'Awlins. Threw it in his face? Hell, no! That wouldn't be kind, Sudsy. You got to be kind to the nigra. You come to the South now, you remember that, y'hyah? Don't you go round calling their nigras names like clever son of a bitch or handkerchief-haid bastard. He didn't throw that whiskey in Ambrose's face. He walked down to the end of the bar and he got him a paper cup—yes, suh, a nice, clean, li'l ol' paper cup—"

  Sudsy, interested in spite of himself, said, "Dixie cup, no doubt."

  David continued: "Must have been. Anyhow, he poured a slug of whiskey in that li'l ol' Dixie cup and he gave it to Ambrose, and poured water in another Dixie cup and he gave it to him—"

  "And spit in 'em?"

  "No! Sudsy, you've got to learn about these things. They're things like unwritten laws. No, he didn't spit in 'em. He waited till Ambrose finished his drink; then he picked up the money in one hand, and the water cup in the other, and crumpled up the water cup and threw it in the trash basket —hard. Like it was some kind of filth. Then he picked up the other cup, and he did the same thing with it; only, he threw it in harder. Then he walked over to the cash register and made change. You see, if he'd made change before he showed Ambrose how upset he was about having to serve him, Ambrose might have left before he had chance to see him throw those cups away that a nigger had drunk from. It'll be a long time before I forget the look on Ambrose's face when he walked out of there. How you talk! Throwing whiskey in the face of a poor thirsty nigra, spitting in his drink."

  David straightened his shoulders, sat erect now, and his voice changed and became the familiar voice Sudsy knew, only lower and more gentle. "And you're talking about the plague, Sudsy? There's millions of us were born with it."

  The warmth of the room, the two stiff drinks, the stillness of a deserted dormitory on a holiday weekend were getting to Clifton Sutherland. His eyes were moist, as they always were after the second drink. The knuckles of the hand that held the bottle were no longer white as they had been when he had clutched it as though it were going to save him from drowning. He held up the bottle, looked through it at David, said, "Yea, verily," and poured more whiskey.

  When he had finished the drink and the inevitable shudder, David looked at him, and smiled. "I don't know why," he said, "I swear to God I don't know why you drink when you suffer like that."

  The quirk of Sudsy's lips might have passed for a smile.

  "Son of a bitch," he said. "Clever son of a bitch."

  David leaned across the table, took the bottle, and drank from it. "Yes, oh, yes." he said. "Be kind. Let us be kind. Let us all love one another. Quit looking at that bottle, man. You can have it back." He sloshed the whiskey around in the bottle, gauging the amount left. "Brethren, let us be kind," he said. "Yea, brethren, let us love one another." He took a swallow of the whiskey, began to sing. " 'Take this bottle, Carry to the captain'—"

  He reached out a long arm, held the bottle out to Sudsy. "Going to get you drunk, Sudsy," he said. "Going to get you real stinking drunk. Boxed out, that's what I'm going to get you. Tell me now, while you can still talk, brother, what you want me to do for you while you're drunk?"

  ***

  It did not take long for David to realize that his goal of getting Clifton Sutherland sufficiently drunk to get him back into the Infirmary, or at the worst into bed in his own room, was not likely to be achieved. Sudsy appeared to be well aware of his intent, and developed a caginess that liquor would not dim. David made another attempt to appeal to reason. "They'll be sending you home on Sunday at the latest, Suds. Come on. Use your head. If you go back now they may not even have discovered you're out. That wouldn't be too bad a rap—just coming over here."

  "I told the nurse I was going to sleep. I gotta be out of this place before they bring the supper trays around."

  David poured another drink, offered it to him, but he shook his head. "Later," he said. "Later, man."

  "Listen to reason, Suds. What good's it going to do
to get a bad mark against you? Besides, you aren't fit to travel."

  Sudsy's eyes were glazed, the round cheeks beginning to look flushed, and his speech slurred slightly. He stood up and shrugged into his duffel coat. "I didn't come here for a lecture," he said. "What the hell did you think I came here for?"

  "Help," said David.

  Sudsy's hand was out to push David aside, on his way to the door, but one of David's big ones spread out on the smaller youth's chest. He pushed, not hard, and Sudsy went back a few steps, and the edge of the couch struck the back of his legs. One arm flailing, he lost balance and wound up, half lying, half sitting, on the couch.

  "Cut out that crap, Sutherland. Have it your own way." David looked down at the other boy, and suddenly his half-angry exasperation left him. He saw a friend, achingly homesick and troubled, judgment warped by illness and shock. What in hell difference did a lousy rule make? Sudsy wasn't trying to do anything bad; he just wanted to go home, like a hurt child.

  "So-so, Sudsy," he said. "So-so. I'll pack for you, and get you ready to go. How'll we get you there? You're not going to drive, that's for sure."

  "Who said I was going to drive? Going to get prain or tlane—train or plane."

  "Where? Where are you going to get this prain or tlane?"

  "Cinci. We've got time, David."

  "On a holiday weekend?"

  "Train. Then we don't have to go to Covington. Listen, David." Sudsy had the top off the bottle and was peering into it with one eye closed. "Listen, David, old friend. I'll pour us another drink. Then you go downstairs and telephone, see. You telephone that li'l ol' railroad station and see if you can get me on a train for Boston. Get me a roomette. You got credit at that switchboard."

  When David came back, Sudsy was lying across the bed, feet on the floor.

  "Sick," he said when David entered. "I feel so damned sick."

  "So-so," said David. "So-so, little man. You're going to feel sicker. All they had was a bedroom, and that's out of Columbus."

  "You get it, David?"

  "Sure, I got it. You have any money?"