Lesson Before Dying

by Ernest J. Gaines

  I jerked the piece of chalk out of his hand, corrected the problem, passed the piece of chalk on to another student, and walked away.

  On the side board, one of the girls, wearing a gray dress and a black sweater, unpolished brown loafers and unmatching brown stockings, her head a forest of half a dozen two-inch plaits, had written a sentence of six words with a downward slant of nearly a foot.

  “And what is that supposed to be?” I asked her.

  She was so terrified by my voice that she jerked around to face me, then staggered back against the board.

  “This-this-this,” she stuttered, while gesturing toward the board with the piece of chalk. “That’s a—that’s a—a simple sentence, Mr. Wiggins.”

  “That’s not a simple sentence,” I told her. “That’s a slanted sentence. A simple sentence is written on a straight line.”

  I reached for the piece of chalk, but in her fear of me she continued to hold on to it, and I had to pry it out of her hand. I drew three straight lines from one end of the board to the other.

  “Those are straight lines,” I said. “Do you notice the difference?”

  She nodded her head while looking at me, not at the board.

  I erased the three lines, as well as her slanted sentence.

  “I want you to write me six simple sentences in straight lines,” I said, and handed her the chalk. “You have until the end of the period to do it. The rest of the class, take your seats.”

  I left her standing there, trying to figure out where to begin. At the door, I turned back to look at the other classes. They all knew I was in a pretty rotten mood today, and they kept their heads down.

  I went out into the yard, slapping the Westcott ruler against my leg hard enough to sting it. The cool air felt good on my face, and after standing in the yard awhile, I walked to the road. But there was nothing to see out there but a couple of automobiles—my gray Ford parked down the quarter in front of my aunt’s house, and a car parked alongside the ditch farther up the quarter. Other than that, all there was to see were old gray weather-beaten houses, with smoke rising out of the chimneys and drifting across the corrugated tin roofs. Living and teaching on a plantation, you got to know the occupants of every house, and you knew who was home and who was not. I knew that the parents and the older brothers and sisters of the boy I had slashed on the butt with my ruler were out in the field, and that the old grandma, Aunt June, was at home cooking dinner for them to eat when they came in at noon. I could see the smoke rising from the kitchen chimney of the girl who stuttered, and I knew that she came from a family of twelve, and that she had a pregnant older sister, who was not allowed to come back to school but had to work in the field with all the others, and that she had an idiot brother and a tyrant father, and that the father beat the pregnant girl and any other member of the family, including the mother, but would never touch the idiot, whom he showered with love. I could look at the smoke rising from each chimney or I could look at the rusted tin roof of each house, and I could tell the lives that went on in each one of them.

  I went all the way to the back of the yard, where I used the boys’ toilet. Then I returned to my classes, but instead of coming in through the front door, as I had left, I entered through the back. Most of the students remembered the mood I was in and had their heads in their books. But one first grader had forgotten or didn’t care, and he found time to play with a bug on the sleeve of his sweater. As I watched from the back door, he let the insect crawl an inch or two from his elbow toward his hand, then he picked it up and returned it up his arm to let it start all over again.

  I looked at Irene Cole, my student teacher, to let her know not to warn him, and when I got in good striking distance of his nearly shaved head, I brought the Westcott down on his skull, loud enough to send a sound throughout the church. He jumped, hollered, grabbed at the already swelling knot. One or two of the students near him giggled nervously, but most remembered the mood I was in and seemed petrified. The boy, with his hand cupped over the welt, was crying now.

  “Take that thing outside, get rid of it, and get back in here,” I told him.

  He left, crying quietly, the little red bug sitting on top of his extended arm.

  “So it’s bug-playing time, huh?” I asked the rest of the class. “You think that’s why I’m here, so that you can play with bugs, huh?”

  The boy came back and sat down. His hand was still cupped over his scalp, and he was still crying.

  “The rest of you, back to your seats,” I ordered.

  They moved hurriedly, quietly, careful not to utter a word.

  “Do you all know what is going on in Bayonne?” I asked them, back at my desk. “Do you all know what is going to happen to someone just like you who sat right where you’re sitting only a few years ago? All right, I’ll tell you. They’re going to kill him in Bayonne. They’re going to sit him in a chair, they’re going to tie him down with straps, they’re going to connect wires to his head, to his wrists, to his legs, and they’re going to shoot electricity through the wires into his body until he’s dead.” I looked across the room at them. Some stared back at me, others down at the floor. But they were all listening. They knew Jefferson was supposed to die in the electric chair, but they hadn’t known how this would happen. It had not been explained to them so vividly before, and maybe not at all. I could see how painful it was for most of them to hear this, but I did not stop. “Do you know what his nannan wants me to do before they kill him? The public defender called him a hog, and she wants me to make him a man. Within the next few weeks, maybe a month, whatever the law allows—make him a man. Exactly what I’m trying to do here with you now: to make you responsible young men and young ladies. But you, you prefer to play with bugs. You refuse to study your arithmetic, and you prefer writing slanted sentences instead of straight ones. Does that make any sense? Well, does it?”

  No one answered. Most averted their eyes. I noticed that the girl whom I had criticized at the blackboard had lowered her head and was crying.

  “Estelle, leave the class if you can’t control yourself,” I ordered her.

  She shook her head, but she did not get up, or look at me.

  “I’m-I’m-aw-aw right, Mr.-Mr. Wiggins. Bu-but-that’s my cousin.”

  I knew that Jefferson was her cousin, but I didn’t apologize for what I had said, nor did I show any sympathy for her crying.

  “Either leave the class or stop crying,” I told her again.

  She wiped her eyes, but she did not look up.

  “All right, the rest of the morning for studying,” I told them. “And you’d better study, because I’m testing everybody this afternoon.”

  At two o’clock, I was at the blackboard with my fifth graders when we heard a knocking on the front door. I told the boy nearest the door to see who it was and ask him to come in. The boy went to the door and came back alone. He said that it was Mr. Farrell Jarreau, but Mr. Farrell didn’t want to come in. I told the class to go on with their work, and I went to the door to see what he wanted. Farrell Jarreau was a small, light-brown man in his late fifties. He wore an old felt hat, a khaki suit, and worn work shoes. He was the yardman and all-round handyman for Henri Pichot. He fixed and sharpened tools for the big house, and he served as carpenter for the people in the quarter. He had made more benches, fixed more chairs and steps, than you could number.

  He took off his hat as I approached him. He had known me all my life, and he knew my aunt and all my people before me, but since I had gone off to the university and returned as a teacher, he treated me with great respect. I went down the steps and into the yard.

  “Professor.”

  “Mr. Farrell.”

  “He say it be all right if you come up by five this evening.”

  “Is this about Jefferson?” I asked.

  “Didn’t tell me. Just say it be all right if you come up there ’bout five.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Farrell.”

  “My pleasure, Prof
essor,” he said.

  He put on his hat, and I noticed his eyes. He knew why Henri Pichot wanted me up there, all right. But Henri Pichot had not thought it was necessary to tell him. At his age, he was still only a messenger to run errands. To learn anything, he had to attain it by stealth or through an innate sense of things around him. He nodded to me, knowing that I knew he knew why Henri Pichot wanted to see me, and he walked away, head down.

  6

  INEZ WAS IN THE KITCHEN when I came up the back stairs, and she opened the door before I had a chance to knock. I could tell she had been crying. She had wiped the tears from her cheeks, but I could see the marks under her eyes.

  “How are you, Inez?”

  “I’m making out,” she said, not looking at me.

  “You know why he sent for me?”

  “Mr. Sam coming here at five.”

  I glanced at my watch. It was ten minutes to five.

  “Can I get you a cup of coffee?” Inez asked.

  “No, thanks.”

  “You want to sit down?” She still did not look at me.

  “I’m all right; I don’t mind standing.” I remembered how my aunt and Miss Emma had stood the night before.

  “I don’t know,” Inez said, shaking her head. “I just don’t know. Now Mr. Louis in there trying to get a bet.”

  “A bet on what?”

  She looked at me directly for the first time. She had large eyes, brown and kind. I could see traces of tears that she had tried wiping away.

  “You can’t get him ready to die.”

  “Henri Pichot didn’t take that bet, did he?”

  “I left them in there talking. Mr. Louis say he got a whole case of whiskey he can bet on.”

  “Henri Pichot?”

  “He ain’t betting ’gainst you. He ain’t betting on you neither.”

  “Smart man.”

  Inez looked at me sadly. I didn’t know if it was because of my cynicism or the task I had facing me. She went back to the stove. With a dish towel she lifted the lid of one of the pots, and I could smell a strong scent of onion, bell pepper, and garlic. She raised the lids on two other pots, but still the odor of the onions, pepper, and garlic pervaded the room. Inez left the kitchen. I heard her knock on the library door, and I could hear her and Henri Pichot talking, then she came back into the kitchen.

  “How’s Lou?” she asked me.

  “She’s all right,” I said. “I left her there with Miss Emma.”

  I thought about them sitting at the kitchen table at Miss Emma’s house. I had gone home after school to drop off my satchel, and when I did not find my aunt at home, I figured she was keeping Miss Emma company. I found them at the kitchen table, shelling pecans into two big aluminum pans. I could see that neither my aunt nor Miss Emma had any intention of going up to Henri Pichot’s house with me.

  “But if you need me to hold your hand, I’d be glad to go,” my aunt said.

  “I don’t want him doing nothing he don’t want do.” Miss Emma repeated the old refrain I had heard about a hundred times the day before.

  I didn’t answer them. I was angry already, and I knew things would just have gotten worse if I said anything else. I went back outside and got into my car and drove up to Pichot’s.

  Now I looked at my watch again. It was five-fifteen. No Sam Guidry, and no one else, except Inez, had come into the kitchen to say anything to me. Each time she returned from the library, Inez seemed more agitated. I knew she was feeling sorry for me.

  At five-thirty, we heard people entering the house off the front gallery. Inez left the kitchen to meet them. She spoke to Edna Guidry, then to Sam Guidry, and to one or two other people. I could hear them talking as they came into the house. Inez returned to the kitchen with two empty glasses to be freshened. She added four glasses to her tray. She took that to the library and came back.

  “I’m sure it won’t be too long now,” she said. She knew how I felt, and she was trying to encourage me.

  It was quarter to six.

  At six o’clock, Edna Guidry came back in the kitchen. A tall woman in her early fifties, she had light-brown hair, a narrow face, and gray eyes. She wore a shapeless black dress, gray stockings, and low-heeled black shoes.

  “Well, Grant—Grant, how are you?” she said, smiling and coming up to me with her hand out. She stopped a good distance back, and I had to lean forward to shake her hand, which was long and bony, and cold from her glass. “Why, Grant,” she said, “I just do declare. I haven’t seen you in God knows how long. Been two, three years, I’m sure. Wouldn’t you say?”

  “About that long, Miss Edna,” I said.

  “God, yes,” she said. “Why, you’re looking just as fine, like you’re living the good life. Doesn’t he, Inez?”

  “He’s looking just fine, Miss Edna,” Inez said from the stove.

  “Well, tell me all about yourself,” Edna Guidry said to me. “How’ve you been? No, no need to tell me; I can see you’re doing just fine. But how is Lou? Why doesn’t she come to see me? It’s been how long? Oh, I bet you it’s been six, no, eight months. And living so close. You tell Lou I say make you bring her to my house so we can sit down and talk. Lord, have mercy, do.” She turned from me to Inez. “Mr. Henri says you may serve anytime now, Inez.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Inez said.

  Edna turned back to me. “Grant, please tell Emma how sorry I am about Jefferson. I would do it myself, but I’m just too broken up over this matter. I ran into Madame Gropé just the other day; Lord, how sad she looks. Just dragging along. Poor old thing. I had to put my arms round her.” Edna drank from her glass. “Tell Emma I’m sorry. I’m sorry for both families. I hear you would like the privilege of visiting Jefferson?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, I’ll leave all that up to you and the sheriff,” she said. “He’ll talk to you after supper.” She turned to Inez. “Inez, is there anything that I may help you with?”

  “No’m, I got everything under control,” Inez told her.

  “Well, in that case, I may as well help myself to another quick shot.”

  She poured about two ounces of bourbon into her glass and added ice cubes. After drinking half of it, she went back to the library.

  Inez dished up the food. She had cooked a pot roast with potatoes and carrots, onions, bell pepper, and garlic. She also had rice and mustard greens, green peas and corn bread. She took the platters and bowls to the dining room.

  “Can I fix you something?” she asked me when she came back to the kitchen.

  “No, thank you,” I told her.

  I was hungry. I hadn’t eaten anything but a sandwich since breakfast. But I would not eat at Henri Pichot’s kitchen table. I had come through that back door against my will, and it seemed that he and the sheriff were doing everything they could to humiliate me even more by making me wait on them. Well, I had to put up with that because of those in the quarter, but I damned sure would not add hurt to injury by eating at his kitchen table.

  Inez went to the dining room and came back.

  “They talking up there now ’bout him,” she said. “Sheriff saying he don’t like the idea at all. Saying nobody can make that thing a man. Saying might as well let him go like he is.”

  “I hope that’s his final word,” I said. “It sure would relieve my mind.”

  “Why don’t you sit down,” Inez said. “You’ll feel better.”

  “I’d rather stand.”

  “You sure I can’t fix you little something to eat?”

  “No, thank you, Inez.”

  She went and came back.

  “It won’t be long now,” she said. “They nearly through. Soon as I serve the coffee. You sure I can’t get you a cup of coffee?”

  “No, thanks. I appreciate it, though.”

  She poured coffee into half a dozen small white cups, and took the coffee, sugar, and cream to the dining room on a silver tray. She came back.

  “He asked me if you was still
here,” she said. “I think he go’n let you see him, but he say he still against it. I’m sure it’s Miss Edna making him do it. Well, all the time Miss Emma done spent with this family, that ain’t asking too much.”

  At a quarter to seven, Inez cleared off the table in the dining room and brought the dishes into the kitchen. Then she took a bottle of brandy back with her. A half hour later, while she was putting away the dishes she had just finished washing, Sam Guidry, Henri Pichot, Louis Rougon, and another fat man came into the kitchen. I had been standing there nearly two and a half hours.

  Sam Guidry was a tall man, well over six feet, and he was well tanned. His hair was dark brown, his sideburns and mustache showed some gray. His face was narrow, well-lined, and strong. His hands were large and hairy. He wore a brown suit and a tie. He usually wore a Stetson hat and cowboy boots. He had probably left the hat in the library or the dining room, but he had the boots on.

  The four white men split into pairs. Sam Guidry and Henri Pichot stood on one side of the table, while Louis Rougon and the fat man stood over by the dish cabinet. They had brought their drinks with them.

  Inez left the kitchen as soon as the white men came in. I tried to decide just how I should respond to them. Whether I should act like the teacher that I was, or like the nigger that I was supposed to be. I decided to wait and see how the conversation went. To show too much intelligence would have been an insult to them. To show a lack of intelligence would have been a greater insult to me. I decided to wait and see how the conversation would go.

  “Been waiting long?” Sam Guidry asked me.

  “About two and a half hours, sir,” I said. I was supposed to say, “Not long,” and I was supposed to grin; but I didn’t do either.

  The fat man glanced knowingly at Louis Rougon, but Louis Rougon was looking directly at me. I could see in their faces that they had talked all this over and Sam Guidry had already made up his mind what he was going to do.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked.

  Louis Rougon and the fat man waited for my answer. I knew it didn’t matter what I said, since Guidry had made up his mind. Henri Pichot, standing next to Guidry, looked more tired than he had the day before. He seemed more sympathetic. Maybe he had been thinking about all the services Miss Emma had provided for his family over the years.