Lesson Before Dying

by Ernest J. Gaines

  “Well, I see that mine are not the only ones,” Vivian said.

  “It’s not the same thing,” I said. “Far from being the same thing.”

  Vivian became very quiet. Then: “Well, I better be going.”

  “Something I said?”

  “No. It’s getting late, that’s all. I have to get my purse and tell them goodbye.”

  She went back inside, and she must have stood a good distance away from the table, because I could hear them clearly from the porch.

  “I come to say I’m leaving,” Vivian said. “It was good meeting you all.”

  There was silence awhile, then I heard my aunt saying, “You’re a lady of quality. Quality ain’t cheap.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Don’t give up God,” my aunt said. “No matter what, don’t ever do that.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You’re a lady of quality,” my aunt repeated.

  “And a pretty young lady too,” Miss Eloise said.

  “That’s for sure,” Inez chipped in. “A pretty young lady. Good manners. Quality is what you have. Quality.”

  They were quiet again. Maybe they didn’t have any more to say. Vivian came back outside, and we went out to the car.

  “Well, what do you think of the place?” I asked her. “Still think it’s pastoral?”

  “It is pastoral,” she said, looking around.

  One of the Washington boys and a Hebert girl came from up the quarter, holding hands. They had just left church, the boy wearing a black suit, a white shirt, and a tie. The girl wore a light-blue coat over her dress. Both of them spoke to me at the same time, saying, “How you, Mr. Wiggins?” And they nodded to Vivian as they went by us, still holding hands. Good luck, I thought to myself.

  Vivian was watching them too, as they continued down the quarter. “I’m glad I met your aunt and her friends,” she said.

  “They’ll have a lot to talk about,” I said.

  “You think I did okay?”

  “With all that quality, how could you fail?”

  Vivian smiled without opening her mouth. I kissed her on the tip of her nose.

  “Uh-uh,” she said. “Not in public. I have too much quality for that.”

  16

  I WAS WALKING around the schoolyard with my ruler when I saw my aunt, Reverend Ambrose, and Miss Emma come back down the quarter after seeing Jefferson. The car stopped in front of Miss Emma’s house, and the three of them got out and went into the yard. Reverend Ambrose looked over his shoulder toward the church, but the picket fence kept him from seeing me. After they had gone inside the house, I continued around the schoolyard, slapping my leg with the ruler. It was a quarter to three, nearly time to dismiss the children for the day.

  I reentered the church through the front door. Irene Cole and another girl and a boy stood at one of the blackboards. We had discussed our Christmas program, and now they were writing down names of the students who would bring the Christmas tree as well as those who would decorate it. I went to my desk and tapped my ruler for attention.

  “It’s about time to go home. Any questions before we dismiss? Irene?”

  “No, sir,” she said, from the blackboard. “Marshall and Clarence and Aleck are getting the tree. Shirley, Odessa, and I will see that it’s decorated. Mr. Joseph’s got some lint cotton in his crib. And we can get some crepe paper from Miss Eloise. She said she had a lot left over from making the Mardi Gras hats.”

  “What about the tree, Clarence?”

  “Guess we’ll just go back in the pasture and get one like we did last year.” He grinned.

  “Do you think you might be able to find a little pine tree this time?”

  “We’ll try,” he said, and laughed to himself.

  The year before, the boys had brought in a small oak tree. They had dragged it through the mud all the way from the pasture, and by the time it got to the school, it had lost many of its leaves. The girls who were to decorate the tree had to wash it clean before putting on the lint cotton and crepe paper. It turned out to be a beautiful Christmas tree.

  “One other thing before we dismiss class. I want you all to remember one person during this Christmas season. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you who I’m thinking about. If there are no other questions, you may collect your things and leave. And I don’t want to hear any noise out there in the quarter. Class dismissed.”

  After they had gone, I sat down at the table, looking over the test I had given the sixth graders in geography. The assignment was to draw a map of Louisiana and write in the names of the parishes in their appropriate places. After about five minutes, I heard footsteps entering the church, then saw that one of the boys had stopped halfway down the aisle. I knew what he was going to tell me.

  “Miss Emma say on your way home, stop by.”

  I nodded my head, and he left, walking slowly until he got to the door, then he burst out running. I gathered up all my papers, and after closing and locking the back door, I went out through the front. Miss Emma’s house was only a short distance down the quarter. They were sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee when I came in.

  “Some coffee?” Miss Emma asked me.

  “No, ma’am. Thomas said you wanted to see me.”

  “Sit down, Grant,” she said.

  I could tell by the way she said it and by the silence of my aunt and Reverend Ambrose that things had not gone well at the jail. I pulled out a chair and sat down, facing Miss Emma. My aunt and Reverend Ambrose sat opposite each other.

  “You didn’t tell me the truth the other day, did you?” Miss Emma said.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Miss Emma.”

  “When you come back from seeing him.”

  “Sure, I told you the truth,” I said.

  “No.” She shook her head, pressing her lips tight as she looked across the table at me. “He didn’t like the food. He didn’t ask about me.”

  “He did last Friday.”

  “No,” she said, and shook her head again. “’Cause I had to hit him today.”

  She stared at me, her lips pressed tight, and she lowered her head. Reverend Ambrose reached out and touched one of her arms as he said, “Sister Emma, Sister Emma.” My aunt put her hand on the other arm and looked at me.

  A couple of days later, Miss Eloise came up to the house, and from my room I could hear my aunt telling her what had happened.

  Jefferson was asleep or pretended to be asleep when they got to the cell. The deputy rattled the big keys against the bars and called Jefferson’s name before opening the door. After they had gone inside, the deputy locked the door and told them that he would be back within the hour. They could call if they wanted to leave earlier.

  Jefferson lay on the bunk with his back to them, and there was no place for them to sit. Miss Emma managed to get a small place to sit by pushing him gently closer to the wall. She passed her hand over his head and his shoulder while she whispered his name.

  “Ain’t you go’n speak to me?” she said. “Ain’t you go’n speak to your company?”

  Finally, he turned, looking in their direction. He wasn’t seeing them, my aunt told Miss Eloise. He acted as though they were not even in the room. His eyes were a total blank, my aunt said. “Just blank, blank,” was how she said it.

  “I brought you some food,” Miss Emma told him. “I bought you a shirt too, a pretty shirt. You want to see it?”

  She took a polo shirt from the paper bag and spread it out with both hands. But he showed no sign of seeing the shirt, or even of hearing Miss Emma. Reverend Ambrose went up to the bunk and said to him, “Young man, I pray for you every night, and I know the Lord is hearing my prayers. Put all your faith in Him, and He’ll bring you through.”

  That touched something in him. He looked up at the reverend, and for a moment it seemed that he would say something, something cruel, mean, my aunt said. She said that standing back, looking at him, she could see his hate fo
r Reverend Ambrose.

  Miss Emma put the shirt back into the bag and opened the basket with the food.

  “Come on, eat something for me,” she said. “I brought all the best things you like.”

  “You brought corn?” his voice said. Not him, my aunt said, just the voice. He didn’t show a thing in his face. His eyes were blank, blank, my aunt said.

  “Corn?” Miss Emma asked.

  He didn’t answer her.

  “Roast nyers?”

  He looked at her, but he didn’t answer. And his eyes were just blank—blank, blank, my aunt said. He could have been looking at the wall or the floor, for all the recognition he showed her.

  “This ain’t roast nyers season, Jefferson,” Miss Emma told him. “That’s in the spring. This November. Roast nyers all over now.”

  He didn’t look at her with hate, as he had the reverend, but there was no pity either, my aunt said. He didn’t show any feeling at all.

  “Corn for a hog,” he said.

  “Corn for a hog? A hog, Jefferson? You ain’t no hog, Jefferson. You ain’t no hog.”

  “Th’ow something,” he said.

  “I’ll never th’ow you nothing, Jefferson,” Miss Emma said. “You th’ow a bone to a dog. Slop to a hog. You ain’t no hog.”

  “That’s all I’m is,” he said. He turned away from her. “I didn’t ask to be born.”

  “Jefferson?” Miss Emma said. “Jefferson?”

  He wouldn’t answer her. And she used all her great bulk to pull him over.

  “You ain’t no hog, you hear me? You ain’t no hog.”

  “That’s all I’m is,” he said. “Fattening up to—”

  She slapped him.

  Then she fell upon him and cried, my aunt told Miss Eloise. My aunt and Reverend Ambrose went to the bunk and tried to pull her away, but she was still slumped over him when the deputy came back to let them go.

  At her kitchen table now, as I sat there, Miss Emma looked at my aunt.

  “What I done done, Lou?” she asked. “What I done done? What I done done my Master to deserve this?”

  My aunt saw that she was going to cry, and she stood up and put her arm around her shoulders. “Em-ma,” she said. “Em-ma. The Lord is merciful.”

  “What I done done?” She was shaking her head and crying now. “What I done done my Master?”

  “Have patience,” my aunt said, patting her on the shoulder. “The Lord is merciful.”

  “What I done done,” she cried, “to make my Master hate me so?”

  “The Lord don’t hate you, Sister Emma,” Reverend Ambrose said, touching her on the arm. “The Lord is with you this moment. He is only testing you.”

  Miss Emma looked up at me. The tears were still rolling down her face.

  “Go back,” she said.

  “Why, Miss Emma?”

  “’Cause somebody go’n do something for me ’fore I die.”

  “Why me?”

  “’Cause you the teacher,” my aunt said.

  I got up from the table.

  “And where you think you going?” Tante Lou asked me.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But I’ll go crazy if I stay here, that’s for sure.”

  “You going back up there, Grant.”

  “What for?” I said. “What for, Tante Lou? He treated me the same way he treated her. He wants me to feel guilty, just as he wants her to feel guilty. Well, I’m not feeling guilty, Tante Lou. I didn’t put him there. I do everything I know how to do to keep people like him from going there. He’s not going to make me feel guilty.”

  “You going back,” she said. “You ain’t going to run away from this, Grant.”

  “Tante Lou,” I said. I wanted to take her face in my hands. I wanted to hold her gently, gently, because anger and screaming were not working. Maybe gentleness would work better. Maybe feeling my hands on her face would make her understand what I was trying to say to her. But as I moved toward her, I could see in her eyes that nothing I said was going to change anything. I left them at the table and went back home to my room.

  17

  BETWEEN MONDAY when I talked to Miss Emma, and Friday, when I visited Jefferson again, something had happened inside me, and I wasn’t so angry anymore. Maybe it was the Christmas season and the children rehearsing their parts for the play. Or maybe it was just me. I could never stay angry long over anything. But I could never believe in anything, either, for very long.

  At the jail, I had to go through the usual search. Then, while the young deputy and I walked down the corridor to the cellblock, I thought I would feel him out. Of the three of them at the jail, I figured he was the most likely to be honest with me. He was nearer my age, and he seemed better educated than the chief deputy or the sheriff. And I had heard from people in the quarter who knew his people that he had come from pretty good stock.

  “How’s he doing?” I asked.

  “He’s doing all right,” the deputy said.

  “Does he ever eat the food we bring him?”

  “Some of it,” the deputy said. “He leaves a lot of it, and we give it to the other prisoners, like she said. We’ve all eaten some of it. Good food, too.”

  “How do the other prisoners treat him?” I asked.

  “They’re just curious, that’s all. But they don’t bother him.”

  “Do they ever talk to you about it?”

  “The execution?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sometimes they ask me things. I tell them I don’t know a thing about it. I’ve never seen an execution.”

  “Does he ever bring it up?”

  “No. I’m sure he doesn’t want to even think about it.”

  “He must think about it,” I said. “He must, because I know I do. I’ve seen myself walking to that chair, more than once. I’ve woken up at night, sweating. How do you take it? That’s the question.”

  “I suppose every man wonders about death sometimes in his life.”

  We came up to the landing just before the big door to the cellblock. The deputy stopped and looked at me.

  “Listen,” he said. “We might as well call each other by our names. You’re Grant, aren’t you?”

  “Grant Wiggins,” I said.

  “Paul Bonin,” he said.

  We shook hands.

  “Listen,” he said. “I’m not going to get too close to him—okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ve been warned: you don’t get too close to somebody going to be executed. Be decent, treat him right, but that’s all. This can get messy before it’s over, and I will do my duty.”

  “I feel the same way,” I said.

  We looked at each other a moment, then we continued to the cellblock.

  “What’s a day like?” I asked Paul.

  “He eats one hot meal a day and a sandwich. Lots of beans, cabbage, potatoes, rice—you know. Sometimes the sandwich is the first meal. Ten in the morning, four in the evening. He can come out once a week and spend an hour in the dayroom. Walk, sit-ups, run—anything he wants. Most times he walks or just sits there at the table. Once a week he gets a shower. We have another prisoner give him a haircut. He’s had one since he’s been here. The barber can shave him, but you can see his face doesn’t need shaving. That’s about it.”

  “He talk at all to the other prisoners?” I asked.

  “I never hear him.”

  The deputy opened the heavy steel door to the cellblock.

  “Well, well, well, if it ain’t Mr. Rockefeller,” one of the prisoners said. He wore the green coveralls given to all the prisoners who did not have their own clothes. He also wore a red knit cap, his own. “Mr. Rockefeller always leave you chicken and biscuits,” he went on. “But no bread for the cigarettes.”

  “Just cool it, Henry Martin,” the deputy said. “You won’t get chicken or biscuits either, you keep that up.”

  “I hope you brought some pralines,” another prisoner said.

  “Anything,” another one
said. “This jailhouse food ’nough to kill a man.”

  “Then don’t eat it,” Paul said to him.

  “What? And starve to death? Uh-uh.” The prisoner laughed.

  We came down to the last cell, Jefferson’s cell, and Paul let me inside.

  “See you in a while,” he said, as he locked the door.

  Jefferson sat on the bunk, slumped forward a little, his big hands clasped together down between his legs. He was looking through the barred window toward the sycamore tree, where several black birds were perched on a limb.

  “How’s it going?” I said to him.

  He nodded his head, but he didn’t turn to look at me.

  “I brought you some food.”

  “I ain’t hongry.”

  “Well, you might get hungry later,” I said, and set the large paper bag of food on the end of the bunk. “I was speaking to Paul, the deputy. He told me you always share with the other prisoners.”

  “If they want it, they can have it.”

  I looked at his back, then I went by him and stood under the window, facing him. He was still gazing upward, and I noticed his eyes, large and inflamed. Since my last visit he had gotten a very close haircut, which exposed the structure of his almost triangular head.

  “Jefferson, we have to talk,” I said.

  He continued looking above my head toward the barred window.

  “When your nannan came back from seeing you the other day, she broke down crying.”

  “Everybody cry,” he said. “I cry.”

  “Is that what you want—her to come home crying every time she sees you?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You can keep her from crying,” I said. “You can make it easier for her. You can do her that favor.”

  He continued to look above my head toward the barred window.

  “She wants somebody to do something for her before she dies.”

  “That’s ’fore I die,” he said, lowering his eyes to look at me. He repeated it. “That’s ’fore I die.”

  “Is it asking too much, Jefferson, to show some concern for her?”

  “’Cause I’m go’n die anyhow—that’s what you trying to say?”

  Now it was I who didn’t answer.