Lesson Before Dying

by Ernest J. Gaines

  “That’s what you trying to say, Mr. Teacher?” he asked.

  “We’re all going to die, Jefferson.”

  “Tomorrow, Mr. Teacher, that’s when you go’n die? Next week?”

  “I don’t know when I’m going to die, Jefferson. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe today. That’s why I try to live as well as I can every day and not hurt people. Especially people who love me, people who have done so much for me, people who have sacrificed for me. I don’t want to hurt those people. I want to help those people as much as I can.”

  “You can talk like that; you know you go’n walk out here in a hour. I bet you wouldn’t be talking like that if you knowed you was go’n stay in here.”

  “In here or out of here, Jefferson, what does it benefit you to hurt someone who loves you, who has done so much for you?”

  “I never asked to be born.”

  “Neither did I,” I said. “But here I am. And I’m trying to make the best of it.”

  “Like coming here vexing me?” he asked.

  “Am I vexing you, Jefferson?”

  He grunted. “Just keep on vexing me,” he said. “I bet you I say something ’bout that old yellow woman you go with.”

  “You’re speaking of Vivian?”

  “Just keep on vexing me,” he said.

  “If you’re talking about Vivian, it’s Vivian who keeps me coming here.”

  “Keep on vexing me,” he said. “See what I won’t say. Just keep on vexing me.”

  “Go on and say anything you want to say, Jefferson.”

  “Keep on vexing me—bet you I’ll scream,” he said.

  “So Guidry would come up here and tell me to get out, is that it? Is that it, Jefferson?” I had been trying my best not to become angry again. But nothing I said made a difference. He just sat there grinning at me. “Go on and scream, Jefferson. Go on and scream for Guidry, if that’s what you want.”

  We looked at each other, and I could see in those big reddened eyes that he was not going to scream. He was full of anger—and who could blame him?—but he was no fool. He needed me, and he wanted me here, if only to insult me.

  “Her old pussy ain’t no good,” he said.

  My heart suddenly started pumping too fast. I made a fist of my right hand. If he had been standing, I would have hit him. If he had been anyplace else, I would have made him get up and I would have hit him. I would have hit any other man for saying that. But I recognized his grin for what it was—the expression of the most heartrending pain I had ever seen on anyone’s face. I rubbed my fist with my left hand, and gradually I began to relax.

  “That lady you spoke of, boy, cares a lot about you,” I said to him. “She’s waiting at that school right now for me to bring her news about you. That’s a lady you spoke of, boy. That’s a lady. Because it’s she who keeps me coming here. Not your nannan, not my aunt. Vivian. If I didn’t have Vivian, I wouldn’t be in this damn hole. Because I know damn well I’m not doing any good, for you or for any of the others. Do you hear what I’m saying to you? Do you?”

  I saw that grin slowly fade as he lowered his eyes toward the floor. When he looked up again, I saw tears in those big reddened eyes.

  “Manners is for the living,” he said. He looked at me awhile, then he swung around and knocked the bag of food off the bunk. The bag burst open on the floor, and there was fried chicken and biscuits and baked sweet potatoes all over the place. “Food for the living, too,” he said.

  When the deputy came back to let me out, I had picked up all the food and put it back into the torn paper bag, and I had placed the bag on the small steel shelf by the washbowl. Jefferson and I had not exchanged a word for fifteen minutes. He had lain down on the bunk facing the wall.

  I heard Paul coming down the block, speaking to the prisoners, calling them by their first names, threatening this one with hard work, praising another one for being good. He looked at Jefferson as he let me out of the cell. Jefferson lay with his back toward us.

  “How did it go?” he asked.

  “Okay.”

  We went down the cellblock, and the prisoners asked me what I had brought Jefferson to eat. I didn’t answer. Just before we reached the heavy metal door, Henry Martin yelled out to me, “Goodbye, Mr. Rockefeller. I’ll be here when you come back.”

  “That’s for sure,” Paul said to him.

  He opened the steel door, and we went out.

  “Sheriff wants to see you in his office,” Paul said.

  “Is something the matter?”

  The deputy shrugged his shoulders. “He just told me that he wanted to see you before you left.”

  The sheriff was talking on the telephone when Paul and I came into his office. The chief deputy was talking to the fat man whom I had seen at Pichot’s house. The sheriff sat back in his chair, his cowboy boots propped on his desk. He was talking to someone at the state prison in Angola. The chief deputy and the fat man were talking about fishing at Old River. They continued their conversation for another five or ten minutes as if I weren’t there. Paul stood beside me awhile, then he went into another office. I stood waiting.

  The sheriff hung up the telephone and looked at me over the tips of his boots.

  “Well, Professor, making any headway?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “You been seeing him a month. You still don’t know if you’re making any headway?”

  “No, sir.”

  The chief deputy and the fat man had quit talking, and they were looking at me too.

  “You wouldn’t be trying to hide something, now, would you?” the sheriff asked me.

  “No, sir.”

  “Glad to hear that,” he said. “Hear that, Frank? He ain’t hiding nothing.”

  The fat man grunted and looked at me. Guidry drew his boots from the top of the desk and dropped his feet heavily to the floor.

  “Women,” he said. “Always coming up with something new. Now they want all y’all to meet in the bull pen—picniclike.”

  He looked at me as though I was supposed to know what he was talking about.

  “Well, what do you think?” he asked me, when I didn’t offer an answer.

  “That’s up to you, Sheriff,” I said.

  “Yes, I know that,” he said. “But the things they come up with. They want to meet him in the dayroom or another comfortable room—‘comfortable room’—where they can all sit down, ’cause they can’t all sit down in that cell. You ever heard of anything like that before?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sheriff,” I said.

  “Don’t you, Professor?”

  “No, sir, I don’t.”

  He regarded me awhile, and so did the chief deputy and the fat man. The deputy was looking very mean.

  “You don’t know they came up to my wife?” the sheriff asked me.

  “I don’t know a thing that you’re talking about, Sheriff.”

  “They came up to the house and said they couldn’t sit down and could she, ‘please, ma’am,’ speak to me about arranging a place so they can sit down—and you don’t know anything about that?”

  “No, sir, I don’t.”

  “You playing with me, Professor?” the sheriff asked.

  “Sheriff, I just don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I would learn later. Miss Emma, my aunt, and Reverend Ambrose had visited the sheriff’s wife a day after they had last seen Jefferson. The sheriff’s wife greeted them graciously and set a precedent by having them sit in the living room, while her maid served them coffee. They talked about little things before they came to their purpose in coming there. The sheriff’s wife was stunned. She nearly spilled her coffee. What was wrong with the cell? Wasn’t it big enough? Yes, but they couldn’t all sit down. Was it necessary that they all sit down at the same time? Couldn’t they take turns? She was sure that Reverend Ambrose didn’t mind standing. And maybe Jefferson could stand up too, and let Tante Lou and Miss Emma sit
down.

  It was then that Miss Emma reminded the sheriff’s wife of all the things she had done for the family over the years. The sheriff’s wife was suddenly taken with a splitting headache. She wondered where the maid had gone to, but she didn’t call for her. She frowned and rubbed her temples. She told Miss Emma that she would see what she could do. “But don’t count on it,” she said. “The sheriff makes up his own mind in these matters.”

  “Just speak to him, if you don’t mind,” Miss Emma said. “I done done a lot for you and your family over all these years.”

  “Oh, Lord, do I know,” the sheriff’s wife said. “Do I know, do I know, do I know. I’ll speak to the sheriff. Lord, I’ll be glad when all this is over.”

  Miss Emma dropped her coffee cup on the floor and started calling on God.

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” the sheriff’s wife said. “God in heaven knows I didn’t mean it that way. Lou, Reverend Ambrose—can’t y’all do something? The Lord knows I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “Women,” the sheriff said to me. “Always coming up with something new.” He looked at his deputy. “Well, Clark? What do you think?”

  Clark’s gray eyes looked like marbles in his big face.

  “Let him stay where he’s at.”

  “My sentiments exactly,” the sheriff said. “But if we put him in handcuffs and leg chains?”

  “I wouldn’t even bother,” Clark said.

  “I wouldn’t either,” the sheriff said. “But you got these women.”

  “He ain’t here for no picnic,” Clark said. “He killed Mr. Gropé. Let him stay right there in that last cell. Till that last day.”

  “What you say, Frank?” the sheriff asked the fat man.

  The fat man shrugged his shoulders. “I’m just standing here.”

  “I’ll go to him, and I’ll leave it up to him,” the sheriff said to me. “If he wants to come in the dayroom in shackles—all right. If he wants to stay in his cell unshackled—all right. But cell or dayroom, if I notice any aggravation, I stop all visits. You see, I know you haven’t done a thing yet. Boys on the block tell me you haven’t done a thing. And I doubt if you ever will.”

  I didn’t answer him. But I was thinking, Sheriff, you don’t know how right you are.

  “You can take her this message,” the sheriff said. “He can meet her in the dayroom if he wants, but he will be shackled. Every moment of the rest of his life, he’s going to know he’s in jail, and he’s going to be here till the end. This ain’t no school, and it ain’t no picnic ground. All right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. I’ll see you later, Professor.”

  18

  AS HE HAD PROMISED, the sheriff went to Jefferson and asked him if he would like to meet his visitors in the dayroom instead of his cell. The sheriff explained that he would be shackled hand and feet there. He also told Jefferson that it was entirely up to him and that his wishes would be carried out.

  “If that’s what they want,” Jefferson said.

  “No, not what they want; what you want.”

  “If that’s what they want,” Jefferson repeated.

  “Is it yes, then?”

  “If that’s what they want,” Jefferson said. “I’m go’n die anyhow.”

  When Miss Emma and my aunt and Reverend Ambrose went to the courthouse, they were led to the dayroom by the young deputy, Paul. The large room contained three tables, made of steel, with benches attached on either side, also of steel. There were no other visitors in the dayroom, and Miss Emma selected the center table. Paul told them that he would be back in a few minutes. While he was gone, Miss Emma took out the food and placed it on the table. She set places for four, two on either side of the table. My aunt and Reverend Ambrose stood back, watching her. My aunt would say later that Miss Emma went about setting the table the same way she would have done at home, humming her ’Termination song to herself.

  “This go’n be his place, and this go’n be my place,” she said. My aunt said that Miss Emma, still humming to herself, passed her hand over the table to make sure there was no dust, no specks there—just as she would do at home. “That’s your place there, Lou, and that’s yours right there, Reverend Ambrose,” she said. “Don’t it look nice? Ain’t this much better?”

  My aunt and Reverend Ambrose agreed that it looked nice and that it was much better than the cell.

  Then they heard the chains. And a moment later, the door at the far end of the room opened and Jefferson came in, followed by the deputy. Jefferson had not been chained before, and he took long steps that caused him to trip, my aunt said. He came to the table like somebody half blind, and he didn’t sit down until Paul told him to do so. Paul told him that he had to stay in that one place until he was returned to his cell.

  “He ain’t go’n move,” Miss Emma said. “I’m go’n see to that. I thank you kindly.”

  “You understand, don’t you, Jefferson?” Paul said.

  “I yer you,” Jefferson said.

  “He go’n mind,” Miss Emma said. “I’m go’n see to that.”

  “Y’all have a good dinner,” Paul said, and left.

  “He come from good stock,” Miss Emma said. “Y’all sit down. Well, Jefferson, how you feeling?”

  He did not answer her. He sat with bowed head, his cuffed hands down between his knees under the table.

  My aunt and Reverend Ambrose sat down. Miss Emma dished up the food. Mustard greens with pieces of pork fat mixed in it. There was stewed beef meat, rice, and biscuits. A little cake for dessert, my aunt said.

  “You go’n eat for me, Jefferson?” Miss Emma asked him.

  He kept his head bowed, his shackled hands under the table, and he did not answer her.

  “You’ll eat if I feed you?” she asked.

  When he did not answer her, she dished up a small piece of meat and some mustard greens on the spoon and held it up to his mouth. He would not open his mouth. Miss Emma looked at my aunt, and my aunt, who had been trying to eat, could see all the hurt in her face.

  When I came up there a couple of days later, the chief deputy told me I could meet Jefferson in his cell or in the dayroom. I told him it didn’t matter to me where we met. The chief deputy told me it didn’t matter to him either, but he told Paul to take me to the dayroom.

  I sat at the center table, just as Miss Emma and my aunt and Reverend Ambrose had two days before. And I heard the chains out along the cellblock before I saw anyone. Then they came in, Jefferson in front, shackled, walking with short steps, his head bowed and his shoulders stooped. They came up to the table, and Paul told him to sit down. He sat without looking at me, his shoulders hanging low and closer together than they should be.

  “I’ll be back,” Paul said.

  “Can we walk?” I asked him.

  “He had his exercise,” Paul said. “I’ll have to ask Clark.”

  “No, that’s all right,” I said. “Maybe next time.”

  Paul left.

  “How’s it going?” I said.

  “Aw right,” Jefferson said, without raising his head.

  “You want to eat something?”

  “I ain’t hongry,” he said.

  “Yes you are,” I said. “I know I am.”

  There was store-bought bread, fried pork chops, and baked sweet potatoes. I put some of it in front of him and some in front of me. I started eating.

  “Come on, eat something,” I said.

  He raised his head slowly and studied me awhile. He had lost some weight. What had been a round, smooth face when he first came here was beginning to show some bone structure. His eyes were still bloodshot. I had seen them many times in my sleep the past month.

  “What you want?” he asked me.

  I was eating. I shrugged my shoulders.

  “Just want you to eat something, that’s all.”

  “What you want?” he asked again. His expression hadn’t changed, and there was no change of inflection in his voice. His
reddened eyes accused me of wanting something without saying it.

  “Us to talk,” I said.

  “’Bout what?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Anything you want to talk about. What do you want to talk about?”

  “That chair,” he said. He watched me now, because he knew he had caught me off guard.

  I looked at him a moment, then I started eating again. That chair was the last thing that I wanted to talk about.

  “We’re starting our Christmas program,” I said. But I could see that he was thinking about other things. “You remember those Christmas programs when you were in school?”

  “It’s Christmas?” he asked. But he was not thinking about Christmas; he was thinking about something else. And he knew that I knew he was thinking about something else.

  “No, Christmas is still a few weeks off,” I said. “But we’re getting ready.”

  “That’s when He was born, or that’s when He died?” he asked.

  “Who?” I said.

  He looked at me, knowing that I knew who he was talking about.

  “Born,” I said.

  “That’s right,” he said. “Easter when they nailed Him to the cross. And He never said a mumbling word.”

  I had not finished eating, but I knew I couldn’t eat any more. I put the rest of the pork chop and the slice of light bread on the napkin before me.

  “Jefferson, do you know what ‘moral’ means?” I asked him.

  He looked at me, knowing that I knew what he was thinking about.

  “Obligation?” I said. “Do you know what ‘obligation’ means?”

  He didn’t answer. But he kept looking at me.

  “No matter how bad off we are,” I said, “we still owe something. You owe something, Jefferson. Not to me. Surely not to that sheriff out there. But to your godmother. You must show her some understanding, some kind of love.”

  “That’s for youmans,” he said. “I ain’t no youman.”

  “Then why do you speak, Jefferson?” I said. “Human beings are the only creatures on earth who can talk. Why do you talk? And wear clothes? Why do you wear clothes?”

  “You trying to get me wool-gathered,” he said.

  “I’m not trying to confuse you, Jefferson. She loves you, and I want you to give her something. Something that she can be proud of.”