Lesson Before Dying

by Ernest J. Gaines

  At home, I lit a fire to warm the food—cabbage with salt pork and Irish potatoes. I didn’t have to warm up the corn bread. I made a fire in my aunt’s room so it would be warm when she came home, and I went around to my side of the house and lit a fire there too. By now the food was warm, and I went back into the kitchen to eat, sitting near the stove, with the plate balanced on my left hand. I had just finished eating and was washing the plate in the pan of soap water when I heard someone come up on the front porch. Vivian was at the door. We stood there looking at each other a moment, then she came in and took off her coat and galoshes. We went to sit at the fire in my room. I told her the only thing I could offer her was a cup of coffee. We went into the kitchen and warmed the coffee and returned to my room to sit before the fire.

  “After I heard about it, I knew I had to see you,” she said.

  “I was coming to you tonight.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “I’m glad you came.”

  We finished our coffee, and I took the empty cups to the kitchen and washed them. When I came back to the room, I asked Vivian to lie on the bed beside me. We lay on our sides for a while, then we lay on our backs, looking up at the ceiling. The room’s only light came from the fireplace.

  “When are you going back?” Vivian asked me.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll have to talk to Miss Emma.”

  “Have you seen her?”

  “She’s in bed.”

  Vivian was quiet a moment.

  “Is that her house up there where the cars are?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wanted to stop in, but I didn’t know if I should.”

  “You can go by before you leave.”

  “You think I ought to?” she asked.

  “I want you to,” I said.

  “You think this is a good time?”

  “I think so.”

  “I don’t want to cause any trouble.”

  “You won’t.”

  “I want them to like me,” she said.

  “They will. They’ll have to.”

  “I don’t want it that way.”

  “I’m going to live my own life, Vivian, and I hope you’re part of it. If they like it, it’s all right; if they don’t, it’s the same.”

  Vivian was quiet. We were holding hands, lying very close together with all our clothes on.

  After fifteen or twenty minutes, we got up and got our coats; Vivian put on her galoshes. Her car was parked behind mine in front of the house. I said that we could come back and get her car later. I told her to walk in my tracks so her galoshes would not get muddy. We could hear the people inside the house as we came onto the porch. There were more people at the house now, and we had to push our way through to reach the bed.

  “I brought someone to see you, Miss Emma,” I said.

  Vivian moved closer to the bed, and Miss Emma’s face showed that she remembered her. Vivian leaned over and whispered something to Miss Emma, and as she stood back, Miss Emma’s eyes followed her. I could see in her eyes that she was pleased with what Vivian had said.

  I introduced Vivian to others in the room, then we went into the kitchen. Tante Lou was at the stove, pouring hot water over the coffee grounds while talking to Mrs. Sarah James. Mrs. Sarah greeted me, and my aunt turned around and saw Vivian standing there.

  “Miss Louise,” Vivian said.

  “Miss,” Tante Lou said, very polite. She really knew how to be polite to people when she felt they were interfering with something that belonged to her. She would not look at me.

  Irene Cole came into the kitchen, and she gave Vivian the same look—polite but cold. I introduced Vivian to her. Vivian nodded and smiled. Irene nodded but did not smile.

  “I can get you a cup of coffee?” she asked Vivian.

  “Yes, thank you,” Vivian said. I knew Vivian didn’t want the coffee, but it would have seemed impolite to refuse it.

  With her cup of coffee, Vivian and I went into the front room again. Inez told me that Miss Emma wanted to speak to me before I left. I went back to the bed. Miss Emma nodded for me to sit down. The people who stood near the bed moved away so that Miss Emma and I could speak in privacy. Miss Emma looked up at me, and I was hoping that she would not start crying again. I felt very uncomfortable just sitting there.

  “I don’t know when I can go back up there,” she said. She was speaking slowly and just above a whisper. She was not trying to keep others from hearing her, she had cried so much that she could not speak any louder. “It’s in your hands,” she said. “You and Reverend Mose. I just hope—I just hope—I just hope y’all work together.”

  I looked away from her for a moment, but when I faced her again, I saw that those eyes had not changed. I told her that I would try, and I stood up and looked around for Vivian. She was standing with one of my students by the door to the kitchen. Vivian was nodding and smiling.

  “That’s your girlfriend, Mr. Wiggins?” the boy asked when I came over.

  “Yes,” I said. “You’re not trying to steal her, are you?”

  “Sir?” The boy seemed surprised. “No, sir. She too old for me.”

  Vivian laughed.

  “You’re about ready?” I asked her.

  She took her empty coffee cup into the kitchen, and when she returned to the front room, she went to the bed to let Miss Emma know she was leaving. I saw Miss Emma watching her as she came back to me.

  “I need a stiff drink,” I said, when we were outside. “You don’t have anything in your car, do you?”

  “Nothing,” Vivian said.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “Seven-thirty, quarter to eight,” Vivian said, without looking at her little wristwatch.

  “It’s still early. I’ll follow you back to town.”

  “There’s nothing closer?”

  “Not unless I went to that back room at the corner store. You know I can’t do that.”

  It was dark after leaving the yard, and we walked single file and close to the ditch until we reached the cars. I opened the door, and Vivian got inside and rolled down the window.

  “I’ll see you at the Rainbow,” I said, and kissed her.

  I showed her a good place to turn around, then I got into my car and followed her red lights out of the quarter.

  Twenty minutes later, we were sitting at a table at the Rainbow Club in Bayonne. I asked for a brandy setup, and Shirley brought us a half pint of Christian Brothers, a small pitcher of water, a bowl of ice, and four glasses. We drank the brandy straight up from two glasses, then we followed it with ice water from the other glasses.

  “I think Irene is in love with you,” Vivian said suddenly, as though she had been holding this in for a while.

  “Just as my aunt is,” I said.

  “The other way,” Vivian said.

  “I can name about a dozen younger than Irene, and about that many old as my aunt, who are in love with me,” I said. “But I love only one woman.”

  “Don’t you think she loves you?” Vivian asked, seriously.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “I mean it,” she said. “I’m not playing.”

  “I mean it too,” I said. I had taken a good shot of the brandy, and I was beginning to feel much better. “Irene loves me. My aunt loves me. The rest of them love me, too, and don’t want an outsider taking me away from them. They want me for their own. Isn’t that how it is everywhere?”

  “I don’t know anything about everywhere,” Vivian said.

  “Of course you do,” I said. “It’s the same old story. People want to keep a local boy for themselves, because they have so little.”

  “I’m not talking about the people,” Vivian said. “I’m talking about Irene, with those big brown cow eyes.”

  “Big brown cow eyes?” I said.

  “You know what I’m talking about,” Vivian said.

  “Don’t tell me you’re jealous of that child.”

  “Well?�
�

  “Well, what?”

  “Is she in love with you?”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” I said. I had taken another shot of the brandy.

  “Well?”

  “You still don’t understand, do you?”

  “I understand young gals—very well,” Vivian said. “Do you?”

  “I understand young gals, and old ladies too,” I said. “And by the way, what did you say to Miss Emma to make her look at you the way she did?”

  “I told her I was praying for both of them,” Vivian said.

  “That’s the best thing you could have said.”

  “Get back to Irene,” Vivian said. “She’s the one we’re talking about.”

  “Irene and my aunt want from me what Miss Emma wants from Jefferson,” I said. “I don’t know if Miss Emma ever had anybody in her past that she could be proud of. Possibly—maybe not. But she wants that now, and she wants it from him. Irene and my aunt want it from me. Miss Emma knows that the state of Louisiana is about to take his life, but before that happens she wants something to remember him by. Irene and my aunt both know that one day I will leave them, but they are not about to let me go without a fight. It’s the same thing, the very same thing. Miss Emma needs a memory. Do you know what she told me when I sat on the bed? That Reverend Ambrose and I should get along, and together—together—we should try to reach Jefferson. Why not only Reverend Ambrose? Why not only the soul? No, she wants memories, memories of him standing like a man. Oh, she will meet him soon, and she knows that. But she wants memories, if only for a day, an hour, here on earth. Do you understand?”

  “No,” Vivian said. She wasn’t drinking anymore.

  “Let me explain it to you, let me see if I can explain it to you,” I said. The brandy was really working well now. “We black men have failed to protect our women since the time of slavery. We stay here in the South and are broken, or we run away and leave them alone to look after the children and themselves. So each time a male child is born, they hope he will be the one to change this vicious circle—which he never does. Because even though he wants to change it, and maybe even tries to change it, it is too heavy a burden because of all the others who have run away and left their burdens behind. So he, too, must run away if he is to hold on to his sanity and have a life of his own. I can see by your face you don’t agree, so I’ll try again. What she wants is for him, Jefferson, and me to change everything that has been going on for three hundred years. She wants it to happen so in case she ever gets out of her bed again, she can go to that little church there in the quarter and say proudly, ‘You see, I told you—I told you he was a man.’ And if she dies an hour after that, all right; but what she wants to hear first is that he did not crawl to that white man, that he stood at that last moment and walked. Because if he does not, she knows that she will never get another chance to see a black man stand for her.

  “And for my aunt and Irene it is the same. Who else does my aunt have? She has never been married. She raised my mother because my mother’s mother, who was her sister, gave my mother to her when she was only a baby, to follow a man whom the South had run away. Just as my own mother and my own father left me with her, for greener pastures. And for Irene and for others there in the quarter, it’s the same. They look at their fathers, their grandfathers, their uncles, their brothers—all broken. They see me—and I, who grew up on that same plantation, can teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. I can give them something that neither a husband, a father, nor a grandfather ever did, so they want to hold on as long as they can. Not realizing that their holding on will break me too. That in order for me to be what they think I am, what they want me to be, I must run as the others have done in the past.” I drank. “Now do you see? Do you see?”

  “Will that circle ever be broken?”

  I drank some ice water to chase down the brandy. “It’s up to Jefferson, my love.”

  22

  WHEN I CAME INTO the office, Paul looked me straight in the face. He knew it was unnecessary to search me and the food, but he knew he had to do it. He also knew that he should not even think about not doing it. It was as much his duty as wearing the uniform and carrying the cell keys. But you could see in his eyes that he was wondering why. Even when he was searching me and not looking in my face, I could tell by the light touches on my pockets that he didn’t want to do it. And with the food it was the same. The chief deputy sat behind the desk, watching everything. To him, this was how things were supposed to be and how they would be.

  Paul and I left the office and walked down the narrow, dark corridor.

  “Where would you like to meet him?” he asked.

  “In his cell. I don’t mind.”

  “You want me close by?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “It can be different now,” Paul said.

  “I’ll be okay,” I said. “How is he?”

  “He’s taking it pretty good.”

  “Any changes?”

  “I haven’t noticed any.”

  We came up to the steel door to the cellblock.

  “You sure you want to be alone?” Paul asked again. “You’re the first visitor since that news.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be all right.”

  “If you say so.”

  He opened the steel door. For the first time, the prisoners did not call to me or stick their hands through the bars as I passed. Some spoke quietly, others only nodded, but all were watching. Paul and I continued down the block to the last cell. Jefferson was lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling. Paul looked at me again. I nodded to him to indicate that I was not afraid and that I wanted to be alone with Jefferson. The deputy opened the cell door and let me in, then he locked it and left.

  “How are you, Jefferson?”

  “I’m all right.”

  “I brought you some food,” I said.

  His body took up the bunk, so I set the bag of food on the floor near his head. I went to the wall and stood under the window.

  “You need anything, Jefferson?”

  He shook his head.

  “You want to talk about anything?”

  He shook his head again. Then he just lay there staring up at the ceiling while I stood watching him.

  “What day it is?” he asked, without looking at me.

  “It’s Friday, Jefferson,” I said.

  “Friday,” he said to himself. “Friday.”

  He was quiet for a moment, then he slowly let his feet slide to the floor as he sat up on the bunk.

  “Look like it’s pretty out there,” he said, gazing up at the window.

  “Yes, it’s a nice day,” I said. “No clouds anywhere. Just blue.”

  “You think it’s go’n be like that that day?” he asked.

  I didn’t answer him. He was looking out the window when he said it. Now he turned to me.

  “I hope it’s the kind of day you want, Jefferson,” I said.

  “The kind of day I want?” he said. “The kind of day I want? I never got nothing I wanted in my whole life. Now I’m go’n get a whole day?”

  I didn’t know what to say. He looked at me awhile, then he turned to the window again.

  “Do you like fruit, Jefferson?” I asked him. “I can pick up some fruit—and some pecans. Ice cream? Funny books? Things like that.”

  “I want me a whole gallona ice cream,” he said, still looking out the window. I saw a slight smile come on his face, and it was not a bitter smile. Not bitter at all. “A whole gallona vanilla ice cream. Eat it with a pot spoon. My last supper. A whole gallona ice cream.” He looked at me again. “Ain’t never had enough ice cream. Never had more than a nickel cone. Used to run out in the quarter and hand the ice cream man my nickel, and he give me a little scoop on a cone. But now I’m go’n get me a whole gallon. That’s what I want—a whole gallon. Eat it with a pot spoon.”

  “I can bring you some ice cream anytime, Jefferson,” I said.

  “I’m go’n
wait,” he said. “I’m go’n wait. I want a whole gallon. Eat it with a pot spoon. Every bit of it—with a pot spoon.”

  He smiled. He smiled now because he had something pleasant to look forward to, though it would be on that last day. And he would save it until the very last moment.

  “You want to hear about the news from the quarter?” I asked him. “Stella had her baby.”

  He looked at me, not as he had done in the past, in pain, with hate. He looked at me with an inner calmness now. Was it the ice cream?

  “He favor Gable?” he asked.

  “With little babies, they don’t favor anybody too much,” I said.

  “Old Gable,” he said, and smiled to himself. “Got hisself a baby, got hisself a baby.” Then I saw the face change. He was no longer smiling but staring at the wall. “We was suppose to go hunting that day.”

  He had forgotten about the ice cream now. He was remembering the day he was supposed to go into the swamp with Gable but instead had ended up with Brother and Bear at the liquor store.

  “Inez is still giving her fairs up the quarter,” I said, trying to get him back. “But no music. No dancing. She calls that sinning. If you want your music at a fair, you have to go down to Willie Aaron’s house. Willie still has that stack of old low-down blues—Tampa Red, Mercy Dee—you know, all of them.”

  He was not listening to me now. He seemed to be thinking about hunting with Gable.

  “I just thought of something,” I told him. “Let me bring you a little radio. You can have music all the time. You can listen to Randy’s Record Shop late at night.”