Lesson Before Dying

by Ernest J. Gaines

  He looked at me in great pain. He may not have understood, but something was touched, something deep down in him—because he was still crying.

  I cry, not from reaching any conclusion by reasoning, but because, lowly as I am, I am still part of the whole. Is that what he was thinking as he looked at me crying?

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s have some gumbo.”

  And we went back to the table.

  25

  REVEREND AMBROSE, my aunt, and Miss Emma returned to the quarter, and I went back of town to the Rainbow Club. The place was in semidarkness as usual, with three old men at the bar, doing more talking than drinking, and only two other people in the place, a couple of mulatto bricklayers, sitting at a table. I had come here to tell Vivian that everything had gone well—Jefferson and I were communicating, and he and his nannan were also talking. I was feeling very good, and I wanted to tell it to her before I told it to anyone else. How he and I had gone back to the table, and how we had eaten the gumbo though it was cold, and how his nannan was so proud. I wanted to tell her that. I did not wish to tell her about the envy I had seen in the minister’s face. No, I would not say that, that the minister felt I was controlling Jefferson’s life, and that he, the minister, thought that since Jefferson had only a short time left to live, it should be he in control, and not I. No, I didn’t want to say that to her. I only wanted to talk about things that made me feel good. The look on his nannan’s face, the look on my aunt’s face, the way Jefferson raised the spoonful of gumbo and rice to his mouth with both hands, and dipped the spoon again, and raised it to his mouth, because I had asked him to do it—that’s what I wanted to talk about. About how he picked up the bag of pecans and peanuts and the bag with the tablet and pencil when the deputy came to the table to take him back to his cell. And though he did not walk as straight as I wished he would, the fact that he was carrying the notepad and the pencil made up for it. I wanted to talk about that to Vivian. Not about the minister, his envy, the way he looked when Jefferson and I had come back to the table. Sure, he was happy to see that Sister Emma was happy, but it was not he who had made her so, and he did not like that. Sin (or the sinner) had done this, not he. I wanted, too, to talk about how Jefferson’s nannan looked at him as he ate the gumbo she had cooked especially for him, and about how he said goodbye when he had to go—that was what I wanted to talk about.

  It was near three-thirty when I got to the Rainbow Club, and I had thought that by now Vivian would be there with some of her teaching friends. Since she was not, I thought I would have a drink or two till she showed up.

  I could hear the mulatto bricklayers talking over in the corner. I was in a very good mood—at least I thought I was—and at first I wasn’t paying much attention to what they were saying. I could hear them well enough, but I had no idea that they were speaking for my benefit. I had ordered a bourbon and water from Claiborne, and I was sipping it slowly and thinking about Vivian and about Jefferson. Things had not been going too well for Vivian and me in bed, and I knew it was because of Jefferson, my worrying about him. Between him and school, I was drained of my energy. Vivian knew that too, and she was ready to accept it. Much more than I was. She knew how it had been before, and she knew how it would be again—and she told me not to worry about it. But that was not enough for me. I did worry. I didn’t think anything in the world was worth us not being able to make it well in bed. Nothing. And that was one of the reasons I had come back here to see her, to tell her that I had finally reached him and that I would be more relaxed now, and that it was going to be all right between her and me from now on.

  The two brick-colored bricklayers were still talking over in the corner, and for a long time I didn’t pay their conversation any close attention. I heard the word “nigger” a few times, and I heard the words “should have been done long ago,” but I never made the connection. After I finished my first drink, I nodded for Claiborne to come down the bar. And now Claiborne heard them too. Maybe they wanted him to hear. Maybe they wanted him to hear so he would say something to me. Maybe. But all Claiborne did was serve me another drink, glance at them a couple of times, and go back to where the three old men were doing much more talking than drinking.

  I went on sipping from my second drink, and thinking about Vivian and Jefferson. I was wondering what Vivian had worn today and how her hair was combed and how she would look when she came into the place. I was thinking about that. And about Jefferson and what he would write on the notepad—questions or comments? I was wondering what his handwriting would look like, and whether I would have the nerve to question him about anything I did not understand. These are the things I was thinking while the two bricklayers went on talking over in the corner. Down the bar, I saw Claiborne glancing their way again. He could not hear them now, but he had heard them when he was serving me, and he knew I could be listening.

  There was a tall one and there was a short, fat one. The tall one was doing most of the talking, and I could tell he was angry. Maybe it was over his job. I had seen both of them before, without being friendly, and I knew that like so many of the mulattos in this part of the state, they did bricklaying or carpentry, and possibly some housepainting. All this by contract. And all this to keep from working in the field side by side with the niggers. Since emancipation, almost a hundred years ago, they would do any kind of work they could find to keep from working side by side in the field with the niggers. They controlled most of the bricklaying business in this part of the state. Even took that kind of work from the white boys, because they would do it so much cheaper than the white boys would. Anything not to work alongside the niggers. With school it was the same. Many of them would drop out of school, would get a trade—bricklayer or carpenter—rather than sit in class side by side with the niggers. Their sisters went to high school and college, but they would not. Rather take a trade than to sit next to the niggers. And these two who were talking now were of that way of thinking. Dumb as hell, but prejudiced as hell. They had no other place to go to do their drinking—they would not dare go to any of the white clubs—so they would come here and bring their prejudiced attitude with them. They would keep it down when there were several blacks in the place, but with only me and the three old men standing at the bar today, they felt pretty safe.

  “Should have burned him months ago,” one said. I figured it was the tall one, because out of the corner of my eye I had seen that he was doing most of the talking. “That kind of sonofabitch make it hard on everybody,” he went on. “I’d pull the switch myself, they ask me.”

  I knew now what they were talking about and who they were talking about, but I told myself to keep it cool. Let them talk. They were probably out of work, and it was just plain frustration that made them go on like that. Just cool it, I told myself. You just cool it now.

  But when I looked down the bar, I could see that Claiborne was listening to them too. And even the old men had looked back once or twice. So now we were all hearing them, but I could hear them better, because I was closer to their table.

  And the Old Forester was not doing anything to keep me from listening. It was helping me listen. That’s the way it is with booze, it gives and takes. It keeps you from doing what you’re supposed to do well in bed, and other times it makes you listen to things you should not listen to. Like now.

  Let them talk, I said again to myself. If you can’t stand here and take it, then get into your car and leave. Go somewhere else and get a drink. He’s got only a few more weeks, and you have to do all you can for him, for all the others. You came here in a good mood because this was one of the best days you have had with him, and you can’t let this kind of trash destroy that good feeling. So don’t. All right?

  I finished the drink and sucked on an ice cube as I rolled the glass around in the palms of my hands. I raised the glass for the last drop, before setting it on the bar. I turned around slowly and looked at them, the tall one with a cowboy hat, and the short fat one with a baseball ca
p turned backward on his head. All I was going to do was lean back against the bar a moment, then I was going to walk out. They knew I was looking at them, and they were quiet a moment. Then the tall one said something, and the fat one snickered, and I thought I had heard enough. I went up to their table.

  “Shut up.”

  “What?” the tall one said.

  “You heard me,” I said. “Shut up.”

  He grinned at me. “You don’t mean that.”

  “You shut up, or get up,” I said. “I mean that.”

  He looked at his buddy, then back at me. And the hatred in those light-brown eyes was thick enough to cut with a cane knife.

  He grinned. “Fine with me, partner.”

  He braced himself against the table to stand up. But he was getting up with too much confidence, and I hit him before he had a chance to protect himself, and down he went over the back of that chair. Just as I expected, old fat boy jumped up too, and I caught him in the face with the side of my fist, and I saw him fall back and throw his hand up to his mouth. I got my back to the wall so I could keep both of them in front of me.

  I don’t know whether Claiborne came over the bar, under the bar, or around the bar, but he was there now, and he had grabbed the fat one and he was hollering for me and the other one to cut it out.

  “Not in here,” he was hollering. “Not in here, goddammit.”

  The tall one was up, and he was trying to move in on me, and when I saw that Claiborne had grabbed fat boy, I moved away from the wall with my guard up. Claiborne was wrestling with the fat one, but hollering at us. The tall one kept coming in on me. Then he swung, and I moved, and he went into the wall. His back was to me, but I didn’t hit him. Not that I’m a gentleman fighter; I didn’t hit him because he was between the wall and the table, and if I had moved in close enough to hit him, I would not have had room to move around. He came off that wall, and he swung at me again—not with fist first, but with both arms at once, just as Frankenstein had done it in the movies. He missed. But I could feel the force of his swing, even his body heat, and I knew that if nobody stopped this thing, I was in for a fight. He was taller and heavier and stronger than I, and he had three or four generations of bricklaying genes in him, while I had only cane cutting in mine.

  Out of the corner of my eye I could still see Claiborne wrestling with the fat one, while continuing to holler at me and the tall one to stop. But since the tall one was not paying any attention to him, I wasn’t about to drop my guard. He swung at me again, and I went under his arm and struck him in the side with all I had, but it seemed as if I had hit a wall. I told myself, Partner, you got your work cut out for you. He doesn’t know how to fight, but he’s strong as a mule. He came back, and this time he landed. Not his fist; his arm. And I thought it was chickenshit of him to hit me with an arm and not a fist, as a man should hit a man, but I was thinking this from the floor. I don’t know what was going on in his mind, but he was standing over me as though he was waiting for me to get up before hitting me again. I kicked him in the shin, he fell back, and I got to my feet. He was right on me again, and he swung. I went under it and intentionally caught him below the belt. He buckled over, grabbing at his nuts with both hands. I moved in, and he started swinging with the one arm to ward me off. I hit him twice, hard. He kept swinging with one arm, the other hand holding on to his nuts. His face showed pain, but he would not stop, he would not go down. Those three or four generations of bricklaying genes, his hatred of the black/white blood in him, and his plain frustration with life would not let him go down.

  Thelma Claiborne and several others were in the barroom now, and Thelma had a broom. I felt the broom on my back, then I saw it flash in front of me as she swung it at the bricklayer. Then it was hitting something else—maybe the other bricklayer, maybe her husband—because I heard Claiborne saying, “Goddammit, go find Vivian. Put that goddamn thing down, woman, and do like I say.”

  I could hear all this, but I wasn’t about to turn my head, because the tall bricklayer was still on his feet. He was insane now, like a wounded animal in pain, and nothing could stop him. I kept moving back, maneuvering, so that I could land a good punch when he came in. I felt something heavy and soft behind me, and as I glanced around at Thelma, with that damned broom, the bricklayer hit me solidly on the arm, and down I went. I had never felt so much pain before, and I knew that there was no way I was going to get up, that I was going to die there. I was on my knees, and I was sure that the next feeling (my last) would be a shoe under my chin or in my side. I was waiting for it to happen, the way a condemned man must wait that last hundredth of a second for the guillotine to fall. But it never did, because Thelma, with her broom, got between us. He was too much of a gentleman to knock her out of the way, or maybe he realized that such a thing would bar him from the place forever. Whatever it was, it gave me time to get to my feet.

  “Boxing is over,” I said, and I grabbed a chair and threw it at him. He grabbed it and threw it back at me. I grabbed another one.

  Above all the noise those chairs were making, I could hear Claiborne: “Go find that woman…schoolhouse…children play in yard…”

  He was saying all this between sounds of something hitting the wall, something like flesh and bone and a baseball cap turned backward. I was hearing this, I wasn’t really seeing it. Because the tall bricklayer still had a chair, and so did I—and Thelma had a broom, and it was hitting me on the head, the bricklayer on the shoulder, me in the side, the bricklayer in the chest.

  Claiborne and the fat boy fell down on the floor and scrambled back up, and I heard Claiborne: “Gusta, Gilley, y’all can’t yer neither? Gusta, crank your old ass up and go find that woman. Gilley, find my gun. Won’t listen to reason, they’ll listen to lead.”

  This was said between the thumping of flesh and bone and a baseball cap turned backward, blows followed by groans. And Claiborne saying, “No, you ain’t got enough yet.”

  While the tall bricklayer and I kept trying to find an opening with those chairs so we could kill each other, I heard a solid, mean, crunching sound and a deep groan, followed by something heavy falling from the ceiling or pushed violently forward to the floor. I heard Claiborne screaming for the tall bricklayer and me to stop, and I heard Thelma plead, “Don’t do it!”

  That was the last thing I heard. After that it was dark. Completely dark. One moment, as I remember it, the bricklayer and I were circling each other with chairs. The next moment, absolute darkness. The darkness came at the exact moment as a blow to the side of my head.

  I could hear a voice before I knew who was talking or where I was. Then I began to think I knew the voice, but I was not absolutely sure. Then I began to think I knew where I was—but I was not sure about that either. Then I began definitely to identify the voice—though still not sure where I was. Then I was able to see and feel, and I knew the voice. Because she was down on the floor with me and holding my head in her lap.

  “He’s all right,” Vivian said.

  “Get him out of here,” Claiborne said.

  “Are you all right?” Vivian asked.

  “Hi, honey,” I said.

  “Are you all right?” Vivian asked.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Can you stand up?”

  I tried to nod my head.

  “Get him out of here,” Claiborne said.

  “You all right, honey?” Vivian said.

  “I’m all right.”

  “Get him out of here,” Claiborne said. “I don’t give a shit if he’s all right or not. ’Fore you know it, the law’ll be here. Get him out of here.”

  “Can you stand up, honey?” Vivian asked again.

  “I can stand up.”

  “Come on. Stand up for me, honey,” Vivian said.

  “I can stand up,” I said. “Damn it, I can stand up.”

  “He can stand up,” Vivian said. “See? He’s standing up now. Come on, honey.”

  26

  “WHAT HAPPENED?
”

  “Claiborne knocked you out.”

  “Why did Claiborne knock me out?”

  “You wouldn’t stop fighting.”

  “Did he knock him out too?”

  “No.”

  “Well, why didn’t he knock him out?”

  “He quit. Claiborne told him he would shoot his head off if he didn’t, and he quit. You wouldn’t.”

  “I didn’t hear Claiborne say anything like that to me.”

  “That’s what he told me. Said he knocked Griffin out first. You were the next one closest to him. He hollered at you to stop—kept hollering at you—and you went on swinging that chair. So he just came up behind you and knocked you out.”

  “With that gun?”

  “That’s all he had in his hand when I got there. Poor Mr. Gusta running up and down the street, calling my name. Come stop you. Come stop you.”

  “I’m sorry, honey.”

  “No, you’re not sorry.”

  “I just couldn’t help it.”

  “Yes, you could.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “You could have walked out of there.”

  “Can Jefferson walk out of where he is?”

  We were sitting on her bed. There were matching lamps with matching shades on either side of the bed. The shades were pink, with little white tassels. A chifforobe was in the room, and there were a soft chair and a dresser. I could see us, me and her, in the mirror above the dresser. I had a wet towel on the top of my head, and my left hand was holding the towel in place. I didn’t look too good, and I felt even worse.