A Death In The Family (3 page)

If I could fight, thought Rufus. If I were brave; he would never brag how I could read: Brag. Of course. “Don’t you brag.” That was it. What it meant. Don’t brag you’re smart if you’re not brave. You’ve got nothing to brag about. Don’t you brag.

The young leaves of Forest Avenue wavered against street lamps and they approached their corner.

It was a vacant lot, part rubbed bare clay, part over-grown with weeds, rising a little from the sidewalk. A few feet in from the sidewalk there was a medium-sized tree and, near enough to be within its shade in daytime, an outcrop of limestone like a great bundle of dirty laundry. If you sat on a certain part of it the trunk of the tree shut off the weak street lamp a block away, and it seemed very dark. Whenever they walked downtown and walked back home, in the evenings, they always began to walk more slowly, from about the middle of the viaduct, and as they came near this corner they walked more slowly still, but with purpose; and paused a moment, at the edge of the sidewalk; then, without speaking. stepped into the dark lot and sat down on the rock, looking out over the steep face of the hill and at the lights of North Knoxville. Deep in the valley an engine coughed and browsed; couplings settled their long chains, and the empty cars sounded like broken drums. A man came up the far side of the street, walking neither slow nor fast, not turning his head, as he paused, and quite surely not noticing them; they watched him until he was out of sight, and Rufus felt, and was sure that his father felt, that though there was no harm in the man and he had as good a right as they did to be there, minding his own business, their journey was interrupted from the moment they first saw him until they saw him out of sight. Once he was out of sight they realized more pleasure in their privacy than before; they really relaxed in it. They looked across the darkness at the lights of North Knoxville. They were aware of the quiet leaves above them, and looked into them and through them. They looked between the leaves into the stars. Usually on these evening waits, or a few minutes before going on home, Rufus’ father smoked a cigarette through, and when it was finished, it was time to get up and go on home. But this time he did not smoke. Up to recently he had always said something about Rufus’ being tired, when they were still about a block away from the corner; but lately he had not done so and Rufus realized that his father stopped as much because he wanted to, as on Rufus’ account. He was just not in a hurry to get home, Rufus realized; and, far more important, it was clear that he liked to spend these few minutes with Rufus. Rufus had come recently to feel a quiet kind of anticipation of the corner, from the moment they finished crossing the viaduct; and, during the ten to twenty minutes they sat on the rock, a particular kind of contentment, unlike any other that he knew. He did not know what this was, in words or ideas, or what the reason was; it was simply all that he saw and felt. It was, mainly, knowing that his father, too, felt a particular kind of contentment, here, unlike any other, and that their kinds of contentment were much alike, and depended on each other. Rufus seldom had at all sharply the feeling that he and his father were estranged, yet they must have been, and he must have felt it, for always during these quiet moments on the rock a part of his sense of complete contentment lay in the feeling that they were reconciled, that there was really no division, no estrangement, or none so strong, anyhow, that it could mean much, by comparison with the unity that was so firm and assured, here. He felt that although his father loved their home and loved all of them, he was more lonely than the contentment of this family love could help; that it even increased his loneliness, or made it hard for him not to be lonely. He felt that sitting out here, he was not lonely; or if he was, that he felt on good terms with the loneliness; that he was a homesick man, and that here on the rock, though he might be more homesick than ever, he was well. He knew that a very important part of his well-being came of staying a few minutes away from home, very quietly, in the dark, listening to the leaves if they moved, and looking at the stars; and that his own, Rufus’ own presence, was fully as indispensable to this well-being. He knew that each of them knew of the other’s well-being, and of the reasons for it, and knew how each depended on the other, how each meant more to the other, in this most important of all ways, than anyone or anything else in the world; and that the best of this wellbeing lay in this mutual knowledge, which was neither concealed nor revealed. He knew these things very distinctly, but not, of course, in any such way as we have of suggesting them in words. There were no words, or even ideas, or formed emotions, of the kind that have been suggested here, no more in the man than in the boy child. These realizations moved clearly through the senses, the memory, the feelings, the mere feeling of the place they paused at, about a quarter of a mile from home, on a rock under a stray tree that had grown in the city, their feet on undomesticated clay, facing north through the night over the Southern Railway tracks and over North Knoxville, towards the deeply folded small mountains and the Powell River Valley, and above them, the trembling lanterns of the universe, seeming so near, so intimate, that when air stirred the leaves and their hair, it seemed to be the breathing, the whispering of the stars. Sometimes on these evenings his father would hum a little and the humming would break open into a word or two, but he never finished even a part of a tune, for silence was even more pleasurable, and sometimes he would say a few words, of very little consequence, but would never seek to say much, or to finish what he was saying, or to listen for a reply; for silence again was even more pleasurable. Sometimes, Rufus had noticed, he would stroke the wrinkled rock and press his hand firmly against it; and sometimes he would put out his cigarette and tear and scatter it before it was half finished. But this time he was much quieter than ordinarily. They slackened their walking a little sooner than usual and walked a little more slowly, without a word, to the corner; and hesitated, before stepping off the sidewalk into the clay, purely for the luxury of hesitation; and took their place on the rock without breaking silence. As always, Rufus’ father took off his hat and put it over the front of his bent knee, and as always, Rufus imitated him, but this time his father did not roll a cigarette. They waited while the man came by, intruding on their privacy, and disappeared, as someone nearly always did, and then relaxed sharply into the pleasure of their privacy; but this time Rufus’ father did not hum, nor did he say anything, nor even touch the rock with his hand, but sat with his hands hung between his knees and looked out over North Knoxville, hearing the restive assemblage of the train; and after there had been silence for a while, raised his head and looked up into the leaves and between the leaves into the broad stars, not smiling, but with his eyes more calm and grave and his mouth strong and more quiet, than Rufus had ever seen his eyes and his mouth; and as he watched his father’s face, Rufus felt his father’s hand settle, without groping or clumsiness, on the top of his bare head; it took his forehead and smoothed it, and pushed the hair backward from his forehead, and held the back of his head while Rufus pressed his head backward against the firm hand, and, in reply to that pressure, clasped over his right ear and cheek, over the whole side of the head, and drew Rufus’ head quietly and strongly against the sharp cloth that covered his father’s body, through which Rufus could feel the breathing ribs; then relinquished him, and Rufus sat upright, while the hand lay strongly on his shoulder, and he saw that his father’s eyes had become still more clear and grave and that the deep lines around his mouth were satisfied; and looked up at what his father was so steadily looking at, at the leaves which silently breathed and at the stars which beat like hearts. He heard a long, deep sigh break from his father, and then his father’s abrupt voice: “
Well
...” and the hand lifted from him and they both stood up. The rest of the way home they did not speak, or put on their hats. When he was nearly asleep Rufus heard once more the crumpling of freight cars, and deep in the night he heard the crumpling of subdued voices and the words, “Naw: I’ll probly be back before they’re asleep”; then quick feet creaking quietly downstairs. But by the time he heard the creaking and departure of the Ford, he was already so deeply asleep that it seemed only a part of a dream, and by next morning, when his mother explained to them why his father was not at breakfast, he had so forgotten the words and the noises that years later, when he remembered them, he could never be sure that he was not making them up.

Chapter 2

Deep in the night they experienced the sensation, in their sleep, of being prodded at, as if by some persistent insect. Their souls turned and flicked out impatient hands, but the tormentor would not be driven off. They both awoke at the same instant. In the dark and empty hall, by itself, the telephone was shrilling fiercely, forlorn as an abandoned baby and even more peremptory to be quieted. They heard it ring once and did not stir, crystallizing their senses into annoyance, defiance and acceptance of defeat. It rang again: at the same moment she exclaimed, “Jay! The children!” and he, grunting, “Lie still,” swung his feet thumping to the floor. The phone rang again. He hurried out in the dark, barefooted, tiptoe, cursing under his breath. Hard as he tried to beat it, it rang again just as he got to it. He cut it off in the middle of its cry and listened with savage satisfaction to its death rattle. Then he put the receiver to his ear.

“Yeah?” he said, forbiddingly. “
Hel
lo.”

“Is this the residence of, uh ...”

“Hello, who is it?”

“Is this the residence of Jay Follet?”

Another voice said, “That’s him, Central, let me talk to um, that’s ...” It was Ralph.

“Hello,” he said. “Ralph?”

“One moment please, your party is not connec ...”

“Hello, Jay?”

“Ralph? Yeah. Hello. What’s trouble?” For there was something wrong with his voice. Drunk, I reckon, he thought.

“Jay? Can you hear me all right? I said, ‘Can you hear me all right,’ Jay?”

Crying too, sounds like. “Sure, I can hear you. What’s the matter?” Paw, he thought suddenly. I bet it’s Paw; and he thought of his father and his mother and was filled with cold sad darkness.

“Hit’s Paw, Jay,” said Ralph, his voice going so rotten with tears that his brother pulled the receiver a little away, his mouth contracting with disgust. “I know I got no business aringin y’up this hour night but I know too you’d never a forgive me if ...”

“Quit it, Ralph,” he said sharply. “Cut that out and tell me about it.”

“Hit’s only my duty, Jay, God Almighty I ...”

“All right, Ralph,” he said, “I preciate your callin. Now tell me about Paw.”

“I just got back fer this, Jay, this minute, hurried home specially to ring you up ... Course I’m agoan right back, you ...”

“Listen, Ralph. Listen here. Can you hear me?” Ralph was silent. “Is he dead or alive?”

“Paw?”

Jay started to say, “Yeah, Paw,” in tight rage, but he heard Ralph begin again. He can’t help it, he thought, and waited.

“Why, naw, he ain’t dead,” Ralph said, deflated. The darkness lifted considerably from Jay: coldly, he listened to Ralph whickering up his feelings again. Finally, his voice shaking satisfactorily, he said, “But O Lord God, hit looks like the end Jay!”

I should come up, huh?” He began to wonder whether Ralph was sober enough to be trusted; Ralph heard, and misunderstood the doubt in his voice.

His own voice became dignified. “Course that’s entirely up to you, Jay. I know Paw n all of us would feel it was mighty strange if his oldest boy, the one he always thought the most of ...”

This new voice and this new tack bewildered Jay for a moment. Then he understood what Ralph was driving at, and had misunderstood, and assumed about him, and was glad that he was not where he could hit him. He cut in.

“Hold on, Ralph, you hold on there. If Paw’s that bad you know damn well I’m comin so don’t give me none a that ...” But he realized, with self-dislike, how unimportant it was to argue this matter with Ralph and said, “Listen here, Ralph, now don’t think I’m jumping on you, just listen. Do you hear me?” His feet and legs were getting chilly. He warmed one foot beneath the other. “Hear me?”

“I can hear you, Jay.”

“Ralph, get it straight I’m not trying to jump on you, but sounds to me like you’ve had a few. Now ...”

“Now hold on. I don’t give a damn if you’re drunk or sober, far’s you’re concerned: point is this, Ralph. Anyone that’s drunk, I know it myself, they’re likely to exaggerate ...”

“You think I’m a lyin to you? You ...”

“Shut up, Ralph. Course you’re not. But if you’re drunk you can get an exaggerated idea how serious a thing is. Now you think a minute. Just think it over. And remember nobody’s goin to think bad of you if you change your mind, or for calling either. Just how sick is he really, Ralph?”

“Course if you don’t want to take my word for ...”

“Think, Goddamn it!” Ralph was silent. Jay changed his feet around. He suddenly realized how foolish he had been to try to get anything level-headed out of Ralph. “Listen, Ralph,” he said. “I know you wouldn’t a phoned if you didn’t think it was serious. Is Sally there?”

“Why yeah, she ...”

“Let me talk to her a minute, will you?”

“Why I just told you she’s out home.”

“Course Mother’s out there.”

“Why, Jay, she wouldn’t never leave his side. Mother ...”

“Doctor’s been out, of course.”

“He’s with him still. Was when I left.”

“What’s he say?”

Ralph hesitated. He did not want to spoil his story. “He says he has a chance, Jay.”

By the way Ralph said it, Jay suspected the doctor had said, a good chance.

He was at the edge of asking whether it was a good chance or just a chance when he was suddenly overcome by even more disgust for himself, for haggling about it, than for Ralph. Besides, his feet were so chilly they were beginning to itch.