A Gathering of Old Men (16 page)

“Call you about what?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“You don’t seem to be in any great hurry.”

“Nope,” he said. He looked at Mathu sitting on the steps; then he looked up in the sky where the sun was an hour or so ago. “Too late to go fishing now anyhow,” he said.

From Marshall
to the Bayou Michel is about ten miles, five miles along the St. Charles River, and then you turn off the highway onto a blacktop road for another five miles. The Bayou Michel is then on your right, and houses on the left are facing the bayou. The road and bayou twist and turn like a snake. There’s never more than a couple hundred yards of straight road before you have to go around another curve.

This was Cajun country. You had a few other whites, a few blacks, but mostly Cajuns, with names like Jarreau, Bonaventura, Mouton, Montemare, Boutan, Broussard, Guerin, Hebert, Boudreaux, Landreaux—all Cajun names. There were people back here with names like Smith and Kelly, and they claimed to be Cajuns, too, their fathers’ having married Cajun women. The blacks on the bayou also spoke the Cajun French as well as English.

This was Gil’s country. I had come back here with him a half-dozen times before, and it had always been pleasant. We would go hunting or fishing or just visit some of the people. Gil loved all the people back here, and they all loved him, white and black. He would shake a black man’s hand as soon
as he would a white man’s, and the blacks would beam with pride when he did. But today I had not seen one black man, woman, or child since we left Marshall.

Gil, with his arm in the window, was looking out at the trees along the Bayou Michel. Most of the trees were weeping willows; their long, limp branches brushed against the ground and the surface of the water. Every now and then you would see a cypress, a sycamore, or some other kind of tree, but mostly willows, and lots of bushes. When there was a little space between the trees and bushes, you would see the dirty brown shallow water. No form of life was on the water itself. No animals, no birds, nothing green. Only twigs and dry leaves that had fallen from the trees along the bank. Gil was looking out of the window at the bayou, but never saying anything. He had not said a single word to me since we left Marshall.

We were coming up to his folks’ place now, a great big white frame house with a screened-in porch, and screen over the doors and windows. There were quite a few cars and trucks parked in front of the place, so we had to go maybe a hundred yards before we could find room to park; then we got out and walked back. I saw a tall, sandy-haired fellow standing by a car watching us. He smiled as we came back.

“Gilly,” he said.

“Russ,” Gil said. Gil nodded toward me. “This is Sully.”

Russ nodded. I nodded back. We shook hands.

Gil started looking around at all the trucks and cars parked before the house. A half-dozen men stood around one of the trucks in the yard.

“Waiting for you inside,” Russ said to Gil.

“You coming in?” Gil asked him.

“I have to keep your daddy back here, Gil,” Russ said.

“I’d like for you to come in, if you don’t mind,” Gil said.

“Sure, if you want me to,” Russ said.

He reached into the car to get a necktie hanging over the stem of the rearview mirror. After he had made a good knot and drawn it tight, he stuffed his white shirt neatly into his gray pants, and reached back into the car to get his coat off the seat. The coat had been covering a revolver, a wooden-handled .38 special. He looked at the revolver a moment; then he put it inside the dash drawer and slammed the door shut. He passed his fingers through his long sandy hair, and we went into the yard.

The men in the yard spoke to Gil, but in a quiet, subdued way. You could see how much he was the hero among them, but there was no enthusiasm today. Gil nodded to most of them, and shook hands with a couple of them, but he did not stop to talk. The men didn’t say anything to me or Russ. I stuck close behind Gil, and Russ was a step or two behind me. As we came up on the porch, I could hear people talking inside the house. Gil pulled the screen door and pushed open the wooden door, and we came into a room where there were at least three dozen people. Men, women, small children, all speaking either Cajun French or English.

“Bonjoure, Gi-bear,” a little girl said to Gil.

Gil leaned over and kissed her. He shook hands with a couple more people; then he asked about his father. A big man wearing khakis nodded toward a door to the right. Russ and I followed Gil through the door and into another room. This room was not as crowded—maybe a dozen people. All men except two women and a little boy. The two women sat on a four-poster brass bed which had a mosquito net at the head of it. One of the women had her head down and was crying, and the other one had her arm around her. Fix Boutan was sitting in a soft chair by the window, and the little boy was in his lap. Fix was a short man with a big head, broad shoulders, thick chest, and big hands. He had practically no neck at all, and his
big head set on his shoulders the way a volleyball sits on a bench. He must have just come from the barbershop, because his gray hair was cut close on the sides, brushed straight back on top, and I could smell as well as see the oil in his hair. He probably had gone to the barber to get himself all prettied up for the big game the next day. He squinted up at Gil when we came into the room, and you could see that he had been crying.

“You got here,” he said.

“Yes, Papa,” Gil said, and kissed him on the side of the face.

Gil passed his hand over the head of the little boy who sat in Fix’s lap; then he turned to the women on the bed. One could have been in her late teens, the other one was in her mid- or late twenties—she was the one crying. Gil leaned over and kissed her. He said something to her that I didn’t understand; then after speaking to the younger woman, he spoke and shook hands with two or three of the other men in the room. The men shook hands, nodded, and spoke quietly. Gil turned back to Fix.

“Papa, I know this is a family matter, but Sully drove me down from Baton Rouge, and I asked Russ to come in, too.”

Fix nodded to me. It was not the most enthusiastic nod I had ever received, but I could understand after what had happened today. He looked at Russ, but he didn’t speak or nod to him. He looked back at Gil.

“Why you so late getting here?”

“I went by Marshall, Papa.”

“You see him?”

“They had already taken him to Bayonne.”

The woman on the bed who was crying lowered her head more. The other woman held her close. Fix looked at the two women, and looked back at Gil. The little boy in Fix’s lap, who was four or five, laid his head against Fix’s chest.

Gil sat on the bed beside the woman and clasped his hands
and looked down at the floor. Fix and the other men watched him.

“Well?” Fix said when Gil had not said anything for a while.

“He doesn’t want you there, Papa,” Gil said, looking up at Fix.

Fix squinted back at Gil. Several of the other men mumbled among themselves. Fix raised a big hand, not very high, and the men respected it.

“Don’t want me where?” Fix asked Gil.

“Marshall, or Bayonne. Until he sends for you,” Gil said.

“Mapes is crazy,” one of them said.

“He’s got to be crazy,” someone else said.

“My boy laying dead in the morgue, shot down like a dog, and Mapes don’t want me in Bayonne?” Fix asked Gil.

“He’s crazy,” one of the men said.

Fix looked at the man to shut him up. Fix had small dark pig eyes, and he didn’t have to look at you very long or very hard to shut you up. He looked back at Gil.

“Mapes still at Marshall?”

“Yes, Papa,” Gil said.

“What’s he doing at Marshall?” Fix asked.

“Talking to the people,” Gil said.

“Talking to the people about what? He don’t know who did it?”

“He thinks Mathu did it.”

“But why should Mathu kill my boy?”

“He claimed Beau came into his yard with a gun.”

“What for?” Fix asked.

“He came after Charlie. He came with a gun.”

“And Mathu killed him for that?” Fix asked.

“That’s what Mapes believes.”

“Ain’t we wasting time, Fix?” a big, rough-looking guy standing in the back of the room asked Fix. He wore one of those Hawaiian shirts with all the red and blue and yellow
flowers on it. The tail of the shirt was out of his pants. He stood next to another rough-looking guy, who wore a brown, short-sleeve shirt. Both wore khaki pants.

“Luke Will,” Fix said. “You might have been a friend of Beau’s. But you not a member of this family, and you don’t speak.”

“I was closer than a friend,” Luke Will said. “I was a good friend. We had a beer last night.”

“You still don’t speak,” Fix told him. “I speak. My sons speak. I tell you when to speak. That’s clear, Luke Will?”

“I still say we’re wasting valuable time,” Luke Will said.

“You better go out, Luke Will, if you can’t control your mouth,” Fix told him.

Luke Will didn’t move. Fix looked at him awhile; then he looked at the other big, rough-looking guy in the brown shirt, warning him, too. Fix turned back to Gil sitting on the bed.

“Well?” Fix said to him.

“Can I say something, Papa?” Gil said.

“I’m waiting,” Fix said.

“Papa,” Gil said, and leaned a little forward on the bed to look at him. “Papa,” he said again. But he didn’t say any more.

Fix looked at Gil, and patted the little boy on the leg. The little boy wore short blue pants and a white tee shirt. He didn’t have on any shoes.

“Well?” Fix said to Gil.

“Papa,” Gil said. “I went to Marshall.”

“You said that,” Fix said.

“I saw something over there, Papa—something you, I, none of us in this room has ever seen before. A bunch of old black men with shotguns, Papa. Old men, your age, Parrain’s age, Monsieur Auguste’s age, all with shotguns, Papa. Waiting for you.”

“Niggers with shotguns waiting for me?” Fix asked. His dark piglike eyes opened just a little bit wider. He squeezed the little boy closer to his chest.

“Fifteen, and maybe even more,” Gil said. “And Mapes there with a pump gun—all waiting for you.”

“Then let’s accommodate Mapes and his niggers,” someone else said.

“Papa,” Gil said, without ever looking around at the other person. “Old men, Papa. Cataracts. Hardly any teeth. Arthritic. Old men. Old black men, Papa. Who have been hurt. Who wait—not for you, Papa—what you’re supposed to represent. Ask Sully. Tired old men trying hard to hold up their heads.”

“What are you trying to say, Gi-bear?” Fix asked him.

Gil looked up at me to help him out. “Sully, please tell him,” he said.

“I’m not talking to your friend there, Gi-bear, I’m talking to you,” Fix said.

“Papa,” Gil said. He rubbed the knuckles of both fists, trying to figure out a way to say it. When it came to running that ball, he ran it as well as anybody I’d ever seen in my life, but trying to tell his father what he felt inside of him was the hardest thing for him to do. “Papa,” he said, leaning toward Fix with his hands clasped together. Fix waited. “Papa,” Gil said. “All my life I have heard what my family have done to others. I hear it today—from the blacks, from the whites. I hear it from the opponents even when we play in another town. Don’t tackle me too hard, because they would have to answer to the rest of the Boutans. It hurts me to hear that, Papa. It hurts me in here,” he said, hitting his chest. “It hurts me because I know it’s not true.”

“What are you trying to say, Gi-bear?” Fix said. “Get to the point.”

“Papa,” Gil said, rubbing his knuckles again. “Papa, I want to be an All-American at LSU. I have a good chance—Cal and me. The first time ever, black and white, in the Deep South. I can’t make it without Cal, Papa. I depend on him. Every time I take that ball, I depend on his block, or his faking somebody out of my way. I depend on him, Papa, every moment I’m on that field.”

Fix watched him. Gil looked down at the floor, biting his bottom lip. Fix waited. The rest of the people waited. If anybody was breathing, they were doing it quietly. The little boy in Fix’s lap laid his head against Fix’s chest and sucked his thumb. Everybody waited for Gil to go on. The woman on the bed who had been crying was quiet. The younger woman kept her arm around her. The people in the other room were not talking as much as before.

Gil looked up at Fix.

“I couldn’t make All-American, Papa, if I was involved in something against the law,” he said. “Even if our name was involved, the Yankee press would destroy me.” Gil leaned closer toward his father. “Papa, I’m not putting things right. I’m not saying what I want to say. But do you understand what I’m trying to say? Do you understand, Papa?”

“What about your brother, Gi-bear?” Fix asked. Those little dark pig eyes looked deadly at Gil. “What about Beau?”

“I loved my brother, Papa. He was much older than me, but we were very close. He taught me everything I know about fishing and hunting. I loved my brother, Papa. But Beau is dead. Nothing we can do will bring him back. You understand what I’m trying to say, Papa?”

Fix’s little dark pig eyes still looked deadly at Gil.

“You through, Gi-bear?” he asked him.

“Papa, I won’t go along,” Gil said, shaking his head. “You can beat me, but I won’t go along.”

“I ask if you through, Gi-bear? You through?”

Gil took in a deep breath and nodded his head. And he looked down at the floor.

“What do you think of our great All-American there, Alfonze?” Fix asked. “Hanh, A-goose?”

He was speaking to the two old men sitting over to his right, but he was still looking at Gil. Neither one of the old men answered him. One shrugged his shoulders, but the other one didn’t even do that much.

“And you, Claude?” Fix looked up at the man standing near the foot of the bed.

Claude was Gil’s older brother. He drove a truck for an oil company in Lafayette. He was a big guy, six two, six three, with jet-black curly hair. He wore khakis, and you could see the sweat marks in the back of the shirt and around the armpit. He was cleaning his fingernails with a small pearl-handled knife. Even after Fix had spoken to him, he went on cleaning his fingernails.