Dark Don't Catch Me (19 page)

“Vivs, Vivian, Gawd, you must stop this!”

“And it's awful for Thad,” she continues unheedingly, “because he thinks it's dirty, thinks I need to be held in check, because if I'm like that with him, I must be like that with any man. I must want to do it with any man just as badly as I want to with him, because he thinks a woman that likes to do it has something wrong with her. Thinks she's wanton or oversexed or something; thinks she has to dress like she's putting on armour to protect her from the way she is; thinks — ”

“Vivs, oh, Vivs!” He puts his arm around her now. “My Vivs,” he whispers. She chokes up with sobs and begins crying so hard that Storey Bailey has to hold her tightly at the shoulders, feeling her tremble, some of her trembling communicating itself to him. He says, “Vivs. Oh, Gawd, we can't let nothing happen. We got to get a hold of ourselves.” He feels her black soft hair touch his cheek. “Oh, Vivs, Gawd!”

“Let me go, Storey. I didn't want it to happen; it's the last thing I wanted. Please let me go.”

“Not yet,” he tells her. “Wait now. Wait till we can stop this. My Gawd, I think all the world of Thad. I can't stand to see you like this. I think all the world of Thad. I always have.”

“And you hate me for saying bad things about your idol.” “No, no.” His lips touched her hair. “No, Vivs, I've always — ”

“Don't do that, Storey.”

“I can't help it. What do you think I want to do, hearing you talk this way? I can't help it, Vivs. I think the world and all of Thad, but — ” He turns her to him, lifts her face. For a moment she tries to turn it away; and then with a stifled cry, half whimper, half moan, she puts her mouth over his, as he takes her against him in a sudden, swift, powerful movement of hungering delight….

Watching from the veranda, Kate Bailey, arriving then to see this, stands startled some slow seconds; then turns, walks with deliberate gait back down the steps she has come up, waits wringing her hands, and then straightening, calls, forcing calmness, “Storey? Yoo-hoo, Stor-ey! Vivie!” in a high musical tone that grows shrill in the night as she calls again, “Yoo hoo! Party's breaking up, honey!” and it sounds loud to her under the moon; like some inevitable, unnecessary noise.

• • •

“It's twenty to twelve, boy,” the man tells Millard Post, as Millard slams the car door after him, “but there's lights on up there still — and hey, I think that's one of the Posts heading down this way.”

Millard looks toward the Hooper house at the small, dark figure descending the hill, then waves at the man. “Thanks for the ride.”

“S'all right,” the man says as the car moves on.

Millard picks up his suitcase and walks slowly toward the old woman; trying to see her clearly in the half light.

He calls, “Hey!”

“Hey, yoself!” she calls back, an old woman coming closer, bent over carrying a brown shopping bag and a black apron over her arm.

“I'm looking for Bryan Post's family,” Millard says as she comes up to him.

“You don't have to look far beyond me. I'm Hus.”

“You my grandmother?” Millard stares at the old woman incredulously.

“You Henry's boy?”

“Yes, ma'am … I thought you were dying.”

“Got no time to do that in,” she says, still studying him.

Millard Post says, “Well — well, I'm here.”

For the first time now, the tears are unleashed and running hotly down his cheeks in the darkness. He can feel the night around him, pressing down upon him, screaming in his ears. Behind him strangers who are kin to him make night noises asleep, and Millard Post cries because of them, not for them. He hates them, hates this place, everything in it. Everything about it.

He tastes his own tears with wonder; how long since he's cried? When his mother died? Naw, not even then; wanted to then, but didn't; wouldn't. Damn near cried once when a Diamond cornered him in a lot on 111th and flogged him with a Sam Browne belt; came close that time, but didn't; summoned up his guts instead and caught the Diamond by his knees, dragged him down and wrestled him, caught a rock on the ground in the skirmish and gave it to the Diamond on the head. How long since he's cried? Naw, maybe he never did till now. Can't remember. Jesus!

He is on a pallet, on a friggin pallet like a dog, and the whole place stinks — just stinks — real nigger smell — say there's no such thing- Shit! Millard's smelled it before — not as bad as here, but smelled it just the same, back home around the dirty ones of his people — and he used to think; that's that piss-poor smell a Negro's got that the school books say he hasn't got! Real nigger smell with sweat and stale grease and the stench the slight breeze of the night carried in from the outhouse … The friggin outhouse! Millard's never taken a leak in a goddam shit shack before; out behind the house like

some dog. And here, inside, the stink of nigger poorness. How long since he's cried, and now why? Not because of that — naw — not the strangeness, not the poorness; the shabby shadows of make-do furniture crowded around him; and sleeping bodies of half-clothed strangers who are his blood — not just for that — for everything here and before here:

For the pillow kicked back at him; the front seat in the plane when he'd had to change airlines; the necktie he'd had to take off for some dog-faced square who called him a nigger; for the way his guts ran watery the whole time, knees shook, heart had a drum in it; for the way, f'Chrissake, he'd even found himself saying some chicken prayers for God or anybody around to help him; and for the baby-weak way he wanted out, and still wants it, wants it worse now, out and back home. He wants to hear his old man giving him hell for some crazy thing he'd said that Cousin Al had taught him — Jesus what a lily Al would think he was to see him blubbering on a piece of stick on the goddam floor — lookit the big man now! and wants to hear Pearl laughing, and to stroll out into the street wearing his Panther jacket and just hear somebody — anybody, f'Chrissake, even a Diamond with a sprung switchblade in his hand — say, “Hi, man, how's it hanging?” Weeping J.H.C.!

Lying crying, Millard Post thinks that he has no name for this enemy that has attacked him, no single name he can say in his teeth and taste and hate, say and damn in his mind. No one single name, like other times. Other times there was kike, spic, wop, mick — times when he felt this frustrated hate, fear, worry and anger curl through him like a slimy snake coiling its body tightly around his insides — times when he did not cry as now he cries, but when he knew some iota of the emotion enveloping him now — he had a name to say and hate….

In the darkness he tests names. White? Goddam lousy white man? Naw, no — because he cannot hate white people; he cannot suddenly learn to hate them, remembering those back in New York City — Miss Foder, his English teacher — classy-ass he calls her; and he likes her; last term she gave him B, said he should have had C, but he tried; things like that — and Mr. Josetti, the fruit man up at the public market place under the tracks — he always gave Millard something extra — an orange, an apple; once a goddam coconut no one in hell

could get open anyway; but he was okay. Naw, Millard couldn't hate him; not the white kids at school either — Paul Posner, Cliff Heath, Ginny Holt. He can't hate white; not white he knows. What does he know about this white — these white: the man on the plane, the ticket man, the agent in Manteo? What white is that?

Besides — Millard wipes his nose with the back of his hand, thinking, Not just white anyway; more. F'Chrissake, lots more. Here — this place, this room, this fugging piece of wood supposed to be a bed, the smell, the big boy, his cousin, with the creepy name — Major. What the hell war was he ever in? What the hell is he Major of?

South. How about South?

South.

Don't sound like nothing; south … Can't hate South like he can hate jew, spic, mick, wop; they all got guts in their names. South. Just a fuggin direction.

One thing, Millard thinks; whatever your name is, whatever the hell they call you that's got me bawling on way past goddam midnight, you won't kick me. Naw, hell! Didn't grow up knocking the hell out of all kinds of trouble for nothing, didn't get tough reading books, didn't get guts just to sit on my hands with. Not going to lick me cause you got me bawling a half-inch from the floor, whatever your fugging name is! One thing for sure!

And another thing, f'Chrissake, Millard thinks; sniffling the goddam tears back up his nose; this don't mean I'm scared. Naw, this don't mean I'm chicken; I've got news.

Still — God, the night! And this place that isn't home! And everything that happened; and nigger, someone called him; nigger, and he didn't fight.

Whatever your name is; whatever the hell they call you —

T
HE MORNING AIR
is muggy in the bedroom; the beginning of this day, hot. Still asleep, Thad Hooper kicks back the sheet, pulls his leg up to his stomach as he turns on his side, and clutches the pillow in his hands, dreaming.

Lying again on the green boyhood bank by that river that day; lying and letting his toes dip in the cool dark eddies over the bank; hot, hot day when he is twelve again in August, tangled curls falling on her face beside him. “Aw, let's Thad! Let's go in the water!”

“Huh? We got no suits.”

“I don't care if you don't care.”

“We'd catch it, boy.
Would
we!”

“Who's going to ever know? We'll swear on our eyesights not to tell.”

“I just as soon.”

“C'mon! First one in's going to win a trip to Paris, France!”

Tearing off the shirt, dropping the pants, kicking the shoes and ripping the socks off his feet, diving into the eddies of that river; and coming up with water in his mouth to see the white and gleaming new young body on the bank's edge. “Is it cold? I'm coming!”

Swimming together, laughing and spitting out water, racing from the rock out and back, swimming in the cool blue liquid on the hot day, and climb back then to stretch their bodies on the earth, out of breath laughing, kidding, teasing: “You got your birthday suit on, Thad.”

“So have you.”

“Boy, would we catch it!”

“Boy,
would
we!”

“You look funny naked.”

“Me? Lookit you!”

“You look funnier than me. Boys look awful funny,” she said, giggling, “I like to died laughing.”

“Who you think you're laughing at?” He poked her back, catching her arm. “I'll make you say uncle.”

“I'll never say it.”

“Yes, you will.” He pushes himself over on her; holding her down.

“Say uncle!” “Never! Never! Never!” “I'll make you!” “Never, never!” “Who looks funny?”
“You
do.”

“I'll make you say it!” He holds her while she wiggles under him, wrestling with her on the bank, wrestling and rolling and rolling, laughing with their bodies wet.

“Never make
me
say it!”

“Oh, yes I will, Thel, I will! I did before!” He's growing now, growing right there on the boyhood bank into a man, arms and legs growing taller and longer; and then the funny sound that people murmuring together in a crowd make: people behind him, watching him wrestling naked on the river bank, angry now at her, yelling now, “Vivie, stop your wiggling! What are you wiggling for!”

“Make me say uncle like you did that day, Thad.”

“Shut up! Shut up!” He holds his hand on her mouth. People are gasping now behind him on the river bank; he's turning to them, crying desperately, “Can't you see I'm only trying to make her hold still? Can't you see she won't hold still?” Crying that and thinking why am I naked? How did I get naked here like this? And the bell is ringing, the river boat coming, people standing on the deck watching, seeing them. “Vivie, stop, God, stop! Hear that bell! You want them to see us?”

“Uncle!” she says, and people behind him murmur: “Did you hear
that?”

God, God, the bell is louder, louder; God, the bell!

• • •

“Are you going to answer it, Thad?” she says from the other bed. “What?”

“The telephone.”

“Oh!” He sits up dazedly, reaching for the phone's black neck. “Hello?”

“Hello, Thad? This is Doc Sell. Sorry to bother you so early but — ”

“God, man, what time is it? I was just in the middle of some kind of dream. Can't even remember what the hell it was about, but what time
is
it?”

“It's seven o'clock, Thad … I thought you'd want to know that Ada Pirkle passed. Had a stroke last night.”

“Huh? Say that again.”

“Ada passed. Ada Pirkle's dead.”

And from the other bed, leaning up with her elbows propping her flimsy-gown-clad, lady body, “What's the matter?” Vivian Hooper asks. “Is there something wrong, Thad?” At the beginning of this day, hot.

• • •

“Hot!” He hears his Uncle Bryan's voice from the kitchen of the Post shack in The Toe; lying on the pallet in the other room; waking with the stranger's early-morning start in some new place on the floor; missing home with the sudden breath-aching shock of nostaglia; lying looking at walls peeling their paint; smelling the grease-strange odor of grits cooking; and listening.

“Never mind hot, you Bryan! Mind trouble! We gone catch hell now.”

“Aw, Biss, law, don't study it s'mornin. Hot. Gonna be like the devil's front room over in that spinning room, s'morning.”

“Yeah, and gone be like the devil's house all over when Mr. Thad catch his hands on you.”

“Aw, Biss, what you want? I ‘spose to slunk around here like a suck-egg hound cause I had myself a little accident in that pickup that ain't got brakes for stopping ten miles ‘fore it's time?”

“Corn
ain't got breaks, is all. Pickup stop, but
corn
don't, and you had a bellyful.” “Aw, Biss, aw, Bissy — ”

Millard sighs, turns on his side on the hard pallet, and looks into Claus Post's wide-open eyes. “You wake, Cousin Miller?” “Yes.”

“I'm Claus. I'm your cousin. My brother gone to work, but I'm gone stay wid you t'day, cause you come all the way from up North. Hus said you got three shirts in your suitcase, an' a jacket wid your name on it an' a black panther on it!”

“Umm-hmm. What's your name —
Claude?”

“Claus. Cause I was born Christmas day…. Hus said your daddy is de boss of six elevators up in New York City.”

Millard sits up gradually, scratching himself under his pajama top. “Yeah; Dad's a starter of the elevators.”

“Hus said them elevators can't go no place lessen your daddy say dey can. Can't move an inch at all lessen he say dey can.”

“Umm-hmm.” He looks around him at the old poor furnishings, the orange crate table, oil paper thumbtacked to it, smelling in the stickiness of the room; and the grease of the grits frying. Claus is his name, Jesus! Santa Claus Post, Christ! Yesterday's traveling gnaws at his loneliness —
“but our niggers are niggers and our niggers know it”;
and a ticket to go back home not until Friday. Three days in Paradise, God!

“I gone stay wid you t'day, Cousin Miller.” The colored boy's brown round eyes are wide watching Millard Post; wide with wonder and awe and admiration. “All I got to do is take de rubbage out an' burn it. Don't got to pick or study books, cause you come from up North!”

“Ummm-hmmm.”

“Boy, wait I sashay round dis town wid you. We sho gonna strut Miz Lucy, Cousin Miller!”

Millard Post smiles wanly at the beginning of this hot day, the fingers of his hands touching the flesh of his cheeks where last night's tears dried. He's done with crying now.

• • •

Waking alone in their bed, hearing from down in the bowels of their house the piano and her singing, Storey Bailey knows there is something wrong, but in the sleep-dulled distance of his mind in the early morning, he does not yet recall for those first seconds; just lies on his stomach with his face in the pillow, listening to the symptoms — the sound of the piano and Kate's voice singing at seven-thirty
A.M.

When he remembers, he groans, socks the soft mussed pillow with his fist, fights the unlikely suspicion that she could have seen him last night before she called to him, came, maybe, and seen him kissing Viv. No! Only guilt fabricating punishment! And he believes more in her complaint coming home in the car after the barbecue.
Storey, you were certainly gone a long time.
I
felt a little abandoned.

He had said,
“Me
abandon
you,
Katie?” meaning too, in the inference of his tone, that he could never exist apart from Kate, but hiding at the same time the remembered thrill, coupled with the shame he realized when his arms held Thad's wife. He had said, “Viv was sure in a swivet ‘bout something, though, Katie. Took forever to convince her wasn't bad as all that.” He felt as he said it the sharp, sensual pulse to his groin; glad for Kate whom he loved, but not sorry for the surprise inconsistencies of life; regretting the deed, while nurturing the secret and tremulous body-memory that was its consequence.

He had said to Kate coming home in the car, “Why, land!” exaggerating his tone, chuckling, “I think you're jealous, Kate Bailey,” as though she would be out of her mind to be in any way envious of Vivian Hooper; and Kate had not accepted this remark as all the atonement he need give for leaving her so long alone, but hummed the rest of the way back to the house, as she always did when everything was “not quite settled.”

• • •

So this morning, Storey Bailey thinks into his pillow, she persists in sulking, and expects more; and for a horrified half-second he wonders what she would be doing now if she were to know the whole truth about the interval he spent away from her with Thad's wife. But by no stretch of his imagination can he conjure up any vision of his wife under such a circumstance.

He must get up, fetch his robe, and go to her; talk with her, make it all right, before breakfast and the day's work. Yet not until he can momentarily relish once more the memory of Viv; enlarge and improve upon it, in the way of the accomplished daydreamer and the impotent aggressor; for it is not likely that such a moment will occur again — he was very high; too high, he decides — though it would spoil Storey Bailey's fantasies this morning to allow that reality to take precedence over the more delicious unreality of himself and his best friend's wife's hungry-trembling body.

Rising afterward, he slips into his robe, pushes his feet into the slippers and goes dutifully down to the sunporch-music room.

“Good morning, Kate,” he says. “How are you, honey?”

“Good morning, Storey.” She keeps on with the piano.
“I
didn't sleep well.”

“Now, honey, what's the trouble?” He walks over to her, placing his arm on her shoulder. “Bad dreams?”

“One doesn't
dream
bad things when they're awake, Storey.”

“Why don't you stop playing and tell me, Kate?”

“I can play and talk. I prefer to.”

“All right. What is it, now, hmmm?”

“Last night.”

“That old thing! Katie! You still mad at that old thing?” He walks around to the front of the piano, grinning. “I think you're jealous, Kate. I think my girl's jealous.” With his finger he reaches down and tilts her chin up. “Huh, Katie? You jealous cause I talk to my best friend's wife for a bit?”

Kate Bailey lifts her hands from the keys for a brief moment and looks at Storey unsmiling. She says, “I saw you kissing Vivie, Storey. I was on the veranda.” Then, while Storey stands gaping, wordlessly, Kate continues to play; singing along with the melody now.

• • •

That Tuesday morning, like any other, Barbara James joins the slow parade of the colored bound for work, streaming up from The Toe to Brockton Road, before they pass on to the luxury-lawn-carpeted green streets of the whites, on their way in the muggy sun, still new from sleep to become a part of the waking world of scrubbing, toting, picking, and cooking.

Under her arm that morning, like any other, are the blue composition books, corrected, graded, ready to be passed back. Theme for Tuesday: What do you want to be when you grow old?
“I want to be a boss” “I am going to be a railroad man so I can make plenty of money.” “I want to be rich and white but I'm going to be poor and black.” “I want to be a baseball player like Willie Mays and drive a big car.”

Coming to Church Street, to cut over to the hill road, Barbara James worries, not like other mornings, remembering her father's cold and angry-in-grief eyes across the table at breakfast as they ate in screaming silence, neither able to help the other with talking. The problem is understood between them now; there is a white man; she was with him. “Barbara!”

Startled, she turns; then sees the car parked by the curb.

“Dixon! What are you doing here?” She runs over to the car, looking around her first; yes, people see; colored see, ignore, go on. “Dixon!”

“My mother's dead, Barbara.”

“Aw, naw, baby!”

“We'll have to cancel our plans for this afternoon. I'll be tied up most of the day.”

“Sure, baby, sure. Aw, I'm sorry.”

“I don't know whether I am or not, but listen … Can you meet me tonight? Late! Midnight, out at the Hag.”

“Dixon, I don't know. My dad's angry. He knows … Not who it is, of course — but he knows what it is. Midnight's late, and — ”

“Please, honey. I can't make it earlier. People will be at the house. I got to stay by my dad.” “Dixon, I don't know, honestly.”

“Please. You got to, darling. If I can't see you tonight I'll go out of my mind.”

“Dixon, we shouldn't be here like this.” “Will you?”

“Lord, let me think — how will I — ” “Barbara, say you will.”

She hesitates; then, “All right, baby. I'll be there.
Somehow”
“At midnight!” “At the Hag.”