Dark Don't Catch Me (25 page)
Read Dark Don't Catch Me Online
Authors: Vin Packer
“No! No, Dixon!”
He stares at her, swaying as he holds her, his eyes narrowing. “Barbara, you're not yourself.” “I am myself.”
“You never refused me. Never! You been with that N.A.A.C.P. crowd! That Hollis Jordan.” “Stop it, Dixon. Leave me alone!”
“Listen to me, you nigger,” he snaps. “Don't talk that way to me. Lower your voice. You lower your goddam voice. You nigger! Don't tell me you won't love me, because you will love me, because I love you. Now c'mon!” He pulls her along the path.
“Dixon, stop it!”
His hand whips out suddenly, striking her. He says, “There!” while she holds the stinging part of her cheek with her fingers. Tears fill her eyes. “Don't do this to yourself, Dixon. Don't,” she says softly.
“Don't tell me what to do. Kiss me, Barbara.”
“No.”
He slaps her again. “You kiss me, nigger, you kiss me!” “No.”
He says, “You're in the South! I'm white and you're a nigger, and I need you. I love you. I'm going to have you. I'm going to have you, and you're going to take it, because you're a nigger,” he says. He shoves her down; she kneels in the dust.
A tear rolls down her cheek, but she says nothing; she stays still on her knees.
“Get on your back!” he says. “Spread out flat.”
Then stumbling, he falls on top of herâ¦.
When it is done, Barbara James gets up, leaving him lying face flat in the clump of woods, his agonized sobbing sounding bleak in the night air as she walks away from him.
He cries, “Barbara!” into the dirt.
⢠⢠â¢
“Kids tucked in?” Thad Hooper asks Vivian as she joins him on the veranda. She wears the black dress with the white Peter Pan collar; her face is white and drawn; devoid of makeup. She sits down beside him in the glider.
“Yes, they're all tucked in.”
“Why do you sound so tired?”
“I don't know. It's chilly â I ought to go in and get my sweater,” she answers, not moving.
“I wish Hus would shut up! Can't she do dishes without singing like some revivalist?”
“Singing âNever Said A Mumbin' Word again.” Vivian Hooper sighs.
“It gets on my nerves! Damn nigger!”
Vivian Hooper reaches over to touch him, then draws her hand back and places it in the other. “Oh, Thad, Thad,” she says. “When will everything be back to normal again?”
“It's not easy! I been through a lot, that's sure!”
“Yes a lot. A lot.”
“You sound like you're sorry or something.”
“There's not much to be glad about, Thad.”
“Most any other woman would be goddam glad her man thinks enough of her to defend her honor!”
“Oh, I'm â grateful, Thad. It's just â just too bad.”
“And now I got that damn nigger Tink Twiddy stealing me blind to top it! Never shoulda promised him work here. Damn nigger upstart! Hate having him around here all the time!”
“He's a help, with Major gone, though.”
“Major never helped. Got so Major spent all his time down to the Ficklins. Got like a house pet down there. The way Bill Ficklin's carrying on, think he was soft on him or something.”
“Major used to help.”
“Sometimes I actually think you miss that goddam nigger.”
“Thad, no ⦠let's not start. No tonight. I want to go on in and get my sweater ⦠Can I bring you something? A drink?” she asks, starting to move.
“Wait a second.”
“Hmmm?”
“I said, wait a second. Don't walk away from the subject any more. I'm getting tired of the way you walk out whenever it comes up.”
“Thad, it's chilly.”
“There's always an excuse. You just want to avoid the subject.”
“I don't like to think about it, if that's what you mean.” “Why not?”
“Well, it isn't very â pleasant. Dwelling on it.” She knots her hands together, looking down at them as his eyes study her.
“After what I did for you?” he says. “I did it for
you,
you know! I did it for you, and the things happening as a result are because I did it for you! My best friend backs down on me, but that doesn't stop me, because you're my wife, and
I
did it for
you,
Vivie!”
“I didn't ask you to, Thad. I never even knew about it until it was â over.”
“You came screaming to me, didn't you? You came screaming to me that that that nigger molested you, didn't you? Screaming to me to protect you, didn't you?”
“I didn't say he molested me. No, Thad, I didn't say that.”
“You don't know what you said! You were screaming. You were scared outa your head. You came screaming to me for protection, didn't you?”
She answers quietly, “Yes, I was frightened. I was very frightened. Shocked, really. I'd been sitting there in the car thinking and when he looked in the window and did that â a stranger to me â it shocked me.”
“Did what?” Thad Hooper asks. “That's what I want to know. And I want to know the truth!”
“Clucked his tongue, Thad. We've been all over it ⦠Do we have to â ”
“Look,” Thad Hooper interrupts her. “We haven't been all over it! Not by a long shot! After what I did for you! All them Northern communist newspapers writing insinuations about me in their yellow rags like some slimy snake crawling across my good name. Them â and people right here in Paradise; my own people, never mind the Northerners,
my own people,
talking behind my back, avoiding me on the street, acting sheepish around me. My own people!”
“People have tried to be nice, Thad. It's very hard. But people stood by us, Thad. They stood by us â all through the trial.”
“Us! Don't say us! It's been me who's had to fight this, single-handed. It's like Doc Sell didn't have a dongedy-dang part in the thing. Just
me.
Not you. Not anybody else. Me!”
“People don't expect much from Doc Sell. He was always a troublemaker for the Nigraw ⦠Thad, oh, honey â let's forget â ”
“We're not going to forget! I have to pay for what I done, don't I? Have to
pay
for it! For keeping a nigger from molesting my wife. Isn't that the truth?” “All right ⦠Yes, Thad.”
“And what's the rest of the truth, Vivie? Hah? I want the rest of it, do you hear? The whole truth, if I have to pay! Come on, Vivie, talk!”
“What, Thad?” She looks up from her hands into his eyes. “What is it you want to hear?”
“What I want to hear,” Thad Hooper says slowly, emphatically, bitterly, “is who spoke to who first?”
“What?” Vivian Hooper stares incredulously at her husband.
âThat's what I want to know,” he says, “who spoke to who first? Did the nigger speak to you first, or did you speak to the nigger first? That's what I want to know,” Thad Hooper says, “and I won't rest until I hear you say it!”
Dark closes in on Paradise and settles down to stay.
If you liked Dark Don’t Catch Me check out:
Come Destroy Me
Q.
You said what?
A.
I said I was glad he wasn’t fooling around with girls. His father died when Charlie was one year, and for fifteen years I had to be his mom
and
his dad and I was glad he was a good boy. He finished high way ahead of others his age and he was always reading books. This summer he went to the library practically every night. He never even thought about girls. I was glad. I thought to myself, I’ll never have to worry about Charlie.
— From the testimony of the murderer’s mother
F
ROM HIS BEDROOM
window in the bungalow on Conrad Street, Charlie could see the hills of Azrael, burned rust color from the hot July sun. The little town was in the heart of the Green Mountains of Vermont, and if Charlie went to Harvard in the fall, he’d miss Azrael. Plenty! He’d miss those hills — he used to ski down them in the winter — and he’d miss the fresh green smell of Azrael in the spring. He’d miss walking up Sock Hill on his way from town, the giant pines lining the sides, the kids playing cave man in the vacant lot, and at the top the groups of granite workers gathered to wait for the red bus that went past the quarries. He’d miss sugaring time, the rows of trees with the pails hanging on their trunks, and the taste of the maple candy fresh made. Little things he’d miss. He’d miss … a lot of things.
One thing he wasn’t sure about, because it was crazy. It was the library. Not just the library, but what it was like to be there. It was
clean,
for one thing, hallowed. There was never any noise. He could go there and stay there and no one ever looked over his shoulder or said anything to him or interrupted him. He spent a lot of time there, almost every night, and sometimes
she
came, but oh, what the hell, why think about
her?
Except I always do, he thought. Oh, wow, cripes, this is the silliest goddamn summer I
ever spent.
When will it be over?
Charlie was tall, tall and thin with gaunt facial features that made him look older than sixteen, and a brush cut to his black hair, and piercing dark brown eyes. He wore a pair of gray summer slacks and a white shirt unbuttoned at his chest, no socks, and scuffed brown loafers on his feet. He picked up the red leather-bound book of verse that was open on his desk, and, slumping down into the wicker chair with the soft brown pillows, he began to reread the poem, underscoring in ink.
“I wish I were where Helen lies …”
“Not
him,
he won’t come out to say good-by.” The saucy voice of his sister, Evie, drifted into the room from the hallway. “Really, Inez, you never saw such a hermit!”
“I think he’s sexy,” Inez said.
Evie raised her voice. “Hear that, Charlie? ‘Nez thinks you’re sex-see!”
He began the line again: “I wish I were where Helen lies …”
“Sex-see, Charlie — hear?”
“I guess he doesn’t think I am,” Inez said.
“Sex-see, Charlie.” Evie’s voice droned farther away as she walked with Inez to the front doorway.
Charlie was staring at the print without knowing what the words said. It just ruined everything when Evie got that way. It spoiled everything. She was in love with talking like that since she began college. It made him ashamed of Evie, and, curiously, ashamed of himself too. It made him not want to finish what he was reading, and it reminded him of something funny to remember.
He remembered going to the movies with his mother Friday nights in the winter, and the way he tried to hold his breath whenever a man and woman kissed on the screen. He tried to hold his breath so his mother wouldn’t hear his breathing hard, because he was embarrassed. Holding his breath only made it worse, and once he had a violent fit of coughing in a close-up where Dane Clark was kissing a girl in a two-piece bathing suit on a beach. Charlie had had to go downstairs in the lobby and get a drink, and when he saw his face in the mirror, he hated it. He said, “You!” to it, and wished to God he didn’t have to go back to his seat. When he did return, his mother smiled and whispered, “O.K.?” and he had wanted to slap her. Now explain that one! Ah, why try to understand
everything?
Evie wasn’t going to win this time. He picked up the book again and began to concentrate.
“I wish I were where Helen lies …”
“Char-lee!”
“He won’t come, Mom. He’s busy — reading.”
“Well, he better come. Can’t wait dinner for him.”
“Leave him alone, Em. Boy will come soon enough when he’s hungry.” Charlie recognized Russel Lofton’s voice. So
he
was staying to dinner again.
His mother complained, “I wish he wouldn’t read so much. All he
does
is read. Never bothers with people. Reads all day. Charlie!”
O that I were where Helen lies,
Night and day on me she cries …
“What does he read?”
“Anything! Everything!” There was a note of pride in his mother’s husky voice; there always was when she talked about the way Charlie didn’t do another thing but read.
“Let’s just go ahead, Mom.”
“I wish he’d
come.”
“He’ll come.”
“Charlie Wright!”
“Out of my bed she bids me rise …”
“He doesn’t even hear you. Mom.”
“Let the boy be, Em.”
“That’s right, Mom. He doesn’t even hear you.”
“Says haste and come to me!”
Oh, I hear you, all right, I hear you. Charlie stood up slowly, put a marker in the page of the book, and stretched his long arms above his head. The poem beat its cadence like a drum in his brain. I wish — I were — where Hel — en
lies.
For a moment he let it pound around, a real rhythm he could really hear, and he stared again at the hills and the sun setting behind them. Whenever he thought about that poem he was confused. He liked it. He imagined a beautiful soft woman calling him, a white goddess, a sylphlike girl, calling him. He decided she would not be naked. She would wear
something.
Something silky, flimsy, white. She would call him at all hours and he would have to go to her and he would imagine rising from his bed to go to her, but what then?
Then, Charlie thought, then the hell with it. It was all muddled up in his mind and he did not know why he even bothered with poems like that. He snapped his fingers as if to bring himself to, stuffed an old handkerchief in the pocket of his trousers, and slicked back his hair with a broken comb he found on his dresser. He looked at his own reflection thoughtfully when his hair was combed, and then he grinned, because it was silly to see himself staring at himself, and he thought with sardonic amusement, I must be getting
simple,
plain
simple.
As he walked from the room he whistled softly. There was no tune, just random notes. He went down the hall with its worn blue-flowered wallpaper, past the antique rosewood coat rack with the angry head of an eagle mounted on top, and on to the entranceway of the dining room. He paused to listen to the conversation before he went in, but they weren’t even talking about him any more.