A Gathering of Old Men

by Ernest J. Gaines

  I hung up the phone and looked up Billy Washington’s number. His wife, Selina, told me Billy had just left in the truck with Clatoo. I asked her if Billy had his gun. She said yes, matter of fact he did, but how did I know? I asked her if they said where they was going next. She said she believed they was headed toward the old Mulatto Place, because she heard them saying something about Jacob Aguillard. I asked her if Jacob had a number, and she said she didn’t know, but Leola Bovay had a phone. She told me if I hung on a minute she would get the number for me. When she came back on the phone, she gave me the number, and she asked me what was the matter. I hung up and called Leola’s house. She told me that Clatoo had just pulled up in front of Jacob’s house. She said looked like that was Billy Washington with him, and looked like both of them had shotguns. And Jacob was coming out of the house right now, and he had a shotgun, too. I told her to run out on the garry and tell Clatoo to wait a second. I heard her putting the phone down, then a little while later picking it up again. She said Clatoo was waiting. I asked her if she had a twelve-gauge shotgun that could shoot. She told me when her husband died he had left two or three old guns around there, but she couldn’t tell one gauge from another, and she asked me again what was the matter. I told her to take the guns out to Clatoo and ask Clatoo to check them, and if he found a twelve-gauge that could shoot, bring it. I asked her if she had any number five shells, and she said she didn’t know. I told her to get all the shells she had and take them out to Clatoo, and tell Clatoo to pick out some and bring them. She asked me what was the matter. I told her to tell Clatoo to tell her, because I didn’t know nothing. I hung up. When I looked around, I saw Ella standing in the door with her hands on her hips. So big she was filling up that whole door.

  “What’s all this about shotguns?” she asked.

  “We going hunting,” I said.

  “Going hunting what this time of day?”

  “Just hunting,” I said.

  “Matthew, I’m talking to you,” she said. “Hunting what?”

  “I’ll tell you when I get back,” I said.

  “You telling me ’fore you leave from here,” she said.

  “Go somewhere and sit down, woman,” I said. “This men business.”

  “I’m making it my business,” she said, coming up to me. “Hunting what?”

  “Get out of my face, woman,” I said. “For once in my life ’fore I die, I’m go’n—” I stopped. “Just don’t be asking me no questions,” I said, and went out on the garry.

  I heard her in there on the phone; then she hung up, and I could hear her dialing somebody else. Then I heard her screaming, “What? What? Uncle Billy? What?” I heard her slamming the phone down and coming out on the garry.

  “What’s Uncle Billy doing with a shotgun old as he is?”

  “How do I know?” I said. “I don’t keep Billy Washington in my pocket.”

  “You know, all right,” she said, her hands on her hips again. “You know, all right. And you go’n tell me ’fore you leave from here.”

  I turned on her. “You want to know, huh?” I said. “You want to know, huh?”

  Now she started backing way from me, like she thought I was go’n hit her.

  “I’ll tell you,” I said. “A Cajun’s dead over there at Marshall. Laying on his back in Mathu’s yard. Now you know.”

  “And what’s that got to do with you?” she said. She was safe enough away so she could talk big again. “And what’s that got to do with Uncle Billy?”

  “You mean you still don’t know?” I asked her.

  I turned from her and looked up the road. But Clatoo still wasn’t coming yet.

  “You old fool,” she said. “You old fool. Y’all gone crazy?”

  “That’s right,” I said, looking up the road, not at her. “Anytime we say we go’n stand up for something, they say we crazy. You right, we all gone crazy.”

  “You old fool,” she said. “You old fool. If I can’t stop you, I bet you I’ll call your brother. He’ll stop you.”

  “You and Jesse both better stay out of my way if you know what’s good for you,” I said, looking up the road. Clatoo still wasn’t coming.

  “If you think I’m go’n let you go to Marshall and get yourself kilt—”

  “You can’t stop me, that’s for sure,” I said, looking up the road.

  “I’ll call the law,” she said. “You won’t listen to me or your brother, I bet you the law’ll make you listen.”

  I turned back on her, pointing my finger at her.

  “You touch that phone, woman, somebody’ll be patching your head.”

  “Just wait,” she said, going back inside.

  I caught up with her and pushed on her, but she was too big for me to push her clean out of the way. But I beat her to the phone, and I jerked it out of the wall and throwed it down on the floor.

  “Now call with that,” I said.

  “You old fool,” she said. “You old fool. What’s the matter with you, you old fool?”

  My chest started heaving, heaving, just heaving. Like I had been running up a hill, a steep hill, and now I had reached the top. I looked at that woman I had been living with all these years like I didn’t even know who she was. My chest heaving, and me just looking at her like I didn’t know who she was. Something in my face made her back back from me. She kept backing back, backing back, till she had touched the wall. I kept looking at her like I didn’t know who she was. My chest heaving, just heaving.

  “What’s the matter with me? Woman, what’s the matter with me? All these years we been living together, woman, you still don’t know what’s the matter with me? The; years we done struggled in George Medlow’s field, making him richer and richer and us getting poorer and poorer—and you still don’t know what’s the matter with me? The years I done stood out in that back yard and cussed at God, the years I done stood out on that front garry and cussed the world, the times I done come home drunk and beat you for no reason at all—and, woman, you still don’t know what’s the matter with me? Oliver, woman!” I screamed at her. “Oliver. How they let him die in the hospital just ’cause he was black. No doctor to serve him, let him bleed to death, ’cause he was black. And you ask me what’s the matter with me?”

  I stopped now and looked at her. I could feel the hot tears running down my face. I pressed my lips, I could feel my mouth trembling, but the tears kept on running down my face. It had been a long time since I had talked to her like this. A longer time since she had seen me crying. I didn’t turn my head. I didn’t wipe my face. I just stood there looking at her. At first she looked scared. Then it turned to hate—hate ’cause she was so scared.

  “He works in mysterious ways,” I told her. “Give a old nigger like me one more chance to do something with his life. He gived me that chance, and I’m taking it, I’m going to Marshall. Even if I have to die at Marshall. I know I’m old, maybe even crazy, but I’m going anyhow. And it ain’t nothing you can do about it. Pray if you want to. Pray for all us old fools. But don’t try to stop me. So help me, God, woman, don’t try to stop me.”

  I heard Clatoo out there blowing, and I wiped my face and went out on the garry. Clatoo was in that old green pickup truck he used for peddling his garden. He had on that little narrow-brim straw, a white shirt, and a bow tie. Clatoo always let you know he was a businessman.

  In the front with him was Billy Washington and Jacob Aguillard. Billy was from Silo, Jacob from the old Mulatto Place. Jacob and his kind didn’t have too much to do with darker people, but he was here today.

  In the back of the truck was Chimley and Cherry Bello. Cherry was between red and yellow, with a lot of brown curly hair. I got in the back there with him and Chimley. While Clatoo turned the truck around, Ella came out on the garry to watch us.

  “Y’all had a round, huh?” Cherry asked me.

  “She didn’t want me to go,” I said.

  “I was at the store when I got the call,” Cherry said. “Mine don’t kno
w a thing about it. And I sure wasn’t go’n call and tell her.”

  Cherry Bello owned a liquor-and-grocery store on the highway between Silo and Baton Rouge.

  “I just told mine my food better be ready when I got back home,” Chimley said. “She don’t know where I’m going. I don’t think she even care.”

  We was sitting on the floor, backs against the cab, and feet toward the tailgate. Cherry Bello had two twelve-gauge shotguns on the floor ’side him, and he handed me one of them. He handed me couple of shells, too.

  “Leola sent that,” he said.

  “Y’all shot?” I asked.

  “I shot,” Chimley said.

  “I’m saving mine till we hit the field,” Cherry said. “Might see me a rabbit. No use wasting a good bullet on nothing.”

  “What we go’n do in the field?” I asked him.

  “Clatoo go’n drop us off just before he reach Marshall,” Cherry said. “We go’n walk across the field, and come in from the back. Clatoo got another load he got to go pick up. Look like a lot of people want to gather at Marshall today.”

  “Sure do,” Chimley said quietly.

  Chimley was sitting in the middle. He was smaller than me and Cherry Bello. Blacker than me and Cherry, too, that’s why we all called him Chimley. He didn’t mind his friends calling him Chimley, ’cause he knowed we didn’t mean nothing. But he sure didn’t like them white folks calling him Chimley. He was always telling them that his daddy had named him Robert Louis Stevenson Banks, not Chimley. But all they did was laugh at him, and they went on calling him Chimley anyhow.

  I looked at him sitting there between me and Cherry. He was my old partner, my old fishing partner. Had knowed Chimley for years and years. My closest friend now, with all the others dead and gone.

  “How you feel there, old buddy?” I said to him.

  He looked at me and grinned. “Scared,” he said. He had on that old Dodgers’ baseball cap that he had had since the Dodgers was in Brooklyn. It had faded to a light light blue, and it was too big for his head. But old Chimley was a Dodgers’ fan down to his heart. “I’m scared, but I’m here,” he said.

  I nodded and grinned back at him. I was scared, too. But at the same time I felt kinda good, knowing me and Chimley and Cherry, and all the rest of us, was doing something different, for the first time.

  Grant Bello

  aka

  Cherry

  Yank was waiting for us behind a bush on the riverbank side of the road. Clatoo didn’t have to stop, just slow down, and old Yank hopped in the back of the truck. Yank was in his early seventies, but he still thought he was a cowboy. He used to break horses and mules thirty, forty years ago, and he still wore the same kinda clothes he wore back then. His straw hat was draped like a cowboy hat. Wore a faded red polka-dotted handkerchief, tied in a loose knot round his neck. His pants legs was stucked down in his rubber boots—not cowboy boots. Back, shoulders had been broke I don’t know how many times; made him walk leaning forward. Hands had been broke and rebroke; now he couldn’t shut them too tight, or open them too wide. But he still thought he was a cowboy. He spoke when he first got in the truck, but after that we didn’t do much talking. We was just feeling proud. I could see it on Yank’s face; I could feel it sitting next to Chimley and Mat. Proud as we could be.

  A mile or so after we picked up Yank, we picked up Dirty Red at Talbot. Clatoo had to blow the horn twice before we saw Dirty Red shuffling from behind the house. He carried the old shotgun by the barrel, the stock almost touching the ground. He had a self-rolled cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. He had as much ashes hanging on the cigarette as the cigarette was long. Dirty Red wouldn’t take time to knock the ashes off a cigarette. Ashes fell off when it couldn’t hang on any longer. Dirty Red got in the truck and spoke to everybody.

  “Hoa,” he said. We greeted him back. He looked at Chimley. “What’s happening there, Chimley?”

  Chimley nodded. Dirty Red grinned at him.

  Three or four miles after we picked up Dirty Red, Clatoo turned off the main highway, down a dirt road that separated Morgan and Marshall plantations. There was cane on both sides, Morgan on one side, Marshall on the other. The cane was so tall the blades hung over the ditches and over the road. After going a little ways so the people on the highway couldn’t see us, Clatoo stopped the truck and told us to get out. He had to go farther up the highway for another load. He told us to wait for them at the graveyard, and we would all walk up to Mathu’s house together. He thought that would look better than if we straggled in one or two at a time. He turned the truck around and headed back to the highway, and we started walking.

  Jacob and Mat was in front, Chimley right behind them. Jacob had his gun over his shoulder, carrying it like a soldier. Mat had his tucked under his arm, barrel pointed toward the ground, like a hunter. Chimley had his under his arm, too, but he didn’t walk nearly as straight as Mat or Jacob. Just shuffling along, head down, like he was following their tracks in the dust. If they had made a quick stop, Chimley woulda butt into them, I’m sure. Me and Yank followed Chimley, with Dirty Red and Billy Washington behind us. Billy carried his gun over his shoulder, but carried it too loosely. More like he was carrying a stick of wood than a gun. Billy couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn if he stood two feet in front of it. Next to him, Dirty Red was nearly dragging his gun in the dust. I don’t know who looked worse, Dirty Red, Billy Washington, or Chimley. Neither one of them looked like he was ready for battle, that’s for sure.

  We still had cane, tall and blue-green, on both sides of the road. Morgan on the left, Marshall on the right. But it wasn’t Marshall cane anymore. Beau Boutan was leasing the plantation from the Marshall family. Beau and his family had been leasing all the land the past twenty-five, thirty years. The very same land we had worked, our people had worked, our people’s people had worked since the time of slavery. Now Mr. Beau had it all. Or, I should say, he had it all up to about twelve o’clock that day.

  After about half a mile, we turned right on another headland. You had cane here, too, but just on one side. On the left the cane had been cut and hauled away, and you could see all the way back to the swamps. It made me feel lonely. In my old age, specially in grinding, when I saw an empty cane field, it always made me feel lonely. The rows looked so naked and gray and lonely—like an old house where the people have moved from. Where good friends have moved from, leaving the house empty and bare, with nothing but ghosts now to keep it company.

  I was still looking across the field when I heard the shot. I turned just in time to see a little rabbit bobbing across the empty rows. By the time I took aim, he was already down one of the middles, and all I could see was his little ears bobbing every now and then. I looked back at Billy and Dirty Red. Billy was just bringing the gun down from his shoulder. Me and Yank waited for him and Dirty Red to catch up.

  “Missed him, huh, Billy?” I asked.

  Billy didn’t answer. He wouldn’t even look at me or Yank. He was too ’shamed.

  “I hope he don’t miss Fix like that,” Dirty Red teased Billy. Dirty Red had a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth, and he helt his head a little to the side to keep the smoke out his eyes. “Rabbit was so close I started to hit him in the head with the butt of my gun, but I wanted Billy to have him.”

  “He was moving,” Billy said. He said it quietly. He wouldn’t look at us.

  “After you stumbled over him, he started moving,” Dirty Red teased Billy.

  Billy kept his head down.

  “You’ll get another chance, Billy, you just wait,” I told him.

  We started walking again. Me and Yank in front, and Billy and Dirty Red following us. Mat, Jacob, and Chimley had stopped for a second, and started walking again. Behind us, I could hear Dirty Red laughing. He would be quiet a second, then laugh again. I knowed he was still laughing at Billy. I hoped Billy missing that rabbit wasn’t a bad sign for the rest of that day.

  Now, up ahead,
I could see the pecan and oak trees in the graveyard at Marshall. You had a dozen trees spread out over the graveyard, and about that same number of headstones, maybe two or three more. But twenty-five, thirty years ago you didn’t have more than two or three headstones in there all total. Back there when I was growing up, people didn’t even mark the graves. Each family had a little plot, and everybody knowed where that little plot was. If it was a big family, then they had to have a little bit more, sometimes from the plot of a smaller family. But who cared? They had all come from the same place, they had mixed together when they was alive, so what’s the difference if they mixed together now? That old graveyard had been the burial ground for black folks ever since the time of slavery. I was seventy-four, and I had grandparents in there.

  We squatted under a pecan tree just outside the graveyard fence. You had pecans on the ground all around you, and if you looked up you could see them hanging loose in the shells. The next good wind or rain was go’n bring them all down. It was a good year for pecans.

  We hadn’t been there more than ten, maybe fifteen minutes when Jacob stood up and went inside the graveyard. I looked back over my shoulder, and I seen him pulling up weeds from Tessie’s grave. Tessie was his sister. She was one of them great big pretty mulatto gals who messed around with the white man and the black man. The white men wanted her all for themself, and they told her to stay away from the niggers. But she didn’t listen, and they killed her. Ran her through the quarters out into that St. Charles River—Mardi Gras Day, 1947.

  But listen to this now. Her own people at the old Mulatto Place wouldn’t even take her body home. They was against her living here in the first place round the darker people. I’m not dark myself, I’m light as them, but I’m not French, not quality. Them, they’re quality, them; but they wouldn’t even take her body home. Buried her with the kind she had lived with. Maybe that’s why Jacob was here today, to make up for what he had done his sister over thirty years ago. After pulling up the weeds, he knelt down at the head of the grave and made the sign of the cross. Next thing you knowed, every last one of us was in there visiting our people’s graves.