A Gathering of Old Men

by Ernest J. Gaines

  “Again?” the deputy said. “Why don’t we just throw that old coon in the back of the car and take off?”

  Everybody looked at that little deputy, but Candy looked at him harder.

  “Go check with Russell like I said,” Mapes told him.

  That little deputy looked at Mapes, shook his head, and left the yard.

  “You better warn that boy,” Beulah told Mapes. “That’s if you want him around much longer.”

  “He’s sure got a big mouth for somebody with hardly any butt,” Yank said, from over by the garden. “Pardon me, ladies.”

  “Forget it,” Mapes said. “We’re all one big happy family, aren’t we?” he said to Candy.

  Candy didn’t answer him. She laid her hand on Mathu’s shoulder, soft like touching a flower. Mathu’s face never changed much, but he smiled when Candy touched him.

  “Do you need to lie down?” she asked him.

  He shook his head.

  Candy looked at Mapes. “He hasn’t been feeling too well lately. Suffering from those dizzy spells.”

  Mapes nodded. “Sure,” he said. “I suffer from dizzy spells, too, every time I shoot somebody.” He looked over his shoulder toward the road. “Well?” he called.

  “All quiet,” the deputy called back.

  “The quiet before the storm,” Mapes said to Lou. “He’ll be here when he get them all together.”

  “We’ll be here, too,” Clatoo said, from the garry.

  Thomas Vincent Sullivan

  aka

  Sully or T.V.

  Gil and I had just come out of Sci-210 when Cal caught up with us and told Gil that coach wanted him in the office right away.

  “I thought we had gone over all that,” Gil said.

  “I don’t think it’s football this time,” Cal said.

  Gil asked me if I would walk back to the gym with him, and since Cal wasn’t doing anything that hour he walked back with us. Cal was Calvin “Pepper” Harrison, quite possibly the best halfback in the country that year, and already nominated for All-American. Gil was Gilbert “Salt” Boutan, definitely the best fullback in the Southeastern Conference, and many other conferences besides. Cal and Gil were known as Salt and Pepper at LSU. Gil being a Cajun, the publicity people had tried to think of a good Cajun nickname for him when he first came to the university, but after seeing how well he and Cal worked together, they finally settled on Salt and Pepper.

  Gil was a football man all the way, and eventually he would go pro, but what he wanted most while attending LSU was to be All-American along with Cal. It would be the first time this had ever happened, black and white in the same backfield—and in the Deep South, besides. LSU was fully aware of this, the black and white communities in Baton Rouge were aware of this, and so was the rest of the country. Wherever you went, people spoke of Salt and Pepper of LSU. Both were good powerful runners, and excellent blockers. Gil blocked for Cal on sweeps around end, and Cal returned the favor when Gil went up the middle. It drove the defense crazy, because both Gil and Cal carried the ball about the same number of times in a game and the defensive team didn’t know which to look out for. Besides that, you had “Sugar” Washington at quarterback, and he was no slouch, either.

  Me? Well, I was no Sugar Washington. I was third-string quarterback. My name is Thomas Vincent Sullivan. My hair is red, my face is red, my eyes are green, and most people call me Sully. Others call me T.V.—especially the black guys on the team. Not for my initials necessarily, but for my avocation. I’m a television nut. A vidiot.

  While Gil was in coach’s office, Cal and I stood outside talking about the game coming up the next day, LSU and Ole Miss. It would be the game of the year. We knew if we dumped her, nobody else could stop us, and we would host the Sugar Bowl game on New Year’s Day. Already the people had filled all the motels and hotels from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. The national press was covering the game. No matter where you went, that’s all the people were talking about. If you were pro-LSU—and you were crazy if you were not—they said there was no possible way to stop Salt and Pepper. If you were anti-LSU, or pro-Ole Miss—and there were thousands of people from Mississippi who had come down for the game—they said that all Ole Miss had to do was stop one or the other, Salt or Pepper, and victory would be theirs to take back home. This kind of talk had been going on the past month, and now there was only a little more than twenty-four hours—thirty hours—before the whole thing would be settled. If you know anything about Louisiana weather, you know there’s a lot of lightning and thundering before the big storm comes. Well, the big storm was going to be tomorrow night at eight o’clock, but the lightning and thundering had been going on for a month already, and nobody expected it to let up till the last moment.

  After being in coach’s office about ten minutes, Gil came back out, and went right by Cal and me like we weren’t even standing there. I thought he had forgotten where he had left us, and I called to him. But he kept on going. Cal and I looked at each other a second, and went after him. He was walking fast, and rubbing both his fists.

  “Gil, wait up,” I said to him. “Hey, Gil.”

  Cal was on one side, I was on the other.

  “What’s the matter, man?” Cal asked him.

  He had stopped. He was breathing sharp and hard, the way you do in the huddle after you’ve been tackled. He was staring down at the ground, rubbing his fists, rubbing his knuckles hard, like he was trying to rub off the skin.

  Cal put his hand on one shoulder, and I took the other arm.

  “What’s the matter, Gil?” I asked him.

  He started shaking his head; he was still looking down at the ground.

  “My brother, my brother. Killed.”

  “In a wreck?” Cal asked him.

  Gil went on shaking his head like he might start crying. I held on to one of his arms, and Cal was patting him on the back to console him. Then suddenly he just turned against Cal. Out of the blue, he looked at Cal like he suddenly hated him. It surprised the hell out of both me and Cal.

  “Gil, that’s Cal,” I said. “Gil.”

  He turned from Cal and looked at me. “Why today?” he said. He was crying now. “Why today?”

  “Take it easy, Gil,” I said. People had begun to crowd around us and ask questions. Cal or Gil couldn’t sneeze but there wasn’t a crowd around. “Take it easy,” I said to him.

  “I have to get home,” he said. “Can I borrow your car? Mine’s still in the shop.”

  “I’ll drive you,” I said. “I can skip that drama class.”

  “Why today, Sully?” he asked me. “Why?”

  I didn’t know how to answer him, and I looked at Cal. Cal was just standing there looking hurt. He didn’t know why Gil had turned against him, and I didn’t know either.

  “Let’s go,” Gil said.

  “That’s Cal, Gil,” I said.

  “Come on, let’s go,” he said, and walked away.

  I followed him, but it sure made me feel bad the way he treated Cal.

  I had a ’68 Karmann-Ghia parked on the other side of the gym. Driving across campus, I had to drive about one mile an hour because of all the loonies who recognized Gil and wanted to wish him well in the game the next day. These were not all students, either. Many of them were graduates who had already arrived for the game that wasn’t for another thirty hours. Someone has said that Norman, Oklahoma, is the nuttiest town in this country over football, but if any place can get crazier than this one, I would like to see it—or maybe I would not, because it sure could be dangerous.

  Gil kept his head down. He would not look out at the loonies. I was driving one mile an hour. About a dozen other cars driving one mile an hour behind me. Out on the Highland road, I could speed up some, driving about five miles an hour. Loonies all over the place. Tomorrow this time it would be twice as bad, three times as bad, four times as bad. If Gil ever made All-American, handsome as he was, he would own this town and all the women in it.

  Gi
l was quiet all the time. I didn’t know whether I should say anything, so I kept quiet, too. I was still thinking about Cal. It made me feel bad the way Gil had treated him. On the gridiron they depended on each other the way one hand must depend on the other swinging a baseball bat. I had never known Gil to be anything but a gentleman.

  We had crossed the Mississippi River, and were on the main highway that would take us to his folks’ place in St. Raphael Parish. I had left all the loonies, at least the ones walking around loose, so I could drive sixty now. But all the time, Gil just sat over there quiet, rubbing his fists and gazing out at the road. I stayed quiet, too, not knowing what to say. I never know what to say to people who lose someone in the family. Besides, I was still thinking about Cal.

  “God, I hope none of them had anything to do with it,” Gil said. He wasn’t looking at me; he was still looking out at the road. “I hope for God’s sake none of them did it.”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  “The black people there at Marshall. That’s where he was killed. I hope for God’s sake none of them did it.”

  So that’s why he went against Cal like that. Whether he had anything to do with it or not, he was guilty because of his color. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, man. The two of you work on that field together as well as any two people I’ve ever seen in my life work together, and because of this—Jesus H. Christ. Come on, Gil, I thought to myself, you’re made of better stuff than that.

  “You don’t know my folks, Sully. So little you know about me.”

  I know about you, I thought. I know a hell of a lot about you. I didn’t know this side of you, but I know a hell of a lot about you, and about old Fix, too. I’ve heard how he and his boys used to ride in the old days. I just didn’t know you were like that.

  We could have stayed on this road to within a couple of miles of his folks’ place, but as we were coming up to the junction that said St. Charles River, he told me to take that turnoff. It was a good straight road for about four miles, with the sugarcane fields on either side. Much of the cane had been cut, and far across the field on the right side of the road was that dark line of trees which was the beginning of the swamps. Gil was looking across the fields toward the swamps. He looked in that direction until we made the turn that took us along the St. Charles River. The river was grayish blue, and very calm. On the other side of the river, probably three-quarters of a mile away, I could see how small the cars looked moving on the road.

  After going about half a mile along the river, Gil nodded for me to pull off the highway. I didn’t know before then that his reason for not heading directly to his folks’ place was that he first wanted to go to Marshall.

  Just as we turned into Marshall Quarters, I noticed a patrolman’s car parked beside the road. The patrolman, in his gray-blue uniform, got out of the car and raised his hand for us to stop. He came over to my car. He recognized Gil immediately.

  “Gil,” he said.

  “Hilly,” Gil said.

  Hilly looked at me. He wasn’t much older than we were. He had red hair and freckles. He didn’t wear a cap or a tie. The two top buttons of his shirt were unfastened, and you could see the reddish hair just below his neck. He looked back at Gil.

  “Mapes told me to keep out trouble, but I guess you’re okay.”

  “Mapes still down there?” Gil asked. “Yes.”

  “Thanks,” Gil said.

  “Be pulling for you tomorrow night,” Hilly said. But soon as he said it, you could see that he felt he had spoken badly.

  “Thanks,” Gil said, and we drove off.

  Marshall Quarters was a narrow little country road, all white with dust, and weeds on both sides. The one or two old clapboard houses seemed deserted, causing the place to look like a Western ghost town. All you needed was a couple of tumbleweeds to come bouncing down the road. Halfway into the quarters I could make out a tractor and several cars. As we came closer, I recognized Lou Dimes’s baby-blue Porsche with the white streak on the side. Lou Dimes had been a starting forward on LSU’s basketball team about ten years ago, and he still came to most of the games. Sometimes he covered the games for the paper in Baton Rouge.

  Gil nodded for me to park in front of the tractor. We hadn’t been there half a minute when I saw a skinny little guy coming out of the weeds with a pistol dangling from his right hand. He was looking suspiciously at us until he recognized Gil; then you could see him smiling. He came over to the car to look inside at us.

  “Didn’t know it was you,” he said. “Sorry what happened, Gil.”

  He looked at me and nodded, and I nodded back. I thought he looked too pale to be a policeman.

  “You wanta speak to Mapes?” he asked Gil.

  Gil and I got out of the car. Gil stopped to look at the tractor a moment; then we followed the deputy back toward the house.

  But Gil and I stopped again. There in the yard and on the porch were all these old men with shotguns. Besides, there was the sheriff with a pump gun. Lou Dimes was with his woman, Candy. Three or four black women sat either on the porch or on the steps. Some little dirty-looking children sat on the steps with the women. Every last one of them was looking back at us. It was like looking into the Twilight Zone.

  Remember that old TV play Twilight Zone? You would be driving through this little out-of-the-way town, and suddenly you would come upon a scene that you knew shouldn’t be there—it was something like that. Something like looking at a Brueghel painting. One of these real weird, weird Brueghels.

  The sheriff lowered his pump gun when he recognized Gil. The rest of them did the same. You could see all those old shotguns being lowered an inch or two toward the ground.

  Gil stepped across the little grassy ditch into the yard, and I was no more than a step behind him. The grass from his footsteps had not sprung back up before I was pressing it back down. And I intended to keep it that way until we got out of there.

  “Gil.” The sheriff spoke first. He was one of those great big guys, exactly what the people up North and in Hollywood thought a small-town Southern sheriff would look like.

  Gil didn’t answer him. I nodded to Dimes and Candy. Dimes spoke, but Candy didn’t. She stood by the steps next to an old guy in a dirty tee shirt and green pants. She seemed lost in her own thoughts. She seemed no more interested in Gil and me than she did in anything else around her, except for that old guy, maybe. I had seen her at few of the games with Dimes, and she always seemed bored with everything. She acted like that now, bored. She also looked very tired.

  “Where is my brother, Mapes?” I heard Gil asking.

  “They took him into Bayonne,” Mapes said.

  Gil was looking at Mapes. He didn’t think Mapes had told him enough. He wanted to hear more without asking for it. He didn’t think, in a situation like this, it was necessary to ask.

  “You’re on your way home?” Mapes asked Gil. He was trying to show sympathy. But that was hard to do with a face and eyes like his.

  Gil didn’t answer this time either. He was doing everything he could to control himself. He wanted the sheriff to say more about his brother.

  “I got Russell back there on the bayou,” Mapes said. “I told him to keep your daddy back there. I don’t want him here at Marshall, Gil. I don’t want him in Bayonne till I send for him.”

  The sheriff said all of this gently, with as much sympathy as anybody could who looked like he did. His face was big, red, with heavy jowls; his eyes were the color of cement. Even when he was trying to be gentle, his eyes still remained hard and staring at you.

  Gil stared back at him. He was waiting for the sheriff to tell him more about what had happened.

  “I’ll have it over with before sundown,” Mapes said. “You can take my word.”

  “What over with, Mapes?” Gil asked. He was doing all he could to control himself. “What over with, Mapes?”

  “The person who did it—I’ll have him in jail before sundown, I guarantee that,” Mapes said.
/>   “Don’t you know who did it?” Gil asked.

  “I think I do,” Mapes said. “I’m sure I do.”

  “Then why don’t you arrest him?”

  “They all say the same thing. They all claim they did it.”

  “But you know who did it?”

  “Yes,” Mapes said. “I know who did it. But the others threatened to come to town if I take him in. She says the same thing. I don’t want this crowd in Bayonne. Not the way people are working themselves up for that game tomorrow. If you just come from Baton Rouge, you know what I’m talking about.”

  “What do you plan to do, Mapes?”

  “I’ll handle it my way.”

  “Your way?” Gil asked. “My brother been dead how long, four hours?”

  “About four hours.”

  Gil looked at him the way you look at somebody who should be telling you much, much more. But instead of saying more, Mapes turned away. Gil started looking at the old men around him. His eyes finally settled on the one in the dirty tee shirt and green trousers, the one nearest Candy. He did not say anything to the old man for a while. The old man was looking out over the road.

  “You, Mathu?”

  “Yes,” the old man said, without looking at Gil.

  Gil’s right hand slowly tightened into a fist. Not that he wanted to hurt the old man. His face didn’t show hatred or anger—just disbelief in the dry, direct way that the old man had answered him. If the old man had dropped his head and muttered out the words, that might have made a difference. But no, dry and direct, without even looking at Gil: “Yes, I did it.”

  “Ask the others,” Mapes said. “Ask Candy.”

  Gil was still looking at old Mathu. The old man was not trying to avoid Gil’s stare; he was just looking, thoughtfully, away from him.

  Mapes held the pump gun in one hand, and he laid his big arm around Gil’s shoulders.

  “Go home, Gil,” he said gently. It was said as gently as someone with a face and eyes like his could say it. Not necessarily as gently as it could be said in a situation like this.