A Gathering of Old Men

by Ernest J. Gaines

  Candy didn’t say another word. Like a cat, she sprung up on the garry, went right by Clatoo, and stood in the door with her hands on her hips.

  “Now, who’ll go by me?” she asked.

  “Come down from there,” Mapes said. “They want to talk, they’ll talk. You come on down from there.”

  Candy wasn’t listening, just standing there with her hands on her hips, daring anybody.

  “Griffin,” Mapes said to his deputy. “Get up there and pull her away from that door.”

  Old Griffin still had his gun out. He made two steps toward the garry, and stopped.

  “Well?” Mapes said.

  “He knows I’ll bust his jaw,” Candy said.

  “Get up them steps, Griffin,” Mapes said, going on him. Griffin didn’t go up the steps, but he moved away from Mapes, and Mapes was too fat to catch him. The people laughed. Mapes turned on us to make us shut up. Then he looked back at Candy. “Come down from there, Candy,” he said. “If I come up them steps, you’re going to jail, just sure as hell.”

  Candy didn’t move.

  “Come down, Candy,” Lou told her. “Don’t make a spectacle of yourself in front of these people.”

  “She’s been doing that all day,” Mapes said. “Tell her not to make a bigger ass of herself.”

  We all looked at Candy standing in the door with her hands on her hips. Beulah laughed out loud. “Stand your ground, honey,” she said. “Just stand your ground.”

  “You better shut your goddamn mouth,” Mapes told her. “I’m tired now. You hear me? I’m tired.”

  “Let me talk to her, Sheriff,” Mathu said, and went up the steps.

  Candy watched Mathu coming toward her. Her hands was on her hips at first; then they slid to her side, like she was ready to fight Mathu if he said the wrong thing. But as he got closer to her, you could see her face changing, you could see her fists loosening.

  “I want you to go home,” he said. Not loud. Quiet. Soft. The way he used to talk to her when she was a little girl.

  She shook her head.

  “That’s what I want,” he said.

  She shook her head again.

  Years ago, when she was five or six, she used to come down here and play in his yard and follow him around in the garden. Near sundown he would tell her to go on home. “No,” she would say. “Go on home.” “No,” she would say. He would take her by the hand or put her on his shoulder or on his back and ride her up to the big house. The next day, near sundown: “Go on home, now.” “No,” she would say.

  Now they looked at each other. I could see her biting her lip. She wanted to cry. But she couldn’t, not in front of us.

  “I have to go,” Mathu said. “I have to pay.”

  “No,” she said. “Daddy and Grandpa said you paid enough. You always paid for them. You won’t pay for me, too.”

  He laid his old hand against her face, and she helt it there.

  Lou had followed Mathu up the steps, but he stayed back while they talked. When they got quiet, he moved in a little closer.

  “Let’s go, Candy,” he said.

  She didn’t even hear him. Mathu had brought his hand down from her face, but she still helt his hand with both of hers.

  “This is not Marshall, without you,” she told him.

  “I’ll always be here, Candy,” he said.

  “This is nothing but a few miles of dirt,” she said. “Weeds, trees, dirt—but this is not Marshall without you.”

  “I’ll be here,” he said.

  “Candy,” Lou said.

  “You knew the first,” Candy said to Mathu. She wasn’t hearing Lou at all. “You knew Grandpa Nate. The first Marshall. Remember from the war—the Civil War?”

  “I remember the Colonel.”

  “You knew them all,” Candy said. “Grew up with my grandpa. Raised my daddy. Raised me. I want you to help me with my own child one day.”

  “I’ll be here,” he said.

  “Not like that,” she said. “Not back there under those trees—spirit alone. I want you to hold his hand. Tell him about Grandpa. Tell him about the field. Tell him how the river looked before the cabins and wharves. No one else to tell him about these things but you.”

  “I’ll tell him,” he said.

  “No,” she said. “You can’t tell him from the grave. You’ll die if they put you in that jail. And this place’ll die, too. There’s no reason for this place to be if you’re not here. My daddy, he said, you, you, you.”

  “I’ll be here,” he said.

  “Candy,” Lou said.

  “Go with him,” Mathu said. “It’s time you went to him. I’ll be all right.”

  Lou moved in closer. “Come on, Candy,” he said.

  Candy still helt Mathu’s hand. “My daddy, all of them, said it was you, you, you,” she said. Lou pulled on her, but she was still holding on to Mathu. “They said it was Mathu,” she said. “They said Mathu. They said you were. They said it was you.”

  “Come on, Candy,” Lou said, pulling on her.

  “They said if you went, it went, because we could not—it could not—not without you, Mathu.”

  Mathu covered her hands with his big old ashy, gray-black hand and pulled her free. Lou picked her up, under his arm, and came with her down the steps. Candy was cussing him, hitting at him, cussing Mapes, kicking, but Lou didn’t pay her any mind. He took her out to the road, throwed her into her own car, and slammed the door. Then he stood there with his back against the door, looking at us in the yard.

  “Y’all got fifteen minutes,” Mapes said to us. “Then I’m taking him in. If y’all want to come along, you’re welcome. But I’m warning you, you follow me to Bayonne, I’m throwing the book at you for interfering with the law. Now, you got exactly fifteen minutes.”

  We went inside. It was dark in there, and Clatoo pulled the string to turn on the light. You could see from the way the place was kept Mathu stayed there by himself. The wallpaper his wife, Lottie, had put there years, years ago was all faded and torn. Dirtdobbers’ nests hung on the wall and on the picture frames. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling. Mathu had a old chifforobe in one corner, an old washstand with a china bowl and a pitcher in another corner, a old brass bed sagging in the middle against the wall by the window, and a rocking chair and a bench by the firehalf. He had a coal-oil lamp on the mantelpiece, in case ’lectricity went out. His old tin cup he used to take out in the field was on the mantelpiece, too. The old cup was so old it had turned black. Mathu stood at one end of the firehalf, Clatoo at the other end. Billy Washington caught the door, Rufe caught the window. Now it was hot and stuffy in there with the door and window both closed.

  “Well,” Clatoo said. “What we go’n do? Y’all can see the man’s patient done run out.”

  “Ain’t we go’n do what we was go’n do from the start?” Johnny Paul said. Johnny Paul was standing in the back of the room with some of the others. “If Mathu go to jail, we going, too—ain’t that’s what we said?”

  “Now, listen,” Clatoo said.

  “Ain’t that’s what we said?” Johnny Paul said, from the back of the room.

  I was kinda short, so I had pushed myself up closer to the firehalf. I had Yank on one side of me, Tucker on the other side of me, and Dirty Red right behind me. Clatoo looked over all of us at Johnny Paul in the back of the room.

  “Give me one minute,” Clatoo said. “One minute. Now, listen. Y’all know I love this man,” he said, and nodded toward Mathu. “Y’all know I’d do anything for this man. Y’all know I respect this man like I don’t respect too many men. And y’all know why. He always stood up. Stood up to Fix, stood up to anybody who tried to do him wrong. Even to the Marshalls out there at the front, he stood his ground. That’s why Jack Marshall don’t like Mathu today, Mathu always stood up. Stood up to Jack Marshall, too. And that’s why I come here today, to stand with this man. To die with him, ’side him, if I have to. That’s why we all come here—out of respect for him. To fig
ht ’side him. To fight, gentlemen. But now fight who? There ain’t nobody to fight, gentlemen. Nobody to fight.” Clatoo looked at all of us now. We all had our guns. All of us ready. “Gentlemen,” he said. “Let’s call it a day and go back home.”

  All of a sudden I got knocked almost in the firehalf. It was Johnny Paul pushing his way up to the front. He had pushed against Dirty Red, Dirty Red had fell against me, and I had almost fell over in the firehalf.

  “Now what the hell you think you saying, Clatoo?” Johnny Paul asked him. Johnny Paul and Clatoo was about same height. They could look each other eye to eye. “What the hell we come here for if not to stand to the end?”

  The rest of us went along with Johnny Paul. We all said we came to stay to the end. Clatoo picked up Mathu’s old field cup and rapped it on the mantelpiece.

  “Give me one more minute, one more minute, and I’ll shut up if you want me to shut up,” he said.

  We all got quiet.

  “Now, y’all heard the man,” Clatoo said. “He’s going to take Mathu in.”

  “Then we go, too,” Johnny Paul said.

  “Go for what, Johnny Paul?” Clatoo asked him. “Do what when we get there?”

  “Same thing we was go’n do before,” Johnny Paul said.

  Clatoo took in a deep breath and shook his head. “Johnny Paul, that man won’t even lock us up now. You know why? Because tomorrow this time he know he can prove most of us wasn’t nowhere around this place. He just went along with us out there because of Fix. He didn’t want us in Bayonne with these shotguns, because he didn’t want Fix to come and find us there. But now Fix ain’t showing up, and he ain’t worried about us no more. He never took us serious, not for once. Fix was on his mind, not us. Fix, Johnny Paul.”

  “I don’t care what was on Mapes’s mind, or what’s on y’all mind, but this is what’s on my mind. If Mathu leave from here tonight, I’m leaving with him. We all had good reason to kill Beau.”

  “But we didn’t do it,” Clatoo said.

  “Nobody can say I didn’t do it,” Johnny Paul said. “I got the same make gun.”

  “But you know you didn’t do it, Johnny Paul,” Clatoo said. “You know in your heart you didn’t do it.” He looked over the room. “Can’t the rest of y’all understand what I’m trying to say? Jacob? Mat? Y’all understand what I’m trying to say, don’t you?”

  “I see your point,” Mat said, from over by the door. “But we come here to stand, Clatoo. I don’t feel like going back home empty-handed. We’ll never gather like this ever again.”

  “But we’ve already done it, Mat,” Clatoo said. “Don’t you see, we’ve already done it? Nobody is leaving here empty-handed. We’ve already stood. Go to Bayonne now for what? Do what in Bayonne when we get there? March around that courthouse and sing—with loaded guns? Guns made for fighting with, but we ain’t got a enemy to fight.”

  “I already said what I’m go’n do,” Johnny Paul said. “If Mathu go to Bayonne, I go to Bayonne with him.”

  He pushed his way back to the back of the room.

  It was quiet for a while. I was thinking how I was picking up pecans behind the quarters when my wife sent and called for me. I was thinking how scared I was when she told me I had to go find a shotgun somewhere, and how scared I was when I went up to Aunt Lena and asked her to borrow it. I was thinking now about all the hurt I had suffered, the insults my wife had suffered right in front of my face. I was thinking about what all the old people musta gone through even before me. I was thinking about all that—and this was the day we was go’n get even. But now here Clatoo was saying we ought to go back home. Go back home and do what? I hadn’t even fired a shot. Just one, in that pecan tree, so I could have a empty shell. No, that wasn’t enough. Not after what I had put up with all these years. I wanted me a fight, even if I had to get killed.

  “There ain’t no more to prove,” I heard Mathu saying. “Y’all done already proved it.”

  I had been looking down at the floor. Now I looked up at Mathu. He leaned against the mantelpiece. He was tired, his voice weak and shaky. He looked right at me, smiling. He never thought much of me. Used to call me Little Red Rooster all the time. People even said him and Beulah had fooled around some behind my back. I never asked him, I never asked her—I was too scared. But I wasn’t scared now. He knowed I wasn’t scared now. That’s why he was smiling at me. And that made me feel good.

  “I never thought I woulda seen this day,” he said. “No, I never thought I woulda seen this day. Rooster with a gun, Dirty Red with a gun—Chimley, Billy. No, I never thought I woulda seen this day.”

  I looked up at him, holding my gun tight to my side and feeling proud.

  “Till a few minutes ago, I felt the same way that man out there feel about y’all—you never would ’mount to anything. But I was wrong. And he’s still wrong. ’cause he ain’t go’n ever face the fact. But now I know. And I thank y’all. And I look up to you. Every man in here. And this the proudest day of my life.”

  He stopped. His voice got hoarse. Couple times his lips moved, but nothing came out. We waited. My heart was beating fast and hard. I helt my gun tight, looking up at him. No, he wasn’t the proudest man in this house. I was.

  “I ain’t nothing but a mean, bitter old man,” he said. “No hero. Lord—no hero. A mean, bitter old man. Hating them out there on that river, hating y’all here in the quarters. Put myself above all—proud to be African. You know why proud to be African? ’cause they won’t let me be a citizen here in this country. Hate them ’cause they won’t let me be a citizen, hated y’all ’cause you never tried. Just a mean-hearted old man. All I ever been, till this hour.”

  He stopped and looked down at me again, looked at me a good while, nodding his head.

  “I been changed,” he said. “I been changed. Not by that white man’s God. I don’t believe in that white man’s God. I been changed by y’all. Rooster, Clabber, Dirty Red, Coot—you changed this hardhearted old man.”

  He stopped again, looking across the room at the people.

  “Clatoo is right, I want y’all to go home.” His voice was getting hoarse again, and he had to stop and clear his throat. His lips moved, but nothing came out till he cleared his throat again. “Go home, Johnny Paul,” he said. He looked at Johnny Paul a good two or three seconds; then he looked at somebody else. He would call that person’s name, look at him awhile, then turn to somebody else. “Go home, Dirty Red. Aunt Jude and Unc François happy tonight.” Then to somebody else for two or three seconds. “Go home, Rufe. Go home, Yank, Jacob, Mat, Clabber—y’all go home. You Bing and Ding, go back to that bayou.”

  After looking across the room at everybody, he turned back to Clatoo standing at the other end of the firehalf.

  “Do what you can with all this old junk around here,” he said. “If the people want it, give it to them. If they don’t, throw it away. I’m tired, like all y’all must be tired. And the law done waited long enough.”

  We all looked at him, but nobody moved.

  Then Charlie spoke from back in the kitchen. “You don’t have to go nowhere, Parrain.”

  We all turned. Charlie had been standing back there in the dark. Then he came to the front. He was so big, so tall, he had to duck his head to come through that middle door. He was taller than any man in that room and bigger than any man in that room, and we all had to look up to him. He had on blue denims, the shirt hanging out his pants. He had been running, and he had laid down on the ground. I could smell the sweat, the field, the swamps in his clothes.

  He sat down on the bed.

  “One of y’all standing round ain’t doing nothing, go find the law,” he said.

  Lou Dimes

  It was dark now. She sat on the passenger side, and I was in the other seat beside her. I had tried several times to speak to her, but she refused to answer. Mapes came out of the yard and went by the car without saying anything to us. I watched him go farther down the quarters until he had crossed the
railroad tracks; then I couldn’t see him anymore.

  I looked at Candy sitting over in the other seat.

  “Maybe you don’t know it,” I told her. “But after tonight there’s going to be a big change in your life. That old man is free of you now. When he pulled your hands off his arm and went into that room, he was setting both of you free. Do you know what I’m saying? He doesn’t need you to protect him anymore, Candy. He’s an old man, and what little time he’s got left he wants to live it his own way.”

  She just sat there all tight-lipped, staring out into the darkness.

  “Before I leave here tonight, I want a yes or no to where our relationship is going. If I don’t get any answer at all, I won’t be coming back here anymore.”

  She looked at me now.

  “You bastard,” she said. “You bastard.”

  “That’s possible,” I said. “I wasn’t there. But after tonight …”

  She slapped me. It came without warning. I had noticed her face trembling, but I hadn’t expected her to hit me. I raised my hand quickly, but I stopped it in midair. And instead of hitting her back, I rubbed the side of my face.

  “Thank you, Ma’am,” I told her. “But I will stick around until Mapes takes him into Bayonne. That’s all I’ll need to end my story.”

  Just about then one of the old men from inside the house came out onto the porch and asked for the sheriff. I heard Aunt Glo saying that the sheriff had gone down the quarters. The old man was standing in the light from inside the room. The light threw his shadow across the porch and out into the yard. Everyone else was in darkness.

  “Y’all still have a couple more minutes,” I heard Griffin saying. “In case y’all wanta sing, or pray, or something.”

  “We’re ready now,” the old man said. It was Gable. I could tell by his quiet, even voice.

  “Well, you go’n have to wait awhile,” Griffin said. “Don’t worry. He won’t keep you waiting long.”

  Gable came down the steps. He had his gun with him.

  “Where you think you going?” Griffin asked him.

  Gable didn’t answer him. He came out to the car where Candy and I were sitting.