“I wakes up intendin’ to tell the ole lady ’bout my crazy dream. Morning done come, and it’s gettin’ almost light. And there I am, lookin’ straight in Matty Lou’s face and she’s beatin’ me and scratchin’ and tremblin’ and shakin’ and cryin’ all at the same time like she’s havin’ a fit. I’m too surprised to move. She’s cryin’, ‘Daddy, Daddy, oh Daddy,’ just like that. And all at once I remember the ole lady. She’s right beside us snorin’ and I can’t move ’cause I figgers if I moved it would be a sin. And I figgers too, that if I don’t move it maybe ain’t no sin, ’cause it happened when I was asleep—although maybe sometimes a man can look at a little ole pigtail gal and see him a whore—you’all know that? Anyway, I realizes that if I don’t move the ole lady will see me. I don’t want that to happen. That would be worse than sin. I’m whisperin’ to Matty Lou, tryin’ to keep her quiet and I’m figurin’ how to git myself out of the fix I’m in without sinnin’. I almost chokes her.
“But once a man gits hisself in a tight spot like that there ain’t much he can do. It ain’t up to him no longer. There I was, tryin’ to git away with all my might, yet having to move without movin’. I flew in but I had to walk out. I had to move without movin’. I done thought ’bout it since a heap, and when you think right hard you see that that’s the way things is always been with me. That’s just about been my life. There was only one way I can figger that I could git out: that was with a knife. But I didn’t have no knife, and if you’all ever seen them geld them young boar pigs in the fall, you know I knowed that that was too much to pay to keep from sinnin’. Everything was happenin’ inside of me like a fight was goin’ on. Then just the very thought of the fix I’m in puts the iron back in me.
“Then if that ain’ bad enough, Matty Lou can’t hold out no longer and gits to movin’ herself. First she was tryin’ to push me away and I’m tryin’ to hold her down to keep from sinnin’. Then I’m pullin’ away and shushin’ her to be quiet so’s not to wake her Ma, when she grabs holt to me and holds tight. She didn’t want me to go then—and to tell the honest-to-God truth I found out that I didn’t want to go neither. I guess I felt then, at that time—and although I been sorry since—just ’bout like that fellow did down in Birmingham. That one what locked hisself in his house and shot at them police until they set fire to the house and burned him up. I was lost. The more wringlin’ and twistin’ we done tryin’ to git away, the more we wanted to stay. So like that fellow, I stayed, I had to fight it on out to the end. He mighta died, but I suspects now that he got a heapa satisfaction before he went. I know there ain’t nothin’ like what I went through, I caint tell how it was. It’s like when a real drinkin’ man gits drunk, or like when a real sanctified religious woman gits so worked up she jumps outta her clothes, or when a real gamblin’ man keeps on gamblin’ when he’s losin’. You got holt to it and you caint let go even though you want to.”
“Mr. Norton, sir,” I said in a choked voice, “it’s time we were getting back to the campus. You’ll miss your appointments …”
He didn’t even look at me. “Please,” he said, waving his hand in annoyance.
Trueblood seemed to smile at me behind his eyes as he looked from the white man to me and continued.
“I couldn’t even let go when I heard Kate scream. It was a scream to make your blood run cold. It sounds like a woman who was watchin’ a team of wild horses run down her baby chile and she caint move. Kate’s hair is standin’ up like she done seen a ghost, her gown is hanging open and the veins in her neck is ’bout to bust. And her eyes! Lawd, them eyes. I’m lookin’ up at her from where I’m layin’ on the pallet with Matty Lou, and I’m too weak to move. She screams and starts to pickin’ up the first thing that comes to her hand and throwin’ it. Some of them misses me and some of them hits me. Little things and big things. Somethin’ cold and strong-stinkin’ hits me and wets me and bangs against my head. Somethin’ hits the wall—boom-a-loom-a-loom!—like a cannon ball, and I tries to cover up my head. Kate’s talkin’ the unknown tongue, like a wild woman.
“ ‘Wait a minit, Kate,’ I says. ‘Stop it!’
“Then I hears her stop a second and I hears her runnin’ across the floor, and I twists and looks and Lawd, she done got my double-barrel shotgun!
“And while she’s foamin’ at the mouth and cockin’ the gun, she gits her speech.
“ ‘Git up! Git up!’ she says.
“ ‘HEY! NAW! KATE!’ I says.
“ ‘Goddam yo’ soul to hell! Git up offa my chile!’
“ ‘But woman, Kate, lissen …’
“ ‘Don’t talk, MOVE!’
“ ‘Down that thing, Kate!’
“ ‘No down, UP!’
“ ‘That there’s buckshot, woman, BUCKshot!’
“ ‘Yes, it is!’
“ ‘Down it, I say!’
“ ‘I’m gon blast your soul to hell!’
“ ‘You gon hit Matty Lou!’
“ ‘Not Matty Lou—YOU!’
“ ‘It spreads, Kate. Matty Lou!’
“She moves around, aimin’ at me.
“ ‘I done warn you, Jim …’
“ ‘Kate, it was a dream. Lissen to me …’
“ ‘You the one who lissen—UP FROM THERE!’
“She jerks the gun and I shuts my eyes. But insteada thunder and lightin’ bustin’ me, I hears Matty Lou scream in my ear,
“ ‘Mamma! Oooooo, MAMA!’
“I rolls almost over then and Kate hesitates. She looks at the gun, and she looks at us, and she shivers a minit like she got the fever. Then all at once she drops the gun, and ZIP! quick as a cat, she turns and grabs somethin’ off the stove. It catches me like somebody diggin’ into my side with a sharp spade. I caint breathe. She’s throwin’ and talkin’ all at the same time.
“And when I looks up, Maan, Maaan! she’s got a iron in her hand!
“I hollers, ‘No blood, Kate. Don’t spill no blood!’
“ ‘You low-down dog,’ she says, ‘it’s better to spill than to foul!’
“ ‘Naw, Kate. Things ain’t what they ’pear! Don’t make no blood-sin on accounta no dream-sin!’
“ ‘Shut up, nigguh. You done fouled!’
“But I sees there ain’t no use reasonin’ with her then. I makes up my mind that I’m goin’ to take whatever she gimme. It seems to me that all I can do is take my punishment. I tell myself, Maybe if you suffer for it, it will be best. Maybe you owe it to Kate to let her beat you. You ain’t guilty, but she thinks you is. You don’t want her to beat you, but she thinks she got to beat you. You want to git up, but you too weak to move.
“I was too. I was frozen to where I was like a youngun what done stuck his lip to a pump handle in the wintertime. I was just like a jaybird that the yellow jackets done stung ’til he’s paralyzed—but still alive in his eyes and he’s watchin’ ’em sting his body to death.
“It made me seem to go way back a distance in my head, behind my eyes, like I was standin’ behind a windbreak durin’ a storm. I looks out and sees Kate runnin’ toward me draggin’ something behind her. I tries to see what it is ’cause I’m curious ’bout it and sees her gown catch on the stove and her hand comin’ in sight with somethin’ in it. I thinks to myself, It’s a handle. What she got the handle to? Then I sees her right up on me, big. She’s swingin’ her arms like a man swingin’ a ten-pound sledge and I sees the knuckles of her hand is bruised and bleedin’, and I sees it catch in her gown and I sees her gown go up so I can see her thighs and I sees how rusty and gray the cold done made her skin, and I sees her bend and straightenin’ up and I hears her grunt and I sees her swing and I smells her sweat and I knows by the shape of the shinin’ wood what she’s got to put on me. Lawd, yes! I sees it catch on a quilt this time and raise that quilt up and drop it on the floor. Then I sees that ax come free! It’s shinin’, shinin’ from the sharpenin’ I’d give it a few days before, and man, way back in myself, behind that windbreak, I says,
“ ‘NAAW! KATE—Lawd, Kate, NAW!!!’ ”
Suddenly his voice was so strident that I looked up startled. Trueblood seemed to look straight through Mr. Norton, his eyes glassy. The children paused guiltily at their play, looking toward their father.
“I might as well been pleadin’ with a switch engine,” he went on. “I sees it comin’ down. I sees the light catchin’ on it, I sees Kate’s face all mean and I tightens my shoulders and stiffens my neck and I waits—ten million back-breakin’ years, it seems to me like I waits. I waits so long I remembers all the wrong things I ever done; I waits so long I opens my eyes and closes ’em and opens my eyes agin, and I sees it fallin’. It’s fallin’ fast as flops from a six-foot ox, and while I’m waitin’ I feels somethin’ wind up inside of me and turn to water. I sees it, Lawd, yes! I sees it and seein’ it I twists my head aside. Couldn’t help it; Kate has a good aim, but for that. I moves. Though I meant to keep still, I moves! Anybody but Jesus Christ hisself woulda moved. I feel like the whole side of my face is smashed clear off. It hits me like hot lead so hot that insteada burnin’ me it numbs me. I’m layin’ there on the floor, but inside me I’m runnin’ round in circles like a dog with his back broke, and back into that numbness with my tail tucked between my legs. I feels like I don’t have no skin on my face no more, only the naked bone. But this is the part I don’t understand: more’n the pain and numbness I feels relief. Yes, and to git some more of that relief I seems to run out from behind the windbreak again and up to where Kate’s standin’ with the ax, and I opens my eyes and waits. That’s the truth. I wants some more and I waits. I sees her swing it, lookin’ down on me, and I sees it in the air and I holds my breath, then all of a sudden I sees it stop like somebody done reached down through the roof and caught it, and I sees her face have a spasm and I sees the ax fall, back of her this time, and hit the floor, and Kate spews out some puke and I close my eyes and waits. I can hear her moanin’ and stumblin’ out of the door and fallin’ off the porch into the yard. Then I hears her pukin’ like all her guts is coming up by the roots. Then I looks down and seen blood runnin’ all over Matty Lou. It’s my blood, my face is bleedin’. That gits me to movin’ I gits up and stumbles out to find Kate, and there she is under the cottonwood tree out there, on her knees, and she’s moanin’.
“ ‘What have I done, Lawd! What have I done!’
“She’s droolin’ green stuff and gits to pukin’ agin, and when I goes to touch her it gits worse. I stands there holdin’ my face and tryin’ to keep the blood from flowin’ and wonders what on earth is gonna happen. I looks up at the mornin’ sun and expects somehow for it to thunder. But it’s already bright and clear and the sun comin’ up and the birds is chirpin’ and I gits more afraid then than if a bolt of lightnin’ had struck me. I yells, ‘Have mercy, Lawd! Lawd, have mercy!’ and waits. And there’s nothin’ but the clear bright mornin’ sun.
“But don’ nothin’ happen and I knows then that somethin’ worse than anything I ever heard ’bout is in store for me. I musta stood there stark stone still for half an hour. I was still standin’ there when Kate got off her knees and went back into the house. The blood was runnin’ all over my clothes and the flies was after me, and I went back inside to try and stop it.
“When I see Matty Lou stretched out there I think she’s dead. Ain’t no color in her face and she ain’t hardly breathin’. She gray in the face. I tries to help her but I can’t do no good and Kate won’t speak to me nor look at me even; and I thinks maybe she plans to try to kill me agin, but she don’t. I’m in such a daze I just sits there the whole time while she bundles up the younguns and takes ’em down the road to Will Nichols’. I can see but I caint do nothin’.
“And I’m still settin’ there when she comes back with some women to see ’bout Matty Lou. Won’t nobody speak to me, though they looks at me like I’m some new kinda cotton-pickin’ machine. I feels bad. I tells them how it happened in a dream, but they scorns me. I gits plum out of the house then. I goes to see the preacher and even he don’t believe me. He tells me to git out of his house, that I’m the most wicked man he’s ever seen and that I better go confess my sin and make my peace with God. I leaves tryin’ to pray, but I caint. I thinks and thinks, until I thinks my brain go’n bust, ’bout how I’m guilty and how I ain’t guilty. I don’t eat nothin’ and I don’t drink nothin’ and caint sleep at night. Finally, one night, way early in the mornin’, I looks up and sees the stars and I starts singin’. I don’t mean to, I didn’t think ’bout it, just start singin’. I don’t know what it was, some kinda church song, I guess. All I know is I ends up singin’ the blues. I sings me some blues that night ain’t never been sang before, and while I’m singin’ them blues I makes up my mind that I ain’t nobody but myself and ain’t nothin’ I can do but let whatever is gonna happen, happen. I made up my mind that I was goin’ back home and face Kate; yeah, and face Matty Lou too.
“When I gits here everybody thinks I done run off. There’s a heap of women here with Kate and I runs ’em out. And when I runs ’em out I sends the younguns out to play and locks the door and tells Kate and Matty Lou ’bout the dream and how I’m sorry, but that what done happen is done happen.
“ ‘How come you don’t go on ’way and leave us?’ is the first words Kate says to me. ‘Ain’t you done enough to me and this chile?’
“ ‘I caint leave you,’ I says. ‘I’m a man and man don’t leave his family.’
“ She says, ‘Naw you ain’t no man. No man’d do what you did.’
“ ‘I’m still a man,’ I says.
“ ‘But what you gon do after it happens?’ says Kate.
“ ‘After what happens?’ I says.
“ ‘When yo black ’bomination is birthed to bawl yo wicked sin befo the eyes of God!’ (She musta learned them words from the preacher.)
“‘Birth?’ I says. ‘Who birth?’
“ ‘Both of us. Me birth and Matty Lou birth. Both of us birth, you dirty lowdown wicked dog!’
“That liketa killed me. I can understand then why Matty Lou won’t look at me and won’t speak a word to nobody.
“ ‘If you stay I’m goin’ over an’ git Aunt Cloe for both of us,’ Kate says. She says, ‘I don’t aim to birth no sin for folks to look at all the rest of my life, and I don’t aim for Matty Lou to neither.’
“You see, Aunt Cloe is a midwife, and even weak as I am from this news I knows I don’t want her foolin’ with my womenfolks. That woulda been pilin’ sin up on toppa sin. So I told Kate, naw, that if Aunt Cloe come near this house I’d kill her, old as she is. I’da done it too. That settles it. I walks out of the house and leaves ’em here to cry it out between ’em. I wanted to go off by myself agin, but it don’t do no good tryin’ to run off from somethin’ like that. It follows you wherever you go. Besides, to git right down to the facts, there wasn’t nowhere I could go. I didn’t have a cryin’ dime!
“Things got to happenin’ right off. The nigguhs up at the school come down to chase me off and that made me mad. I went to see the white folks then and they gave me help. That’s what I don’t understand. I done the worse thing a man could ever do in his family and instead of chasin’ me out of the country, they gimme more help than they ever give any other colored man, no matter how good a nigguh he was. Except that my wife an’ daughter won’t speak to me, I’m better off than I ever been before. And even if Kate won’t speak to me she took the new clothes I brought her from up in town and now she’s gettin’ some eyeglasses made what she been needin’ for so long. But what I don’t understand is how I done the worse thing a man can do in his own family and ’stead of things gittin’ bad, they got better. The nigguhs up at the school don’t like me, but the white folks treats me fine.”
HE WAS some farmer. As I listened I had been so torn between humiliation and fascination that to lessen my sense of shame I had kept my attention riveted upon his intense face. That way I did not have to look at Mr. Norton. But now as the voice ended I sat looki
ng down at Mr. Norton’s feet. Out in the yard a woman’s hoarse contralto intoned a hymn. Children’s voices were raised in playful chatter. I sat bent over, smelling the sharp dry odor of wood burning in the hot sunlight. I stared at the two pairs of shoe before me. Mr. Norton’s were white, trimmed with black. They were custom made and there beside the cheap tan brogues of the farmer they had the elegantly slender well-bred appearance of fine gloves. Finally someone cleared his throat and I looked up to see Mr. Norton staring silently into Jim Trueblood’s eyes. I was startled. His face had drained of color. With his bright eyes burning into Trueblood’s black face, he looked ghostly. Trueblood looked at me questioningly.
“Lissen to the younguns,” he said in embarrassment. “Playin’ ‘London Bridge’s Fallin’ Down.’ ”
Something was going on which I didn’t get. I had to get Mr. Norton away.
“Are you all right, sir?” I asked.
He looked at me with unseeing eyes. “All right?” he said.
“Yes, sir. I mean that I think it’s time for the afternoon session,” I hurried on.
He stared at me blankly.
I went to him. “Are you sure you’re all right, sir?”
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