by Lewis Nordan
Poindexter said, “I should have killed you, is what I should have done.”
Solon parked up under the overhang in the front and set the parking brake and slipped the Luger and the cartridge clip into the pocket of the seersucker jacket, for safe keeping. It paid to be a little discreet.
He said, “I meant what I said, Dexter.”
Poindexter stayed in the car when Solon got out.
Solon buttoned Lord Montberclair’s seersucker jacket in front to cover the pistol handle of the little revolver, where it stuck out of his belt.
He motioned for Poindexter to roll down his window. He said, “If you try to run, I’ll put a bullet through your heart, Dexter. Got it?”
Poindexter didn’t answer.
Solon said again, “Got it?”
Poindexter said, “Yes.”
A boy name of Hydro Raney was keeping Sims and Hill open all night. Hydro was about thirty years old and had a big head. Hydro’s head was as big as a goddamn watermelon. He didn’t have good sense. He could run about forty miles an hour in short bursts, and he liked to chase cars. He also howled at the fire whistle, which was embarrassing to Hydro’s daddy, Mr. Raney, down at the fish camp. Mr. Sims was a good man to let Hydro keep the store for him sometimes.
Solon would almost rather have had a child laying up in an iron bed with no skin or future than to have Hydro for a boy. Hydro’s daddy owned a fish camp on Roebuck Lake and generally Hydro didn’t do nothing all day but eat peach pie.
Just for a second there, Solon thought about pulling out the Luger and putting a bullet in that big old watermelon head, just to see what would happen. Bust that big head of Hydro’s wide open. Then he thought about robbing the place and pistol-whipping the shit out of him and going on about his business.
Solon was disappointed that Hydro was keeping the store tonight. Nobody to show his money roll to. Hydro Raney didn’t know the difference between a thousand dollars and a thousand and one Arabian nights.
Solon said, “Hydro, wipe that shit-eating grin off your face, or I’ll shoot you square in your big ugly head.”
Hydro said, “How come you dressed up like Mr. Dexter?”
Solon said, “Dexter’s out in the car. We gone kill a nigger.”
Hydro said, “You better not, I’ll tell my daddy.”
Solon said, “Gimme a beer, you watermelon-headed motherfucker. Gimme a Pearl.”
Hydro said, “Pearl beer ain’t no good.”
Solon said, “Just gimme one, Hydro. Goddamn.”
Hydro said, “Pearl beer got fish shit in it.”
Solon said, “Hydro, goddamn, man!”
Hydro said, “Pearl beer is made out of water from the Pearl River, got turtle eggs in it.”
Solon said, “You done spoiled my goddurn appetite, Hydro.”
Hydro said, “How come you dressed up like Mr. Dexter?”
Solon said, “I ain’t dressed up like nobody. Gimme a Dixie.”
Hydro said, “Dixie beer ain’t no good.”
Solon said, “Hydro, let me tell you something, boy. Up under this here sports jacket, right here inside my belt, I’m carrying me a pistol, see. And in my side pocket, I got another one, a big one. And so, listen here, Hydro, because it’s important that you know this: if you don’t give me a Dixie beer, right this here minute, without no more conversation, which I guar-awn-tee you I ain’t interested in anyway, I’m going to pull out one of these here pistols and shoot you square in the head with it, now is that clear, Hydro, are you beginning to get my drift?”
Hydro said, “Is it Mr. Dexter’s pistol?”
Solon said, “I give up. Calf rope.”
Hydro said, “Mr. Dexter let me shoot his pistol one time.”
Solon said, “He did? He let a big-headed idiot like you fire this excellent German pistol of his?”
Hydro said, “Yep.”
Solon didn’t know why it irritated him that Hydro Raney had fired the pistol that he had just slipped into his pocket.
He said, “Well, ain’t that something. Wont that nice.”
Hydro said, “I shot a gar. A three-hundred-pound gar.”
Solon said, “Three hundred pounds!”
Hydro said, “Yep.”
Solon said, “That’s a big damn gar.”
Hydro said, “I know. I shot it.”
Solon said, “With the German Luger pistol?”
Hydro said, “Yep.”
Solon said, “You were able to get the gar up out of the water after you shot it and weigh it?”
Hydro said, “It was already out of the water when I shot it. It was hanging on a hook at the fish camp.”
Solon said, “It was hanging on a hook?”
Hydro said, “Yep.”
Solon said, “You shot one of your daddy’s fish, hanging out on the dock?”
Hydro said, “Yep.”
Solon said, “Your daddy caught a fish that big and hung it up and you shot it with a German Luger?”
Hydro said, “Yep.”
Solon said, “Seem like that was kind of dangerous, don’t it?”
Hydro said, “Maybe.”
Solon said, “What did your daddy say about that?”
Hydro said, “He didn’t say nothing.”
Solon said, “He didn’t say nothing?”
Hydro said, “Nope.”
Solon said, “Did he call you a fool?”
Hydro said, “Naw.”
Solon said, “Did he say to go howl at the fire truck? Go chase a car? Did he call you an idiot?”
Hydro said, “Naw.”
Solon said, “Did he say he was going to pistol-whip you?”
Hydro said, “Well, yeah.”
Solon laughed. He said, “Okay, what else did he say?”
Hydro said, “Well—”
Solon said, “What did he say? Was it funny? Did everybody in the fish camp fall out laughing?”
Hydro said, “He said, ‘I love you, my darling son, don’t ever leave me, without you my life has no meaning.’”
A FEW miles away, Uncle and Auntee lay together in their bed and listened to the sad, low music of the rain on the tin roof. The sheets and pillow slips were freshly laundered and dried in the house and ironed with a slab of iron that Auntee heated on the stove.
The pillows were made of pin feathers and down from ducks raised in the yard. The bed was iron and the bed-springs creaked when either one of them moved, even a little bit. There was a clean enamel slop jar beside the bed, just in case somebody had to go during the night, and somebody always did, Uncle always.
Auntee was wearing a homemade cotton-sack nightdress. Uncle, he wasn’t wearing nothing, big old nut-brown man that he was.
Auntee had wound up the clock, but now in the dark it ticked so loud she wished she could throw it out in the swamp. She thought about what Miss Sally Anne had said. Auntee thought maybe she might better call up Bobo’s mama, send Bobo back home on the City of New Orleans a few days early.
The rain kept on drumming. No foxes barked tonight, no scritch owls called from the barn.
Auntee said, “He fed a right smart on that cawn-bread and sweet-tater.” She was talking about Bobo, who had eaten such a big supper.
Uncle said, “He was hongry.”
She said, “He drunk him some sweetmilk, too.”
He said, “He was thirsty.”
Then they lay together for a long time then, and didn’t talk. Just the rain on the roof. Just the last spew and hiss of the little fire in the cookstove.
Auntee thought Uncle might have dropped off to sleep.
She shifted around in the bed, making the springs creak, testing whether he was sleeping. She couldn’t tell.
She said, “Uncle.”
After a few seconds, Uncle said, “Whut.”
She said, “You ain’t sleep, is you?”
He said, “I ain’t sleep.”
She said, “Is Bobo gone be all right?”
Now Uncle shifted in the bed,
and the springs made their friendly sound, like a pine tree in winter.
She turned towards him in the bed and let Uncle hold the coarse cloth of her cotton-sack nightdress against the coarse old silk of his nakedness. Uncle smelled like sweet woodsmoke and green cane. Auntee smelled like hot lard and cornmeal.
Uncle said, “If love would save him, wouldn’t no harm come to him.”
In a little while they were kissing. In a little while longer, they made their slow sweet love.
The iron bed sounded like a pine forest in an ice storm, like a switch track in a Memphis trainyard, like the sweet electrical thunder of habitual love and the tragical history of the constant heart. Auntee finished first, and then Uncle soon after, and their lips were touching lightly as they did.
The rain was still falling and the scritch owl was still asleep and the dragonflies were hidden like jewels somewhere in deep brown wet grasses, nobody knew where.
Uncle rolled away from his wife and held onto her hand, never let it go, old friend, old partner, passionate wife.
Auntee pulled her nightdress back down, mostly to keep the big wet spot on the mattress from her bare butt, and then for a while they only breathed together, side by side, heavy at first, and then not so heavy, and then the comfortable breathing, like sighs, lovers before sleep.
Uncle and Auntee didn’t see any car lights. Solon switched off the lights of the El Camino and rolled the last fifty yards towards the cabin, down the slick dirt road in the dark.
He said, “Is this it?”
Poindexter said, “Yes.”
Rain was still falling. No radio, no Muddy Waters, only the silence of the fields.
Auntee said, “Uncle, did you hear something?”
Uncle said, “Well—”
Auntee said, “Sound like a car.”
Uncle swung his feet off the side of the bed and felt around in the dark for his overalls.
Solon used a handkerchief that he found in the back pocket of Lord Montberclair’s khakis to wipe fog off the inside of the windshield. The gumbo mud beneath the tires was slick as grease, and so he was worried that, in the dark, the El Camino would slide into a ditch.
It didn’t, though. It held the narrow road, along the canebrake, up to the cabin beneath the cottonwood trees.
Uncle and Auntee were both dressed when they heard boots, brogans, clumping up their front steps, onto the porch.
Now Solon started to be mad again. The closer he came, the madder he got. Poindexter was right, now that he thought about it.
If Solon his ownself had to bow and scrape and call a blond-headed slut in a raincoat “Lady this” and her drunken husband “Lord that,” well, why should a little nigger in a felt fedora be allowed to wolf-whistle her and call her “baby.” It wont fair. Solon wondered what kind of pistol-whipping he his ownself would have took in a similar situation.
Uncle and Auntee were standing behind him wringing their hands when Solon pulled Bobo out of the bed by his feet.
Solon said, “Get out of that goddamn bed, boy, you going for a ride.”
Uncle said, “Don’t take him, Mr. Solon. I’d be satisfied if you just gived him a good whuppin.”
Solon wasn’t pointing the Luger. He still held it reversed in his hand, the way he had used it to knock on the door right before he busted in. It hung casually by the side of his leg.
Solon said, “Boy, we going for a ride. Put your pants on.”
Auntee said, “Don’t take him, Mr. Solon.”
Solon was surprised to hear his own name spoken under this foreign roof, a second time now. He looked up at Auntee.
He said, “Did somebody tell you I was coming?”
Uncle said, “It would satisfy me if you would just whup him.”
Auntee said, “Is that all you can say? Is that the onliest words you ever learned to speak in this world?—you’d be satisfied with a whupping?—that’s it?”
Solon said, “Put on some pants.”
He said, “Don’t forget to bring the pitcher of your white girlfriend. I got somebody out in the car might want to take a look at it.”
Poindexter was right about that, too. How come a nigger would be thinking he owned a white girl, carrying her pitcher around in his pocket?
Auntee said, “You ain’t gone shoot him, is you?”
Solon said, “Step back.”
The rain was falling, falling, falling on the tin roof of the cabin. The wind was high in the cane.
Auntee thought hard about what she was going to say next, because if it didn’t work, she would hate herself for the rest of her life. She said it anyway.
She said, “Mr. Solon, would you like to set down a spell, rest your weary bones?”
Auntee’s own Auntee Reena down in Balance Due was a slave-child. Auntee Reena say she don’t know jess how old she is, don’t keep up with it. She say she’s a big girl at the Surrender, all she know. She say she chase along after the Blue soldiers’ horses when they ride in. She say it’s like a parade, that day, so many Blue soldiers.
That’s what Auntee’s Auntee Reena remember. She blind now, she bout half crazy, too, she poke a piece of bloodmeat in a fire ain’t even burning, think she cook it, just ashes is all, eat right out of the cold ashes, think it be done cooked, raw as it can be, bloodmeat, too, she howl like a dog, Law.
Auntee Reena say slave she have to do all manner of things with a man you hate, slave do, jess staying alive. What Auntee got to do ain’t nothing. What Auntee got to do, easy. That’s what Auntee think Auntee Reena would tell her, if Auntee Reena was here right now with some good advice, if Auntee Reena had the sense God give a billygoat.
Auntee said, “Gots some frush coffee on the kitchen stove.”
Auntee was just about to break bread with her grand-baby’s killer. Was, if this didn’t work.
Seem like to Auntee she still just a slave. Just owned by some man. What was all that big Surrender about, all them Blue men on horses, if she still have to be a slave? How do a white man turn blue, anyway? That’s one them things she never will know.
Uncle said, “Set down, Mr. Solon, set yourself down, let me see can I find you a clean cup, wrench one out.”
Auntee said, “They ain’t nothing but clean cups in that kitchen, you old white-headed fool. Wrench one out, nothing.”
Uncle said, “I’ll git it, sho will, you take sugar, Mr. Solon, how do you take your coffee, do you take your coffee sweet?”
Auntee said, “That kitchen is spotless”
Solon said, “Well, I couldn’t stay.”
Auntee poked hurriedly at the fire with an iron poker. Wonder could she ever in this world hit a white man with a poker? Or anybody at all? She set the poker up against the fireplace and pulled up the freshly caned rocker to the hearth.
From the kitchen Uncle said, “Did you say sugar, Mr. Solon?”
Outside, the horn on the El Camino honked.
Solon said, “Let’s go, boy.”
Uncle said, “Got plenty of sugar.”
Solon said, “After we get finished with your boy here, I got some business to take care of with my own family.”
Uncle came back into the room with Solon’s coffee in a heavy cup.
He said, “Do? Well, sah, that’s nice, ain’t it, nice to hear. You’s a family man. I thought you was. Got plans to spend time with your family tonight, is you?”
Solon shifted the two pistols.
He said, “That’s right.”
Auntee sat in another chair, straight-backed. She folded her hands in her lap.
She said, “Family activities, uh-huh.”
Solon said, “They ain’t gone be too active, I don’t reckon.”
She said, “I gots me some cold bread and black strap molasses, if you hongry.”
He said, “Go get in the car. We done had enough chitchat and foot-dragging.”
Auntee said, “Oh, Lawd, oh please don’t do it.”
Uncle said, “Let me give him a whuppin, I’ll give hi
m a whuppin he won’t forget.”
They were down the steps now.
Auntee said, “Oh, Lawd, Mr. Solon, have mercy.”
The rain was still falling. Solon opened the car door and the light came on in the ceiling.
Solon said, “This is the one I was telling you about.”
Poindexter said, “That’s him? That’s the one?”
Solon said, “You looking at him.”
This time it was a fist.
Poindexter said, “Let’s see the picture in your pocket, boy. Let’s see that white girl you say is such a good piece of tail.”
Solon started up the car and pulled away from Uncle and Auntee’s shack.
Poindexter said, “Let’s see it. Let’s see the picture of the white girl you fucked.”
Solon stopped the car on the slick road and left the engine running and switched on the overhead light.
Solon said, “Whoo-ee. They got some good-looking stuff in Chi-car-go, now don’t they, Dexter.”
Poindexter took the wallet and looked carefully at the photo. He looked at Solon. He said, “Do you know who this is?”
Solon said, “She favors somebody I know, seem like.”
Poindexter said, “You goddamn idiot, this is Hedy Lamarr.”
Solon took the wallet and looked carefully at the photograph.
Hedy Lamarr. Solon thought he had heard the name.
Poindexter said, “You fucking white-trash fool. You led me to believe that this was a picture of my wife.”
Solon said, “Watch who you calling a fool, Dexter.”
Poindexter said, “You fucking idiot! That’s Hedy Lamarr. Do you even know who Hedy Lamarr is?”
Solon took the German Luger out of his jacket pocket. He held the barrel in Poindexter’s face.
He said, “Get out.”
Poindexter said, “You deliberately led me to believe that this was a photograph of Sally Anne.”
Solon said, “And it wont. It was some other slut instead. Get out, asshole. This is your only invitation.”
Poindexter watched his El Camino disappear through the rain. He stood in the drenching rain and wanted to die. He started walking back towards his unhappy home, ten miles through the darkness, across the bridge.
BACK AT the cabin, Auntee picked up the nightshirt Bobo had taken off. She shook the wrinkles out of it and looked at it real hard, critical. There was blood on it, from the first time the pistol butt had cracked down on the boy’s head. She folded it and pulled out a basket of dirty clothes and put it on top.