A Long Day in November

by Ernest J. Gaines

  “Mama, don’t,” Mama says. “He might hurt himself.”

  “Good,” Gran’mon says. “Save me the trouble of doing it for him.”

  Mama runs to the wall. “Eddie, run,” she screams. “Mama got the shotgun.”

  I hear Daddy going down the steps. I hear Spot running after him barking. Gran’mon knocks the door open with the gun barrel and shoot. I hear Daddy hollering.

  “Mama, you didn’t?” Mama says.

  “I shot two miles over that nigger’s head,” Gran’mon says. “Long-legged coward.”

  We all run out on the gallery, and I see Daddy out in the road crying. I can see the people coming out on the galleries. They looking at us and they looking at Daddy. Daddy’s standing out in the road crying.

  “Boy, I would’ve like to seen old Eddie getting out of this yard,” Uncle Al says.

  Daddy’s walking up and down the road in front of the house, and he’s crying.

  “Let’s go back inside,” Gran’mon says. “We won’t be bothered with him for a while.”

  It’s cold, and we all go back to the fire. Mama starts crying and goes back in the kitchen, and Mr. Freddie Jackson goes back there, too. Gran’mon’s in Uncle Al’s room putting up the gun, and I can hear her singing round there. She comes back in this side singing. She looks at the front door again, but she goes back in the kitchen where Mama and Mr. Freddie Jackson’s at. I hear Mr. Freddie Jackson talking. Mama ain’t saying nothing; she’s still crying.

  “Gran’mon shot Daddy?” I ask Uncle Al.

  “Just scared him little bit,” Uncle Al says.

  Uncle Al pulls me between his knees. I look at the fire.

  “Like your daddy, don’t you?” Uncle Al says.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Your daddy’s all right,” Uncle Al says. “Little foolish when it comes to cars, but he’s all right.”

  “I don’t like Mr. Freddie Jackson,” I say.

  “How come?” Uncle Al says.

  “I don’t like for him to stand close to my mama,” I say.

  “Every time I look, he trying to stand close to my mama. My daddy suppose to stand close to my mama.”

  “You want go back home and be with your daddy?” Uncle Al asks.

  “Uh-huh,” I say. “But me and Mama go’n stay here now. I’m go’n sleep with you.”

  “But you rather go home and sleep in your own bed, huh?”

  “Yes,” I say. “I pull the cover ’way over my head. I like to sleep under the cover.”

  “You sleep like that all the time?” Uncle Al asks.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Even in the summertime, too?” Uncle Al says.

  “Uh-huh,” I say.

  “Don’t you ever get too warm?” Uncle Al says.

  “Uh-uh,” I say. “I feel good ’way under there.”

  Uncle Al rubs my head and I look down in the fire.

  “Y’all come on in the kitchen and eat,” Gran’mon calls.

  Me and Uncle Al go back in the kitchen, and I see Mama and Mr. Freddie Jackson sitting at the table. Mama’s got her head bowed. She raises her head and looks at me. I can see where she’s been crying. She gets up from the table.

  “You ate nothing all day,” Gran’mon says. “Ain’t you go’n eat?”

  “I’m not hungry,” Mama says.

  “That’s right, starve yourself,” Gran’mon says. “See if that yellow thing out there care. Freddie?”

  “I ate just ’fore I came over,” he says.

  They go in the front to sit at the fire. Gran’mon brings me and Uncle Al’s food to the table. Uncle Al looks at me and we bow us heads.

  “Thank Thee, Father, for this food Thou has given us,” Uncle Al says.

  I raise my head and start eating. We having spaghetti for dinner. I pick up a string of spaghetti and suck it up in my mouth. I make it go loo-loo-loo-loo-loo-loo-loop. Uncle Al looks at me and laugh. I do it again, and Uncle Al laughs again.

  “Don’t play with my food,” Gran’mon says. “Eat it right.”

  Gran’mon is standing ’side the stove looking at me. I don’t like old Gran’mon. Shooting at my daddy—I don’t like her.

  “Taste good?” Uncle Al asks.

  “Uh-huh,” I say.

  Uncle Al winks at me and wraps his spaghetti on his fork and sticks it in his mouth. I try to wrap mine on my fork, but it keeps falling off. I can just pick up one at a time.

  Gran’mon starts singing her song again. She fools round the stove a little while, and then she goes in the front room. I get a string of spaghetti and suck it up in my mouth. When I hear her coming back, I stop and eat right.

  “Still out there,” she says. “Sitting on that ditch bank crying like a baby. Let him cry. But he better not come back in this yard.”

  Gran’mon goes over to the stove and sticks a piece of wood in the fire. She starts singing again:Oh, I’ll be there,

  I’ll be there,

  When the roll is called in Heaven, I’ll be there.

  When Uncle Al finish eating, he gets himself a cup of coffee. Then he comes back to the table and sits down. He takes a good swallow of coffee and says, “Ahhhh. Want some?”

  “I done told you before I don’t want you giving that boy that coffee,” Gran’mon says.

  “I want poo-poo, Uncle Al,” I say.

  “Put your coat on,” he says.

  I go in the front room to get my coat, and I see Mama and Mr. Freddie Jackson sitting at the fireplace warming. I go back in the kitchen so Uncle Al can button my coat up for me. Then I go back in the front room again. Mama looks at me and ask me where I’m going.

  “Toilet,” I say.

  “When you finish, you come on back in here,” she says.

  I go out on the gallery, and I see Daddy sitting on the ditch bank’side the road. I don’t say nothing to Daddy, I go on round the house. The grass is dry like hay. There ain’t a leaf in that pecan tree—but I see a bird up there, and the wind ’s moving the bird’s feathers. I bet you that little bird’s some cold. I’m glad I’m not a bird. No daddy, no mama—I’m glad I’m not a bird.

  I go in the toilet and look around, but I don’t see no frogs or nothing. I get up on the seat and pull down my pants, then I squat over the hole. I can feel the wind coming up through the hole on me and I hurry up before I get too cold.

  When I finish my poo-poo, I use a piece of paper out the catalog. Then I jump down off the seat and spit down in the hole the way I see Daddy do. I look up at the top for some spiders, but I don’t see none. We got two spiders in us toilet at home. Gran’mon must be done killed all her spiders with Flit.

  I push the door open and go back to the house. When I come round the gallery I see Daddy standing at the gate looking in the yard. He sees me.

  “Sonny?” he calls.

  “Hanh?”

  “Come here, baby,” he says.

  I look toward the door, but I don’t see nobody and I go to the gate where Daddy is. Daddy pushes the gate open and grabs me and hugs me to him.

  “You still love your daddy, Sonny?” he asks.

  “Uh-huh,” I say.

  Daddy hugs me and kisses me on the face.

  “I love my baby,” he says. “I love my baby. Where your mama?”

  “Sitting at the fireplace warming,” I say. “Mr. Freddie Jackson sitting there warming, too.”

  Daddy pushes me away real quickly and looks in my face.

  “Who else sitting there warming?” he asks. “Who?”

  “Just them,” I say. “Uncle Al’s drinking coffee at the table. Gran’mon’s standing ’side the stove warming.”

  Daddy looks toward the house.

  “This the last straw,” he says. “I’m turning your Gran’mon in this minute. And you go’n be my witness. Come on.”

  “Where we going?” I ask.

  “To that preacher’s house,” Daddy says. “And if he can’t help me, I’m going back in the field to Madame Toussaint.”

 
; Daddy grabs my hand and me and him go up the quarter. I can see all the children going back to school.

  “Step it up, Sonny,” Daddy says.

  “I’m coming fast as I can,” I say.

  “I’ll see about that,” Daddy says. “I’ll see about that.”

  When me and Daddy get to Reverend Simmons’s house, we go up on the gallery and Daddy knocks on the door. Mrs. Carey comes to the door to see what we want.

  “Mrs. Carey, is the Reverend in?” Daddy asks.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Carey says. “Come on in.”

  Me and Daddy go inside and I see Reverend Simmons sitting at the fireplace. Reverend Simmons got on his eyeglasses and he’s reading the Bible. He turns and looks at us when we come in. He takes off his glasses like he can’t see us too good with them on, and he looks at us again. Mrs. Carey goes back in the kitchen, and me and Daddy go over to the fireplace. “Good evening, Reverend,” Daddy says.

  “Good evening,” Reverend Simmons says. “Hi, Sonny.”

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Reverend, I hate busting in on you like this, but I need your help,” Daddy says. “Reverend, Amy done left me and her mama got her down at her house with another man and—”

  “Now, calm down a second,” Reverend Simmons says. He looks toward the kitchen. “Carey, bring Mr. Howard and Sonny a chair.”

  Mrs. Carey brings the chairs and goes right on back in the kitchen again. Daddy turns his chair so he can be facing Reverend Simmons.

  “I come in pretty late last night ’cause my car broke down on me and I had to walk all the way—from the other side of Morgan up there,” Daddy says. “When I get home, me and Amy get in a little squabble. This morning we squabble again, but I don’t think too much of it. You know a man and a woman go’n have their little squabbles every once in a while. I go to work in the field. Work like a dog. Cutting cane right and left—trying to make up lost time I spent at the house this morning. When I come home for dinner—hungry’s a dog—my wife, neither my boy, is there. No dinner—and I’m hungry’s a dog. I go in the front room and all their clothes gone. Lord, I almost go crazy. I don’t know what to do. I run out the house because I think she still mad at me and done gone down to her mama. I go down there and ask for her, and first thing I know here come Mama Rachel shooting at me with Uncle Al’s shotgun.”

  “I can’t believe that,” Reverend Simmons says.

  “If I’m telling a lie, I hope to never rise from this chair,” Daddy says. “And I reckon she would’ve got me if I wasn’t moving fast.”

  “That don’t sound like Sister Rachel,” Reverend Simmons says.

  “Sound like her or don’t sound like her, she did it,” Daddy says. “Sonny right over there. He seen every bit of it. Ask him.”

  Reverend Simmons looks at me, but he don’t ask me nothing. He just clicks his tongue and shakes his head.

  “That don’t sound like Sister Rachel,” he says. “But if you say that’s what she did, I’ll go down there and talk to her.”

  “And that ain’t all,” Daddy says.

  Reverend Simmons waits for Daddy to go on.

  “She got Freddie Jackson in there with Amy, too,” Daddy says.

  Reverend Simmons looks at me and Daddy, then he goes over and gets his coat and hat from against the wall. Reverend Simmons’s coat is long and black. His hat is big like a cowboy’s hat.

  “I’ll be down the quarter, Carey,” he tells Mrs. Simmons. “Be back quick as I can.”

  We go out of the house and Daddy holds my hand. Me and him and Reverend Simmons go out in the road and head on back down the quarter.

  “Reverend Simmons, I want my wife back,” Daddy says. “A man can’t live by himself in this world. It too cold and cruel.”

  Reverend Simmons don’t say nothing to Daddy. He starts humming a little song to himself. Reverend Simmons is big and he can walk fast. He takes big old long steps and me and Daddy got to walk fast to keep up with him. I got to run because Daddy’s got my hand.

  We get to Gran’mon’s house and Reverend Simmons pushes the gate open and goes in the yard.

  “Me and Sonny’ll stay out here,” Daddy says.

  “I’m cold, Daddy,” I say.

  “I’ll build a fire,” Daddy says. “You want me build me and you a little fire?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Help me get some sticks, then,” Daddy says.

  Me and Daddy get some grass and weeds and Daddy finds a big chunk of dry wood. We pile it all up and Daddy gets a match out his pocket and lights the fire.

  “Feel better?” he says.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “How come you not in school this evening?” Daddy asks.

  “I wee-weed on myself,” I say.

  I tell Daddy because I know Daddy ain’t go’n whip me.

  “You peed on yourself at school?” Daddy asks. “Sonny, I thought you was a big boy. That’s something little babies do.”

  “Miss Hebert want see you and Mama,” I say.

  “I don’t have time to see nobody now,” Daddy says. “I got my own troubles. I just hope that preacher in there can do something.”

  I look up at Daddy, but he’s looking down in the fire.

  “Sonny?” I hear Mama calling me.

  I turn and I see Mama and all of them standing out there on the gallery.

  “Hanh?” I answer.

  “Come in here before you catch a death of cold,” Mama says.

  Daddy goes to the fence and looks across the pickets at Mama.

  “Amy,” he says, “please come home. I swear I ain’t go’n do it no more.”

  “Sonny, you hear me talking to you?” Mama calls.

  “I ain’t go’n catch cold,” I say. “We got a fire. I’m warm.”

  “Amy, please come home,” Daddy says. “Please, honey. I forgive you. I forgive Mama. I forgive everybody. Just come home.”

  I look at Mama and Reverend Simmons talking on the gallery. The others ain’t talking; they just standing there looking out in the road at me and Daddy. Reverend Simmons comes out the yard and over to the fire. Daddy comes to the fire where me and Reverend Simmons is. He looks at Reverend Simmons but Reverend Simmons won’t look back at him.

  “Well, Reverend?” Daddy says.

  “She say she tired of you and that car,” Reverend Simmons says.

  Daddy falls down on the ground and cries.

  “A man just can’t live by himself in this cold, cruel world,” he says. “He got to have a woman to stand by him. He just can’t make it by himself. God, help me.”

  “Be strong, man,” Reverend Simmons says.

  “I can’t be strong with my wife in there and me out here,” Daddy says. “I need my wife.”

  “Well, you go’n have to straighten that out the best way you can,” Reverend Simmons says. “And I talked to Sister Rachel. She said she didn’t shoot to hurt you. She just shot to kind of scare you away.”

  “She didn’t shoot to hurt me?” Daddy says. “And I reckon them things was jelly beans I heard zooming three inches over my head?”

  “She said she didn’t shoot to hurt you,” Reverend Simmons says. He holds his hands over the fire. “This fire’s good, but I got to get back up the quarter. Got to get my wood for tonight. I’ll see you people later. And I hope everything comes out all right.”

  “Reverend, you sure you can’t do nothing?” Daddy asks.

  “I tried, son,” Reverend Simmons says. “Now we’ll leave it in God’s hand.”

  “But I want my wife back now,” Daddy says. “God take so long to—”

  “Mr. Howard, that’s blasphemous,” Reverend Simmons says.

  “I don’t want blaspheme Him,” Daddy says. “But I’m in a mess. I’m in a big mess. I want my wife.”

  “I’d suggest you kneel down sometime,” Reverend Simmons says. “That always helps in a family.”

  Reverend Simmons looks at me like he’s feeling sorry for me, then he goes on back up the quarter. I can see
his coattail hitting him round the knees.

  “You coming in this yard, Sonny?” Mama calls.

  “I’m with Daddy,” I say.

  Mama goes back in the house, and Gran’mon and them follow her.

  “When you want one of them preachers to do something for you, they can’t do a doggone thing,” Daddy says. “Nothing but stand up in that church-house and preach ’bout Heaven. I hate to go to that old hoo-doo woman, but I reckon there ain’t nothing else I can do. You want go back there with me, Sonny?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Come on,” Daddy says.

  Daddy takes my hand and me and him leave the fire. When I get ’way down the quarter, I look back and see the fire still burning. We cross the railroad tracks and I can see the people cutting cane. They got plenty cane all on the ground.

  “Get me piece of cane, Daddy,” I say.

  “Sonny, please,” Daddy says. “I’m thinking.”

  “I want piece of two-ninety,” I say.

  Daddy turns my hand loose and jumps over the ditch. He finds a piece of two-ninety and jumps back over. Daddy takes out a little pocketknife and peels the cane. He gives me a round and he cut him off a round and chew it. I like two-ninety cane because it’s soft and sweet and got plenty juice in it.

  “I want another piece,” I say.

  Daddy cuts off another round and hands it to me.

  “I’ll be glad when you big enough to peel your own cane,” he says.

  “I can peel my own cane now,” I say.

  Daddy breaks off three joints and hands it to me.

  I peel the cane with my teeth. Two-ninety cane is soft and it’s easy to peel.

  Me and Daddy go round the bend, and then I can see Madame Toussaint’s house. Madame Toussaint’s got a’ old house, and look like it want to fall down any minute. I’m scared of Madame Toussaint. Billy Joe Martin say Madame Toussaint’s a witch, and he say one time he seen Madame Toussaint riding a broom.

  Daddy pulls Madame Toussaint’s little old broken-down gate open and we go in the yard. Me and Daddy go far as the steps, but we don’t go up on the gallery. Madame Toussaint’s got plenty trees round her house, little trees and big trees. And she got plenty moss hanging on every tree. I see a pecan over there on the ground but I’m scared to go and pick it up. Madame Toussaint’ll put a bad mark on me and I’ll turn to a frog or something. I let Madame Toussaint’s little old pecan stay right where it is. And I go up to Daddy and let him hold my hand.