Through a Glass, Darkly

by Charlotte Miller

  “That’s what’s wrong with the niggers now days, people like him making them think they’re good as anybody.” Richard rolled a cigarette on his knee where he sat in a chair near the sofa, not even glancing up as he spoke.

  “Damn right, and I’m not going to let him get away with it.”

  “You going to teach him about waiting on white folks first?” Carl asked, lounging back against the mantel, out of the swirls of cigarette smoke that hung over the area around the sofa where Buddy sat. Carl always seemed to stay back, never sharing their smokes or their tempers. He was always there, Buddy told himself, yet never really a part of their fun—but Buddy trusted him. They had been friends since childhood, when Carl and Richard had stood lookout as Buddy hassled younger children for coins or for the various other contents of children’s pockets—he trusted Carl, and he trusted Richard. If there were ever a time when he could not trust them, he would know, and they would then meet with the temper they had for years coddled and appeased. He knew they liked the money he always had, the nice car and the pretty girls who always hung about, the liquor he never seemed to lack, and the fearful respect he evoked in even the most hardened of Eason County people. They liked the kind of life he afforded them contact with, but they did not like him—and in some way Buddy knew that, but it did not matter. They were companionship, a mirror to himself against the world, and it mattered little what they thought or felt.

  They were nothing anyway, Buddy told himself; they were nothing more than the sons of day bosses from the cotton mill, and he was Buddy Eason—he would someday control much of this county, and then everyone would look up to him as Richard and Carl did now. That day would come, and, until then, these two were always willing to follow, always willing to agree. They looked at him now, expecting him to offer a plan to teach the old grocer a lesson, a diversion to occupy their minds and their hands in this time when the weather was too cold to do much else. “Yeah, I’m gonna teach him, all right,” Buddy said.

  Richard sealed the cigarette he had rolled with the tip of his tongue. “What’re you going to do?”

  Buddy brought his own cigarette to his lips, taking the smoke deeply into his lungs, and releasing it in a swirl into the room. He stared at the smoke, and then beyond it as Richard struck a match to light his own cigarette. As the light flared from the match-end, the sizzle and color caught Buddy’s eye, the beauty of it, and he captured Richard’s wrist in a firm grip, holding it as he stared at the flame, seeing it sputter with the movement of his breath against it.

  He could sense Richard’s alarm, could feel him trying to pull his wrist free, but Buddy held him still, his eyes caught in the light, his other hand, holding his own cigarette between his fingers, going to press Richard’s finger tips together on the match stem to keep him from dropping it as it started to burn down. He could hear Richard’s voice, then Carl’s, calling his name, trying to draw him back, but he could not listen to them, could not—not until the match burned down to Richard’s fingers, making him finally jerk free. Buddy watched with interest and a touch of almost sexual satisfaction as Richard looked first at his burned fingertips before he finally brought his eyes to Buddy.

  Buddy took up another match and lit it, staring at the flame for a moment, feeling both Richard and Carl fade from him as the fire consumed his thought. “I’ll need you both tonight,” he said, though his eyes never left the flame.

  Janson picked through the small pile of wilted vegetables outside the back door of the grocery store that evening just before dusk, finding cabbages, bruised tomatoes, and turnip greens turning dark at the edges—his mouth was set in a grim line. The thought that he would be taking home to his family food gathered from the refuse pile behind the store was not an easy one but one he would live with on this day as he had on others. It seemed such a waste to leave entire boxes of food behind the store to be dumped later, when the boxes often contained food that was still fit to be eaten. He had seen men, women, sometimes entire families, behind this and other groceries in the past months, picking through food that had been put out as garbage. He had never thought himself to be one of those men, feeding his family on what others thought too old, wilted, or bruised to serve—but here he was, taking first choice of what Mr. Brown had put out before anyone else could go through it.

  Fried cabbage would be good when there was so little else on the table, and Henry liked tomatoes, and the turnip greens would make a meal for the entire family; there would even be cornbread if Elise had any meal left in the house. She never asked where he got the food, seeming to prefer not knowing to what she might learn, for there never seemed to be enough to feed the family. Food was the one thing he had always thought there would be plenty of, but now it was a daily struggle just to survive. Mr. Brown had offered a charge to Janson at the store, saying that he and Stan could work off whatever the family might need, but Janson did not want a store charge sitting heavy on his conscience, a bill he might never be able to pay. They bought the few items they could afford and paid the little cash they had and they made do—and he often thought, when he was tired after walking the streets peddling baskets all day long when there was no other work to be had, of what he had brought Elise to in the three years of their marriage. He had given her two children, and a tiny house that was not their own, and a worry over how they would survive—he had promised her better.

  They lost the fall garden when they had been forced to move from the mill house, and the vegetables he had planted there, vegetables they so desperately needed now. His grandparents gave them what they could, his grandmother sending Elise jars of home-canned food she said they would never need, and his grandfather bringing by a ham and bacon from the smokehouse, a ham and bacon that he had said would go to waste if they could not make use of them. There was sometimes fresh game or fish on the table when he could make a catch, eggs when the hens were laying—and, in the past week, the vegetables he took from behind the store. Never enough—but people could throw out food like this without a thought.

  Janson found apples under the cabbages, bruised and cut, but edible—fried apple pies, if there was the flour and sweetening. Elise would like the apples, he thought as he dug them out and began to drop them into the gunny sack he had brought along—there would be food enough on the table for the next couple of days. He could go hunting tomorrow, if there was no work to be had anywhere else. Deer meat would be good along with—

  The back door of the grocery creaked open and Janson looked up to find Mr. Brown staring at him. Janson dropped his sack and looked away—to the pile of food he had been going through—a man, taking home food that had been thrown out as garbage.

  He could not speak; he could only stare at the food, at his sack as the apples and cabbages rolled from it, at the ground—he was less than a man, less than any man should be, less than—

  “You’re welcome to go through it before it’s put out, if you’d like.” Mr. Brown’s voice was kind, and the pity in his eyes a moment before seemed carefully masked as Janson looked at him now. “It’s a waste to throw out so much when most of it is still good food. I’m glad you can use it.”

  “I just—it’s—” What could he say? His pride writhed within him. To gather food from the trash was bad enough, to be caught while doing it was somehow beyond reason.

  “You know, there’s a sack of potatoes up front that looks like it’s just beginning to sprout. I was about to bring it out, but you’re welcome to—”

  “I don’t take no charity,” Janson heard himself say even before he thought, his words harsh even to his own ears. He needed the work this man offered; he needed the food rolling into the dirt from the gunny sack; and he needed the potatoes the man spoke of—his pride was screaming inside of him. He was a man, and a man did not take charity—but he did; he had to. No matter how carefully masked, how gently couched, it was charity—from his grandparents, from the churchfolk, from this man in his invented work.
He took charity to feed his family—he felt shame in the charity, and shame even in the shame he felt. How could he face Elise after this?

  He was aware of a car driving by, a dark Chevrolet slowing as the driver stared at him and Mr. Brown where they stood behind the grocery, and Janson turned away, feeling that the driver of the vehicle saw what he had been doing. A hand came to rest at his shoulder, and he heard the grocer’s voice, a voice that did not offer pity or speak down to someone with less. He brought his eyes back to Mr. Brown and he saw a man much like himself, a man with a wife, and family he had come from, and the shame cooled within him as he stared in the falling darkness into the kind eyes of the grocer. “I’m not offering you charity, Janson. You’re a hard-working man; there are a lot of hard-working men in this country now, a lot with no jobs, no earnings, no food on the table. I’ve been lucky to have this store, lucky to make enough to keep it open, to be able to feed my family—it’s only by the grace of God that we’re not all cold and hungry in these days. I’m not offering you charity, Janson; I’m offering you a sack of potatoes that needs to be put to use. You’ve done good work for me, can’t I offer you something in exchange?”

  “You paid me for my work.”

  “Well, maybe you’re worth more than I paid you—come on in the store and at least look at the potatoes. I can show you some other work that may need doing tomorrow while you’re here; you can just call the potatoes partial payment. Come on in—” He turned and disappeared back through the door as if the matter had already been decided.

  Janson bent and retrieved the apples and cabbages that had rolled from the sack, before he followed the grocer back into the store.

  Mr. Brown sent him away from the store that night not only with his gunny sack of vegetables and the potatoes, but also with a five-pound bag of flour, a five-pound bag of corn meal, and a two-pound bag of sugar—it was not charity, the grocer said, for there were shelves to be put up in the store, and a bad patch of flooring that needed to be replaced in the storeroom. Janson left not only with food he needed for the family, but also with a handshake from the grocer, and, somehow, he realized as he walked toward home in the growing darkness, with his dignity.

  Edgar Brown was in the grocery that night well after his normal closing hour, counting receipts and straightening up in preparation for the next day’s business. He was often in the grocery late, for he loved the work, and was willing to open the store at night, or even on a Sunday, if an emergency arose and someone needed something from his stock.

  On this night, he was happy, glad that he could help Janson Sanders and his family, for he had known the Sanders for many years, as it sometimes seemed to him that he knew most people in the county. He could remember Janson as a boy, a dark-haired little fellow who was always nearby if his father were in town, quiet, with hardly ever a word to say to anybody. Edgar had known Henry Sanders quite well, and had known his wife, Nell, just as he knew Tom and Deborah Sanders—they were good people, hard-working people; stubborn, determined and proud, as were most Southerners. Janson Sanders was a good man, and even good men could run on hard times—there were a lot of people in hard times these days, a lot of people with families to support, and little or no wage coming in.

  Edgar thought over the times in his life when other people had helped him, and he could understand the pride in Janson—a man deserved his pride; a man deserved his self-respect; and a man deserved help when he needed it. The Bible said that God helped those who helped themselves—and, if anybody had ever in his life tried to help himself, Edgar thought, it was Janson. Edgar could not imagine Janson Sanders sitting still, and he could not imagine him not doing everything in his power to support his family and himself—but these times were different than any Edgar had seen. So many people were out of work, so many in situations they had never dreamed to find themselves in—to help one person, one family, in these times was good, but what was needed was work, a wage a man could earn to feed his family.

  There had to be something that could be done, even if it were just for Janson and his family—maybe to buy the well-made baskets Janson wove and put them up for sale in the store, and there were chairs at home that needed to be rebottomed. Mrs. Brown—as he usually thought of his wife—had not had a new dress for quite a while, and Edgar knew that Janson’s wife did handsome work with needle and thread. He might even be able to sell some of her tatting to the ladies in town, as well as some of her knitted goods and other dainties she had made with her hands—he was suddenly annoyed with himself. There were so many things he could be doing, things he had never thought of before, things that might help to alleviate even a little of the growing suffering in the town and county—baked goods he could buy from unemployed ladies or the wives of unemployed workers, things that could be sold in the store, jellies and pickles he could stock on his shelves, food every bit as good as what he bought from his wholesalers, handmade hoe and mattock handles he could sell for men with no other wage coming in. It was remarkable to him now that he had not thought of this before—there were so many things he and the other merchants along Main Street could be doing.

  He locked away the day’s receipts and went to get his hat and coat from the pegs to the left of the doorway. He was tired, and Mrs. Brown would have a good, warm meal waiting at home—bless Mrs. Brown, she was always so patient to keep supper warm for him, no matter how late he might be in the store. She often told him that she had never felt deprived in their not having had children, for she still had him to raise—he smiled to himself; she was a good woman, Mrs. Brown, to have looked after him for the more than thirty years of their marriage.

  He put his hat on his head and started to pull on his coat when he heard a noise from the back of the store. He stopped, his arm only part way into the sleeve, and peered down the dark aisle toward the back of the grocery—there, again, sounding almost like the rusty hinges on the back door that led into the storeroom, then the aged floorboards squeaking under a man’s weight.

  He waited, hearing for a moment no other sound. Was he just getting dotty in his old age, hearing noises that were not there, imaginary ghosts prowling through the deserted store late at night—there, again, and surely that had not been his imagination.

  He hung the coat back on the peg, took his hat from his head and did not notice it fall to the floor as he missed the peg—his eyes were set toward the back of the grocery. There was someone in his store, someone moving about in the storeroom—he moved to the cooling black pot-bellied stove that sat near the counter and took up a piece of wood from the stack that rested in its wood bin. Then, clutching it tight in his hand, he made his way as noiselessly as possible, toward the back of the store. His senses were heightened, each sound now coming almost like a gunshot to his ears, his eyes picking out and fixing on the door that led into the storeroom. He knew every squeaky board in the floor, every obstacle that might trip him, and he maneuvered around them—he’d catch them unawares, the little hooligans who had broken into his store.

  He neared the door to the storeroom, catching the strong smell of gasoline fumes, and his stomach tightened convulsively within him—not thieves, but vandals, vandals in his store, gasoline on the wooden flooring, on the wooden walls. The front of the building was brick and glass, but everything else was wood, wood that would go up in a second and cost him everything.

  Suddenly the door swung inward, catching him off guard, and he looked up into the startled eyes of Buddy Eason. For a moment the two just stared at each other, then an instinct that went beyond thought told the grocer to turn and run—but it was already too late. Buddy was on him, clamping a sweaty hand that reeked strongly of gasoline over his mouth and forcing him backwards. Edgar could feel himself losing his footing, stumbling, being pushed, starting to fall—then his head hit the shelf behind him so hard that the wood cracked with the force of the blow.

  There was no pain, just a sudden not knowing, and Edgar Brown sank to th
e floor at Buddy’s feet.

  There was a silence as three young men looked at each other in the gloom of the rear of the store. Perspiration stood out on Buddy’s upper lip and over his cheeks as Carl knelt beside the grocer.

  “He’s just out, ain’t he?” Richard asked from where he stood nearby, then looked as if all the breath had been knocked out of him as Carl stumbled back, away from the man lying on the floor, his eyes wide and a shocked and frightened look on his face.

  “He’s dead—oh, God—he’s dead!” Carl moved back until he was against the wall near the door they had come through. His eyes were large in the dim light, and he was shaking as he stared at Buddy. “He’s dead, Buddy. He’s really dead—”

  “He just hit his head—he’ll be okay—” Buddy said, but did not even look at the grocer as Richard moved to check the body.

  Richard straightened only a moment later, wiping his hands on his pants legs, a panicky look on his face as well. “He’s really dead. You killed him—”

  “Oh—God—” Carl clutched at his stomach, tears starting down his cheeks, and Buddy had the sudden and horrible knowledge that the other man was going to be sick only a moment before Carl turned away and retched onto the floorboards of the store. “Oh—God—no—”

  “Shut up!” Buddy snapped. He had to think. “It was an accident—you both saw it. It was only—”

  “They won’t believe it—us here, the gas and all—” At least Richard was keeping his head, while Carl stood by crying, staring at the man on the floor—useless, absolutely useless.