Through a Glass, Darkly

by Charlotte Miller

  They had not been together in the past week, and if she did not get something out of him today then she knew she would have little chance for this month at all—the stupid son-of-a-bitch; he would ruin her plans if he kept this up. He was eager enough to jump anything else that moved, and it made little sense to her that he would not take what she was offering so willingly.

  Cassandra moved toward the heavily framed mirror that hung on a wall near the door, then turned herself sideways to try to imagine what she would look like once she was big with Buddy Eason’s child—she would get that baby from him today no matter what she had to do, she told herself.

  Walt Eason was waiting for his son in the hallway at the foot of the stairs that rose to the second floor of the house. His face was red, and Buddy knew it was more from anger than liquor at his first words.

  “Did you really rape some nigger girl?”

  For a moment Buddy could only stare at him, not believing she had told—she knew what he would do to her. She knew—

  His father’s face flushed even darker. He drew back a fist and slammed it into Buddy’s mouth, and then again, sending him reeling backward into the wall. For a moment Buddy tightened—he would kill his father one day for that. He would kill him—he spat blood onto the cream-colored carpet instead, then wiped the back of one hand across his mouth before he turned and started up the stairs. He could hear his father ascending right behind him.

  “I won’t have you fathering brats all over niggertown—do you hear me!” Walt Eason shouted, only a step behind as they reached the top of the stairs. He shoved at Buddy, almost sending him to his face there on the landing. “Do you hear me!—I won’t have—”

  “You won’t have!” Buddy shouted as he turned back. “You won’t have—I don’t give a damn what you won’t have!” He shoved his father in return, sending him back toward the landing. For a moment he thought Walt Eason would hit him—do it and you’ll die, he thought. Do it and you’ll—

  His father took another swing at him, and Buddy blocked the blow and shoved him away, then again, and his father was grabbing for the banister—

  Walt Eason’s arms flailed and he started down, his back hitting one of the upper risers. There was a sickening thump as his feet came up and hit the wall over his head, and then he was going down, hitting one riser after another, until he finally came to rest at the bottom with a heavy thud.

  Buddy stood there, breathing heavily, feeling nothing, then he started down. Wiping at his mouth and still tasting blood as he reached the bottom, he spat, then knelt by his father—Walt Eason was still breathing. Buddy waited, listening to the rasping sound that came from deep within his father’s chest, hearing it falter, come again, then at last stop altogether.

  After a time he stood, wiping his hands down along the legs of his trousers. He was surprised that he felt little as he stared down at the man lying at his feet, only the overwhelming urge to not be here when someone else found the body—there was something else he had to do instead, he told himself.

  He would scour every part of niggertown this afternoon if he had to, but he would find Esther Tipton, and he would make her wish she had never been born. He would make her—

  Buddy Eason turned for the door, all thoughts of the man lying dead at the foot of the stairs left behind him.

  It took him little time to find her house. It was at the end of a street that stopped at the edge of her yard, with the railroad tracks and a steep hill just behind it. Buddy drove several streets away and left his car parked at the edge of a field where some kids were playing ball, then walked down into the narrow strip of woods that met up with the side of the field, and made his way toward the railroad tracks that ran behind her house. Some part of his mind kept telling him he should be at the mill when they found his father, for that was where the police and his family would expect him to be, but that part was drowned out by the need to make her pay for telling what he had done—he had not made his mind up yet what he would do to her.

  But he did know that she would still be in her house when he burned it after.

  He grabbed a handful of briers as he made his way up the embankment, then cursed aloud as he shook them from his hand. A foot slipped out from under him half way up, sending him to his hands and knees on damp ground to stain his trousers. When he reached the top he stood on the tracks and looked down at her house, seeing in his mind already the fire he would start, the fire that would quickly spread to the trees in the yard and possibly other houses nearby—he was so eager as he started down that he hardly noticed when he slipped and then slid his way mostly toward the bottom. He could hear dogs barking from a pen to one side of the house, but they hardly registered on his mind—she was going to pay for what she had done, he told himself. She was going to pay.

  He had to duck under a clothesline strung across the yard near the house, then he was stepping onto the porch, his eyes on an open and unscreened rear window over which curtains hung—he did not care if anyone else was at home. At least there would be no husband to interfere, for it had been obvious that he had been the first man to have taken her—but any family she had could suffer as well, Buddy told himself.

  She should have been grateful that he had done nothing more than take her the last time.

  He made his way across the porch, then he was squatting at the window and pulling the curtains back, eager to be inside. For a moment he was not certain what he was seeing, then he felt cold metal come to rest against his forehead, and he realized he was staring into the eyes of the woman he had come to find.

  There was no fear on her face as she knelt at the other side of the opening, a big woman filling up the space on the other side, just cold determination as she held a rifle pressed into the flesh between his eyes.

  “You hold them curtains back, white man,” she said, forcing the end of the barrel sharply into his forehead as he started to pull his hands away. “I want t’ be seein’ you good right now.”

  Buddy pulled the curtains back as he stared at her, knotting the material in his hands—he was certain she intended to kill him. He could see it in her eyes.

  Esther Tipton’s hands did not tremble as she moved the gun down slightly to press it into the end of his nose. “I’ll finish you right off if you let go ’a them curtains again,” she said, and he understood exactly what she meant. She stared at him for a moment, then pulled the gun down even with his mouth. “I want you down on your knees, Buddy Eason.”

  But Buddy could only stare at her.

  “Get down on your knees!” she shouted above the sound of the barking dogs, driving the end of the rifle barrel forward into his teeth. Buddy obeyed, afraid to do anything else, then he stared at her. “You ask for God t’ forgive you for what you done t’ me,” she said, her eyes never leaving his, and for a moment Buddy could do nothing but look at her. “I said ask God t’ forgive what you done!” she shouted, and he thought for a moment that she would pull the trigger before he could even speak.

  “Forgive me,” he said, feeling the end of the barrel against his lips as he spoke.

  “Louder,” she said, jabbing the rifle forward.

  “Forgive me—”

  “Say ‘Forgive me, Lord.’”

  “Forgive me, Lord.”

  “For what, white man?”

  “For what I did to you,” he said, staring at her, refusing to take his eyes away. For a moment she was silent.

  “Do you think He forgave you?” she asked him at last, drawing the rifle away.

  “Yes, I do,” Buddy said, seizing on the thought—if she thought that her God had forgiven him, then she would have to let him go. He might know there was no God, but he knew she believed in one; he could well remember her quoting scripture after he finished with her that day. She would let him go, and he would come back later to—

  “Good,” she said, and Buddy was surprised to feel
the gun come up hard alongside his nose again. “God might forgive you, but you better know that I cain’t.” And Buddy suddenly felt his bowels go weak. He stared at her as she forced the gun hard into his teeth. “Open your mouth, white man,” she said. When Buddy only stared at her in response, she forced the gun forward harder. “Open your mouth!”

  Buddy parted his lips to say something, but she forced the gun hard against his teeth again. When he at last opened his mouth she pushed the gun in until he found himself gagging on the end of the barrel.

  “How does it feel t’ know I’m gonna kill you?” she asked him, but Buddy could only stare down the length of the barrel to her. She pressed the gun forward, making him gag again. “It don’t feel too good t’ have somethin’ done t’ you that you can’t stop, does it, white man?” she asked, pulling the gun back slightly only to push it forward again, making him gag once more as it came up against the back of his throat.

  Tears welled up in his eyes as he stared at her—he was going to die right here. He felt the hot flow of urine begin down the inside of one leg, but the thought that he had pissed himself barely registered on his consciousness.

  “Goodbye, white man,” she said, and he felt the gun in his mouth jerk as she pulled back on the trigger—there was a click, but nothing more, and Buddy saw the look of satisfaction that came to her face even as he jerked backwards at what he had thought was the moment of his death.

  The end of the rifle came out of his mouth and he let out a wail, then started to scramble back and away from the window, releasing the curtains even as his mind tried to scream out at him that the gun had not been loaded. He looked back to see one side of the fabric being drawn open, the satisfaction still on her dark face as she leaned out the window.

  “How did it feel, white man?” she yelled after him. “You know what it’s like now—how did it feel?”

  But Buddy could not even look at her. He was suddenly off the porch and running across her yard. He could hear her coming outside, and he was certain that she would have a loaded rifle now—there was a sudden, hard constriction across his windpipe, throwing him backward to the ground, and Buddy thought for a moment that he had been shot—

  Only when he saw the clothesline moving above him did he realize that he had run into the wire. He tried to force himself to his feet, gagging as his lungs fought for air, almost going again to his knees as a wave of lightheadedness hit him. She was at the dog pen now, lifting the wooden bar that held the gate shut, setting the dogs on him with harsh words:

  “Get that piece ’a rotten meat—”

  But he was already running, trying to scramble up the embankment before the dogs could get to him, knowing that he would never make it even before he felt one rip through his trouser leg and graze its teeth against his flesh—then he was at the top and falling down the other side, coming to a stop at last in the brambles at the bottom of the incline.

  Buddy was certain he was alone in the mill office an hour later as he changed from his filthy clothes and into the suit he usually kept hanging in the coat closet there. He had chosen to use his grandfather’s office, leaving the clothes he stripped off in a stinking heap on the floor alongside the old man’s desk as he pulled on his clean trousers and then buttoned up the shirt he kept in the office for times such as these. The building had appeared deserted as he let himself in the back door, the lights out, and that told him that it was likely his father had been found by now—the old man would never have left the mill this early on a Friday afternoon unless something had come up.

  Buddy finished buttoning his shirt and then combed his fingers back through his thick hair, realizing that his hands were no longer shaking. The knot that had been in his stomach was slowly loosening now, turning into a growing rage—the goddamn nigger, he kept telling himself. The goddamn nigger—he wanted her to die slowly for what she had done today. He wanted—but the thought of returning to her house made his hands begin to shake all over again. He could not go back there.

  His grabbed the telephone up from the desk, intending to yank its cord from the wall and shatter the mirror across the room with it to lessen the rage inside of him—then he heard the rear door at the back end of the hallway open and close, and keys jangle in someone’s hand. Buddy waited, thinking it had to be old Nathan, the colored janitor who cleaned the offices at night, for there was no reason for anyone else to be here after the office had closed—then Cassandra Price was standing in the doorway, a set of keys in her hand, keys that Buddy knew she would have stolen, for the old man had refused to allow her a set of her own.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” she said, smiling at him, coming into the room, then surprising him as she turned to close the door after herself as if the two of them were not alone in the building. She walked closer and Buddy only stared at her, wanting to snap her neck for her simple intrusion into the room—then her hands were working at his shirt, unfastening buttons he had just done up. “I’ve been dying to get my hands on you all day,” she said, moving closer against him as she tugged his shirttail up and out of the waist of his trousers.

  Buddy grabbed her by the shoulders and held her away, then watched the fleeting look of fear that passed across her features as he stared down at her, a fleeting look that was quickly replaced by invitation. “Do you want to play it rough, Buddy?” she asked, her hands reaching out to work at his belt even as he held her away. “I’ll play it whatever way you want to—”

  When he struck her he surprised even himself—and then he had slung her backward against the old man’s desk and was coming toward her. He knew that he was hurting her minutes later as he pushed forward, for there was the bound edge of a ledger and even an iron paperweight under her back, but he did not care.

  “That’s what I want, Buddy,” she kept saying, her hands digging into his back. “That’s what I want—”

  Cassandra continued to lie there after he had finished, her eyes on him as he dressed.

  Buddy was surprised to see her smile.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Henry Sanders sat beside his father on a hot Saturday afternoon in the last half of September that year, trying to slide far enough down on the seat of the borrowed Ford truck not to be seen as the rusty vehicle made its way down Main Street. He stared out the window beside him, wishing he were anywhere else on Earth. He had been forced to give up his Saturday morning to help pick the vegetables and fruit that now loaded down the rear of the truck, and now it seemed his pa expected him to give up the afternoon as well, taking Henry along as he peddled tomatoes, beans, sweet potatoes, and melons to the grocers in town.

  Henry watched the people moving about on the sidewalks when the truck slowed as they reached the line of store buildings, then was surprised as they slowed even further still, at last pulling over in an empty space before the glass windows at the front of the drug store. He turned to look at his father as Janson shut the motor off.

  “Why don’t I buy you a Co’-Cola?” Janson asked, surprising Henry so that he did not answer for a moment, for his pa rarely spent money on anything so frivolous as a soda pop.

  Henry followed him into the drug store, then sat on a stool at the soda fountain and watched ice cream being dished up for a girl at the far end of the counter before he and his pa were waited on. He sipped his drink, enjoying the sweet taste and the little bubbles that popped and fizzed on the surface each time he set it down. He watched the soda jerk mix an ice cream soda for someone who had come in just behind them, thinking this had to be the most wonderful place in the world to work—how could anybody ever get paid to work in a place like this, he wondered.

  His father was leaning against the counter beside him, talking to Mr. Patterson, the man who owned the drug store, as he made arrangements to deliver a load of firewood to the man’s house—more money, Henry thought, telling himself that he knew now why his father had brought him here, so he could make arrangements f
or a job they would do on another day.

  Sometimes working and making money seemed to be all his pa ever thought about.

  Henry finished his drink and began to wander about the store, looking into the glass cases at the worlds of things he knew his family would never be able to afford. As he neared the front windows, he was surprised to see that the driver’s-side door of their truck was standing open, and that a man was leaning inside.

  “Hey—” Henry called out, pushing open the door of the drug store and starting out onto the sidewalk. The man straightened from where he had been leaning into the vehicle, and Henry started, for it was the man who had hit Wilson with his car door on Main Street several months before. “You better—”

  But a restraining hand came down on his shoulder, halting his steps there on the sidewalk, and he looked back to find his father now just behind him, Janson Sanders’s eyes on the heavy-set man as well. For a moment Henry started to speak again, but the fingers dug even more firmly into his shoulder, halting his words.

  “I heard you were back in town, you red-nigger,” the man said, shocking Henry as he realized the words were intended for his father. He turned to stare as the man came around the open driver’s door and took a few steps closer to them, stopping in the street just short of the sidewalk. “I thought it was you I saw getting out of this truck—who’d you steal it from, boy? I know a red-nigger like you couldn’t afford to buy even an old piece-of-shit truck like this.”

  Henry started to step forward, opening his mouth to speak, but his father’s fingers dug even more painfully into his shoulder, making him grit his teeth to remain silent—he could not believe his father would not say something, that he would not at least defend himself.