The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman

by Ernest J. Gaines

  “Come here and sit down,” he said.

  “I want you to leave, and I want you to leave now,” she said.

  “Come here and sit down, Mary Agnes,” he said.

  The door was still open; she went to the bed where he was. He took her hands and pulled her down side him. His face was red and swole; his hands burning up. She could tell he had drank too much. She knowed he wouldn’t be doing this if he hadn’t. He told her he had talked to Jimmy Caya about her; had told him how much he loved her. She started shaking her head again.

  “I had to tell somebody,” he said.

  She shook her head.

  “He said you was a nigger,” he said. “I was suppose to look at you like you look at a nigger. Do to you what you suppose to do to a nigger. You’re not a nigger, are you, Mary Agnes?”

  She said she could tell he had drank too much. Now she thought he was losing his mind.

  “Jimmy is right,” she said to him. But she said it quiet. The way you talk to a child.

  “Don’t say that,” he screamed at her. But the next second he was quiet, too quiet. “Don’t say that. Don’t say that.”

  “Go home, Robert,” she told him. She said it quiet, too. Like you talk to a child.

  “I want you in the car,” he said.

  “I can’t get in that car, Robert,” she said. “Don’t you know that?” She was talking to him like you talk to a child. “That’s why you never asked me to get in there before, Robert. That’s why you never asked me to get on the horse with you.”

  “I want you in the car now,” he said.

  “I want you to leave, Robert,” she said, quiet. Just like you talk to a child.

  “You don’t understand,” he said. “I don’t have no place to go. That’s why I hit him. That’s why I left that house. I don’t have no where to go—but to your bosom. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

  “We can’t have nothing together, Robert,” she told him.

  “If you say yes,” he said. “That’s all you got to say.”

  “I can’t say that,” she said.

  She got up and started packing her suitcase. He just sat there watching her—his mind, she said, far, far off. Then he noticed her.

  “Where you think you’re going, Mary Agnes?” he asked.

  “New Orleans,” she said.

  “You’re not leaving from here, Mary Agnes,” he said. “I don’t have nothing if you go.”

  She went on packing. When she got through she picked up the suitcase and turned toward the door. He was standing there now. She came toward the door. Still didn’t think he could do her anything—too decent for that.

  Clamp Brown was headed to the front in his black raincoat and his rubber boots. Going to Baton Rouge to see that Ricard girl. But he wasn’t thinking about her right now, he was thinking about Miss LeFabre. He liked to be with Miss LeFabre even if he didn’t feel too comfortable with her all the time. She was a quiet, beautiful lady. She had a good quiet smile; a smile, like she didn’t want to smile, but she had to at the crazy things that went on round her all the time. She talked nice and quiet and talked to anybody. He liked to travel on the bus far as Baton Rouge with her. He didn’t feel too good sitting right there side her all the time, but she always made you feel just a little bit better than you thought you could feel ’round a teacher. He had told her about Louise Ricard and she had even written couple letters for him. That’s why he looked for her every Friday evening.

  Clamp said he saw Tee Bob running out my yard. Running and stumbling. He had seen the car from way down the quarters, but he thought it was just somebody visiting me. That’s why he didn’t recognize Tee Bob at first. That’s why he thought it was Joe Scott’s boy, Lester. He knowed Lester had tried to court the girl and I had run him way from there before. He hollered: “Lester? Hey, boy, Miss Jane after you?” Tee Bob kept running and stumbling. Then he clambed through the fence and ran ’cross Samson yard. Now Clamp knowed it wasn’t Lester. He recognized the car now, and he knowed it was Tee Bob. But what was Tee Bob running from? Even if he had killed somebody, and he had done it here at Samson, he wouldn’t need to run. Clamp went by the car to get a better look. He wanted to make sure it was Tee Bob. Not that he was go’n ever say nothing ’bout it. He just wanted to make sure it was Tee Bob, because he still couldn’t see no reason for Tee Bob to run from nothing here on the place. After Tee Bob had gone behind the trees in Samson yard, Clamp looked toward my house again. Mary Agnes door was still wide open.

  Clamp started calling Mary Agnes from out there in the road. Not loud. Even if she was standing in the door and wasn’t looking straight at him she wouldn’t ’a’ heard a word he was saying. He was standing out there in the road calling her the way you call somebody in a dark room when you know you scared.

  When she didn’t answer him, he came in the yard. He told her he knowed he had no business in that yard, with that Samson car parked before the gate and Tee Bob running away from that house. Not just in the yard, but he had no business even passing by here this time of day. If he had to see Louise Ricard he should ’a’ took that back road or walked that railroad track till he got to Morgan and waved that bus down from back there.

  He came up on the gallery, looking at her door; but he went to my door and knocked, calling my name. Her he wanted, her door wide open, mine shut tight, but he knocked on my door, calling my name. “Miss Jane? Miss Jane? You in there, Miss Jane?” Calling me like somebody in a dark room knowing all the time he was scared.

  When I didn’t answer him, he looked toward her door, but he knocked on my door again. This time he called her name. No louder than he had called it out there in the road, no louder than he had called my name; but her name, now; knocking on my door. She didn’t answer him. Now he went toward the door, knocking quiet long the wall, calling her name. When he got to the door it was so dark in the room he had time to call her name two more times before he saw her laying there on the floor.

  He turned and screamed, “Ida? Ida? Ida?” He fell when he jumped off the gallery. He got up running toward Joe Simon’s house still calling Ida. Joe said he heard Clamp calling his wife’s name before Clamp reached the gate, so he was already on the gallery when Clamp ran in the yard. He said Clamp slipped and almost fell just before he reached the gallery, and he said to himself, “That fool go’n break his neck before he tell me what he’s running from.”

  “Tell Ida run,” Clamp said.

  “For what?” Joe Simon said.

  “That girl been ravished,” he said.

  “Bea in here,” Joe said. “What girl?”

  “Not Bea,” Clamp said. “The teacher. I think it was—”

  Joe Simon said he had seen that car parked in front of my door while Clamp was still running in the yard, so now he stopped him.

  “And Ida go’n get in that?” he said. “Get away from here. I don’t even know you said it. And if I was you I’d go on to Baton Rouge and play like I didn’t say it, either.”

  “I’m going,” Ida said, behind him.

  “You ain’t going nowhere,” Joe said. “I’m the man of this house. If he hadn’t done it, somebody else had to do it. Playing like she Miss high-class.”

  “Come on, Clamp,” Ida said.

  “You don’t hear good?” Joe Simon said. “I told you to stay here.”

  “Go tell that house,” Ida said.

  “Not me,” Clamp said. “I done told enough people.”

  “Tell Miss Jane,” Ida said. “Knock on that back door, she sitting back there in the kitchen. Let her tell them.”

  “Can’t one of them children go?” Clamp said. “Put a raincoat on Jocko. He can use mine. Here, Jocko. Run.”

  “You going,” Ida said. “She ain’t never wrote no love letter for Jocko.”

  “And I’ll skin him if she do,” Joe Simon said.

  “Come on here, Clamp,” Ida said.

  Ida said when she got back to my house she had to stand in the door till her eyes got use
d to the dark. Then she saw the girl on the floor. She wasn’t moving or making a sound, and Ida thought she might be dead. But after she went in and knelt down side her she saw her crying. Ida called her, but she wouldn’t answer. Ida said she called again; she still wouldn’t answer. Just laying there crying quiet—her head turned toward the wall. Ida put her arms round the girl and helped her to the bed. She said after she had pulled the covers up over her, something made her look toward the door again. Clamp was still there. That raincoat dripping water just inside the room.

  “You been already?” she asked him.

  “I want Jocko to go with me.”

  That’s when Ida screamed. She said she knowed she had no business screaming, with that girl laying there hurt. But what else could she do, when she was doing all she could, and still couldn’t get men like Clamp and her husband to understand.

  “Just once,” she screamed. Then she said it quiet—pleading with him. “Just once. Lord, just once before I die.”

  He moved back—scared of her now. But still he didn’t leave. Just out of the door so she couldn’t see him—but she knowed he was still out there. Out there in that wind and rain, looking up and down the quarters for somebody to go with him to Samson house.

  Samson House

  I was sitting in the kitchen having a cup of coffee with Jules Raynard when Tee Bob came back to that house. Like I have said, Jules Raynard was Tee Bob’s parrain. Big man with snow-white hair and a red red face. Breathe loud all the time. Since I knowed him, and that had been years and years, always had that problem breathing. Me and Jules Raynard talked every time he came to that house. Sometimes just the two of us at that house, sitting back there in the kitchen drinking coffee and talking. No, not sitting at the table at the same time. He always let me sit at the table and he sat in a chair by the door. Or if it was cold I might sit in a chair by the stove and he would sit at the table. That day I was sitting at the table with my coffee, he was over by the icebox with his cup.

  Ethel came back there and told me Tee Bob had run in the house wet and locked himself up in the library. After she went back to the front I felt Jules Raynard looking at me. He had been talking about Tee Bob and the girl just a few minutes before that. He said about a week ago he had spoke to Tee Bob about Mary Agnes. Like everybody else ’round there he knowed Tee Bob had been seeing the girl a lot, and he asked him what it meant. Tee Bob wouldn’t answer him. He said he told Tee Bob from looks the girl could easily pass for white. She was beautiful, and any man in his right mind could fall in love with her, and many of them probably was. But the girl wasn’t white, he told Tee Bob, and love for her, at least in the open, was impossible. Jules Raynard said that to me just minutes before Ethel came back in the kitchen. After she went back to the front I could feel him looking at me again.

  “Did that car come back?” he said.

  “I didn’t hear it.”

  He probably would ’a’ got up and looked out the door, but every move Jules Raynard made was an effort on his part. He sat there and sipped from his coffee.

  Ethel came back a little while later.

  “Still in there,” she said. “Knock, knock. But he won’t answer.”

  “What’s the rest of them doing up there?” Jules asked her.

  “Making like nothing’s going on,” Ethel said.

  “Anything going on?” Jules asked her.

  “I ain’t got nothing do with it,” Ethel said. “Just say he come here wet and locked himself up.”

  She filled up the glasses and took them back to the front. Jules watched her till she had gone in the other room, then he looked at me. But neither of us had anything to say.

  Ethel came back again. Looking at me, shaking her head. Because she was looking at me, not at Jules, he wasn’t suppose to be able to see her. “Won’t answer,” she whispered.

  She took a tray of sandwiches to the front. Soon as everybody had got one she came back.

  “I don’t like this,” she said. She wasn’t talking to me, now, she was talking to herself.

  “Go home then,” Jules said.

  “Raining too hard out there,” she said.

  “Then shut up,” he said.

  She went back to the front. But I knowed she hadn’t gone all the way. She was standing in the hall between the kitchen and the parlor.

  Jules looked toward the screen door and raised his head like he was listening to something. Then he turned his head toward the hall.

  “Say there, gal?” he said.

  Ethel came back in the kitchen. “Yes, sir?”

  “Peep out that door there.”

  Ethel went to the door and cracked it open, and I could feel the chill come in.

  “Clamp out there hollering,” she said. She hollered back: “What you want?”

  With that door open, I could hear him now. “Hoa, Miss Jane? Hoa, Miss Jane?”

  “What you want, Clamp?” Ethel hollered.

  “Hoa, Miss Jane?” he hollered. “Hoa, Miss Jane?”

  “Talking to that loon like talking to that rain,” Ethel said. “What you want, Clamp?”

  “Tell Miss Jane come see.”

  “Tell him come in here,” Jules said.

  “Miss Jane say you must think she crazy coming out there in all that rain. Say you come in here.”

  I heard him coming up the steps and I heard him scraping his boots on the back gallery and kicking the mud on the ground. He knocked.

  “Now, what you knocking for, loon?” Ethel said. “Can’t you see I’m holding this door open?”

  “Miss Jane in there?” he asked.

  “Sitting at that table.”

  “Tell her come see.”

  “Boy, come on in here,” Ethel said.

  He came in with that rubber hat in his hand. His raincoat and them boots shining wet. He looked at Jules sitting over there by the icebox and I could see he was scared. He turned to me with his back to Jules, but he still didn’t say nothing.

  “Speak, boy,” Jules said.

  “That girl,” Clamp said to me. “Been ravished.”

  “What girl?” Jules said. “Speak, boy.”

  But we all knowed what girl before Clamp said it. Ethel screamed. Jules told her to be quiet. I got up. I was coming home to look after the girl, but Jules told me to find Miss Amma Dean and be careful what I said.

  When I came to the front, they was all standing there with them glasses and sandwiches. Trying to act like nothing was going on—but you felt it the moment you came in that room. Miss Amma Dean was standing near the library. Maybe she had just knocked, maybe she was just getting ready to knock again. When I spoke to her she jecked around like she expected bad news.

  “Kitchen,” I said.

  Any other, time she would ’a’ said, “Kitchen for what?” but she didn’t say a word. She moved so fast I couldn’t keep up with her.

  I heard Jules saying: “That door still locked?”

  I don’t think she answered him. I know she was looking at Clamp when I got back there. Clamp was standing there with that water dripping off that raincoat down on the floor. He was trying to hide the water behind him, but no matter where he moved it dripped some more. She didn’t ask Clamp why he was there, she knowed he was the one who had brought word. She turned to go back to the front, but Robert was already headed back that way. They looked at each other, then he moved to the door and looked at Clamp. Clamp wanted to hide that water now for sure.

  “Get him out of there,” Jules said to Robert.

  Robert didn’t look at Jules, he was still looking at Clamp. But he didn’t say a word. Looking like he was trying to get things together for himself. Then he whirled—Miss Amma Dean no more than a step behind him. Even in the hall, before she even got to the parlor, she was calling Tee Bob: “Robert? Robert? Robert?”

  I went to get my coat, but Jules stopped me again.

  “Nothing you can do down there,” he said. “Somebody see you leaving and figure what happen, this whole thi
ng can blow up.”

  “Anybody down there with her?” I asked Clamp.

  “Ida,” he said.

  “Anybody else know?”

  “Joe and them children,” he said.

  “Nobody else?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  We could hear Robert beating on the library door and calling Tee Bob. Then we could hear him beating louder and cussing. Then it would get quiet a second while he listened. In the time he was listening, we could hear Miss Amma Dean calling quietly.

  “Go find that axe,” Jules said to Clamp. “And you stay here,” he said to Ethel. “Run out of here screaming and this whole thing blow up. And you, too,” he said to me. “Go find that axe,” he said to Clamp. “Go get in a corner somewhere,” he said to Ethel. “Just don’t run out of here.”

  He went out of the kitchen breathing hard. He hadn’t got half way up the hall before Ethel and Clamp shot out of there, headed for home. I started to follow them, because I thought that girl might need me. But Clamp said Ida was there, and I figured she could do anything I could do and could probably do it better.

  I went outside to get the axe. It was still raining, and when I came back in the house my dress and scarf was good and wet. Coming up the hall I could hear Robert slamming his shoulder against that door. When Jules saw me with the axe he figured out what had happened, and he took the axe from me and handed it to Robert. All the people moved back when Robert started swinging the axe at the door. He was swinging it blade first. He wasn’t aiming to break the door in, he wanted to chop it down now. Every time he hit the door the water from the axe sprayed the people in front and they had to move further back. The sound of the axe against the door went like thunder through that old house. Pictures of the old people shook on every wall. A looking-glass fell and scattered all over the floor. Women screamed. That gal, Judy Major, almost knocked her daddy over getting in his arms. But Robert went on. Miss Amma Dean over to the side, tapping the wall and calling Tee Bob’s name so quiet I doubt if even she could hear it. But Robert went on. His face wasn’t sad, scared, worried—just plain hard. I kept thinking, “Lord, Lord, Lord, what will it take to change this man? Don’t he know that’s his boy in there? Do he know at all what he go’n find when he open that door?”