Cast the First Stone

by Chester Himes

  We all laughed. I pushed my cards away. “Want to play my hand, Dew?”

  “I don’t care,” Dew Baby said, blinking his lids. “You’re going to quit?”

  Nick walked away and Wrinklehead asked, “What’s the matter, Jimmy?”

  “Oh, I’m just tired of Signifier trying to cheat all the time,” I said.

  “I’m glad you’re quitting,” Signifier said, getting up himself.

  “What you going to do, you going to quit too?” Dew Baby asked him.

  “I’m going down and get some water,” Signifier smirked.

  “You’re going down to talk to the kid?” Dew Baby asked.

  “I’m thirsty,” Signifier said.

  “What you going to do, you going to sound him out?” Dew Baby persisted, blinking his lids and getting excited.

  “I’m going to sound out the drinking fountain if that’s what you mean.”

  “I’m coming with you. You’re not going to get away from me,” Dew Baby said, taking hold of his arm.

  Signifier shook him off. “Naw, he’ll think we’re trying to gang up on him if you go down there blinking your eyes. He’ll think you’re a psychopathic killer and get scared.”

  “Aw, Signore,” Dew Baby said, falling all over Signifier. “Aw, Siggy.”

  “You fellows rush a kid too fast,” Dutch said. “You don’t do nothing but queer everything. You make a kid freeze up.”

  Signifier started away. “You’re too slow,” he called back to Dutch. “You can have him when I get through with him.”

  “Aw, let me go with you, Siggy, you know two are better than one,” Dew Baby said.

  “Let him go on and rank it,” Dutch said. “He ain’t going to do nothing but signify, anyway.”

  I got up and went over to my bunk. I felt disgusted. Once I would have been up with that pitch, I thought. I don’t know, I thought; a man grows up. My bunk was an upper on the aisle and I climbed up on it and opened a magazine. But instead of reading I watched Signifier approach Dido, out of the corners of my eyes. Signifier stopped at the foot of Dido’s bunk and said something. I saw Dido stop and turn around and look at him and make some kind of answer. There was belligerence in his every gesture. After a moment Signifier turned away and came up the aisle. He looked so chagrined I laughed out loud.

  Still wearing the uke strung about his neck, Dido had followed him, wobbling along in his grotesque walk. He must have thought I was laughing at him. He jerked his head around and the strike of his eyes caught me in the middle of the laugh, chopping it off as with an ax. His chin lifted, tilting his head to the side as if steering it, and the most contemptuous sneer I had ever seen grew across his wide, mobile lips. He looked as if he wanted to spit on me. Then he raked a slashing discord across his ukulele, dismissing me, and wobbled on, chin high, head tilted, lips sneering, not looking at any of us.

  Dew Baby, Dutch and Wrinklehead sat at the table and silently watched him pass. All of the fun was taken out of all of us. He doesn’t mind letting us know what he thinks of us, I thought. I knew that it took either a lot of nerve or a real and genuine indifference for a new convict in a dormitory to make enemies as recklessly as that. It reminded me a little of myself when I first entered the old coal-company dormitory.

  I watched him go down the aisle. Strangely, I felt a lot of admiration for him. His shoulders were rather wide but stooped, and in walking his body slouched and all of his movements were awkward and jerky and grotesque. Every step seemed a precarious action, bordering on actual disaster. Long black hair was a tangled mass above his head, growing thick down the back of his neck and over his ears as if it had neither been combed nor cut in months, and his clothes, all of which were state-issue, were in a sad state. His brogues were battered and run-over and half-laced, and his trousers were so bagged they looked like elbows in a chimney pipe. Every now and then when he raised his arms to strike a careless chord on the uke, his elbows stuck through holes in both shirt and coat sleeves. He did not wear a vest and the top two buttons of his shirt were open. His neck was slender and collumnar, and his throat was as lovely as a woman’s. Halfway down the aisle he stopped to watch a poker game and I noticed that he had an attractive profile with a longish jaw and fullish lips.

  “What did he tell you, Johnson?” I called to Signifier.

  He and Dew Baby came over to my bunk. “He didn’t say anything. He just said he didn’t need any help.”

  “Help? What kind of help?”

  “Siggy asked him if he could help him make his bunk.”

  I could picture that. I grinned. “Wonder if he gambles,” I said, thinking ahead.

  “Sure that punk gambles,” Signifier said. “Ever see a punk who didn’t gamble?”

  “Why don’t you try him out, Jimmy?” Dew Baby leered. “Give him a couple of bucks and put him on the track. All the kids fall for that.”

  “Hell, I don’t know anything about him,” I said. “He might be straight for all I know.”

  “Aw, he’s a fag if ever I saw one,” Signifier said. “I can look at ‘em and tell. He’ll go. If somebody don’t turn him out before this week is over I’ll walk up and hit old Tom Craig in the mouth.”

  “Aw, Siggy, you wouldn’t do that,” Dew Baby said, falling all over Signifier.

  Wrinklehead came up and said, importantly, in his tongue-tied voice, with his eyelids fluttering and the whites of his eyes showing, “What you mugs talking about? You talking about that fag?”

  “How do you fellows get so sure about the man?” I said.

  “You can’t fool me,” Wrinklehead said.

  “That’s what Belle used to say about you,” I told him.

  “Aw, that—” he couldn’t get the words together.

  “Go on and sound him out, Jimmy,” Dew Baby urged.

  “Not me,” I said. “I’m trying to get out of this joint. I don’t want to get into any jam now.”

  Dew Baby looked suddenly envious. “Trying to get a pardon, Jimmy?” I nodded. He wanted to ask more but I didn’t give him any opening, so he said lamely, “I hope you get it, Jimmy, old Jimmy, I hope you get it.”

  Signifier lost interest and turned away. All of them left. Dew Baby was hanging on to Signifier, saying, “Old Siggy, old Siggy.” Wrinklehead was still trying to get out what he wanted to say about Belle.

  I looked down the aisle for Dido but didn’t see him. Then I looked over to see how the poker game was going and saw him playing. Well, if he’s gambling already he must either be good or a sucker for it, I thought. And if he’s a sucker for it somebody’s sure to get next to him because he can’t have enough dough to keep himself going or he wouldn’t look as he does. That night after supper I stood around the games to see him play but he didn’t play any more that day. He passed a couple of times and once he stopped beside me to watch the others playing. When he left I returned to my bunk to finish reading a story. Later that night I saw him down in Black Bottom, strumming his uke for the colored convicts’ breakdown.

  All of the Sunday games belonged to me although it had been quite some time since I had helped in running them. But that Sunday morning I told Candy I would deal for awhile. If he plays at all he’ll have to play in one of my games, I thought. But by church time he hadn’t shown up and we had to knock off until after dinner. On the way to dinner I noticed him in line, about six men ahead of me. He seemed to walk better in line than when alone, although he looked deliberately trampy in his ragged uniform and beat-up cap.

  After dinner I told Candy to take over for awhile. “If Dido starts to playing send for me,” I said. “I want to look him over and see what he knows.”

  “Who’s Dido?” Candy asked.

  “He’s the kid who moved in yesterday.”

  “Oh!” Candy looked at me.

  “That slouchy bitch was playing with me yesterday afternoon,” Starrett said. He had been standing behind us. He had the Saturday poker game. I had seen Dido playing with him but I didn’t like the idea of hi
m eavesdropping on my conversation.

  “You’ve got a nasty mouth, bud,” I said.

  Both he and Candy looked at me. “Can he play?” Candy asked Starrett.

  “Naw, that bitch can’t play,” Starrett said, emphasizing bitch.

  Dido walked past us at that moment. He looked at Starrett curiously, as he would at a worm.

  “Give me some chips here, boy, let’s get to gambling,” Starrett blustered in a loud voice.

  I hope he knocks your goddamn eyes out, I thought, but Dido went on down the aisle. When he came back he stopped for a moment to look on. I thought he was going to play and took over the deal. He watched me deal for awhile and once I looked up and caught his eyes. I nodded. His expression didn’t change. He looked at me for a moment, then went back to watching the play. After awhile he wobbled off, strumming a slow melody.

  It was late that evening, long after the coffee had come around, before he came back and took out five dollars’ worth of chips. I shot him some aces and kings, and for a time he was lucky enough to hit them. But I could see right away that he was an absolute chump in a poker game. He tried to play every hand and he had no judgment whatsoever. If he was in a pot and someone raised, he seemed to take it as a personal challenge and would call, no matter what he had. His playing was all emotional. He ran his chips up to ten dollars and then everybody began horsing at him on the sly. Starrett began betting at him openly and pretty soon he caught on to it and began calling everything Starrett bet. I kept shooting him aces because I didn’t want Starrett to beat him. A couple of times when Starrett had him beat on the fourth card, I topped the deck with dead hands to hit his ace in the hole. Then he began plunging, feverishly. His eyes glittered and his face became flushed. He was all wrapped up in it.

  He’s got it bad, I thought. It was a passion with him. He thought he could gamble but he couldn’t. But I knew he’d lose his soul trying. I’d seen a thousand like him.

  I kept shooting him pairs to hold him up. I didn’t think he could take losing very well. Then Polack Paul got caught in a hand and said, “I bar that deal, Monroe,” and I had to pay him the whole seven dollars and sixty-five cents he had lost since he had sat down. Then the others who didn’t know what had happened got suspicious. On the next deal Starrett was backed up with kings and I hit aces on the third card. Dido stayed with a pair of jacks, and Starrett kept raising him into me. Starrett figured I had aces but he was willing to lose seven or eight dollars to get Dido broke. I kept saying I had aces and flipping the top ace in the gambler’s signal for him to pass. But as long as Starrett bet he called. Then finally Starrett got out. I made a token bet on the last card and said to Dido, “Well, I guess these two big red aces take it, eh, kid?”

  He looked up at me and said slowly, “That’s what they got to do,” his voice low and husky; and set in his stack.

  Starrett burst out laughing and I got hot under the collar. “Take your chips out, kid, I’ve got you beat,” I said.

  Dido’s chin came up and his head tilted and his whole face twisted into that contemptuous sneer. His eyes were wild and feverish and his face was flushed. “Where I come from, when you win, you put your money in the pot, turn over your hand, and show what you got,” he said, his head bobbing up and down and the sneer sounding in his voice also.

  I looked at him solidly for a moment. He had a longish, reckless face with high cheekbones and too much thinness down the cheeks and a high, smooth forehead topped by that mat of black hair. His face was sweaty and greasy and his sloe eyes, slanting slightly upward at the edges, gave a slightly Mongolian cast to his features. Now his eyes were black and glittering, like the eyes of a cornered snake. He’s got a tree-top jag on excitement, I thought. I turned my ace out of the hole.

  “See, I wasn’t kidding, I’ve got aces,” I said. “Take your money out, I’m not trying to beat you.”

  He turned sheet-white and emotions dropped across his mobile features like a picture slide. “Call it and win,” he said hoarsely, licking his lips and lifting his chin still higher. “That’s what you’ve been sitting there on that hard seat for all day, isn’t it?” His mouth was ugly with the sneer.

  I burnt up. “Call it,” I said, tossing in a chip.

  “Pay it off,” he demanded.

  “I’m the dealer,” I said.

  “Aw, come on, goddammit, and take the pot and let’s get to gambling,” Starrett snarled, counting his chips. “I’m fourteen bucks loser here.”

  Dido turned and looked down his nose at him, but before he could say anything I wheeled on Starrett and shouted, “Shut up, goddammit, I’m running this game.” I took a long time to put in the chips. Starrett sat there fuming, getting ready to blow up. I was set to knock out his teeth. When I finished counting out the chips Dido turned his cards down and said, “You win.” He stood up, completely disdainful of everyone. All of us were compelled, against our wills, to look at him. He stood there for a time, aloof and contemptuous, with his foot on the bench, and looked back at us, strumming a soft slow melody on his uke. Starrett glared at him but he seemed oblivious of it. Dutch came up beside him and said in a loud voice intended for all of us to hear, “Want to play some more, Gypsy Kid?”

  I frowned with quick jealousy, wondering how Dutch had got to know him so well. Dido turned and looked down his nose at him. He had a fine chiseled nose. “I see I made a mistake,” he said, and turned his back to Dutch and wobbled down the aisle.

  I watched Dutch’s eyes get small with rage. I chuckled. “You can take it over now, Candy,” I said.

  I got up and went over to my bunk and changed into my flannel pajamas and got into bed. There was a novelette in a magazine that I wanted to finish. But I couldn’t keep my mind on it. I was still reading the same paragraph when Signifier and Dido turned in beside my bunk. I was startled to realize that I wasn’t surprised; I had expected him.

  “Duke said he wanted to meet you,” Signifier said, winking.

  “You’re the Jimmy Monroe who writes,” he said. “I’ve read a lot of your stories.” All the excitement had gone out of him and he was cool and pleasant. He spoke in a low, liquid voice, chime-clear.

  I knew I was being jived lightly but I was flattered anyway. “What stories did you read?”

  “Oh, I read, er, several of them.”

  “How did you like them?”

  “I thought they were very good,” he said. “I wish I could write. I’ve tried but I’ve never had anything accepted.”

  “Did you read the one about the gambler who ran a pool on his electrocution hour?”

  “I thought that one was excellent,” he said.

  “The ending was a surprise, wasn’t it?”

  Signifier was looking from one of us to the other. He didn’t know what we were talking about.

  “Maybe for some people, but I guessed it,” Dido said.

  “You’re a kind of cute little guesser, anyway,” I said. “Now what made you guess I’m trying to write stories?” I had never even thought about writing stories since before the fire.

  “All right, you win,” he said, giving in. “I saw the typewriter.”

  Signifier had been getting impatient. He felt left out. He started to make some crack or other, but he changed his mind and turned away. “Wish you luck, Jimmy,” he said.

  After he had gone both of us became strangely shy. “What are you reading?” Dido asked, making conversation.

  I turned up the cover of the magazine. “Do you read it?”

  “When I can get it,” he said. And then all of a sudden he said, “Signifier didn’t tell you my full name. It’s Duke Dido. They call me Gypsy Kid sometimes but I don’t like it. And I’m sorry I put you in the middle out there in the game. I was so excited I didn’t know until afterward that you were trying to help me.” The words bubbled out in a quick, live rush, drawing my stare to his mouth. He had full, deep-red lips, colored like a rose, and his skin was smooth and slightly olive-tinged. When he talked his red lip
s were a smear of mobile motion across his face, shadowed by the line of fuzzy down on his upper lip. “You’ll forgive me, won’t you?” His eyes were serious and intense, like those of a little child, and he looked very young, perhaps nineteen, and enchantingly naive.

  “Oh hell, that was all right,” I said grandly. “I figured you were a little out of practice.”

  He became suddenly rueful. The abrupt change was startling. “You mean you saw I couldn’t gamble and took pity on me,” he said. Now the life was gone out of his voice. “I know I can’t gamble but I don’t like to be shown up.”

  “I wasn’t trying to show you up,” I said. “I wanted you to win.”

  “Did you?” His eyes lit up and sparkled. “Why?”

  I was flustered. “Oh, I don’t know. I guess it’s because I admire you in a way.”

  He was thoughtful for a moment. “I wonder why,” he said. “I don’t always admire myself.”

  “But you do sometimes?”

  “Oh yes, lots, but why would you?”

  “Oh, the way you treated Signifier and all of us yesterday. It’s always so much easier to compromise.”

  “You don’t like a person who compromises?”

  “Like isn’t the right word. I might like them, but I won’t admire them.”

  Completely and abruptly he went through another change and laughter bubbled from his lips, giving a disturbing girlishness to his face. “In other words,” he slurred, in a laughter-filled voice, “you admire me but you don’t like me.”

  I had never seen anyone with such mobile features. I was completely fascinated. They seemed to ripple with a thousand continuously changing expressions, as the play of light and shadows in a movie musical.

  “I admire you,” I grinned, “but I don’t know as yet whether I like you or not. Is it important?”

  “Which way, whether you like me or don’t?” He was very close to me, without moving. “Either way.”

  He sighed, going away from me. “The question is unfair.” And then he was completely gone. “When you know me better—” he paused, then added, “if you ever do, you might not even admire me. I’m the old, original compromiser.” He sounded cynical and a little bitter. “Do you know where I got that fin today?” I nodded. “You heard him,” he said, remote and brooding. “You know why he let me have it, too, don’t you?” I nodded again. “Do you know why I accepted it?” he asked.