Cast the First Stone

by Chester Himes

He looked better with his hair cut but he had lost something, also. I was trying to figure out what it was when he said. “What was it you were going to ask me whether I played?”

  “Oh yes, can you play softball?”

  “No. but I can play tennis.”

  “Damn the tennis. Where the hell are you going to play tennis? Have you ever played any at all? Softball, I mean.”

  “Maybe a little, but I can’t play.”

  “Well, from now on you can. You can field like Joe D. and swat like Ted Williams, in case anyone asks you.”

  “But I can’t, though.” he said.

  “Who can? But I just told Tom that you could, and if you want to stay in this dormitory and get along you had better say you can, too.”

  “But they’ll find out—” he began.

  “They won’t find out until next year and by that time maybe everything will be different.”

  “Say, I want to talk to you,” he said, abruptly.

  “Well, I’m busy now,” I said.

  Watching him walk away I was repulsed by the grotesqueness of his carriage. He’d look so much better if he carried his shoulders erect, I thought. But it didn’t mean anything to me, I told myself.

  He went over on clothes-order and got a complete new outfit from shoes to cap. Right after supper he stopped by my bunk. He looked almost like a different person.

  “Look what just a casual gift from you has done to me,” he said brightly.

  “Life is a funny thing,” I said. For an instant his eyes dulled, then brightened again, but now they were all on the surface like afternoon sunshine on water.

  “Do tell, Grandpa,” he lilted. There were a few beads of sweat on his upper lip.

  “I’ve given away a lot of dough since I’ve been in here,” I went on doggedly, “but every penny of it had strings, some kind of strings. It either did something for me or I looked for something in return. I got something out of it for myself. And the one time I wanted to give away something as small as a sawbuck with no strings at all, the strings come back from the ten.”

  “Didn’t you want anything?” His eyes were wide and mocking.

  “No.”

  “Really?” He went remote and distant and if his knees hadn’t buckled he would have swirled away, but they did and the effect was grotesque. I was again repulsed.

  I’m a complete damn fool, I told myself. I’m trying to get out of here and I’m letting it get close to me.

  Tom called out the mail and I received letters from both my father and mother. Signifier came over while I was reading them and said, “Jimmy, you wouldn’t fool me, would you?”

  “It seems as if I’m only fooling myself,” I said, and before I could elaborate Dido came up.

  Signifier had a big broad grin on his face. I knew what he was thinking.

  “I just got a letter from my mother,” I said. “She says she talked to Allison, the governor’s executive secretary, and that he told her the governor is planning to pardon quite a few deserving inmates during the Christmas holidays and that I was in line for consideration. I think I’m going to make it.” I was all filled up with it. “That’s swell,” Dido said. “May I read it?”

  “Sure.” I handed him the letter.

  “She writes a nice letter, Jimmy,” he said when he had finished. “I hope you get your pardon.” He handed me the letter. “That would mean so much to you.” That was a funny way to put it, I thought. Then he said, “I received a letter from my mother, too. Would you like to read it?”

  “Sure we would,” Signifier said, having been left out of the conversation long enough. “Bring it on down.”

  But Dido kept looking at me until I nodded, then he hurried down to his bunk. I watched him walk away, feeling that slight aversion.

  “He seems like a good kid,” Signifier began fishing. “Full of life.”

  “He’s too damn flighty,” I said.

  I picked up the mirror so I could watch him approach without his knowing I was watching. I didn’t want him to know we were talking about him.

  Signifier said, “Here he comes.” When he got there I was examining my teeth in the mirror.

  He handed me the letter and I read it. “She writes a swell letter,” I said, surprised.

  “Why are you surprised?” he asked. “Oh, I, er—” I was embarrassed. “I didn’t expect her to be so intelligent,” I said, making it worse. “I mean she is so sympathetic and knows just what to write. She must love you an awful lot.”

  “She does,” he said. His voice was reverent. “She was so young when I was born. We grew up like lovers; like brother and sister. She was only fifteen when I was born.”

  “Does she look like you?” I asked. “Want to see her picture?”

  “Sure,” Signifier said.

  He had brought the snapshot with him. The corners had been clipped off, as if it had once been framed, and on the back was written, ‘To my darling son.” She was clad in slacks and a sweater, with her hands in her sweater pockets. She was shockingly beautiful.

  “She’s good-looking,” Signifier said. “How old is she?”

  “That’s personal, you damn fool!” I exclaimed. Then I said to Dido, “She’s a very fine-looking woman.” I knew I sounded stilted, and wanted to say something spontaneous but the strange sense of shock had confused me.

  Dido began laughing. “You’re too precious for words,”

  he said to me. “I wish I had a better picture. She’s really better-looking than that.”

  “Say, is she married?” Signifier asked.

  Dido laughed. “You’re a rat, Signifier.”

  “Yeah, that’s me. I’m a rat, and everything.”

  “You’re a darling,” Dido said.

  “Have you got the rickets in your legs or have they been broken?” Signifier asked.

  “The kneecaps have been broken,” Dido said. “Unless I exercise a lot they slip out of place.”

  “Oh, I thought you were throwing your knees out of joint,” Signifier said. “I thought you were a contortionist.”

  “When I was up in the mill I didn’t get enough exercise—”

  “Don’t pay any attention to this guy,” I cut in. “He’s just signifying.”

  “He’s a good kid,” Dido said, winking at me.

  “What mill were you in, the woolen mill?” I asked.

  “Cotton mill. On 5-10.”

  “What was the matter, couldn’t you keep up in line?”

  “It wasn’t that,” he said. “I got into a fight with my cell buddy.” My gaze went involuntarily to Signifier and I caught his smirking look. I looked away. Dido didn’t notice. “He thought he was a prize fighter,” he went on. “I got tired of him trying to run the cell.” I could picture that part of it, all right, and the sneering manner in which he would have challenged him. But I couldn’t picture him doing much fighting. He reminded me more of the kind of convict we called spunky, with the kind of contempt we called a guy a fool. I didn’t like to think of anyone knocking him down. It made me slightly sick. He seemed so completely incapable of fending for himself.

  “You mean you really hit him,” Signifier said.

  “This guy is just trying to get your goat,” I said.

  Signifier started laughing. “You wouldn’t hit your cousin, would you?”

  Dido didn’t understand. “My cousin?”

  “I thought maybe you and him were cousins, like you and Jimmy are.”

  “Nix up, Johnson,” I said.

  But Dido had picked it up. “Oh, is this some of Jimmy’s past? Tell me about it, Signifier.”

  I jumped down on the other side of the bunk and started to walk away but Dido ran around to head me off. “Are you getting angry?” he teased. Signifier was laughing.

  “Go to hell!” I said.

  Looking at his suddenly hurt eyes I turned quickly away and went out to the poker game. He came out after a minute and sat across the table from me. He had a dollar he’d gotten from somewhere
.

  “Hello,” he gushed as if he hadn’t seen me in ages.

  I didn’t reply. I was suspicious about the dollar. Dutch was dealing. He gave him a very sour look.

  But Dido seemed oblivious of both our attitudes. “Let’s save, Jimmy.” He sounded very complacent.

  “Oh, all right,” I consented, ungraciously.

  He kept me extremely nervous. He talked to people as if they were dogs, sneering and looking contemptuous, until any moment I looked for someone to jump up and pop him. It was more a cat fight with him than a poker game. It was a relief when he got broke. And then, like a damn fool I said, “You can play some of my chips,” pushing half my stack toward him.

  But he was feverish by then and had lost all his sense of reason. “You’re already out on the limb for a sawbuck,” he sneered. “You don’t want to go any deeper, do you? You’re not getting any dividends, you know.”

  I was furious. “That tells me just what you are,” I said, drawing back my chips.

  “Give me a dollar’s worth of chips,” he said to Dutch.

  “Where’s your money?” Dutch said.

  Dido started from his seat, a dull, blotched red. “Do you want me to break up this game?” he shrilled in a high, breaking voice.

  I felt sick, knowing he would try.

  “Ain’t nobody going to break up this game,” Dutch said. “Put up your money when you want chips.”

  “He’s got money,” I said. “Give him the chips.”

  Dido snatched a handful of chips from the chip seller, then turned on me, “I don’t need any of your recommendations.”

  “You’ve got to live in here, boy,” I said. “You can’t run over these people like that. The rule of the game is that you pay for your chips when you get them. You can’t tell a man how to run his own game.”

  Dutch was just waiting. Dido looked at him and returned the chips. “Give me an ante,” he asked Dutch.

  Dutch gave him three nickel chips.

  Dido turned back to me. “I’ll take those you wanted to give me now, darling,” he said, looking penitent.

  Well, that lets me in for it, I thought. I’ll have the name without the game. “How would you like to take a flying frig at yourself?” I said.

  He lost the three chips in the first pot, without looking at me again, then he got up and left. After a moment I heard him strumming his uke, loud and defiantly, down at the far end of the dormitory. What I can’t understand is why I feel I must protect him all the time, I thought. Then I began losing and lost fifteen dollars, sitting there worrying about him. I was hot and sweaty and disgusted.

  When the lights went out I marched down to his bunk and said, “Listen, how’d you like for me to hit you in the mouth!”

  He was lying on his side with his face near the edge of the bunk, looking at me intently. “I don’t know,” he admitted solemnly. “I won’t know until you do it. I might like it.” In the half-shadow his face was smooth with a dull even sheen like old ivory. All of his features were a blurred soft outline, giving him an exotic appearance, and his sloe eyes were wide and deep and filled with little lights. I gritted my teeth. “Let me tell you something—”

  “You’re so masculine,” he interrupted in a low voice. “Damn, you’re exasperating!” I said. “You keep me scared for you all the time. Why do you treat people so lousy all the time?”

  “Maybe now I won’t need to any more.”

  “You’re a pretty nice boy when you want to be,” I said. “I want to be for you,” he said.

  That was Tuesday. The next morning he asked, “Do you still mean it this morning, Jimmy?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “As much as you did last night?”

  “Yes,” I lied. “I wonder,” he said.

  All that day he hung around me while I worked out the roughdraft of the opinion I was writing. When I had finished, I let him read it.

  “It’s simply great, Jimmy,” he said. “Honestly, this is great.”

  I was surprised at his reaction. I knew it stank. But I was flattered, too. “What makes you think it’s good?” I asked. “Why, it is,” he said. I looked to see if he was kidding me. He seemed sincere. I put the piece aside. I’ll have to write it over, I thought. He thinks it’s good and I can’t let him down.

  “Come on, you can practice typing some,” I said, moving over so he could sit before the typewriter. Everyone was watching us together, but I didn’t mind it now and he seemed impervious to it.

  He was stiff and awkward on the typewriter. “I feel self-conscious,” he said.

  “Do you want me to go away?” I asked. “Oh no, I’d be worse if you left me.” But after a time he grew tired of it. “Come on down to my bunk and let me play for you,” he said.

  “Okay.” I put away the typewriter and followed him down to his bunk. He got down his uke and said, “Let’s sit on the lower bunk.”

  “That’s old man Foley’s bunk,” I said. “He’s awfully cranky.”

  “Oh, he and I are good friends,” he said. “Yeah?”

  “All old folks are friends of mine,” he said. “They like me.

  “Everyone would like you if you gave them half a chance,” I said. “You’re a rather likable person when you’re not putting on your act.”

  “Is it necessary for people to like me?”

  “Not particularly so. But there’s no sense in going around with a chip on your shoulder and antagonizing people needlessly.”

  “I’ll be nice to everyone, Jimmy,” he said. “I’ll make everyone like me. Because you want me to, Jimmy.”

  “That isn’t a good reason and I don’t particularly want you to. And then you might become so nice that everyone would want to take you away from me,” I grinned. “Then where would I be? No, you’d better keep on being your same old sneering self.”

  “You’d always have the pardon to look forward to.”

  “Sure.”

  But the fun had gone out of the moment. He began picking out melodies in individual notes on his ukulele. He was an excellent musician with a true sense of rhythm but he had a love for melody. It was very pleasant and soothing and the melody was very clear. I began to realize how much I had missed music since I had been in there. He played “Summertime” and “Make Believe” and “Stardust” and other old tunes that I liked.

  I had never owned a radio although there were dozens in the dormitory; I had always been afraid of getting too close to the outside world. But they had to keep them tuned down, and there was something in live music you couldn’t get over the air.

  It wasn’t long before we had an audience. The other convicts had heard him playing and seeing me with him had gathered about.

  The two colored convicts with the guitar and banjo came over and he invited them to join in. I started to get up but he said, “No, keep your seat, I like to have you where I can touch you.” We had a musical. Everyone liked it. Captain Charlie stopped by for awhile and listened. Music hour was between seven and eight but Captain Charlie let them keep on playing.

  “Don’t play so loud though,” he cautioned.

  It wasn’t until the lights winked that the gang began to break up.

  “It’s better now?” he asked. I didn’t reply. “Don’t you think it’s better?” he insisted.

  “Sure.”

  “You don’t sound very enthusiastic, Jimmy. You do think it’s better, don’t you?”

  “Of course I think it’s better,” I said.

  “You’re not ashamed of me?”

  “Of course not.”

  “I was very nice to everyone, wasn’t I?”

  “You were swell,” I said.

  “I noticed you didn’t feel embarrassed. You won’t ever feel embarrassed or ashamed of me, Jimmy?”

  “No.”

  “Honestly?”

  “Honestly.”

  “I’m glad, I couldn’t bear it.”

  “I’ve got to go down for count now,” I said.

 
; “You’re coming back and tell me good night, aren’t you?”

  I knew the convicts within hearing range were listening to us and I was a little self-conscious, but I said I would.

  The next day was Thanksgiving. We had a nice dinner of roast turkey with oyster dressing and cranberry sauce, and that afternoon I began rewriting my great legal opinion. Dido came down and sat beside me, strumming an aimless note every now and then until I felt like screaming.

  “Are you always so industrious, Jimmy?” he asked.

  “No, I’m setting an example for you,” I said. It was true.

  “I’m awfully lazy, aren’t I?”

  “I don’t mean in that way.”

  He was puzzled.

  “I’m trying to show you how to relax,” I explained. “How to occupy yourself with something worthwhile.”

  “You’re a darling to take so much trouble for me,” he said.

  “But it would make me feel a whole lot better, too, if I knew you could occupy yourself with something worthwhile, or anything,” I said, somewhat lamely. “You seem at loose ends all the time. I don’t know just how to say it. You’re the same when you’re gambling. Haywire, that’s it. You’re so haywire, so radical.”

  “And I was just going to ask you to let me gamble some,” he said, looking disappointed. “I’ve been a very good boy the last two days, haven’t I?”

  “I haven’t got any money,” I lied. “I got broke the other night.”

  “Oh well, it’s not important.”

  I tried to concentrate on the piece I was writing but he made me nervous and distracted me, sitting there.

  “Goddammit, quit picking that uke!” I shouted finally.

  “Am I disturbing you?”

  “No,” I lied. “Only when you pick the uke.” Then after a moment I said, “Haven’t you got anything to do? You want to read some magazines?”

  “I’ll go away and let you work,” he said. He stood up, then he said, “Do you want to read something I wrote?”

  “Oh, I don’t care,” I sighed.

  “Go ahead and do your work,” he said. “I’m not going to disturb you any more.”

  He looked so hurt that I said, “But I do want to see it.”

  He hurried off down the aisle, and when he returned with it he said, “It’s not very much. I’m writing a song, too. I love music.”