The Tragedy of Brady Sims

by Ernest J. Gaines

  Chapter Five

  Two other men came into the barbershop—Lloyd Zeno and Will Ferdinand—both farmers. They wore country clothes—khakis and denim.

  “Hub-hub,” Will said, and sat in Lucas’s barber chair.

  “Gentlemen,” Lloyd said. He pulled out a chair from the table where the men played checkers. He didn’t need a haircut.

  Jamison was still sitting in Sam Hebert’s barber chair, and Sam was leaning on the back of the chair.

  “Eula took them children away from here—when—just after the war?” Jamison asked.

  “Tractor,” old Celestin said.

  “Still at it?” Lloyd asked.

  “Every time,” someone said.

  “Does it matter?” I heard the man with the fresh haircut behind me say. “Tractor, war; war, tractor—does it matter?…That big Creole woman go’n kill me for sure—go’n kill me….Why did I have to stop here for a haircut? Coulda got one in Natchitoches—cheaper. Ever been to Natchitoches?”

  I shook my head. I wanted him to leave, and I didn’t want him to leave.

  “From here, you hit 1-90, and swing right. Go west ’til you see the Alexandria turnoff—that takes you to 49. 49 takes you straight to Natchitoches—two and a half hours—can’t miss it.”

  “That boy—Charlie—how Brady beat him—helped her make up her mind to leave here,” Jean Lebouef said.

  “Over that bicycle,” Will Ferdinand said.

  “Is he the one?” I heard behind me.

  I didn’t answer him.

  “LeDoux used to put things out on the sidewalk for people to see. That’s how he advertise his store—things out on the sidewalk. Garden and field stuff. But that day, he had that bicycle out there with all the rest of his things. Pretty, shiny red-and-white bicycle—a Schwinn. That old boy jumped on that bicycle, headed for home. One of Mapes’s deputies caught up with him about halfway. Mapes called old Billy Boudreau and told him to get somebody to go tell Brady that he had his boy in jail. Brady didn’t have a truck then, and got Sam Brown to take him to Bayonne. Brady told Mapes he wanted to be in that cell five minutes with his boy. Mapes had seen that big belt around Brady’s waist, but he thought Brady would just talk to the boy in the cell, and beat him when he got outside. No. Brady started in the cell, hitting the boy across his back and his head with the buckle end of the belt. The boy went down on the floor, Brady continue to beat him. Mapes rush into the cell cussing—‘You ain’t go’n kill him here in my jail; kill him somewhere else.’ He grabbed Brady and pushed him back, and he helped the boy up off the floor. Brady raised the belt to hit Mapes, and Mapes told him that would be the last time he ever raised that arm. He pushed Brady and the boy out of the cell. ‘Kill him somewhere else,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll come for you.’

  “Sam Brown said Brady threw the boy in the backseat and got in there with him and started beating him again. Halfway home Sam Brown said he told Brady he was going to stop the car and they had to get out. Brady told him if he stopped that car he was go’n use that belt on him. Sam Brown said he said to himself: ‘In all the years I’ve been carrying my gun, I had to leave it home today.’ When he stopped in front of Brady’s house, Brady opened the door and pushed the boy out. The boy fell to the ground. Brady said, ‘How much I owe you?’ Sam Brown told him a dollar.

  “Brady said, ‘A whole dollar?’ Brady said, ‘You said it was go’n be fifty cents to take me there and bring me back. You go’n charge a whole fifty cents just to bring him back?’ ‘You see all that blood on that seat back there?’ Sam Brown asked him. Brady said, ‘Yo car; clean it up if you want to. Here’s yo seventy-five cents.’

  “Brady grabbed the boy by the collar of his shirt and started dragging him to the house. Sam Brown said he looked at the fifty-cent piece and the quarter, and looked at Brady dragging the boy up the steps, and dragging him into the house. He said he said to himself, ‘I know there is a God. It was all God’s doing, making me leave that gun at home. They say He works in mysterious ways. I believe it.’ ”

  Jamison left the barber chair and went to the toilet. The room remained quiet, except every now and then one of the old men would say something to himself. I could hear the snip, snip, snip of the scissors Lucas used cutting his client’s hair.

  “What’s the matter with the rest of these old fellows?” I heard behind me. “He’s the only one who know what happened?…That li’l fellow over there—he ever look up from that paper? I don’t think he’s turned that page once….Lord, have mercy, why am I still here?—Why?…You ever knowed a big Creole woman?”

  I shook my head.

  “You doan know what you been missing, partner. Cook. Dance. And get you in that bed—oh, Lord…Sure you never knowed one?”

  I shook my head.

  “I kinda like you—I’ll find you one….You think I’m crazy?”

  I shook my head.

  “I think I’m crazy. Sitting here, knowing what’s waiting for me in N’Awlens—and I’m sitting here listening to this shit. When I leave here I ought to drive myself straight to Jackson and tell them to lock me up please.”

  Jamison came out of the toilet, got himself some water from the fountain, and sat back in the barber chair.

  “Now, I can’t remember what I was saying.”

  “Brady beating Charlie over that bicycle.”

  “Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,” Jamison said, making himself comfortable in the chair. “Them two oldest boys, Harry and Marshall, had volunteered for the service just to get away from Brady. Even in their teens, Brady was still beating them when they did something wrong. He swore no child of his was going to Angola—he would kill them first. The boys used to send money to their uncle over there at Pitcher to give Eula when she needed it. They wouldn’t send it directly to her for fear Brady would get his hands on the money before she did. They told their uncle Claiborne to tell her to get away from that house, her and the children, the first chance they got.

  “Brady used to go deer hunting with Mapes and some other white fellers from Baton Rouge. Had a camp over there in Mississippi—a big cabin—all slept in the same cabin—even Brady. Stayed two, three—sometimes four days. They left that Friday. When Eula thought Brady was gone for good, she gave one of the children fifty cents and told him to go see Brown. Sam Brown told her nope, because he didn’t want to have to kill Brady. Eula told two of her children to get on the horse and go to Pitcher and tell her brother Claiborne she was already packing. Claiborne brought the children back in the truck, and by midnight they had finished packing and was leaving. They first went to Texas—Houston—she had people there. From Texas she went to California, where Marshall was stationed. He was married—had children—Eula and her children stayed with them.

  “Brady came back about ten that Tuesday morning. The plantation was quiet, quiet. Doors and windows shut tight. Only one person out on the gallery—Sam Brown—with his shotgun ’cross his lap. He saw Mapes drive by with Brady, saw him help Brady carry his tub of deer meat to his gallery, and watch him drive back by. Mapes touched the horn, Sam Brown waved a finger.

  “Now, usually, the old people would send one of the children down to Brady when he came back from hunting, ’cause Brady gave most of that stuff away. Just about everybody could get a piece of meat if they wanted it. But not that day. Nobody showed up. No doors opened. No windows opened.

  “Then they heard him. ‘EULO, EULO, EULO. Where is you, woman?’

  “He shot up in the air—POW, POW. ‘EULO, where is you, woman? Come to me, woman. EULOOOO.’ He didn’t sound like a man—more like a’ animal—a werewolf. Calling her name, and shooting up in the air.

  “Then he was standing in front of Sam Brown’s house.

  “Sam Brown, with his gun across his lap, told Brady, ‘Don’t come in this yard with that gun, Brady. You want talk to me, talk to me out in the road. Or you can leave that gun out there, and come in here. But don’t cross that ditch with that gun.’

  “Sam Brown had his fing
er near the trigger of his own gun.

  “ ‘You took her and them chillen ’way from here?’

  “ ‘No,’ Sam Brown told him.

  “ ‘You seen who took them ’way from here?’

  “ ‘Yes.’

  “ ‘Who?’

  “ ‘Find out for yourself. Just don’t cross that ditch with that gun.’

  “ ‘Somebody in the quarter?’

  “ ‘Find out for yourself.’

  “ ‘Them from Pitcher?’

  “ ‘Find out for yourself.’

  “Brady looked left, he looked right. Nobody was on the gallery. Doors and windows shut tight.

  “Sam Brown said Brady threw his head back and cried up to the sky—‘EULOOOO, EULOOOO, where is you, woman? Where my chillen at?’ ”

  Chapter Six

  “Think if I call her and tell her I had a flat tire she’ll believe me?”

  I nodded.

  “I don’t know, I just don’t know,” he said. “I told her that before—gambling there in LaPlace all night, ’til morning….I don’t know. Maybe I could tell her the car broke down—always having some kind of trouble with that old car. Think that’ll work?”

  I nodded.

  “I don’t know….Man, I wish I hadn’t stop by here for no haircut. Anywhere but here—anywhere…Think he’ll let me use his phone?”

  I nodded.

  “You sure?”

  I nodded again.

  He got up from the chair and went over to Lucas Felix.

  “Local or long distance?” Lucas asked.

  “N’Awlens.”

  “You can use it. Don’t stay on too long.”

  He turned his back to us as he dialed the number. She must have been sitting near the phone. He spoke quietly as he could. The shop was silent, not to listen to his conversation, but to give him privacy. We could still hear him.

  “Honeybun, honeybun—sound like you mad already. Honeybun, listen; please listen; the car broke down on me. Honeybun—now, you don’t have to cuss like that.”

  Sam Hebert was laughing so hard to himself, he had to go to the bathroom. I could hear him in there clearing his throat.

  The fellow was saying: “I been trying to fix that old car last two hours….I’m talking low ’cause other people in the room….Honeybun, please, please…Bayonne—Bayonne, a little town between Opelousas and Baton Rouge—St. Raphael Parish—you can find it on the map….No, no, honeybun, now, I know you don’t mean what you just said. God in heaven knows you don’t mean what you just said….”

  Sam Hebert started out of the bathroom, shook his head, and he went back inside. He couldn’t stop laughing.

  The fellow on the phone was saying: “I worked, I worked, and I worked on that old car. A fellow brought me here so I could use the phone. First thing I did when I got here was call you to tell you not to worry, ’cause I know how much you worry when I drive from Natchitoches to N’Awlens in that old car. I didn’t want you to think I had been in a wreck and— Honeybun, you know you don’t mean that, that you wished I had been in a wreck and was dead….There ain’t no woman here. This a barbershop. You want speak to the barber? You don’t have to say that, honeybun, this a nice man, let me use his phone to call you….I ain’t go’n stay with the barber. Soon’s I get that old car fixed, I’ll be there to take you to Dooky Chase….You’ll already be there with who? That nigger with all that cheap-ass gold in his mouth? You wearing what? That pretty green dress I bought for you for Christmas. Shit—I’m mad now…and coming there….He carry a gun, huh? I carry one, too. And tell that nigger he better shoot straight, ’cause I don’t miss. That nigger too ugly to take anything from me—’specially my woman. See you later.”

  He hung up the phone.

  “How much I owe you, sir?” he asked Lucas.

  “Nothing,” Lucas said. “You have enough troubles.”

  “Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said.

  He went to the bathroom as Sam Hebert was coming out wiping his eyes. He was in there about five minutes. When he came out he sat beside me again.

  “Sorry, man,” I heard him whisper. “Sorry I had to lie to that woman like that. He’s the cause of it, he caused it. He knows he had me hooked from the start. They do that. Start telling you a story and they know you won’t leave ’til you heard the end. You understand what I’m saying?”

  I nodded.

  “Got you hooked, too?”

  I nodded again.

  “They do it on purpose—hook you like that? On purpose. I hope one day I can catch him up in Natchitoches. Don’t y’all ever get tired listening to that jackass?”

  I didn’t answer him, I was listening to Jamison:

  “Not long after Eula took them children and left him, he started going with Mika Leblanc from Chenal. He had a tiger on his hand. He slap her, she hit him back with her fist. He hit her with his fist, she hit him back with a piece of stove wood. Back and forth, back and forth, ’til she left. Next was Lettie White, a little Creole woman from Livonia. Stayed with Brady about six months, then she went back to her own people. Then he took up with Betty Mae. Y’all still with me, Lucas? You pretty quiet there.”

  Lucas Felix assured him that he was with him all the way. Others told him that he was telling it like it was.

  With their approval, Jamison went on:

  “Had two children by him, a girl and a boy. The girl was pretty, pretty like her mama. Had that tan, creamy color like Lena Horne. The boy was darker—more chocolaty—and ways just like Brady—stayed in trouble. Brady used to beat him, but that didn’t do no good. Boy had too much of Brady’s blood in him.

  “Brady was getting up in age, in them late sixties or even in his seventies. Couldn’t whip like he used to. Now he had to pick up a chunk of wood or a brick to throw at Jean-Pierre. One day he gave Jean-Pierre the shotgun and two shells and told him to go out and get a rabbit for supper.”

  Sam Hebert laughed. Some of the others did, too, but kept their laughter to themselves. The laughing didn’t stop Jamison:

  “Jean-Pierre came back a’ hour later—no rabbit. Brady told him with all those rabbits running ’round in the fields, he couldn’t get one rabbit? Jean-Pierre told him he couldn’t get one. Brady told him to give him back the gun and the bullets. Jean-Pierre handed him the rifle and told him that he had shot at two rabbits but had missed. Brady said to Jean-Pierre, ‘You mean to tell me you shot two whole bullets and missed hitting one rabbit?’ Jean-Pierre said, ‘Yes, sir.’ Brady told him to wait, he was going to get just one bullet and see what he could hit. Jean-Pierre bust out of the house, headed for the field. Brady shot, ‘pow,’ hitting a corn stalk on a row next to where Jean-Pierre was running. He hollered at Jean-Pierre he better bring a rabbit to that house for supper or don’t come back to the house.

  “Teddy Man had been hunting that day. On his way back home he saw Jean-Pierre sitting under a tree on that back road. He was crying, his shirt soaking wet from running. Teddy Man asked him what was the matter. Jean-Pierre told him. Teddy Man had three or four rabbits in a sack. He dropped the sack, reached in, got one of the rabbits, and gave it to Jean-Pierre.

  “Not long after that, Betty Mae left Brady and took her children to N’Awlens. In N’Awlens, she took up with Lena Aguillard’s oldest boy, Phillip. Phillip used to send Lena a few dollars every so often, and she was always bragging on him, saying how he was making something of himself. He told her that him and Betty Mae and the girl got along very well, but Jean-Pierre stayed in trouble, and they were always bailing him out of jail. In another letter he told her that he had heard there was a lot of work out in California, and Betty Mae thought they should go so she could get Jean-Pierre out of N’Awlens. In his next letter, a month later or two months later, he told her that they had settled down in a little town called Valley Jo, and both him and Betty Mae had gotten good jobs in another little place called Mare Island, just across a little body of water from Valley Jo. The girl was in junior college, but
Jean-Pierre still stayed in trouble. Now he was running ’round with a gang and he was smoking dope.

  “By now Brady had taken up with Dorothy Lee Brooks. Her husband, Sidney, had died the year before.”

  “My God—just look at the time—” I heard behind me.

  “When Sidney died, Dorothy Lee was left by herself to take care that old lazy Norman. Boy wouldn’t work for nothing. Stayed drunk. First thing every morning he walked down to that corner store and buy a bottle of that old cheap muscatel wine from Te Jacques. Dorothy Lee begged Te Jacques not to sell him no more wine. Te Jacques told her, what was he in the business for but to please his customers—hanh? ‘Long as he brings his money, I have to sell it to him. I don’t let him have it on credit. But with money—mais oui.’ Dorothy Lee went to Mapes. Mapes told her he couldn’t tell Te Jacques who he could or couldn’t sell his goods to. And he couldn’t tell Norman anything unless he broke some kind of law. So far he hadn’t. Now, she told Brady when they started seeing each other. Norman played it cool for two or three days, then he just had to have that wine. Cut grass all day with nothing but a yo-yo blade. When he finished, that old white woman, Slim Jarreau’s old mother-in-law, gave him one dollar—enough to get a half pint of that old cheap muscatel wine. First thing next morning he headed out for Te Jacques. Brady let him get a good head start, then he followed with that eight-plat bullwhip ’cross his shoulder. He waited across the road for Norman to come outside. You see, you could buy the liquor in the store up front, but if you wanted to drink it, you had to go outside or go to that little side room they called the nigger room.

  “White people could drink in the front where they bought grocery, but you couldn’t. And old Norman wanted a drink soon as his hand hit that bottle. He opened that door and went outside and took a big swallow. He raised that bottle to get another swallow, and that’s when he spotted Brady. Brady started toward him, Norman took a quick swallow and started walking in the center of the road. That’s when Harry Chutz’s boy came around the bend in that pickup truck and hit him. Ronald, that big redhead boy, said he did everything he could to stop that truck, but he was going too fast to stop. He got out of the truck crying, saying, ‘I did all I could to stop. God knows I did all I could to stop. But he was in the middle of the road.’ They took Norman to the hospital. He was crippled, not dead. Maybe all that wine in him saved him. They took both Ronald and Brady to jail. But after the judge heard what he had to say—and Brady backed him up—the judge let him go. Mapes spoke up for Brady—how Brady tried to keep children in line when the old people could not. Reynolds, Judge Reynolds, told Brady he knew about him, how he had helped the older people with the children while mon and pa was away—but still he ought to lighten up. He let him go. Few days later Norman came out of the hospital on crutches. Still on crutches to this day. No more Te Jacques though.