Place Called Estherville

by Erskine Caldwell

Ganus looked hopefully at Robbie.

  “Please you tell them I always mind my own business, Robbie,” he begged the little boy. “You know that’s the truth, don’t you, Robbie? When I shot marbles with you up there in Mr. Charley’s backyard, didn’t I always act like I ought to? Didn’t I always treat you fair and square? I never nudged on you a single time, did I, Robbie? And I never tried to beat you out of your agates, either, did I? Won’t you tell them that for me, Robbie? Please tell them that.”

  “Robbie, are you going to let the coon talk to you like that without calling you ‘mister’?” Hank said tauntingly.

  Robbie burst into tears. He caught Pete by the arm and held to him, refusing to be shaken off.

  “Don’t hurt Ganus any more, Pete!” he cried. “He plays marbles with me everytime I ask him and he never cheats or nothing. I don’t want you to hurt him—you hear!”

  Pete succeeded in pushing Robbie away.

  “Who let that cry-baby come along with us, anyhow?” Hank said, scowling at Pete and Vern. He shoved Robbie to the other side of the alley. “Go on home to your mama and get your ditty, Robbie. You ought to know better than stay out past your ditty-time. And after this stop trying to hang around with grown-up boys like us. You’re too little.”

  “You stop hurting Ganus, Hank Newgood!” Robbie cried.

  “Please, sir, Mr. Hank,” Ganus said desperately, “why do you white boys want to do that to me? I haven’t done anything wrong. That’s the truth. The Good Man knows that.”

  “Why don’t you tell him why, Hank?” Vern said.

  “Hell, the nigger knows why. That’s just a nigger way of trying to beg off. I’ve seen them do that before.”

  “Please, sir, Mr. Hank, I don’t know what you mean,” Ganus said, pleading.

  “He won’t need to know after I take a couple of swipes at him with this knife of mine. All his troubles will be over then for the rest of his life. He ought to be thanking me instead of doing all that begging. Hell, I don’t think he’s educated like he claims. He sure don’t talk like it. A smart, educated nigger would say go ahead and do me a big favor so I won’t never get in trouble from now on.”

  “Let me ask him something first, Hank,” Pete said, pushing the others aside. “Boy, what kind of notions you got in that woolly head about white girls?”

  “None at all, please, sir,” he answered tensely, thoroughly frightened.

  Vern said, “Hank, I always thought that was why niggers wanted to be educated—so they’d get some notions.”

  “I know how to find out if he’s got notions,” Pete said. “Boy, which are the best, white girls or nigger girls?”

  “I wish you wouldn’t make me say anything like that, please, sir, Mr. Pete. It’s not right to make me say those things. That’s something a colored boy ought to keep his mouth shut about.”

  Hank laughed, and said, “He talks just like a nigger preacher I heard once. My old man gigged him with a pitchfork and tried to make him say whether he thought Jesus Christ was white or black. He almost bust a gut trying to get out of saying it.”

  “Boy, you think nigger girls are better?” Pete asked him.

  “No, sir, I didn’t say that.”

  “You think white girls are better?”

  “Yes, sir—no, sir! I don’t know anything about it. I didn’t mean it either way. All I meant was—”

  “You’d better be careful what you say,” he was warned.

  “Please, sir, I only meant what I ought to. I wish you wouldn’t try to make me say what I oughtn’t.”

  “All I’m doing is asking you, and you’re the one who’s doing the answering. How come you know so much about white girls—how do you know if they’re better or not?”

  “I don’t know anything at all about it, Mr. Pete. That’s the Good Man’s truth.”

  “Vern Huff saw you in the Singfield garage,” Pete told him. “You were in there with Stephena Singfield, and there wasn’t nobody else around, neither. Don’t you know better than being out there all alone like that with a white girl?”

  “Mr. Pete, she told me to go out there in the garage and skin-the-cat,” he said earnestly. He glanced appealingly at Robbie, wanting somebody to believe him at a time like that. “I always try to do what Miss Stephena tells me.”

  “She didn’t tell you to show off, did she?”

  “No, sir, and all I did was—”

  “Don’t you know no better than to show off in front of a white girl?”

  “Mr. Pete, I didn’t mean to show off—”

  “How’d I know that was all you did out there?”

  “Because that’s the only thing in the whole wide world I did do, Mr. Pete. You can ask Miss Stephena yourself and she’ll tell you it’s the plain truth. She told me to go out there and skin-the-cat, and I went right out and did what she told me.”

  “How about that, Vern?” Hank asked. “You saw what he did in the garage. Is he lying about it?”

  “He was hanging on a chinning bar skinning-the-cat and showing off just like he’d been born white in the big house,” Vern said. “I watched him till he got down, and he sat on the floor and grinned like a fool about it. He acted like he thought she was going to rub the fuzz off his peach for him, for being such a big show-off. You ought’ve seen him grin at her, Hank. You’d of thought he was whiter than she was.”

  “Maybe he was figuring on getting some goody for showing off,” Pete said, looking at Ganus and nodding suspiciously. “I’ve heard of light-skin niggers like him who didn’t know better than think they had it coming to them.”

  “The lighter-skinned they are,” Vern said, “the more they think it’s coming to them.”

  “Hell, I’m as white as the next one,” Hank said, “but I’ve never had a chance to play around with her like that. It’s getting pretty bad when a nigger can do what I can’t do. I’ve been trying to get a date with her for two months.”

  “Me, too,” Pete said with a wistful inflection.

  “That’s the whole trouble,” Vern said with an accusing look at Hank and Pete. “There’re too many peckers trying to date her. What that does is make her think she’s got the monkey by the tail. She can’t be all that good, anyway. There’re plenty of other good tits in town.”

  “You don’t have to berate her, Vern, just because she won’t let you suck around. Maybe you’re not in her class.”

  “My folks are just as good as hers, any day of the week.”

  “That’s what you think. Do you know how stinking rich that Charley Singfield is?”

  “What’d you think my dad’s got stuffed away in that safe deposit box of his at the bank? He’s already made more money buying and selling cotton on commission than your old man’ll ever make peddling brickbats.”

  “Cut out the squabbling,” Hank said, shoving Pete.

  “Make Vern stop then. He’s the one who started it.”

  “Like hell I did!”

  “You did, too!”

  Vern ran at Pete and hit him with his fist. Pete tried to hit back, but Hank flung them apart. They stood glaring at each other with Hank in the middle.

  “I’m going to haul off and bat the hell out of both of you, if you don’t cut it out,” he told them. He watched them for a moment and then suddenly turned to Robbie Gunsby, drawing back his arm threateningly. Robbie ran and got behind Vern. “I thought I told you once already to go home and get your ditty, Robbie. What are you still hanging around here with us big boys for?”

  Robbie did not say anything, and Hank walked part way to where Ganus was standing against the fence.

  “You’ve been at the Singfields long enough, boy,” he told Ganus. “I don’t want you hanging around a white girl no more. You’re going to quit the job and go to work somewhere else. You hear that?”

  “Mr. Hank, please, sir, Mr. Charley told me when I went to work for him that I couldn’t quit unless he told me to. If I quit now, he wouldn’t like it at all. I’d be scared to quit.”

>   “I don’t care if he does get mad. What’s that to me? You’re going to quit or I’m going to fix you.” He flashed the knifeblade in front of Ganus’ face. “See this knife? That’s what I mean.”

  Robbie nudged Vern excitedly and pointed behind them. Somebody was walking up the alley.

  Nobody said a word, but Pete, seeing the shadowy figure in the alley, caught Hank by the arm and turned him around so he could see that somebody was there. Hank quickly closed the knife, put it into his pocket out of sight, and leaned against the fence beside Ganus. In the faint light they recognized Paul Benoit, who owned one of the drug stores on Peachtree Street and who lived two houses up the alley. He stopped a few feet away. Paul often came home through the alley instead of walking around the block to the front of his house.

  Ganus wanted to run and get behind Paul Benoit, because he knew he might not have another chance like that, but when he thought of what Hank might do when they caught him again, he was afraid to move.

  “What’s going on, Vern?” Paul asked, looking at the faces in the dim light.

  “Nothing, Mr. Benoit,” Vern replied uneasily. “We were just standing here talking.”

  Paul came closer. “You’re not getting these boys into trouble, are you, Hank?” he asked suspiciously.

  “No, sir, Mr. Benoit,” Hank replied meekly.

  Pete saw Paul looking at him. “Howdy, Mr. Benoit,” he spoke up.

  “Who’s that colored boy over there at the fence?”

  “That’s Ganus Bazemore, Mr. Benoit,” Vern told him. “He’s the houseboy up at Mr. and Mrs. Charley Singfield’s.”

  Pete noticed that Robbie Gunsby was slowly edging closer and closer to Paul Benoit, and he caught the boy by the arm and jerked him back. He could hear Robbie whimpering, and he rapped Robbie on the head with his knuckles as a warning to be quiet.

  “Everything’s all right, is it, boys?” Paul asked them, looking from one to the other.

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Benoit,” Pete and Hank said almost simultaneously. “Everything’s just fine, Mr. Benoit,” Vern added.

  “Ganus, are they treating you all right?” he asked.

  Ganus swallowed. He knew he would not have another opportunity like this, but he could not make himself tell on the white boys. He could see from the corners of his eyes that they were watching him apprehensively, and he wondered what each of them was thinking. He tried to think what he would say if Paul noticed that he did not have his pants on. He was glad it was as dark as it was.

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Benoit,” he said finally, looking him straight in the face. He could sense the feeling of relief all around him. “I’m all right, thank you, Mr. Benoit.”

  “We just stopped to talk to Ganus for a minute,” Vern spoke up quickly. “We’ll all be going home pretty soon.”

  Paul saw Robbie Gunsby for the first time. “What are you doing here, Robbie?” he said. “It’s pretty late for you to be out. You’d better go home soon.”

  Robbie glanced up at Pete’s face. He could see the stern look of warning there. Frightened, he said, “Yes, sir, Mr. Benoit.”

  Turning away, Paul walked up the alley toward his gate. “Good night, boys,” he called back, without looking at them again.

  “Good night, Mr. Benoit,” they said in unison.

  Nobody said a word after that for a long time. Nobody even moved until they heard Paul go into his house and close the door.

  Vern was the first to say anything. “He could tell on all of us now—if anything happened.”

  “Hell,” Hank said derisively, spitting in the direction of Ganus’ feet and walking away from the fence, “who’s scared of Paul Benoit! He’s nothing but a soda jerker who owns the joint.”

  “You’d better be scared, Hank Newgood,” Robbie said, breaking away from Pete. “Mr. Benoit’ll know who did it now, if you go and hurt Ganus.”

  “How many times have I told you to go home!” Hank said angrily. “It’s Vern’s fault for letting you come along, anyhow. You’re too little to go around with big boys. You stay away from me after this. You hear, Robbie?”

  “I thought you just wanted to chunk some rocks at Ganus to scare him. I didn’t know anybody wanted to hurt him. I don’t see why you want to. He never did anything to you. I’ll tell on you, too, if you hurt him. You just wait and see if I don’t. I’ll go straight home and tell everybody.”

  “Like hell you will, cry-baby,” Pete said, grabbing him. “You’re not going home and tell on me. I’ll choke the life out of you—if you don’t take that back.” He gripped Robbie’s thin neck with both hands and shook him. “Say it, Robbie! Say it! You’d better take it back! I’ll choke the life out of you till you can’t breathe! Say it, Robbie! You’d better say it!”

  “I want to go home,” Robbie muttered faintly, crying again.

  Vern pulled Robbie away from Pete. “Go pick on somebody your own size, Pete,” he said.

  Hank opened his knife.

  “Hank, let’s just beat up Ganus a little and let him go,” Vern said uneasily when he saw the knife. “It’s getting late. Somebody in one of these houses might hear us and come out to see what’s going on. Mr. Benoit might come back. I don’t want to be caught cutting up anybody with a knife. My dad would take the hide off me.”

  “I want to go home,” Robbie cried in a louder voice, holding tightly to Vern.

  “Christ Almighty!” Hank said in disgust. “Why didn’t all you scaredy-cats stay home with your mamas? I didn’t know there was so many scaredy-cats in town.” Biting his lower lip between his teeth, he drew back his hand and slashed at Ganus with the knife. The blade cut a deep gash across Ganus’ shoulder. “That’ll show you how scared I am of anybody,” he told them boastfully.

  Ganus, uttering no sound, moved as far away from Hank as he could. He put his hand on his shoulder and squeezed the flesh together.

  “You went and made him bleed again, Hank Newgood!” Robbie cried out. Tears were running down his cheeks. “Why’d you do that? He didn’t do anything to you—he never did do anything to hurt you! Why’d you have to go and hurt him like that, Hank?” He ran up the alley. “I’m going home!” he sobbed.

  “Hank, Robbie Gunsby’s going to tell on all of us,” Vern said accusingly. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “Let the cry-baby tell,” Hank said indifferently. “What do I care? Cutting up a nigger’s nothing. I saw my old man hit a nigger once so hard with a scantling it knocked one of his eyes out.”

  Both Vern and Pete began backing away from him.

  Presently Vern went to the fence where Ganus was standing. “Ganus,” he said in a low voice, “you won’t tell on us, will you? I didn’t mean all the things I said. Honest to God, I didn’t, Ganus!”

  Before Ganus could say anything, Hank grabbed Vern and flung him away. Then he shoved Ganus to the middle of the alley.

  “Get going, nigger, and keep your mouth shut if you know what’s good for you.” He walked up to Ganus and shoved him again. “I can make it plenty rough on you, if you talk. You know that, don’t you?”

  Without waiting to go back for his pants, Ganus started walking rapidly toward Poinsettia Street. He was almost there when a heavy rock crashed against the wooden fence beside him, and he began running. He did not look back again after that, but ran as fast as he could toward home.

  Chapter 4

  IT WAS THE END OF MAY and nothing had been done during the past five weeks about paying Kathyanne her wages. After leaving the Swaynes, Kathyanne had gone to work for Madgie Pugh, doing the cooking, cleaning, washing, and other daily household tasks, and each time she had spoken about it, Madgie had become excited and upset and said she was too busy to discuss the matter. That had been going on week after week since the last Saturday in April and she did not understand why Madgie kept on refusing to do anything about it.

  The Pughs lived about half a mile from the center of town in a square, six-room, red brick house, on a sandy ridge, at the north end of Palmetto
Street where several new homes had been built in recent years. The ridge, which previously had been wasteland, with a sparse growth of yellow broomsedge and scraggly blackjack, had been given the name of Sedgefield by a real estate development company, and had become a fashionable neighborhood for those who could afford the upkeep of year-around gardens and bermuda lawns in summer and rye lawns in winter. Carter Pugh, who was ruddy-faced and genial, was general manager of the largest ginning company in the county, and both he and Madgie had been born in Estherville and had lived there all their lives. They had married hurriedly, before a church wedding could be planned, in an attempt to put an end to scandalous talk when somebody in town, whose brother was a hotel clerk, found out that they had spent the night together in Augusta. They were now in their early forties and had two children, Jimmy and Frances, in high school.

  Madgie was president of the Garden Club and was away from home two afternoons a week attending committee meetings. Every Sunday she took Carter and the children to morning church services, and then she and Carter always went to the evening service. Carter flatly refused to go to the Wednesday evening prayer meetings, because he thought that was just too much religion for any man, and Madgie attended alone. Whenever she had an opportunity, she proudly boasted that both her family and Carter’s had been church-supporting Baptists for six generations, and that the two families, during that time, had contributed seven preachers to the Baptist ministry.

  “I declare, Kathyanne, I wish you wouldn’t be so everlastingly annoying,” Madgie said that morning when Kathyanne reminded her once more that she had not been paid. Madgie had a habit of throwing up her hands at a time like that, and fluttering them like a bird flapping its wings against a screen. She was high-strung and nervous, and sometimes, especially when somebody provoked her, she had screaming spasms. The close neighbors had become accustomed to her spells and no longer knocked on the door to ask what had happened. Carter usually gave in to her rather than have to endure one of the scenes. She had always had difficulty in keeping a servant, most of them usually leaving after a week or two. “If there’s anything I detest,” she cried at Kathyanne in her shrill voice, “it’s being pestered like this when I have more important things on my mind. A whole delegation of important people from Macon will be in town tomorrow for a tour of azalea gardens, and I must not be distracted like this. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a dozen times that we’ll discuss it the first chance I can find.” With a flurry of her arms, she got up from the breakfast table, her exasperated expression implying that she considered the matter closed. “Now, please show me the consideration I’m entitled to, Kathyanne. After all, you’re only a servant here. You must remember your place.”