“Millie,” he called, stopping her exit. “My letter is from my friend, Mrs. Venable. She’s invited me to supper at her house on next Saturday.” He wanted to ask, what shall I do? How can I go? And, then too, he realized he was already humiliating himself, acting like a spoiled child in front of his nigger house girl. Did he really expect an answer from her? “I think … I will not need you for supper on Saturday.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said. “I’ll come for breakfast and dinner, as usual.” And then, unexpectedly, she told him, “You’ll probably enjoy yourself, to be with your friends.” She had left the room even before she finished the sentence, and suddenly he felt the advice to be genuine. He turned back to the meal, but thoughts of his mother possessed him so strongly that he pushed from the table and went out to the side porch.
The air was dry and clear, and the temperature comfortable. Summer in Georgia was muggy and hot, but spring was full of clarity, color, and breezes. In the blue sky, there were, on occasion, migrating flocks of Sandhill cranes or blackbirds. Azaleas, redbud, and dogwood bloomed. Here it is, he thought, all of Woodbine in her spring glory, like a jewel set in the ring of the horizon. It was all his, every square inch, all the way down to China. And yet, except for Millie, no person had set foot in the house, other than himself, since Spurgeon’s funeral. The fields were generally active; he had twenty-five workers. He thought of some of them very highly. But other than a few business acquaintances and the colored workers, he saw no one. What shall it gain a man to possess the world and to lose his soul, he thought. “Now, Noland,” he said aloud to himself, “Don’t get sentimental on me.”
Though usually punctual to a tee, Jacks found himself running late for the dinner with the Venables. First he couldn’t decide what to wear. He had put on a jacket and tie, and then he thought of Venable, and took off the tie. Then he decided that he needed a smoke and he went out on the side porch, surveyed the field in the direction of Thousand Acres, and smoked. It calmed him for a while. But as he drove the Roadster up the driveway toward the manor house, old anxieties percolated in his stomach. He sat in the car for a moment, and a moment later he was face to face with Vernon Venable.
“Noland, you son of a bitch,” Venable cried out. He extended his hand; Jacks reached through the car window and took it. Venable placed the other hand around his. Venable’s hands felt warm as they gripped. “I’ve missed you, you bastard. Truly, I have missed you.”
The elder Mrs. Venable came to the supper. She had been at the funeral, too, so, of the diners, Jacks had seen her last. Betty looked fresh, a little plumper than when she was in college, but happy. She insisted that he hold the baby, an unremarkable creature, as far as he cared. No one mentioned the trouble that had been between them. This fact and the greasy food churned in his stomach. When supper was over, he and Venable withdrew to the yard, and he smoked his pipe while Venable drank brandy. It was here, sitting in the Adirondack benches under the glittering constellations that he tried to turn the talk away from the superficial. “The last time,” he said, his stomach swelling with gas, “the last time, we sat out here—”
“Noland,” Venable interrupted. “I am your friend, so let me give you some friendly advice. You are young and rich and you ain’t all that bad looking. You go get yourself a wife. Betty has some nice looking cousins. And if you want to step out a bit—why, you can go to Atlanta, or Athens, or Rome. There are some nice looking girls there. If you are really adventurous, go on down to Augusta or Savannah—hell, even to Charleston. You’ll find somebody who will tolerate you.”
“I thought I had.”
“But you hadn’t, apparently. But that is no matter. You will, again.”
Jacks puffed on the pipe. He wanted to argue, but he also wanted the pleasure of being with his friend—just being there with another human being that didn’t work for him was enough for the moment. “I reckon that’s right. Let the past stay past.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“But …” He waited until Venable asked what. “But, you know I am no good with women.”
Venable laughed. “Nobody really is, Noland. Just think about it. We’re all just a bunch of horny dogs with manners. So nobody is really any good. It’s just that you have to think you are good. Think that you are the last good-looking man on Earth. Noland, think about your land, your house. Now that’s enough to make any man desirable. You don’t even have to say a sweet, slick word to a gal, just tell her you own a thousand acres of land!”
“And then what?”
“And then,” he lowered his voice, “fuck her hard.”
He wanted to ask if that was what he had done with Betty, but he decided that they had made some awkward peace on the issue. “I … well, I—”
“Don’t tell me that after four years at the University and you are still a virgin.” Venable punched his shoulder to turn the comment into a joke.
“I didn’t say that! I am just not as outgoing—as confident as you,” Jacks confessed.
“I’ll tell you what. Why don’t we run up to Greene County, to Sals and Pals. I know a sure way to develop your confidence.”
“A whore house?”
“It’ll be fun.”
“I wouldn’t know what to do in a whore house. Besides, they are filthy, aren’t they? Full of disease and no-class people.”
“You sound like my mother, Noland. But really, it’s fun. I’ll tell you what to do. Just choose a gal, take out your flute and let her play it. You don’t have to do a thing.”
Jacks stood. He was embarrassed by the talk, but the sparkle that came through Venable’s voice, even the smacking of his lips after a slurp of the brandy, intrigued him. He took a deep breath and looked at a peculiar star. It was slightly red in hue, and he had never noticed a color in the stars. He was a virgin, he thought. And besides, his father was dead. “All right then,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Hillbilly music played on the phonograph when Jacks and Venable came into Sals and Pals. Lit with kerosene lamps, the place was no more than a large shack, with a downstairs bar and tables and upstairs bedrooms located along a loft. Men sat around at tables or at the bar, playing cards or checkers, taking sips of moonshine from jelly jars. Sals and Pals was sufficiently back from the main road, with a view of the valley, so any approach of revenuers would have been revealed long before they arrived. Though it appeared a relaxed atmosphere, the proprietors, one burly and the other a stickman, had guns in their belts and eyed newcomers with suspicion.
Venable was well-known, and warmly greeted by Sal and Pal and by several of the customers. “This is my compadre,” Venable announced, louder than was necessary for the proprietors to hear. “This is Noland Jacks.”
“Ahh,” Pal, the heavy-set one, said, “not the famous Mr. Jacks, but his son?” Jacks felt a little awkward. The man did not appear to be much older than he, if older at all, and yet he seemed to speak about him as if he were an adolescent. “Yes,” Pal continued, “I know the reputation of the father.” He did not extend his hand, and he only looked at Jacks to survey him, beginning at his waist where he might have carried a weapon, and then moving up and down. “Now, what would be the pleasure of you gentlemen?”
“What are you serving?” Venable asked, and almost before the question was completed, Sal handed him a jelly jar with a finger and a half of liquid in it. Venable shot it back, and winced.
“Sip, sip, sip,” Pal admonished. “And for this gentleman?” He turned his head toward Jacks, but did not look at him.
“Nothing for me.”
“Nothing?” Now, Pal looked at him. Then he smiled. “You have come for some other pleasure, no doubt. You have come for a little tillage? How appropriate for a gentleman farmer.”
Jacks said nothing, but Venable laughed in a halting, high-pitched way.
“Sal,” Pal called to the skinny man, “ask the ladies to present themselves, please.”
Four women came from the back. Three of them were white an
d one was colored. Two of the whites were tall and slim, and one was heavy, with abnormally large breasts. The one that caught Jacks’s attention was the colored one. She was small framed, but rounded and her skin was medium brown. Her hair was soft, like she had a little Indian or maybe even some white blood in her.
“What will be your pleasures, gentlemen?”
Venable sniggled again. “I guess … cause you see, I am a newly married man, so I will have to pass on the ladies—”
“No bims? Are you sure?” Pal turned to Sal. “Vernon Venable says, ‘no cake.’ You think he’s sick? Bring him another hit of our lemonade.” He turned back to Venable. “You see I got a fine, new colored girl there. Fine new coot.”
Venable sipped the liquor. “My friend, Mr. Jacks …”
“How about it, Gentleman Jacks,” Pal offered. “This here is Delilah. She cut Sampson’s hair and turned him into an assman. He would walk a hundred miles for a taste of her cake. She’s a sweet cook, too. You’ll enjoy her. Step up here, baby,” he called to Delilah. “Turn around. Show Mr. Jacks your assets.” He patted her rump. “Smooth as a baby’s. Would you like to feel it Mr. Jacks? Com’on, she ain’t fixin’ to bite. Are you, Delilah? She’s tame as a wildcat.”
The woman moved closer to Jacks, turning her body for him to see and using her hands to frame her breasts, and then her hips. Jacks didn’t move. He breathed deeply and smelled her odor. It was floral. Lilacs or rosewater, he didn’t know which. He noticed little glistening hairs on the nape of her neck. And when she turned again, he saw the shape of her shoulder through the gingham dress, and the way the dress fitted around her breasts. He felt his thigh quiver.
“Perhaps, she is not to your liking,” Pal said. “Perhaps you would prefer one of our beautiful Saxon maids.” He indicated one of the tall girls, who moved forward.”
“No,” Jacks said. “This one, here. She’ll do.”
Pal smiled and waved his hand, indicating to the girl to lead Jacks away. “Oh, yes,” he said, as the woman led Jacks to the stairs, “she will do very well, Mr. Gentleman Jacks. You gentlemen prefer your colored coot, of that there is little doubt. But do not worry, Mr. Jacks. At our establishment, we take precaution against mongrelization. You are in fine hands. Please, do enjoy yourself.”
The woman led Jacks into a room at the end of the loft. It was large enough for a bed, a chair and a washstand. As she shut the door behind them, there was an uproar of laughter from the men downstairs.
“What are they laughing at?” Jacks asked. He hesitated at the door, and reached for the knob. She stopped him with her hand on his. “Pal. He make some kinda joke. Don’t worry. They ain’t laughing at us. They wish they could come up here, too.”
“That Pal, he’s a Charlie Chaplin.”
“I reckon.” She was already unbuttoning her dress. The sight of her cleavage and the lovely brown color of her breasts excited him. As he watched her undress, he hardly breathed, then breathed heavily, and finally quit breathing altogether. He had an erection and though he knew it natural, he also felt embarrassed by it. What if she should see it? And then, once again, his attention went back to the woman, now disrobed. He had seen pictures, and she looked nothing like the pictures. She was not a marble statue of Aphrodite, or a plump, bestockinged French prostitute.
She began to unbutton his shirt and to push it back from his shoulders. She stroked down his back, and up and across his chest, and down his abdomen to his belt buckle. In a minute, his pants were down to his ankles, and his penis had found its way out of his undershorts. She asked him to step out of his pants, and he toed off his shoes and obliged. His nipples and penis burned. He was afraid to move again. She led him to a basin, and poured warm water from a pitcher over his penis and began to wash it with soap.
“What are you doing?” he protested tightly.
“Don’t worry. I won’t make you come. Not yet, baby.”
He could feel himself coming and pushed her hand away. She handed him a towel and sat on the side of the bed and lay back.
“What do you want to do?” she asked.
“What …?”
“Anything you want, honey.”
“I …”
“Com’ere,” she said gently. She sat forward, pulled his hips between her legs and parted her vulva with the head of his penis. An intoxicating smell arose. “Now, push it in, honey. Push it as hard as you want.” He did and stopped. His whole body shook. “Now rock it, baby. In and out.” She began to thrust and he followed her rhythm. On the fourth thrust, his muscles bunched up and his thighs convulsed. For a moment he was senseless, and then he realized that was it.
They dressed, and when he headed to open the door, she stopped him. “Let’s wait a few minutes, sugar, so them downstairs won’t start laughing.”
After fifteen minutes of waiting, saying nothing, but looking at the woman, Jacks began to feel he was ready to do it again. This time, he thought he would do it better. But the woman opened the door and went down the back stair of the loft.
When Jacks returned to the bar room, he did not see Venable. Pal sat on a bar stool, far too small to accommodate his backside. “I can tell by your refreshed expression, Gentleman Jacks, that you enjoyed yourself. Would you like another ride on the merry-go-round, or perhaps you would prefer another merry-go-round? No? Well you will have to wait, nonetheless, for your friend Vernon is having a little taste of cake.”
On the next morning, Sunday, Jacks watched as Milledge served breakfast. She was dressed for church, a simple dress, but better than the one she usually came to work in. He said nothing to her, feeling slightly awkward, slightly new, as if he were wearing new skin. He hoped the experience of the night before did not show on him, and yet it radiated through him, a sense memory that came in waves of pleasure. As she served him, he noticed the roundness of Milledge’s shoulders, the color of her cheeks, and the tiny hairs like silk threads on her nape.
She excused herself to go to church. She would be back to serve dinner and to wash the dishes. When she had gone out of the door, he felt something missing, and went to the door to follow. He saw her head toward the barns, away from the direction she needed to go for River of Joy. But halfway down, she met one of his hands, Johnson, a young, but good worker. He could not hear what they said to one another, but the sound of high, bubbling laughter soon reached him. It was a familiar sound, one he had heard before, from Betty.
He went from room to room in the manor house, not an expansive house by any standard, but stately and spacious and furnished well with pieces from his mother’s family. Milledge kept the wood polished and the upholstery clean. Hardly ever did anyone use the chairs in the parlor or the dining room, and because both he and Milledge entered and left through the back, the foyer, too, was not often used. The house seemed familiar and foreign at once, like the corpse of some beloved person. His mother. His father.
Looking through the lights that framed the front door, he saw Milledge and Johnson again, walking hand in hand, headed, he thought, to River of Joy. Ought he allow it? Courting on his premises?
The breakfast had gotten cold and he took it to the slop pail. He thought how foolish he must have looked, hiding his breakfast from a nigger wench. She wasn’t his mother.
On the side porch, he took out his pipe and smoked. Maybe he ought to go down to River of Joy, too, he thought. After all, he had had a taste of color—he had had a whore—and she was good. Maybe he was a little bit colored now, too. Well, they all were—the colored were a little white and the white a little colored and they all had Indian in them, too. They ate the same foods, they spoke the same language, they prayed to the same God—when they prayed—but they weren’t the same. The woman was a whore, paid for by Venable, saying he owed as much. But, again, he had liked it. He wanted more of it.
Why couldn’t he have what he wanted? He was the owner of Woodbine, the master of Woodbine. Virginia gentlemen always had their concubines; Carolina gentlemen had their mistresses; Geor
gia gentlemen had their gals. He could have a gal, if he wanted to. And he wouldn’t have to pay a cent for her. Johnson could be taken care of. All he would do was to suggest that Johnson seek employment elsewhere, up North. Give him a train ticket and twenty dollars and tell him to seek his fortune in Chicago. And then he would put the girl in one of the cabins, maybe the very one his Irish grandfather started in. She would be comfortable and nearby and he could have her, her lovely arms, her round shoulders and hips, anytime he wanted. “Millie.…”
But that is what a gentleman would do—Venable, if he thought he could get away with it. “But I am not a gentleman. I am better than that.” He thought about the prostitute and about Milledge. He shuddered. “I will never be a gentleman like that. Never. Never, if that is what it means.” He gripped the porch railing and sucked in a breath. He could feel the hands of the prostitute on his back, his stomach. “Oh, Millie,” he said. “Never.”
SEVENTEEN
Betty sent one of the girls around to tell Jacks of the stabbing. Already, Milledge had gone home, so he had to walk through the house to the kitchen, yelling as he went to quell the urgent banging against the screen door. “Miz Betty, she say come here right quick,” the girl said and scratched at her gray braids. “Mr. Vernon, he hurt.”
“Hurt?”
“Yes, suh. Right smart hurt.”
He couldn’t get any other details out of the girl and soon threw up his hands, got his hat and car keys and drove to Thousand Acres. Even before he knocked, another girl opened the door, and he heard a commotion from the upstairs landing. One of the two daughters sounded like she was having a crying fit. He heard the youngest son laughing loudly. Swing music was playing. The oldest son, now a young man, greeted him at the bottom landing. Their eyes met, and then the young man rolled them toward the upstairs and shook his head. “It’s all yours, Uncle Noland,” he said, brushing by Jacks and leaving through the front door. Jacks started up the stairs, but stopped when he heard Betty. She was argumentative, her tone sharp, but her voice rhythmical, punctuated with soft sobs. “Take a gulp of this and lie still. Ain’t nothing wrong with you that an aspirin couldn’t cure,” she said.
The Vain Conversation Page 19