Going to Meet the Man

by James Baldwin

  Then Jamie stared again at Eric’s father, trembling, and pushed his hair back from his eyes.

  “You better pull yourself together,” Eric’s father said. And, to Eric’s mother. “Get him some coffee. He’ll be all right.”

  Jamie set his glass on the table and picked up the overturned chair. Eric’s mother rose and went into the kitchen. Eric remained sitting on the ground, staring at the two men, his father and his father’s best friend, who had become so unfamiliar. His father, with something in his face which Eric had never before seen there, a tenderness, a sorrow—or perhaps it was, after all, the look he sometimes wore when approaching a calf he was about to slaughter—looked down at Jamie where he sat, head bent, at the table. “You take things too hard,” he said. “You always have. I was only teasing you for your own good.”

  Jamie did not answer. His father looked over to Eric, and smiled.

  “Come on,” he said. “You and me are going for a walk.”

  Eric, passing on the side of the table farthest from Jamie, went to his father and took his hand.

  “Pull yourself together,” his father said to Jamie. “We’re going to cut your birthday cake as soon as me and the little one come back.”

  Eric and his father passed beyond the grey wall where the dog still whimpered, out into the fields. Eric’s father was walking too fast and Eric stumbled on the uneven ground. When they had gone a little distance his father abruptly checked his pace and looked down at Eric, grinning.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I guess I said we were going for a walk, not running to put out a fire.”

  “What’s the matter with Jamie?” Eric asked.

  “Oh,” said his father, looking westward where the sun was moving, pale orange now, making the sky ring with brass and copper and gold—which, like a magician, she was presenting only to demonstrate how variously they could be transformed—“Oh,” he repeated, “there’s nothing wrong with Jamie. He’s been drinking a lot,” and he grinned down at Eric, “and he’s been sitting in the sun—you know, his hair’s not as thick as yours,” and he ruffled Eric’s hair, “and I guess birthdays make him nervous. Hell,” he said, “they make me nervous, too.”

  “Jamie’s very old,” said Eric, “isn’t he?”

  His father laughed. “Well, butch, he’s not exactly ready to fall into the grave yet—he’s going to be around awhile, is Jamie. Hey,” he said, and looked down at Eric again, “you must think I’m an old man, too.”

  “Oh,” said Eric, quickly, “I know you’re not as old as Jamie.”

  His father laughed again. “Well, thank you, son. That shows real confidence. I’ll try to live up to it.”

  They walked in silence for awhile and then his father said, not looking at Eric, speaking to himself, it seemed, or to the air: “No, Jamie’s not so old. He’s not as old as he should be.”

  “How old should he be?” asked Eric.

  “Why,” said his father, “he ought to be his age,” and, looking down at Eric’s face, he burst into laughter again.

  “Ah,” he said, finally, and put his hand on Eric’s head again, very gently, very sadly, “don’t you worry now about what you don’t understand. The time is coming when you’ll have to worry—but that time hasn’t come yet.”

  Then they walked till they came to the steep slope which led to the railroad tracks, down, down, far below them, where a small train seemed to be passing forever through the countryside, smoke, like the very definition of idleness, blowing out of the chimney stack of the toy locomotive. Eric thought, resentfully, that he scarcely ever saw a train pass when he came here alone. Beyond the railroad tracks was the river where they sometimes went swimming in the summer. The river was hidden from them now by the high bank where there were houses and where tall trees grew.

  “And this,” said his father, “is where your land ends.”

  “What?” said Eric.

  His father squatted on the ground and put one hand on Eric’s shoulder. “You know all the way we walked, from the house?” Eric nodded. “Well,” said his father, “that’s your land.”

  Eric looked back at the long way they had come, feeling his father watching him.

  His father, with a pressure on his shoulder made him turn; he pointed: “And over there. It belongs to you.” He turned him again. “And that,” he said, “that’s yours, too.”

  Eric stared at his father. “Where does it end?” he asked.

  His father rose. “I’ll show you that another day,” he said. “But it’s further than you can walk.”

  They started walking slowly, in the direction of the sun.

  “When did it get to be mine?” asked Eric.

  “The day you were born,” his father said, and looked down at him and smiled.

  “My father,” he said, after a moment, “had some of this land—and when he died, it was mine. He held on to it for me. And I did my best with the land I had, and I got some more. I’m holding on to it for you.”

  He looked down to see if Eric was listening. Eric was listening, staring at his father and looking around him at the great countryside.

  “When I get to be a real old man,” said his father, “even older than old Jamie there—you’re going to have to take care of all this. When I die it’s going to be yours.” He paused and stopped; Eric looked up at him. “When you get to be a big man, like your Papa, you’re going to get married and have children. And all this is going to be theirs.”

  “And when they get married?” Eric prompted.

  “All this will belong to their children,” his father said.

  “Forever?” cried Eric.

  “Forever,” said his father.

  They turned and started walking toward the house.

  “Jamie,” Eric asked at last, “how much land has he got?”

  “Jamie doesn’t have any land,” his father said.

  “Why not?” asked Eric.

  “He didn’t take care of it,” his father said, “and he lost it.”

  “Jamie doesn’t have a wife anymore, either, does he?” Eric asked.

  “No,” said his father. “He didn’t take care of her, either.”

  “And he doesn’t have any little boy,” said Eric—very sadly.

  “No,” said his father. Then he grinned. “But I have.”

  “Why doesn’t Jamie have a little boy?” asked Eric.

  His father shrugged. “Some people do, Eric, some people don’t.”

  “Will I?” asked Eric.

  “Will you what?” asked his father.

  “Will I get married and have a little boy?”

  His father seemed for a moment both amused and checked. He looked down at Eric with a strange, slow smile. “Of course you, will,” he said at last. “Of course you will.” And he held out his arms. “Come,” he said, “climb up. I’ll ride you on my shoulders home.”

  So Eric rode on his father’s shoulders through the wide green fields which belonged to him, into the yard which held the house which would hear the first cries of his children. His mother and Jamie sat at the table talking quietly in the silver sun. Jamie had washed his face and combed his hair, he seemed calmer, he was smiling.

  “Ah,” cried Jamie, “the lord, the master of this house arrives! And bears on his shoulders the prince, the son, and heir!” He described a flourish, bowing low in the yard. “My lords! Behold your humble, most properly chastised servant, desirous of your—compassion, your love, and your forgiveness!”

  “Frankly,” said Eric’s father, putting Eric on the ground, “I’m not sure that this is an improvement.” He looked at Jamie and frowned and grinned. “Let’s cut that cake.”

  Eric stood with his mother in the kitchen while she lit the candles—thirty-five, one, as they said, to grow on, though Jamie, surely, was far past the growing age—and followed her as she took the cake outside. Jamie took the great, gleaming knife and held it with a smile.

  “Happy Birthday!” they cried—only Eric said nothi
ng—and then Eric’s mother said, “You have to blow out the candles, Jamie, before you cut the cake.”

  “It looks so pretty the way it is,” Jamie said.

  “Go ahead,” said Eric’s father, and clapped him on the back, “be a man.”

  Then the dog, once more beside his master, awoke, growling, and this made everybody laugh. Jamie laughed loudest. Then he blew out the candles, all of them at once, and Eric watched him as he cut the cake. Jamie raised his eyes and looked at Eric and it was at this moment, as the suddenly blood-red sun was striking the topmost tips of trees, that Eric had looked into Jamie’s eyes. Jamie smiled that strange smile of an old man and Eric moved closer to his mother.

  “The first piece for Eric”, said Jamie, then, and extended it to him on the silver blade.

  That had been near the end of summer, nearly two months ago. Very shortly after the birthday party, his mother had fallen ill and had had to be taken away. Then his father spent more time than ever at The Rafters; he and Jamie came home in the evenings, stumbling drunk. Sometimes, during the time that his mother was away, Jamie did not go home at all, but spent the night at the farm house; and once or twice Eric had awakened in the middle of the night, or near dawn, and heard Jamie’s footsteps walking up and down, walking up and down, in the big room downstairs. It has been a strange and dreadful time, a time of waiting, stillness, and silence. His father rarely went into the fields, scarcely raised himself to give orders to his farm hands—it was unnatural, it was frightening, to find him around the house all day, and Jamie was there always, Jamie and his dog. Then one day Eric’s father told him that his mother was coming home but that she would not be bringing him a baby brother or sister, not this time, nor in any time to come. He started to say something more, then looked at Jamie who was standing by, and walked out of the house. Jamie followed him slowly, his hands in his pockets and his head bent. From the time of the birthday party, as though he were repenting of that outburst, or as though it had frightened him, Jamie had become more silent than ever.

  When his mother came back she seemed to have grown older—old; she seemed to have shrunk within herself, away from them all, even, in a kind of storm of love and helplessness, away from Eric; but, oddly, and most particularly, away from Jamie. It was in nothing she said, nothing she did—or perhaps it was in everything she said and did. She washed and cooked for Jamie as before, took him into account as much as before as a part of the family, made him take second helpings at the table, smiled good night to him as he left the house—it was only that something had gone out of her familiarity. She seemed to do all that she did out of memory and from a great distance. And if something had gone out of her ease, something had come into it, too, a curiously still attention, as though she had been startled by some new aspect of something she had always known. Once or twice at the supper table, Eric caught her regard bent on Jamie, who, obliviously, ate. He could not read her look, but it reminded him of that moment at the birthday party when he had looked into Jamie’s eyes. She seemed to be looking at Jamie as though she were wondering why she had not looked at him before; or as though she were discovering, with some surprise, that she had never really liked him but also felt, in her weariness and weakness, that it did not really matter now.

  Now, as he entered the yard, he saw her standing in the kitchen doorway, looking out, shielding her eyes against the brilliant setting sun.

  “Eric!” she cried, wrathfully, as soon as she saw him, “I’ve been looking high and low for you for the last hour. You’re getting old enough to have some sense of responsibility and I wish you wouldn’t worry me so when you know I’ve not been well.”

  She made him feel guilty at the same time that he dimly and resentfully felt that justice was not all on her side. She pulled him to her, turning his face up toward hers, roughly, with one hand.

  “You’re filthy,” she said, then. “Go around to the pump and wash your face. And hurry, so I can give you your supper and put you to bed.”

  And she turned and went into the kitchen, closing the door lightly behind her. He walked around to the other side of the house, to the pump.

  On a wooden box next to the pump was a piece of soap and a damp rag. Eric picked up the soap, not thinking of his mother, but thinking of the day gone by, already half asleep: and thought of where he would go tomorrow. He moved the pump handle up and down and the water rushed out and wet his socks and shoes—this would make his mother angry, but he was too tired to care. Nevertheless, automatically, he moved back a little. He held the soap between his hands, his hands beneath the water.

  He had been many places, he had walked a long way and seen many things that day. He had gone down to the railroad tracks and walked beside the tracks for awhile, hoping that a train would pass. He kept telling himself that he would give the train one more last chance to pass; and when he had given it a considerable number of last chances, he left the railroad bed and climbed a little and walked through the high, sweet meadows. He walked through a meadow where there were cows and they looked at him dully with their great dull eyes and moo’d among each other about him. A man from the far end of the field saw him and shouted, but Eric could not tell whether it was someone who worked for his father or not and so he turned and ran away, ducking through the wire fence. He passed an apple tree, with apples lying all over the ground—he wondered if the apples belonged to him, if he were still walking on his own land or had gone past it—but he ate an apple anyway and put some in his pockets, watching a lone brown horse in a meadow far below him nibbling at the grass and flicking his tail. Eric pretended that he was his father and was walking through the fields as he had seen his father walk, looking it all over calmly, pleased, knowing that everything he saw belonged to him. And he stopped and pee’d as he had seen his father do, standing wide-legged and heavy in the middle of the fields; he pretended at the same time to be smoking and talking, as he had seen his father do. Then, having watered the ground, he walked on, and all the earth, for that moment, in Eric’s eyes, seemed to be celebrating Eric.

  Tomorrow he would go away again, somewhere. For soon it would be winter, snow would cover the ground, he would not be able to wander off alone.

  He held the soap between his hands, his hands beneath the water; then he heard a low whistle behind him and a rough hand on his head and the soap fell from his hands and slithered between his legs onto the ground.

  He turned and faced Jamie, Jamie without his dog.

  “Come on, little fellow,” Jamie whispered. “We got something in the barn to show you.”

  “Oh, did the calf come yet?” asked Eric—and was too pleased to wonder why Jamie whispered.

  “Your Papa’s there,” said Jamie. And then: “Yes. Yes, the calf is coming now.”

  And he took Eric’s hand and they crossed the yard, past the closed kitchen door, past the stone wall and across the field, into the barn.

  “But this isn’t where the cows are!” Eric cried. He suddenly looked up at Jamie, who closed the barn door behind them and looked down at Eric with a smile.

  “No,” said Jamie, “that’s right. No cows here.” And he leaned against the door as though his strength had left him. Eric saw that his face was wet, he breathed as though he had been running.

  “Let’s go see the cows,” Eric whispered. Then he wondered why he was whispering and was terribly afraid. He stared at Jamie, who stared at him.

  “In a minute,” Jamie said, and stood up. He had put his hands in his pockets and now he brought them out and Eric stared at his hands and began to move away. He asked, “Where’s my Papa?”

  “Why,” said Jamie, “he’s down at The Rafters, I guess. I have to meet him there soon.”

  “I have to go,” said Eric. “I have to eat my supper.” He tried to move to the door, but Jamie did not move. “I have to go,” he repeated, and, as Jamie moved toward him the tight ball of terror in his bowels, in his throat, swelled and rose, exploded, he opened his mouth to scream but Jamie’s
fingers closed around his throat. He stared, stared into Jamie’s eyes.

  “That won’t do you any good,” said Jamie. And he smiled. Eric struggled for breath, struggled with pain and fright. Jamie relaxed his grip a little and moved one hand and stroked Eric’s tangled hair. Slowly, wondrously, his face changed, tears came into his eyes and rolled down his face.

  Eric groaned—perhaps because he saw Jamie’s tears or because his throat was so swollen and burning, because he could not catch his breath, because he was so frightened—he began to sob in great, unchildish gasps. ‘Why do you hate my father?’

  “I love your father,” Jamie said. But he was not listening to Eric. He was far away—as though he were struggling, toiling inwardly up a tall, tall mountain. And Eric struggled blindly, with all the force of his desire to live, to reach him, to stop him before he reached the summit.

  “Jamie,” Eric whispered, “you can have the land. You can have all the land.”

  Jamie spoke, but not to Eric: “I don’t want the land.”

  “I’ll be your little boy,” said Eric. “I’ll be your little boy forever and forever and forever—and you can have the land and you can live forever! Jamie!”

  Jamie had stopped weeping. He was watching Eric.

  “We’ll go for a walk tomorrow,” Eric said, “and I’ll show it to you, all of it—really and truly—if you kill my father I can be your little boy and we can have it all!”

  “This land,” said Jamie, “will belong to no one.”

  “Please!” cried Eric, “oh, please! Please!”

  He heard his mother singing in the kitchen. Soon she would come out to look for him. The hands left him for a moment. Eric opened his mouth to scream, but the hands then closed around his throat.

  Mama. Mama.

  The singing was further and further away. The eyes looked into his, there was a question in the eyes, the hands tightened. Then the mouth began to smile. He had never seen such a smile before. He kicked and kicked.

  Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama.