Dark Don't Catch Me

by Packer, Vin

  His wife glances at him questioningly. “Now, that’s a right silly thing to say, Storey.”

  “Oh, I don’t mean it no way special. It’s just that Viv is so — ”

  “I guess you think she’s too wild, ah, Stor?” Hooper laughs. “Hell, no, I didn’t mean nothing of the kind. Wild? Viv?” “Some get that impression. Girl can’t help because she’s pretty,” Hooper says.

  “G’wan, Thad. Viv wild?” “Sure. Some think so, I guess.”

  Kate says, “Why it’s quite to the contrary. She seems too much like a city lady, is what Storey means, I guess. Though, law, we got Marianne Ficklin playing in our band, and she’s from New York City.”

  “Where is Viv anyway, Thad?”

  “You’re mighty impatient. Guess I got to look out for you.” Hooper laughs again and nudges Kate. “How about that, Kate? You and me got to watch out we don’t get cut right outa the picture.”

  “What we really need,” Kate says, “is a saxophone player. It’d improve us a whole lot.”

  “I was by to see you s’afternoon, Thad. Got off early over at the mill. Viv tell you?”

  “Naw, she didn’t. See what I mean? I got to watch right sharp ‘fore my best buddy cuts me out.”

  “Of course Clara Sell plays sax some, but tuba’s her specialty and we really need both.”

  “Yeah, I was by around three o’clock. Viv told me you was up to the grave.”

  “You know, Storey, it’s funny. You’re the only one that ever calls her that, Viv …” Hooper chuckles. “Sort of like a pet name.”

  “Oh, I always called her that. From way back I have.”

  “Hear that, Kate?” Hooper grins at Storey’s wife, who looks at him somewhat bemused. “I think way back they were kind of sweet on each other.”

  Kate Bailey shrugs; puzzled at the way Thad is laboring the joke.

  “Aw, hell, Thad! You was always my idol, f’Chrissake.” “Why all this talk suddenly?” Kate says.

  “We’re just teasing,” Thad answers.

  Kate says, “Maybe I can go and help Vivie?”

  “To tell you the truth, Kate, Vivie’s in a little tizzy, sort of. Oh, she’ll get over it. She’ll be along soon enough.”

  “You and her had a spat?” Bailey asks.

  “Naw, nothing like that. Just some words.”

  “Maybe we all ought to sing,” Kate suggests, “and pep everybody up.”

  Opposite the Baileys and Thad, across the fire, Joh, Guessie, the Ficklins and Colonel Pirkle discuss the moonshine crackdown. Marianne Ficklin’s thoughts wander from Colonel’s words — “… but out at the one I was visiting this afternoon they got a number ten upright boiler in good condition, and a two-hundred gallon pre-heater and pre-heater unit …” — to: thoughts of Major Post, as her eyes follow the dark, tall, sturdy figure of the young boy, the young black boy-man, as he goes back up the hill from the spring, lugging the stew pail. Big nigger, she thinks; big virile strong kind that push against you up North; knee you on a subway with their big strong knees in you. And she thinks of how this morning he was afraid to take a cool drink, so scared he left the ashcans on the lawn and went, scared because he’s wild and he knows he’s wild with that nigger blood pulsing through his big body. And she thinks of how tomorrow he will come to the house, cap in hand. “What do you want me to do, ma’am?” and of how she could say, “What would you like to do, Major? If you could. Tell me. Go on, Major. I dare you.” Big strong, kneeing nigger, the kind that puts his knee right in you during a rush hour — once she had let one do it, just to see. Get a black ape out of the Alabama cotton fields and put him on the 8th Avenue at 5:15 any evening and the nigger in him can’t help finding a white girl to rub against; it’s all hidden down here behind the goddam sneaking-around servility. “Yes, Miz Ficklin” — but underneath thinking, I got something you want bad, baby. South or North, never mind, big strong kneeing niggers know what they got and what you want.

  “… don’t you think so, Marianne?” Colonel Pirkle’s voice crashes through the wall of thoughts.

  “I certainly do, Colonel,” she answers quickly. “And before I forget, Colonel. I think your editorial about getting rid of the Naked Hag, in last Wednesday’s journal was very well put!”

  “Well,” Colonel says, “thank you. The way I figure, we got to do something and do it fast. Now, what the Supreme Court says we should do isn’t that something, to my way of thinking. Not going to solve the problem by a decree which overnight throws down a long line of Supreme Court decisions under which the separate schools were built in the first place!”

  Bill Ficklin says: “Hell, Colonel, in a way we have to do things overnight or they’ll never get done. You know that. You think we’d ever desegregate our schools if such a decree weren’t made?”

  “Eventually, yes. Yes, Fick. Every generation we’ve narrowed the gulf between the niggers and us. But the Supreme Court’s got no right to insist that in every place, and without regard to circumstances, the whole burden of solving the most difficult of social and political problems, should be thrown at one single generation of school children. You oughtta know that, Fick, as superintendent. You oughtta know what’d happen if we were desegregated in Paradise tomorrow. Why hell, there’d be fifteen black niggers to every white kid. How you think it’d work out?”

  “It’d sure be a mess,” Marianne Ficklin says. “That’s why I say what we got to do is build a new, modern, good nigger school. And make the white school a private school. Hell, we’re good Southerners; we’re obliged to take care of our niggers!”

  “But will we?” Ficklin says. “That’s all.” Guessie Green, who has been listening silently, says in her mild, soft tone, “I believe we will. In Paradise we’ve always loved our Nigraws; we’ve been tolerant of all their traits, and loved them just like they were our own children.”

  Her husband, the reverend, nods in agreement. “It’s all in the Bible. The Lord said of the children of Cain that he’d put a mark on ‘em and all their children would be the servants of servants. We’re God’s servants and they’re our servants, and it’s the Christian thing to do to look out for our help, cause we’re all good folks here in Paradise. Not like some Southern villages. We’re Christians.” He puts his arm around his wife affectionately. “Guessie and I were talking driving out here. The only way to sell tolerance of the Nigraw is to be tolerant of his traits. And we got to sell tolerance, cause it’s Christian.”

  Colonel muses, looking into the fire. “Well,” he says, “I don’t know about Christian or not Christian. The way I feel is folks got to stand by their own, that’s all. I believe a man’s got to stand by his own.”

  “Amen!” Joh exclaims. “That’s selling my product, Colonel. Amen!”

  • • •

  At the top of Linoleum Hill, Major pauses, the pail hanging in his hand. He looks down on the circle lit by the fire, listens to the noise white folks make, and thinks of Mrs. Hooper. I’m really hurt; I can’t be doctored for this one, Major. He says in his mind, neither can my sister, white lady, not by Doc James, not by any doctor. But don’t you think little Mister Thad is all to blame, no, like you said not all to blame; but the other half ain’t sister’s fault either, like you think. Blame’s other name is South, the land where a proud Negro man’s got to hold his head up cause if he look down he sees his sister on the ground under a cracker he feels like killing, but can’t kill, can’t even say nothin’ to, or he gets himself killed and takes food outa his sister’s mouth. A dead nigger can’t keep the cowpeas and fatback on the table, and if the nigger can’t feed his own, the white man ain’t going to.

  Like Hus said when she told him about Marilyn Monroe and he told Hus he’d wring that white neck for little Thad: “Sure enough, Major, s’good idea to choke that little devil, but you’d go and get your own neck a rope and what good that do for us? Posts ain’t got no corner on brains as ‘tis, widout you gettin’ your neck in a noose.”

  And, “Oh, yeah,” Majo
r had said. “Oh, yeah! Where there’s life there’s hope. Where’s there’s a tree, there’s a rope.”

  “My, my,” Hus had said. “How smart you’re gettin’ to be.”

  When he thinks mad, Major thinks it in that way of his that makes it more ironical to use the words and expressions and easy-sounding jargon the white man thinks niggers use; because when he thinks mad there’s always a white man behind the curtain, raise the curtain and find the reason: white man jumped a colored girl in an alley, Lord, couldn’t say a mumbalin’ word; white man stared a colored boy off the sidewalk to the gutter, keep him in his place, damn coon; white man built a new white school that looks like a goddam palace, gave the old desks to the colored barn on the hill, see how good we is to our little black Samboes learning their wool head the A.B.C.’s so they can spell cotton some day; white man complained, Nigger what the hell you mean you only picked a hundred and seventy pounds t’day, you know we’re in a hurry, God damn it, now git back, you ain’t through by a long shot! Sing out Can’t pick cotton, massa — whine it like a nigger would — Cotton seed am rotten, haw, haw, haw! Raise the curtain, Rastus, and find the reason, but keep yo big mouf shut!

  I’m sorry for you, Miz Hooper, Major thinks — turning from his view below him at the brow of the hill, heading to Hus with the stew pail — but my tear ducts ain’t workin’ or somethin’. Maybe nigger ducts done gone dry back in Year One. Lawd, dog-gawd, she sure got herself a swat though. Big goddam bull dog with his boy, boy, “Hey, boy! You! Nigger!”

  Trudging toward his grandmother, the old lady watches him, studying him while he sets the pail down beside her with a clatter and a whew!

  “Yeah, Major, you don’t look any other way but like you was gonna cut somebody up in small pieces and send ‘em to the coroner in a crocus sack, col-lect.”

  “G’wan, Gran, I love slavery. Ain’t had so much fun since the hogs et up Harriet Tubman!”

  “Here.” Hussie pokes her pipe toward the stew. “Take a spit, Major. Get the taste outa yo mouth.”

  “Gran, I’m going to worry that stew some, but not by spittin’ in it, I tell you. It’s not spit I’m intending for that stew.”

  The old lady looks up at him. “You ain’t goin’ to do nothin’ else in it while I’m lookin’,” she says with a gleam in her eye, poker-faced. “So you gotta hold yourself till I turns around.”

  While the moon comes up over Linoleum Hill and a clock strikes eight in Paradise, down below the brow of the hill Kate Bailey leads them singing:

  Still long-ing for the old plan-ta-shun

  And for the old folks at home….

  15

  Jim Crow’s brass rail divides the grimy yellow-brick-walled station; sign says Manteo over the paint-peeling wooden ticket window on the white side, and the rows of wooden benches, all empty.

  And a dopey-eyed old Negro porter standing by the bulletin boards that post the train schedules, peers out disconsolately from the peak of a faded red cap, and asks Millard Post: “You looking fo somethin’ particular?”

  “I just got off the bus from Athens. I’m supposed to be met here.”

  The old man shrugs, spits a yellow stream of chaw over his shoulder into the spittoon, then shuffles along the floor that reeks of coal-tar disinfectant, to the door, and out.

  Millard glances at the clock. Nine-thirty. Bus was late, maybe they came and went already thinking he wasn’t coming after all, leaving him stranded in the Manteo station — Christ!

  The ticket window on the white side is open; on his side, closed. Millard sees a man standing behind the bars of the open window, flicking through a copy of the Atlanta Constitution, an eye shield hiding his face and his view of Millard.

  Millard says, “Sir?” Millard says, “Pardon me, sir. I wonder if you could tell me — ”

  But the man does not raise his head from the newspaper.

  Millard sets his suitcase down; looks around him and sees no one else. He looks at the benches, then again at the clock, frowns, and finally walks by the brass rail and up to the window.

  “Sir?”

  The man raises his head slowly, seeing Millard for the first time.

  “What’re you doing over here?” he demands, pushing his eye shield back on his head. “This isn’t the colored side.”

  “Yes, sir, I know, but — ”

  “Well, then, what’re you doing here? Get on back, boy.”

  “I have a question, sir. I just want to know something.”

  “Look, dark boy, you got no business wanting to know something over here. Now make tracks! You go over there if you want to know something,” he says, pointing a skinny finger at the opposite side of the station.

  Millard says, “Yes, sir.”

  He turns and goes back behind the rail, stands looking around him, then picks his suitcase up and carries it to the wooden bench. The white man at the ticket window across from him disappears from sight. Millard sits down, exhausted, weeping-Jesus miserable. He shuts his eyes, rubs them with his hand and then just sits. Wonders what in hell to do now; what in hell should I do?

  Fifteen minutes drag up the clock before a door opens on the white side, the man with the eye shield comes out; crosses the rail, and comes up to Millard.

  “You’re not from around here, are you, boy?”

  “No, sir”

  “You’re from up North, aren’t you?” “Yes, sir.”

  “You like neckties, boy?”

  Millard’s hand touches his necktie unconsciously, straightens the knot in it. Must look plenty ugly to this white man, ugly and sloppy after a day’s traveling.

  “Yes, sir,” Millard says. “I’ve been a day traveling.”

  “I didn’t ask you that. I asked you about your necktie.”

  “Yes, sir, I know. I straightened it.”

  The white man raises an eyebrow, skinny little white man, standing in his shirt sleeves eying Millard, a burnt-down cigarette caught between his long, bony fingers. “Around here there’s an expression, boy. They say around here a nigger with a pocket handkerchief better be looked after. Same with neckties, I reckon.”

  Millard just looks at him, scared.

  “I wouldn’t wear that around here if I was you, boy. Folks going to get the wrong idea about you, boy.”

  “Yes, sir,” Millard says weakly, and pauses while the white man looks at him, looks away from the white man, then slowly undoes his necktie, bunches it up in his hand, and shoves it into his coat pocket.

  “You get that suit up North?”

  “Yes, sir. In New York,” Millard says; sweat on his brow — oh Jesus, what’d I do?

  “You must be a big shot coming from up in N’yawk, huh, boy?”

  “No, sir!”

  “I hear the buildings in N’yawk are so tall they rock. That true?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I hear the niggers up there act just about as tall and loose as those tall buildings that rock. That true?” “No, sir.”

  “You know in some places you walk over to the white side wanting to learn information, they learn it to you.” “Please, sir, I’m sorry, sir.”

  “Oh, I’m not saying this place is like the next. I’m just saying some places don’t cotton to pocket-handkerchief niggers.” The skinny man drops his cigarette, grinds it out with his heel, and regards Millard thoughtfully. “But you just don’t know no better. Up there they don’t learn niggers how to act none.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All you gotta do down here to get along, boy, is remember you’re a nigger. We got nothin’ against niggers.” “Yes, sir.”

  “Treat our niggers better than they do up North, but our niggers are niggers and our niggers know it.” “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m tellin’ you for your own good. That little nigger boy works here as a porter been here long as I have, and I feel right fond of that boy and he’ll tell you so himself, but I don’t like a nigger don’t know how to keep his place. That kind of nigger stirs up trouble.”r />
  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  “You’re welcome, boy. Now what you want to know?”

  Millard feels a wave of warm relief flood through him, feels almost grateful to this white man. He says softly, “I was supposed to be met, sir, by my uncle. I was late. I wondered if he came and went.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Mr. Post, sir”

  “I don’t know no mister niggers, boy. And I don’t know

  no niggers that got last names. Now you got to learn yourself how to conduct proper. What’s your uncle’s first name?”

  “Bryan, sir.”

  “Nickname?”

  “I — I don’t know, sir.”

  “An’ he’s from here in Manteo? What’s he do?” “No, sir, he’s from Paradise.”

  The skinny man sighs. “Hell, whyn’t you say so in the first place! Naw, I wouldn’t know him anyways. But I don’t guess he’s been around here. Not tonight. Been real quiet.”

  “Can I get to Paradise on a bus, sir?”

  “Naw, hell no! Only one a day goes there.” The skinny man starts to walk away, says before he turns, “You best hitch or walk, dark boy. You g’wan out on the highway and get along’s best you can. It’s twenty miles, but there’s trucks on the route this time night. Sometimes those drivers like company.” He looks again at Millard. “But if you’re hitching, you better get that New York coat off’n your back and roll up them sleeves, or you’re not gonna get no place, nigger, but into a peck of trouble.”

  “Yes, sir,” Millard says. “Thank you, sir.”

  “You got a long way further than Paradise to go, nigger. Better not be forgetting it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Millard says. “Thank you, sir.”

  There’s the sound of a door slamming, the sudden eery emptiness of a combination train-and-bus station in a small strange town — how many miles from home? — and a clock ticking too loud, and Jim Crow’s brass rail shining so Millard Post can see his face in it, at night, in Manteo, Georgia, U.S.A.

  Millard picks up his suitcase.