The Third Generation

by Chester B Himes

  They always tried to reach the birdhouse at feeding time. “Listen to the babble of the birds,” William said. It was his great delight.

  In the spring they liked to walk across the ordered acres, down the long stone walks between the sentinel trees, coming suddenly up the wildness of a rocky hill. It was away, care was momentarily gone, the people here were all trespassers like themselves. And, too, their father seemed a little happy on Sunday afternoons.

  Spring in St. Louis was a haunting time. The barbecue pits in the backyards were fired and the soft warm evenings were pungent with the scent of sizzling pork. Excited childish voices floated through the dusk.

  Five…fifteen…twenty-five…

  Are you ready?…

  Children fled and screamed.

  And the morning air smelled of dew and growing things. For that brief period a little bit of country came to the city’s cluttered streets.

  Once Charles awakened in the night and felt his brother crying. Sharply he recalled a night a long time before when he’d run off to a fire and had seen a strange lonely lady and was crying for her in the dark; and his brother’s voice, consoling, “Don’t cry, Chuck. Go to sleep, Chuck. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  Now he wanted to console his brother as he had been consoled. But he couldn’t find the words. He clenched his teeth and held himself rigid in the dark.

  That summer he got a job cleaning and delivering for an old German druggist, and his father bought him a secondhand bicycle. The first morning he swept and mopped the floor and wiped the candy counters. He’d hung his sweater alongside his employer’s, and when the old man wasn’t looking, stole a package of cigarettes, two packages of chewing gum and a chocolate bar and slipped them into its pocket.

  At last the druggist sent him on a delivery. On his return the old man thrust his hand into the sweater pocket and dramatically displayed the loot. “You are a thief!” he shouted, his blue eyes dancing beneath the bushy brows. “I should call the police and have you arrested!”

  Charles quaked with fright.

  “The minute I turn my back you steal this trash.” Furiously the old man shook the loot before his face. “Go! Get out of my sight! Here, take your sweater,” he called as Charles ran off without it. “If I knew how to get in touch with your mother I’d tell her you’re a thief.”

  He snatched his sweater and fled. For hours he cycled up and down unfamiliar streets. He was in a daze. He didn’t know why he’d stolen. He didn’t want the things he’d stolen. And he knew the old man would have given him the chewing gum and candy.

  It was late that night when he went home. The house was quiet. A single light burned in the living room. His mother was waiting up for him.

  “You must be tired, son,” she said. “Why must you work so late?”

  “I had to clean up after the store was closed,” he lied.

  “But why couldn’t you do it tomorrow morning?”

  “I quit, Mother. I told the druggist I wasn’t coming back. He asked me to stay and clean up for him.”

  She looked at him searchingly. He couldn’t meet her eyes.

  “Did you get into any trouble, son?”

  “No, Mother, I just didn’t like the job.”

  “Don’t get into any trouble, son. Mother couldn’t bear it.”

  She arose and led him toward the kitchen. “I saved your dinner.”

  He watched her as she busied about the stove. She looked so frail and tiny and so old. Gray streaks fell like stripes of sorrow in the long brown tresses he’d loved so passionately to brush. She was like some strange little white woman he’d never seen before. What had she to do with him? He felt trapped in another person’s house, sitting at another’s table, looking at a stranger’s mother. And then she turned with his plate. He met the greenish glint of her deep-set eyes, and saw the tender worry they held for him. Suddenly she was his own beloved mother in an overwhelming flood.

  “Mama, Mama.” He groped blindly forward and clasped her about the waist.

  She put down the plate and drew him to her breast. “My baby, my baby,” she sang tenderly, the crying note of worry cutting through his heart. “My little baby. What have you done now?”

  “Nothing, Mama,” he sobbed. “Nothing. I haven’t done anything, honest. I just love you, Mama. And I hate to see you worry so.”

  “Mother loves you also, son. That’s why Mother worries so.”

  After a moment he wiped his face and ate his food. He made a vow to himself that he would never steal again.

  And three weeks later he was fired from another job for stealing. All that day he’d stolen things to carry home—a camera, a nickel-plated watch, a carton of cigarettes and two quarts of ice cream—and had stored them in an empty barrel in the basement. His employer, Mr. Greenbaum, had been watching him all day. At quitting time he called Charles down and confronted him.

  “I didn’t put it there,” Charles denied, frightened sick inside as if he had to vomit. “I didn’t put it there.”

  “You seemed like such an honest boy,” Mr. Greenbaum said. “Maybe if you’re stopped now you can make something out of yourself.”

  “I didn’t put it there. I don’t know who stole it. It wasn’t me.

  The ice cream had melted and ruined everything. Mr. Greenbaum sadly shook his head. “The loss. It’s nothing to me, boy. I can afford it. It won’t break me. But the loss to you, son, you can’t afford.”

  Charles felt the urge to yield, to confess and beg this kind man’s forgiveness. But to confess would have made him the defeated one. He felt that if he once confessed he’d be forever lost.

  “I didn’t take it,” he denied again. “I swear it wasn’t me.

  Mr. Greenbaum looked suddenly old and tired. “Come with me, I’ll pay you off,” he said.

  He pedaled slowly up the hill of Delmar Boulevard. He’d always liked the name of that street; it had such a pleasant sound. People were entering the theaters along the way. They looked so happy. Everyone was with someone else.

  At Vandeventer he saw a hot dog man, the shiny, steaming kettle slung across his back. He stopped and ordered one. The man put the kettle on the pavement, spread sauerkraut between a bun and nestled down the long, black, steaming weiner. Charles sat on his bike and ate it slowly. The man lifted his kettle and went along. The night closed in. Suddenly tears scalded down his cheeks. “Goddammit! Goddammit!” he cried. He’d failed his mother after all. Why couldn’t she take him as he was, he thought. Why was she always forcing him into making some kind of vow he couldn’t keep? Why didn’t she let him alone?

  He threw the remainder of the hot dog to the street and hurried off. Finally he went home.

  The next morning he told her he had quit.

  She said sadly, “You worry Mother so.”

  For a time Tom was home that summer and she pinned her hopes on him. He’d graduate from the university.

  All that week she’d worked in preparation for his coming; she’d cleaned the house and polished the silver and laundered the curtains. And on the day of his arrival she’d cooked all the things he liked, and had decorated the living room as if for Christmas. Finally the taxi came and brought him home.

  She rushed down the steps to greet him. “How handsome you are, my son,” she sang, embracing him. Her eyes were filled with tears.

  Tom was startled by her greeting. “Why, Mother, you’re crying!” he exclaimed.

  “Why, so I am,” she said.

  He was a tall, dandyish man with pretentious manners and an affected laugh.

  “Hello, Dad,” he said, and when the two shook hands it was as if he was greeting a subordinate.

  The children resented him.

  After dinner he put on his gown and mortarboard. “Now, how does your son look, Mother?”

  “You are a man now,” she said. Her voice rang with pride.

  “Let me see it,” William asked, putting forth his hands.

  “Here, put it on,” Tom
said.

  “Now I have two titled sons,” their mother laughed.

  “Mine’s no title, Mother,” Tom corrected. “It’s just a plain B.A.”

  “Yes, my son, but you must wear it as a title and be proud.”

  Later she had him to herself. Professor Taylor and the children had gone to bed. They sat in the living room and talked. She asked him what he planned to do. He’d majored in business administration and accounting and wanted to go into the real estate business.

  “My son, my son,” she said. “You’re going to make your mother famous.”

  He was embarrassed by the intensity of her emotion. “Now, Mother, don’t expect too much from me,” he protested. But he was flattered too.

  He got a job working on a commission basis with a Negro real estate firm. And for a time the house was filled with activity. The young women gave him a rush. His mother was so afraid he’d get himself engaged or have to marry before he’d had a chance to settle down she disliked all the girls.

  “If you ask me I think Maud is the best one of the lot,” she volunteered.

  He gave her a startled look. “Maud? Why, Mother, you know you don’t think anything of the sort. She’s dark and her hair isn’t four inches long and you know you wouldn’t want her for a daughter-in-law.”

  “It’s not what’s on the surface, it’s what’s beneath,” she said sententiously. “Many a golden crust hides a sour pie.”

  He laughed uproariously. “Where’d you get that one? That’s new. I bet you just made it up.” Then suddenly he got her drift and added, “You know good and well Maud’s not only black but she’s evil too. She’s not in love with me; she just wants a man. And you’re just sticking up for her because you think I’m stuck on Sally.”

  “Well, son, you’re grown,” she said, “and if you want to marry Sally I can’t stop you. But I’ll tell you this much, you’ll live to regret it. Sally is a lovely girl and very smart. But she’s hard and ambitious and she’ll just use you for a steppingstone.”

  “I’m not going to marry anyone,” Tom said sharply, “so you can just relax.” He was angry with her for interfering.

  But soon the rush slowed up of its own volition. Tom wasn’t getting anywhere. The girls turned their attention to young men with better prospects. He began to feel the frustration entombing all of them. More than any of the others, he sensed his father’s humiliation and defeat. The house became a prison.

  “I’m going to Detroit, Mother,” he announced. “A lot of colored people are emigrating there and it’s a good field for my line.”

  “But this is your home, son,” she protested, shocked and at a loss for words. “Mother needs you here.”

  “I’m sorry, Mother, but I can’t stay here and live off Dad.”

  “But we want you with us,” she insisted.

  “I’ve got my own life to live, Mother,” he stubbornly maintained.

  She was bitterly disappointed. “You can do as you wish, my son. You’re grown and if you want to go I can’t stop you. But you listen to your mother. A rolling stone gathers no moss. Your mother knows. I allowed your father to drag us all over creation. And what has he to show for it?”

  “I’ve made up my mind, Mother.”

  Her mouth closed in a grim, unforgiving line. “If you leave me now, you needn’t ever come back.”

  But she couldn’t stop him.

  After he’d gone she became assailed by a sense of persecution. She came to the conclusion that all of them were trying to hurt her, Professor Taylor and the children too. At first it revealed itself in their lack of appreciation for all her sacrifices. She’d worked herself to the bone for them, forsaken her own family, given up her friends. And at the first opportunity Tom ran off and deserted her. Nor were the others any better. Now that William could get about a little by himself, he’d forgotten how she’d slaved for him, nursing him night and day, reading to him by the hour. He was all taken up with his work at the school for the blind. His teachers were closer to him now than his mother. And sometimes she felt that Charles actually hated her.

  Later she discovered they were doing little things to hurt her physically, to drive her insane. One would put too much salt in the stew pot, or turn the fire up on the roast. Charles—she was certain it was him—sprinkled water in her bedroom slippers so that she would catch a cold. But she was afraid to accuse him of it; he looked at her so strangely now. And she was positive her husband sprinkled red pepper in her bed, although she couldn’t catch him at it. But she knew; she’d wake up in the morning with her skin all red and blistered. They’d been sleeping in twin beds-in the same room. Now she moved into the room that Tom had occupied and locked the door at night.

  At times she became so frightened of them she’d dress and slip out of the house. She’d go downtown and mingle with white people who didn’t know her. Their years in Mississippi had darkened her complexion slightly. That was another thing she held against her husband. Mr. Taylor had deliberately planned it to embarrass her; that had been his main reason for keeping her so long in Mississippi, so she’d cease being white. Now she took to coating her face thickly with white powder and rouging her cheeks. She looked white as a corpse. On those days she ate in the white restaurants. Her desire to talk was overpowering. She got into long, involved conversations with strangers. Most times it ended in unpleasantness.

  She’d say at some point in the conversation, “I destroyed my life by marrying a Negro.”

  The shocked, indignant people would rise and stalk away.

  But she couldn’t restrain herself.

  “I think my husband is trying to kill me,” she’d say after opening a conversation with some strange woman.

  “Why don’t you go to the police?” would come the shocked reply.

  “My husband is a Negro,” she’d reply, as if that were sufficient answer.

  The children were affected by her strangeness. Quite often it was left to Charles to cook and serve the meals. William was afraid to ask where his mother was. Their father sat alone and brooded. Charles went off at night and cycled through the lonely streets, sometimes sitting on a bench in some remote section of the city, afraid to think. William visited his blind friends, or went to band rehearsal every night.

  Two things happened then to save their mother. Professor Taylor lost his job. Prohibition had come into effect and finally the roadhouse closed. Then William was re-hospitalized for a serious operation. A cataract had begun to form across one eye. Suddenly their mother realized that she was needed. They sold the house and bought a rental property in a poorer neighborhood. They moved into one of the flats, taking only the barest necessities.

  Professor Taylor found employment doing odd jobs of carpentry work. Sometimes on weekends Charles helped him. At lunch, munching the cold bologna sandwiches, they’d talk.

  “Dad, are you ever going South to teach again?”

  “I don’t know, son. It depends a great deal on you boys. Did you like it as well there as you do here?”

  “Oh, I liked it better. We had some good times in Mississippi.”

  Reminiscence lit up his father’s face. “I don’t suppose you were old enough to remember the governor.”

  “No, but I remember hearing you and Mother talk of him.”

  “We might go there again if Will regains his sight.”

  “Dad, do you really think he’ll ever see again?”

  “I don’t know, son. We can only pray.”

  After a long time Charles lied, “I do.”

  “It depends on God now.”

  Charles looked at his father queerly. “I suppose so.”

  Around the first of December the doctors said there was no more they could do.

  They were shocked. None of them had been prepared to give up hope.

  Professor Taylor lost his will. He lost his grip on ordinary things. Caught out in the backyard, halfway to the shed, with a hammer in his hand, he’d forget where he going, what he’d intended to d
o.

  Only the mother’s indomitable will saved them. Now that she had overcome the attack of paranoia, she was stronger than before. She wouldn’t admit defeat.

  “We’ll go to Cleveland,” she told her husband. ‘They have a famous clinic there. And we can live with your relatives until we get settled.”

  16

  WILLIAM AND CHARLES WENT to live with their Aunt Beatrice and Uncle George in a two-story house situated on one of those strange back streets inhabited mostly by Negroes in the heart of an all-white community. Their parents rented a room nearby and took their meals with the Coopers. The Coopers had a son, Freddie, a spoiled, fat, mama’s boy.

  Beatrice had never forgiven Mrs. Taylor for the manner in which she’d been treated when she came, as a girl, to live with the Taylors back at the college in Georgia.

  The little house was always crowded and the air was charged with flaring tempers and the clash of personalities.

  “You don’t like black people but soon’s you get down and out you come running to us.”

  “I married a black man who happens to be your brother.”

  “Yes, you just married him ‘cause you thought he was gonna make you a great lady.”

  “I’ll not discuss It.”

  “You’re in no position to say what you’ll discuss, sister. This is my house. I pay taxes on it.”

  “If Mr. Taylor hadn’t spent all of his money sending you and your sister here from the South he’d have something of his own now.”

  “You dragged him down yourself, don’t go blaming it on us. If you’d made him a good wife instead of always nagging at him, he’d be president of a college today.”

  “Mr. Taylor would never have been president of my foot. He hasn’t got it in him.”

  “Then why did you marry him?”

  “Only God knows. I certainly don’t.”

  Mr. Cooper seemed unmoved by the seething dissension. He came in from work, a big man, six feet four, in dirty overalls, blue kerchief tied around his neck, old black hat down over his huge bald head, and sat before the gas grate in the living room waiting for his dinner.