Chaneysville Incident

by David Bradley

  “ ‘Certainly, Mr. Washington,’ I says. ‘Well,’ I says, ‘we’re sure about the woman. We’re sure about the suit, on accounta women makes strange things reglar, an’ if that ain’t enough, you can take a whiff a Mr. White an’ you’ll sniff the stink a bay rum, which sure as hell ain’t no more reglarn a suit, an’ if one unreglar thing is goin’ on, then why not another one?’ ‘Indeed,’ Mose says. ‘Continue, sir.’ An’ I was glad to keep goin’ too, on accounta I was havin’ a real good time turnin’ Josh into a cherry. Every time I’d say somethin’ else, he’d turn red someplace else. By that time I had his face red an’ his neck red. So I pulled up ma socks an’ went to work on the backs of his hands.

  “ ‘Certainly, sir,’ I says. ‘Now, this here woman must be a mighty special woman. Man don’t put on a suit an’ stinkwater jest to lay out in the brier patch with some country girl. She’s so special, Mr. White is in love with her. He respects her.’ ‘An’ how do you know that, Mr. Crawley?’ says Mose. ‘Well, my dear Mr. Washington,’ I says, ‘it ain’t but midnight, which is jest about the time willin’ women is crawlin’ out their windows, or leastways throwin’ up the sashes, an’ Mr. White is here among us, which means the lady is not willin’, on accounta if she was, Mr. White would be elsewhere. On the other hand, he didn’t come in cussin’ an’ swearin’ an’ goin’ on ’bout bitches what gets a man to dress up an’ put on stinkwater an’ gets his nose open an’ then don’t wanna do nothin’ ’cept sit on a porch swing an’ hold hands. An’ that must mean that Mr. White don’t mind jest settin’ on a porch swing an’ holdin’ hands. An’ that means he’s in love.’

  “Now, about this time Josh was ’bout the shade of a barn door, an’ I was ready to ease up some. But Mose, he looks at me an’ he says, ‘Well, I’ll tell you, Jack, you reason that there out jest like a white man. Onliest problem with it is you left out one thing: man said he seen Josh here headin’ down the Springs Road, an’ that road don’t go nowheres but south, an’ as I know don’t nobody know bettern you, there ain’t nary a colored family that way ’fore you get clean to Cumberland. An’ lessen Josh done stole hisself somebody’s racehorse, ain’t no way he could get clean to Cumberland an’ back in that little piece a time, let alone doin’ any courtin’. So I wisht you’d think like a white man a while more an’ tell me jest ’xactly who this lady is.’ Well, he surely had a point, an’ I knowed he did, an’ if I hadn’t a knowed it I woulda been able to figure it out pert quick by the way old Josh jest quieted down an’ looked at me. Quit blushin’, quit chompin’ at the bit; he jest looked, ’sif to say, there, you smart-butted bastard, let’s us see who gonna be laughin’ at who in ’bout three minutes. Everybody else was lookin’ at me too, seein’ what I was gonna do. An’ I didn’t know, but I did know if I didn’t do somethin’ I was gonna look like God’s own fool, an’ the only thing I could figure was to make a joke outa it, so I says, ‘Thinkin’ like a white man, the answer’s clearern air: Josh’s been a courtin’ a white woman.’

  “Well, nobody said nothin’ for a second, an’ then for ’bout five minutes you couldn’t hear nothin’ but folks laughin’. Hawley was laughin’. Charlie DeCharmes was laughin’ fit to bust his gut. Mose, he was damn near rollin’ on the floor. Me, I was perty happy gettin’ outa that little tight spot I’d jawed ma way into, an’ I was laughin’ perty good for a minute. But then I looked at Josh, an’ I seen somethin’ knocked the chuckle clean outa me: Josh, he wasn’t laughin’ at all. He wasn’t even smilin’. He was lookin’ at ’em all laughin’, lookin’ real hard. An’ then he spun around on his heel an’ stomped out. The rest of ’em was so damn busy laughin’ they didn’t even know he was gone. But I knowed, an’ it didn’t take a whole lotta fìgurin’ to see that there wasn’t nothin’ good gonna come of it.

  “Well, the next day, I went huntin’ him. It took me a load a huntin’, too. It was sundown ’fore I come on him, settin’ on a rock by the side a the road, up on Blackoak Ridge, watchin’ the sun go down. I come up on him from behind an’ he didn’t even hear me come; he was that far gone with starin’. So I walked right up behind him—didn’t try to be quiet, but it didn’t make no difference—an’ I grabbed his arms real tight. Had to do that; you don’t walk up on a man like that an’ say somethin’—it’s a fast way to get your head took off. So I grabbed him, an’ I swear to God he didn’t hardly notice that. He just turns an’ looks up at me an’ grins. Dumbest damn grin I ever seen. I left him go. ‘Lissen here,’ I says. ‘I come lookin’ for you to tell you I didn’t mean to ram them spurs in like I done—’ Now, usually Josh woulda made you beg him to leave you apologize, but this time he jest waved it off. ‘Why, Jack,’ he says, ‘that wasn’t nothin’.’ An’ he goes right back to lookin’ at the sunset. ‘Naw,’ I says, ‘I don’t think there was no harm done; wouldn’t nobody believe it ’cept me.’ That there got his attention. ‘What?’ he says. ‘What the hell you sayin’?’ I jest shrugged at him. ‘I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ ’cept that your secret’s safe.’ ‘Ain’t no secret,’ Josh says. ‘Ain’t gonna be for long,’ I says, ‘if you keep on settin’ out in the middle of a Goddamn field in plain sight a the main road, moonin’ over a sunset. Everybody gonna know what you doin’.’ ‘Damn if they are,’ says Josh. ‘Damn if they ain’t,’ says I. ‘Hell, you act like you the first sorry soul ever fell in love. I’ll lay you five to one you an’ this girl decided you was gonna watch the damn sun go down every night an’ think sweet thoughts an’…’ I let up there, ’cause he was turnin’ so red I figured he was gonna bust somethin’. So I says, ‘Josh,’ I says, ‘lemme tell you somethin’.’ I says, ‘You recall when I was all het up ’bout that Berry girl, one lives out near Pleasantville? The one you an’ Mose kept actin’ like you was sniffin’ around jest to get me goin’? You remember all that, Josh? Well, I’m gonna tell you what me an’ that girl useta do. We went to town one day an’ we bought us each a colored candle. Blue ones. An’ every night at eight o’clock, she’d be in her house an’ I’d be wherever I was, an’ we’d light up them candles an’ stare at ’em an’ think ’bout each other jest as hard as we could. So you go back to your sunset, ’fore it’s all gone.’

  “Well, I moved off a ways an’ waited there till the last piece a pink was gone outa the sky. Wasn’t bored waitin’. I had me a couple things to think about. First thing was that Berry girl. Lord, she was somethin’! Long strong legs an’ eyes like gooseberries an’ skin that felt like hot whiskey on a raw throat, an’ that damn candle-starin’ was damn near as good as bein’ right inside her, an’ I swear to God I mighta married her if it hadn’t been for the fact that I went out there one day an’ seen where she had a yellow candle an’ a green candle an’ a red candle right upside the blue one, an’ every one a them others was shorter. But she was still somethin’. But then I started thinkin’ ’bout what was sure to happen when the word got out. An’ that’s what I was thinkin’ ’bout when the sky got dark an’ Josh stood up an’ shook hisself like a hound dog comin’ outa a crick, an’ come over to me.

  “ ‘I guess,’ he says, ‘if I’da knowed how you was feelin’, I wouldn’ta give you such a hard time ’bout that Berry girl.’ An’ then he told me the whole damned story: how he was drivin’ down to the railway depot in Cumberland to pick up a load a stuff for some white man, an’ how he saw this girl walkin’ along the road, an’ he offered her a ride, even though she was white an’ it was the middle a the South County, on accounta she smiled at him jest like he was anybody else, an’ how she talked to him jest like a woman oughta talk to a man, how she wasn’t puttin’ herself above him. An’ he told me how he quit hurryin’ the horses along, jest so he could stretch out talkin’ to her. An’ he told me how he finely drove her right up to her door an’ she ast him to get down an’ have a taste a cider, an’ how he done it, an’ how she poured it for him an’ set with him at the table, an’ how that girl had walked him out to the wagon an’ told him how much she had liked talkin’ to him, an’ how much she had a
lways dreamed about talkin’ to somebody the way they talked to each other, an’ that she hoped he’d come back. He told me how he kissed her, with his heart beatin’ hell outa his chest half from excitement an’ half from fear. An’ he told me how he whipped them horses over them mountains, half the time thinkin’ like a colored man that jest finished kissin’ a white girl, wonderin’ if maybe hadn’t somebody seen it, or if maybe it wasn’t some kinda trap, an’ the other half thinkin’ like a man oughta think about a woman, never mind what color she was. He told me he knowed that last didn’t make no sense, on accounta he knowed he was down there in the South County, an’ headin’ into what useta be slave territory, an’ he knowed he shoulda been hatin’ jest as hard as he could, but all it took was a glass a cider an’ a young girl’s kiss, an’ he was ready to forget everything he knowed. He told me all that, an’ I listened to him. An’ when he was done tellin’ me we went over an’ got on the road an’ walked on back. An’ we never spoke of any of it again. Not never.

  “Well, if it hadda been up to me, wouldn’t nobody a spoke about it, on accounta this wasn’t jest a little piece a trouble Josh was fixin’ to get hisself into. An’ it was surely the wrong time to do it—I don’t guess there’s ever been a right one, but this surely was the wrong one. Folks don’t recall too good anymore, or they don’t want to, but ’round here the Klu Klux Klan was a perty big thing. Jest about then the Republicans an’ the Klan was the big parties, an’ the Klan managed to elect the sheriff. So if it hadda been up to me the whole thing woulda stayed mighty quiet. But it wasn’t up to me. The word got out someways. An’ once it was out, wasn’t no question how it spread; them biddies up to the church done it. Them bitches’d spread anything ’ceptin’ their legs for their husbands. I swear, you want to keep somethin’ quiet, the onliest way to do it is to pass a law against sewin’ circles an’ tea parties. Better yet, get rid a the women. Anyways, they spread it.

  “Truth was, when it come out it wasn’t all that bad. They thought Josh was foolin’ with some piece a white trash, which scandalized the women, but hell, none a us woulda give a damn, an’ sure wasn’t nobody tellin’ the white folks, so when I heard that story, I done all I could to keep folks thinkin’ it; tole ’em the truth. Said Josh wasn’t cattin’ around, he’d found hisself a white girl that had a good family an’ went to church an’ didn’t have no mustache nor harelip nor gimp leg or nothin’ an’ she loved him. Well, didn’t nobody believe it, an’ I figured if the truth ever did come out they still wouldn’t believe it. Only problem was Mose. He was liable to catch on to the truth. An’ that was gonna be trouble, ’cause Mose didn’t have no love for white folks. He’d sell to ’em, an’ he’d buy from ’em when he had to, an’ he’d talk to ’em if there wasn’t no way around it, but he sure as hell wasn’t goin’ to think too much a Josh fallin’ in love with one of ’em. But as it turned out, what Josh was up to was so far offa Mose’s line a thinkin’ he couldn’t even guess at it. An’ I sure as hell didn’t want to tell him. But the time come when I had to.

  “Way it fell out was like this. The whole thing went on clean through the summer. The talk was gettin’ louder an’ Josh was gettin’ moonier. Mostly he wasn’t around. When he was, he’d show up down to Hawley’s an’ lose his money an’ grin like a fool. He’d carry Mose’s ’shine aroun’ an’ deliver it an’ never take a taste. Three different times I knowed about, gals he’d been carryin’ on with up the country someplace come a huntin’ for him, so fired up they come up the Hill walkin’ bowlegged, an’ they left the same way—he wouldn’t have nothin’ to do with ’em. It was sad. Went on like that through the hot months, into the fall. Then things got a little easier. The talk started to die down a little bit—some girl’s belly started to show ’fore they got her to the altar, an’ them biddies had that to go on about—an’ I figgered maybe it was gonna turn out okay, Josh’d come to his senses ’fore the dam busted loose. But jest about the time the first frost hit the ground he come to see me, an’ when he tole me why he come, I knowed that dam was gonna be bustin’ mighty quick, an’ it wasn’t no millpond it was holdin’ back, it was a Goddamned cesspool.

  “He come in the mornin’ an’ we set out there underneath the oak tree drinkin’ spring water an’ eatin’ cold chicken by way a breakfast, an’ he told me how what he’d been doin’ was goin’ down there to the South County to work for that girl’s daddy, helpin’ in the fields an’ forkin’ manure an’ I don’t know what all, jest so’s he’d have a chance to see her, an’ how they’d had their chances, but they hadn’t done nothin’ but talk, she jest loved to talk, an’ he didn’t want nothin’ else from her, on accounta there’d be time enough for that. That there made me set up, on accounta I could see it comin’ but I couldn’t believe it. So I left him tell me about how he’d spent three months stayin’ away from other women an’ cleanin’ everything he owned, an’ cleanin’ up his mind—gettin’ hisself worthy, was the way he put it—an’ then he’d gone down there one night an’ asted that girl to marry him, an’ how she said she would, an’ how he figured that maybe, since her daddy had seen how he could work, an’ had always treated him fair, maybe it would be all right with him. An’ how he was fixin’ to go down there an ast the man if he could marry his daughter.

  “I tell you, Johnny, I jest set there. Finely I says to him—an’ I knowed I was walkin’ on marshy ground, but the way I seen it, he was fixin’ to go marchin’ over quicksand—‘Josh, does this girl know you ain’t as white as you look?’ But he didn’t get all huffy like he usually done whenever somebody made mention of the fact that he wasn’t ’xactly what you’d call dark-skinned. He said, yeah, she knew; matter of fact, that was jest about the first thing she ast him, on accounta he looked colored, ’cept for his skin. So I says to him, ‘You mean you let her talk to you like that? Like you was some kinda funny-lookin’ animal?’ An’ he says, ‘It wasn’t like that. She was jest…curious.’ Well, I knowed then he was too far gone for me to hope to talk sense into him, but I knowed I had to try, so I said to him, ‘Josh, I don’t know. I ain’t said nothin’ ’bout none a this, mostly on accounta so far as I can see it ain’t done nobody no harm, ’ceptin’ a couple country girls. But what you’re talkin’ about now…’ He held up his hand an’ says, ‘I know what I’m sayin’.’ I looked at him, an’ I says, ‘I ain’t sure you do. You’re settin’ there happiern a pig in a garbage pile on accounta you love the girl an’ the girl loves you, an’ you think maybe her daddy ain’t gonna get too upset at the thought of a colored man for a son-in-law an’ pickaninnies for grandchildren. You figure you found somebody white that’s worth takin’ serious. Well, maybe you have. Maybe that girl ain’t never gonna look at you an’ think nigger, an’ maybe her family ain’t neither. But you talkin’ ’bout the South County, an’ you an’ me both know ain’t nothin’ good come outa the South County—’ ‘I know that,’ he says, ‘I been knowin’ it. An’ I tell you, Jack, it ain’t too much different from the North County.’ Well, he had a point there, but not much a one, an’ I says, ‘North, south, east, west, any way from Sunday. What you think is gonna happen when the neighbors find out?’ He was quiet there for a minute; he hadn’t taken that into account. ‘Well,’ he says finely, ‘maybe we’ll have to move away.’ ‘Yeah,’ I says. ‘Take her away from the folks she loves. She’s gonna end up hatin’ you, for sure. She will think nigger, for sure. An’ where you gonna go? East? West? North? Clear to Goddamn Canada? Same damn story. Colored man an’ a white woman, an’ sooner or later somebody’s gonna say somethin’, an’ it’ll set her to thinkin’. Or maybe you’ll have babies by that time; somebody’ll say somethin’ to them. An’ you know you—you can’t let nothin’ like that go by ’thout you say somethin’ too, an’ that’s jest how the end’s gonna start.’ He thought about that for a while, an’ then he looks at me an’ says, ‘I’ll tell you, Jack, from the day I was born I hated everything white, jest on accounta I couldn’t see good an’ didn’t look right. An’ you know how f
olks has treated me over the years. Well, I got even now, ’cause if there’s one thing I can sure do, it’s pass for white.’

  “I jest set there. I couldn’t say nothin’. I couldn’t even think. What the man was talkin’ ’bout doin’ jest plain turned ma stomach. Finely I said, ‘If this girl’s so good, how come you don’t get her to pass for colored?’ He jest looked at me; he couldn’t even begin to see what I was gettin’ at. ‘Damnit,’ I says, ‘you listen to me—’ An’ he put up his hand again an’ stopped me. ‘Jack,’ he says, ‘I made up ma mind. I’m gonna go down there an’ get this thing set up decent an’ formal an’ proper, an’ when we get that done good an’ right we’ll set down an’ we’ll figure out what to do about the rest of it.’ An’ he got up an’ walked away.

  “Well, I set there a long time, thinkin’ ’bout how you could grow up right ’side a man an’ not know a damn thing about what made him do what he done, an’ how any way you cut it, Josh had a right to go to hell any damn way he wanted. By the time I got done thinkin’ ’bout that, it was time to go to work. So I did.