Ann Petry

by Ann Petry

  When they got home, he said, “Aunt Abbie, who was Mr. Weak Knees talking to?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, what did he mean when he said, ‘Get away Eddie’?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about him. He’s not the kind of person I’d be apt to know.”

  That night, at supper (Saturday night—so it was baked beans and brown bread, homemade pickles and coleslaw, gingerbread and applesauce, hearty, and filling, and cheap, according to Abbie) he patiently waited for a moment when Abbie and the Major weren’t talking, so that his question wouldn’t be lost by Abbie’s saying, “You mustn’t interrupt, dear.”

  The Major took the cover off the big earthenware bean pot, leaned over and sniffed the fragrant steam that issued from it. He served all the plates and while he sliced the brown bread with a string, Abbie put coleslaw on the plates, both of them talking because they hadn’t seen each other all day. He thought they’d never be done with talking, then the Major said the blessing, and there was a little pause.

  Link said, “Uncle Theodore, what’s it mean when somebody asks you how they’re runnin’?”

  The Major said, “Well, now let me see. Who asked you that and just how did they say it?”

  “It was Mr. Weak Knees, the man with the funny walk. I saw him at the greengrocer’s and he said, ‘How they runnin’ this mornin’, young feller? Is yours out in front?’ What’s that mean?”

  “He wanted to know if everything was all right with you,” the Major said, and let out a great roar of laughter, laid his knife and fork down, leaned back in his chair, held on to the edge of the table, and seemed to laugh all over. Abbie smiled and then laughed. So did Link.

  “That’s what he meant,” the Major said. “He must be a racetrack man. Probably loves horses. About the best thing that can happen to a man that’s got a passion for racehorses is to have the pony he put his money on start running way out in front. The Governor’s a great man for horses. That is,” he said, glancing quickly at Abbie, and then away, “he was in his younger days. When his horse was so far out in front there was no question but what it would come in first, he’d jump up and down, hollering and shouting, just like a crazy man. There’s something about a horse when he’s running out in front, in a race, that—”

  Link liked the Major’s stories but he had to get back to Weak Knees. He said, “Is he crippled? I mean, Mr. Weak Knees.”

  “I suppose you could say he is. He’s got something wrong with his legs.”

  “Well, who was he talking to when he said—”

  “Why are you asking so many questions about him?” Aunt Abbie said.

  “Let the boy talk, Abbie. He’s got the right to an honest answer to an honest question. Go on, Link.”

  “Well, he dropped his groceries, I mean his vegetables, and the bag broke and he nearly fell down. He was all off balance and when he finally got his legs sort of straightened out he kept saying, ‘Get away, Eddie, get away,’ and he kept brushing at something, pushing something away from him. Who was he talking to? There wasn’t anybody around but me and Aunt Abbie.” He paused, remembering the early morning quiet of the street, and the small man in the dusty hat with the fruit and vegetables scattered all around him, saying, “Oh, God damn that crocus sack anyway.” Then he said quickly, lest Abbie interrupt again, “I’d probably of found out if she’d let me pick his stuff up for him. I didn’t see how he was going to get it up off the sidewalk with his legs going all to pieces like that. And after I picked the stuff up I was going to ask him who he was talking to but she didn’t give me a chance to. Who was he talking to, Uncle Theodore?”

  Abbie said, “I’m sure if he couldn’t pick the fruit up himself the other one would have seen to it that it was picked up.”

  “The other one?” Link said.

  “The other man. That Mr. Hod who owns the saloon.”

  Link knew that if Abbie ever got started on The Last Chance and the vats of beer and the men who drowned in them, he would never find out what he wanted to know. He said, “Oh,” to Abbie and then without pausing, said again, “Uncle Theodore, who was Mr. Weak Knees talking to?”

  “Whenever he’s upset he seems to think that an old friend of his is standing near him. So he nudges him and says, ‘Get away, Eddie, get away.’ Weak Knees believes he killed his friend. It happened years ago in Washington. They were wrestling with each other, just for the fun of it, and Eddie, who was Weak Knees’ best friend, fell and struck his head, and died.”

  “Who told you that?” Abbie asked.

  “Bill Hod. Sometimes he’s standing across the street when I come home at night and I stop and pass the time of day with him. One night we got to talking about good cooking and good food. Hod told me that Weak Knees is probably the finest chef in this country but he’s never had really firstclass jobs because of his legs. People always thought he was a drunk and wouldn’t hire him. Right after that Hod told me the story about Eddie.”

  Abbie gave the Major a long level look, “Really, Dory,” she said, “I should think it would be possible to find a—well, a better type of person to talk to.”

  Even now, almost twenty years afterwards, Link could remember the sound of the Major’s voice when he answered Abbie. The Major loved to eat, eating steadily until he had finished, talking, but never really pausing in his eating. He stopped eating, put his fork down on his plate, voice heavy, the same heaviness in his face, voice slow, face somehow slow, too, though Link did not know why his face should look slow but it did, as he said, “Abbie, if you believe that the Lord watches over and cares about a sparrow, then you must also believe that He watches over and cares about Bill Hod.”

  Silence in the dining room. Link stared at the white place mats on the polished table, at the brown teapot, at the tea cozy that covered it, watched Abbie’s hands, small plump hands, busy with the cups and saucers, with the teapot and sugar bowl and creamer, hands busy pouring tea, looked at the Major’s hands, flat on the table, big dark brown hands flat on the table, not holding a fork or a spoon, not holding anything, just flat on the table. Then the Major picked up his fork and he and Abbie were talking and laughing again as they always did at supper.

  That was on a Saturday. A week later, the Major was sick, taken suddenly sick, in the afternoon. The Major had a Saturday afternoon to himself every other week, he always spent it working in the yard or in the house, and Link came in the house looking for him and there was the Major sitting in what Abbie called the gentleman’s chair, in the front parlor, head lolled over on his shoulder, head somehow loose, no longer connected to the rest of him, mouth open, and a little trickle of saliva coming out of the side of his mouth. He was snoring. He smelt of whiskey. There were newspapers spread on the floor under the chair, in front of the chair, under the Major’s feet. Link stared at the newspapers, trying to figure out why they were there. Newspapers on the floor. Abbie put newspapers on the floor under the cat’s box. Why under the Major? What did she expect the Major to do?

  Despite Abbie’s objections, he kept going in the parlor to look at the Major. Then F. K. Jackson came to have supper with them. F. K. Jackson sent for Dr. Easter. And Dr. Easter came and stayed and stayed and stayed.

  He knew that Abbie was worried about the Major and he could understand why, yet he couldn’t quite understand why she should forget about one Link Williams, forget to tell him to go to bed, forget to fix anything for him to eat, Saturday night and all day Sunday, and Sunday night, too.

  She forgot all about him. Then the Major was dead.

  Early Monday morning, F. K. Jackson came down the front stairs, quickly, quietly, and meeting Link in the hall said, not looking at him, not really talking to him, but talking apparently to the striped wallpaper, because she kept looking at it, “You must be very quiet. You must be very good. The Major is dead. You will have to look after your Aunt Abbie. You will have
to take care of her now.” She patted his shoulder with one of her thin, bony hands, and he drew away from her, drew away from the hand. Abbie’s hands were soft, plump hands, small hands, quieting hands, and F. K. Jackson’s hands were big, and bony, and nervous, and the touch of them made him tremble.

  He sat in the kitchen, waiting for Abbie to come downstairs and tell him about the Major. He had seen a dead person close to, last summer. The Hangman was full of leaves. People were sitting on the front steps and in the small backyards. Only the children were running about, shouting. He was out on the sidewalk in front of Number Six, running and shouting, too. It was close to bedtime and so the shouting was louder and longer, wilder, more fun than usual, for all of them knew that in a few more minutes they would be herded into bathtubs, would be listening to all the threats, and the orders to hurry up, wash behind your ears, scrub your feet, hurry up, that accompanied the business of going to bed.

  Suddenly they all ran toward the dock for no reason at all, one of the boys headed that way so they followed him. Once on the dock, they stood still because there was a woman there, lying flat on her back.

  Link said, “It’s Pearly Gates. Come on, we’ll have some fun with her. Let’s poke at her till she wakes up.”

  One of them leaned over and touched her hand, poked at her hand, and then straightened up, scared, strangeness in his voice, fear, puzzlement, “She’s kind of cold. Here, Link, you feel her—”

  He touched the hand and was revolted, absolutely revolted, by the coldness of it.

  The other boy looked at him, frowned, said, “I think she’s died—I think—she’s so cold—she’s died—I think—”

  They turned tail and ran home, each one of them ran into his own house, up the front steps, hurrying to get inside a house. Because just that morning, Pearly Gates had been alive, they had all seen her in the morning, staggering down Dumble Street, mumbling to herself, black felt hat crooked on her head, black clothes all a which way, long black skirt trailing on the sidewalk, the edges graybrown from dirt and dust, smelling all over of whiskey. They had all seen her and run after her, yelled at her, and if this thing whatever it was could happen to her, it could happen to them, too.

  Link went inside Number Six, and was sick, violently sick at his stomach, and Abbie said, “Link, what on earth have you been eating?”

  He could only shake his head, he would never be able to tell her that he had touched death with his own hand, he would never be able to tell anyone and he would never be able to forget it.

  Now this same thing had happened to the Major.

  While he was sitting in the kitchen, he heard someone coming down the stairs, he thought it might be Abbie, and he went into the hall to meet her. Thus he saw three men bringing a heavy bag down the stairs. He did not want to believe that the Major was inside that canvas bag but he knew that he was—he could tell by the way the men looked at him, frowning, and flicking their eyes, and shaking their heads.

  He went outside and sat down on the back steps, shivering, tasting the sour acid taste of the saliva that poured from the inside of his cheeks, feeling his stomach contract as though it were being squeezed by a big hand. Sparrows scratched in the loose dirt under the hedge, the high privet hedge that Abbie said was cheaper to keep up than a fence, fences had to be painted, and the posts replaced, but with a hedge you just kept it clipped; and the hedge cut off the view of the depraved goings-on of the Finns next door in summer, and served as a screen in winter, when it didn’t really matter what the Finns did because with the doors and windows all closed you couldn’t hear the Finns fall out of the windows, cursing each other in English, though when they were sober they spoke in Finnish. Every winter a drunken Finn fell out of the window. A bluejay was screaming like crazy in the pear tree, he watched it fly away, with a sudden upswoop, making a flash of blue, its harsh cry was like the sound of the Finns’ cursing. The Finns cursed as they died.

  Why had they dumped the Major in a sack like that? Why hadn’t they had a funeral for him, like they did for other people. For the Finns?

  Late in the afternoon, he went in the house to ask Abbie about it. F. K. Jackson was in Abbie’s room, and came and stood in the doorway, barring the way, whispering, “You mustn’t bother her now. She’s gone to sleep. You run along now, and get yourself something to eat. She’ll be all right. You run along now.”

  He couldn’t eat anything. He went to bed. When he finally went to sleep, he kept waking up, remembering.

  The next day they brought the Major back. He didn’t know when they brought him back. He was tiptoeing down the front stairs, and when he reached the hall, he stopped and took a cautious look into the parlor, stood on the threshold looking in and saw that they had brought the Major back. He was lying in an open coffin. The coffin was in front of the fireplace.

  The parlor looked queer. Someone had taken down all the pictures, taken down the long goldleaf mirror that the Governor’s wife had given to Abbie, taken out the plants, taken away the books and the magazines that stood on the marbletopped table near the fireplace, pulled down the window shades. There were white candles in a pair of three-branched candlesticks that he had never seen before. The candles were lighted and they kept flickering, as though a draft was blowing through the room. And there were flowers, all around the coffin, flowers, red, and white, and yellow flowers, he had never seen so many at one time, in one place.

  He walked over to the coffin. The Major was dead, and he was wearing his best black broadcloth suit, and a striped necktie; and he did not look like anyone Link had ever known, bore absolutely no resemblance to the Major, lids closed down over his eyes, lids shut tight over his eyes; his face lopsided, thinner, even his hands, thinner, bonier; hands crossed, no, folded, and a Bible, with a worn leather binding, black but mottled with brown, in one hand, held loosely in one hand, not held, the hand placed over the small Bible, and a carnation, a white carnation in his buttonhole. All of him thinner, smaller. Link bent over the coffin and there was a queer, sweetish, sickening smell that made him gasp. He made himself touch the Major’s hand, his face. The Major was dead. Dead meant cold. Dead meant not moving. Dead meant to feel like a stone. A cold stone picked up in the winter, fingers withdrawing from its coldness, its hardness. Pearly Gates. And now the Major. He stayed there by the coffin, too frightened to move away.

  He turned around because he heard F. K. Jackson talking to someone in a soft voice. F. K. Jackson was leading Abbie into the parlor. Abbie didn’t seem to see where she was going and she was saying, “Oh, Dory, Dory,” over and over again.

  “It’s all right, Abbie. It’s all right,” F. K. Jackson said.

  Abbie didn’t answer. She walked straight to the coffin, and went down on her knees, weeping, saying, “Our Father—Our Father—Dory, Dory—”

  F. K. Jackson said, “Link! I didn’t know you were in here. You run along and play. Go outdoors and play, dear.”

  “I don’t want to. I can’t—”

  “Run along now. I’ll look after Aunt Abbie.”

  He sat on the dock and looked at the river, hunched over, his arms folded, sitting like an old man. He felt like crying, and didn’t, couldn’t. He stayed there until eight o’clock at night and then went home. No lights anywhere in the house. Total darkness. House cold. He turned the hall light on. Abbie was in the parlor, by the coffin, not kneeling, sitting in a chair, weeping. The sound of her weeping hurt him deep inside.

  He said, “Aunt Abbie—”

  She didn’t even turn her head toward him, just sat there, weeping, weeping, weeping, not seeing him, not hearing him. He tiptoed out of the room, wondering if perhaps she thought he was, somehow, though he did not know how, somehow responsible for the cold stonelike unmoving condition of the Major.

  He felt guilty and ashamed and afraid and so alone that he did not dare go to sleep. Finally, in that upstairs bedroom, across the hall from Abbie’s
and the Major’s room, he collapsed into sleep, with all his clothes on, lying on top of the clean white bedspread.

  Some time during the night, he made up his mind that he could not, would not, go to the Major’s funeral. He wandered about the dock all day and toward dusk, hungry, cold, lonely, he went home. Abbie would be angry and scold him but he was glad because then he could explain everything to her, about the sack, about Pearly Gates, about being afraid.

  He left the house almost as quickly as he had entered it. Abbie was in bed, flat on her back in the big mahogany four-poster bed, and the lamp by the bed had a tan-colored cloth draped over the shade, so that the light in the room was very dim. F. K. Jackson sat beside the bed, holding Abbie’s hand, murmuring to her in a soothing voice that made him think of the cooing of pigeons. F. K. Jackson had a shawl around her shoulders, big, bulky, dark in color. It made her look fat and humped over and so different that he stared at her, not speaking, thinking that everything was changing, even Miss Jackson, referring to her like that in his mind, not as old Frances Jackson, or F. K. Jackson, but as Miss Jackson. She was sitting right near the bed, and the dimmed light from the lamp threw a shadow on the wall, Miss Jackson’s shadow, huge, doubled up; and the shadow was the exact shape of the bag they had carried the Major away in.

  He said, “No! No!”

  Miss Jackson turned around, saw him, said, “Did you want something, Link?”

  He wanted to talk to Abbie but he didn’t say so. He walked over to the bed, and Miss Jackson moved closer to Abbie, as though she were using the dark bulk of the shawl to screen Abbie, block his view of her. He had to peer around Miss Jackson.

  Abbie’s eyes were closed. She looked smaller in bed. As he looked at the two women, the one lying flat on her back in bed, and the other biglooking, humped over, wrapped in a shawl, sitting by the bed, he began to shiver as though he had a chill. They hadn’t even missed him. They didn’t know he hadn’t been at the Major’s funeral. They had shut him out of their lives, cut him off from them. He didn’t care about Miss Jackson and what she did or didn’t do. But Abbie had been his whole existence, she had watched over him, listened to everything he said, told him what to wear, what to eat, when he should go to bed, had loved him. Now she had forgotten all about him. It was like being nowhere. Lost. Nowhere at all.