by Ann Petry
Abbie knew that story, too. She thought, On how peculiar, and accidental, a foundation rests all of one’s attitudes toward a people. She loved the Irish. Part of her faith, her belief, came straight from the old Irishwomen she had known, in those early years on Dumble Street. Their faith, unwavering, firm, unmoving, despite drunken husbands, drunken sons, wanton daughters, despite idiot children who crouched, hunched over in rocking chairs, always in the kitchen near the big black iron stoves, babbling endlessly, having to feed, diaper, croon to, a fullgrown human being. She, too, like the Irishwomen, had made it a habit, when she was downtown, to go in the cathedral, saying her Protestant prayers humbly in the dim cool interior, sitting there afterwards, refreshed, her faith renewed. When she left, walking slowly down the aisle, it was with the sure knowledge that death is only a beginning.
Frances hears the word Irish and thinks of her father and hears the word nigger. I hear the word Irish and I think of a cathedral and the quiet of it, the flickering light of the votive candles, the magnificence of the altar, and I see Irishwomen, strong in their faith, holding a family together. Accident? Coincidence? It all depended on what had happened in the past. We carry it around with us. We’re never rid of it.
Dumble Street, she thought, remembering a Sunday morning, years ago. She had met Mrs. Abe Cohen, weeping, and there was a wail in her voice, as she told Abbie that her little boy had been to the Christian Sunday School, and came home, reciting, Matzos, Matzos, two for five, that’s what keeps the kikes alive—wail in her voice, overtone of despair, as she said, “Mrs. Crunch, what kind of people is that to be teaching him a thing like that, to be telling him to come home and say it to his own mother, what kind of people—what kind of thing is that to be teaching my Abie in the Sunday School?” What kind of people—she tried to convince Mrs. Cohen that no one could possibly have taught Abie to say that—not in Sunday School. Hopeless.
Frances said, “Here I’ve been babbling like a brook, Abbie, and I never once thought to ask you about Deacon Lord’s funeral. Was everything all right?”
“Yes, indeed. Mrs. Lord asked me to tell you that everything was fine.”
Should she mention the shrieks and screams? The cold sweat that broke out on her own forehead? Talk about the spattering sound of earth on the coffin? Speak of the artificial grass used to conceal, conceal, cover up, the earth that could never be covered up, the earth where what was left of the deacon would slowly disintegrate? No. Frances would lean forward in that wing chair that looked as though it ought to be on a train, thrust her legs straight out in front of her, gesture with her bony hands, and talk of immortality, of hysteria, of selfpity, of overidentification, of catharsis. Frances could be unnecessarily voluble on the subject of death and all that it meant. She would be even more disturbing than Howard Thomas: Probably she saw herself as she would ultimately be, very cold, very dead—satin-lined coffin, of course—
Abbie said, “Your assistant, Howard Thomas, seems quite self-assured. Very capable.”
“Howard’s a fool. He’s half educated. And there’s no bigger fool in the civilized world than a half-educated colored man. He was going to be a lawyer and he ended up an undertaker. From law court to mortuary is a long jump. Anyway, he drinks brandy to keep from thinking too much about how and why he made the jump. I’m always afraid he’ll show up at a funeral so far gone in drink that he’ll do something outrageous.”
“Is he married?”
“Married!” Frances snorted. “Good heavens, no! He doesn’t like women. But women respond to him on sight. They want to rub up against him. Just as though he were catnip and they were cats.”
Including me, Abbie thought, remembering how she had leaned toward him. But never again. And I wouldn’t have described it like that.
“He makes a good assistant.” Frances got out of the wing chair. “You make yourself comfortable while I go and see about tea.” She was going out of the room, and she turned back, and said, “Sometimes I wish his behind didn’t wiggle quite so much.”
Abbie wondered why Frances thought the jump from lawyer to undertaker was any longer than the jump from doctor to undertaker. We all take these jumps. I went from schoolteacher to coachman’s wife, from wife to widow, from widow to needlewoman-landlady. Accident? Coincidence? No. It all depended on what had happened to you in the past. And as you grew older, the sharp edges were rubbed off, rounded, blurred, so that the big things that happened to you were finally reduced to stories that you told, and the stories became fewer and fewer. Even though it was a commonplace, ordinary, story, enough of the emotion you had felt, came through to make it a good story. Frances talks about her father. I don’t talk about the Major because I trained myself not to. Selfdiscipline. But I think about him. I talk about Link. Link talks about Bill Hod.
The fire crackled in the fireplace. Fortunately Miss Doris liked fires in fireplaces. She must have liked brass fenders, too, because she saw to it that Sugar kept this one polished so that it shone like gold. Miss Doris must have approved of Frances’ living room, because she hadn’t changed anything in it, same heavy draperies at the windows, same massive furniture, same Turkish carpet, all dark red, horsehair sofa still against the far wall. A highceilinged room. Dark woodwork. Dark floors. Sugar, who was Miss Doris’ husband, waxed the doors and the floors and baseboards. A tall thin man. Face of a Brahmin. Look of hauteur. He talked exactly like Miss Doris. Miss Doris. Where was J.C.?
Frances came into the room carrying a tray.
Abbie said, “Where’s J.C.?”
“I was wondering when you’d remember him. He’s in the kitchen with Miss Doris. They’ve been making cookies.”
“Really?” They must somehow have declared a truce. “I’ll take a look at them while you’re pouring.”
She went through the dining room, bowl of artificial flowers in the center of the dining room table, because Miss Doris refused to “mess with fresh flowers,” straw matting on the dining room floor because Miss Doris said colored people didn’t know how to eat, and were always spilling food, Frances’ mother’s silver tea set on the lowboy, looking as though it had just come out of a jeweler’s window because it had been lacquered because Miss Doris said she couldn’t spend all of her good time polishing silver, because—and then pushed open the kitchen door, and looked in.
Miss Doris was saying, in that hard cold voice, “And were I surprised? He were coming right through all that traffic, hand over hand, and I told Sugar afterwards, Sugar, he were the nearest thing to the ape I have ever saw in human form.”
Miss Doris was sitting by the kitchen table, her hands in her lap, talking to J.C. J.C. was quite close to her, perched on a high stool, his feet twisted in the rungs. Nothing had been changed in the rest of the house, but in the year that Miss Doris had been working for Frances, the kitchen had been radically changed. It now looked like a model kitchen in an advertisement, even to the plants on the long window sill under the battery of windows that had been placed over the sink—and the long counters on each side of it.
J.C. said, “Is them cookies done yet?”
“Well, I picked up that umbrella, the one with the long handle, and I give him a poke, and that took care of him.”
J.C. said, “Miss Doris, ain’t it time to take them cookies out?”
It would be a shame to disturb them, Abbie thought. I’ll stand here long enough to find out whether Miss Doris ever answers him about the cookies.
Miss Doris said, in her cold hard voice, “Another time, I said to Sugar, Dressin’ gown? Mr. Orwell ain’t never owned no dressin’ gown, what color is it? And Sugar said, It’s a kind of light tan color and it’s kind of tight on him, it’s kind of squeezin’ him in the shoulders and arms. And I said, Sugar, you go right up there, he’s done put that woman’s new spring coat on, that’s what he’s done, you go right up there and get it off him, Mr. Orwell ain’t never owned no dressin’ gown; and Suga
r went up and he come back down to the kitchen and he said, Sugar, you were correct, he were layin’ up there in that bed dead drunk wearin’ that woman’s new spring coat that come from Carnegie and cost two hundred dollars, that’s just what he had on. There’s nothin’ worse, Jackson, than a multonmillionaire who is far gone in drink.”
“Miss Doris—” J.C. started.
Miss Doris said, “Mr. Orwell were a old devil, Jackson. One time he come in my kitchen and he et up all the lemon meringue pies I had fixed for the dinner dessert and I told him, I said, Mr. Orwell, when my menims is fixed for the day I can’t start in fresh at seven o’clock at night for no seven-fifteen p.m. dinner and make no new dessert. It were in the summer and with that daylight time it were still like afternoon and the sun were right in his face and he were a terrible sight in that strong sun, he were all red-eyed from drink and his skin were full of little small broken veins so that he were purplefaced. And Mrs. Orwell were sittin’ right close by on the sunporch and he went right out there and I heard him say, What is the matter with old Doris, she’s out there in the kitchen just as black and evil.
“And I were mad, anyway, Jackson, so I picked up one of them long thin meat-carvin’ knives, and I went right out there on that sunporch and I said, Excuse me, Mrs. Orwell, for breakin’ up the peace like this but I got something to tell Mr. Orwell and there were strong sun on the porch and I said, Mr. Orwell, I been workin’ for multonmillionaires all my life and I were never insulted by any of them up until right now, and I were holding this long thinblade meat-carving knife behind my back and I snatched it out and I held it right under his nose, and moved it back and forth and that strong sun made it shine like a switch blade, and I said, You come in my kitchen with your drunken self and you et up all my pies and then you come out here and insult me and I’m goin’ to stand right here and take this knife and cut your nose off even to your face, I mean that, Mr. Orwell.
“Mrs. Orwell she let out a little scream and she said, Miss Doris, don’t, put it away, don’t do that to Mr. Orwell. And Mr. Orwell, he said, Miss Doris what have I done, what have I said, I didn’t mean it whatever it was, and I will never do it again, I will never eat all your lemon meringue pies up again, Miss Doris, I promise, and I will never go in your kitchen again, Miss Doris, I mean that, just move that shinybladed butcher knife away from my nose, Miss Doris. And he never did either, Jackson. He would stand in my kitchen door, his face all purple from drink, and say what he had to say, but he never set his drunken feet in my kitchen again.”
J.C. said, firmly, “Miss Doris, them cookies were done now.”
Abbie thought, Why he hasn’t been with her two hours and he pronounces “were” the same way she does, as though it were “wear.”
“No, they were not, Jackson. I were cookin’ thirty or forty years before you were born and I know when cookies is done.”
“Where were I before I were born?”
Miss Doris gave him one of those hard appraising stares. “You were sittin’ around under a rosebush waitin’.”
“Waitin’ for what, Miss Doris? I ain’t never sat under no rosebush. I sets under The Hangman.”
“In that case, Jackson, you were settin’ around under The Hangman waitin’ to be born.”
Silence in the kitchen. They both seemed to be meditating. Abbie knew the tea must be cooling in the cups, but—
J.C. said, “Miss Doris, is all printhesses white?”
“How’s that?”
“Is printhesses always white?”
“I ain’t seen one recently. Last one I seen was black.”
“Powther say they’re white.”
“Who’s he?”
“My daddy.”
“Well,” Miss Doris said, “maybe your pappy’s only seen white ones. Folks only see what they want to see. I see black ones. He sees white ones. If there were a law about it either way the law would be wrote down in a book somewhere.”
“Is them cookies ready now, Miss Doris?”
“Not yet. Now there were another time when Mr. Orwell—”
“Is there a thin shinyblade knife in this one?”
“No. This one’s about the time Mr. Orwell seen a buffalo on the train goin’ Pullman to New York. And I were ashamed to be with them, it were just like travelin’ with a zoo because Mr. Orwell didn’t have no decent suit to wear so he put on his tuck, everything else were et up by the moths and covered with gravy drips and Mrs. Orwell were wearin’ his beaver hat, and they both smelt like moth balls and likker and they were goin’ dressed like that to Mr. Orwell’s brother’s funeral and Mrs. Orwell had on a diamont necklace and had practically took a bath in Guerlain’s and what with her havin’ on Mr. Orwell’s beaver hat I said to Sugar, Well, Sugar, I just hope they’ll let us get on that train. Well anyway, just outside New Haven Mr. Orwell got up and went in the gentlemen’s rest room, and he come out real quick, all purplefaced, and he let out a high scream, he came out fast, and he kept lettin’ out this high scream, and he said, Miss Doris, come quick, Miss Doris, there’s a buffalo in there. And I said to Sugar, Sugar, he’s lost his mind, I always knew he were goin’ to and here he’s gone and done it while he’s ridin’ on this Pullman of all places. And I said real firm but not loud, Mr. Orwell, you come and sit down. And he said, Miss Doris, where are you, come quick, Miss Doris and get this goddamittohell buffalo out of the toilet. And he let out another one of them high screams, and he said, Please come quick, Miss Doris, before I lose my mind.
“So the ladies and gentlemen on the train were all lookin’ at him standin’ up there in his tuck in broad daylight and kind of murmurin’ to each other, and the porter were not around, they are just like policemen if you need one you cannot lay hands on one, so I got up and I said to Sugar, Sugar, you get Mr. Orwell sat down while I go and see. And Mr. Orwell said, That’s right, Miss Doris, you go in there and scare the shit out of that buffalo, and I said, Mr. Orwell, you stop usin’ that bad language, you’re not at home. You go sit down and be quiet. And he turned more purple and went and sat down when Sugar told him to.
“And I went in the gentlemen’s rest room and there were a woodchuck in there. And at first I thought I had stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Orwell too long, I were always telling Sugar, Sugar, we must not stay here too long or we will lose our minds, too, just like these crazy rich people, but we are poor and so they would put us in confinement, but if you are rich and crazy, you can run loose.
“But that woodchuck were so big and so fat and he looked at me so fresh and made a noise, a kind of a big grunt noise, that I knew he were real, and I were mad anyway, goin’ Pullman to New York with them Orwells lookin’ like they had just been let loose from a zoo or a circus, so I snatched that woodchuck up by the tail and by the neck, and I come out of the gentlemen’s rest room, holdin’ him and somebody had sent for the porter and he were one of them little wiry old black men been a porter so long he thinks he owns the Pullman and he come sloofootin’ it up to me and said, What you doin’ in there, woman, and I said, I’m Mrs. King to you and to everybody that ever knew me, and you can call me that. Here, I said, this is your Pullman so this must be your buffalo, too, and I tried to hand him that fat sassy woodchuck, clawin’ and gruntin’, and he let out a high scream just like Mr. Orwell and jumped back and Mr. Orwell yelled real loud, That’s right, Miss Doris, you scare the shit out of him, too, and I said to Sugar, Sugar, put your hand over Mr. Orwell’s mouth, and I went and opened up the train door and turned that woodchuck loose.”
Silence.
J.C. frowned. “How did de buffalo—” He paused, appeared to think. “I mean, how’d he get down in de toilet?”
Abbie thought, I was wondering the same thing. And the tea must be cold, stone cold, by now, and Frances will be wondering where I am, but Miss Doris hadn’t said the buffalo, that is, the woodchuck was down in the toilet— She held the swinging door open a little wider.
She let the door swing to, gently, and went back to the living room.
Frances said, “Were they all right?”
“I should say so. Doris was talking about the Orwells, and J.C. was talking about his princess, and asking when the cookies would be done, and neither one was really listening to the other. That’s the way all conversations, really satisfying ones, are carried on.”
While they drank their tea, they talked about Link. They always talked about Link. Abbie thought of all the conversations, the discussions, the endless arguments, they had had about him. They had to explain to him, somehow, about his being a Negro, and there was the awful business of sex, and religion, and the problem of where to send him to college, and the more complicated problem of how to finance his education, and that job with the Valkills. It seemed as though he were always making too much noise, and he played football and went swimming in the river. Both equally dangerous. So many things to be explained and avoided and circled around. And he survived. He survived Bill Hod and pneumonia, and the redlight district, and the Navy. Tall, now. Shoulders broad, now. Speaking voice like the low notes of an organ. If only—
“I wish he’d get married,” Abbie said, “and settle down.”
“Isn’t he settled down?” Frances asked.
“He isn’t really settled down until he’s married. No young man is. Lately, well, he stays out half the night and I don’t dare ask him where he goes or what he does. And it worries me. He’s always in New York. He stays there two or three days at a time. I suppose he has a girl. I’d like to see her, to meet her. I don’t know how to ask him about her, to tell him to bring her home for tea. I’m afraid he’ll think I’m interfering.”