by Ann Petry
The Valkill house was on the edge of the river, a small weathered gray house filled with an indescribably stale, old, shutup river smell; it seemed to come from the wood, the walls and the floors. He finally got so he thought he could smell the house before he saw it, thought he could see the Valkills before he caught a glimpse of them.
They were always outside the house, lying on a narrow strip of gravelly rocky shore which constituted a beach, a mere separation of the river from the land. Mrs. Valkill wore a black bathing suit and Mr. Valkill wore khaki shorts. Even at nine in the morning, even when he was on a three-week vacation, Mr. Valkill had his eyes closed, as though he were too tired to look at Mrs. Valkill’s meaty underside-of-a-flounder-white thighs. Mr. Valkill was very tanned. His eyes were blue and very wide open—when he wasn’t looking at Mrs. Valkill.
Abbie said they were fine rich people. He thought they were fine slave drivers. He hated them.
He rebelled against this job that Abbie had picked out for him, rebelled against doing housework that was never finished. There were the breakfast dishes, and the last night’s dinner dishes, more or less skilfully tucked around here and there, but he recognized them, knew that two people could not possibly use all those dishes just for breakfast. And he was supposed to sort of help with lunch, and while they ate in the dining room, he sat on the small porch off the kitchen, on the railing, watching the river, and wondering about these people he worked for, the Valkills.
After lunch he cleared the table, washed the luncheon dishes, swept and dusted, and dusted and swept. He’d been there about two weeks when Mrs. Valkill gave a tea, and had him wear some kind of Japanese kimono and the kimono was all peculiar colors, made of a sleazy thin material that smelled like the house, and the old tired musty river smell that clung to the material made his skin crawl.
Mr. Valkill strolled in at the tailend of the tea party, and his eyes were filled with laughter whenever he looked at Link in the kimono, and he followed him out to the kitchen and watched him as he washed the cups and saucers, and said, “Mrs. Valkill is a genius. I never would have noticed—never would have known how attractive a Japanese kimono could be—”
Mr. Valkill called him Cassius, and when Mrs. Valkill asked him why, he said, “‘Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look,’ such men are dangerous,” and Mrs. Valkill laughed and laughed and had to wipe her eyes. They talked about him, right in front of him, just as though he weren’t around.
He hated the job, and told Abbie so, and Abbie wouldn’t listen to him. She folded her mouth into a thin straight line, and said in that refusingtolisten voice, “Every boy should know how to keep a house clean. There aren’t any easy jobs. You might as well find it out now while you’re young—”
After he wore the Japanese kimono, Mr. Valkill took to appearing suddenly in the kitchen, watching him, leaning in the doorway, or practically lying down on one of the straightbacked kitchen chairs because he lolled on the end of his spine, but his bright blue eyes were wide open, bright blue eyes always filled with laughter.
Now when he approached the house, Mr. Valkill greeted him, from the beach. “Good morning, Cassius, what’s the weather like? You want to go back to sleep? There’s plenty of room.” Bright blue eyes very wide open, one hand indicating the beach, the rocky little beach, hand extended in invitation.
Mrs. Valkill said, “Stop it, Henry.”
Mr. Valkill ignored her. “The rocks aren’t bad once you get yourself in the right position.”
Shortly after that they went away for the weekend, a long weekend. He had all of Monday off, and spent it in the kitchen of The Last Chance, except when he went swimming off the dock with Bill. He told Bill about the Valkills, and Bill kept looking blank, completely blank, except when he came to the part about the Japanese women’s clothes they had him wear when they had people in for tea, and his face changed. “Holy Christ!” he said. “Listen, you go out there tomorrow morning and you quit. You hear? Quit. Just like that. And if your aunt don’t like it, tell her to see me and I’ll spell it out for her, in two words.”
Tuesday morning he went back to the Valkills. Just as he opened the kitchen door, Mr. Valkill came sauntering into the kitchen, wearing khaki shorts, his long hairy legs, his knobby knees, thick blond hair on his tanned chest, something not to look at, to avoid looking at.
“Well, well, well,” he said. “If it isn’t Cassius just in time to fix the morning coffee.” His eyes looked more alive than Link had ever remembered seeing them.
He made the coffee and Mr. Valkill lingered in the kitchen drinking it, and talking, and when he finished he sat on the end of his spine, delicately balancing the cup on his fingertips. He said, “Madam Valkill won’t be home until late this afternoon.”
He stopped listening to the soft drawling voice because Mr. Valkill seemed to be talking to himself. He supposed he’d have to wait until Mrs. Valkill came home, tell her he was quitting, because she was the one who hired him, who paid him, and Abbie said you always told your employer when you resigned from a job, or if you had any complaint. You had to take the direct approach, never the indirect approach, because colored people invariably avoided unpleasantness, they would lie, they would laugh, but they never faced right up to a situation, head on.
He wondered what he ought to do when he finished the dishes. These were the Friday morning breakfast dishes, really stuck with food, like it was glued on, eggs on the plates like yellow oil paint, crusted black stuff in the bottom of both coffee cups, two sticky glasses that had contained orange juice, both of them had had toast, and there had been marmalade on Mr. Valkill’s toast, because the leftover portion had little fine red ants on it. Mrs. Valkill didn’t eat marmalade on her toast for fear of getting fat—no, she said because of her hips.
There was a change in Mr. Valkill’s voice. It was softer, gentler. Link turned and looked at him.
“Did anyone ever tell you you were goodlooking?” he said, idly, not moving, still balancing the coffee cup.
“What?”
“You’re a goodlooking boy, Cassius.”
Link said Yeah, yeah, yeah, thinking of Weak Knees: Some things is natural and some things is against nature. Don’t you never spend no time listenin’ to any man who starts sweet talkin’ to you. You hear me, Sonny? You always move off. If you ain’t got no place to move off to, then you holler.
He hung the dish towels on the rack, carefully, taking his time about it, his movements slow, his thoughts fast, remembering Weak Knees kneading bread, one Saturday morning in the kitchen, thump thump of the dough, “Any time you smell trouble, and you kind of all alone some place where can’t nobody hear you if you was to holler, why it ain’t never no disgrace to turn tail and run. Even the Boss has had to hightail it a coupla times anyway. Ain’t never no disgrace to turn tail and run.”
The black Packard was going faster and faster. Nobody spoke in the car. Good advice. If you smell trouble. I smell trouble. How do you go about running, in the interior of a car, with handcuffs on your wrists, how do you run then?
But he’d run that other time. Mr. Valkill put his hand on his arm, Mr. Valkill’s hand reminded him of Bill Hod’s hand, firm warm wellcaredfor clean hand, the nails filed, but the forearm was thickcovered with blond hair, like blond fur on the forearm, forearm of a blond ape, and revulsion made him move. He’d been standing there half fascinated, half afraid, curious, too—wondering what and how—
He said “Yeah” again and moved fast, so fast, that Mr. Valkill’s hand was left outstretched, reaching. He went toward the kitchen door, out on the porch, down the steps, fast, not running, but covering ground without wasting any time, so that he was outside the house, going down the road, before Mr. Valkill could possibly overtake him.
He heard him shouting, “Hey, what’s the matter? Where are you going?”
Then he ran. He ran all the way to the car line, to that place where the
tracks, the trolley tracks, appeared suddenly in the black of the macadam road. When he reached Dumble Street, he went in The Last Chance, and when he came out, he had a job for the rest of the summer, working in the kitchen there. And told Abbie so. Abbie said, “I won’t allow it. You’re going straight back to Mrs. Valkill tomorrow morning and tell her that I sent you back.”
“I won’t,” he said, flatly, stubbornly.
He heard Abbie and F. K. Jackson discussing it.
F. K. Jackson: He can’t go back to the Valkills, Abbie.
Abbie: I’ve already sent him back. He is not going to work in the kitchen of that place across the street.
F. K. Jackson: It’s most unfortunate. But Mr. Valkill is abnormal. He likes little boys. He—
Abbie: I don’t see anything abnormal about liking little boys. Most people do. I think it’s wonderful that a man like Mr. Valkill should take an interest in a mere boy.
F. K. Jackson (sharply): Listen to me, Abbie. Mr. Valkill is a pervert, a sexual pervert. He will corrupt Link.
Abbie: Corrupt him how? What are you talking about? A pervert—you mean—oh—Link—oh—
F. K. Jackson: That’s why he can’t go back there. That’s why you will have to get used to the idea of his working at The Last Chance. Mr. Hod is using this as a stick over our heads, a threat. He sent for me, summoned me, just as though he were an emperor, couldn’t use the telephone or write a letter but sent his servant to tell me that he wanted to see me. When I went over there he said, “Link will be here for the rest of the summer, helping Weak Knees in the kitchen. When school starts he will be here after school and on weekends. If you can’t convince his aunt that it’s a good idea, I’ll be glad to.” He actually smiled at me, Abbie, and he looked just like a wolf, baring its teeth. He said, “There’s a juvenile court in this city.”
Abbie: The nerve of him. I don’t care what he said. Link is not going to work there. It’s against the law anyway. He’s a minor. And the state liquor law says that a minor cannot be employed in any capacity on the premises of a place—
F. K. Jackson: It doesn’t cover a private kitchen. He would be working in their private kitchen. Not in the bar. I’m afraid you’ll have to get used to the idea. Mr. Hod claims that Mr. Valkill has a most unsavory reputation. If Hod wanted to make trouble, I think he could. He has considerable political influence and he might be able to get himself appointed as some sort of guardian for Link, on the grounds that you were no longer a suitable person, that you had placed Link in a position where—
Abbie: They seemed like such fine people and Mr. Valkill had the loveliest manners, and his wife was so sweet and they were wealthy. Fine rich people. It was Link’s first real job—
F. K. Jackson (slowly): I honestly believe that he will be safer over there. There are a great many things that they know more about than we do.
Abbie: Oh, dear!
They were on the outskirts of the city now, still going fast. Used to be nothing but fields and open lots and woods out here, now all neat lawns and forty-thousand-dollar houses with attached garages. The Major used to tell him stories about when there were farms in this part of Monmouth, and people kept goats and cows and horses. Used to tell about Gleason’s goat, a diabolical male animal, complete with beard, and what he now recognized as the naturally foul disposition of the male animal in a state of perpetual and unappeasable rut, who worked and worked and worked until he made an opening in Gleason’s fence, and then would appear suddenly in the dooryard of one of the houses.
The cry would go up, from house to house, “Gleason’s goat is out, Gleason’s goat is out!” and women would run out of the houses, armed with brooms and mops and pokers and shovels, emerging from the back doors like arrows hurled from a catapult, intent on working over Gleason’s goat, looking forward to the attack with a kind of furious pleasure, because the goat could destroy a prize rosebush in less than thirty seconds, because the goat headed straight for clotheslines and preferred the clean white shirts and the white dresses which represented a whole morning of backbending labor over a washtub.
The Major described the uproar and the excitement, with relish, telling how the goat would be ducking, butting, charging, retreating, silent, malevolent, intelligent, and the middle-aged women would duck and butt and retreat and advance too, but not silently, emitting an unholy screeching as they mauled the goat and then retreated.
He laughed now because he thought it wasn’t the clean clothes or the rosebushes that infuriated the women. It was the goat, the sheer maleness of the goat, that they were butting, charging, mauling with intent to kill. It was the old old war between the male and the female. Laughed again under his breath, and felt the men on each side of him stiffen again, saw the woman’s head turn, ever so slightly.
He could smell perfume, the woman’s perfume. Perhaps because of that slight movement of her head. Woman in the front seat. Why? Woman with a straight back, shoulders held rigid. Something in his mind said, Even with a bag tied over your head, even on the streets of Moscow, I would know—would recognize—your back.
Then he lost the thought, the nudging memory, looked out of the opened window, past the trenchcoated figure on his right, watched the landscape, the houses were smaller now, postage-stamp size, matchbox size, houses of war veterans, man spend the rest of his life paying for one of these chickencoops, one right on top of the other, no lebensraum, no garages, park the car right near the house, near the front door, but television aerials on all the little rooftops, a tangle of wire against the dark night sky.
Car going faster and faster. What the hell is this, he wondered. Relax, Bud, and wait and see. So they went along and they went along, Henny Penny and Turkey Lurkey and Ducky Lucky and Foxy Loxy. Now which of us, he wondered, is Foxy Loxy. Most logically the lady in the tan-colored raincoat, because otherwise why would she be here, riding in this car, riding through the fine misty rain with a handcuffed man in the back seat.
The car slowed, turned off to the right, entering a driveway, not a driveway, a long wide private road with a pair of gates at the entrance, gates studded and decorated and gilded like the gates of Victoria’s summer palace in the south of France, pair of stone lions, couchant, emphasized the entrance, dramatized it, guarded it. The car picked up speed again. A rabbit bounded across the road, white cottontail going hell for leather, suddenly there in front of the headlights, and as suddenly gone. The car swerved to the right, and then as abruptly to the left, straightened out. Nerves all shot to hell, he thought, even from where I sit in this back seat, he wasn’t anywhere near the damn rabbit, rabbit probably in a thousand cabbage patches or briar patches at the moment when he jerked the wheel like that.
The woman sitting on the front seat said, “Bunny!” protest in the voice.
And it all fell into place. He thought, No one in the USA free from prejudice, shows up somewhere, finally got all these male and female people into this black Packard. Finally. Why after all this time? Or did she in the back of her mind know when she stood under that street light on Dock Street, corner of Dumble, screaming her head off, that it would end like this, even to the handcuffs?
He thought of that picture on the front page of the tabloid, Jubine’s picture, and how he had looked at it and cursed Jubine, because the canary, the little lost one, the palomino, had the face of a drunk, a lush, mindless, insentient, slackjawed, one hand lifted in an atypical cringing. He had laid the tabloid flat on the bar, Bill Hod’s mahogany bar, the wood smooth, polished by the slow motion of elbows, of hands, by the wool of coats, sliding motion of bare forearms, until the wood responded to the warmth, the friction, the oil from the skin, and acquired a patina, not a surface slickness, but a glow that came from deepdown in the wood. The bar served as a frame, polished frame for Jubine’s picture. It reminded him of something. It was the cringe in the shoulder line, there because the hand was raised, it was the way the hair fell forward, th
e awful jaw line. If he covered the eyes, lowered the hand but left that shoulder line intact, what would he see? He’d see Toulouse-Lautrec’s Harlot.
He had thought he didn’t love her any more, didn’t hate her any more, and felt an ache inside him, a loss, an emptiness, thought it was like losing an arm or a leg, thought it was the kind of ache you got from an old wound when it rained, dull, monotonous, and studied the face again, the horrified eyes, the pale blond hair. He had stared across the bar at the telephone booth in the corner, near the front. Could drop a coin in the coinbox, and dial a number, and the light musical voice would answer, and he would say, Let’s begin again, my fault, I am a fool, let’s begin again. Shack job. Stud.
And so didn’t do anything. But stand still. Then started cleaning the bar, cleaning out the beer pumps.
Remembered that headline in milehigh type, NEGRO CONVICT SHOT, strung across the front page of the Monmouth Chronicle, remembered that blownup picture of the escaped convict who had had one side of his face practically destroyed because someone had slashed him with a razor, years back.
Could hear Old Man John the Barber, when he came for his morning beer and looked at the picture. Barber would start to drink the beer and then put the glass down, and stare at the convict as though he were hypnotized, and say, “The bastards”; start to drink the beer again and put the glass down and say, “The bastards,” just as though he were a nickel-in-the-slot automaton and someone had dropped a nickel in a slot somewhere inside him, and the two words emerged from his throat, automatically, no emphasis, just the two words.
So it was Jubine Lautrec’s Harlot and The Convict by Anonymous that got me in this black Packard. That is one-quarter of the explanation. The other three-quarters reaches back to that Dutch man of warre that landed in Jamestown in 1619.