The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

by Carson McCullers

  ‘It does not matter.’

  ‘You still don’t eat nair meat?’

  ‘No. For purely private reasons I am a vegetarian, but it does not matter if you wish to cook the collards with a piece of meat’ Without putting on her shoes Portia stood at the table and carefully began to pick over the greens. This here floor sure do feel good to my feets. You mind if I just walk around like this without putting back on them tight, hurting pumps?’

  ‘No,’ said Doctor Copeland. ‘That will be all right’

  ‘Then--us’ll have these nice collards and some hoecake and coffee. And I, going to cut me off a few slices of this here white meat and fry it for myself.’

  Doctor Copeland followed Portia with his eyes. She moved slowly around the room in her stockinged feet, taking down the scrubbed pans from the wall, building up the fire, washing the grit from the collards. He opened his mouth to speak once and then composed his lips again.

  ‘So you and your husband and your brother have your own cooperative plan,’ he said finally.

  ‘That’s right.’

  Doctor Copeland jerked at his fingers and tried to pop the joints again. ‘Do you intend to plan for children?’

  Portia did not look at her father. Angrily she sloshed the water from the pan of collards. ‘There be some things,’ she said, ‘that seem to me to depend entirely upon God.’

  They did not say anything else. Portia left the supper to cook on the stove and sat silently with her long hands dropping down limp between her knees. Doctor Copeland’s head rested on his chest as though he slept. But he was not sleeping; now and then a nervous tremor would pass over his face. Then he would breathe deeply and compose his face again. Smells of the supper began to fill the stifling room. In the quietness the clock on top of the cupboard sounded very loud, and because of what they had just said to each other the monotonous ticking was like the word ‘children, children,’ said over and over.

  He was always meeting one of them--crawling naked on a floor or engaged in a game of marbles or even on a dark street with his arms around a girl. Benedict Copeland, the boys were all called. But for the girls there were such names as Benny Mae or Madyben or Benedine Madine. He had counted one day, and there were more than a dozen named for him.

  But all his life he had told and explained and exhorted. You cannot do this, he would say. There are all reasons why this sixth or fifth or ninth child cannot be, he would tell them. It is not more children we need but more chances for the ones already on the earth. Eugenic Parenthood for the Negro Race was what he would exhort them to. He would tell them in simple words, always the same way, and with the years it came to be a sort of angry poem which he had always known by heart.

  He studied and knew the development of any new theory. And from his own pocket he would distribute the devices to his patients himself. He was by far the first doctor in the town to even think of such. And he would give and explain and give and tell them. And then deliver maybe two score times a week. Madyben and Benny Mae.

  That was only one point. Only one.

  All of his life he knew that there was a reason for his working.

  He always knew that he was meant to teach his people. All day he would go with his bag from house to house and on all things he would talk to them. After the long day a heavy tiredness would come in him. But in the evening when he opened the front gate the tiredness would go away. There were Hamilton and Karl Marx and Portia and little William. There was Daisy, too.

  Portia took the lid from the pan on the stove and stirred the collards with a fork. ‘Father--’ she said after a while.

  Doctor Copeland cleared his throat and spat into a handkerchief. His voice was bitter and rough. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Less us quit this here quarreling with each other.’

  ‘We were not quarreling,’ said Doctor Copeland.

  ‘It don’t take words to make a quarrel,’ Portia said. ‘It look to me like us is always arguing even when we sitting perfectly quiet like this. It just this here feeling I haves. I tell you the truth--ever time I come to see you it mighty near wears me out. So less us try not to quarrel in any way no more.’

  ‘It is certainly not my wish to quarrel. I am sorry if you have that feeling, Daughter.’

  She poured out coffee and handed one cup unsweetened to her father. In her own portion she put several spoons of sugar. ‘I getting hungry and this will taste good to us. Drink your coffee while I tell you something which happened to us a piece back. Now that it all over it seem a little bit funny, but we got plenty reason not to laugh too hard.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ said Doctor Copeland.

  ‘Well--sometime back a real fine-looking, dressed-up colored man come in town here. He called hisself Mr. B. F. Mason and said he come from Washington, D. C. Ever day he would walk up and down the street with a walking-cane and a pretty colored shirt on. Then at night he would go to the Society Cafe. He eaten finer than any man in this town. Ever night he would order hisself a bottle of gin and two pork chops for his supper. He always had a smile for everybody and was always bowing around to the girls and holding a door open for you to come in or go out For about a week he made hisself mighty pleasant wherever he were. Peoples begun to ask questions and wonder about this rich Mr. B. F. Mason. Then pretty soon, after he acquaints hisself, he begun to settle down to business.’

  Portia spread out her lips and blew into her saucer of coffee. ‘I suppose you done read in the paper about this Government Pincher business for old folks?’

  Doctor Copeland nodded. ‘Pension,’ he said.

  ‘Well--he were connected with that. He were from the government. He had to come down from the President in Washington, D. C, to join everbody up for the Government Pinchers. He went around from one door to the next explaining how you pay one dollar down to join and after that twenty-five cents a week--and how when you were forty-five year old the government would pay you fifty dollars ever month of your life. All the peoples I know were very excited about this. He give everbody that joined a free picture of the President with his name signed under it. He told how at the end of six months there were going to be free uniforms for ever member. The club was called the Grand League of Pincheners for Colored Peoples--and at the end of two months everbody was going to get a orange ribbon with a G. L. P. C. P. on it to stand for the name. You know, like all these other letter things in the government. He come around from house to house with this little book and everbody commenced to join. He wrote their names down and took the money. Ever Saturday he would collect In three weeks this Mr. B. F. Mason had joined up so many peoples he couldn’t get all the way around on Saturday. He have to pay somebody to take up the collections in each three four blocks. I collected early ever Saturday for near where we live and got that quarter. Course Willie had joined at the beginning for him and Highboy and me.’

  ‘I have come across many pictures of the President in various houses near where you live and I remember hearing the name Mason mentioned,’ said Doctor Copeland. ‘He was a thief?’

  ‘He were,’ said Portia. ‘Somebody begun to find out about this Mr. B. F. Mason and he were arrested. They find out he were from just plain Atlanta and hadn’t never smelled no Washington, D. C, or no President. All the money were hid or spent. Willie had just throwed away seven dollars and fifty cents.’

  Doctor Copeland was excited. ‘That is what I mean by--‘In the hereafter,’ Portia said, ‘that man sure going to wake up with a hot pitchfork in his gut. But now that it all over it do seem a little bit funny, but of course we got plenty reason not to laugh too hard.’

  ‘The Negro race of its own accord climbs up on the cross on every Friday,’ said Doctor Copeland.

  Portia’s hands shook and coffee trickled down from the saucer she was holding. She licked it from her arm. ‘What, you mean?’

  ‘I mean that I am always looking. I mean that if I could just find ten Negroes--ten of my own people--with spine and brains and coura
ge who are willing to give all that they have--’ Portia put down the coffee. ‘Us was not talking about anything like that’

  ‘Only four Negroes,’ said Doctor Copeland. ‘Only the sum of Hamilton and Karl Marx and William and you. Only four Negroes with these real true qualities and backbone--’

  ‘Willie and Highboy and me have backbone,’ said Portia angrily. ‘This here is a hard world and it seem to me us three struggles along pretty well.’

  For a minute they were silent. Doctor Copeland laid his spectacles on the table and pressed his shrunken fingers to his eyeballs.

  ‘You all the time using that word--Negro,’ said Portia. ‘And that word haves a way of hurting people’s feelings. Even old plain nigger is better than that word. But polite peoples--no matter what shade they is--always says colored.’

  Doctor Copeland did not answer. ‘Take Willie and me. Us aren’t all the way colored. Our Mama was real light and both of us haves a good deal of white folks’ blood in us. And Highboy--he Indian. He got a good part Indian in him. None of us is pure colored and the word you all the time using haves a way of hurting people’s feelings.’

  ‘I am not interested in subterfuges,’ said Doctor Copeland. ‘I am interested only in real truths.’

  ‘Well, this here is a truth. Everybody is scared of you. It sure would take a whole lot of gin to get Hamilton or Buddy or Willie or my Highboy to come in this house and sit with you like I does. Willie say he remember you when he were only a little boy and he were afraid of his own father then.’

  Doctor Copeland coughed harshly and cleared his throat.

  ‘Everbody haves feelings--no matter who they is--and nobody is going to walk in no house where they certain their feelings will be hurt. You the same way. I seen your feelings injured too many times by white peoples not to know that.’

  ‘No,’ said Doctor Copeland. ‘You have not seen my feelings injured.’

  ‘Course I realize that Willie or my Highboy or me--that none of us is scholars. But Highboy and Willie is both good as gold.

  There just is a difference between them and you.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Doctor Copeland.

  ‘Hamilton or Buddy or Willie or me--none of us ever cares to talk like you. Us talk like our own Mama and her peoples and their peoples before them. You think out everthing in your brain. While us rather talk from something in our hearts that has been there for a long time. That’s one of them differences.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Doctor Copeland.

  ‘A person can’t pick up they children and just squeeze them to which-a-way they wants them to be. Whether it hurt them or not. Whether it right or wrong. You done tried that hard as any man could try. And now I the only one of us that would come in this here house and sit with you like this.’ The light was very bright in Doctor Copeland’s eyes and her voice was loud and hard. He coughed and his whole face trembled. He tried to pick up the cup of cold coffee, but his hand would not hold it steadily. The tears came up to his eyes and he reached for his glasses to try to hide them. Portia saw and went up to him quickly. She put her arms around his head and pressed her cheek to his forehead. ‘I done hurt my Father’s feelings,’ she said softly. His voice was hard. ‘No. It is foolish and primitive to keep repeating this about hurt feelings.’ The tears went slowly down his cheek and the fire made them take on the colors of blue and green and red. ‘I be really and truly sorry,’ said Portia. Doctor Copeland wiped his face with his cotton handkerchief. ‘It is all right.’

  ‘Less us not ever quarrel no more. I can’t stand this here fighting between us. It seem to me that something real bad come up in us ever time we be together. Less us never quarrel like this no more.’

  ‘No,’ said Doctor Copeland. ‘Let us not quarrel.’ Portia sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. For a few minutes she stood with her arms around her father’s head. Then after a while she wiped her face for a final time and went over to the pot of greens on the stove. ‘It mighty nigh time for these to be tender,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Now I think I’ll start making some of them good little hoecakes to go along with them.’ Portia moved slowly around the kitchen in her stockinged feet and her father followed her with his eyes. For a while again they were silent. With his eyes wet, so that the edges of things were blurred, Portia was truly like her mother. Years ago Daisy had walked like that around the kitchen, silent and occupied. Daisy was not black as he was--her skin had been like the beautiful color of dark honey. She was always very quiet and gentle. But beneath that soft gentleness there was something stubborn in her, and no matter how conscientiously he studied it all out, he could not understand the gentle stubbornness in his wife. He would exhort her and he would tell her all that was in his heart and still she was gentle. And still she would not listen to him but would go on her own way.

  Then later there were Hamilton and Karl Marx and William and Portia. And this feeling of real true purpose for them was so strong that he knew exactly how each thing should be with them. Hamilton would be a great scientist and Karl Marx a teacher of the Negro race and William a lawyer to fight against injustice and Portia a doctor for women and children.

  And when they were even babies he would tell them of the yoke they must thrust from their shoulders--the yoke of submission and slothfulness. And when they were a little older he would impress upon them that there was no God, but that their lives were holy and for each one of them there was this real true purpose. He would tell it to them over and over, and they would sit together far away from him and look with their big Negro-children eyes at their mother. And Daisy would sit without listening, gentle and stubborn.

  Because of the true purpose for Hamilton, Karl Marx, William, and Portia, he knew how every detail should be. In the autumn of each year he took them all into town and bought for them good black shoes and black stockings. For Portia he bought black woolen material for dresses and white linen for collars and cuffs. For the boys there was black wool for trousers and fine white linen for shirts. He did not want them to wear bright-colored, flimsy clothes. But when they went to school those were the ones they wished to wear, and Daisy said that they were embarrassed and that he was a hard father.

  He knew how the house should be. There could be no fanciness--no gaudy calendars or lace pillows or knickknacks --but everything in the house must be plain and dark and indicative of work and the real true purpose.

  Then one night he found that Daisy had pierced holes in little Portia’s ears for earrings. And another time a kew-pie doll with feather skirts was on the mantelpiece when he came home, and Daisy was gentle and hard and would not put it away. He knew, too, that Daisy was teaching the children the cult of meekness. She told them about hell and heaven. Also she convinced them of ghosts and of haunted places. Daisy went to church every Sunday and she talked sorrowfully to the preacher of her own husband. And with her stubbornness she always took the children to the church, too, and they listened.

  The whole Negro race was sick, and he was busy all the day and sometimes half the night. After the long day a great weariness would come in him, but when he opened The front gate of his home the weariness would go away. Yet when he went into the house William would be playing music on a comb wrapped in toilet paper, Hamilton and Karl Marx would be shooting craps for their lunch money, Portia would be laughing with her mother. He would start all over with them, but in a different way. He would bring out their lessons and talk with them. They would sit close together and look at their mother. He would talk and talk, but none of them wanted to understand.

  The feeling that would come on him was a black, terrible, Negro feeling. He would try to sit in his office and read and meditate until he could be calm and start again. He would pull down the shades of the room so that there would be only the bright light and the books and the feeling of meditation. But sometimes this calmness would not come. He was young, and the terrible feeling would not go away with study.

  Hamilton, Karl Marx, William,
and Portia would be afraid of him and look at their mother--and sometimes when he realized this the black feeling would conquer him and he knew not what he did.

  He could not stop those terrible things, and afterward he could never understand.

  ‘This here supper sure smells good to me,’ said Portia. ‘I expect us better eat now because Highboy and Willie liable to come trooping in any minute.’

  Doctor Copeland settled his spectacles and pulled his chair up to the table. ‘Where have your husband and William been spending the evening?’

  They been throwing horseshoes. This here Raymond Jones haves a horseshoe place in his back yard. This Raymond and his sister, Love Jones, plays ever night. Love is such a ugly girl I don’t mind about Highboy or Willie going around to their house any time they wishes. But they said they would come back for me at quarter to ten and I expecting them now any minute.’

  ‘Before I forget,’ said Doctor Copeland. ‘I suppose you hear frequently from Hamilton and Karl Marx.’

  ‘I does from Hamilton. He practically taken over all the work on our Grandpapa’s place. But Buddy, he in Mobile--and you know he were never a big hand at writing letters. However, Buddy always haves such a sweet way with peoples that I don’t ever worry concerning him. He the kind to always get along right well.’

  They sat silently at the table before the supper. Portia kept looking up at the clock on the cupboard because it was time for Highboy and Willie to come. Doctor Copeland bent his head over the plate. He held the fork in his hand as though it were heavy, and his fingers trembled. He only tasted the food and with each mouthful he swallowed hard. There was a feeling of strain, and it seemed as though both of them wanted to keep up some conversation.

  Doctor Copeland did not know how to begin. Sometimes he thought that he had talked so much in the years before to his children and they had understood so little that now there was nothing at all to say. After a while he wiped his mouth with his handkerchief and spoke in an uncertain voice.