Lesson Before Dying

by Ernest J. Gaines

  “It’s about Jefferson, Sheriff Guidry,” I said. I knew they had discussed it, still I had to go through the motions. “His nannan would like for me to visit him.”

  “What for?” Guidry asked.

  They had discussed this too. I could tell from the way the fat man drank from his glass. I could see in his face that he was amused. So was Louis Rougon. I knew they were both betting against me.

  “She’s old,” I said. “She doesn’t feel that she has the strength to come up there all the time.”

  “She doesn’t, huh?” Sam Guidry asked me. He emphasized “doesn’t.” I was supposed to have said “don’t.” I was being too smart.

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “She doesn’t feel that she can.”

  I used the word “doesn’t” again, but I did it intentionally this time. If he had said I was being too smart and he didn’t want me to come to that jail, my mind would definitely have been relieved.

  “What about that preacher in the quarter? Can’t he visit him?”

  “I asked her the same thing.”

  “You did, huh?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “She said there’ll be time for the preacher.”

  “She did, huh?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So she feels that he has that much time, time for teacher and preacher?”

  The fat man grunted. Louis Rougon’s eyes showed that he was amused. Henri Pichot, next to Sam Guidry, looked uncomfortable.

  “What you plan on doing when you come up there—if I let you come up there?” Guidry asked me.

  “I have no idea, sir,” I told him.

  “You’re not trying to play with me, now, are you?” Guidry asked.

  “No, sir, I’m not. But I have no idea what I’ll talk to him about.”

  “I hear from people around here you want to make him a man. A man for what, at this time?”

  “She asked me to go to him, sir. Her idea. Not mine.”

  “That was not the question,” Guidry said. “Make him a man for what?”

  “To die with some dignity, I suppose. I suppose that’s what she wants.”

  “You think that’s a good idea?”

  “That’s what she wants, sir.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I would rather not have anything to do with it, sir. But that’s what she wants.”

  “So you think he ought to go just like he is?”

  “I don’t know how he is, sir. Believe me, Mr. Guidry, if it was left up to me, I wouldn’t have anything to do with it at all,” I said.

  “You and I are in accord there,” he said. “But my wife thinks different. Now, which one you think is right, me or her?”

  The fat man snorted. He thought Guidry had me.

  “I make it a habit never to get into family business, Mr. Guidry.”

  The fat man didn’t like that quick maneuver. I could see it in his face.

  “You’re smart,” Guidry said. “Maybe you’re just a little too smart for your own good.”

  I was quiet. I knew when to be quiet.

  “I don’t like it,” Guidry said. “And I want you to know I don’t like it. Because I think the only thing you can do is just aggravate him, trying to put something in his head against his will. And I’d rather see a contented hog go to that chair than an aggravated hog. It would be better for everybody concerned. There ain’t a thing you can put in that skull that ain’t there already.”

  I remained quiet.

  “You can come up there,” Sam Guidry said. “But the first sign of aggravation, I’m calling it off. You understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You have any questions?” he asked me.

  “Yes, sir. When can I see him?”

  “You can come anytime you like. Not before ten in the morning, not after four in the evening. Any other questions?”

  “Any idea how much time he has left?”

  “That’s entirely up to the governor, not me,” Guidry said. “But I wouldn’t plan on a diploma. Okay?”

  The fat man and Louis Rougon seemed impressed by the sheriff’s questions and answers to me. Louis Rougon, who had light-blue eyes, stared at me to make me look back at him, but I refused to pay him that courtesy. The fat man, drinking, rattled the ice cubes in his glass. Henri Pichot appeared to wish all this was over with.

  “Anything else?” Guidry asked me.

  “When can I start coming up there?”

  “Not for a couple of weeks,” Guidry said. “Let him get used to it. Report to Chief Deputy Clark if I’m not around. Don’t bring anything up there you don’t want taken away from you—knife, razor blade, anything made of glass. Not that I expect him to do anything—but you can never be sure. Anything else?”

  “No, sir, nothing else.”

  Guidry nodded. “Good luck. But I think it’s all just a waste of time.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  I waited until they had left the kitchen, then I went out to my car and drove away.

  7

  TWO THINGS HAPPENED at the school during the weeks before I visited Jefferson in jail. The superintendent of schools made his annual visit, and we got our first load of wood for winter.

  We heard on Monday by Farrell Jarreau, who had gotten the news from Henri Pichot, that the superintendent was going to visit us sometime during the week, but we didn’t know what day or time. I told my students to take baths each morning and wear their best clothes to school. After the Pledge of Allegiance in the yard and the recitation of Bible verses inside the church, I would send a student back outside to look out for the superintendent. If the student saw a car, any car, turn off the highway down into the quarter, he or she was supposed to run inside and tell me.

  The superintendent didn’t show up until Thursday. By then we had had many false alarms. The minister of the church, who didn’t live in the quarter, had made a couple of visits to church members. A doctor had come once, a midwife had visited a young woman twice, an insurance man had shown up, a bill collector from a furniture store had appeared, Henri Pichot had driven through the quarter at least once each day, and family and friends of people in the quarter had also visited. On Thursday, just before two o’clock, the boy I had watching for cars ran into the church.

  “Another one, Mr. Wiggins, another one.”

  “All right,” I said to the class. “Keep those books opened and look sharp.”

  I passed my fingers over my shirt collar and checked the knot in my necktie. I felt my jacket to be sure both flaps were outside the pockets. I had three suits—navy blue, gray, and brown. I had on the blue one today. In the yard, I passed the tips of my shoes over the backs of my pant legs. Now I was ready to receive our guest.

  This time it was the superintendent. He stopped his car before the door of the church. A thick cloud of gray dust flew over the top of the car and down into the quarter. The superintendent was a short, fat man with a large red face and a double chin, and he needed all his energy to get out of the car.

  “Dr. Joseph,” I said.

  “Hummmm. Stifling,” he said.

  I thought it was a little cool myself, but I figured that anyone as heavy as he was must have felt stifled all the time. He wheezed his way across the shallow ditch that separated the road from the churchyard. He looked up at me, but I could tell he didn’t remember my name, though he had visited the school once each year since I had been teaching there.

  “Grant Wiggins,” I said.

  “How are you, Higgins?”

  “Wiggins, sir,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  “Well, I’m not,” he said. “All this running around. More schools to attend.”

  Dr. Joseph visited the colored schools once a year, the white schools probably twice—once each semester. There were a dozen schools in the parish to visit, if that many.

  “We’re honored that you took this time for us, sir.”

  He grunted and looked
around the yard. There was a good breeze coming in from the direction of the cane fields, and it wavered the flag on the pole in the yard.

  “Place looks about the same,” Dr. Joseph said.

  “Things change very slowly around here, Dr. Joseph,” I said.

  “Hummmm,” he said.

  I motioned for him to precede me into the church. He needed all his strength to go up the three wooden steps, and as he entered the doorway, I heard Irene Cole, the sixth-grade student in charge, call out to the class: “Rise. Shoulders back.”

  I followed Dr. Joseph down the aisle, and on either side of us, the students from primer through sixth grade stood as still and as straight as soldiers for inspection.

  I nodded toward my desk for Dr. Joseph to take my chair. He grunted, which meant thanks, and pulled the chair farther from the desk before he sat down. He needed the extra distance for comfort.

  Irene was watching me all the time, and when I nodded to her, she called out to the classes: “Seats.” And the whole school sat as one. We had been rehearsing this, morning and afternoon, for the past three days.

  “Students, I’m sure you all know Dr. Joseph Morgan,” I told them. “Dr. Joseph is our superintendent of schools here in St. Raphael Parish. He has taken time out of a very busy schedule to visit us for a few minutes. Please respond loudly: ‘Thank you, Dr. Joseph.’” Which they did, loudly.

  Dr. Joseph acknowledged their greeting: “Hummmm.”

  “Dr. Joseph, we’re at your service,” I said, and sat down on one of the benches against the wall.

  Dr. Joseph leaned back in the chair, and still his large stomach nearly touched the edge of the table. He looked over the classes from one side of the aisle to the other, as though he was trying to catch someone doing something improper.

  “Primer, on your feet,” he said.

  They stood up, seven or eight of them. Dr. Joseph looked them over for a moment, then he told the little girl at the end to come forward. She took a deep breath and looked at the girl standing beside her before coming up to the desk. She was afraid, but she came up quickly and stood before the table with her little arms tight to her sides. She would not look up.

  “Nothing to be afraid of, child,” Dr. Joseph said to her. “What is your name?”

  “Gloria Hebert,” she said.

  “I can’t hear you if you keep your head down,” Dr. Joseph told her.

  She looked up, timidly. “Gloria Hebert.”

  “That’s a pretty name,” Dr. Joseph said. “Hold out your hands.”

  She must have thought she had said or done something wrong, because as she held her hands out across the table, palms up, I could see them trembling.

  “Turn them over,” Dr. Joseph told her.

  She did.

  “Uh-huh,” he said. “Relax.”

  She did not know what he wanted her to do.

  “Lower your arms, child,” Dr. Joseph said.

  She brought her arms back to her sides and lowered her eyes as well.

  “Did you say your Bible verse this morning, Gloria?”

  “Yes, sir, Dr. Joseph.”

  “Well, what did you say?” he asked her.

  “I said, ‘Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,’ Dr. Joseph.”

  “Hummm,” Dr. Joseph said. “Seems I’ve heard that one before. But you’re a bright little girl. You tell your folks Dr. Joseph said they ought to be proud of you. Go back to your seat.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Joseph,” she said, bowing and turning away quickly. She smiled as she faced forward again. But no one else was smiling.

  “Primers, take your seats,” Dr. Joseph said. “First graders, on your feet.”

  And he called on the one boy in class who I wished had stayed home today. He was without doubt the worst child in the school. He came from a large family—thirteen, fourteen, fifteen: I don’t know how many—and he had to fight for every crumb of food he got. At school he did the same. He fought if he played marbles, he fought if he played ball, he fought if he played hide-and-go-seek, he fought if he played hide-the-switch. In class he fought with those who sat in front of him, beside him, behind him. I had punished him as much during the last month as I had all the other children put together.

  Dr. Joseph asked his name, and he ran together three words even I couldn’t understand. His name was Louis Washington, Jr., but what he said didn’t sound anything like that.

  “Your hands,” Dr. Joseph told him.

  The hands had been cleaned an hour before, I was sure, because I had checked each pair when the students came in from dinner. But now the palms of those same hands were as black and grimy as if he had been pitching coal all day.

  “Did you pledge allegiance to the flag this morning?” Dr. Joseph asked him.

  “Yazir,” he said. Not “Yes, sir,” as I had told him a hundred times to say. “Yazir.”

  “Well?” Dr. Joseph said.

  “Want me go stand outside and s’lute flag?” the boy asked.

  “You don’t have to go outside,” Dr. Joseph said. “You can show me in here.”

  The boy raised his hand to his chest.

  “Plege legen toda flag. Ninety state. ’Merica. Er—er—yeah, which it stand. Visibly. Amen.”

  Dr. Joseph grunted. Several students giggled. Dr. Joseph seemed quite satisfied. I would have to do a lot more work.

  For the next half hour it continued. Dr. Joseph would call on someone who looked half bright, then he would call on someone whom he felt was just the opposite. In the upper grades—fourth, fifth, and sixth—he asked grammatical, mathematical, and geographical questions. And besides looking at hands, now he began inspecting teeth. Open wide, say “Ahhh”—and he would have the poor children spreading out their lips as far as they could while he peered into their mouths. At the university I had read about slave masters who had done the same when buying new slaves, and I had read of cattlemen doing it when purchasing horses and cattle. At least Dr. Joseph had graduated to the level where he let the children spread out their own lips, rather than using some kind of crude metal instrument. I appreciated his humanitarianism.

  Finally, when he felt that he had inspected enough mouths and hands, he gave the school a ten-minute lecture on nutrition. Beans were good, he said. Not only just good, but very, very good. Beans, beans, beans—he must have said beans a hundred times. Then he said fish and greens were good. And exercise was good. In other words, hard work was good for the young body. Picking cotton, gathering potatoes, pulling onions, working in the garden—all of that was good exercise for a growing boy or girl.

  “Higgins, I must compliment you. You have an excellent crop of students, an excellent crop, Higgins. You ought to be proud.”

  He had said the same thing the year before, and he had called me Higgins then too. And the year before that he had said the same thing, but he had called me Washington then. At least he was getting closer to my real name.

  “Rise,” Irene called to the class.

  They came to their feet, their heads up, their arms clasped to their sides. But instead of feeling pride, I hated myself for drilling them as I had done.

  Dr. Joseph and I went down the aisle. Outside, he looked up at the flag waving on its bamboo pole in the corner of the fence. I thought for a moment the superintendent was about to salute it, but he was either too tired or too lazy to raise his hand.

  “Doing a good job, Higgins,” he said.

  “I do the best I can with what I have to work with, Dr. Joseph,” I said. “I don’t have all the books I need. In some classes I have two children studying out of one book. And even with that, some of the pages in the book are missing. I need more paper to write on, I need more chalk for the blackboards, I need more pencils, I even need a better heater.”

  “We’re all in the same shape, Higgins,” he said.

  I didn’t answer him.

  “I said we’re all in the same shape, Higgins, the white schools just as much as the colored schools. We take what t
he state gives us, and we make the best of it.”

  “Many of the books I have to use are hand-me-downs from the white schools, Dr. Joseph,” I said. “And they have missing pages. How can I—”

  “Are you questioning me, Higgins?”

  “No, sir, Dr. Joseph. I was just—”

  “Thank you, Higgins.”

  He started to get back into his car. It was harder to do than getting out, because he was upset with me now.

  “More drill on the flag, Higgins,” he said, through the rolled-down window. “More emphasis on hygiene.”

  “Some of these children have never seen a toothbrush before coming to school, Dr. Joseph.”

  “Well, isn’t that your job, Higgins?”

  “Yes, sir, I suppose so. But then I would have to buy them.”

  “Can’t they work?” he asked me. “Look at all the pecan trees.” He waved his hand toward the yards. “I wager you can count fifty trees right here in the quarter. Back in the field, back in the pasture, you can count another hundred, two hundred trees. Get them off their lazy butts, they can make enough for a dozen toothbrushes in one evening.”

  “That money usually goes to helping the family, Dr. Joseph.”

  “Then you tell the family about health,” he said, looking out of the rolled-down window to let me know that his visit was over. “I have another school to visit. All this running around ’nough to give a man a heart attack.”

  He drove away. I stood there until he had turned his car around and started back up the quarter. I waved at him, but he did not wave back.

  8

  THE WEEK AFTER the superintendent paid his visit to the school we got our first load of wood for winter. Two old men brought the wagonload about eleven o’clock that morning. We did not have a gate wide enough for the wagon to come through, so the men came into the yard next door to the church. One got down off the wagon to open the gate, and the other drove the wagon into the yard. I could not see them, but I could hear them. They were joking about the mules, the wood, and the weather. One of them said, “Don’t let Bird hang us up in that ditch, now. I don’t feel like unloading all this wood ’way out here and got to put it on that wagon again.”