All God's Dangers (27 page)

Had that check in my hand from the man that bought my cotton, I walked on to the bank. Mr. Tucker was there waitin on me. I said, “Mr. Tucker, what was that you told me that I owed you?”

“Uh-uh-uh-uh, let me figure—”

Whirled around there and went through a little alley to where generally there was a little old table of some kind—you go into a bank, they got nice fixins there for you to write on. Well, he run over there to that little old table and he figured. Whirled around to me again and he come out with this: five hundred dollars and one penny. “If you pay me the five hundred I'll knock the penny off.”

Mr. Grace standin right there, CD Grace, the banker, president
of the bank. He standin there listenin at us. I just issued my check to him; it called for five hundred and sixty-nine dollars and somethin cents. I said, “Take out that five hundred dollars, Mr. Grace, and give me the balance.”

Got out of them bales of cotton, five hundred and sixty-nine dollars, some-odd cents. Mr. Tucker got five hundred of it, Mr. Grace gived me the balance. I just stuck that money in my inside coat pocket. I happened to have on my coat that day—it was cold and rainy.

I said, “Now, Mr. Grace, I want my note.”

I was payin Mr. Tucker all I owed him, but that weren't killin the bird, understand. Mr. Tucker went to scratchin his leg, “Uh-uh-uh-uh, Nate, I don't know whether you can get your note or not until I pay my bills.”

There was a fraud in that but Mr. Grace overruled.

“I-I-I don't know whether you can get your note or not.”

That was killin to me. Because if he didn't pay what he owed, they'd come to me for it. We were under that joint note business, all of his hands and the man himself. He was the only one that could draw money on it but we were all responsible for what he owed. He took a joint note on everything we had—Leroy Roberts, Wilson Rowe, Silas Todd, and me. I signed the note but I didn't know what I was signin when I signed; he didn't tell us what it was but a note. I've always heard that it was illegal to force a man to sign a note without readin it to him, tellin him what he's signin—I've heard that. Just fooled us to do it. Had us come in to the bank there one at a time to sign and had a different paper for each of us, but it was all for the same note.

A joint note is a bad note; you might say it's a clearin-house note. I caught how it could damage a man—if that note messes me up it's goin to mess you up too, goin to mess up everyone that's signed to it. And if you didn't understand it, they just took advantage of your ignorance. What man would freely of himself sign such a note? If you and I both sign this note and you can't make your payment, they goin to take it out of me. My stuff is subject to your transaction, your stuff is subject to my transaction—that's a bad note. Some of my color and some of the white people too talked to me bout it afterwards. Told me, “Nate, didn't you know no better than that? That's a joint note. They goin to work you until they get everything you got.”

I said, “I didn't know it at the time I signed. Mr. Tucker pulled the blinds over my eyes and I believe it's illegal.”

But illegal or legal, don't make no difference—any way we fix it goes for the nigger.

So I kept a lookin at Mr. Grace. And he was lookin at me and lookin at Mr. Tucker and he acted undecided for a minute. Then he said, “Yes, Lemuel, he can get his note. He done paid you all he owed you; he can get it.”

“Uh-uh-uh-uh, by George, give it to him.” O, he scratched his leg, “Give it to him.”

Mr. Grace marked that note up and handed it to me. I put it in my inside coat pocket along with the balance of the money I got from my cotton. Right there and then it struck my heart and mind: ‘You'll never get another note on me, never under Christ's kingdom.'

Mr. Grace turned me loose from that joint note business and I walked on out the bank.

T
HAT
next spring he sent me word to meet him out in Apafalya, he got word to all his other hands and one of em come to me and told me—Silas Todd, he was livin my closest neighbor. Silas got Mr. Tucker's word and he come to my house one day. He called himself a cousin to me; said, “Cousin Nate, Mr. Lemuel said for us all to meet in Apafalya Saturday and sign up for our year's supply. And we aint got nothin to do but sign our notes.”

Every spring as long as that joint note was goin on—it went on five years with me—the week Mr. Tucker wanted us to sign, on a certain Saturday, he'd notify us not later than the middle of the week. That would be in February, when notes was openin up and the farmin people was gettin their business straightened out for the new crop.

So, here come Silas Todd tellin me, “Mr. Tucker said for us all to meet him at the bank Saturday.”

Good God, I had just paid him up and got through with him that previous fall—high-priced cotton pulled the kinks out of me. And when Silas gived me Tucker's word, I just shooed it off, wouldn't let it take my head. I acted careless about it and short and Silas smiled; then he broke out and laughed: “You don't want to go. You aint goin, is you?”

“I don't know what I'll do. I have to study it.”

I wouldn't tell Silas definitely I wasn't goin; told him, “I don't know what I'll do. I'm undecided.”

I failed to go. I wouldn't go sign no note. I was ignorant out of the knowledge of knowin what a joint note meant until I paid Mr. Tucker and saw for myself everything that was on that note.

First business I had after I got the order to come out to the bank and sign that note, I went to Apafalya—that was my tradin town. One Monday I got on my buggy and drove out to Apafalya and just as I got inside the suburbs of town I seed a little old Ford car come a flyin, meetin me, comin up the road. I never had a thought it was him. And when he got close to me I could see it
was
him. Mr. Tucker looked and seed it was me. He drove by me a little piece before he checked that little old Ford up out of the road and jumped out. I looked back and I stopped too. He left that little old Ford car and come trottin back to my buggy. When he got to me he said, “Uh-uh-uh-uh”—he talked thataway—“uh-uh-uh-uh, Nate, uh-uh-uh, I see you didn't come down Saturday and sign the note. You know—uh-uh, you goin downtown now, aint you?”

I said, “Yes, I'm goin down there.”

“Well, you aint got nothin to do but just go straight into the bank and sign.”

Mr. Tucker was weedin a bad row for satisfaction then.

I said, “Mr. Tucker, I don't reckon I'll sign no notes this time.”

He commenced a scratchin his leg. “Uh-uh, what's the trouble? What's the trouble?”

I said, “Well—” I'd sworn to God and man, in all of my thoughts, when I got that note that Mr. Grace just gived me anyhow, that was the last one. I wouldn't be tied up no suchaway as that again. Mr. Tucker gived me trouble about it but it was nothin that a colored man didn't expect. Long trouble. I had done paid him the money I owed Mr. Reeve and everything. Then I didn't owe nobody nothin but him and Mr. Harry Black. And I paid him every penny he had comin, then I went and paid Mr. Harry Black, too. All right. He couldn't get me to sign at all.

“No sir, I aint signin.”

“Well, what's your objection? What's your objection? What you goin to do?”

I said, “Well—”

He said, “You know you aint able to help yourself.”

I said, “I don't know that, Mr. Tucker. But it's a matter that I paid you every penny I owed you last fall down there at the bank. I got straight with you at last. I think it would really be better for me now to suffer for some things than to tie myself up in a situation such as that any more. I aint goin to sign no note. Be honest with you, I aint goin to sign. I'm goin to live the best I can, the hard way. Furthermore, I see my way clear that I can go part of the way and then very well live off the fat of my gut.”

He said, “You better just go ahead and sign that note because you know you're goin to need—”

I said, “I don't doubt what I'll need but I can do without some, too.”

“Uh-uh-uh-uh, by George, I see what you mean now. You goin to fool right around here until May and then you goin to cry for help.”

I said, “Well, if I do, there's plenty of time to sign a note in May if it gets up in May and I need money. You can sign a note any time of year.”

He seed he couldn't do nothin with me—I was set.

“And I aint signin no note this time at all; no way, shape, form, or fashion.”

Jumped back, beggin me. I said, “No, Mr. Tucker, there aint no use. I aint signin no notes. I've made up my mind. I'd rather do without somethin and suffer for it than to get in your debt and be as long payin it as I was before.”

Passed him up and he went on and got back in his car, went on home or somewhere and I went on down to Apafalya and done what I wanted to do, every way but sign that note.

All right. Lingered, lingered, lingered—he come back home and he told the rest of the hands, “Uh-uh-uh-uh, by George, old Nate is actin a fool this time. I can't get him to sign no note or do noway. Just actin a fool and he'll pay a fool's pay.”

I said, when I seed him again, “If you want me to move, Mr. Tucker, I'll move. It's gettin mighty late in the year to move. You couldn't rent that place to nobody if I move off it. And I'll move before I'll sign any note, I'll just move, let you have your place.”

He wouldn't kick at me then. I said to myself, ‘Well, now I don't owe you nothin and I've set out to manage my own business.'

And I kept my word: I went several years, all through the year
and nothin I had had no mortgage against it. I hauled lumber for the Graham-Pike Lumber Company after my crop was laid by. They paid me enough that I supported my family—my mules got to where they didn't want to eat no corn raised at home, they et so much sweet feed and number one timothy hay and oats; they got to where they wouldn't eat my corn and I had plenty of it.

W
HEN
I got my note after a five-year run of bein in his debt and I wouldn't sign no other, Mr. Tucker run to every guano dealer there was in Apafalya—he knowed em all—and told em not to let me have no guano. I didn't know he done it until I went into Mr. Bishop's store one day that spring to buy my guano. I thought I'd recognize Mr. Bishop and get my guano where I'd been gettin it. I was my own man, doin business wherever I pleased.

That man turned me down just like I was a dog.

I said, “Mr. Bishop, I been buyin guano from you through Mr. Tucker for several years. Now I paid Mr. Tucker every penny I owed him and I don't owe nobody but what I can pay on it. I don't owe Mr. Tucker a thing. And I thought that by bein straight”—had got enough to get myself straight—“I can just buy my guano myself.”

He looked at me, “I wouldn't sell you a bit. Go ahead and buy through Mr. Tucker like you been doin.”

I just turned around and walked out. All those white folks there was throwin their weight for one another—I hate to speak as much as I do, in a way, I hate it; wish it hadn't a never happened—Mr. Tucker runned around there and forbidded em all of sellin to me. I couldn't get my guano from Mr. Jack Bishop and I seed I was bein headed somewhere I hadn't planned to go. I left Mr. Bishop and knowin that Mr. Russell was a guano dealer, I walked right straight up the street and went in his store. He was a big shot man, had piles of money. Laid the same larceny on me.

Told him, “I don't owe nobody anythin but what I can pay. I'm clear otherwise. If I could buy guano from you I'd appreciate it, Mr. Russell. I'd go ahead and make my crop and I could easily pay you. I don't owe nobody nothin and I'm only buyin groceries on a light scale. I know my circumstances well—the notes I've made until now I've paid. Haven't had no trouble with nobody that way.”

Mr. Russell stood there and listened at me. I told him my background—he said, “Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh, I wouldn't sell you a bit.”

Them's the words
he
told me—he stuttered when he talked. “I wouldn't sell you a bit.”

I was comin to see in my mind that Tucker had me barred; he done posted my name and guano dealers wouldn't sell to me—tryin to drive me back to him. I didn't like bein geehawsed about that way and objected to. The days I owed Mr. Tucker I labored until I paid him and then I was clear. I was supposed to be a free man to buy from whoever I pleased that would deal with me. But I was knocked clean back just like a dog; couldn't get nothin from nobody. Friendship business amongst the white folks drivin me to one man, the man I'd throwed off me. Well, I seed Mr. Tucker there in Apafalya that evenin and I walked up to him—I was aimin to talk to him bout my fertilize for that year. I said, “Mr. Tucker, it appears to me that I can't buy no guano at all this year, nobody will sell me a bit. You have a hand in that mess, surely. What I want to know is this: what are you goin to do about my fertilize?”

“Uh-uh-uh-uh, by George, you went over to the bank and signed that note?”

I said, “No sir, I aint signed it today and I aint goin to sign.”

Told him again. He said, “I aint goin to let you have no guano less'n you sign that note.”

I kept a tellin him, “Well, I'll just move. If I can't get no guano I'll move, I'll get off your place. I'm barred by every guano dealer I been to. Mr. Bishop denied me, Mr. Russell denied me—they are the main guano dealers in town.”

Told me, “Go on over there and sign that note and you can get all the guano you want.”

Told him, “No, I won't sign no note.”

Well, Mr. Harry Black would come into town on Saturdays to conduct his business and I knowed where to find him. He was a guano dealer—lived out in the country; didn't have no store operation—and durin the years I lived with Mr. Reeve I bought my guano from him. I was free to buy my guano anywhere I wanted then; in fact of the business, under Mr. Reeve's administration you had to trade for guano thoroughly on your own.