Clock Without Hands (25 page)

"How could you know?"

"When rape is even rumored under such circumstances, the verdict is always guilty. And when Mrs. Little was so quick to speak up for her husband's killer, it just looked downright strange. Meanwhile, I was as innocent as a newborn babe, and so was my son. But the jury smelled a rat and returned a guilty verdict."

"But wasn't it a frame-up?" Jester said angrily.

"No. The jury had to decide who was telling the truth, and in this case they decided right, although little did I reck at the time. When the verdict was announced there was a great wail from Jones's mother in the courtroom, Johnny turned ghost pale, and Mrs. Little swayed in her chair. Only Sherman Jones seemed to take it like a man."

"Sherman?" Jester paled and flushed in quick succession. "Was the Negro named Sherman?" Jester asked in a vacant voice.

"Yes, Sherman Jones."

Jester looked puzzled and his next question was widely angled, tentative. "Sherman is not a common name."

"After Sherman marched through Georgia many a colored boy was named for him. Personally I have known half a dozen in my lifetime."

Jester was thinking about the only Sherman he knew, but he kept silent. He only said, "I don't see it."

"Neither did I at the time. Eyes had I and did not see. Ears had I and did not hear. If I had just used my God-born sense in that courtroom, or if my son had confided in me."

"Confided what?"

"That he was in love with that woman, or thought he was."

Jester's eyes were suddenly still with shock. "But he couldn't be! He was married to my mother!"

"Like blood twin brothers we are, Son, instead of grandfather and grandson. Like two peas in a pod. Same innocence, same sense of honor."

"I don't believe it."

"I didn't either when he told me so."

Jester had often heard about his mother so that his curiosity about her had been satisfied. She had been, as he knew, fond of ice cream, especially baked Alaskas, she played the piano and was a music major at Hollins College. These scraps of information had been told him readily, casually, when he was a child, and his mother had not elicited the awe and mystery the boy felt for his father.

"What was Mrs. Little like?" Jester asked finally.

"A hussy. She was very pale, very pregnant, very proud."

"Pregnant?" Jester asked, repelled.

"Very. When she walked through the streets it was as though she expected the crowds to part for her and her baby like the Red Sea parted for the Israelites."

"Then how could my father have fallen in love with her?"

"Falling in love is the easiest thing in the world. It's standing in love that matters. This was not real love. It was love like you are in love with a cause. Besides, your father never acted on it. Call it infatuation. My son was a Puritan and Puritans have more illusions than people who act out every love at first sight, every impulse."

"How terrible for my father to be in love with another woman and be married to my mother, too." Jester was thrilled with the drama of the situation and felt no loyalty to his baked-Alaska mother. "Did my mother know?"

"Of course not. My son only told me the week before he killed himself, he was so upset, so shocked. Otherwise, he would never have told me."

"Shocked about what?"

"To make an end to the story, after the verdict and execution, Mrs. Little called for Johnny. She had had her baby and she was dying."

Jester's ears had turned very red. "Did she say she loved my father? Passionately, I mean?"

"She hated him and told him so. She cursed him for being a fumbling lawyer, for airing his own ideas of justice at the expense of his client. She cursed and accused Johnny, maintaining that if he had conducted the case as a cut-and-dried matter of self-defense Sherman Jones would be a free man now. A dying woman, ranting, wailing, grieving, cursing. She said that Sherman Jones was the cleanest, most decent man she had ever known and that she loved him. She showed Johnny the newborn baby, dark-skinned and with her own blue eyes. When Johnny came home he looked like that man who went over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

"I just let Johnny talk away, then I said, 'Son, I hope you have learned a lesson. That woman couldn't possibly have loved Sherman Jones. He is black and she is white.'"

"Grandfather, you talk like loving a Negro is like loving a giraffe or something."

"Of course it wasn't love. It was lust. Lust is fascinated by the strange, the alien, the perverse and dangerous. That's what I told Johnny. Then I asked him why he took it so to heart. Johnny said: 'Because, I love Mrs. Little, or would you have me call it lust?'

"'Either lust or lunacy, Son,' I said."

"What happened to the baby?" Jester asked.

"Evidently, Rice Little took the baby after Mrs. Little died and left it on a pew of the Holy Ascension Church in Milan. It must have been Rice Little, he's the only one I can figure out."

"Is it our Sherman?"

"Yes, but don't tell him of any of this," the Judge warned.

"Did my father kill himself the day Mrs. Little showed him the baby and cursed him and accused him?"

"He waited until Christmas afternoon, a week later, after I thought I had knocked some sense into his head and it was all over and done with. That Christmas started like any other Christmas, opening presents in the morning, and piled up Christmas wrapping under the Christmas tree. His mother had given him a pearl stickpin and I had given him a box of cigars and a shockproof, waterproof watch. I remember Johnny banged the watch and put it in a cup of water to test it. Over and over I have reproached myself that I didn't notice anything in particular that day, since we were like blood twin brothers I should have felt the mood of his despair. Was it normal to horse around with the shockproof, waterproof watch like that? Tell me, Jester."

"I don't know, but don't cry, Grandfather."

For the Judge, who had not cried in all these years, was weeping for his son at last. The journey into the past which he had shared with his grandson had mysteriously unlocked his stubborn heart so that he sobbed aloud. A voluptuary in all things, he now sobbed with abandon and found it sweet.

"Don't Grandfather," Jester said. "Don't Grandy."

After the hours of remembrance, the Judge was living in the here and now again. "He's dead," he said. "My darling is dead but I'm alive. And life is so full of a number of things. Of ships and cabbages and kings. That's not quite right. Of ships and, and—"

"Sealing wax," Jester prompted.

"That's right. Life is so full of a number of things, of ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings. This reminds me, Son, I've got to get a new magnifying glass. The print of the
Milan Courier
gets wavier every day. And last month a straight was staring me straight in the face and I missed it—mistaking a seven for a nine. I was so vexed with myself I could have burst out bawling in the back room of the New York Café.

"And furthermore, I'm going to get a hearing aid although I've always maintained that they were oldladyish and did not work. Besides, one of these years I am going to get second senses. Improved eyesight, hearing, a vast improvement of all the senses." How this would come about the old Judge did not explain, but living in the here and now and dreaming of a more vivid future, the Judge was content. After the emotions of the evening he slept peacefully all through the winter night, and did not wake up until six the next morning.

WHO AM I?
What am
I?
Where am
I
going? Those questions, the ghosts that haunt the adolescent heart, were finally answered for Jester. The uneasy dreams about Grown Boy which had left him guilty and confused, no longer bothered him. And gone were the dreams of saving Sherman from a mob and losing his own life while Sherman looked on, broken with grief. Gone also were the dreams of saving Marilyn Monroe from an avalanche in Switzerland and riding through a hero's ticker tape parade in New York. That had been an interesting daydream, but after all, saving Marilyn Monroe was no career. He had saved so many people and died so many hero's deaths. His dreams were nearly always in foreign countries. Never in Milan, never in Georgia, but always in Switzerland or Bali or someplace. But now his dreams had strangely shifted. Both night dreams and daydreams. Night after night he dreamed of his father. And having found his father he was able to find himself. He was his father's son and he was going to be a lawyer. Once the bewilderment of too many choices was cleared away, Jester felt happy and free.

He was glad when the new term of school opened. Wearing brand new clothes he had got for Christmas (brand new shoes, brand new white shirt, brand new flannel pants), he was free, surehearted now that the "Who am I? What am I? Where am I going?" was answered at last. He would study harder this term, especially English and history—reading the Constitution and memorizing the great speeches whether they were required in the course or not.

Now that the deliberate mystery of his father had been dispelled, his grandfather occasionally spoke of him; not often, not weeping, but just as though Jester had been initiated like a Mason or Elk or something. So Jester was able to tell his grandfather about his plans, to tell him that he was going to study law.

"The Lord knows I never encouraged it. But if that's what you want to do, Son, I will support you to the best of my ability." Secretly the Judge was overjoyed. He could not help showing it. "So you want to emulate your grandfather?"

Jester said, "I want to be like my father."

"Your father, your grandfather ... we were like blood twin brothers. You are just another Clane off the old block."

"Oh, I'm so relieved," said Jester. "I had thought about so many things that I could do in life. Play the piano, fly a plane. But none of them exactly fitted. I was like a cat always climbing the wrong tree."

In the beginning of the New Year the even tenor of the Judge's life was abruptly shattered. One morning when Verily came to work she put her hat on the back porch hatrack and did not go into the front of the house to start the day's house cleaning as usual. She just stood in the kitchen, dark, stubborn, implacable.

"Judge," she said, "I want them papers."

"What papers?"

"The govment papers."

To his outraged amazement and the ruin of his first cigar, Verily began to describe social security. "I pays part of my salary to the govment and you supposed to pay a part."

"Who's been talking all that stuff to you?" The old Judge thought probably this was another Reconstruction, but he was too scared to let on.

"Folks was talking."

"Now, Verily, be reasonable. Why do you want to pay your money to the government?"

"Because it's the law and the govment is catching folks. Folks I knows. It's about this here income tax."

"Merciful God, you don't want to pay income tax!"

"I does."

The Judge prided himself on understanding the reasons of Nigras and said with soothing firmness, "You have got this all mixed up. Forget it." He added helplessly, "Why, Verily, you have been with us close on to fifteen years."

"I wants to stay in the law."

"And a damn interfering law it is."

The truth of what Verily wanted finally came out. "I wants my old age pension when the time comes for it."

"What do you need your old age pension for? I'll take care of you when you are too old to work."

"Judge, you're far beyond your three score years and ten."

That reference to his mortality angered the Judge. Indeed the whole situation made him fit to be tied. Moreover, he was puzzled. He had always felt he understood Nigras so well. He had never realized that every Sunday morning when at dinner time he had said, "Ah, Verily, Verily, I say unto you, you will live in the Kingdom of Heaven..." he had not noticed how, Sunday after Sunday, that had irritated Verily. Nor had he noticed how much affected she had been since the death of Grown Boy. He thought he understood Nigras, but he was no noticer.

Verily would not be side-tracked. "There's a lady will figure out them govment papers, pay me forty dollars a week, and give me Saturday and Sunday free."

The Judge's heart was beating fast and his face changed color. "Well, go to her!"

"I can find somebody to work for you, Judge. Ellie Carpenter will take my place."

"Ellie Carpenter! You know good and well she doesn't have the sense of a brass monkey!"

"Well, how about that worthless Sherman Pew?"

"Sherman is no servant."

"Well, what do you think he is?"

"No trained servant."

"There is a lady will figure out the govment papers, pay me forty dollars a week, and give me Saturday and Sunday free."

The Judge grew angrier. In the old days a servant was paid three dollars a week and felt herself well paid. But each year, year after year, the price of servants had gone up so that the Judge was now paying Verily thirty dollars a week, and he had heard that well-trained servants were getting thirty-five and even forty. And even then they were scarce as hen's teeth these days. He had always been a servant-spoiler; indeed, he had always believed in humanity—did he have to believe in such high wages too? But, wanting peace and comfort, the old Judge tried to back down. "I will pay the social security for you myself."