The Bottoms (20 page)

“It gonna be okay now, Missuh Jacob?” Mose asked.

“You just go on about your business, Mose. I got the purse. You told me what you know. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

“Well, I guess you had to do it.”

“I’m sorry you had to stay at Bill’s.”

“He done all right by me. ’Cept that chain. He fed me all right, but he didn’t empty that ole mess can much as he said.”

“I didn’t figure he did,” Daddy said.

We drove onto the trail that led down to the river. The trees were close and limbs lapped over the top of the car and bathed us in shadow. Daddy had to drive slow and careful because the trail was full of washouts and slippery with leaf mold.

We drove down a good ways, parked, left the car, and walked down to the river with Mose, over to his shack. A cool wind
was blowing off the brown churning river and it felt good, but carried with it the faint aroma of something gone to rot.

“You need to come fish, Missuh Jacob,” Mose said.

“It’s been a while.”

“Sho has. You ’member when them ole Davis brothers down the river there poisoned the water with all them green walnuts, killed all them perch and bass. Even some of them big ole catfish?”

“I do.”

“I remember how mad you was. You said, ‘ ’At ain’t no way to do no fishin’,’ and you walloped one of ’em. You ’member that?”

“Sure.”

“You and me, we never did go in for them green walnuts or dynamitin’, did we?”

“No, we didn’t, Mose. We just fished the way you’re supposed to. With a pole, line, hook, and patience.”

“Yessuh, we did.”

“Dem Davises you know they eventually turned they boat over and one of ’em drowned an other’n got snake-bit.”

“I heard that.”

“Now that’s somethin’, ain’t it, Missuh Jacob.”

“It is.”

“Now they ain’t no Davis brothers.”

We walked him to his shack. He was limping as he went. When we got there he pushed the unlocked door open. It didn’t look any better inside than Mr. Smoote’s barn, except there wasn’t the smell and as many flies. It was just one room with a window near the door, and a window on the opposite side. One window had glass in it, the other just a thin strip of yellow oilcloth.

Mose went inside and we stood in the doorway.

“You gonna be all right, Mose?” Daddy asked.

“Yessuh, Missuh Jacob.”

“You got somethin’ to eat?”

“I got couple cans a stuff. I’ll fish me up somethin’ too.”

Mose got a small can off a shelf and pulled the lid free. He stuck his fingers in the black mess inside, bent over and rubbed it on the spot where the chain had cut his ankle. It was axle grease. Lot of folks used it back then to lubricate sores or help stop bleeding from minor wounds.

When Mose was finished with that, he limped over to one of the two chairs he had and sat down at a small wood plank table. He looked even smaller than he had looked at Mr. Smoote’s place.

“All right, then,” Daddy said. “Well, you take care, Mose.”

“Yessuh. And you come to fish, bring the boy.”

“I will.”

As we were climbing into the car, Daddy said, “Ain’t no doubt, this hasn’t been my finest hour.”

A
s we bumped up the trail toward Preacher’s Road, I said, “What favor did you do Mr. Smoote? He didn’t sound like he was real grateful.”

“He don’t like to think about it, son. One of his girls, the oldest one. She’s about nineteen now … we didn’t see her today.”

“Mary Jean?”

“That’s the one. I caught her with a colored boy, son. If you know what I mean.”

I blushed. Daddy had never talked to me about such things.

“I ain’t never told nobody but you. Not even your Mama. And you ain’t never gonna say, ’cause I’m askin’ you to keep your word, and I know you will. I figure there’s some things a man ought to be able to tell his son he don’t have to tell no one else and can’t.”

“Yes sir. Is that why he chained Mose?”

“Part of it. He don’t let that girl out of the house hardly no more. He’s afraid she’ll get with the colored. He figures she’s got a fever for it. I figure she’s just a little slutty to begin with,
and that probably wasn’t her first time to dally. Colored or white, I can’t say. I don’t think Mary Jean’s all that choosy.”

I filed that away.

Daddy added, as if reading my mind, “You stay away from that gal, hear? She might have some kind of disease.”

“Yes sir. I don’t want nothin’ to do with her … Daddy, what about the colored boy?”

“She didn’t even know him. She met him down by the river, fishin’. She’d gone down there to do the same. They got to talkin’ about things, and I guess she figured she could talk to him about stuff she couldn’t talk to a white boy about. People figure colored haven’t got the morals whites got. But it ain’t that way at all, son. There’s just as many good coloreds as white, and just as many sorry. Most, white or colored, ain’t quite on one side altogether. They’re a mix. A good person is one where the mix turns out mostly for the better. But she got to talkin’, and he got to talkin’, and well, pretty soon they was doin’ more than talkin’. I was out lookin’ for Mrs. Benton’s cow. Widow lives up on the hill behind Bill. She come to me askin’ for help, so I went to lookin’. What I found was Mary Jean and that colored boy. I run him on. Told him not to come back. Mary Jean didn’t know his name, so that wouldn’t gonna come up. I told her to dress, and I took her home.”

“And told her Daddy?”

“I wasn’t gonna say nothin’. She told her Daddy. Just to hurt him, I figure. She’s got a mean streak in her, but then again, so does her Daddy. He’s walloped her hide pretty often.”

“Daddy, you’ve walloped us some.”

Daddy was quiet for a moment. “You think so? I raised big welts on you, son?”

“No sir.”

“Have I whupped you just to make myself feel better?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I whupped you for things you didn’t do?”

“Once. I didn’t drop that cat down the outhouse. Tom done that.”

“You didn’t tell me that.”

“She was little. She didn’t know no better.”

“So you took the whuppin’ for her?”

“Yes sir.”

“I can admire that. But you’ve been corrected, boy. Not beat. Stung, but not injured. And I don’t spank as a matter of course. I think hard on any spankin’s I give you.”

“There was that time we put salt in your coffee, and you took a swig and we laughed and you jerked us up and got us both. You didn’t consider much on that one.”

Daddy laughed. “That one didn’t deserve considerin’. I knew darn well who done that.”

I turned back to the subject. “So Mary Jean told her Daddy what she did to hurt him?”

“Way I figure it. Bill wanted to kill the boy, but I told him I didn’t know who he was and didn’t remember how he looked. Far as he’s concerned they all look alike anyway, so he didn’t have no trouble buyin’ that.

“And she wasn’t raped. I told him I seen what was happenin’, and it sure wasn’t rape. Not the way she was laughin’.”

“So Mr. Smoote knows you know and he wants to make sure you don’t say ’cause he don’t want folks to know his daughter was with colored.”

“That’s about the size of it. I don’t intend to say no how. And I’ve told him that. I figured I asked a favor of him he’d do it ’cause he owed me. But Bill ain’t smart. Askin’ that boy to help him chain Ole Mose. He didn’t think that one through.”

That night I couldn’t sleep, got up carefully so as not to wake Tom, and still wearing my nightshirt slipped out onto the
sleeping porch. I thought I might sleep there, but instead I ended up going out to the well in my bare feet and pulling up a bucket of water and using the dipper to get a drink. I took my time about it, listening to the crickets saw on their legs.

When I got back to the sleeping porch, Mama was there. She was sitting in the swing, wearing her quilted nightgown. I thought I might have awakened her, or that she was going to fuss at me for being up, but instead she patted the seat beside her and I went over and sat down.

“Couldn’t sleep?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

She put her arm around me. “Me either. What you thinkin’ about?”

“Nothin’ really.”

“Oh.”

“You?”

“Everything all at once. That’s why I can’t sleep. Sometimes things jumble together. I get to thinkin’ about what I’m going to fix for breakfast or dinner or supper. I wonder if the mule’s gettin’ too old to plow and if the weather’s gonna spoil the fall crop. I wonder if times gonna get any better, and I think about the mistakes in my life, and I think about you and Tom.”

“What about me and Tom?”

“No one thing. Just thinkin’.”

“Mama?”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell Daddy about Red?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Why?”

“It’s hard to explain. I guess it’s because your Dad wouldn’t like the idea of Red comin’ around and I don’t want to start no trouble between ’em. They don’t like each other anyway, and yet they do.”

“How’s that?”

“Ain’t nothin’ worse than two friends fallin’ out. Underneath it all, there’s still the old feelin’s they had for one another.”

“I think it’s gone. Daddy don’t like Red.”

“There’s still the old memories, and that makes not likin’ each other all the worse and all the harder. It was me made the two of them not like each other in the first place. Then your Daddy savin’ Red like that, and them both courtin’ me, well, it made things difficult when me and your Daddy got together. They never could patch things up.”

“How do you mean?”

“I can’t explain it. But that’s why your Daddy was mad at Red … People do foolish things, Harry. Things they wish they hadn’t done, but you can’t take them back. You have to live with them, get over them or work around them.”

“I don’t think Daddy felt foolish about what he was doin’,” I said.

“I didn’t mean your Daddy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Someday, maybe I can explain it to you better.”

“Red still likes you, don’t he?”

“I guess he does. Or did until our little talk.”

“Is it like that with you? I mean like you say it is with Dad and Red?”

“Maybe. A little. Just a little. I think I like some memories better than I like some nows. You know what I mean?”

“I don’t know, Mama … What did you mean talkin’ to Mr. Woodrow about Miss Maggie and his Daddy?”

“Miss Maggie was Red’s Daddy’s mistress.”

“Mistress?”

“That’s kind of … well, Harry, this is embarrassin’. But it’s when a man is married, and he ain’t supposed to be but with his wife, but he don’t always do that. And he’s got him a woman on the side.”

“Miss Maggie was his woman on the side?”

“That was many years ago. She was a young woman then.”

I had a difficult time imagining Miss Maggie young.

“Red’s got a half-brother and a half-sister by her. Or maybe it’s two half-brothers or two half-sisters. I’m not sure. He knows that, but he never acted like he did. He don’t claim ’em. When he was little, that ole colored woman was like his Mama. His Mama was a cold woman, and didn’t have much to do with Red nor his Daddy. I think that’s why his Daddy took a mistress. But it was really more like havin’ a slave than a mistress. I don’t know how else to explain it, Harry.”

“I understand.”

“Harry, you’re gettin’ to be a young man. Figure that’s why your Daddy took you with him today. He wanted your company. Did you enjoy it?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Your Daddy and me got hopes for you and Tom. Jacob come from a real ignorant family, Harry. He don’t want that for you. He wants you to have a chance. Remember that when you feel like he’s pushin’ you a little too hard. He’s afraid you’ll end up like him.”

“I think I could do a lot worse.”

Mama put her arm around me. “So do I, Harry.”

Suddenly Toby barked and a voice called loudly: “Jacob. Come out.”

“Who was that?” I asked.

Mama said, “Sit tight.”

She got up, started through the house. I disobeyed her immediately and followed.

“Jacob,” the voice called again. “Come out.”

Through the windows and curtains I could see there was a brilliant light outside, a moving light, gnawing at the darkness.