The Third Generation (19 page)

They didn’t mind. There was always something fascinating happening in church. Once a baptism was held way across town in the Arkansas River and there was a fish fry afterwards. The fires were burning smokily in the soft warm dusk and the gaily clad black people, filled with their joy of God, frolicked happily among the shanties and broken-down jetties along the river bank. The liquid laughter and caressing voices, smell of frying catfish, dimly moving people melting into the gloom, made magic of the strange night scene, and Charles was lost in fantasy, wanting to hold the moment and never let it end. Soft strange happenings touched him; the dark, whispering river, a young girl’s smooth black face silhouetted against the deepening dusk. He liked the mystery of the half-seen, the poetry of the dark. Sharp, hard-angled perspective always kept him tense. And he hated dirtiness and vulgarity in anyone.

Once, at a Sunday afternoon picnic in the far-off woods, a brash young thirteen-year-old girl named Susie kept urging him, “Come on ‘n do it to me, baby. Come on, doan be so skeered.”

She wore white shorts and her long black legs were goose-pimpled; there were scars on her knees. He couldn’t meet her bold, slant gaze. He wasn’t scared; inside he was sick with shame. Afterwards, in Sunday school, he avoided her; he wouldn’t look at her. Then suddenly a tug, he’d turn; her slant brown eyes were daring him. Finally he told William.

“What do you mean?” William asked.

“She wants me to do it to her.”

“You let her alone,” William said. “You shouldn’t think of anything like that. Besides, you don’t know how.”

“I do, too, know how.”

But shortly afterwards, study began claiming their attention. Their studies had become interesting at last. They plodded eagerly from class to class, along the cinder paths between the crowded buildings, their footsteps ringing hollowly on the worn wooden stairs.

Both loved chemistry. Their happiest hours were spent in the laboratory in the basement of the chapel, arranging complicated apparatus, melting crystals over the Bunsen burners, heating strange mixtures in the test tubes, or grinding solids in the mortars with the complacent patience of a squaw grinding corn. The formation of water by burning hydrogen held them in breathless anticipation. They were intrigued by all experimentation, and were always doing something on their own—silver-plating pennies, dropping a tiny ball of sodium to dance crazily on the surface of a beaker of water, dunking copper wire into sulphuric acid. The mystery of the commonplace was especially alluring.

At dinner they’d say, “Please pass the sodium chloride.”

“I’ll have a glass of H
₂
0.”

“Mother, you didn’t put enough C
₁₂
H
₂₂
O
₁₁
in this pudding.”

Their mother indulged them laughingly. “Pretty soon there’ll be no living with you two.”

They were startled to learn that gunpowder was made from common ordinary sulphur, saltpeter and charcoal. And if you mixed it with potassium chlorate and powdered glass it would detonate itself, like the torpedoes used in the great world war. They made little torpedoes to put on the streetcar tracks and stood nearby until the car ran over them. They they’d run when the motorman got out to see what had caused the explosion.

Explosives held for them a special fascination. They blew up buckets and washtubs and barrels. Their mother became a nervous wreck. Once Charles exploded a dynamite cap on the front porch. Luckily the charge went down instead of up and blew a hole through the floor. The only injuries to himself were tiny cuts all over his face and hands, as if his skin had burst in a hundred different places. After that their mother forbade them to make any kind of explosive.

But in the lab, without her knowledge, they worked industriously at making guncotton and improving their torpedo charges. They often stumped their professor by forming some unfamiliar compound. Once they filled the lab with bromine gas, bringing out the school fire department. The volunteers came galloping across the yard, lugging the carts of hose. Classes had to be let out for the remainder of the day to allow the gas to clear. The children were unharmed.

“God takes care of fools and children,” their mother said relievedly. “And fortunately, you are both.”

“It’s just that we know our stuff,” William replied boastfully.

“We can make anything,” Charles echoed.

Their mother was struck by their complacency and felt a sudden fear. “Do be careful, children. Chemicals are so dangerous.”

“We won’t get hurt,” William assured her.

“We’re careful,” Charles echoed.

14

E
ACH YEAR, DURING THE
week of commencement, a program was held in the auditorium so the undergraduates could demonstrate their skills. Selected students from every department performed rare feats of learning. A portable forge and anvil were rolled upon the stage and mules were shod, cows were milked, dresses stitched, pies baked, poetry recited; and there were weighty discussions in the fields of science and history. It had a circus aspect and there were always thrills and laughter. Though dedicated to the parents, everyone attended.

The Taylor children were chosen to make explosives. Their mother was torn between pride and anxiety.

“Explosives!” she exclaimed. “And right up on the stage. Why can’t they do something less dangerous?”

“They’re not going to throw a bomb into the audience, honey,” Professor Taylor reassured her. “My students’ll have a live forge going and that’ll be more dangerous than anything.”

“But explosives? What will the parents think you’re teaching them at the college?”

Professor Taylor chuckled. “You have a point. But they’re very good at it, honey. And since the war everybody’s talking about explosives. Professor Tanner thought it’d be effective.”

“Effective indeed! I’m sure it’ll be effective,” she said disparagingly.

The children were thrilled and excited by the prospect. For days before the exercises it was all they talked about.

They had made a number of torpedoes in the lab which they exploded in their backyard the morning of the big shindig.

It made their mother nervous. “Do stop playing with those explosives,” she called. “I’ve told you time and again and I’m not going to tell you anymore.”

“We’re practising,” Charles replied.

“You’re doing no such thing,” she contradicted crossly. “You’re just taking this opportunity to disobey your mother.”

“What do you know about what we’re doing?” Charles said defiantly.

“Don’t you dare talk back to me,” she said.

In a fit of resentment, when she’d withdrawn, Charles threw a torpedo against the house. It exploded with a terrible bang. She rushed into the backyard.

“Which one of you did that?” she demanded, her face flaming with fury.

Charles looked at her challengingly. “I did.”

Her mouth closed grimly with anxiety and rage. “Just for that you shan’t take part in tonight’s program.”

“I don’t care,” he replied sullenly. “You don’t want us to anyway.”

His insolence and defiance wrung her heart. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you.”

“Nothing’s gotten into me. You’re always fussing. Fuss-fuss-fuss all the time.”

She never permitted the children to talk back. But now her anger was torn with worry. She didn’t know what was coming over him. “God doesn’t like ugly,” she finally said.

The remark infuriated him; he’d heard it all his life. “Who cares?” he muttered recklessly.

She was profoundly shocked by what she considered blasphemy. He, too, was frightened by his own remark, as if he’d gone beyond the realm of safety. He’d always considered God as omnipresent, able to reach out and touch you at His will. It would not have surprised him had God struck him dead, or burnt him to a cinder.

“God is going to punish you,” she said grimly. “God is going to punish you as surely as you’re standing there.”

And he believed it. But from some compulsion deep inside of him he had to show defiance to the end. “I don’t care,” he said. “Let Him punish me.”

Mrs. Taylor looked at him silently, her face settling into lines of agony. She went into the house, trembling with fear for him. God was going to hurt him in some awful way, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She closed herself within her room and prayed God to forgive him.

Charles was silent all through dinner. His mother wouldn’t look at him. William looked at his brother covertly.

Professor Taylor wondered at the strain. “What’s the trouble, son?”

“Charles has been ugly,” his mother replied. “And he shan’t take part in the program.”

“Ugly! Ugly! Ugly!” Charles shouted, jumping from the table. “That’s all I hear—ugly-ugly-ugly! I s’pose if I was a sissy like Andy Baldwin you’d be satisfied,” he said, dashing from the room.

Suddenly his mother burst into tears, cupping her face in her hands. “God is going to punish him,” she sobbed.

“There, there, honey,” her husband consoled. “He’ll be all right. He’s just high-strung, and he’s excited. After tonight he’ll settle down.”

She looked up, her face hardening beneath the tears. “He shan’t take part in the program, and that’s that! He’ll have to learn to control himself.”

“But, honey, Professor Tanner’s depending on the boys.”

“I don’t care,” she said. “He’s not going to get away with his insolence.”

“I can do it by myself,” William said, looking at his father.

Charles was bitterly disappointed. It was a sad, silent family that set out for the chapel. Charles was put to ushering. When he passed his mother’s seat she looked away. He thought she’d put a curse on him. God was going to strike him dead before the night was out. A strange unearthly fear filled the corners of his mind and he began trembling in the dark. The exercises he scarcely noticed. He stood by a window looking out into the night. Orion winked indifferently from the distance and the Milky Way settled on his melancholy. He’d never see the stars again, or his mother or father or brother or anything. His mother didn’t matter, he didn’t care if he never saw her again; but his brother he’d miss most. He’d be lost without his brother. And he’d never again see him throughout all eternity because he was going to Hell and Will would go to Heaven.

His brother’s voice captured his attention. He looked back toward the stage. William stood before a small wooden table, grinding solids in a mortar. He talked as he worked.

“Now I’ll add point seven-five cubic centimeters of potassium nitrate, KN0
₃
,” he looked up and grinned, “which is known to you as common ordinary saltpeter.”

A laugh ran through the audience. Charles watched him make the familiar moves, thinking of all the fun they’d had at it. And now they’d never do that again—or anything. He saw William add the potassium chlorate, explaining that it was the oxidizer; and then the powdered glass—the detonator.

Now the pestle moved so delicately in the mortar as William said, “Don’t be alarmed, I won’t hurt you,” getting another little laugh. William moved around the table and stood before the lights.

Not the pestle!
Charles was thinking.
Not the pestle, Will
…

The explosion came in a sudden white puff, the size of a pillowcase. William stood there for an instant in the center of the stage, the silence deafening about him, holding his face in his hands. There was something of the crucifixion in his posture, a stone of rigid tragedy in a field of barren loneliness. Some instinctive memory, working even then, warned him that to run was dangerous.

Charles leaped forward without thought. Before him was the stairwell down to the landing, and he went off into space. When he regained the chapel floor William was surrounded by their parents, Dr. Lukas and others of the faculty. Men were pushing forward, crying, “Clear the way!” Downstairs he got behind the vanguard. They pressed through the confusion. William was mute. His mother held tightly to his arm, guiding him. He allowed himself to be led; his feet stumbled on the uneven ground. On the other side his father held him up.

“Here! Over here!” Dr. Lukas called in the darkness.

They groped forward toward the car. Doors opened and there was fumbling. Professor and Mrs. Taylor got into the back seat with William between them.

“Where’s Charles?” his mother asked anxiously.

“I’m here,” he sobbed from the shadows. Suddenly he discovered he was crying; salt taste was in his mouth.

“Get up here with me,” Dr. Lukas said.

It was a touring car and there was a hand pump on the dashboard which rendered high compression. Dr. Lukas told him to work the pump. Shortly the motor roared. The car backed and turned and sped through streets of unreality, the bright lights carving strangely distorted scenes out of the dark horror in their minds. Charles wanted to turn and reach over the back seat and touch William. But he was afraid to leave off pumping. All he could do for him was this. He sat tensely, pumping for his brother’s life.

No words were spoken. The race was against despair. Prayer fused them within the doubtful hope. Charles was afraid to breathe lest God discover him. The car wheeled into a courtyard, a lighted doorway looming. A sign to one side read: EMERGENCY ENTRANCE. Dr. Lukas sounded the horn and jumped from the car. Two white-clad men came from within the hospital. Mrs. Taylor had gotten out and was helping William down. Professor Taylor ran around the car to help her. Two more cars roared into the courtyard and men leaped out. Suddenly there was confusion. A brief violent conference was taking place before the lighted entrance, the two white men surrounded by a mob of panicky Negroes. Two more white men hastened from within, and Charles saw his father move forward in an attitude of prayer. One of the white men slowly shook his head, regretfully it seemed. And Charles saw his father break down and start sobbing like a baby. He’d not moved from his seat, and now he saw his mother and William at one side, remote from the contestants, forgotten in the contest.

Then another car came swiftly onto the scene and a big hatless white man pushed forward through the crowd. After a rapid exchange of sharp, harsh voices, the big white man came forward and took William by the arm and gently guided him across the courtyard and through the lighted entrance. Professor and Mrs. Taylor and Dr. Lukas followed in single file.