Mozart and Leadbelly Read online

  Mrs. Adele raised her head and looked at him, and I looked at him and I was wondering if my old man was thinking about going off someplace—or maybe shoot himself like Mr. Robbins had done because he had so many children.

  “I won’t be coming back,” he said.

  “You don’t mean that, Oscar,” Mrs. Adele said.

  “I like Mrs. Adele.”

  “You keep out of this, Max,” my old man said.

  “Run, sinner, run,” the preacher said.

  My old man looked at the preacher, then he reached over and got another piece of chicken from the platter. Mrs. Adele wanted to hold the platter up so he could get more than one piece, but my old man didn’t want but one piece then, or if he did, he was going to show Mrs. Adele that he was mad with her, too.

  “You think running going to do any good?” the preacher said. “Can’t the Good Lord find you no matter where you run or hide?”

  “Can’t you shut him up?”

  “Sure,” the preacher said. “Sure, shut up the word of the Lord.”

  My old man didn’t hit the preacher like he wanted to, but kept on eating the piece of chicken. He was holding the drumstick with both hands. He had to know where both his hands were all the time, or he might’ve accidentally hit the preacher. And though he wasn’t a churchgoing man, preachers were the only type of people I had never seen my old man take a swing at.

  “I thought it was best, Oscar,” Mrs. Adele said. “Like you, Max, and me all together.”

  “I’ll do my own thinking from now on,” my old man said.

  “Pa—”

  “Shut up, Max.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You just can’t reason with some people,” the preacher said. He looked at my old man awhile, then he looked at Mrs. Adele. “For your sake, Adele, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t give up, Reverend Johnson,” she said.

  “I’m not giving up,” the preacher said. “I’m just sorry for you.”

  “Go take off your suit, Max,” my old man said.

  “Sir?”

  “You heard me.”

  “I don’t want to take it off.”

  “I said take it off,” my old man roared.

  “What are you making him take it off for?” Mrs. Adele asked.

  “He’s leaving it,” my old man said.

  “I want my double-breasted suit.”

  “Didn’t you hear me?” my old man said.

  “This is between you and me, Oscar,” Mrs. Adele said. “And I won’t allow you to take it out on that child.”

  My old man gave me one of those looks that I knew what it meant, and I went around the table and stood in the door, looking at the three of them. I could feel the hot tears coming into my eyes.

  “I don’t want to take off my suit, Pa.”

  “Well, you’re going to,” he said. “‘And hurry up about it. I want to get home before dark.”

  “Oscar,” Mrs. Adele said; she was almost crying. “Please.”

  But my old man just looked at me, and I knew there was no use, and I went to the room that I stayed in when I was at Mrs. Adele’s house. I sat on the bed, and I could feel a big lump in my throat, and I wanted to cry, but couldn’t, then Mrs. Adele came into the room and knelt down in front of me and hugged me and I hugged her and we both cried.

  Then she stopped and kissed me on both cheeks, and I saw where the tears had run down her face. She wiped her eyes on a little pocket handkerchief, then she wiped mine and held the little handkerchief up to my nose and told me to blow, but nothing came out, and she wiped my eyes again.

  “You’re not acting like a big boy,” she said.

  “I thought you were going to be my stepmother.”

  “Still am,” she said.

  “No,” I said. “Pa’ll never come back.”

  She smiled and nodded her head. “He will,” she said.

  “I hope so, Mrs. Adele,” I said. “I want you to be my stepmother so bad. And you all were getting along so good before that—before today.”

  She hugged me, then when I started to unbutton my suit coat, she stood up to get my clothes off the nail that was back of the door, and she was going to leave the room till I had changed clothes so she wouldn’t have to look at me.

  Just when she was getting ready to reach for the clothes, we heard ka-bung, and we ran out of the room into the kitchen and I saw my old man getting off the floor, and the preacher standing beside the table with his long arms and big fists hanging to his side. I didn’t know how it had happened, but that preacher must’ve hit my old man when he wasn’t looking, but my old man was getting off the floor when we got to the kitchen and he was going to tear into the preacher if Mrs. Adele hadn’t started screaming.

  “Don’t you hit a man of God, Oscar Wheeler,” she screamed. “Don’t you hit a man of God.”

  She stood between my old man and the preacher with them glaring at each other, then my old man raised his hand and felt his jaw like he was trying to reset it. He looked at the preacher again, then he jerked away and went out on the little back porch.

  “I’m sorry, Adele,” the preacher said. Then he looked up at the ceiling and said a low prayer that nobody could hear but himself. After that he got his hat. “Sometimes you got to play by the other fellow’s rules to get results.”

  “No, Reverend Johnson,” Mrs. Adele said Christian-like.

  He patted her on the shoulder.

  “You’re a good Christian, Adele,” the preacher said. He glanced over his shoulder at my old man on the back porch, then he looked at me. “Keep up the good work, young man.”

  I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I nodded my head. He came over to me and put his hand on my shoulder, then he walked out of the house, very straight and tall and looking directly ahead.

  “Go take off your suit, Max,” Mrs. Adele said. “I want to talk to your father.”

  I went back to the room and took off the suit and folded the trousers and hung it on a clothes hanger. I put on my blue shirt and my dirty overalls, and Mrs. Adele came back into the room and said, “Surprise for you, Max.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “You can take your suit home with you.”

  “Pa said so?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I felt like running out to the back porch and kissing my old man, but he might’ve still been mad at that preacher and took a poke at me. So I didn’t go out there where he was, but got the box that I had brought the suit to Mrs. Adele’s house in. Mrs. Adele took the suit off the hanger for me and folded it neatly and put it in the box. When she closed the box she sat on the bed and looked at me.

  “Max?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “I want you to do something for me.”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “I want you to always remember that I want to be your—your stepmother, hear?”

  I looked down at the floor. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She took me by the hand and brought me closer to her.

  “You want me to be, don’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She put her hand under my chin and raised my head.

  “If you wish hard enough it still might happen,” she said, trying to look in my eyes, and me trying not to look in hers, because all the time I was afraid I might start crying again.

  “Max,” my old man called.

  “Coming, Pa.”

  Mrs. Adele was still holding my hand.

  “And I want you to keep saying your prayers, hear?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And who are you going to pray for?” she said, a little jollylike.

  “For you and for Pa—and for everybody.”

  “But your father more.”

  I nodded.

  Then she hugged me real hard, and when she released me she pushed the box toward me, but all the time keeping her head turned away from me so I couldn’t see that she was crying.

  “ ’Bye, Mrs. Adele,” I said
at the door.

  But she didn’t look at me, and when my old man heard me coming he walked down the steps, and me, with the double-breasted suit tucked under my arms, I followed him.

  MARY LOUISE

  I

  The sun hadn’t rised yet, but I wasn’t going to sleep no more, and I thought the best thing for me to do was to get up. I pushed the sheet back and sat on the side of the bed a minute. Then I said to myself, Sitting here ain’t going to get the work done. And I got up and put on a dress and went back in the kitchen. It didn’t have any water in the pail, and I got it and carried it on to the pump. Across the stream it was red ’cause the sun was just getting ready to come up. The morning was still a little cool, and the grass was still wet from the dew last night. Over ’cross the fence I saw Mr. Richard coming out of his kitchen with a bucket of slop, and I could hear the hogs running ’cross the lot to meet him.

  Farther on up the nook I could hear Mrs. Olive Jarreau calling her chickens to feed ’em, and the next second I could hear her hollering at St. John’s dog. She was telling the dog she couldn’t even feed her chickens in peace if he wasn’t ’round there swallowing up everything fast as it hit the ground. She was telling the dog he was more trifling than his master, and one day his old trifling master was going to come there and find his old trifling dog stretched out on his gallery dead as a doornail. She hollered at the dog again, and then she must’ve picked up something and throwed it at him ’cause I heard the dog running ’cross the yard howling.

  I took the pail of water in the house and poured up some in the washbasin. After I had washed, I put some corncobs in the stove and lit the fire. By the time Dad come back in the kitchen I had already gone to my room and made up my bed and swept the floor, and had come back in the kitchen to start the breakfast. When I heard him coming back there I pulled the skillet over the front burner to fry the two pieces of salt meat I already had in there. Dad went in the back awhile, and then he came inside to wash up. After he got through he sat at the table, and I brought him his food. When everything was on the table I went to my room to stay there till he was gone. I knowed if I had stayed back there he was going to say something ’bout Jackson again, and God knows I didn’t want to hear no more of his squabbling.

  I got my little hand mirror and my comb and went over to the window. I passed the comb through my hair a long time, just to while away the time. Then when I heard him leaving the house I put the things up and went back in the kitchen to cook my own breakfast.

  II

  Aunt Vivian had told me anytime I wanted to come to the city she would help me to find some kind of job. Right then I couldn’t make up my mind to go or to stay. I wanted to go, and I didn’t want to go. If I went and left him there I was sure to lose, then. But if I stayed, there was always a chance. The reason was I just couldn’t see Jackson loving Lillian. She was pretty and all that, yes, but I couldn’t see him loving her. There wasn’t a thing to her. Nothing but face and hair, and I didn’t think Jackson was that kind. I didn’t think he was that kind, and I didn’t care what they said, I wasn’t going to ever think it. If he had told me himself he loved her, then I would think it. But till then I wasn’t going to. I saw him going over there, but that didn’t mean nothing. He could’ve been just going over there to talk to Mrs. Della or Catherine. I didn’t see him and Lillian walking together like Emmy said they had been doing. I knowed Emmy was jealous of him. Even from the first day he was back there she started putting all that stuff on her face to make him look at her. Then when he didn’t pay her no mind she tried to get something up on him. I knowed her too well to go ’round believing everything she said.

  Because even when he was small he used to go over there. Lillian wasn’t there then, but he used to go over there. I used to tell on him. Sometimes I wouldn’t, but sometimes I’d tell soon’s I seen him running ’cross that pasture. And what Miss Charlotte used to put on him nothing could take it off. Remember the time she whipped both me and him for going up in that loft. That was the worst whipping I ever got in my life. It was in this same house. Right there in Dad’s room. Me, him, Brother, Nancy—a bunch of us here that day. Then Nancy, she wanted to do something else ’sides just playing jacks. She wanted to play Mama and Papa. I knowed all the time what she was getting next to, and I kept on saying over and over, “No, Nancy, that’s a sin. We can’t do that.”

  And her, “That ain’t no sin. You just trying to be nicey-nicey, you.”

  And I said, “It’s a sin. That’s what they say.”

  And she said, “I don’t care what they say. It ain’t no sin.”

  “It is,” I said.

  “It ain’t,” she said.

  “It is,” I said.

  “All right, Miss Nicey-Nicey,” she said, “if it’s a sin for you it ain’t none for me and I’m going to do it much as I want.”

  “If you do it with Jackson I’ll tell, too,” I said. “You see if I don’t tell, too.”

  And she said, “You do and I never stop beating you, too. You just do and see if I ever stop beating on you.”

  And him and Brother and the rest of ’em was playing out in the yard. What was they playing? Must’ve been playing marbles. It had to be marbles, ’cause they was always playing marbles. And she went out there where they was and asked ’em if they wanted to play hiding in the house, and they came on in and they went hiding and I couldn’t find ’em for nothing.

  I found Brother and the other children right away, but couldn’t find him and Skinny Nancy for nothing. I gave up and told ’em to come out ’cause I couldn’t find ’em, but they didn’t come out. Then after a long time both of ’em came creeping out from where they was. Then Skinny Nancy had to look for us, and I seen him going up the loft and I followed him up the loft, and he thought I was Brother. I still remember him saying, “That you, Brother?”

  “That’s me,” I said.

  “What you doing up here?” he said.

  “I’m hiding up here.”

  “Well, you don’t make no noise,” he said. “You know how you like to make noise.”

  “I ain’t going to make none,” I said.

  And I crawled over where he was, and he was breathing hard, and I was breathing hard, too, ’cause I was tired from climbing up the wall in the loft.

  “How come I couldn’t find y’all?” I said.

  “Shhhh,” he said.

  “Hanh, how come?” I said.

  “Shhhh,” he said.

  And I started crying.

  “How come?” I said. “How come I couldn’t find y’all?”

  “They going to hear you, you keep that noise up,” he said.

  “How come? What y’all was doing, Jackson?” I said.

  “Shhhh,” he said. “Don’t make no noise.”

  “What y’all was doing?” I said.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “Yeah, y’all was doing something,” I said. “Y’all was sinning. That’s what y’all was doing.”

  “We wasn’t sinning,” he said.

  “Yes, y’all was,” I said. “Y’all was sinning.”

  “No, we wasn’t,” he said. “She wanted to make me sin but I didn’t. She held me down and tried to make me sin with her but I wouldn’t.”

  “How come you didn’t holler, then?” I said.

  “How can you holler with somebody laying on top your mouth, hanh?”

  “You didn’t sin with her none?” I said.

  “I told you I didn’t, didn’t I?” he said.

  And I stopped crying and just sat there looking at him. “How come?” I said.

  He didn’t answer.

  “Hanh?”

  He still didn’t answer me.

  “Hanh, Jackson?” I said.

  “I don’t like old Skinny Nancy, that’s why I didn’t sin with her,” he said. “Now, you stop bothering me.”

  And I felt good and we was quiet and I heard him breathing ’cause he was still tired and I was breathing hard ’cause
I had climbed up that wall and I was tired and it was dark in there and it was hot in there and I heard him breathing ’cause I was right up against him.

  “Jackson?” I said.

  “Hanh?” he said.

  And I didn’t say nothing ’cause I was scared, and a little bit later I said, “You want to sin with me?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  We was quiet again. And I said, “Jackson?”

  “What this time?” he said.

  “You ever seen anybody sinning?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “One time I seen Joe and Veta.”

  I always remember he said Joe and Veta, ’cause Joe and Veta got married when they growed up; and I always remember he said Joe and Veta. Just like that he said Joe and Veta. Right under that same house Joe and ’em used to live in.

  “What they was doing?” I said.

  “Sinning,” he said.

  “I mean how,” I said.

  “He was laying on top of her,” he said.

  “Oh, that’s all sinning is?”

  “I reckon so,” he said. “I don’t know.”

  We was quiet and we listened, but we didn’t bear nobody coming.

  “They never find us up here,” he said. And we was quiet again.

  “You want to sin?” he said.

  “I don’t know.”

  And we was quiet a long time and we listened and we didn’t hear nobody coming.

  “You think it’ll be all right?” I said. “Nobody’ll come up here and catch us?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “I want if you want,” I said.

  “You want to?” he said.

  “If you want to,” I said.

  “First you got to lay back on your back then,” he said. I did and I stretched out my legs and I felt him.

  “Wait,” he said.

  “Hanh?” I said.

  “We got to do this,” he said. “Hold still.”

  We didn’t a bit more know what we was doing ’an a man in the moon. And once there I opened my eyes and looked at him and he was looking at me like he was thinking the same thing. Then he laid down ’side me and then every few minutes he passed his tongue over my face, and every time he did it to me I did it back to him. Over and over and over.