A Gathering of Old Men (17 page)

“Whatever you say, Papa,” he answered, without looking at Fix.

Fix nodded his head. “Jean?”

Jean was another of Gil’s brothers. He didn’t look anything like Gil or Claude—or Fix either, for that matter. He was short like Fix, but too pale. He was probably in his mid-thirties. He wore a black-striped seersucker suit, a white shirt, and a little bow tie. He glanced around nervously at the people nearest him; then he moved closer to Fix’s chair. Fix was looking up at him, and patting the little boy on the leg.

“Papa, we ought to talk,” Jean said.

“Then talk.”

“What will we do when we go to Bayonne, Papa? Who will go to Bayonne?”

“You don’t want to go to Bayonne?” Fix asked him.

“I live in Bayonne, Papa,” Jean said. “My butcher shop is in
Bayonne. But who else is going to Bayonne?” He looked around at the men in the room, then back to Fix again. “And for what reason, Papa?”

“I go to see my boy,” Fix said. “And your brother.”

“And the rest of these, Papa,” Jean said, nodding toward the men in the back of the room. “Why are they going to Bayonne?”

“Your brother was brutally murdered today,” Fix said. “You forget so easily, Jean?”

“No, Papa, I don’t forget so easily,” Jean said. “I won’t ever forget this day, ever. But Gilly is right. We have law out there to do what many of these people would like to see us do. Some of these in the room with us right now.”

“These people are your friends. My friends, Beau’s friends.”

“If they’re friends of the family, show respect to the family. Stay out of Bayonne until Mapes has cleared this up.”

“Mapes will never clear this up,” Luke Will said, from the back of the room. “Beau’s been dead for hours, shot down like a dirty dog, and Mapes hasn’t done a thing about it.”

“Don’t y’all listen to Luke Will,” Russ said. Russ had been standing next to me, and he had been quiet all the time. “Don’t listen to him. All he and that gang want is trouble.”

“What gang’s that, Russell?” Luke Will asked.

“You know what gang,” Russ said, still looking at Fix.

“Scared to call their names?” Luke Will asked him. He grinned, a real mean grin, the kind of grin that comes from just the corner of the mouth.

“Everybody in here know who I’m talking about,” Russ said. He never looked at Luke Will. “Don’t listen to Luke Will, Fix. He’s no friend.”

“He’s a friend,” Fix said.

“Give the word, Fix,” Luke Will said.

“What word is that, Luke Will?” Fix asked, looking back at him.

“We go to Marshall.”

“That’s my decision to make, Luke Will—and my sons’. Not yours.”

Luke Will nodded. “All right, Fix. I’ll wait your decision. Then I’ll go to Marshall.”

“Don’t try it,” Russ said, looking back at him for the first time.

Luke Will grinned at Russ. He was one of those big, hulking, beer-belly red-necks. He had long brown hair, and when he grinned from the side of his mouth, I could see that some of his teeth were missing. The guy standing next to him didn’t look any better than Luke Will did, but at least he kept his mouth shut.

“I won’t have none of that in my house,” Fix said. “And you, Russell, I would be quiet if I were you.”

“I’ll do anything to keep you back here, Fix,” Russ said. “And that goes for the rest of you,” he said, looking around the room. He looked back at Fix. “I mean it, Fix,” he said. “I have my orders.”

“Russell,” Fix said, pointing his finger at him. “You can’t keep me back here. Only my sons can keep me back here. You remember that.”

“Jean and Gilly are right,” Russ said. “Luke Will is wrong. Luke Will wants trouble.”

“In my house, I say what is right and what is wrong,” Fix said, raising his voice now. He held the little boy with the left hand while he pointed the right hand at Russ. “I decide. Me, William Fix Boutan, I decide.”

He stared at Russ to see if Russ had any more to say. Russ looked down at him, but remained quiet.

Fix turned to the old men sitting to his right. Both sat in their chairs erect as boards, listening, but staying quiet. The one nearest Fix wore a clean, ironed white shirt and khaki pants. His hat was on his knee. The other one wore a Hawaiian
shirt with about six different colors in it. He wore white pants, and his hat hung on the back of his chair.

“What should I do, Alfonze?” Fix asked the one nearest him. His voice was calm again.

“I go along whatever you decide, Fix,” the old man said.

“A-goose?” Fix asked the other one.

“I’m an old man, Fix,” Auguste said. “I don’t know who is right and who is wrong anymore.”

“I’m an old man, too,” Fix said. “Twenty years ago I would not have asked questions. I would have been at Marshall by now.”

“I would have been at Marshall with you twenty years ago, Fix.”

“They’re old as we are,” Fix said. “They’re waiting for me—according to this All-American here.”

“Old men with guns waiting for old men with guns, Fix, but isn’t that a farce?” Auguste said.

“And Beau on that cold slab in Bayoone, A-goose? Is that a farce also?”

“I christened him,” Auguste said. “I’m his parrain. You must know how I feel.”

“Ain’t we wasting time, Fix?” Luke Will asked, from the back of the room again.

“Jean and Gi-bear say no, Luke Will. Even my good friend A-goose says no.”

“A-goose is an old man, and don’t have all his senses,” Luke Will said. ’Gilly and Jean want to keep their good names with the niggers. Gilly want to play football with niggers, mess around with them little stinky nigger gals. Beat Ole Miss tomorrow, that’s what he wants. As for Mr. Jean there, he has to sell his hog guts and cracklings to the niggers. No decent white man would buy ’em.”

“Is that so, Gi-bear?” Fix asked Gil. “Your brother’s honor for the sake to play football side by side with the niggers—is that so?”

“Luke Will’s days are over with, Papa,” Gil said. “Luke Will’s days are passed. Gone forever.”

“And mine?” Fix asked him. “Mine, Gi-bear?”

“Those days are gone, Papa,” Gil said, “Those days when you just take the law in your own hands—those days are gone. These are the ’70s, soon to be the ’80s. Not the ’20s, the ’30s, or the ’40s. People died—people we knew—died to change those things. Those days are gone forever, I hope.”

“What day is gone, Gi-bear?” Fix asked him. “The day when family responsibility is put aside for a football game? Is that the day you speak of, Gi-bear?”

“I’m not speaking of family responsibility, Papa,” Gil said. “I’m speaking of the day of the vigilante. I’m speaking of Luke Will’s idea of justice.”

“So I’m a vigilante now, huh, Gi-bear?” Fix asked him.

“That’s what Luke Will wants us to do,” Gil said. “He and his gang still think the world needs them. The world has changed, Papa. Luke Will and his gang are a dying breed. They need a cause like this to pump blood back into their dying bodies.”

“And Beau?” Luke Will asked Gil. He had to speak to Gil’s back, because Gil would not give him the respect of looking round at him. “Beau,” Luke Will said again. “He’s more alive than I am at this moment?”

“Well, Gi-bear?” Fix asked.

“Beau is dead, and I’m sorry, Papa,” Gil said. “But I would like people to know we’re not what they think we are. They all expect us to ride tonight. They’re all waiting for that. I say let them wait. Let them wait and wait and wait.”

“And you there, Mr. Butcher of hog-gut fame?” Fix said, looking up at Jean.

“They want something to happen,” Jean said, wiping his face with a handkerchief. He wiped the palms of his hands and put the handkerchief back. “I go along with Gilly.”

Fix looked up at him, nodding his head; then he looked around at the rest of the people in the room.

“And the rest of you, how you feel?” he asked. “You feel that this, this butcher and this, this All-American got a point?”

“We’re wasting time,” Luke Will said.

No one else spoke out. They only mumbled among themselves. Neither Russ, Claude, nor I said anything. I was not about to open my mouth.

“Well, Gi-bear?” Fix asked.

“They’ll listen to you, Papa,” Gil said. “Make them see that it’ll hurt the family. It’ll hurt our name.”

“But especially yours, huh, Mr. All-American?”

“It would hurt me, Papa. Yes.”

Fix looked from Gil to the woman sitting on the bed with her head bowed. She had been quiet a long time, but never once raised her head to look at anyone. Fix looked at the little boy in his lap and patted him on the leg.

“You know this little boy I’m holding here?” he asked, looking back at Gil. “Tee Beau. No more papa.” He looked at Gil awhile to let those words make an impression; then he nodded toward the woman on the bed. “You know that lady sitting there—Doucette? Huh? No more husband.”

“I’m sorry, Papa,” Gil said. “I’ll do all I can for Tee Beau and Doucette.”

“Sure, you will,” Fix said. “We all will. But now her husband, his papa, your brother, lay dead on a cold slab in Bayonne, and we do nothing but sit here and talk. Well, Gi-bear?”

Gil lowered his head, and didn’t answer.

“I wait, I wait. I wait for all my sons, but especially for you. The one we sent to LSU. The only one in the family to ever go to LSU. The only one to ever get a high education. The educated one, Alfonze, A-goose. We wait for Mr. Educated
All-American. What does he say? He says don’t move. He says sit, weep with the women. Because he wishes to be an All-American. The other one I can understand. He must sell his hog guts. He never was bright. An elementary education was his schooling. But this one—all the way to the university.”

“We’re doing nothing here but wasting time, Fix,” Luke Will said again. “Mapes needs help.”

“I won’t go without my sons,” Fix said. “All my sons. There will be no split in this family. This is family. Family. The majority, or none.”

“And let those niggers stand there with guns, and we don’t accommodate them? They want war, let’s give them war,” Luke Will said.

A couple of the other men agreed with him.

“I’m not interested in your war, Luke Will,” Fix told him. “I’m interested only in my family. If the majority feels their brother is not worth it, then the family has spoken. I’m only interested in my family.”

Gil raised his head to look at his father. He was crying.

“I’m sorry, Papa,” he said.

“Sorry, Gi-bear? About what, Gi-bear?”

“Everything.”

“No. Explain, Gi-bear.”

“For what happened, Papa. For Beau. For us all. That you think I’ve gone against you, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for those old men at Marshall. Yes, Papa, I’m sorry for them, too.”

“A regular Christ,” Fix said. He made the sign of the cross. “A regular Christ in our midst, Alfonze, A-goose. Feels sorry for the entire world.”

The two old men, very thin, sat as erect as boards, and remained quiet.

Fix continued to look at Gil. Then his head began moving back and forth, back and forth, so slightly, though, that it was almost unnoticeable. The longer he looked at Gil, the more
his head moved back and forth. His dark pig eyes narrowed to where they were almost closed. He was still looking at Gil, looking at him as though all trust and belief and hope had vanished. Now he jerked his head toward him.

“Leave, Gi-bear,” he said. “Go on. That is your mon’s bed you sit on. Where you were born, where Beau was born, where all you were born. Now you desecrate the bed with your body upon it. Go block. Go run the ball. Let it take the place of family. Let it bring flowers to that cemetery, La Toussaint. I don’t wish to see you in this house, or at that cemetery. Go. Go run the ball.”

Gil could not believe what he was hearing. None of us could. He stared at his father, wanting to say something, but he could not. Fix’s small dark eyes in his broad, sunburnt face assured Gil that he meant every word he spoke.

“Fix.” The old man nearest him leaned forward and touched him on the arm. “Fix,” he said.

“I’m dead, Alfonze,” Fix said. “The one we worked for, hoped for, sacrificed for. I may as well go lay beside Maltilde.”

“You’re not dead, Fix,” the old man said.

“They say I am—the All-American and the butcher. They say my ideas are all past. They say to love family, to defend family honor, is all past. What is left? All my life, that is all I found worthwhile living for. My family. My family. No, there’s only one place left to go now, to the cemetery there in Bayonne—Beau and me beside Matilde.”

“I’ll go to Marshall with you, Fix,” the old man said. His face did not show much emotion, and the long bony finger touching Fix’s arm did not show too much life, either. “I’ll take my gun and I’ll go with you, if that is your wish,” he said.

“Two old men, Alfonze? A-goose was right. That is a farce.”

“Others will join us, I’m sure. Goudeau will join us—he
has fire in him still. Montemare, Felix Richard—Anatole will get out of that chair.”

“This is family, Alfonze,” Fix told him. “I have no other cause to fight for. I’m too old for causes. Let Luke Will fight for causes. This is family. A member of the family has been insulted, and family, the family must seek justice. But these, they say no. They say it is past when man must live for his family. So what else is left but to go lay in that cemetery with Beau and Matilde?” He looked at Gil sitting on the bed. “I told you to leave. Take your brother Mr. Hog Gut with you. I don’t wish to see either one of you ever again. Go, change your name if that will help you be All-American. Get out of my house. Go tell your friend Mapes this old Cajun will come to Bayonne at the law’s convenience. Now I have no more to say.”

He took a big red print handkerchief from his back pocket and blew his nose. He put the handkerchief back and held the little boy close to his chest and looked down at the floor.

Gil stood up and turned to his brother Claude. Claude was scraping one of his thumbnails with the little pearl-handled knife.

“Claude?” Gil pleaded with him. “Claude?”

Claude went on scraping his thumbnail without answering Gil. He wouldn’t even raise his head. Gil turned to one of the old men, old Alfonze. “Parrain,” he said. “Haven’t I been a good boy, Parrain? Haven’t I always obeyed my father and obeyed you? When I come here to visit my father, don’t I visit you and all the rest of the people on the bayou? Don’t I go to mass with the family? Don’t I get tickets so all of you can attend the games? Don’t I, Parrain?” The old man looked at Fix, not at Gil. “Monsieur Auguste,” Gil said to the other old man. “Aren’t I a good boy, Monsieur Auguste?” But the old man only stared across the room. “Doucette?” Gil said to the woman on the bed. “You don’t like me anymore, Doucette?
You don’t want Tee Beau to be like me anymore, Doucette? Hanh, Doucette?” The woman kept her head down and did not answer him. Gil looked around the room. The only people to look back at him were Luke Will and the other rough-looking guy, and they were not friendly looks, not by a long shot.