A Gathering of Old Men (19 page)

He laughed and went out. A nice fellow, real nice fellow.

It was quiet after he had gone. Jack had nothing to say, and the other fellow had even less than that to talk about. I was sure he was educated, always thinking. When he needed a drink, he just nodded toward his glass. Never saying, “Say, bartender,” or anything like that—just a little nod toward his empty glass. After I served him, he would nod again. Never a word. Damn if I didn’t think I was in a morgue instead of a bar. Went on like that fifteen, twenty minutes—till Robert came in again. I was so glad to see him I almost offered him a free beer.

“Heard about Beau?” he asked.

Now, Robert knew Jack was in there. He had already seen Jack’s car before the door, and he knew Jack came to my place around this time every day God send. But I wasn’t supposed to know what had happened, not yet.

“What about Beau?” I said.

“Got himself killed,” Robert said. “Oh, hello, Jack,” he said to Marshall.

Marshall nodded. Didn’t say anything.

“Beau killed?” I said. “How did it happen? Where? When?”

I’m a pretty good actor when I want to be.

“On that plantation,” Robert said, glancing at Jack. “Bring me a Miller,” he said to me.

“Jack, that’s true?” I asked Marshall.

He nodded.

I got the Miller for Robert. Me and Robert looked at each other. He was a pretty good actor himself, there.

“Murder?” I asked Robert.

“Mapes over there now questioning niggers,” Robert said. “Hilly told me.”

“Boy, boy, boy, we haven’t had a good stringing in these parts in quite a while,” I said. “We’ll have one now, if you know Fix.”

“That kind of thing is over with,” the quiet customer said.

I almost jumped. It was like if a dead man had just spoke. That was the most he had said since ordering his first drink. Me and Robert looked down the bar at him, but didn’t answer him. Jack never looked up from his drink.

“When did it happen?” I asked Robert.

“Dinnertime,” Robert said.

“And Fix ain’t here yet?”

“Not yet,” Robert said.

“He’ll be here,” I said. “You can bet your boots old Fix will ride before this night is over with.”

“That kind of thing doesn’t happen anymore,” the quiet customer said again. He didn’t look at us when he spoke. He was looking in the mirror behind the bar. Then he turned to Jack. “Don’t you agree, Mister? That kind of thing doesn’t happen anymore?”

Jack didn’t look at him for a while; then he looked at him a time before answering. He didn’t like for anybody to ask him a question uninvited.

“I don’t think we’ve progressed that much yet,” he said, looking at the door, not at the customer. I wondered if he heard ghosts
singing
in there.

“I was hoping we had progressed some,” the quiet customer said quietly.

He looked at Jack a long time. Jack, in his neat gray suit, white shirt, and tie, looked like an intelligent man. The kind of man another man could have an intelligent conversation with. But Jack wasn’t interested. He didn’t look at the customer when he answered him, and he surely wasn’t looking at him now. He was looking down at his drink.

Robert was drinking a Miller’s beer a good heavy man’s width from Jack Marshall. Nobody got much closer than that to Jack, unless it was Felix Morgan, no matter how crowded the place got. Though he came here to drink, sometimes even bought a round, he would let you know he was not of your crowd. Felix Morgan was. The Morgan family owned the joining plantation and the sugar mill where most of the cane in this parish was ground.

I had just poured Jack his second drink when Luke Will, Sharp Thompson, Henry Tobias, Alcee Boudreaux, and that boy Leroy Hall came in. They came in the place once or twice a week. I had kinda expected to see them tonight, and still I had kinda not expected to see them so soon again, since I had just seen Luke Will, Sharp Thompson, and Beau together the night before. So I was a little surprised, but maybe not too surprised, not after what had happened.

“Gentlemen,” Luke Will said, in that big, hoarse voice he’s got there.

Luke Will and Sharp Thompson were truck drivers for the Dixie Gravel, Cement & Dirt Company of Bayonne. The
other three with them worked for the same company. On the side, they did other little jobs to keep things running smoothly in the parish. Like turning over nigger school buses, throwing a few snakes into nigger churches during prayer meetings, or running niggers out of what used to be all-white motels and restaurants. Some people say they got paid as much for these little civic duties as they did at that dirt plant. But nobody knew where the money was coming from, or if they did know, they knew better than to go blabbing about it.

“Boys,” I said. “Nice day, isn’t it?”

They pushed their way up to the bar. They stood at the opposite end of the bar from Jack Marshall. Robert and the other customer was between them and Jack. Jack was looking down at his drink. If he raised his head, he would see Luke Will, not the door to the old nigger room. Luke Will was about the same size as the door.

“Give us a bottle, Tee Jack,” Luke Will said. “Bring some Cokes.”

“No beer tonight, boys?” I asked.

“Just bring a bottle,” Luke Will said, and looked down the bar at Jack. “Mr. Marshall, how are you?” he said.

Jack Marshall looked toward Luke Will and nodded.

“Had some trouble, I hear?” Luke Will said.

“I didn’t have any,” Jack said, not looking at him, just looking that way.

“That thing with Beau,” Luke Will said.

“I heard he got himself killed,” Jack said, with no more feeling than if somebody had told him a rat was dead.

“One of your niggers did it, Mr. Marshall,” Luke Will said.

Jack Marshall looked at him now. He wasn’t just looking in that direction; he was looking straight at him.

“I have no niggers,” he said. “Never had any niggers. Never wanted any niggers. Never will have any niggers. They belong to her.”

“Where is Candy?” Luke Will asked.

“In the quarters, I should think.”

“Protecting her niggers?”

“I have no idea what she’s doing.”

“Is Mapes still down there playing detective?”

“From what I hear he is,” Jack said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I would like to finish my drink.”

“Another second of your time, Mr. Marshall,” Luke Will said.

Jack Marshall had already looked down. Since he couldn’t see the door anymore, he thought he might’s well look down at his glass. He didn’t raise his head. I reckon he had already talked to Luke Will and his kind more than he had ever done at any one time before. I started to tell Luke Will to lay off, but then I said to myself, “Oh, what the hell. Jack Marshall don’t own my place, I do. And the only reason he comes here, it’s the nearest saloon to his fancy house there on the river.” Jack looked up.

“I think Mapes needs help,” Luke Will said.

Jack looked at him, but with no more feeling than if he was looking at a chinaball tree or a fence post. He showed more concern looking at that door to the nigger room than he did looking at a live Luke Will.

“I hope you wouldn’t mind,” Luke Will said.

“Are you suggesting I go down there and help him?” Jack asked.

“Not exactly,” Luke Will said.

“What are you suggesting?” Jack asked.

Luke Will and his boys, all five of them, looked at Jack. We all knowed what Luke Will was suggesting. Jack did, too. Luke Will didn’t say any more. Nobody did. And I went on serving. I set a bottle of Old Crow, glasses, Cokes, and a bowl of ice on the bar. Luke Will and his boys started digging their hands into the ice bowl, and pouring their own drinks. I
glanced into the ice bowl, and I could see dirt and grit settled at the bottom. Couple of these boys had not washed their hands since leaving work.

“Law seems to work slow at times,” the quiet customer said quietly. “But it’s still the best thing that we have. Was it Churchill who said that?” He took out a pipe. “You gentlemen don’t mind, do you?”

Nobody answered him. He lit the pipe.

Luke Will turned up the glass, and half the drink was gone. When he turned it up again, everything was gone except the ice, and he fixed himself another drink.

“The old man ain’t showing up,” he said.

“What?” I said.

“His All-American son talked him out of it,” Luke Will said.

“That’s a lie,” I said.

Luke Will and his boys looked at me all at the same time.

“What’s that you said, Tee Jack?” Luke Will asked.

“I didn’t mean it,” I said. “God in Heaven knows I didn’t mean that. Just slipped out, just slipped out, hearing that Fix wasn’t coming here tonight. Just slipped out.”

“Be careful, Tee Jack, my fuse is short,” Luke Will said.

“I can see why,” I said. “I can see why. Listen, why don’t you boys just have that bottle on me? Show you where my heart at. Don’t have to pay me a penny. Have it on me. All right?”

They all said all right, and I felt a little better. I had thought about that Little League baseball bat under the bar. I knew I couldn’t do much with it against all five of them, but you got to use what you got.

“I think it’s the right thing to do,” the man with the pipe said.

Now, why did he have to go and open his mouth just when things was settling down? He didn’t even know these boys. I
knew them, and he could see they were ready to jump across that bar on me, so what chance would he have? They would lynch him like they would a nigger, that’s what.

“What’s that you said, Mister?” Luke Will asked him.

“Let the law handle this,” the pipe man said, not even looking at Luke Will.

“Say, where you from, Mister?” Leroy asked. “Not one of them New York Yankee NAPC Jews, are you?”

The fellow took the pipe from his mouth and looked at Leroy. Leroy was no more than seventeen, eighteen at the most. I wasn’t supposed to let him drink in here, but I wasn’t no fool, not with that crowd.

“Texas,” the pipe man said. “Teaching at USL. Lafayette.”

“What you teaching there, nigger study?” Leroy asked.

“I teach black writing, among other things,” the man from USL said. He held the stem of his pipe against the corner of his mouth while he looked at Leroy. Looked like he was trying to figure out what Leroy was. You know how you look at a headless and gutted animal in a butcher shop, and for a while you don’t know exactly what it is? Well, that’s the way that schoolteaching fellow was looking at Leroy.

“Ain’t you a little late for class?” Leroy asked him.

“None on Friday nights,” the fellow said.

“You must have one. Think, now,” Leroy said.

The pipe man thought for a couple of seconds; then he shook his head. “Nope. None that I can recall,” he said.

“Then why don’t you just go on back to Lafayette and start up one,” Leroy said, stepping a little closer to the fellow from USL.

“Now, now, Leroy,” I said. “Calm down, calm down.”

“Sure,” Leroy said, looking at the fellow. “Sure.”

He finished his drink, and went back and fixed up another one. I looked at that pipe fellow from USL. I hate putting a white man out of my place, but I sure wished that fellow would go on home.

“So Fix’s leaving it up to Mapes, huh?” Robert asked Luke Will. He raised the empty bottle for me to bring him another Miller.

“It’s not him,” Luke Will said to Robert. “It’s that All-American fart and that hog-gut salesman there in Bayonne. They the ones talked him out of it. He wanted to come, but he wouldn’t come without them. I left him there crying.”

“My God,” I said. I served Robert, and collected my money. “What is this world coming to?” I said. “What in the world is this world coming to?”

Jack finished his drink and set the glass on the bar.

“Good night,” he said, moving out of the corner.

“Leaving us, Jack?”

“Yes.”

Jack had to pass by Robert and that fellow from USL to reach the door, and that schoolteaching fellow turned from the bar to look at him.

“Sir?” he said. “Don’t you own that place?”

Jack stopped and looked at the fellow. He didn’t like for strangers to speak to him unless he spoke first.

“What place?” he asked.

“Where Beau was killed.”

“I own a third of it,” Jack said.

“Don’t you think you ought to do something?”

“The law is down there,” Jack said. “That’s what they pay him for.”

“I mean something else,” the man from USL said.

“What?” Jack said.

That fellow just looked at Jack. Jack looked right back at him, but not showing a thing in his face.

“Sir, you seem like an intelligent man,” that fellow said.

“Sure,” Jack said. “So what?”

“You must care something for the place, for the people who live there?”

“They live pretty well,” Jack said. “They don’t pay rent or anything.”

“And what’s happening here now, that doesn’t matter?”

“I don’t see anything happening,” Jack said. “Do you?”

That fellow just looked at Jack. He couldn’t believe Jack. But he didn’t know Jack, either.

“In the end, it’s people like us, you and I, who pay for this.”

“Sure,” Jack said. “But I’ve been paying my share seventy years already. How long have you been paying yours?”

“The debt is never finished as long as we stand for this,” the teacher said.

Jack grunted. No change, though, no change in his face at all. “If you can’t take it here, you better get on back to Texas,” he said, and went out.

He backed the car from in front of the door, and drove on up the river. The shadows from the trees on the riverbank covered everything now. Soon it would be dark—and Luke Will and his boys were putting that liquor away faster and faster.

“He sure cooked your goose,” Leroy told the fellow from USL.

The teacher didn’t look at Leroy. He was looking in the mirror behind the bar. Leroy was getting drunk. His young childish face had turned beet red. His blue eyes had gotten bluer. His small reddish lips shoulda been on a girl, not a man.

“Bring us another bottle there, Tee Jack,” Luke Will said.

‘Sure, boys, sure,” I said. “Remember, now, the first one was on me.” The way I said
first
, I wanted them to know that this one was not on me. I didn’t think I had insulted him two bottles’ worth when I called him a liar.