Dark Don't Catch Me (10 page)

“I hear,” she says.

“You shouldn't be all uncovered,” he says more quietly. “You never know.” His finger slips away from the belt and loosens it. His hand rests inside the robe on the elastic of her panties. “I worry about you, Vivie.”

“Aw, Thad. You don't have to.”

“I think I do.”

With his hand still there she moves in closer to him, feeling his fingers touch the flesh of her stomach — fingers that are cold, but fingers that warm her, long, large ones that rest there on her flesh. She moves in further, so that his hand slips down; she looks at his eyes. “All right,” she says. “If you say so.”

“I suppose I ought to get dressed now,” he says. “No one's coming in suits, are they?'

“No, it's informal. You don't have to yet, though, Thad.”

“Well, what's this all about?” he says, as she presses his hand with her own.

“I missed you.”

“I've had a bad day,” he says. He pulls his hand up and out; rubs it with his other hand. “A lot of bad memories.”

“I'm sorry,” she says. She moves a little away from him, disappointed, knowing now he will talk of Thel. She pulls her belt around her robe again. “It just seems so long ago,” she remarks almost to herself.

It seems
what,
Vivian?” “Nothing, darling.” “No. What'd you say?”

“I just said it seems so long ago — Thel's death.”

“I see,” he says; miffed; suddenly busy with his shoes.

“Oh, I didn't mean anything by that, Thad. It's just that she's been dead twenty-four years. I just meant that it seems a long time ago.”

“So I don't have a right to remember her on the anniversary of her death, is that it?”

“Oh, Thad, honey — ” She goes over to him, starts to touch him.

“Keep your hands away!” he says. “Never mind!” She stands away from him; watching him as he takes his shoes off and shoves them under the bed. “I'm sorry.” “Then change the subject.”

“Yes,” she says. “I have to, anyway.” Walking across the room, pausing at the dressing table and picking up her hairbrush to stroke her hair as she talks, she says, “Thad, Hus is very, very angry.”

“Is that something unusual?”

“I think she's quite justified this time, Thad.”

“Oh?” He looks up at her, regretting his slight fit of temper then as he sees his lovely wife performing the familiar ritual of hairburshing which has never ceased to interest him, and fascinate him because of her grace and beauty as she bends slightly and lets the raven softness of the hair hang shining. “How come, Vivie, honey?”

“Little Thad injured Marilyn Monroe Post, Thad,” his wife tells him. “This morning, down near the fields on his way to school. He and the Sell boy took a stick and — ”

“Oh, that's it, ah? I know about it.”

“You
know
about it?”

“Yeah. It's pretty bad too. Emily saw him. Brought it up in the car when we were on our way back. I gave him a good talking to. I told him off, don't you fear.”

“I wonder if he even knew what he was doing. He's so young, Thad.”

“Naw, honey, he's just that age when he starts getting curious about nigger girls. Nine or ten's when they start. I just don't want him doing any of that stuff around Emily.”

Vivian Hooper sets the brush down and walks over near the bed. She leans on the back of the cushion-covered rocker. “Honey, I hope you made more than that clear to him. He
hurt
Marilyn. She had to go to Doc James.”

Thad smiles. “G'wan, I just saw her out in the yard, sucking on her dip stick.”

“That may be, Thad, but Hussie says she was bleeding. She was bleeding so bad Bissy didn't pick, but stayed home with her.”

“Bissy's lazy, honey. She'd make her own self bleed to get out of picking.”

Stepping out of his trousers, going to hang them up, Thad gives his wife's cheek a pinch. “Now, don't you go worrying about little Thad doing a nigger in. Hell, Vivie, all white kids play house a bit with the nigger gals. And the nigger gals love it. Don't you worry none!”

“Not six-year-old nigger gals, Thad. Marilyn Monroe is only a year older than Emily.”

“She's a nigger, Vivie. Heck, they're born with their motors running. Now, you know that!”

“But he
hurt
her, Thad. Sticks! What if he did that to a white girl. Or, gaw, Thad, what if someone did that to our little girl!”

Thad Hooper grabs his khaki pants from the bureau drawer and shakes them out. “White boys don't do that to white girls, now, and you know it well as I. It's instinct to get a nigger girl on the ground. Pure instinct. They grow out of it, and you know it. It's a stage they pass through. Then little nigger girls just ask for it.”

Vivian sighs. “That's just fine! Just ignore it? So long as Emily doesn't have to see it, just ignore it! Well, Thad, I don't think little Thad even knows what he's doing; nigger girl or white child; and he
does
have a sister, Thad, whom he's around plenty. The same as he's around Marilyn Monroe Post!”

About to step into the khakis, Thad stops. He holds them in his hand and stares at his wife; with big, round, shocked eyes. “What the heck in Jesus are you saying, Vivian?” He walks over to her. “What the heck in Jesus!”

“Just that he ought to be told it's wrong to do that to any girl. Thad, he's a baby yet. He's only nine!”

“No, I mean before that.”

“About Emily and him? Well, Thad, they share the same room, and — ”

“Is that what you think?” he says in a voice he makes incredulous.

“Is what what I think? That he's getting curious? Yes!”

“And is what you think that he'd ever —
ever
— do anything to his little sister?”

“Well, Thad, you said yourself a few minutes ago that kids notice a lot more than folks think about members of the family. You said — ”

“You know something, Vivie?” Thad Hooper leans against the blue-flowered wallpaper and folds his arms across his chest; stands in his shorts; his white shirt; and his garters holding up his socks. “I think I'm going to allow you to join the Bigger Band. Play an instrument.”

She says, puzzled, “But I always wanted to. Why now?”

“Before, remember, Vivian, I said I thought blowing horns made womens' busts get too blowy-looking. Too top-heavy. Well, blowing horns
do
do that, but I've got half a mind to let you anyway. Vivian, you know I think you're dwelling on yourself too much, thinking too much, or being around by yourself. I come home and find you lying naked on the bed and all.”

“I wasn't naked!”

“And then you get that funny way you get sometimes.”

“What way?” Vivian Hooper's face takes a red color.

“You know what way. Sort of squirmy and wiggly, like you couldn't wait. Like love didn't have anything to do with it.”

‘Thad,
please!
I don't know what you're angry at, but please!”

“You know full well! I come home and find you naked on the bed and then I find out you're feeling that funny way, and you get that injured air when I don't indulge your way, and you
know
I just got back from Thelma's grave. You
know
that. But that doesn't stop you feeling funny, not even
that.
Like an animal!”

“Thad!”

“Yeah, Thad! But that didn't stop you. What'd you think I'd be wanting to do on the anniversary of my twin's death, hah? Did you think
that?
Was that why you had to get so nasty and make the remark about how she's been dead too long to be mourned any more? Did that feeling make you say that?”

“I didn't say that.”

“No? I thought you did … And then the next thing you said is very interesting too, Mrs. Hooper. The next thing you went about suggesting was that little Thad was going to be doing dirty things to little Emily!”

“Oh, gaw, Thad! That's not true!” Vivian Hooper shoves the rocker hard; walks away from it, so that it stays rocking in the center of the floor, while Thad remains leaning against the wall, watching her.

“As if to profane
any
brother and sister relationship there is, huh?” he says.

“I'm not going to stay here and listen to this, Thad.”

“I'm all through saying my piece, Vivian. You better think about it. Maybe a French horn's what you need right about this point.”

Vivian Hooper starts for the door. “I'm going down and see how Hussie's coming with the stew,” she says.

Thad Hooper reaches out and catches her arm; jerks her back.

“You're not going out of this room in that Cellophane-thin bed gown!” he says. “You're going to get yourself dressed before you go running around!”

She looks at his hand, wrapped around her wrist. She says quietly; crisply: “All right, Thad, let go of me so I can dress.”

He does and then goes to the rocker; stops its motion and sits down in it, starting its rocking again. He watches her.

Undoing the robe, Vivian Hooper hangs it in the closet. She reaches into a bureau drawer, takes from it a white satin garter belt, and slips it around her waist, tucking the elastic garters through her pants. She slips stockings over her feet and up her slim, long legs, fastening them to the garters, smoothing the seams. Then she pulls a white nylon slip over her head; and afterward, reaches for a cherry-colored cotton dress, which buttons in a row of infinitesimal pearls all the way down the front. Fixing herself in this, she slips her feet out of her white mules, and into heels.

He says nothing, but rocks in the chair, its slight squeak loud in the quiet room. Pausing to check her reflection in the full-length mirror and to touch her lips with a red stick and to powder her face, she runs a comb through her hair before she turns to leave the room, feigning complete ignorance of his presence there.

As her hand touches the knob, Thad Hooper says: “Vivian?” “What?” She does not look at him. “Turn around,” he says.

She turns and looks at him coldly.

“Come here, Vivian,” he says. His lips tip in the barest grin. “There's a lot more to do than quarrel, Thad.” “Come here!”

“Thad, I don't like the way you talk to me.” “Are you coming over here?” he says. “No, I am not.”

He says, “Oh, yes you are,” and getting up he takes three long steps to her, jerks her arm, and brings her back to the center of the room.

“Thad — ”

“What'd you put your clothes on for?” “You said to, didn't you?” “Now I say
not
to.” “Thad, listen — ”

“You
listen,” he says. “You listen to me! You get yourself undressed!”

While down in the kitchen, Hus sings:

And Major Post out on the hill kicks the kettle, cusses, grabs his toe, grimacing.

“You took your bloomers down,” Emily tells Marilyn Monroe Post.

“I knows that,” the child answers. “Doc James gave me a dip stick. You ain't got any!”

• • •

While the pickers come from the fields.

“Hey, Claus Post, wait!” Little Thad calls to his playmate, running toward him, grinning, “Claus, wait for me!”

Claus Post turns; begins to smile gladly, then remembers and says, “I can't play with you no more, little Thad. Hus don't want me to no more.”

“Huh?”

“No more, cause what you done to my sister.” “Huh?” Little Thad pauses halfway to his buddy; looks at him, stunned. “Huh?”

“No I cain't. I got to go home.”

“What?”

“I cain't and that's the law, cause Hus say you dirty naughty boy!”

“You listen to me,” little Thad starts. “You listen to me. You. You. You
nigger!”
little Thad shouts, and stands there shouting it. “Pick up that goddam frame of yours and tote it where it's going.”

Claus Post begins to run.

“Nigger!” little Thad raves. “Bitch! Bitch! You ovenbelly bitch!”

• • •

Up the road, Bryan Post, heading for the pickup he's got to fetch his kin from up North in; the pickup he's going to borrow up at Hooper's house.

• • •

While in their room Thad seeks the adjacent flesh, and she yields to him in a sigh that is his name.

Millard stares out the plane window of the immense expanse of white sky, and then shifts restlessly in his seat, bored and tired of sitting still silently.

Beside him the large man reads a copy of
True,
turning the pages noisily; sighing from time to time in an impatient sound; and trying to catch the eye of the hostess by wagging his finger toward the cockpit, near where she stands. Finally he reaches across Millard and punches a bell with his thumb — three quick jabs.

“Does that call her?” Millard asks. The man ignores the question, and resumes reading. Shrugging his shoulders, Millard pretends to whistle some melody softly and glances down at the postcard he is attempitng to write to Toe-In, and lifts his pencil. Under
how's it hanging,
Millard prints:
The poor bastard riding next to me has the shit scared out of him. Crazy! Man, Crazy!

“I'm sorry, sir,” the hostess says apologetically, candy-toned and smiling at the man. “I'm going to bring your lunch right away.”

“Look,” he drawls, “aren't there any other seats in the back of this plane?”

“I'm sorry, sir. We're filled to capacity.”

“This is really something, I'll tell you!” he says. “This really is!”