Of Love and Dust (9 page)

“I’m sorry, Aunt Ca’line,” Pauline said.

“You can be sorry if you want,” Aunt Ca’line said, shaking the rooster in front of Pauline’s face. “If I catch either one of them little mulatto bastards on my side again I’m go’n poison him. You hear me? I’m go’n poison the little shit.”

Bonbon never said anything. He didn’t even look at Aunt Ca’line. He just stood there sipping his coffee.

Aunt Ca’line didn’t poison Billy or Willy, she just had the barb-wire fence brought up on the gallery. But that didn’t do any good, either. The children got on the fence and rode it the way you ride a horse. The stickers on the fence didn’t bother them at all. Aunt Ca’line tried to get Marshall Hebert to run electricity through the fence, but Marshall told her that was against the law.

“Ain’t shooting out people chicken eye ’gainst the law?” she asked Marshall. “Ain’t making mules throw old people in the ditch ’gainst the law, too?”

“Yes,” Marshall said. “But I guess we’ll have to put up with it.”

“How long?” Aunt Ca’line asked.

“I don’t know,” Marshall said. “Maybe one day Bonbon’ll get generous and buy them two shotguns. Maybe they’ll load them and shoot at each other at the same time.”

Aunt Ca’line and everybody else on the place waited for Bonbon to buy the two shotguns. He never did.

16
 

They’d been sitting on the gallery half an hour and nobody had said a thing. Every now and then Aunt Ca’line swung her mosquito rag just in case a mosquito was headed that way. At the same time she could hear Pa Bully sucking on the pipe and blowing out a stream of smoke just in case the mosquito changed his mind about biting her and decided to get him. Aunt Ca’line wasn’t looking toward the other end of the gallery any more so she didn’t know what Pauline was doing. But Tick-Tock was still slapping at mosquitoes with the pasteboard, and every now and then Marcus would hit at one on his arm or his face.

Things were so quiet on the gallery, Aunt Ca’line could hear all the singing and praying in the church. She was thinking how she and Pa Bully ought to get back in the church again. She wondered what the people would think if she walked into church Sunday morning and told them she wanted to pick up the Cross. She was thinking about this seriously when all of a sudden one of Pauline’s little boys bust into the yard.

“Now, what?” Aunt Ca’line asked herself. “What—where is that other one?” (The little boy busting into the yard had made her forget about church.) “When you see one, you see
two, now where is that other one? Where—” Then she saw the dust. She didn’t see the boy—he was running too fast; she saw the dust trailing him up the quarter. “Now what they done done?” she asked herself. “Whose pig they been riding this time?”

Then she started thinking about the teacher. The teacher had gone around with the shakes two weeks before he broke down and ran away from Hebert’s plantation. And the reason was this: The teacher had whipped one of the little boys for hitting Jobbo’s little girl. He didn’t see which one had hit the little girl and the little girl wasn’t too sure, either, but she said she thought it was Billy. Billy said it wasn’t him, it was Willy. Willy said no, it wasn’t him, it was Billy. So the teacher said, “Come here, Billy,” and whipped Billy. Then Willy said it wasn’t Billy, it was him, Willy. Then Billy said he was going to tell his paw.

The teacher said he had been living in the South long enough to know that no black child was going up to a white man and say “paw,” so it wasn’t this that had brought on the shakes. What scared him half to death was that one of the other children might let his mouth slip in front of Bonbon and get Bonbon to believing that he (the teacher) was allowing Billy and Willy to go around school calling him “father.” Though every grownup on the place and every child at school knew that Bonbon was Billy and Willy’s father, they still were not allowed to say it in public. Billy and Willy, for all everybody was supposed to know, came out of a cabbage patch. There was no father. Or if there was, he surely was not white.

So the teacher went around with the shakes for two weeks, because he knew that one of the children was going to let his mouth slip in front of Bonbon. And he knew then that Bonbon and his dozen or so brothers were going to come to the
churchhouse and drag him out of there and lynch him. But after two weeks had passed and Bonbon still had not showed up, the teacher thought he had better leave because the tension was slowly killing him, anyhow.

Aunt Ca’line was thinking about the teacher when the second boy bust into the yard. Then halfway up the walk both of them threw on brakes. They came toward the gallery now so quietly, you would have thought they had never done a minute’s devilment in all their lives.

“How y’all feel there, Aunt Ca’line?” they spoke to her and Pa Bully.

“So-so, and y’all?” she and Pa Bully said.

“Fine, thank you ma’am,” they said at the same time.

They looked at Marcus but didn’t speak to him. They spoke to Tick-Tock, then they went up on the gallery where Pauline sat by the door.

“Hi, mo’ dear,” they both said at the same time, both kissing her on the face at the same time.

“Y’all ain’t been up to nothing, I hope,” Pauline said.

“They was born up to something,” Aunt Ca’line thought. “What you asking them that for?”

“No’m,” they said at the same time.

“Y’all go in there and wash your hands and eat,” Pauline said.

“All right, mo’ dear,” they said. They kissed her again. But this time the one who had kissed her on the right jaw before kissed her on the left jaw, and the one who had kissed her on the left jaw kissed her on the right one. Or so it looked to Aunt Ca’line. But who could be sure who did what? One was the other one and the other one was the same one. The only person alive who knew Billy from Willy was Pauline. Even Bonbon couldn’t tell them apart.

After the twins went inside everything got quiet again.

“Think I’ll make it on in,” Tick-Tock said.

“Taking off, Tickey?” Pauline said.

“Yeah,” Tick-Tock said. “Got to hit that cotton field again in the morning.”

Tick-Tock said good night to Pauline and then to Aunt Ca’line and Pa Bully, and went out of the yard. She hadn’t said anything to Marcus.

“Can I speak to you?” Marcus said, standing up and facing Pauline.

“Speak,” she said.

“Somewhere by usself,” he said.

“What you got to say to me, you can say it in front of Aunt Ca’line and Pa Bully.”

“Come, Mr. Grant, let’s go inside,” Aunt Ca’line said.

“No, don’t y’all leave,” Pauline said. “Your name Marcus, ain’t it?” she said to him.

“Yes,” Marcus said.

“Say what’s on your mind, Marcus.”

“I want us to speak by usself,” he said.

“Then you better leave,” she said.

“You ain’t even heard what I had to say.”

“If you can’t say it in front of Aunt Ca’line and Pa Bully, I don’t need to hear it,” she said.

“I just want come and see you sometime,” he said.

“I didn’t hear that,” she said. “You can leave.”

But he didn’t move. He stood there looking at her like he wanted to come closer and touch her. Pauline wore a light green dress that had dark green leaves and red flowers. She looked fresh and pretty sitting there.

“And don’t come back, please,” she said. “I don’t want no trouble.”

“They don’t have to be no trouble,” Marcus said.

“No, they won’t be any,” she said, getting up. “Good night.”

He started toward her.

“Pauline—”

Just about then the twins came into the doorway. Aunt Ca’line could see just the front of them; she didn’t know if they had anything behind their backs or not.

“Y’all get back inside,” Pauline said to the twins. They moved back. “Yes?” she said to Marcus.

“You the prettiest lady I know,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said. “Good night.”

“Can I speak to you sometime?”

“I speak to everybody,” she said. “Good night.”

She went in. He stood there a while, then he went down the steps.

“That one won’t be here long,” Pa Bully said. “And on the other hand he might.”

“Six feet under, you mean?” Aunt Ca’line said.

“Six feet under,” Pa Bully said.

17
 

Marcus got up early the next morning and went to the yard with me to get the tractor. He thought he was going to see Pauline, but I could have told him she didn’t go to work until nine o’clock. That morning in the field, John and Freddie worked him just as hard as they had done the day before and the day before that. At twelve he went up the quarter with me again, still hoping to see Pauline. He saw Louise Bonbon sitting out on the gallery, but he paid no more attention to her than he did a weed standing ’side the road. He still didn’t know she was watching him. He saw her looking that way but he still didn’t know it was him she was looking at. He looked for Pauline again when we came up to the yard. He didn’t see her at first, but as we were getting ready to go back down the quarter he saw her coming from the store. He watched her walk across the yard.

“Jim,” she said, waving at me when she came closer.

“How’s it going, chicken?”

“So-so,” she said. Then she looked at Marcus and nodded.

“Hot enough for you?” I said.

“Too hot,” she said.

“You got it made, chicken,” I said.

She smiled and went toward the house. And Marcus just
stood there looking at her, looking at the smooth, easy way her body moved in that dress. I knew where his mind was. It was there and nowhere else.

“Let’s get to getting,” I said.

We started on back down the quarter, and again I saw Louise watching him from the gallery.

That evening Bonbon was out there again. Marcus fell back and had to drag the sack on his shoulder. He still thought he was going to make Pauline, but you could see he wasn’t sure as he was the day before. You could see him watching Bonbon from the side. He wondered what it was about Bonbon could make Pauline love him. He couldn’t understand how Pauline could love a white man. How could she possibly love one? He still didn’t want to believe she did.

He went back down there again that night. Aunt Ca’line and Pa Bully were sitting on the gallery just like the night before. Aunt Ca’line was fighting off mosquitoes with her special mosquito rag, and Pa Bully was fighting them with his hat. Pauline was sitting by the door in her chair, and Tick-Tock was sitting on the end of the gallery against the post. Aunt Ca’line and Pa Bully were talking softly to each other when she looked up and saw Marcus coming into Pauline’s yard. Aunt Ca’line heard Tick-Tock saying, “Lover-boy.”

Pauline didn’t say anything.

Tick-Tock said, “Hope a certain party ain’t coming here tonight.”

“Tomorrow,” Pauline said.

They watched Marcus come up the walk.

“Good evening,” he said.

Nobody spoke, but Pauline nodded. Then it was quiet for a while. Farther up the quarter the people were singing in the church.

“Cobb got ’em going up there,” Pa Bully said.

“Yes,” that’s Cobb, all right,” Aunt Ca’line said.

It was quiet for about ten minutes; then everybody on the gallery saw the car lights coming down the quarter. Tick-Tock slid off the end of the gallery and nearly ran out of the yard. Nobody else moved. Since Pauline didn’t look worried, Aunt Ca’line said she wasn’t worried, either. Pa Bully wasn’t going to move unless Aunt Ca’line moved—and Marcus acted like he wouldn’t move no matter who it was.

The car didn’t stop. It wasn’t Bonbon, it was Marshall Hebert. Marshall went down the quarter and turned around and went back out again.

“Good night, Aunt Ca’line, you and Pa Bully,” Pauline said.

“Good night,” they said to her.

Pauline stood up to take her chair inside, and Marcus jumped up, too.

“Pauline?” he said.

“I told you to stay ’way from here,” she told him.

“Pauline?” he said, going toward her.

“You stay ’way from my house,” she told him.

“Boy, can’t you hear?” Pa Bully said.

“Mr. Grant,” Aunt Ca’line said, warningly.

“Pauline?” he said, still going toward her.

She went in and locked the door. Marcus stood before the door a long time before he turned around and went back down the steps.