“Oh, he don’t hate us, I don’t guess, does he?” Gid said. He couldn’t stand to think that. I had lived with Jimmy, and got so I could stand it long ago.
“Oh yes,” I said. “He does. I’m just surprised he hasn’t killed us.”
“The army might change him,” he said. “He might be a little more tolerant when he comes back.”
I was looking at my comb. There were some hairs stuck in it, and the sun through the windshield was turning them golden. I was wondering how I would have been if I had been a blond; even worse, I guess.
“It won’t change Jimmy,” I said. “Any more than it would have changed you. We could have changed him if anybody could, and we didn’t.”
I had begun to cry. He wanted me to scoot over by the wheel, but I wouldn’t do it. I sat by the door till after we turned off on the dirt road, and all Gid could do was pat me on the knee with his hand and try to watch the road.
When we got about a mile off the highway, out with the pastures on both sides of us and no cars anywhere, he stopped and pulled on the emergency brake—it squeaked, and it still squeaks—and took out his handkerchief and moved over by me and wiped my face. I took his hat off and laid it in the back seat; he done had some gray in his temples.
“You oughtn’t to cry,” he said. His handkerchief was plumb damp; I took it and put it in my purse, so I could wash and iron it for him. I looked out the window when he hugged me. I had my knees up in the seat, and he pulled back my skirt a little and rubbed his hand down the calf of my leg.
“If it was Mabel, she’d have on stockings,” was all he said.
In a little while he drove on and I scooted over by him and finished combing out my hair. It was such a pretty afternoon, so cool and sharp and clear.
When we got home I let Gid know I wanted him to come in with me, but he was ashamed from thinking about Jimmy, and wouldn’t do it. Gid’s car was there and Johnny’s pickup was gone, so he had beat us home.
“You don’t have to go,” I said. “Nobody will come.”
But he stood on the back porch and kissed me and wouldn’t come in the house. It was me he was ashamed of, someway. He wasn’t very often, but when he was it hurt me like a nail.
“You can stay,” I said.
“I know I can,” he said. “But, Molly, I better not.”
I turned and walked off from him, into the cold house; one of the few times in my life I walked away from Gid like that. I guess he left; when I came out to milk he was gone. It made me feel terrible, because I knew he was mad at himself and in the awfulest misery, but there was nothing I could do about it but wait till he came to see me again. It was two months, two of the worst ones I ever spent. But he came back, and I made it up to him. Then for maybe six months he came every day or two.
The night we got the car, though, Johnny came, and for once in his life he wished he’d stayed away. I was sick of myself and sick of ever body that night, and it was a lot more than Johnny could handle. I would wake him up and say terrible things to him. Finally he got his clothes and left. In three or four days I went over and found him and apologized, and it was all right.
Who needed to have been there that night was Eddie. He would have really thought I was nasty if he could have spent that one with me. I would have run him off too, or else he would have laid me out with a poker. Maybe that was what I tried to provoke Johnny into doing. Eddie might have done it; he wasn’t scared of being mean.
Of all the boys and men I loved, Jimmy was the one I completely lost. His eyes and the way he went about things was Gid to a T; everybody knew it, and that made it worse. Eddie was dead before Jimmy got big enough for it to show, so it never bothered him. Actually it didn’t bother Gid too much; he was proud of Jimmy, and couldn’t help showing it. Mabel thought I was so trashy anyway, she was probably glad to have Jimmy and Joe for proof.
But it broke Jimmy. He was too smart to try and fool. Maybe the boys made fun of him—he and Joe both had lots of fights. Joe never minded them. Jimmy did. Jimmy was crazy about me till he was eight years old. Then he wasn’t sure about me from then till he was thirteen. When he was thirteen I told him Gid was his daddy; then he was sure about me, and he hated me. He had been the most loving little boy; for eight years I couldn’t turn around without him being around my neck, and when the coin turned he was just that hard a hater.
When he was ten or eleven his teachers at school started him going to church. There was a man teacher that liked Jimmy a lot—his name was Mr. Bracey—and for a long time he drove out ever Sunday and got Jimmy and took him to church and Sunday school, and then brought him home. He never even asked to take Joe—it was always Jimmy—but Joe didn’t care. He probably wasn’t in a church five times his entire life. And in the long run, Mr. Bracey done Jimmy more good than harm. I never was mad at him, even after Jimmy told me what he done. I never told Gid about it.
But it was the church people that really turned Jimmy into a hater; the more he took to religion, the more he turned against me.
When I told him Gid was his daddy, he didn’t bat an eye. We were sitting at the table.
“I’m never going to call him Daddy, though,” he said.
“I didn’t mean for you to. I just wanted to tell you.”
“I’m not ever going to call him anything,” he said, and he didn’t. Gid tried his best to get Jimmy friendly with him; he offered to take him cowboying and fishing and lots of places, but Jimmy wouldn’t go. When he was real little he idolized Gid, but after he found out, Mr. Bracey was the only daddy he had.
Jimmy was the only person I ever saw I couldn’t have a little effect on. Even Dad I could help a little, and even Eddie. But I might have been a stone so far as Jimmy was concerned.
He had friends, though. Him and Joe were always close brothers, in spite of being so different, and Jimmy had plenty of other friends, too. He went out for all the teams, mostly just to keep from coming home and doing chores, but he made them all. They tell me he was an awful good player; the whole town bragged on him. He was twice as good as Joe; he went out too, but he never took it seriously, and was just medium. I never went to any of the games Jimmy was in, because I knew he didn’t want me too. I did see Joe play a few times.
Jimmy and me only talked about things once. He had been off to a religious camp one summer and they convinced him he was going to be a preacher. I didn’t have much to say about it—I kept thinking about how much his grandaddy would have said. Gid didn’t like it, but he never said a word about it. Johnny kidded Jim a little, but it was all right. Jimmy liked Johnny in spite of himself, and Johnny’s kidding never made him mad.
But one Sunday night Jim come in from church. I guess he was eighteen or nineteen then, and I was sitting in the kitchen shelling peas. It was summertime, and I got up and fixed him a glass of iced tea. He tolerated me enough to drink it. I guess his resistance was down that night; he started asking me questions.
“Have you ever been to church in your life?” he said. “I just want to know.”
“Oh yes,” I said. “I used to go to camp meetings.”
“Don’t you like it in the Lord’s house?” he said, looking at me through Gid’s very eyes.
I didn’t know what to say, except no, because I didn’t, really.
He kinda looked down his nose.
“The minister says I ought to bring you to church so he could try and save you,” he said. “But I don’t think I will. You wouldn’t go anyway.”
I tried to grin, but it was hard. “No, I wouldn’t go,” I said.
“Molly, you don’t believe in salvation, do you?” he said. Once in a while he called me just by my name, I guess to hurt me. He didn’t like to call me Mother. But I couldn’t stand him calling me Molly, as if he were just my friend.
“Jimmy, if you can’t call me Mother don’t call me anything,” I said. “I mean that. Honor your father and mother, ain’t that in the Bible?”
He didn’t say a word; looked at the sugar in
the bottom of his tea glass. His forelock fell down in his eyes and I kept wanting to reach out with my hand and brush it back out of his face.
“I don’t guess I do believe in church salvation,” I said.
I went on snapping the little peas and shelling the big ones, and he sat across from me a long time without saying a word. When I looked up from my fingers he looked me in the eye. He was like Gid; he always looked you in the eye when he hurt you.
“You committed adultery and fornication,” he said. “That’s about as bad as a woman can get.” When he said it, though, he sucked at the corner of his mouth, and looked like a little boy trying not to cry.
“You don’t know how ashamed I am of you, Momma,” he said. “I’m so ashamed of you I can’t tell you.”
I let the peas alone. “You’re telling me, Jim,” I said. I would have given the best touches of my life to have been able to hold Jimmy then. I probably would have died right there if it would have taken what was bothering him away, but I knew nothing that easy would happen. He couldn’t say any more, and I was choked up so I couldn’t talk. We just sat.
“Fornication and adultery is what you did, Momma,” he said.
I guess what he wanted was for me to deny it, to tell him I hadn’t really done neither one, and that everything the preacher said about me was wrong. I sat the peas on the table.
“Jimmy, those are just two words to me,” I said. “Even if they do come out of the Bible.”
“But you did them,” he said. “In this house we’re living in, too.”
“I wasn’t saying I didn’t,” I said. “And I wasn’t saying I’m good. I guess I’m terrible. But words is one thing and loving a man is another thing; that’s all I can say about it.” And that was true. The words didn’t describe what I had lived with Gid, or with Johnny, at all; they didn’t describe what we had felt. But Jimmy hadn’t felt it, so I couldn’t tell him that and make him understand.
“There’s such a thing as right and wrong,” he said. Like his daddy used to say.
“I guess so,” I said. He wanted me to argue, and I just couldn’t. I felt too bad and worn out. I wanted to cry and never shed a tear.
He finally got up and went to the door. “Yes, but there is,” he said. “And if you live unrighteous, you’ll end up turning on a spit in hell.” He sounded like a little hurt boy trying to convince himself. It was silly to think of turning on a spit the way I felt; I couldn’t be seared no worse than I was. In a little while I went on and shelled the peas.
Him and Joe left for boot camp about two weeks apart. Johnny and me took Joe to the train in Wichita, and I would have taken Jimmy, but he wouldn’t let me. He hitchhiked, and he walked the three miles over to the highway, too; he wouldn’t even let us take him that far. When he was out on the front porch ready to go I gave him twenty dollars but I didn’t try to kiss him. He said good-by and walked out of the yard and off across the pasture without ever looking back. Just before he went over the Ridge he shifted his suitcase to the other hand.
I sent him a lot of cakes and cookies. He probably wouldn’t like them, but maybe his buddies would.
five
When I started thinking about Jimmy I always ended up thinking about Eddie. One morning out gathering the eggs I got him on my mind. It was funny, and Jimmy never would have understood it, but if I really done them two things he accused me of, I done them with Eddie, and he was the one I was married to.
I guess it really was the way the hair on the back of his neck was so shaggy that I liked best about him. A lot of times I felt completely crazy when I was around him, and I didn’t care what I did. That’s why he never liked me very well and was mean to me. He wanted somebody that acted real respectable to play like they was his wife while he went on and did what he pleased.
But I guess it was a good thing I married him. I read in the paper about these sex fiends who are always killing people because they can’t get enough woman, and it wouldn’t have taken very much of a push to make Eddie one of those. In fact, when he would be after me three or four times a day I thought he was one, and I told him so. It made him so mad he would almost choke me, because he thought I was to blame. He thought I was always stirring him up on purpose. And I did once in a while; but not no four times a day. He didn’t really like me very much.
“You’re a nasty bitch,” he used to say. He said it so many times it finally quit bothering me. And the less I let things like that bother me, the meaner he got. Lots of times when one of his hounds was in heat he’d grab me and drag me out in the back yard and make me watch while all the dogs fooled around with her. I soon quit fighting that too; it didn’t bother me that much to have to watch. I don’t guess it really bothered me at all.
“Looky there, sweetie,” he said. “Why, she’s just like you, ain’t she? Just the same. What do you think about that sight?”
I wouldn’t answer, or wouldn’t say much. “It’s just dogs breeding; it ain’t too unusual,” I said. Once in a while he would be fiddling around with me and make me mad.
“Well, honey,” I said one time, “I didn’t know you like to watch so much. I feel sorry for you. Let’s go in and move the mirror over by the bed, so you can watch us.” I knew how to take up for myself where Eddie was concerned.
What I said surprised him, but he couldn’t back out. “All right, by god, let’s do,” he said. We went in and moved the mirror. I liked to drove him crazy that day. Eddie had to feel that he was the most exciting man that ever went in me, and when I didn’t let him feel that way, he squirmed. That day we moved the mirror I lay there and laughed and giggled at him for fifteen minutes, and I could have been a feather pillow for all the good he was doing. He knew it, too. Every time he looked in the mirror I was grinning at him. I guess that was one of the times I hated him because I had married him instead of Gid. That was the time he squeezed my hand so hard he broke my next to littlest finger.
“I’m tired of your goddamn laughing, let’s see you cry a little,” he said, and squeezed it. But I wouldn’t cry, either, I just looked at him, and he got up and dressed and went to Oklahoma and was gone six weeks. About the time he came back I got pregnant with Jimmy.
Our times weren’t always bad though, mine and Eddie’s. I was only mean to him four or five times, when I couldn’t help it. He would come in sometimes when I was washing dishes and grin at me and untie my apron and stand there behind me, fiddling with my hair or rubbing my neck or back or sides or front till I would finally turn around and kiss him, and leave soap on his shirt.
I never seen but one of his girl friends; she was a redhead. She was at his funeral, and she came in with Eddie’s sister Lorine. Lorine didn’t mind letting me know that the redhead was the girl Eddie ought to have married. They never brought Eddie home after he was killed; he was buried in Chickisha, Oklahoma, where Lorine lived. I went up there on a train; it was the longest trip I ever made in my life; it was right in February, cold and rainy. Eddie looked nice. I didn’t think the redheaded girl was too pretty, and she didn’t act very kind. I rode all night on the train, back to Henrietta; it was a pretty sad trip for me. I kept seeing my face in the train windows; I couldn’t see out at all. It was hard for me to believe Eddie was dead; I kept thinking I would feel his hands on me agin. When I got off the train in Henrietta it was after sunup, and Johnny and the boys were there waiting; I had left them with him, and they stayed in a little hotel; it was the first time the boys had ever been away from home. Johnny looked tired—I guess they had run him ragged—but I was so glad to see him. When they saw me the boys were too timid to say anything, but Johnny came up and put his hand on my forehead; his hand was so cool.
“Molly, you’ve got fever, honey,” he said. “You’ve worried yourself sick.”
“I sure don’t like to travel,” I said. I squatted down so the boys would see I wasn’t mad at them, and they came and hugged my neck. Johnny bought them some doughnuts for breakfast; they hadn’t ever had any before. Neither had I
, I don’t guess. While we ate he fixed the tarp over the wagon; it was drizzling rain. We had plenty of quilts and he fixed us a good pallet and me and the boys curled up and slept nearly all the way home. The boys were just worn out from missing me. They didn’t let me out of their sight for days. Just before we got home I woke up and got on the seat with Johnny. He tried to make me wrap up, but the misty rain felt good. When we seen the house up on the hill, I cried till we got to it. That night I woke up in the bed and Johnny was asleep and snoring, with his arm around me. I kept imagining Eddie, but it would never be Eddie agin. I cried till the hairs on Johnny’s arm were all wet, but he never did wake up.
I had the eggs gathered and was changing the chickens’ water when Gid and Johnny drove up in Gid’s car. They never got out, but sat by the back gate with the motor running, watching me. I knew they wouldn’t be staying no time, or they would already be out of the car and in the kitchen, so I went on and fixed the water. Gid was in a hurry somewhere and Johnny had just managed to stall him a little while by coming by to say hello to me.
“Boy, I’m sure having a scrumptious dinner today,” I said, when I did get over to the car. Gid still had his gloves on and his hand on the steering wheel.
“Well, I hope you’ve got a big appetite, so you can eat it all,” he said. “We’ve got two days’ work to do before dinnertime. How are you?”
“Except for being short of company, I’m fine,” I said. “You look awful prosperous today.”
“Hell, he is,” Johnny said. “Who wouldn’t be, hiring cheap help like me?”
I walked around to his side.
“That was dangerous,” he said. “Didn’t you know Gid had his foot on the footfeed? He might have run right over you.”
“I ain’t that bad,” Gid said.
“I should have gone around behind,” I said.
“No, you should have climbed over. He’s just as apt to back up as he is to go forward.”
They kidded with me a minute and said they would see me in a day or two; then they left. I got a little blue, because I knew some day I would have to show Gid the letter from Jimmy. It would nearly kill him. But the war would be over some day, and there wasn’t much hope of getting out of it.