Brinda’s Mama said. You went through a stoplight, and Mr. Jimmy answered, Did I? Well, that’s O.K….
It was a fair distance from the Krennings’ house to Brinda’s and her Mama’s, and a few blocks after Mr. Jimmy had driven through the stoplight, Mr. Jimmy slowed the car down again and the talk was continued.
Mr. Jimmy said. If I don’t know, who knows?
Well, said Brinda’s Mama, even if you quit workin’, you can’t do nothin’, just nothin’, you got to do somethin’, don’t you?
I do something, said Mr. Jimmy.
What do you do?
Well, about this time of evening, I drive out by the air base, I go a little bit past it, and then I turn around and drive back, and, here and there, along the road back into town, I pass young fliers thumbing a ride into town, and I pick out one to pick up, and I pick him up and we go to the house and we drink and discuss ourselves with each other and drink and, after a while, well, maybe we get to be friends or maybe we don’t, and that’s what I do now, you see…
He slowed the car down toward the house, stopped it right in front of the walk to the porch, with a deep sighing intake of breath, and released the wheel and his head fell back as if his neck was broken.
Brinda’s Mama sighed too, and her head not only fell back against the car cushion but lolled to the side a little. They were like two brokennecked people, and with the uncomprehending patience of a dog, Brinda just sat and waited for them both to revive.
Then, at last, Mr. Jimmy sighed again, with a long intake of breath, and lurched out of the car and came around to the back seat to open the door for them as if they were two white ladies.
He not only assisted Brinda’s Mama out of the car, but he kept a tight hold on her up to the porch. Perhaps if he hadn’t she would have fallen down, but Brinda could sense that it was something more than one person giving another a necessary physical support for a little distance, and when they had got up the front steps, Mr. Jimmy still stayed. He took in his breath very loudly again with the same sighing sound as he had done twice before, and there was a prolonged hesitation, which Brinda found awkward and tense, though it did not seem to bother either her Mama or Mr. Jimmy. It was like something they were used to, or had always expected. They stood there at the top of the steps to the porch, and it was uncertain whether they were going to part at this point or going to remain together for a while longer.
They seemed like a pair of people who had quarreled and come to an understanding, not because of any agreement between them, but because of a mutual recognition of a sad, inescapable thing that gave them a closeness even through disappointment in trying to settle their quarrel.
Brinda’s Mama said, Mr. Jimmy, sit down with us a little, and he did.
Both of the two chairs on the front porch were rockers. Brinda sat on the steps. Mr. Jimmy rocked, but her Mama sat still in her chair.
After a little while Brinda’s Mama said, Mr. Jimmy, what are you going to do now?
I make no plans, I just go along, go along.
How long you plan to do that?
Long as I can, till something stops me, I guess.
Brinda’s Mama nodded and then was silent as if inwardly calculating the length of time that might take. The silence continued as long as it might have taken her to arrive at a conclusion to this problem, and then she got up and said, I am going to die now, as quietly as if she had only said she was going in the dark house. Mr. Jimmy stood up as if a white lady had risen and held the screen door open while she unlocked the wooden one.
Brinda started in after her, but her Mama blocked her way in.
You go stay at the Krennings’, you go on back there tonight an’ clean up that mess in the place and you two stay there together and you look after each other, and, Brinda, don’t let them white boys interfere with you. When you hear them come in, go down to the basement and lock the basement door an’ you stay down there till daylight, unless Mr. Jimmy calls for you, and if he calls for you, go up an’ see what he wants.
Then she turned to Mr. Jimmy and said, I thought a white boy like you was born with a chance in the world!
She then shut the door and locked it. Brinda couldn’t believe that her Mama had locked her out, but that’s what she’d done. She would have stayed there senselessly waiting before that locked door, but Mr. Jimmy gently took hold of her arm and led her out to his car. He opened the back door for her as if she were a white lady. She got in the car and going home, to the Krennings’, Mr. Jimmy serenely drove through the stoplights as if he were color-blind. He drove home straight and fast, and when they arrived at the Krennings’ Brinda observed that a soft light was burning downstairs, in the downstairs hall, and it seemed to say something that no one had said all day in so many words, that God, like other people, has two kinds of hands, one hand with which to strike and another to soothe and caress with.
(Published 1965)
The Knightly Quest
When Gewinner Pearce returned home after years of travel with a tutor-companion, the late Dr. Horace Greaves, everything visible from the airport, including the airport itself, was so unrecognizable to him that he thought the plane must have made an unscheduled stop. He was about to hurry back up the steps to the plane’s cabin when he heard the voice of a woman calling his name. He gazed out toward the direction from which the call issued and what he saw was a young woman approaching him with the velocity of a football tackier and with a mink coat flapping about her. For a couple of moments she was intercepted and restrained in her approach by a pair of armed guards.
Hands off, hands off me! Don’t you know who I am? I am Mrs. Braden Pearce, out here to meet the brother of my husband! His name’s Gewinner—the same as the name of the town.
The steel-helmeted guards fell back from her with awkward little deferential salutes, and then she continued her rush toward Gewinner, who defended and braced himself as best he could by placing vertically before him his furled black silk umbrella and tensing his slight body to withstand the moment of impact. But he was surprised and relieved that this young wife of his brother, never seen before, slackened her pace just before she reached him, and instead of colliding with him, she introduced herself to him in a manner that was fast and vigorous but reasonably coherent.
Oh, Gewinner, she cried out to him as if he were in a far corner of the airfield, I bet you don’t know who I am, I am Braden’s wife, Violet, and Mother Pearce, God love her, was dying to meet you herself but she just couldn’t make it because today is the day she’s placing a wreath on the memorial to our boys in Kwat Sing How, and so, God love her, she appointed me in her place to welcome you home here.
Oh. Good, said Gewinner.
They were now moving toward the airport building, Violet still holding up her end of the unilateral conversation. How was your flight, was it nice? I recognized you the moment you started down the steps from the plane, not because you look like your brother, Braden, you don’t a bit in the world, but you did look exactly like the way I expected you to look, I swear you did, and you do!
How did you expect me to look? asked Gewinner with unaffected interest in what her answer might be. He had a touch of the Narcissan in his nature and was always somewhat curious about the way he might appear to persons unaccustomed to his appearance.
Why, I know the family called you Prince, they did and still do, and if anybody ever looked like a prince out of a fairy-tale book, it’s you, God love you, you do!
Then, without pause, she cried out. Oh, my God, they’re playing “Babe’s Stomp” again!
Playing what? asked Gewinner.
Baby, Babe, Babe, the President’s daughter, you know!
No, I don’t know, said Gewinner.
Well, first there was “Babe’s Hop,” and now there’s “Babe’s Stomp,” and I want you to know that as much as I detested the hop, this stomp of hers makes the hop seem like a lovely thing to look back on, it actually does, no fooling!
Violet was referring to
rhythm-band music that was coming thunderously from a sound apparatus atop the terminal building. It made the airport sound like a big discotheque, and several incoming passengers and persons there to receive them were going into spastic, stamping gyrations.
Gewinner shouted over this hullabaloo:
What’s wrong with the air? he shouted; it has a peculiar smell to it.
Oh, that, shouted Violet, that’s just the fumes from The Project.
What’s The Project? Gewinner shouted back at her.
Shouting was unnecessary now, for “Babe’s Stomp” had quit as abruptly as it had started. Gewinner’s shouted question drew undesired attention in the sudden, comparative silence. People glanced at him with expressions of curiosity or incredulity or both.
Out of the side of her mouth, Violet said. No talk about it right now.
Then she called out the name William, William!
A dead-pan, uniformed man, presumably employed by the family, emerged from the airport crowd to take Gewinner’s baggage-claim checks.
Now then, said Violet, we‘ll go wait in the car and get acquainted, unless you could use a wee drink at the bar. Frankly, I hope you can. I could sure in hell use a stinger under my belt. Whenever I rush about, it makes me thirsty. So come along, Prince, right up these steps here, to the Sky-lite Lounge. You know, we’re all so excited that you’ve come home from your travels. Let’s sit at the bar, it’s quicker. Now where were you last in your travels?
In the Land of the Midnight Sun, said Gewinner, knowing from the wild but glazed look in her eyes that she’d pay no attention to this answer, which was made up. Where he’d last been in his travels was actually in Manhattan where his tutor-companion, Dr. Greaves, had fallen fatally prey to an overdosage of a drug he’d taken to expand his perceptions. This drug had not only expanded the perceptions of Dr. Greaves but had deranged them somewhat, so that the good, gray philosopher and doctor of humanities had walked right off the roof of a five-story brownstone in the Turtle Bay section of Manhattan as if he were responding to a call from outer space, which may have been exactly what he was doing…
In the cocktail lounge of the airport, Gewinner asked for a campari and soda but didn’t get it, the drink being unknown to the barman. Violet showed a somewhat assertive streak in her nature by telling the barman to give them both stingers. She tossed down hers as fast as if she were putting out a fire in her stomach, and then she said to Gewinner, Why, Prince, you didn’t drink enough of that stinger to keep a bird alive! Oh well, I’ll finish it for you. So she tossed down Gewinner’s stinger too. Now then, she said, that’s what the doctor ordered and I obeyed the order, so let’s make a run for the car before the family fink suspects we’ve been up here, Gewinner.
In the car on the way home, if home you could call it, Gewinner continued to observe almost nothing he had once known in the town which had now grown to a city. The sylvan park whose trees had been mostly willows had turned into a concrete playground full of monkeys disguised as children, at least that was the impression made upon Gewinner.
To himself more than to Violet he observed, I remember it being like a romantic ballet setting. I mean swans drifted about on a lake and there were cranes, herons, flamingos and even a peacock with several peahens around him, but now there’s not a willow and not a swan or a lake for a swan to drift in.
Aw now, said Violet, you mustn’t philosophize gloomily about it.
I wasn’t philosophizing, I was simply remembering and observing, said Gewinner.
He gave Violet a rather sharp glance, wondering where she had gotten her education, if any.
I reckon you don’t realize it, said Violet, pressing his arm as if to comfort him, but all these changes you notice are because of The Project.
And what exactly is that? asked Gewinner again.
Prince, you’re not serious, are you!
Perfectly. I’ve never heard of The Project.
Well, now you have, said Violet, and furthermore you’re just about to see it, the outside of it! There! Here! Look at it!
The limousine was now going by what appeared to be an enormous penitentiary for criminals of the most dangerous nature. Its grounds were enclosed by a tall metal fence on which, at intervals, were signs that said DANGER, ELECTRICALLY CHARGED, and just inside this enclosure, patrolling the grounds, were uniformed men with dogs. The dogs seemed to want to go faster than the men, they kept tugging at their leads and glancing back crossly at the men. Then the dogs would look ahead again with expressions that could be described as fiercely glaring. The men’s and dogs’ heads would pivot slightly from right to left and left to right as if the men and dogs had gone to the same training school and come out equally proficient at the art of patrolling, and it would be hard to say, if you had to, which glared more fiercely, the human guards or the dogs.
Why, here, said Gewinner, almost exclaiming about it, was my father’s business, the Red Devil Battery Plant.
Yes, isn’t it wonderful? said Violet with a certain sibilance in her speech. Your father’s, God love your father, his Red Devil Battery Plant has been converted into The Project, and I want you to know that your brother, Braden Pearce, is the top man on the totem pole here, and it’s not just great, it’s the greatest!
What does The Project make or do? asked Gewinner.
Oh, I do love you. Prince, cried out Violet. To think you honestly don’t know what The Project is for! Why, Prince, it’s for the development of a thing to blow them all off the map of the world, for good and all and forever!
Who is them?
Why, them is them, who else! Are you serious. Prince, or are you just putting me on about it?
He heard a quick scratching siound and saw that she had snatched a little appointment book from her purse and was scribbling down something. She tore the page out and pressed it into his hand.
The message was: Change the subject, I think this car is bugged.
Gewinner had hardly read this peculiar message when Violet snatched the paper back from him, crumpled it, thrust it into her mouth, ground it between her teeth, swallowed, gagged, coughed, pressed a button that turned the radio on, clutched her throat and swallowed again, this time successfully.
Immediately after this curious series of actions, or compulsive syndrome, she began to chatter again.
Prince? Gewinner? I wish you could have seen the delighted expressions on their faces. Mama’s and Braden’s, when they heard you were on your way back here all of a sudden! It was a sight to behold, that I can tell you. Oh, here we are! Recognize it?
The car had turned into the drive of a gray stone building that had a resemblance, probably more deliberate than accidental, to something in the nature of an ancient Saracen castle brought up to date.
It’s all that I’ve recognized since I got off the plane, said Gewinner, telling almost the truth.
Without asking questions, just by listening to and piecing together scraps of conversation, Gewinner came to know, in the following days, a number of things that accounted for the town’s changes, such as the fact that his late father’s Red Devil Battery Plant had sure enough been converted into a thing called The Project, and that The Project was engaged all day and all night in the development of some marvelously mysterious weapon of annihilation. The number of its personnel was greater than had been the town’s population at the time when Gewinner had set out on his travels. Hordes of scientists, technicians, brass hats of degree high and low, intelligence officers, highly skilled workmen and ordinary workmen, all the way up and down the totem pole of importance, were involved in The Project’s operations. As Violet put it, it was not only great but the greatest, not a bit of exaggeration about it.
The Project’s personnel and their families were housed in new little concrete-block structures called Sunshine Houses, and a lot of new businesses, big and little, had sprung up to accommodate their needs and wholesome pleasures, most of them also named something very cheerful such as “Sweetheart,” “Rainbow,”
and “Blue Bird.”
One of these new businesses, between big and little, was the Laughing Boy Drive-in, situated on a corner diagonally across from the Pearce family mansion, and this drive-in provoked Gewinner Pearce’s sense of personal outrage more strongly than any other vulgarity which had appeared in his home town during his absence. The drive-in was built on property that belonged to the Pearces. Gewinner’s younger brother, Braden, had leased it for ninety-nine years to a boyhood chum whose portrait in golden neon smiled and laughed out loud with a big haw-haw, at ten-second intervals, from early dusk till midnight. And this, mind you, was on the finest residential boulevard in the city and the haw-hawing neon portrait of its owner was almost directly facing the Pearce mansion. Gewinner, of course, had no misapprehensions about the elegance and dignity of the Pearce place, but the fact remained that Gewinner was a Pearce, and the Laughing Boy in neon seemed a personal affront. It laughed so loudly that it punctuated all but the loudest passages of the symphonic music he played on his hi-fi at night to calm his nerves, and in addition to the haw-haw at the drive-in there was the honking of cars from morn to midnight, appealing for immediate servings of such items as King-burgers, barbecued ribs, malts, cokes, coffee and so forth. The carhops were girls and sometimes they’d lose control of their nerves under the constant pressure of their jobs and would have screaming fits; then, more than likely, there’d be the siren wail of an ambulance or a squad car or both. When the hysterical carhop had been rushed off to the Sunshine Emergency Center, the Laughing Boy would seem to be splitting his sides over the whole bit, and though Gewinner could understand how it all might seem ludicrous, in a ghastly way, the mechanical haw-haw somehow would kill the joke, at least for the prince of the Pearces.
Now for a little digression in the nature of turning back time.
While Gewinner had been on his travels he received from his mother exactly two communications a year, a cablegram at Christmas and a cablegram at Easter, both addressed to him care of American Express in London, a capital that Gewinner visited from time to time to refurbish his wardrobe. These cablegrams were very much to the point. The Christmas one said, Christ is born. Love, Mother, and the Easter one said, Christ is risen. Love, Mother. And once, between Christmas and Easter, Gewinner dispatched a cablegram to Mother Pearce that was utterly meaningless to her: it said. Dear Mother, What is He up to now? Love, Gewinner.