“I laid on that floor, Chippo, and listened to Octave Bacheron telling the people I fell because I was tired. Why, Chippo? Why? When will we break that bond? When will we stand up and tell our people the truth? When will we make our legs go to our sons and make our arms protect our sons? When, Chippo? When?”
Phillip searched Chippo’s face for the answer, but Chippo couldn’t think of anything to say.
“I met a young man tonight, a young vet’ran, wearing all his Army green. A grenade scar on his face. Been’s close to death as you can get. Angry. Angry. Angry. He told me the whole civil rights movement ain’t done a thing. Ain’t done a thing, ’cause him and his father and me and my boy ain’t no closer than we ever was. And he’s right, Chippo. We ain’t no closer than we ever was.” Phillip took a deep breath and stood up. He was very tired. He held on to the back of the chair while he looked down at Chippo. “I was telling my boy today what keep us apart is a paralysis we inherited from slavery. Paralysis kept me on that bed that day he knocked on that door. Paralysis kept me on that floor Saturday when I shoulda got up and told the people who he was. I thought fifteen years ago when I found religion I had overthrown my paralysis. But it’s still there, Chippo. How do you get rid of it? How do you shake it off?”
Chippo didn’t know how to answer him. Phillip started toward the sofa to get his hat and coat but stopped when he heard a car door slam in front of the house. Chippo went to the door to see who was out there. Alma stood before him in a long black overcoat and a scarf tied on her head. Behind her were Shepherd and Beverly.
“Mr. Chippo,” Alma spoke softly.
Chippo nodded his head. He could tell by her quiet, strained voice, by her slightly swollen face, that she had been crying. He looked back at Shepherd as if to ask him what had happened, but before Shepherd could answer he moved to let them come in. Phillip stood near the couch watching them. Alma could speak his name, but she was unable to go on. Shepherd came round her and motioned for Phillip to sit down. Phillip moved back to the sofa, feeling for it with his hand but never taking his eyes off Shepherd’s face. After he had sat down, Shepherd stood over him. Phillip could see in his face that he didn’t want to say it either, what both of them had come there to tell him.
“Today at three o’clock, Alcee Lejean saw him standing on that trestle over Big Man Bayou. Late tonight”—Shepherd had to check his voice a moment—“Nolan and his deputies pulled him out of the water.”
Phillip started shaking his head. “That’s not so, that’s not so, that’s not so,” he said. “God knows, that’s not so.”
Alma came to the sofa to sit beside him, but he didn’t see her. He was still looking up at Shepherd.
“I was just coming back home to talk to him,” Phillip said. “Chippo’s my witness there. Chippo just told me his name. I was coming back home to talk to him. Tell him, Chippo.”
Chippo, still over by the door, did not answer. Phillip was still watching Shepherd, his face trembling. Alma laid her hand on his arm, but he didn’t feel it.
“I don’t believe it,” Phillip said to Shepherd. “I don’t believe it. Why you tell me this? Bring me this kind of news?”
Alma squeezed his arm, but he didn’t feel it.
“Why, boy?” he asked Shepherd.
“Nobody like to bear this kind of news, Reverend,” Shepherd said. “But we talked about this last night. We saw it coming, Reverend.”
“I didn’t see it coming,” Phillip said.
“Robert was your son, Reverend Martin.”
“Etienne,” Phillip corrected him. “Not Robert. Not X. Etienne. Etienne Martin. And Antoine Martin, and Justine Martin. That’s why I come to Baton Rouge tonight. Now you bring me that kind of news?”
“I’m sorry,” Shepherd said.
Phillip started to say something else, but instead lowered his head. Shepherd standing over him could see his shoulders begin to shake as his head went lower and lower to his chest. Alma tried comforting him, but as soon as he felt her hand, he wiped his eyes and reached for his hat and coat. He adjusted his hat well on his head, then as he stood up to put on the coat he suddenly stopped as if he had just remembered something.
“Go where?” he said to himself. “Go to what? To what?” He looked at Chippo. “I had forgot. I had forgot. They took the leadership from me today. They say I’m not fit no more. And I had forgot all about that.”
“They can’t do that,” Chippo said.
“They did it already,” Phillip said, and looked at Alma sitting on the sofa. “They say I’m not fit no more.”
“Who suppose to lead?” Chippo asked.
“Jonathan,” Phillip said, looking down at Alma, who sat on the sofa with her hands clasped together and her head bowed. “My young punk assistant.”
“Your assistant?” Chippo asked. “Who can he lead?”
“That’s who they want,” Phillip said. “That’s who all of them want. Well, they can have him.”
He went to the heater and got the bottle and poured up a good shot, drank it down fast, then poured up another one. He looked at Alma, who had stood up and was buttoning her coat.
“Where you think you going?” he asked her.
“I’m going home with you.”
“Who say I’m going home?”
He drank half the whiskey in the glass and looked back at her.
“I met an old gal tonight,” he said. He was drunk now, and he didn’t care who knew it. “Hadn’t seen her in fifteen years. Think I’ll go pay her a little visit.”
Alma looked at him a moment, then finished buttoning up the overcoat.
“If that’s what you need to do,” she said.
“That’s what I’m going to do,” he told her.
“I’ll go back with Shepherd and Beverly,” Alma said. “I’ll be home when you get there.”
“So I’m fit, now, huh?” he said to her. “After he kill himself I’m fit again, huh?”
“I never said you wasn’t fit,” Alma said. “I just said they wasn’t go’n stand for you to treat them the way you treat me.”
“Well, nobody need to stand for nothing I do no more,” Phillip said, and finished off his drink. He set the bottle and the glass back down on the floor.
“Where you think you going?” Chippo asked him.
“Adeline Toussaint told me to drop by,” Phillip said, and grinned drunkenly at him. “You remember her, don’t you? Pretty yellow woman. Good snatch. Never cared about a damn thing. You remember her, Chippo. You got some of that stuff too, didn’t you?”
“You not going to that whore,” Chippo said. “Not out of my house.”
“No?” Phillip said.
“No,” Chippo said.
“Let him go, Mr. Chippo,” Alma said. “He’s probably got lot of them he go to.”
Phillip looked at her. “No,” he said. “I used to have lot of whores. Once I had more whores than Carter got liver pills. But I ain’t slept with another woman but you the last fifteen years. Till tonight.”
He started toward the door. Chippo moved in his way.
“You think I’m go’n let you go to that whore?”
“You go’n stop me?” Phillip asked him.
“I’m go’n try,” Chippo said.
“Chippo, you never could stand up to this before,” Phillip said, showing him a fist about the size of an eight-ounce boxing glove. “What make you think you can stand up to it now?”
“Me and that boy there can do it,” Chippo said.
“You in this too, Shepherd?” Phillip asked him.
Shepherd had taken one look at Phillip’s big fist. The last thing he wanted was to have anything to do with it. But his woman was there, and he had no other choice.
“I think he’s right,” he said weakly.
Phillip grunted and started round Chippo. Chippo got to the door before he did.
“I got grief in me, Chippo,” Phillip told him. “I got grief in me, and I got fury in me.”
“And
that whore can change all that?”
“I’m warning you, Chippo,” Phillip said. “Move out my way.”
“Move out his way, Mr. Chippo,” Alma said. “Move out his way. Let him go to his whore.”
Chippo didn’t move. And he didn’t see the punch coming either. It landed on his left jaw and he went down. He was down, but he was not out, and as Phillip tried stepping over him, Chippo grabbed one of his legs and pulled him back in the room. Halfway cross the room Phillip jerked his leg free and started back for the door. Shepherd was there this time, his hands up, palms out toward Phillip.
“Now, take it easy, Reverend,” he said. “He’s right. Take it easy, take it easy.”
“Get out the way, boy,” Phillip said.
“Take it easy, Reverend.”
“Get out my way, boy.”
“Take it easy, Reverend.”
Phillip swung. Shepherd blocked it neatly. But his arm felt as if someone had hit him with a baseball bat. Phillip drew back to hit him again, but Chippo was up now, and grabbed his arm and swung him cross the room. Phillip hit the sofa and sprung back up as quickly as if he had landed on a trampoline. Now he stood wide-legged, his two big fists poised. He didn’t care about going through that door any more. All he wanted now was a fight.
“Stop it,” Alma screamed at Chippo. “Stop it.” She ran up to him and tried to pull him away from the door. “Let him go,” she said. “Let him go. Let him go to all his women. Let him go.”
Chippo pushed her to the side. He pushed her a little too hard and she fell. Beverly, who had been standing with her back to the wall, helped her up and led her to the next room, crying.
Shepherd and Chippo were still blocking the door, watching Phillip. If he came on them they would grab him on either side. They watched him standing there breathing hard, his two big fists poised and shaking. No one moved, no one would dare move, but they were still watching one another.
Then suddenly he turned from them and started looking round the room. He was looking for something to hit, something to break. But there was nothing near him. The walls were too far for him to reach. The chairs were too far away, the bottle, the glass were all out of his reach. He jerked his head back to face Shepherd and Chippo again. They were still watching him, still ready for him if he came on them. But after a while, they saw his eyes go slowly toward the floor. His breathing became more normal, and his hands went to his side. He moved back to the sofa and sat down, his head hanging almost to his chest.
Chippo took in a deep breath and went over to the heater, leaving Shepherd alone at the door.
“I know how you must feel, man,” he said after a while.
“No, you don’t,” Phillip said.
“I know, man,” Chippo said.
“Nobody know how this nigger feels,” Phillip said gazing down at the floor, his big arms hanging down between his legs the way a defeated fighter’s arms would hang. “You work, you work—what good it do? You bust your ass—what good it do? Man and God, both in one day, tell you go to hell, go fuck yourself.”
“Don’t, man,” Chippo said, and looked toward the other room where the women were.
Phillip was quiet. Chippo watched him sitting there with his head down and his arms hanging between his legs. Over at the door, Shepherd was still rubbing his arm where Phillip had hit him.
“It’s over with,” Phillip said.
“No, man,” Chippo said.
“It’s over with, and I’m glad,” Phillip said. “I don’t have to lie and beg and plead with them no more. Let them do what they want.”
“And what happen then?” Chippo asked.
“I don’t care.”
“You do care, man,” Chippo said. “That’s for somebody like me to say—‘I don’t care.’ That’s for the rest of them no-’count niggers on East Boulevard to say—‘I don’t care.’ Not for you, man. Hanh, Shepherd?”
“No,” Shepherd said from the door.
“Somebody got to care, man,” Chippo said to Phillip. “Somebody got to keep on caring. He go’n get hurt caring, but he can’t never stop. I’m right or I’m wrong there, Shepherd?” Chippo asked, without looking at Shepherd.
“You right,” Shepherd said.
“You can’t stop, man,” Chippo said to Phillip. “We need you out there too much. Just like you see me—this old ugly half-blind nigger—I need you out there. I need somebody to look up to. There ain’t nobody else left out there to look up to. You, I look up to. Me, plenty more like me, we look up to you. I’m right or I’m wrong there, Shepherd?”
“You right, Chippo,” Shepherd said. He rubbed his arm. He wondered if it was broken.
Phillip raised his head and looked at Chippo standing at the heater.
“It’s over with, Chippo,” he said. “It’s over with. They beat me down today. They caught me staggering, and they jecked the rug from under my feet.”
“You can get up man. Hanh, Shepherd?”
“Sure.”
“Even Him,” Phillip went on, as if he hadn’t heard either Shepherd or Chippo. “How come He let this happen? How come He stood by me all these years, but not today? I’ve walked through mobs after mobs. Traveled every dark muddy road in this state. ’Cause I knowed He was there with me. Why He give me all that strength, that courage to do all them other things, and when I asked Him for my boy—” He stopped. His mouth trembled. Tears came into his eyes. “Why didn’t He hear me, Chippo? What is it, Chippo? Why won’t He let this poor black man reach his son? Was that so hard to do? Was that asking Him for too much? Well, Chippo?”
Chippo shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t understand His ways, man. They say what He do He do for the best.”
“To let my boy die like that, that’s for the best? That’s what you saying, Chippo?”
Chippo didn’t answer.
“Them today,” Phillip went on, “Mills, Aaron, Peter—why couldn’t they understand? Why couldn’t they see that all this black man wanted was to touch his son? What’s so hard about that, Chippo? Tell me, what’s so hard about that?”
Chippo knew he had no more to offer than what he had already said, so he did not try to answer. Phillip looked at Shepherd at the door holding his arm.
“Well, boy?”
“I don’t know the answer either, Reverend,” Shepherd said.
“You don’t know the answer, and you got in my way?” Phillip asked him. “When you block a man from doing one thing, you ought to have something better to offer him. Well?”
Shepherd shook his head. He wondered if his arm was broken.
“You teach school, don’t you?” Phillip asked him.
“I teach school.”
“And how you answer the children?”
“Depends on the question, Reverend.”
“You done lost faith, boy,” Phillip said. “You done lost it all? How you tell them that?”
“You don’t,” Chippo said.
“How you tell them that, boy?” Phillip asked Shepherd, without looking at Chippo. “How you tell them that?”
“I don’t know, Reverend.”
“Don’t you have faith in anything, boy?”
“Not too much,” Shepherd said, looking straight at him.
Phillip nodded his head. “That’s a good way to be, boy. The only way to be. That way you never get hurt.”
“That’s not a good way to be,” Chippo said. “You got to have faith in something. Me, I have faith in you.”
“You damn fool, Chippo,” Phillip said. “Be like that boy there. Don’t put no faith in nothing. Not in God. Not in work. Not in love. In nothing. Put it in the bottle. That’s a good place to put your faith, huh, boy? The bottle?”
Shepherd looked at him, but he didn’t say anything. He wished he had never stood before that door.
In the other room Alma lay down across the bed, and Beverly sat on the bed beside her listening to the men in the front room. She was trying to think of something that she might be able to go in ther
e and say. She looked back at Alma and asked her if she was all right. Alma nodded her head. Beverly touched her on the shoulder and left the room.
When she came into the front room, the men got quiet. She stood back a moment looking at all of them, then she went to the sofa and sat down close to Phillip. For a moment all she did was look at him. Then she took one of his big hands and began caressing the knuckles, gently, gently. The men watched her, but they stayed quiet.
“You have to go back,” she said.
Phillip pulled his hand free.
“Back to what?” he asked her.
“To St. Adrienne,” she said quietly as she looked up at him. “To your wife, your children, your church. Even to the ones back there who don’t have faith in anything,” she said, and looked round at Shepherd.
“I don’t have none either,” Phillip said.
“I don’t believe that,” she said to him. “You’ve been hurt. You’ve been hurt bad. But a man like you can’t lose faith that easily.”
“You can lose it that easily,” he said. “After you work and work and work, and everything fall apart all at the same time, you can lose it that easily.”
She shook her head. “You wanted too much, Reverend. You wanted too much from man, from God. Too much all at one time. It don’t work that way.”
Phillip studied her closely a moment, then he sat back in the sofa. Shepherd and Chippo watched both of them.
“Do you know me?” Phillip asked Beverly.
“Reverend Phillip J. Martin,” Beverly said.
“Did you know me before I was Reverend Phillip J. Martin?”
“No,” she said.
“I didn’t think you did,” he said, and looked at her a while before going on. “I was an animal before I was Reverend Phillip J. Martin. I was an animal. He changed me to a man. He straightened my back. He raised my head. He gave me feelings, compassion, made me responsible for my fellow man. My back wasn’t straightened before he straightened it. My eyes stayed on the ground. I took everything I could from my fellow man, and I didn’t give him nothing back.
“The last fifteen years I’ve gived, and gived, and gived to my fellow man. I’ve taken my fellow man by the hand and led him the way you lead a small child: led him to that courthouse, led him to the stores, led him to that bus station. I’ve felt my fellow man tremble in my hands the way you feel voltage in a ’lectric wire. I’ve seen four hundred years of fear in his eyes when I asked him to sit on a bench beside me, or to have a drink of water from a fountain. But I asked nobody to do a thing till I had done it first. I was ready to get the first blow, what I’ve received many many times. But I kept going, kept going. ’Cause of Him. ’Cause of Him. ’Cause of Him I’ve been running after my son. I never woulda done it if it wasn’t for Him. I woulda looked at my son going by the house, and I woulda forgotten him—if it wasn’t for Him. But He changed me, and I can’t forget my son. I can’t forget my son, young lady. I can’t ignore my son no more. That’s why I say He owed me my son. Once He made me a human being He owed me my son.”