Five Smooth Stones

  Sudsy was introducing the newcomer. "Martin," he said. "Chuck Martin—David Champlin."

  A big-knuckled hand was held out to David, who fumbled with his napkin, then took it. "Sure glad you finally made it," said Martin.

  David thought: I'd sure be glad if you hadn't. Mighty happy if you hadn't. Even happier if you'd drop dead. The wall between him and this cracker would shut out the others, too; leave him alone on one side of it, not wanting to embarrass Evans and Sutherland, angered and resentful at what he was certain would be the newcomer's attitude, in spite of the handshake.

  Sudsy's next words arrested his thoughts abruptly. "You belong to ALEC, Champlin?" . "I—why—sure."

  "This character who just came in was elected chairman of the campus chapter last week. If you're already a member you don't have to pay anything. If you aren't he'll get money out of you before you can put that chicken wing down."

  He had thought when Chuck first shook hands with him that this was another of the many whites met in the South who are insistent they have no prejudices. Now he wasn't sure. Those whites used to come to the stinking, fetid back rooms where his grandfather and the other musicians were required to sit between sets; they meticulously, almost ritualistically, shook hands with every man in the band, not just the leader; they didn't ask who wanted a drink, had usually ordered drinks sent back before they came in, and more often than not it was gin, because there was a hoary legend that all colored people liked gin.

  After the drinks came they usually took a chair and sat in attitudes of such relaxed and self-conscious familiarity that, even when he was a child, David had smiled at the phoniness. Their accents were usually syrupy-thick and drawling like Chuck's, depending on where they came from. And they talked. Judas Priest! how they talked! On and on, palsy-walsy as all hell. But they sure as hell didn't recruit members for ALEC.

  Most of the other whites who came back of the stand, the foreigners or students from the North, were different. They usually stood until asked to sit, shook hands with the leader, and always asked first who wanted a drink and what kind before they ordered it, seeming embarrassed, many of them, at finding themselves in a situation that was humiliating to others.

  Only the Prof and a few other whites from the North had such a gut-twisting hatred of the customs of New Orleans that they never came to the back rooms, but instead sought out the musicians in their homes, almost pathetically grateful when sponsorship of some responsible Negro gained entrance for them to Negro clubs, often foregoing that pleasure when they found the police could—and probably would—make trouble for the club if they were found there.

  Now David tried to fit Chuck into one of these categories and found that he could not, and he waited warily for some word or action that would guide him. He could see now that the youth with the cracker accent was older than the others, perhaps by two years. Something else was becoming evident about the big, blond youth, and David recognized it for what it was because he himself had felt its discomforts all his life. It was shyness. This lumbering, straw-haired student from some small southern town was shy, and the shyness, David sensed, was because of him. Suddenly David thought longingly of his room, of his fireplace, and the unpacking he must do, and the peace without worry he would find there. He had enjoyed his time with Sutherland and Evans; now there was a Problem, and its face was as familiar as the face of his wrist-watch, and he did not want, just now, to be worried with it.

  Tom Evans had moved to the studio couch, and was leaning back on his elbows, happy surfeit on his face. Chuck was sitting in the vacated chair, looking sadly at the ruins of four chickens.

  "Skeletons," he said. "Nothing but poor, picked, li'l ol' skeletons. I've seen pictures of steers' skulls on the desert that had more meat on 'em."

  "If you'd come with us last night you could have had you a chicken all to your li'l ol' self," said Tom.

  "I told you why I couldn't." His "I"s were "Ah"s, and most of his intermediate "r"s and final "g"s were missing.

  "There's no law says you can't bone up on geometry on Sunday."

  "What y'all think I've been doing all day? Playing tiddley-winks? There's a law known as diminishing grades that says Martin's got to bone up on math every time the good Lord sends him a free weekend."

  Sudsy turned to David. "There are half-a-dozen chicks on campus plotting against this character. No free weekends for Chuck. It's his age gets 'em. He's practically senile."

  David pushed his chair back, stood up. "I sure appreciate the chicken dinner," he said. "Can I help clean up before I go?"

  "You aren't going?" Something in Martin's tone swung David's eyes away from Sudsy and toward the big student. The other's eyes were direct and friendly, and there was an expression in them that matched the tone that had halted David.

  "What about your suit?" said Sudsy.

  "It looks pretty good since its been hanging there by the door," said David. "Maybe I don't have to—"

  "Oh, Lawd!" Chuck's voice was low. "My damned mealy-mouthed cracker accent is sending you off." Chuck was shaking salt on a limp sliver of French-fried potato, not looking up now. "I sure wish I didn't have to go round explaining myself. They won't let me take public speaking and diction until junior year. Meanwhile I've got to watch every colored student comes into this place shy away from me, while I sweat to talk different." He turned to Tom appealingly. "I'm getting better, don't you think?"

  "We-e-l-ll," Tom looked thoughtful. "You don't say 'haid' anymore. And I haven't heard you use a houn'-dawg analogy for a couple of weeks. As Beanie says, by the use of some effort and a little imagination I think I can detect a slight improvement."

  "That's like saying somebody's an advanced case of adult infantilism."

  Even if David had known what to say, he would not have had a chance. There was a sharp knock at the door, and he saw it open and a student lean against its frame.

  "Well, hi-yah." Chuck's voice did not commit him to a welcome. "Come in, young Clevenger. We were just about to start talking about the likes of you."

  "Whatever you mean by that," said the youth in the doorway. He was only slighter shorter than David, but he gave an impression of smallness, of bones under a thin layer of flesh that were delicate, almost fragile. His hair was darker than blond, lighter than that called honey-colored; his eyes were dark, set in a face whose framework was sharply defined, and over which the pallid skin was beginning to tauten in the pattern of maturity. He looked older than the others, but the petulant mouth was that of the perpetual adolescent. David estimated that the trench coat, sweater, slacks, and shoes he was wearing could well represent at least a semester's tuition.

  Even without Chuck's greeting, which had contained a warning that David had picked up as quickly as it had been tossed out, he knew he would have felt the tightening in the pit of his stomach, felt that certain crawling of flesh over inner heat.

  "I'm sure I don't know what you mean by the 'likes of me,'" the newcomer said. His speech was soft, not slurred, like Chuck's, but low and well articulated. Virginia, thought David. Or maybe Maryland. He glanced toward Chuck, but the raw-boned student's face was blank. The boy in the doorway ran his eyes around the room, fixed them on David. "Our new Quimby?" he said.

  "Champlin," said Chuck. "David Champlin—Randolph Clevenger."

  A remote smile appeared on Clevenger's face. "Sorry you had to start in late, David. We heard you were ill and couldn't make it."

  "No," said David. "It was sickness in the family."

  "From what we've heard of you the delay isn't going to hurt much." There was no sarcasm in the words; the words were innocent, but the tone, thought David—the tone was guilty as hell.

  "Are you looking for food? Because if you are we have a nice paper bag full of chicken bones." Sutherland tossed in the remark quickly. David looked at Chuck again. "—the likes of you" Chuck had said. It was the first time any white person had ever done anything like that. Things were coming too fast; again he felt the urge to le
ave, to go back to his room, the only damned student's room in the whole damned college with a fireplace, Sudsy had said; the only room in the world where there was a suitcase full of clothes belonging to David Champlin; the only room in the world where there could be, in a moment's time, a row of stuffed and ceramic lions and tigers belonging to Li'l Joe and David Champlin ranged on a mantel, and a typewriter bought by Li'l Joe Champlin open on a desk.

  He decided that this time, much as he wanted to, he would not give way to the urge to get the hell out. Behind him he knew Tom was setting up a collapsible ironing board.

  Sudsy spoke again. "If it's food you want, you can go home. And why doesn't anyone think to bring beer?" he complained. "Do I hoard? No. Sudsy shares. Do my friends hoard? Yes."

  "I haven't got any beer," said Clevenger. "You could have it if I did. The way I feel today the sight of a glass—" He shivered. "What I came for was to beg an Alka-Seltzer."

  "You will do it," said Tom.

  Clevenger ignored him. "You have any, Sudsy?"

  "Why would I have Alka-Seltzer? A temperate—"

  "Stow it. What about Harry?"

  "Harry, as you well know, is near teetotal."

  "Champlin," drawled Chuck, "did y'all bring the necessities of life with you? Or did you just pack the nonessentials like clothes? Can you help this poor damned soul out?"

  "Sure sorry," said David. He had plugged the cord of the iron into an outlet, and was laying the leg of a pair of trousers on the ironing board in the best Gramp-approved fashion. He accepted a wrung-out damp towel from Sudsy, smiled his thanks, then spat on a finger and tested the iron. There was no sizzle, and he stood waiting, holding it up. He glanced at the youth in the doorway and surprised him in what was close to a stare. David thought suddenly of the driver of the bus he had boarded in New Orleans in the spring. The driver had been trash, semiliterate white trash, and this youth was what David supposed some people would call an aristocrat. Gramp could have told him, right now, whether the boy came from Virginia or Maryland. The knife them folks cuts your throat with's so sharp you don't even know what happened till you're bleeding to death. Yet, catching Clevenger's eye now, he remembered the bus driver.

  "Too bad we don't go in for sports here, David." He was smiling. David did not miss the fact that it was first names right off the bat with this character, no "Champlin" to a Negro. "I was just thinking you'd make a fine back for a varsity squad."

  "I doubt that," said David. He did not return the smile, although he knew it was expected of him, and hated the knowledge. "Left leg's gimpy."

  "Sorry. I didn't notice." Clevenger's voice sounded sincerely sympathetic. Which was in character, thought David.

  "You couldn't very well. I've been standing back here. It's nothing much. Just a stiff ankle joint."

  "Champlin." Clevenger gave the name the French pronunciation, and his voice was thoughtful. "Champlin. Two 'a's?"

  "One," said David shortly. "I guess it used to be two."

  "I'm sure it did," said Clevenger. "My grandmother was a Champlain from down your way. It's an old southern name."

  "Meaning?" Chuck spoke quietly. David would not have to have asked the meaning, and he knew Chuck did not. Former slaves carried their owners' names even until today.

  Chuck didn't wait for a reply. "Run along and get your Alka-Seltzer," he said, and David's muscles tautened at the raw anger in his tone. "We were breathing real fine wholesome, healthy air until you came along."

  If I've got to get mixed up in a fight the first day I'm here, thought David, if I have to do that, I'm flyin'. But there was no answering anger in Clevenger's face as he looked at Chuck; instead there was a contempt that, thought David, if it had been directed at him he would have wiped off with a fist, much as he hated to fight. Clevenger did not speak, turned to leave, but before he was well into the hallway he stopped and turned back, his eyes on David. "You'll find a fellow Quimby in this building, David. And two in Justin Hall." He closed the door, and they heard his footsteps on the uncarpeted floor of the corridor.

  ***

  The strained silence in the room after Clevenger had left made David more acutely uncomfortable than he had ever been in his life. There was no sound except the thud of his iron. He glanced at Chuck covertly, and saw what had been the dull, brick-red flush of anger gradually subsiding. It was Sudsy who broke the silence with a high-pitched, wailing protest. "What's the matter with guys like that! What's the matter with them!"

  "Me," said Evans, and, unlike Sudsy's, his voice was unexpectedly strong, far more mature than the troubled, boyish face. "Me, I think a lynch mob's a cleaner proposition."

  "Look," said David. "Look. You fellows shouldn't get all—"

  Chuck took over. His face had returned to its normal pink. He spoke slowly, his accent exaggerated, the voice pitched somewhere behind the nose.

  "Y'all don't understand," he said. "Y'all just don't understand. David knows how it is. We've got a Problem. With a big capital 'P.' Our nigras understand this. Ouah nigras have been happy for a hundred years. No one was any happier than what we was to free the slaves. My grandfather freed his slaves long befo' Abe Lincoln come along, messin' with ouah way of livin'. My grandaddy even gave his slaves a little piece of ground all their own, those he'd had a long time.

  Ouah nigras know we understand them and take care of them. Ouah good nigras don't want no interferin' nobodies from up No'th comin' round messin' up a relationship that's been so good and beautiful so long."

  David had quietly set his iron down at the end of the board at the beginning of Chuck's speech. Now he looked quickly at Sudsy and then at Tom, who was back on the couch. There was sheer horror on Sudsy's face, set cold anger on Tom's. He looked at Chuck, whose eyes met his squarely. Suddenly he put both hands on the ironing board and leaned forward, laughing the deep clear laughter of the man of whom Irene Champlin had said, "You could hear him laughing two courtyards away." When it was spent he said, "I don't know why you're wasting your time on liberal arts, Chuck; I swear I don't. Why didn't you go to one of those big dramatic schools in the East?"

  Chuck stood up. "Forget about that character Clevenger," he said. "You must have known we'd have 'em like that. They've got 'em everywhere, nearly as I can tell." He turned to the others. "I've got beer." He sighed gustily. "I'm ashamed, plumb ashamed to admit that I was saving it for next weekend. And I know where I can get more. I'll break it out now I'm a repentant sinner."

  CHAPTER 19

  "Lawd! What you moaning about? The boy ain't dead." Li'l Joe Champlin spoke aloud with only the yellow tail-less cat to hear. There was a great loneliness within him and an emptiness in the little white house that changed it from a cottage warm with life to a vast echoing hall, as chill and empty as a disused auditorium. It had not been like this even after Geneva died; then there had been a small boy and an old woman to silence the echoes.

  He pushed his supper dishes and coffee cup back and stood. "You just griping because now you has to wash the dishes," he told himself, and smiled at the liar he was talking to. This would be David's first night at the college, and he wondered what sort of room, in what kind of bed, his grandson would be sleeping.

  David had brought home some lamb liver for Stumpy the day before he left, and Li'l Joe began cutting it up in small pieces for the cat's ancient teeth. "Going over the river," he said to Stumpy. "Going to get that belly of yours full before I leaves."

  Perhaps somewhere over the river he would find one of the groups he played with and could sit in for a while. If not, there were plenty of warm, smoky places he could go and be greeted loudly by friends, where he could have a friendly drink or two. The doctor had said that one or two were O.K., but he wished he could get drunk; it had been a long time since he'd been good and happy drunk.

  He didn't suppose he'd feel a hell of a lot better even if he did go over the river. He'd still miss the boy because David had been going over with him often lately, playing piano sometimes. Playing it good
, too, thought Li'l Joe, even if he did have to get on the kid now and then for some of that "far-out" stuff he'd work in. No sense in it, good as the boy could play the real stuff. "Uncle Toms" was what the younger musicians were calling men like himself and Kid Arab and other older men, but they were wrong. Li'l Joe forced his mind to stay on this track, away from the boy's absence. People were asking for the old-time stuff these days, and it was coming back, professors and writers, all different kinds of whites, writing books about it, collecting records, asking ten thousand damfool questions a minute. Speaking for himself, he couldn't see anything Uncle Tom about it. Give the people who were paying their money what they wanted, don't bite off the tongue in your cheek; give 'em "Dixie" then come on strong with "Gettysburg March," and the hell with them; the kitty stayed full and you didn't have to scrape too hard to pay your ALEC and your N-double-A dues.

  Even some of the young whites were calling them "Uncle Toms," and Li'l Joe thought about it a lot, wondering what they'd have been like if they'd grown up the way the folks they criticized had grown up. A man's got to survive, he'd think. What they didn't know, what they didn't know at all, was that the guys who put on the biggest show of Uncle Tom-ing were the ones who hated the whites the most, men like Papa Ballantine and Bob John. Sometimes Papa Ballantine was enough to turn a man's stomach, capering around up there on the stage, talking to people sitting at the tables in the club where he'd played for years. "Lawd! Lawd 'a' mercy!" he'd say. "If there ain't Miss Betty So-and-So! Sho' glad to see you, Miss Betty. Folks, I been knowin' Miss Betty ever since she wasn't nothing but a baby. Been knowin' her mamma and her daddy, too. Lawd! Lawd! My mamma, she nursed Miss Betty's mamma way back there, way back, an' here's Miss Betty, pretty as a picture and got a baby herself! What you-all want Papa Ballantine to play for you, Miss Betty?"

  He knew, Li'l Joe knew, and so did the others in the band, that the little notes Bob John blew on his trombone before they started on "Miss Betty's" request were retches. And there didn't any of the whites, not any of them, know the things Papa Ballantine said when there wasn't anyone around but his own people. Lawd! Some of 'em wouldn't even know the meaning of the words.