A Fine Dark Line

  I nodded at him, and kept walking.

  With the wind gone and the sky less black, it was no longer cold and the summer heat began to make things steam and soon I was sweating like a staked goat at a Fourth of July picnic.

  I walked by where Bubba Joe had bought the farm. I saw his knife lying there. Buster had forgotten to pick it up.

  I looked around. No one was in sight. I went over and kicked the knife against a tree, used the toe of my shoe to knock dirt over it.

  As I did this, a tremble went through me. I thought of Bubba Joe chasing us the other night, earlier today when he had his hand twisted in my shirt, his breath beating me with tobacco and liquor. I thought about the way Buster had drawn his own knife across Bubba Joe’s throat, quick and simple like a teacher drawing a chalk line. I thought too of the creek where Buster had tossed Bubba Joe like so much rotten wood.

  I could hear the creek water rushing, full of the power of the rain. I thought of Bubba Joe lying down there, the crawdads working at him like they work at bacon on a string. I had the urge to go over for a look. But didn’t.

  15

  I ARRIVED HOME in the late afternoon. When I stepped inside the house, I tried my best to act as if nothing had happened. At first, somehow, I thought my family knew. They were as excited to see me as Lazarus’s family was to see him step from the tomb.

  Rosy Mae started in with, “We been worried ’bout you, Mr. Stanley. We thought you’d have enough sense to come home right away, way that storm was goin’.”

  Callie laughed. “But you didn’t.”

  “I got stranded in town,” I said. “I sat it out in the drugstore.”

  I felt sick to my stomach lying like that, but didn’t know what else to do. Telling them I had gone to Buster’s and that Buster was stone drunk, and Bubba Joe had tried to kill me, and Buster had cut his throat, just didn’t seem like the kind of information they needed to hear right then. In fact, it was information I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. Ever.

  “We should never have let you go out with that storm brewing,” Mom said. “I get so mad at myself when I allow my common sense to be overridden by my desire to make you happy.”

  “I bet there won’t be any use opening the drive-in tonight,” Dad said, standing at the front door, looking out. “I got a feeling the rain will start up again.”

  Mom hustled me through the kitchen, into their bathroom, pulled a big towel out of the cabinet and gave it to me. I was still damp, and so were my clothes, but compared to how wet I had been, I thought of myself as comfortable.

  “Go upstairs and put on some dry clothes,” Mom said. “Come down and I’ll have you some cocoa warmed up . . . Is Nub bleeding?”

  She had eyeballed a streak of blood running down his fur, and she bent down to examine him.

  “Yeah,” I said. “He sort of run off for a while. I guess he got in a fight.”

  Now I was compounding my lie.

  Daddy came into the kitchen, bent over Nub, examined the wound. “Looks like a knife cut. Must have been a cat he got into it with. I’ll put some alcohol on it.”

  “He won’t like that,” I said.

  “He won’t even notice.”

  Since Buster had poured alcohol on Nub, and Nub had yelped, I knew he minded.

  Upstairs, I put on some dry clothes, combed my hair in front of the mirror. I looked at my face, thinking somehow it looked different. Older. Scared. Confused maybe.

  I sat for a moment, just breathing. Trying to get my strength and courage back. I felt as if something living inside of me had been stolen, taken away and mistreated, then returned without all of its legs.

  Downstairs, I found Nub dried off and doctored. He was lying on the floor on a thick towel Mom had laid down.

  “How did he like the alcohol?” I asked.

  “You were right,” Daddy said. “He didn’t like it.”

  I had the cocoa while Mom clucked over me.

  Callie had said very little. She sat at the far end of the table with her own cup of cocoa, looking at me with those woodburner eyes of hers.

  Finally, everyone but myself moved into the living room. They planned to watch television, but the storm had come back and was so fierce, they knew that was pointless. With only three channels, and one of them brought in only by judicious turning of the outside antenna, it would have been nothing but a crackling noise and a screenful of electric snow.

  I sat in the kitchen and sipped my cocoa. Rosy Mae came in from the living room to start dinner. She said, “You look like you done seen a ghost, Mr. Stanley.”

  “Just Stanley. Remember?”

  “You ain’t been in no kind of trouble, have you, Stanley?”

  I shook my head. Rosy Mae didn’t push it. She got a cup, went to the stove, poured the remaining hot milk from the pan into her cup, then stirred in cocoa.

  “It works better you put the cocoa in first,” I said.

  “I didn’t know that, and me bein’ a cook. But I don’t drink me no cocoa much.”

  She sat down at the table and studied me. “You sure you’re all right? I read one of them Sherlock Holmes stories from that book. He sure smart, ain’t he?”

  “He is.”

  Dad came into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, got out a pitcher of tea and poured it into a tall glass with flower designs. He mixed sugar into it, sat at the table and stirred his tea with a spoon. He said, “Weather stays this bad, I’m just gonna close her down tonight. I thought the family could go see the minstrel show at the school.”

  I knew the word family would exclude Rosy Mae. Rosy, taking the cue, left the room.

  “What’s a minstrel show?” I asked.

  “Well, this one is some white folks just having a little fun. They put on blackface makeup, big white lips, and play music. Tell a few jokes. I’ve been to a few of them. They’re entertaining.”

  After what I had gone through, the idea of staying home alone with the wind howling around the house was more than I wanted to deal with.

  “That sounds fine to me.”

  “We’ll have to wait, see if it clears,” Daddy said. “It does, we got to open up. Tell you the truth, I hope it does stay this way. We could all use a night out.”

  ———

  IT WAS ABOUT SIX when Buster showed up for work. It was still raining and he came through the back like he always did, where the cars drove out. He was wearing a rain slicker with the hood pulled over his head. He was carrying a metal container with a handle and had a thermos under his arm. He went out to the projection booth.

  Daddy was standing at the back door, watching Buster go into the booth. He said, “Now he shows up. He couldn’t show when we’re going to be open, he has to show now. Get on your slicker, go out there and tell him we’re closing tonight. And I hope he doesn’t expect to get paid just for showing up. He gets paid when we all get paid, and tonight no one gets paid. Except maybe the farmers. And that minstrel show.”

  I got my rain slicker, slipped it on, went out to the projection booth. Buster had removed his rain gear, turned on his little light, and was sitting there plucking items from the metal container.

  “I brought some newspaper accounts to read,” he said. “And plenty of black coffee.”

  “There isn’t going to be any movie tonight,” I said, pulling my hood back.

  “Figured as much, but I thought I ought to show for work. Stan, I may not always seem like a friend, but I appreciate you bein’ one.”

  “You saved my life.”

  “Matter of time for Bubba Joe. Just happened to be me did him in. Could have been anyone. Would have eventually been someone.”

  “You talked about Margret’s mother. That she was. . . well . . .”

  “A prostitute.”

  “That means lots of men would come there . . . to Margret’s house. Right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It could have been any of them, couldn’t it?”

  “It could have.”

&n
bsp; About that time, Daddy called from the house. “Come on, Stanley. You need to get ready.”

  “We’re going to see the minstrel show,” I said.

  “That’ll be a treat. Seein’ a bunch of peckerwoods in blackface . . . You go on. We’ll talk later. Hey, I was gonna stay here and read. Think your daddy would mind?”

  “Not if you don’t mention it.”

  “Maybe that dog of yours—”

  “Nub?”

  “Yeah. Nub. Maybe he could come out and keep me company.”

  “I’ll tell Rosy Mae to let him out after we leave.”

  “Good. And Stan, them letters from Margret? Could I see them?”

  “I’ll try and slip them out. I can’t promise, but I’ll try.”

  “Good enough.”

  I pulled my hood up and went out into the rain.

  ———

  THE MINSTREL SHOW was at our school, which back then housed all grades except kindergarten. Kindergarten was operated out of a teacher’s house.

  The show was in our school auditorium, and you paid fifty cents to get in. There were signs on the wall outside of the auditorium. They read: “NIGGER MINSTREL SHOW. Clean humor for the family. Music. Jokes. Hijinks. Fifty cents.”

  Inside we took our seats, which were about a third of the way from the front. In the back an old colored janitor stood ready with his rolling garbage can to pick up messes when it was over. The messes would be cups and wrappers for food and drinks being sold to raise money for the band and baseball team to buy equipment.

  The PTA had put a table alongside the wall. They had soft drinks in a couple of coolers and they made hot dogs on the spot, pulling the dogs from an electric stew pot with long tongs, slapping them on mustard- and relish-coated buns.

  It took about fifteen minutes for the auditorium to fill, and fill it did. There were even a few people standing in the back.

  When the lights went down, two white men dressed in blackface with white lips came out, one played a banjo, and they both sang. The songs were what many think of as slave classics, like “Way Down Upon the Swanee River,” “Jimmy Crack Corn,” and later on a few religious numbers, like “The Great Speckled Bird” and “I’ll Fly Away.”

  There were jokes, all of them with Negroes as the butt. The jokes had to do with fishing, eating watermelon and fried chicken, being lazy and happy as birds; just funny colored people who loved to laugh, sing, and dance, and make white folks smile.

  I was getting into the spirit of things, laughing along with everyone else, when I heard a loud coarse laugh from the back of the auditorium. I turned to look. It was the old colored janitor standing by his rolling trash can, a broom sticking out of it. He was laughing so hard I thought maybe he might have to be knocked unconscious to shut him up.

  In that moment something switched on inside of me. And I thought, here’s a colored man who thinks this is funny. That making fun of him and his people is humor.

  I didn’t laugh another time. And it wasn’t due to resistance. Nothing they did on stage the rest of the night struck me as funny.

  On the way home I was so silent, Daddy asked me if I was okay, if I had had fun.

  I told him I had. I didn’t know what else to say.

  Callie said, “Well, I laughed a few times, and I liked the music, but I don’t know any colored people like that. I don’t think Rosy Mae would have liked it.”

  “It’s not for Rosy Mae,” Dad said.

  “My point exactly,” Callie said.

  I looked at her, sitting across from me on the back seat, and I truly loved her for the very first time in my life. I had come to like her in the last few days, but now I loved her.

  Mother said, “I think you’re right, Callie. Actually, me going to see that makes me a little ashamed. And did you see that sign? Nigger Minstrel. Not even Colored or Negro. But Nigger.”

  “No harm’s meant in it,” Daddy said.

  “It hurt my feelings,” Mom said.

  We drove to the Dairy Queen, parked out front, under the canopy, and with the windows rolled down we could hear the rain pounding on it.

  A young blond girl in blue jeans and a man’s shirt, her hair in a ponytail, came out to the car. Water was splashing up and under the canopy and hitting her on the shoes and blue jeans and you could tell from the look on her face she didn’t like it.

  When she saw Callie she shrieked, and Callie shrieked. This seems to be the teenage girl greeting. Obviously they knew each other. Callie seemed to know everyone. They exchanged greetings, said we have to talk, then the girl, whose name was Nancy, took a pencil out from behind her ear, a pad from her back blue jeans pocket, and asked what we’d have.

  We ordered and Nancy went away. Daddy said, “You girls sound like wounded birds.”

  “Oh, Daddy,” Callie said.

  When the food came, it was on a tray that fastened to Daddy’s window. He sorted out who had what, and we sat there and ate. Daddy tried to bring up the minstrel show, to talk about a funny moment here and there, and though we had all laughed at times, none of us were proud of it, except maybe Daddy, who couldn’t see any wrong in it.

  We ate, gave up our tray, and drove away from there, the rain pummeling us harder than ever.

  16

  SUMMER VACATION was winding down. I was nervous about the prospect of starting a new school, and I had Bubba Joe on my mind. At night, when I tried to lie down, I no longer thought of something ghostly. I thought of Bubba Joe. The way he had looked at me just before the light went out of his eyes and his soul fell down that long tunnel to hell.

  Bubba Joe had deserved it. Buster had saved my life. But it wasn’t that easy. Someone cleared their throat, the water gurgled down the sink, it sounded like that gurgle Bubba Joe had made before he let go and went away.

  Even some of the movies we showed bothered me. The way people died on film was not the way Bubba Joe died. No last words, dramatic moments. Just bloody and dead.

  I tried to stay busy, and one thing I stayed busy with was mine and Buster’s mystery. I guess it was Callie’s mystery too. I kept her informed but she didn’t show much interest.

  She started dating Drew Cleves. He seemed nice enough. He had treated me well enough that day on the hill.

  Mama liked him.

  Daddy didn’t. Then again, he wasn’t crazy about any boy who dated or even wanted to date Callie.

  Because of Drew, Callie was out on dates a lot, driving away the summer, going downtown to the indoor movie, hanging out at the drugstore over hamburgers and malts.

  The family still thought about Bubba Joe now and then, but not much. It was assumed he had moved on since the cops hadn’t heard of nor seen hide nor hair of him.

  I, of course, knew he was dead, and every day I woke up as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. A big shoe. Bubba Joe’s body found somewhere along the creek. In time, though, even I thought less about him.

  Daddy had gotten used to me going out to the projection booth to spend time with Buster, and I think, in the back of his mind, he thought I was learning better how to run the projector. It was a practical consideration for him. For me it was fun.

  We had still not talked to Winnie.

  I asked Buster about that.

  “I’m holdin’ back,” he said. “This is a game to us, but that was her daughter got killed.”

  “I really do care who killed her. I’d like to see the police nab him.”

  “That may be, Stan, but this woman, she don’t understand that.”

  “What is there to understand?”

  “She gonna believe some boy and a nigger gonna get her daughter justice? That’s hard to buy, even if we are sincere . . . And you know, I don’t think there’s a chance in hell we’ll solve anything. I’m doing it to keep from thinkin’ about whiskey and what I ought’a have done and didn’t and won’t never and can’t never do. You understand what I’m sayin’, boy?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I ain’t sayin’ you
r heart ain’t in the right place, I’m just tellin’ you life ain’t fair. Just ’cause you want somethin’, don’t mean you’ll get it. It ain’t like them Sherlock Holmes stories. They help you to think. Why I gave the book to you—You keep it. I don’t want it back. Anything happens to me, all them books are yours—”

  “Nothing is going to happen—”

  “Just listen. Life ain’t fair, and it don’t always have everything fit together like a puzzle. Some things just are and there ain’t no explainin’ them. You can come up with maybes, and sometimes you’ll find the real reason. But a lot of what happens don’t never make sense and don’t never jibe together. Hear me?”

  “Yes, sir . . . But, isn’t there some way we can talk to her?”

  Buster grinned at me. “You ain’t no quitter. I give you that. Maybe there is. I been thinkin’ on it. If I do talk to her, it ain’t gonna be we. It’s gonna be me.”

  “But you said—”

  “Don’t remember what I said, but I ain’t gonna drag no little white boy off to a whore’s house to chat about her dead daughter. Now how you think your daddy feel about that? You think that’s gonna do my job any good?”

  I was disappointed. I thought I was going to be in on it. Not only the investigation, but meeting Margret’s mother, and a live whore. I sat there for a while and listened to the reel clatter in the projector. I knew pouting would get me nowhere with Buster. Finally, I said, “Well, when are you going to do it?”

  Buster pursed his lips. “Tonight, when I finish here.”

  “Won’t that be late?”

  “Not for her. I’ll report to you tomorrow mornin’, if you’ll come over to the street alongside the grocery. We can sit on the curb and visit. Let’s say nine in the mornin’.”

  “If I’m not there, Daddy or Mom hung me up. Okay?”

  “I understand.”

  ———

  NEXT MORNING I was up early. I left a note saying I was going to buy comic books at the drugstore with my allowance.

  Rosy caught me on the way out.

  “Where you runnin’ off to this mornin’ without yo’ dog?” She was sitting up on the couch, scratching her head.