He slammed the book shut. He slapped himself fiercely on the back, missing the wily mosquito, and whirled to find it. He took a magazine and folded it into a swatter. Then he saw it—oh, the preternatural cunning of it!—poised in the beard of St Joseph on the bookcase. He could not hit it there. He teased it away, wanting it to light on the wall, but it knew his thoughts and flew high away. He swung wildly, hoping to stun it, missed, swung back, catching St Joseph across the neck. The statue fell to the floor and broke.
Mrs Stoner was panting in the hall outside his door.
“What is it?”
“Mosquitoes!”
“What is it, Father? Are you hurt?”
“Mosquitoes—damn it! And only the female bites!”
Mrs Stoner, after a moment, said, “Shame on you, Father. She needs the blood for her eggs.”
He dropped the magazine and lunged at the mosquito with his bare hand.
She went back to her room, saying, “Pshaw, I thought it was burglars murdering you in your bed.”
He lunged again.
THE EYE
ALL THEM THAT dropped in at Bullen’s last night was talking about the terrible accident that almost happened to Clara Beck—that’s Clyde Bullen’s best girl. I am in complete charge of the pool tables and cigar counter, including the punchboards, but I am not at my regular spot in front, on account of Clyde has got a hot game of rotation going at the new table, and I am the only one he will leave chalk his cue. While I am chalking it and collecting for games and racking the balls I am hearing from everybody how Clara got pulled out of the river by Sleep Bailey.
He is not one of the boys, Sleep, but just a nigger that’s deef and lives over in jigtown somewhere and plays the piano for dances at the Louisiana Social Parlor. They say he can’t hear nothing but music. Spends the day loafing and fishing. He’s fishing—is the story—when he seed Clara in the river below the Ludlow road bridge, and he swum out and saved her. Had to knock her out to do it, she put up such a fight. Anyways he saved her from drownding. That was the story everybody was telling.
Clyde has got the idee of taking up a collection for Sleep, as it was a brave deed he done and he don’t have nothing to his name but a tub of fishing worms. On the other hand, he don’t need nothing, being a nigger, not needing nothing. But Clara is Clyde’s girl and it is Clyde’s idee and so it is going over pretty big as most of the boys is trying to stay in with Clyde and the rest is owing him money and can’t help themselves. I chipped in two bits myself.
Clyde is just fixing to shoot when Skeeter Bird comes in and says, “Little cold for swimming, ain’t it, Clyde?”
It upsets Clyde and he has to line up the thirteen ball again. I remember it is the thirteen ‘cause they ain’t nobody round here that’s got the eye Clyde has got for them big balls and that thirteen is his special favor-ite, says it’s lucky—it and the nine. I tell you this on account of Clyde misses his shot. Looked to me and anybody else that knowed Clyde’s game that what Skeeter said upset his aim.
“What’s eating you?” Clyde says to Skeeter, plenty riled. I can see he don’t feel so bad about the thirteen getting away as he might of, as he has left it sewed up for Ace Haskins, that claims he once took a game from the great Ralph Greenleaf. “You got something to say?” Clyde says.
“No,” Skeeter says, “only—”
“Only what?” Clyde wants to know.
“Only that Bailey nigger got hisself scratched up nice, Clyde.”
“So I am taking up a little collection for him,” Clyde says. “Pass the plate to Brother Bird, boys.”
But Skeeter, he don’t move a finger, just says, “Clara got banged up some, too, Clyde. Nigger must of socked her good.”
None of us knowed what Skeeter was getting at, except maybe Clyde, that once took a course in mind reading, but we don’t like it. And Clyde, I can tell, don’t like it. The cue stick is shaking a little in his hand like he wants to use it on Skeeter and he don’t shoot right away. He straightens up and says, “Well, he hadda keep her from strangling him while he was rescuing her, didn’t he? It was for her own good.”
“Yeah, guess so,” Skeeter says. “But they both looked like they been in a mean scrap.”
“That so?” Clyde says. “Was you there?”
“No, but I heard,” Skeeter says.
“You heard,” Clyde says. He gets ready to drop the fifteen.
“Yeah,” Skeeter says. “You know, Clyde, that Bailey nigger is a funny nigger.”
“How’s that?” Clyde says, watching Skeeter close. “What’s wrong with him?” Clyde holds up his shot and looks right at Skeeter. “Come on, out with it.”
“Oh, I don’t know as they’s a lot wrong with him,” Skeeter says. “I guess he’s all right. Lazy damn nigger is all. Won’t keep a job—just wants to play on the piano and fish.”
“Never would of rescued Clara if he didn’t,” Clyde says. “And besides what kind of job you holding down?”
Now that gets Skeeter where it hurts on account of he don’t work hisself, unless you call selling rubbers work or peddling art studies work. Yeah, that’s what he calls them. Art studies. Shows a girl that ain’t got no clothes on, except maybe her garters, and down below it says “Pensive” or “Evening in Paris.” Skeeter sells them to artists, he says—he’ll tell you that to your face—but he’s always got a few left over for the boys at Bullen’s.
Well, Skeeter goes on up front and starts in to study the slot machines. He don’t never play them, just studies them. Somebody said he’s writing a book about how to beat them, but I don’t think he’s got the mind for it, is my opinion.
Clyde is halfway into the next game when Skeeter comes back again. He has some of the boys with him now.
“All right, all right,” Clyde says, stopping his game.
“You tell him, Skeeter,” the boys says.
“Yeah, Skeeter, you tell me,” Clyde says.
“Oh,” Skeeter says, “it’s just something some of them is saying, Clyde, is all.”
“Who’s saying?” Clyde says. “Who’s saying what?”
“Some of them,” Skeeter says, “over at the Arcade.”
The Arcade, in case you don’t know, is the other poolhall in town. Bullen’s and the Arcade don’t mix, and I guess Skeeter is about the only one that shows up regular in both places, on account of he’s got customers in both places. I’d personally like to keep Skeeter out of Bullen’s, but Clyde buys a lot of art studies off him and I can’t say nothing.
After a spell of thinking Clyde says to Skeeter, “Spill it.”
“May not be a word of truth to it, Clyde,” Skeeter says. “You know how folks talk. And all I know is what I hear. Course I knowed a long time that Bailey nigger is a damn funny nigger. Nobody never did find out where he come from—St Louis, Chicago, New York, for all anybody knowed. And if he’s stone deef how can he hear to play the piano?”
“Damn the nigger,” Clyde says. “What is they saying, them Arcade bastards!”
“Oh, not all of them is saying it, Clyde. Just some of them is saying it. Red Hynes, that tends bar at the El Paso, and them. Saying maybe the nigger didn’t get them scratches on his face for nothing. Saying maybe he was trying something funny. That’s a damn funny nigger, Clyde, I don’t care what you say. And when you get right down to it, Clyde, kind of stuck up like. Anyways some of them at the Arcade is saying maybe the nigger throwed Clara in the river and then fished her out just to cover up. Niggers is awful good at covering up, Clyde.”
Clyde don’t say nothing to this, but I can tell he is thinking plenty and getting mad at what he’s thinking—plenty. It’s real quiet at Bullen’s now.
“Maybe,” Clyde says, “maybe they is saying what he was covering up from?”
“Yeah, Clyde,” Skeeter says. “Matter of fact, they is. Yeah, some of them is saying maybe the nigger raped her!”
Bang! Clyde cracks the table with his cue stick. It takes a piece of pearl inlay right out of th
e apron board of the good, new table. Nobody says nothing. Clyde just stares at all the chalk dust he raised.
Then Skeeter says, “Raped her first, rescued her later, is what they is saying.”
“What you going to do, Clyde?” Banjo Wheeler says.
“Clyde is thinking!” I say. “Leave him think!” But personally I never seed Clyde take that long just to think.
“Move,” Clyde says.
The boys give Clyde plenty of room. He goes over to the rack and tips a little talcum in his hands. The boys is all watching him good. Then Clyde spits. I am right by the cuspidor and can see Clyde’s spit floating on the water inside. Nobody says nothing. Clyde’s spit is going around in the water and I am listening to hear what he is going to do. He takes the chalk out of my hand. He still don’t say nothing. It is the first time he ever chalks his cue with me around to do it.
Then he says, “What kind of nigger is this Bailey nigger, Roy?”
Roy—that’s me.
“Oh, just a no-good nigger, Clyde,” I say. “Plays the piano at the Louisiana Social Parlor—some social parlor, Clyde—is about all I know, or anybody. Fishes quite a bit—just a lazy, funny, no-good nigger . . .”
“But he ain’t no bad nigger, Roy?”
“Naw, he ain’t that, Clyde,” I say. “We ain’t got none of them kind left in town.”
“Well,” Clyde says, “just so’s he ain’t no bad nigger.”
Then, not saying no more, Clyde shoots and makes the ten ball in the side pocket. I don’t have to tell you the boys is all pretty disappointed in Clyde. I have to admit I never knowed no other white man but Clyde to act like that. But maybe Clyde has his reasons, I say to myself, and wait.
Well, sir, that was right before the news come from the hospital. Ace is friendly with a nurse there is how we come to get it. He calls her on the phone to find out how Clara is. She is unconscious and ain’t able to talk yet, but that ain’t what makes all hell break loose at Bullen’s. It’s—un-mis-tak-able ev-i-dence of preg-nan-cy!
Get it? Means she was knocked up. Whoa! I don’t have to tell you how that hits the boys at Bullen’s. Some said they admired Clyde for not flying off the handle in the first place and some said they didn’t, but all of them said they had let their good natures run away with their better judgments. They was right.
I goes to Ace, that’s holding the kitty we took up for the nigger, and gets my quarter back. I have a little trouble at first as some of the boys has got there in front of me and collected more than they put in—or else Ace is holding out.
All this time Clyde is in the washroom. I try to hurry him up, but he don’t hurry none. Soon as he unlocks the door and comes out we all give him the news.
I got to say this is the first time I ever seed Clyde act the way he do now. I hate to say it, but—I will. Clyde, he don’t act much like a man. No, he don’t, not a bit. He just reaches his cue down and hands it to me.
“Chalk it,” he says. “Chalk it,” is all he says. Damn if I don’t almost hand it back to him.
I chalk his cue. But the boys, they can’t stand no more.
Ace says he is going to call the hospital again.
“Damn it, Clyde,” Banjo says. “We got to do something. Else they ain’t going to be no white woman safe in the streets. What they going to think of you at the Arcade? I can hear Red Hynes and them laughing.”
That is the way the boys is all feeling at Bullen’s, and they say so. I am waiting with the rest for Clyde to hurry up and do something, or else explain hisself. But he just goes on, like nothing is the matter, and starts up a new game. It’s awful quiet. Clyde gets the nine ball on the break. It hung on the lip of the pocket like it didn’t want to, but it did.
“You sure like that old nine ball, Clyde,” I say, trying to make Clyde feel easy and maybe come to his senses. I rack the nine for him. My hand is wet and hot and the yellow nine feels like butter to me.
“Must be the color of the nine is what he like,” Banjo says.
Whew! I thought that would be all for Banjo, but no sir, Clyde goes right on with the game, like it’s a compliment.
A couple of guys is whistling soft at what Banjo got away with. Me, I guess Clyde feels sorry for Banjo, on account of they is both fighters. Clyde was a contender for the state heavy title three years back, fighting under the name of Big Boy Bullen, weighing in at two thirty-three. Poor old Banjo is a broken-down carnival bum, and when he’s drinking too heavy, like last night and every night, he forgets how old and beat up he is and don’t know no better than to run against Clyde, that’s a former contender and was rated in Collyer’s Eye. Banjo never was no better than a welter when he was fighting and don’t tip more than a hundred fifty-five right now. What with the drink and quail he don’t amount to much no more.
And then Ace comes back from calling up the hospital and says, “No change; Clara’s still unconscious.”
“Combination,” Clyde says. “Twelve ball in the corner pocket.”
That’s all Clyde has got to say. We all want to do something, but Banjo wants to do it the worst and he says, “No change, still unconscious. Knocked out and knocked up—by a nigger! Combination—twelve ball in the corner pocket!”
“Dummy up!” Clyde says. He slugs the table again and ruins a cube of chalk. He don’t even look at Banjo or none of us. I take the whisk broom and brush the chalk away the best I could, without asking Clyde to move.
“Thanks,” Clyde says, still not seeing nobody.
I feel kind of funny on account of Clyde never says thanks for nothing before. I wonder is it the old Clyde or is he feeling sick. Then, so help me, Clyde runs the table, thirteen balls. Ace don’t even get a shot that game.
But, like you guessed, the boys won’t hold still for it no more and is all waiting for Clyde to do something. And Clyde don’t have to be no mind reader to know it. He gets a peculiar look in his eye that I seed once or twice before and goes over to Banjo— to—guess what?—to shake his hand. Yes sir, Clyde has got his hand out and is smiling—smiling at Banjo that said what he said.
Banjo just stands there with a dumb look on his face, not knowing what Clyde is all about, and they shake.
“So I’m yella, huh, Banjo?” That’s what Clyde says to Banjo.
I don’t know if Banjo means to do it, or can’t help it, but he burps right in Clyde’s face.
Boom! Clyde hits Banjo twice in the chin and mouth quick and drops him like a handkerchief. Banjo is all over the floor and his mouth is hanging open like a spring is busted and blood is leaking out the one side and he has got some bridgework loose.
“Hand me the nine, Roy,” Clyde says to me. I get the nine ball and give it to Clyde. He shoves it way into Banjo’s mouth that is hanging open and bleeding good.
Then Clyde lets him have one more across the jaw and you can hear the nine ball rattle inside Banjo’s mouth.
Clyde says, “Now some of you boys been itching for action all night. Well, I’m here to tell you I’m just the boy to hand it out. Tonight I just feel like stringing me up a black nigger by the light of the silvery moon! Let’s get gaiting!”
Now that was the old Clyde for you. A couple of guys reaches fast for cue sticks, but I am in charge of them and the tables, and I say, “Lay off them cue sticks! Get some two by fours outside!”
So we leaves old Banjo sucking on the nine ball and piles into all the cars we can get and heads down for the Louisiana Social Parlor. I am sitting next to Clyde in his car.
On the way Ace tells us when he called the hospital the second time he got connected with some doctor fella. Ace said this doctor was sore on account of Ace’s girl, that’s the nurse, give out information about Clara that she wasn’t supposed to. But the doctor said as long as we all knowed so much about the case already he thought we ought to know it was of some months’ standing, Clara’s condition. Ace said he could tell from the way the doctor was saying it over and over that he was worried about what we was planning to do to the coo
n. Ace’s girl must of copped out to him. But Ace said he thanked the doc kindly for his trouble and hung up and wouldn’t give his right name when the doc wanted to know. We all knowed about the doctor all right—only one of them young intern fellas from Memphis or some place—and as for the some months’ standing part we all knowed in our own minds what nigger bucks is like and him maybe burning with strong drink on top of it. Ace said he hoped the nurse wouldn’t go and lose her job on account of the favor she done for us.
The only thing we seed when we gets to the Louisiana is one old coon by the name of Old Ivy. He is locking up. We asks him about Sleep Bailey, but Old Ivy is playing dumb and all he says is, “Suh? Suh?” like he don’t know what we mean.
“Turn on them there lights,” we says, “so’s we can see.”
Old Ivy turns them on.
“Where’s the crowd,” we says, “that’s always around?”
“Done went,” Old Ivy says.
“So they’s done went,” Skeeter says. “Well, if they’s trying to steal that piano-playing nigger away they won’t get very far.”
“No, they won’t get very far with that,” Clyde says. “Hey, just seeing all them bottles is got me feeling kind of dry-like.”
So we gets Old Ivy to put all the liquor on the bar and us boys refreshes ourselfs. Skeeter tells Old Ivy to put some beer out for chasers.
Old Ivy says they is fresh out of cold beer.
“It don’t have to be cold,” Skeeter says. “We ain’t proud.”
Old Ivy drags all the bottled beer out on the bar with the other. Then he goes back into the kitchen behind the bar and we don’t see him no more for a little.
“Hey, old nigger,” Skeeter says. “Don’t try and sneak out the back way.”
“No, suh,” Old Ivy says.
“Hey, Old Ivy,” Clyde says. “You got something to eat back there?”
“Suh?” He just gives us that old suh. “Suh?”