Dark Don't Catch Me Page 21

  She gets up and crosses the room, saying, “Well, I can’t see that a musical instrument will do anything but improve Vivian.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t need to be improved.” “What do you mean by that?” She stops, staring at him. Storey shrugs. “Oh. I just mean I can’t imagine Vivs playing in a band.”

  “Well, thank you.” Kate Bailey stands and walks over to the piano.

  “And I just wish you’d stop making dirty insinuations about Vivs,” Storey says. “After all, they’re our best friends. I think the world and all of Thad, and they’re our best friends!”

  Kate Bailey begins to play, lightly, at first, softly; then gradually more loudly, until all the other noise is drowned out, save for the resolute strains of “Old Hundredth.”

  It is quiet in the rectory. Joh Greene hardly looks up as his wife opens the door quietly, slipping into the room with a tray of hot chocolate and crackers.

  Then he says, “Oh, thank you, Guessie.”

  “Working hard, darling?”

  “I don’t know why next Sunday’s sermon is giving me so much trouble. But it seems important to me.” “Of course it is.”

  “I’ve got my basic selling points, but I can’t seem to write the copy.”

  “Want me to try and help?”

  “Well, if you’d sit down and discuss this, it might do me a lot of good. Somehow I’ve got to get the idea of almighty Christ’s great gift of forgiveness across. Do you understand that?”

  “Because of Thad and Doc Sell?”

  “Not just them. Dix, too.”

  “Yes, Dix … I’d almost forgotten.”

  “Most everybody did. Nobody put any credence in the James girl’s testimony, but you and me know what Dix musta gone through up there. Somehow we got to help Dix forgive himself.”

  “He’s young, Joh. He’ll have to grow out of it. Then he’ll see he did right. For Colonel’s sake, he did.”

  “That’s just it. It’s between loyalty to his own blood and loyalty to the law, and Dix chose his own. But it wasn’t easy for him.”

  “It hasn’t been easy for anyone — none of it has.”

  “That’s why I got to give people peace of mind again. I just don’t seem to know how to do it. I got my selling point — the almighty Christ’s great gift of forgiveness,” he says, sinking back into the leather swivel chair, “but I can’t seem to write my copy so that it has any punch. I got my product, Guessie, but I can’t seem to hit on a way to present it.”

  “Maybe you ought to wait, Joh. Give your apple one this Sunday. You haven’t given that one in a long time.”

  Joh Greene shakes his head wearily. “Nope, Guessie, this hasn’t got anything to do with apples. This is a real hard one ot figure out.”

  • • •

  Through the darkness she makes her way down to The Toe, passing the tall empty field off Brockton Road, when the figure lurches out and grabs her wrist.

  “Barbara,” he moans, pulling her into the field with him, back near the clump of bushes. “Oh, my God, Barbara.”

  Her voice breaks as she says softly, “Hello, Dixon.” She looks down at his hand on her arm. “Do you have to do that?” she asks.

  “I have to talk to you, Barbara.”

  “You’re drunk, Dixon. Very drunk.”

  “I’ve been drunk a long time. Ever since — they say you’re going away. You’re not going away and leave me, are you?”

  “You don’t have to hold on to me, Dixon,” she says quietly.

  He sways, looking at her, then lets his grip on her loosen.

  “You’re going away. You’re going to wherever Hollis Jordan went. That’s what they say.”

  “That’s what they would say.”

  “Is it the truth?”

  “No, of course it isn’t. I don’t even know him.” “He took up for you. He acted like he — Why’d he take up for you?”

  She looks away from him, off at the fields. “I don’t know. Maybe he just cared about the truth.”

  “I couldn’t help it, Barbara. I couldn’t! My dad was — he was like a ghost around the house. It coming on top of my mother’s death. You shoulda seen my dad’s face, Barbara.”

  “I saw my dad’s when he came back from looking at that boy’s burned body.”

  “You think I’m a coward? You don’t know. It took courage. I love you, Barbara. God, when I sat across from you — It took — ” he sways, steadies himself, placing his hand on her shoulder — ”courage.”

  “Good-by, Dixon. We don’t have anything to talk about.” She shakes his head off her shoulder, and he grabs her wrist again.

  “We don’t have anything to talk about? I love you. I love you, Barbara.” His voice is a half-sob. “I couldn’t be any other way in that courtroom. I couldn’t! Barbara, listen — ” He pulls her toward him, lurching. “You’re so white. I always thought of you as white. I loved you. I still do.”

  “I used to love you too, Dixon. I always thought of you as colored,” she says.

  He laughs, his shoulders shaking, his black hair tossing over his forehead. “Me a nigger! You thought that, thought of me as colored, God!” he exclaims, laughing, and then drawing his breath in and giving a dry sob, he says, “Barbara! Barbara! Help me! Put your hands on my head. I’m hot, honey. Your hands are cool. Let’s forget all of it. I need you, Barbara. Barbara.”

  “You’re very drunk, Dixon,” she says. “I wish you’d let me go.”

  “I take after my mother. Don’t you know? I’m going to be a lush like her. Drink and drink and drink.” “Let me go, Dixon.” “Where? Where are you going?” “Just down to see the Posts to say good-by.” “When are you going to leave Paradise?” “Tomorrow.” “Going up North, huh?” “Yes.”

  “No!” he pulls her to him again, trying to kiss her, while she struggles out of his reach.

  He says, “You love me.”

  “No, I don’t, Dixon. I don’t love you.”

  “I love you!” he says angrily. “If I love you, you love me. You’re a — nigger. That’s right. If I love you, you love me.”

  “You’re hurting me, Dixon.”

  “I want you to love me.”

  “I can’t. I can’t love you again, Dixon.”

  “You’re not going away if you don’t love me. You’re like a disease.” He begins to talk in a husky, panting way. “You got into me like a disease. Now you want to walk out on me. Well, you’re not going to!”

  “Dixon, you’re hurting me.”

  “Love me! Kiss me, Barbara.”

  “No.”

  “You’re not up North yet.” “Please, Dixon, you’re hurting me.” “Then love me. Then kiss me.”

  “No! No, Dixon!”

  He stares at her, swaying as he holds her, his eyes narrowing. “Barbara, you’re not yourself.” “I am myself.”

  “You never refused me. Never! You been with that N.A.A.C.P. crowd! That Hollis Jordan.” “Stop it, Dixon. Leave me alone!”

  “Listen to me, you nigger,” he snaps. “Don’t talk that way to me. Lower your voice. You lower your goddam voice. You nigger! Don’t tell me you won’t love me, because you will love me, because I love you. Now c’mon!” He pulls her along the path.

  “Dixon, stop it!”

  His hand whips out suddenly, striking her. He says, “There!” while she holds the stinging part of her cheek with her fingers. Tears fill her eyes. “Don’t do this to yourself, Dixon. Don’t,” she says softly.

  “Don’t tell me what to do. Kiss me, Barbara.”

  “No.”

  He slaps her again. “You kiss me, nigger, you kiss me!” “No.”

  He says, “You’re in the South! I’m white and you’re a nigger, and I need you. I love you. I’m going to have you. I’m going to have you, and you’re going to take it, because you’re a nigger,” he says. He shoves her down; she kneels in the dust.

  A tear rolls down her cheek, but she says nothing; she stays still on her knees.

&nbs
p; “Get on your back!” he says. “Spread out flat.”

  Then stumbling, he falls on top of her….

  When it is done, Barbara James gets up, leaving him lying face flat in the clump of woods, his agonized sobbing sounding bleak in the night air as she walks away from him.

  He cries, “Barbara!” into the dirt.

  • • •

  “Kids tucked in?” Thad Hooper asks Vivian as she joins him on the veranda. She wears the black dress with the white Peter Pan collar; her face is white and drawn; devoid of makeup. She sits down beside him in the glider.

  “Yes, they’re all tucked in.”

  “Why do you sound so tired?”

  “I don’t know. It’s chilly — I ought to go in and get my sweater,” she answers, not moving.

  “I wish Hus would shut up! Can’t she do dishes without singing like some revivalist?”

  “Singing ‘Never Said A Mumbin’ Word again.” Vivian Hooper sighs.

  “It gets on my nerves! Damn nigger!”

  Vivian Hooper reaches over to touch him, then draws her hand back and places it in the other. “Oh, Thad, Thad,” she says. “When will everything be back to normal again?”

  “It’s not easy! I been through a lot, that’s sure!”

  “Yes a lot. A lot.”

  “You sound like you’re sorry or something.”

  “There’s not much to be glad about, Thad.”

  “Most any other woman would be goddam glad her man thinks enough of her to defend her honor!”

  “Oh, I’m — grateful, Thad. It’s just — just too bad.”

  “And now I got that damn nigger Tink Twiddy stealing me blind to top it! Never shoulda promised him work here. Damn nigger upstart! Hate having him around here all the time!”

  “He’s a help, with Major gone, though.”

  “Major never helped. Got so Major spent all his time down to the Ficklins. Got like a house pet down there. The way Bill Ficklin’s carrying on, think he was soft on him or something.”

  “Major used to help.”

  “Sometimes I actually think you miss that goddam nigger.”

  “Thad, no … let’s not start. No tonight. I want to go on in and get my sweater … Can I bring you something? A drink?” she asks, starting to move.

  “Wait a second.”

  “Hmmm?”

  “I said, wait a second. Don’t walk away from the subject any more. I’m getting tired of the way you walk out whenever it comes up.”

  “Thad, it’s chilly.”

  “There’s always an excuse. You just want to avoid the subject.”

  “I don’t like to think about it, if that’s what you mean.” “Why not?”

  “Well, it isn’t very — pleasant. Dwelling on it.” She knots her hands together, looking down at them as his eyes study her.

  “After what I did for you?” he says. “I did it for you, you know! I did it for you, and the things happening as a result are because I did it for you! My best friend backs down on me, but that doesn’t stop me, because you’re my wife, and I did it for you, Vivie!”

  “I didn’t ask you to, Thad. I never even knew about it until it was — over.”

  “You came screaming to me, didn’t you? You came screaming to me that that that nigger molested you, didn’t you? Screaming to me to protect you, didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t say he molested me. No, Thad, I didn’t say that.”

  “You don’t know what you said! You were screaming. You were scared outa your head. You came screaming to me for protection, didn’t you?”

  She answers quietly, “Yes, I was frightened. I was very frightened. Shocked, really. I’d been sitting there in the car thinking and when he looked in the window and did that — a stranger to me — it shocked me.”

  “Did what?” Thad Hooper asks. “That’s what I want to know. And I want to know the truth!”

  “Clucked his tongue, Thad. We’ve been all over it … Do we have to — ”

  “Look,” Thad Hooper interrupts her. “We haven’t been all over it! Not by a long shot! After what I did for you! All them Northern communist newspapers writing insinuations about me in their yellow rags like some slimy snake crawling across my good name. Them — and people right here in Paradise; my own people, never mind the Northerners, my own people, talking behind my back, avoiding me on the street, acting sheepish around me. My own people!”

  “People have tried to be nice, Thad. It’s very hard. But people stood by us, Thad. They stood by us — all through the trial.”

  “Us! Don’t say us! It’s been me who’s had to fight this, single-handed. It’s like Doc Sell didn’t have a dongedy-dang part in the thing. Just me. Not you. Not anybody else. Me!”

  “People don’t expect much from Doc Sell. He was always a troublemaker for the Nigraw … Thad, oh, honey — let’s forget — ”

  “We’re not going to forget! I have to pay for what I done, don’t I? Have to pay for it! For keeping a nigger from molesting my wife. Isn’t that the truth?” “All right … Yes, Thad.”

  “And what’s the rest of the truth, Vivie? Hah? I want the rest of it, do you hear? The whole truth, if I have to pay! Come on, Vivie, talk!”

  “What, Thad?” She looks up from her hands into his eyes. “What is it you want to hear?”

  “What I want to hear,” Thad Hooper says slowly, emphatically, bitterly, “is who spoke to who first?”

  “What?” Vivian Hooper stares incredulously at her husband.

  ‘That’s what I want to know,” he says, “who spoke to who first? Did the nigger speak to you first, or did you speak to the nigger first? That’s what I want to know,” Thad Hooper says, “and I won’t rest until I hear you say it!”

  Dark closes in on Paradise and settles down to stay.

  If you liked Dark Don’t Catch Me check out:

  Come Destroy Me

  Chapter One

  Q. You said what?

  A. I said I was glad he wasn’t fooling around with girls. His father died when Charlie was one year, and for fifteen years I had to be his mom and his dad and I was glad he was a good boy. He finished high way ahead of others his age and he was always reading books. This summer he went to the library practically every night. He never even thought about girls. I was glad. I thought to myself, I’ll never have to worry about Charlie.

  — From the testimony of the murderer’s mother

  FROM HIS BEDROOM window in the bungalow on Conrad Street, Charlie could see the hills of Azrael, burned rust color from the hot July sun. The little town was in the heart of the Green Mountains of Vermont, and if Charlie went to Harvard in the fall, he’d miss Azrael. Plenty! He’d miss those hills — he used to ski down them in the winter — and he’d miss the fresh green smell of Azrael in the spring. He’d miss walking up Sock Hill on his way from town, the giant pines lining the sides, the kids playing cave man in the vacant lot, and at the top the groups of granite workers gathered to wait for the red bus that went past the quarries. He’d miss sugaring time, the rows of trees with the pails hanging on their trunks, and the taste of the maple candy fresh made. Little things he’d miss. He’d miss … a lot of things.

  One thing he wasn’t sure about, because it was crazy. It was the library. Not just the library, but what it was like to be there. It was clean, for one thing, hallowed. There was never any noise. He could go there and stay there and no one ever looked over his shoulder or said anything to him or interrupted him. He spent a lot of time there, almost every night, and sometimes she came, but oh, what the hell, why think about her?

  Except I always do, he thought. Oh, wow, cripes, this is the silliest goddamn summer I ever spent. When will it be over?

  Charlie was tall, tall and thin with gaunt facial features that made him look older than sixteen, and a brush cut to his black hair, and piercing dark brown eyes. He wore a pair of gray summer slacks and a white shirt unbuttoned at his chest, no socks, and scuffed brown loafers on his feet. He picked up the r
ed leather-bound book of verse that was open on his desk, and, slumping down into the wicker chair with the soft brown pillows, he began to reread the poem, underscoring in ink.

  “I wish I were where Helen lies …”

  “Not him, he won’t come out to say good-by.” The saucy voice of his sister, Evie, drifted into the room from the hallway. “Really, Inez, you never saw such a hermit!”

  “I think he’s sexy,” Inez said.

  Evie raised her voice. “Hear that, Charlie? ‘Nez thinks you’re sex-see!”

  He began the line again: “I wish I were where Helen lies …”

  “Sex-see, Charlie — hear?”

  “I guess he doesn’t think I am,” Inez said.

  “Sex-see, Charlie.” Evie’s voice droned farther away as she walked with Inez to the front doorway.

  Charlie was staring at the print without knowing what the words said. It just ruined everything when Evie got that way. It spoiled everything. She was in love with talking like that since she began college. It made him ashamed of Evie, and, curiously, ashamed of himself too. It made him not want to finish what he was reading, and it reminded him of something funny to remember.

  He remembered going to the movies with his mother Friday nights in the winter, and the way he tried to hold his breath whenever a man and woman kissed on the screen. He tried to hold his breath so his mother wouldn’t hear his breathing hard, because he was embarrassed. Holding his breath only made it worse, and once he had a violent fit of coughing in a close-up where Dane Clark was kissing a girl in a two-piece bathing suit on a beach. Charlie had had to go downstairs in the lobby and get a drink, and when he saw his face in the mirror, he hated it. He said, “You!” to it, and wished to God he didn’t have to go back to his seat. When he did return, his mother smiled and whispered, “O.K.?” and he had wanted to slap her. Now explain that one! Ah, why try to understand everything?

  Evie wasn’t going to win this time. He picked up the book again and began to concentrate.

  “I wish I were where Helen lies …”

  “Char-lee!”

  “He won’t come, Mom. He’s busy — reading.”

  “Well, he better come. Can’t wait dinner for him.”