A Lesson Before Dying (6 page)

“Anything else?” Guidry asked me.

“When can I start coming up there?”

“Not for a couple of weeks,” Guidry said. “Let him get used to it. Report to Chief Deputy Clark if I'm not around. Don't bring anything up there you don't want taken away from you—knife, razor blade, anything made of glass. Not that I expect him to do anything—but you can never be sure. Anything else?”

“No, sir, nothing else.”

Guidry nodded. “Good luck. But I think it's all just a waste of time.”

“Thank you, sir.”

I waited until they had left the kitchen, then I went out to my car and drove away.

7

TWO THINGS HAPPENED
at the school during the weeks before I visited Jefferson in jail. The superintendent of schools made his annual visit, and we got our first load of wood for winter.

We heard on Monday by Farrell Jarreau, who had gotten the news from Henri Pichot, that the superintendent was going to visit us sometime during the week, but we didn't know what day or time. I told my students to take baths each morning and wear their best clothes to school. After the Pledge of Allegiance in the yard and the recitation of Bible verses inside the church, I would send a student back outside to look out for the superintendent. If the student saw a car, any car, turn off the highway down into the quarter, he or she was supposed to run inside and tell me.

The superintendent didn't show up until Thursday. By then we had had many false alarms. The minister of the church, who didn't live in the quarter, had made a couple of visits to church members. A doctor had come once, a midwife had visited a young woman twice, an insurance man had shown up, a bill collector from a furniture store had appeared, Henri Pichot had driven through the quarter at least once each day, and family and friends of people in the quarter had also visited. On Thursday, just before two o'clock, the boy I had watching for cars ran into the church.

“Another one, Mr. Wiggins, another one.”

“All right,” I said to the class. “Keep those books opened and look sharp.”

I passed my fingers over my shirt collar and checked the knot in my necktie. I felt my jacket to be sure both flaps were outside the pockets. I had three suits—navy blue, gray, and brown. I had on the blue one today. In the yard, I passed the tips of my shoes over the backs of my pant legs. Now I was ready to receive our guest.

This time it was the superintendent. He stopped his car before the door of the church. A thick cloud of gray dust flew over the top of the car and down into the quarter. The superintendent was a short, fat man with a large red face and a double chin, and he needed all his energy to get out of the car.

“Dr. Joseph,” I said.

“Hummmm. Stifling,” he said.

I thought it was a little cool myself, but I figured that anyone as heavy as he was must have felt stifled all the time. He wheezed his way across the shallow ditch that separated the road from the churchyard. He looked up at me, but I could tell he didn't remember my name, though he had visited the school once each year since I had been teaching there.

“Grant Wiggins,” I said.

“How are you, Higgins?”

“Wiggins, sir,” I said. “I'm fine.”

“Well, I'm not,” he said. “All this running around. More schools to attend.”

Dr. Joseph visited the colored schools once a year, the white schools probably twice—once each semester. There were a dozen schools in the parish to visit, if that many.

“We're honored that you took this time for us, sir.”

He grunted and looked around the yard. There was a good breeze coming in from the direction of the cane fields, and it wavered the flag on the pole in the yard.

“Place looks about the same,” Dr. Joseph said.

“Things change very slowly around here, Dr. Joseph,” I said.

“Hummmm,” he said.

I motioned for him to precede me into the church. He needed all his strength to go up the three wooden steps, and as he entered the doorway, I heard Irene Cole, the sixth-grade student in charge, call out to the class: “Rise. Shoulders back.”

I followed Dr. Joseph down the aisle, and on either side of us, the students from primer through sixth grade stood as still and as straight as soldiers for inspection.

I nodded toward my desk for Dr. Joseph to take my chair. He grunted, which meant thanks, and pulled the chair farther from the desk before he sat down. He needed the extra distance for comfort.

Irene was watching me all the time, and when I nodded to her, she called out to the classes: “Seats.” And the whole school sat as one. We had been rehearsing this, morning and afternoon, for the past three days.

“Students, I'm sure you all know Dr. Joseph Morgan,” I told them. “Dr. Joseph is our superintendent of schools here in St. Raphael Parish. He has taken time out of a very busy schedule to visit us for a few minutes. Please respond loudly: ‘Thank you, Dr. Joseph.'” Which they did, loudly.

Dr. Joseph acknowledged their greeting: “Hummmm.”

“Dr. Joseph, we're at your service,” I said, and sat down on one of the benches against the wall.

Dr. Joseph leaned back in the chair, and still his large stomach nearly touched the edge of the table. He looked over the classes from one side of the aisle to the other, as though he was trying to catch someone doing something improper.

“Primer, on your feet,” he said.

They stood up, seven or eight of them. Dr. Joseph looked them over for a moment, then he told the little girl at the end to come forward. She took a deep breath and looked at the girl standing beside her before coming up to the desk. She was afraid, but she came up quickly and stood before the table with her little arms tight to her sides. She would not look up.

“Nothing to be afraid of, child,” Dr. Joseph said to her. “What is your name?”

“Gloria Hebert,” she said.

“I can't hear you if you keep your head down,” Dr. Joseph told her.

She looked up, timidly. “Gloria Hebert.”

“That's a pretty name,” Dr. Joseph said. “Hold out your hands.”

She must have thought she had said or done something wrong, because as she held her hands out across the table, palms up, I could see them trembling.

“Turn them over,” Dr. Joseph told her.

She did.

“Uh-huh,” he said. “Relax.”

She did not know what he wanted her to do.

“Lower your arms, child,” Dr. Joseph said.

She brought her arms back to her sides and lowered her eyes as well.

“Did you say your Bible verse this morning, Gloria?”

“Yes, sir, Dr. Joseph.”

“Well, what did you say?” he asked her.

“I said, ‘Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,' Dr. Joseph.”

“Hummm,” Dr. Joseph said. “Seems I've heard that one before. But you're a bright little girl. You tell your folks Dr. Joseph said they ought to be proud of you. Go back to your seat.”

“Thank you, Dr. Joseph,” she said, bowing and turning away quickly. She smiled as she faced forward again. But no one else was smiling.

“Primers, take your seats,” Dr. Joseph said. “First graders, on your feet.”

And he called on the one boy in class who I wished had stayed home today. He was without doubt the worst child in the school. He came from a large family—thirteen, fourteen, fifteen: I don't know how many—and he had to fight for every crumb of food he got. At school he did the same. He fought if he played marbles, he fought if he played ball, he fought if he played hide-and-go-seek, he fought if he played hide-the-switch. In class he fought with those who sat in front of him, beside him, behind him. I had punished him as much during the last month as I had all the other children put together.

Dr. Joseph asked his name, and he ran together three words even I couldn't understand. His name was Louis Washington, Jr., but what he said didn't sound anything like that.

“Your hands,” Dr. Joseph told him.

The hands had been cleaned an hour before, I was sure, because I had checked each pair when the students came in from dinner. But now the palms of those same hands were as black and grimy as if he had been pitching coal all day.

“Did you pledge allegiance to the flag this morning?” Dr. Joseph asked him.

“Yazir,” he said. Not “Yes, sir,” as I had told him a hundred times to say. “Yazir.”

“Well?” Dr. Joseph said.

“Want me go stand outside and s'lute flag?” the boy asked.

“You don't have to go outside,” Dr. Joseph said. “You can show me in here.”

The boy raised his hand to his chest.

“Plege legen toda flag. Ninety state. 'Merica. Er—er—yeah, which it stand. Visibly. Amen.”

Dr. Joseph grunted. Several students giggled. Dr. Joseph seemed quite satisfied. I would have to do a lot more work.

For the next half hour it continued. Dr. Joseph would call on someone who looked half bright, then he would call on someone whom he felt was just the opposite. In the upper grades—fourth, fifth, and sixth—he asked grammatical, mathematical, and geographical questions. And besides looking at hands, now he began inspecting teeth. Open wide, say “Ahhh”—and he would have the poor children spreading out their lips as far as they could while he peered into their mouths. At the university I had read about slave masters who had done the same when buying new slaves, and I had read of cattlemen doing it when purchasing horses and cattle. At least Dr. Joseph had graduated to the level where he let the children spread out their own lips, rather than using some kind of crude metal instrument. I appreciated his humanitarianism.

Finally, when he felt that he had inspected enough mouths and hands, he gave the school a ten-minute lecture on nutrition. Beans were good, he said. Not only just good, but very, very good. Beans, beans, beans—he must have said beans a hundred times. Then he said fish and greens were good. And exercise was good. In other words, hard work was good for the young body. Picking cotton, gathering potatoes, pulling onions, working in the garden—all of that was good exercise for a growing boy or girl.

“Higgins, I must compliment you. You have an excellent crop of students, an excellent crop, Higgins. You ought to be proud.”

He had said the same thing the year before, and he had called me Higgins then too. And the year before that he had said the same thing, but he had called me Washington then. At least he was getting closer to my real name.

“Rise,” Irene called to the class.

They came to their feet, their heads up, their arms clasped to their sides. But instead of feeling pride, I hated myself for drilling them as I had done.

Dr. Joseph and I went down the aisle. Outside, he looked up at the flag waving on its bamboo pole in the corner of the fence. I thought for a moment the superintendent was about to salute it, but he was either too tired or too lazy to raise his hand.

“Doing a good job, Higgins,” he said.

“I do the best I can with what I have to work with, Dr. Joseph,” I said. “I don't have all the books I need. In some classes I have two children studying out of one book. And even with that, some of the pages in the book are missing. I need more paper to write on, I need more chalk for the blackboards, I need more pencils, I even need a better heater.”

“We're all in the same shape, Higgins,” he said.

I didn't answer him.

“I said we're all in the same shape, Higgins, the white schools just as much as the colored schools. We take what the state gives us, and we make the best of it.”

“Many of the books I have to use are hand-me-downs from the white schools, Dr. Joseph,” I said. “And they have missing pages. How can I—”

“Are you questioning me, Higgins?”

“No, sir, Dr. Joseph. I was just—”

“Thank you, Higgins.”

He started to get back into his car. It was harder to do than getting out, because he was upset with me now.

“More drill on the flag, Higgins,” he said, through the rolled-down window. “More emphasis on hygiene.”

“Some of these children have never seen a toothbrush before coming to school, Dr. Joseph.”

“Well, isn't that your job, Higgins?”

“Yes, sir, I suppose so. But then I would have to buy them.”

“Can't they work?” he asked me. “Look at all the pecan trees.” He waved his hand toward the yards. “I wager you can count fifty trees right here in the quarter. Back in the field, back in the pasture, you can count another hundred, two hundred trees. Get them off their lazy butts, they can make enough for a dozen toothbrushes in one evening.”

“That money usually goes to helping the family, Dr. Joseph.”

“Then you tell the family about health,” he said, looking out of the rolled-down window to let me know that his visit was over. “I have another school to visit. All this running around 'nough to give a man a heart attack.”

He drove away. I stood there until he had turned his car around and started back up the quarter. I waved at him, but he did not wave back.

8

THE WEEK AFTER
the superintendent paid his visit to the school we got our first load of wood for winter. Two old men brought the wagonload about eleven o'clock that morning. We did not have a gate wide enough for the wagon to come through, so the men came into the yard next door to the church. One got down off the wagon to open the gate, and the other drove the wagon into the yard. I could not see them, but I could hear them. They were joking about the mules, the wood, and the weather. One of them said, “Don't let Bird hang us up in that ditch, now. I don't feel like unloading all this wood 'way out here and got to put it on that wagon again.”

“She go'n pull,” the other one said. “Hi, there, Bird, get them shoulders in there.”

I heard the wagon cross the ditch and enter the yard.

“All right,” I said to the class. “The first one who looks outside will spend an hour in the corner. They can do pretty well without you.”

The wagon came farther into the yard on the other side of the fence, passing the church windows. I could see the two mules—one big and red, the other small and dark brown with long, droopy ears—pulling hard into the chains. Then I saw the long poles of wood stacked high upon the wagon, with one of the old men riding atop the wood while the other, the one who had opened the gate, walked alongside the wagon. They were still joking and laughing.

“Louis Washington junior, get back into that corner and face the wall.”

“But, Mr. Wiggins, now you was looking out that window too, now. I seen you.”

“Just out of the corner of my eye,” I said.

“Now, I was just looking out the corner of my eye too, Mr. Wiggins.”

“In that case I won't punish you for looking out the window,” I said. “But I'm going to punish you for using bad grammar. You were supposed to say, ‘You
were
looking out the window, Mr. Wiggins,' not ‘You
was
looking out the window, Mr. Wiggins.' Get back in that corner and face the wall and stay there. One more word out of you, and you'll spend the rest of the day standing on one leg.”

Sitting at my desk, I could hear the old men unloading the wood, throwing the long poles across the fence and into the churchyard. They were still kidding each other.

“Show me them grits, show me them grits you had this morning.”

“I got my end up.”

“Well, I got the heavy end.”

“You sure got that right.” They both laughed. And I heard the wood come across the fence.

This went on for half an hour, then one of the men knocked on the back door. I went to see what he wanted.

“Professor,” he said, and smiled.

Henry Lewis was a short black man with hardly any teeth. His hands were the color and texture of the legs of a snapping turtle. He wore an old straw hat, a green and brown plaid shirt, khaki pants, and rubber boots. He had grandchildren in the school.

“Some wood there,” he said. “I'm leaving the saw and couple them axes. Your boys can chop it up.”

“Appreciate it, Mr. Lewis,” I said.

“Glad to be of service.”

I spoke to Amos Thomas, who sat on the wagon. The thin, brown-skinned man nodded at me.

“That ought to hold you awhile,” Mr. Lewis said to me. “Just call 'fore it run out. Somebody get you another load.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Bye, Professor.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Lewis. Mr. Thomas.”

I returned to my desk.

“All right,” I said to the class. “It's a quarter to twelve now. I'm letting you out early because you'll have to chop wood this afternoon. I want you all back up here by twelve-thirty.”

That afternoon, I stood by the fence while the fifth- and sixth-grade boys sawed and chopped the wood. The smaller boys and all the girls were inside. They wanted to know why they had to study while the older boys were outside having fun. I told them that they could have fun the next day picking up chips and stacking wood while the older boys were inside studying. They did not see this as quite the same, but when I didn't give them any other choice, they grudgingly relented. I gave them assignments and left Irene Cole in charge.

Standing by the fence, I watched the five older boys saw and chop the wood. Two would saw while another would straddle the wood pole to keep it steady. The other two boys split logs and chopped up small branches with the axes. They laughed and kidded each other while they worked.

And I thought to myself, What am I doing? Am I reaching them at all? They are acting exactly as the old men did earlier. They are fifty years younger, maybe more, but doing the same thing those old men did who never attended school a day in their lives. Is it just a vicious circle? Am I doing anything?

After a while, they exchanged the saw and axes. The ones who had been sawing were now splitting logs, the other two were pulling on the handles of the saw. The smallest boy still held the log as steady as he could with his hands and knees.

With my back to the fence as I watched them, I remembered when it was I who had swung that ax and pulled my end of the saw. And I remembered the others, too—Bill, Jerry, Claudee, Smitty, Snowball—all the others. They had chopped wood here too; then they were gone. Gone to the fields, to the small towns, to the cities—where they died. There was always news coming back to the quarter about someone who had been killed or sent to prison for killing someone else: Snowball, stabbed to death at a nightclub in Port Allen; Claudee, killed by a woman in New Orleans; Smitty, sent to the state penitentiary at Angola for manslaughter. And there were others who did not go anywhere but simply died slower.

The big mulatto from Poulaya had predicted it, hadn't he? It was he, Matthew Antoine, as teacher then, who stood by the fence while we chopped the wood. He had told us then that most of us would die violently, and those who did not would be brought down to the level of beasts. Told us that there was no other choice but to run and run. That he was living testimony of someone who should have run. That in him—he did not say all this, but we felt it—there was nothing but hatred for himself as well as contempt for us. He hated himself for the mixture of his blood and the cowardice of his being, and he hated us for daily reminding him of it. No, he did not tell us this, but daily he showed us this. As clearly as anything, he showed his hatred for himself, and for us. He could teach any of us only one thing, and that one thing was flight. Because there was no freedom here. He said it, and he didn't say it. But we felt it. When we told our people how we felt, they told us to go back and learn all we could. There were those who did go back to learn. Others who only went back. And having no place to run, they went into the fields; others went into the small towns and cities, seeking work, and did even worse.

But she told me that I would not be one of the others, that I would learn as much as he could teach me, then I would go away to learn from someone else. But that I would learn as much as he could teach me. And when he saw that I wanted to learn, he hated me even more than he did the others, because I challenged him when the others did not. The others believed what he said. They went out into the fields, went into the small towns and into the cities and died. So you think you can? he said. So you think you can? No, he did not say it with words, only with his eyes. You will be the loser, my friend. Maybe he did not say “friend”; he probably didn't say “friend”; “fool,” more likely. Anyway, you will be the loser, he said. Yes, I will teach you. You want to learn, I will help you learn. Maybe in that way I will be free, knowing that someone else has taken the burden. Good, good, you want to learn? Good, good, here is the burden.

Even after I had gone away for further education, on returning to the plantation to visit my aunt I could still see the hatred in him. And after he had retired from teaching because of ill health and I would visit him at his home in Poulaya, I would still feel his hatred for himself, for me, for the world. Once, as I sat at the fireplace with him, he said to me, “Nothing pleases me more than when I hear of something wrong. Hitler had his reasons, and even the Ku Klux Klans of the South for what they do. You don't believe me, do you?” he asked me. “No, sir, I don't,” I said. “You will one day,” he said. “I told you what you should have done, but no, you want to stay. Well, you will believe me one day. When you see that those five and a half months you spend in that church each year are just a waste of your time, you will. You will. You'll see that it'll take more than five and a half months to wipe away—peel—scrape away the blanket of ignorance that has been plastered and replastered over those brains in the past three hundred years. You'll see.” Then he would be quiet for a long time, while we both stared into the fire.

“I'm cold,” he said one day while we sat there looking into the fire. I got up to put on another piece of wood. “That's no good,” he said. “I'll still be cold. I'll always be cold.” He looked at me. “You'll see, you'll see.” “I must,” I said. “No, you don't must,” he said. “You want to. But you don't must.” “You did,” I said. “Yes, I did,” he said. “But I told you not to. I told you to go. God has looked after them these past three hundred years without your help. He won't—” “God?” I said. Because I had never heard him say God before. Because when we had said our Bible verses for him, he seemed to have hated the very words we spoke. “Sir, did I hear you say—?” “I'm cold”—he cut me off. “I stay cold. You better go. Come back some other time if you like. I made a mistake.” I came back a month later. I remember that it was cold that day too.

Now, about that mulatto teacher and me. There was no love there for each other. There was not even respect. We were enemies if anything at all. He hated me, and I knew it, and he knew I knew it. I didn't like him, but I needed him, needed him to tell me something that none of the others could or would.

I brought some wine that day. He sent me into the kitchen to get two glasses. “This will warm you up,” I said. “Nothing can warm me up,” he said. He sat in the rocker, gazing down at the fire, with the blanket tight around him. He was a big-boned man, but very skinny now. “To flight,” he said, raising his glass. “But you didn't go,” I said. “I'm Creole,” he said. “Can't you tell?” “Was that it?” I asked him. “That was it,” he said. “I'm Creole. Do you know what a Creole is? A lying cowardly bastard. Did you know that?” “No, I didn't know that,” I said. “I was afraid,” he said, looking into the fire. “I was afraid to run away. What am I? Look at me. Where else could I have felt superior to so many but here?” “Is that important?” I asked him. “It is,” he said. “For everyone. Especially for the whites and the near whites. It is important.” “Do you feel superior to me?” I asked him. “Of course,” he said. “Don't be a damned fool. I
am
superior to you. I am superior to any man blacker than me.” “Is that why you hate me?” I asked him. “Exactly,” he said. “Because that superior sonofabitch out there said I am you.” “Do you think he is superior to you?” I asked him. “Of course,” he said. “Don't you?” “No,” I said. “Just stay here long enough,” he said. “He'll make you the nigger you were born to be.” “My only choice is to run, then?” I asked him. “That was your choice. But you won't. You want to prove I'm wrong. Well, you'll visit my grave one day and tell me how right I was.” “Tell me more,” I said. “What's wrong with that university?” he asked. “Don't they tell you?” “They tell me how to succeed in the South as a colored man. They tell me about reading, writing, and arithmetic. I need to know about life.” “I can't tell you anything about life,” he said. “What do I know about life? I stayed here. You have to go away to know about life. There's no life here. There's nothing but ignorance here. You want to know about life? Well, it's too late. Forget it. Just go on and be the nigger you were born to be, but forget about life. You make me tired, and I'm cold. The wine doesn't help.”

I visited him again only a month or two before he died, in the winter of '42. He was forty-three years old. That was my first year as a teacher. I had been teaching two or three weeks when I visited him. We had just gotten our first load of wood for winter. Maybe that's why I had gone to see him. I could always remember that first load of wood for winter, how we older boys had chopped the wood into smaller pieces while he stood back against the fence, overseeing us. He looked terribly frail that day. I hadn't seen him in several months. He was being looked after by a relative, who did not care too much for anyone visiting him, and especially darker people. She admitted me into the room and left us. He sat at the fireplace. Summer or winter, he always sat at the fireplace when he was inside. We shook hands. His hand was large, cold, and bony. He was coughing a lot. “We got our first load of wood last week,” I told him. “Nothing changes,” he said. “I guess I'm a genuine teacher now,” I said. He nodded, and coughed. He didn't seem to want to talk. Still, I sat there, both of us gazing into the fire. “Any advice?” I asked him. “It doesn't matter anymore,” he said. “Just do the best you can. But it won't matter.”