Five Smooth Stones (41 page)

"And drunk."

How had this son of a bitch known that? There was no question in his tone; it was a flat statement of fact. "A little," said David.

The dean's pipe was making bubbling, sucking sounds. He took it from his mouth and said, "There is a rule about liquor in the students' rooms. As you well know. It must be obvious to you, David, that either someone brought liquor to Sutherland while he was still in the Infirmary—possibly slipping it through the window—or he became drunk with you. We know that Sutherland boarded the train in a very unsteady —a drunken—condition. And that you were with him when he boarded. You must have realized that as soon as his absence was noted a most extensive inquiry would be made. We checked airports and railroad stations—both Cincinnati and Columbus. The least, the very least, you could have done was notify me or some faculty member of the circumstances."

He hadn't thought of that. Goodhue was dead right there. He'd been too upset, too sick in his mind over Sudsy's trouble, to do the sensible thing. "Yes, sir," he said. "I realize that now."

"A little late," said Goodhue. "Yes, David, a little late."

"But, Dean. I did not take liquor to the Infirmary, and I did not help him to get out of there. The first I knew of his being out was when he showed up at my room."

"If that story is true, he must have done his drinking with you."

"He did." He was damned if he'd tell Goodhue the liquor had been left in his room by a couple of guys in the adjoining room.

"Then what was Sutherland's car, with you driving, doing at the rear entrance of the Infirmary late in the afternoon? You were obviously putting something in the luggage compartment."

I'd lie to you, thought David. I'd lie to you with no more compunction than I'd have in lying to any white man in New Orleans who'd put me on a spot. But the truth is so damned simple. He told Goodhue, as he had told Knudsen, the reason for the stop.

"I can prove that Sutherland was in Emory Hall before that," he said when he finished.

"I hope so, David."

"Clevenger saw us. Randolph Clevenger saw us when we were walking down the upper hallway to Sutherland's room. He was coming out of the showers."

A quiet hung between them that was different from the voicelessness of previous pauses in their conversation. He looked into Goodhue's face and saw that the slate-colored eyes were looking over his head, fixed, without expression. When the dean spoke at last he made no reference to David's statement of having been seen by Clevenger in Emory Hall. The damned red-neck phony, thought David; he's taking it for granted that I'm lying, and why in hell would I tell a lie I could be caught out in so easily?

Goodhue went on. "All of the Quimby scholarship students have a grave responsibility, a responsibility to improve in every way possible the image of their race—"

That's how your great-grandaddy died, son, my daddy, and you're better off getting it from me.... Died on a fire like a roast of meat.... Young Abr'am Jefferson, he went crazy, he went plumb crazy.... That white doctor come near him and he went screaming crazy... ran out of that house Of theirs and down the street... and there wasn't no one could catch him... screaming all the way... "Coming, Jesus. I'm coming, Jesus!"...And when he got to the riverfront he threw hisself in the water and drownded....
What a pretty image, what a pretty, pretty white image it was when the sight of a white doctor coming toward him could send a Negro out of his mind.... What a pretty image, what pretty, pretty images those white men must have made standing round the fixe that burned David Champlin like a roast of meat.

"David. You weren't listening."

"I'm afraid not, Dean." He stood up.

He realized now there was no point in staying longer. The picture was clear. Clevenger hadn't seen them; Clevenger, walking across the hall just behind them, hadn't heard Sudsy's loud "Come on, come
on,
David. You've been dragging your ass all afternoon." The hell he hadn't! David turned toward the door, and a sharp voice halted him.

"One moment, David! I have not dismissed you yet. There is one other—er—factor involved in this situation. I shall not go into it, except to say that I am aware of it. These problems are not strange to us, or to any college. However, when they become known, steps must be taken. We do not condemn; we try to understand; however, our duty is painfully clear."

David looked down at the man behind the desk. His bewilderment was so great he could not keep it from his eyes. What was the old fart getting at? What in the name of God was he talking about? He wouldn't—he couldn't—give him the satisfaction of asking. Whatever it was, it couldn't be true, but—
What the hell you want to do a damfool thing like that for... argue with 'em?...It don't do no good.... They ain't going to believe you was Jesus Christ to be standing side of you swearing to it.
He told himself: Keep your mouth shut, David. This is evil, white evil; don't mess with it.

"You appear puzzled, David, You will, I am sure, understand what I am talking about if you give the matter some thought. I believe you do now." Goodhue rapped his pipe sharply on the edge of a heavy ashtray, then picked up a knife and began scraping at the bottle. "The next thing is Sutherland's car."

"Sutherland asked me to keep it. He told me to use it for the remainder of the term."

The slate-colored eyes looking up at David were bleak. "I hardly think Sutherland was in a position—condition, I should say—to exercise sound judgment. I shall notify Clifton's family that the car is in storage. The key, please."

The leather key container lay on Goodhue's desk when David left the room. He had not spoken. Outside, a raw wind was rising. Because Sudsy's car had a heater and was warm, he had worn only a light pullover sweater, and the shoes he had put on were lightweight. He knew depressions and faults lay below the gray slush of the driveway. Behind him, he was certain, Goodhue would be sitting at his desk, the full length of the driveway within his range of vision. The soft ground at the edge of the driveway would be wet, soggy, but it would give better footing, would not trap him into a treacherous hole. He felt the cold ooziness of the slush and mud through his shoes, felt it seeping inside, but he limped along the unpaved edge without fearing a sudden slip, the humiliation of a fall with Goodhue watching.

CHAPTER 30

David's first class on Monday was Benford's, at ten o'clock. It was the only day he did not have an early class, and he usually made trite and corny cracks to the students he met on campus who were leaving their first and second classes, like "Why don't you stay in bed and get more sleep?" He didn't make any remarks to anyone this morning, not only because he did not feel like it but also because something in the faces of his hurrying classmates stopped any greeting before it could cross his lips. What was the matter with these self-righteous characters? Hadn't any of them ever broken a college regulation? Were they so damned full of rectitude and piety they'd shy away from a guy just because he was in a jam?

In class he was more inept and prone to error than he had ever been, even in his first semester. He cringed inwardly in expectation of Benford's sarcasm, but it did not come. In fact, Beanie was unusually tolerant and patient. He had taken a seat beside Chuck, whose attitude seemed no different than it had ever been. Ella Denslow, a white femme student whom he had always disliked heartily was sitting a few chairs away, and light from the window's big single pane was falling directly in her eyes. Just as Beanie came through the doorway back of his desk she walked to the window and lowered the Venetian blind. On her way back to her seat she glanced at David, and he almost gasped audibly at the repugnance in her eyes.

There was a letter to Gramp in his pocket, written the night before, not making excuses, just saying that he was coming home and that he hoped Gramp would understand. It didn't mean he had given up college, the letter said; just that

he was coming home and would then seek entrance to another college and cram so that he could finish in three years instead of four, and go on to law school. It might even be that he could beat the letter home, if Dr. Sutherland's check was in the noon mail at the rec hall, and if he spent most of it by taking a plane.

He was doodling in the margin of his notebook, fierce-looking lions and tigers, an elephant, a snake wearing hornrimmed glasses, and did not hear Beanie's dismissal of the class, only heard him say: "Champlin. Please remain for a few minutes. Unless you have another class immediately."

"Yes, sir," said David. He did have another class: Bur-bridge's in ancient history, but the hell with it. He had learned all Burbridge was teaching now in the Prof's study in New Orleans.

He sat quietly while the others filed out, only one or two of them able to keep from looking at him curiously. He felt Chuck's big fist punch his shoulder, said, "Hey!" halfheartedly.

He had expected Benford to call him back into his office behind the classroom. Instead the Professor nodded his long, skull-like head at his student, then inclined it toward the doorway that led to a small bricked balcony overlooking the inner quadrangle, more of a terrace than a balcony, with three steps leading down to a narrow paved walk. He thought that the whole lousy situation was a nightmare, and of all the persons who could make it more of a nightmare no one was better equipped than Beanie, with his whiplash phrases and razor-edged sarcasm.

A sun too bright for winter, too pale for summer, was behind Benford as he walked to the brick wall that surrounded the balcony, threw a sweater he had brought with him over it, and perched on it like a giant bird, long, thin legs swinging, teeth showing white in the black gauntness of his face. He laid a bony hand over the wall beside him. "Sit down, David Champlin," he said. "Relax." Then, when David hesitated, added, "Res' yo'self."

It was like misjudging the number of risers in a flight of stairs, coming to the top and thinking there was another, stepping on it and jolting to a stop when it wasn't there. "Res' yo'self" wasn't New Orleans or Atlanta or Birmingham or Richmond—it was just colored, gentle, kindly older-generation colored; and not older generation, either, because he used it himself instinctively when he was home and friends came to the house. Beanie had sounded—damned if he hadn't—like Gramp. He didn't think Beanie would use it as a mockery, as Simmons or Dunbar would. But he didn't know; he didn't know anything anymore, either about his own people here or the people of the other world he had elected to thrust himself into. He didn't know anything for sure, and he felt lost and sad and rebellious. He wanted to run, run as fast as his bandy leg would let him and, running, call over his shoulder to the man on the wall: "Don't worry yourself, you hear? Don't worry yourself about David. David's gone—he's long gone!"

He did not run. Instead he obeyed Benford's gesture, hoisted himself to the wall beside the Professor, throwing his duffel coat over it first.

"Almost warm enough to go fishing," said Beanie. "More like baseball than football weather."

"Yes, sir," said David. And waited.

"Used to play baseball," said Beanie.

David could not stop the surprised turn of his head. "Yeah?"

"Outfit called the Black Pelicans. In Georgia, where I was born. You're learning mathematics, David, from a man who once pitched against the great Satch Paige."

"Yeah? Well—I mean—gosh, did you win?"

"He shut us out. The concept of jet propulsion was inspired by Satch's arm."

Even in his bewildered aloneness David wanted to ask questions. Satch Paige was Gramp's hero. It would be fun telling Gramp that he knew someone who had pitched against him. He was finding it hard to adjust to this bit of information, trivial though it was. Beanie had been Beanie since the day he was born, as far as his students were concerned. He had certainly never been a pitcher on a Negro baseball team, and before that a skinny youngster playing in the red dust of Georgia. Now Beanie had hooked a heel over the edge of the wall and wrapped long arms around his knee.

"I keep my secrets," he said. "Especially the secret that, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, I'm a human being." Benford tightened his arms around the knee, waited a moment, then said abruptly, "Did you pack last night?"

David was silent, kicking a heel against the bricks, rubbing a hand along their roughness.

"None of my business, of course," said Benford. "None of my business at all. But the reason I asked the question is because I packed a number of times myself. Six, to be exact."

"Yes, sir," said David. Here it comes, he thought—the lecture. "It's not going to take long to do that. Pack, I mean."

"Two hours at the most," said the man beside him.

David slid to his feet, plunging his hands into his pockets, facing Beanie from an angle so the sun would not be in his eyes. He'd forestall the lecture. There was nothing to lose now.

"You didn't run away," he said. "That's what you're trying to say—that you didn't run away. I'm not running away. They're going to kick me out anyhow. I'm just not giving them the chance. It's better to leave, isn't it, than be expelled? Better on your record' when you enter another college? You think they'll ask me at Howard or Tuskegee or Dillard why I quit? You think they won't know? But if I get expelled, then they'll think I'm a troublemaker, breaking rules, all that—in a white college, yet. All this talk about 'this isn't a white college' is a lot of crap. I shouldn't have come here in the first place."

"You should have listened to your grandfather? That's what you're trying to say?"

"No—I—well—what do you mean?"

"Just that. And I wish you'd sit down. You didn't listen to your grandfather when he said, 'Don't mess around with the whites, son. You'd be better off getting yourself an education with your own. You want to be worried all the time, fighting the white's prejudice, trying to study and learn, worried all the time about the way they going to act?' "

The smile came so quickly, spontaneously, David could not control it. "You might have been there," he said. "How'd you know?"