Marcus was through bathing, all right; he had even put on a suit and he was sitting at the table, eating. Clorestine brought me and Miss Julie some ice cream and pie to the table. George and the children were sitting on the couch, looking through a magazine.
“You planning on going somewhere?” I asked Marcus.
“A short piece,” he said.
“Yes?” I said.
“Yes,” he said, looking at me.
He had on a white sharkskin suit. His shirt and his tie were blue, but the tie little darker than the shirt. A silver tie clip held the tie and the shirt together. Marcus looked at me for about long as it take you to chew two or three times, then he turned from me again. He thought he had got his point over. I looked at the old lady who had been saying what a good boy he was.
“You won’t be long, will you, Marcus?” she said. “That boy might have friends out there and they might …”
She stopped because he wasn’t even listening. When he got through eating, he got up from the table and went to George sitting on the couch.
“Borrow your keys, George?” he said.
George didn’t answer him; he didn’t even look at him.
“George, can I borrow the keys to your car?” Marcus said again.
George raised his head this time.
“You think you doing the right thing?” he said. “That white man done put up money to get you out and—”
“Man, just lend me the keys,” Marcus said. “You don’t have to preach to me.”
George got the keys out of his pocket and handed them to Marcus. I thought I had seen and heard enough, and when he went out the door I went after him. I caught up with him just as he went down the steps.
“A second,” I said.
“Hurry up,” he said. “I’m late.”
“Where you think you’re going, Marcus?”
“I got a date,” he said.
“You got a date on that plantation,” I said.
“I’ll see you later,” he said, turning to leave.
I jerked him back around.
“Don’t you never do that no more,” he said, threatening me.
“What would you do, boy? What?”
“Plenty,” he said.
I got so mad with him then, I wanted to slam him up against that truck. I had raised my hands to grab him when I noticed Miss Julie had come to the door. Marcus turned from me and went to the car and drove up the street. I stood there watching the car until it had turned left on the other street; then I went back inside.
“Be little patient with him, he’s all right,” Miss Julie said.
“He’ll pay for it, not me,” I said.
“What y’all doing in the field, now?” George asked me.
“Pulling corn,” I said. I sat at the table and started eating again.
“That’s some mean work, huh?” George asked.
“I drive the tractor and I have an umbrella,” I said. “The ones walking behind that trailer got the mean part of it.”
“You can’t tell him nothing,” George said.
“You got to have little patient,” Miss Julie said.
“Patient, patient, patient,” George said. “You been saying patient ever since he been staying here. It ain’t done a bit o’ good.”
“And suppose you didn’t have a mama to raise you, you think you be any better?”
“I’d least listen to people trying to help me,” George said.
“Marcus is a good boy,” Miss Julie said, eating ice cream. “He’s a good boy,” she said again.
Marcus got back around midnight, and by the time we finished loading the truck it was twelve thirty. George and Clorestine and the children had gone to bed long ago, but Miss Julie had waited up with me. She went to Marcus and put her arms around him and started crying when he got ready to leave. She told him to be sure to come back and see her next week sometime. She told him if he didn’t come to see her, then she was coming to see him. Marcus didn’t say a word. He let her hold him and cry over him, but he didn’t open his mouth. She followed us to the door and waved again just before I drove away. Marcus didn’t even look back; he just sat there like he was half dead. From the way his clothes was smelling, I wouldn’t have doubted he wasn’t.
When we got back to the plantation, I helped Marcus unload his clothes and the bed. There wasn’t any light in the room so I loaned him an old lantern that I had in the kitchen. We put the bed together, then I took the truck back up the quarter. Bonbon’s house and the yard were black and quiet. The dog didn’t even bark when I parked the truck there. I put the keys in the dash drawer and went back down the quarter. Marcus was still up when I came to the house. I went to my room and got ready for bed.
“There ain’t a closet or a chifforobe or nothing in here,” he said, from the other side.
“You can hang those things up tomorrow,” I said.
“I want put them up tonight,” he said.
I didn’t say any more because I was mad already for staying in Baton Rouge so long. I got on my knees and made the Sign of the Cross, then I got into bed. Long time ago I used to say the whole prayer, but that was long ago when I was young and when I thought the Old Man was going to do it all for me. But now I know I have to do it for myself. Still, I make the Sign of the Cross every night to stay in practice. Who knows? Maybe I’ll go back to the full thing again some day.
“You got a hammer and some nails?” Marcus said. He was in my room now, standing right over my head. I could smell that whore reek in his clothes.
“Get out of here, boy,” I told him. “If you don’t want to sleep, please, let me sleep.”
“I got to hang up my clothes,” he said.
“Hang them up where?” I said.
“I found this,” he said, holding it over my face. I couldn’t see what it was, but I figured it was a piece of wire.
“You figuring on doing any nailing here tonight? You know it’s after one o’clock?”
“I got to hang up my clothes,” he said.
I looked up at him in the dark. I could hardly see him, but I could smell that whore reek in his clothes.
“Go back there in the kitchen and turn that light on,” I said. “You’ll find a hammer and a can of nails under the table. Go round there and do all the nailing you want. But I’m jerking your ass out of that bed tomorrow morning at four thirty.”
Marcus got the things out of the kitchen and went back to his side and started nailing. He must have nailed against that wall a whole hour before he had strung up that one little piece of wire.