We talked for a couple of hours. Bishop wanted to know what we could do to keep this from happening. That’s why he had come down the quarter to see me. He felt so helpless up there in that big house, knowing all this was going on and knowing he couldn’t do a thing about it. I told him I didn’t know what to do. What could I do? What could any of us do? This whole thing was left up to Marcus. Marshall was only pushing him because he had somebody to push on. But I didn’t think he would push too hard and too long. As for making Bonbon kill Marcus if Marcus didn’t kill Bonbon, that was just to scare Marcus. Marshall wouldn’t dare let Bonbon kill for him again. He was still paying off for the first killing that Bonbon had done for him.
All the time Bishop and I sat there talking, Aunt Margaret sat on the other side of the table fanning with her straw hat. The longer we talked, the madder she got. All of a sudden she jumped up and put the hat on her head.
“You leaving, Brother Bishop?” she asked.
“Yes, Sister Margaret,” he said.
I moved my chair to the side to let them go by me. After Bishop had gotten his hat and umbrella off the bed, we went out on the gallery. Marcus was coming in the yard. He had on his blue shirt and black pants; he wore his cap and dark shades. Bishop and I looked at Marcus, but Aunt Margaret wouldn’t. She had given up on him. All she wanted to do now was save Tite (if that was possible). Bishop looked at Marcus like he wasn’t really seeing him. His mind was somewhere else—probably at the big house with Marshall Hebert. Marcus came up on the gallery and nodded to us and went in his room.
Bishop turned to me again. He had put on his hat, and now he held the umbrella and handkerchief in one hand. He held his other hand out to me. I felt how small and soft his hand was when I shook it.
“I hope I didn’t take too much of your time,” he said, looking very sad.
“No sir,” I said, shaking my head.
“Will you talk to the boy?”
“I’ve talked to him already,” I said. “But I’ll talk again.”
“If you can’t stop this, Mr. Kelly, I’m afraid what’ll happen to all of us,” Bishop said. “That boy touch Bonbon, them brothers go’n ride.”
He looked at me a long time to show me what that meant. Then he opened his umbrella and followed Aunt Margaret down the steps. He carried his handkerchief in the other hand. He started wiping his face and neck soon as he went out of the gate.
I stood at the end of the gallery watching them. Bishop looked so weak and scared walking there beside Aunt Margaret. Aunt Margaret was probably scared as he was, but she had extra strength to keep her going—extra strength she got from believing in God. Bishop went to church every Sunday, but he didn’t look to God for his strength. He looked to that big house up the quarter. And right now that big house wasn’t setting on very solid ground.
I stayed on the gallery a while, then I went to Marcus’s room. He was laying on the bed in his shorts. We looked at each other, but we didn’t say anything. I went to the window where it was cooler and turned to look at him again. He was still watching me, waiting to hear what I had to say. I didn’t know what to say to Marcus.
“Something on your mind, Jim?” he said.
I just stood there looking at him. He sat up on the bed.
“Why did you go to Marshall the other night, Marcus?” I asked him.
“Tell him to get me off free,” he said. “I told him to get me off free and give me that field car and some money, and I was go’n take Louise ’way from here.”
I didn’t believe Marcus had said this to Marshall. You see, I knew the white people around that area. Knew them pretty good. I knew if a black man had said that, he wouldn’t have lived to come out of that room.
“I told him Bonbon was go’n have to come after us, and he was go’n be free of him.”
I still didn’t believe him.
“That’s why I went there,” he said.
I leaned back against the window to look at Marcus. Now I did believe him. I believed him because I remembered he had killed and it didn’t mean a thing. I believed him because I remembered he had fooled that dog and jumped through that window to get to Bonbon’s wife. I believed him because I remembered he had stuck his foot in that door—“that slavery had built.” I believed everything Marcus said. I just couldn’t understand why Marshall hadn’t killed him for saying it.
“He just stood there and let you say all that?”
“He told me to get the hell out his library. But I could see he was thinking ’bout what I had said.”
“He might be thinking about telling Bonbon what you had said, you ever thought about that?”
“That’s the last thing he’ll be thinking ’bout doing,” Marcus said. “He got to get rid of Bonbon, not me. I’m a nigger, me. I ain’t nothing but a nigger. Bonbon is the man.”
“And you think he’ll get you off free, to let you leave here with Louise?”
“He’ll get me off. Might let me wait a while—try to make me sweat—but he’ll get me off.”
“If he get you off, how does he know Bonbon’ll follow you?”
“Because Bonbon own people’ll kill him if he don’t. Because this is the South, and the South ain’t go’n let no nigger run away with no white woman and let that white husband walk around here scot-free. Not the South.”
“You think you know the South, huh?”
“I know that much ’bout it.”
“How about the part where the white man let the nigger get away with the white woman, Marcus?”
“He ain’t got no choice. He might not like it, but he ain’t got no choice. He got to get rid of Bonbon. Bonbon done stole too much from him, and he know long as Bonbon here Bonbon go’n keep on stealing. Not that Bonbon don’t have a right to steal after what he made Bonbon do. Yeah, I know he made Bonbon kill a man for him. Now, since Bonbon stealing to pay for the killing, he want somebody to kill Bonbon. Well, not this boy. I ain’t killing for him, I’m making him a safe and sound deal. Get me off and I’ll get her ’way from here and Bonbon’ll come after us. If that suit him, all right; if it don’t, fuck him; I’ll find another way to get out of this hole.”
“Marcus, do you want my advice about all this?”
“If you go’n say work here ten years, forget it.”
“That’s what I’m going to say, Marcus. Do your work and forget all these deals. They’ll never work out. All you can do is make things harder for yourself and for everybody else around here.”
“Things can’t get harder for me, Jim. I’m a slave here now. And things can’t get harder than slavery.”
“The pen can be harder.”
“I ain’t going to no pen. That’s why I got put here.”
“And that’s why you ought to do as well as you can.”
“Be a contented old slave, huh? That’s what you mean?”
“You’re not a slave here, Marcus. You’re just paying for something you did.”
“I don’t think I ought to pay for defending myself. And I ain’t go’n pay for killing that country-ass nigger. Black sonofabitch ought to don’t go round with pretty women if he know he can’t fight.”
“You trying to be funny, boy?”
“I ain’t trying to be funny. I just say I ain’t go’n pay for that chickenshit sonofabitch. Fuck him.”
“You don’t care if the whole world burn down, do you? Do you, Marcus?”
“Long as I ain’t caught in the flame, Jim,” he said.
I looked at him and I felt pity for him.
“Jim, why you keep arguing with me?” Marcus said. “You the only friend I got, and you keep arguing with me.”
“I want you to be a human being, Marcus.”
“I’m a human being. I just don’t look at things the way you do. You, you want care for everybody. Me, I don’t care for nobody but me. I been like that too long now to go round changing.”
“That’s not a good way to be, Marcus.”
“I can’t be no other way. Now, please, Jim, just let me ’lone. I need some rest. I’m tired.”
He laid back down.