The Morning and the Evening (6 page)

The next morning he found milk and bread and butter. He went out across the yard to the hen house and carried in eggs in a worn enamel pan, but once inside, he put them in the center of the table, not knowing what else to do with them. He was sitting at the kitchen table, still in the clothes he had slept in, very carefully using a knife to put butter on his bread, when he heard a truck stop. He put all the bread in his mouth and sat very quietly, chewing. He heard the car door slam, and presently he heard the scrape of the screen door being pulled open across the floor; then he heard heavy footsteps. He was hidden by the door when someone came into the room next to him—the dining room, where the icebox was kept. He could see slightly between the doorframe and the door as the big colored man struggled to lift the fifty pounds of ice into the box. Then he slung the tongs over his shoulder and called, “Missus, it's Preacher with the ice.”

In the silence afterward, Jake could hear the man's heavy breathing. He knew who the man was and why he was there. He knew that now it was going to be all right. Presently, the man moved to the door of the bedroom and called, “Hello, Missus.”

Jake could hear the alarm clock ticking in there. Then he could hear the heavy steps of the man going away, and his voice, fainter, calling, “It's Preacher.”

Then the man was on the front porch. He heard the door slam behind him. And he knew how it would look: the empty porch, the stilled swing, ahead the empty road and quiet flat land; and the field, still too, rising in the distance to a road where you could see the white steeple of the church. He thought he heard a bird sing, and he could feel the warmth of the day flush on his face as he knew the man could; sweat stood out on his forehead. Presently he heard the man open the front door to reenter the house, and he stood up and went down the hall, meaning neither to be quiet nor to make noise, but the man did not hear him. He was in her room, bending over the bed. Jake stood outside the door, watching. He heard the man's heavy intake of breath, watched as he held her arm a moment, then let it fall quickly. He drew the sheet up over her face. He came into the hall and followed it to the kitchen. Jake was seated again at the table, a piece of bread halfway to his mouth. He looked up at the man without sound or expression, and the man gazed back at him silently. Once he opened his mouth as if to say something, but then he closed it and his head gave a little shake. He leaned against the doorframe and wiped his face with a handkerchief; then he sort of half blew his nose and shook his head again and went on out the back door. Jake heard the flutter and squawking of chickens and heard the man spreading their feed. For a while he heard nothing, then the man's voice farther away calling, “
Su pig pig pig
,” and the sound of corncobs falling into their trough. In a little while he came back up the short hill, puffing from the climb, and passed the back door and said, “No time now for a cow.” He stood at the bottom of the back steps and called up, “You stay there. You stay there. You hear, Mister Jake?”

He buttered a slice of bread and put it into his mouth. It was then, while he was chewing, he knew that sometime before he had heard the truck drive away. He got up and went down the hall and took the sheet away from her face. Then he returned to his seat in the kitchen.

When the first ones to hear the news came, he was still sitting there: still eating the loaf of bread and the hand-shaped mound of white butter.

“You eat that whole loaf up, Jake?” said one of the ladies.

When he looked up, there was a whole brood of them looking at him from a semicircle; their brightness almost frightened him. They wore flowered dresses and colored glass beads; their cheeks were red spots and their mouths narrow red lines; their faces were freshly powdered, and some were the color of flour while others were like peaches in bloom. One lady, with bracelets that slid down her arm when she reached out, took the bread away from him, though he was still hungry.

“Oh, the poor
thing
,” said another. “Do you think he knows?”

“Bound to,” said another. “He's bound to've looked into her room. They say it's been several days.”

“But I mean, do you think he
understands?
” said the other.

They were all silent, looking at him. Finally one said, “Come on out on the porch, Jake, and get some fresh air.”

He got up and followed her. The others came behind. “We could take his mind off it,” said one, “if only we knew whether it was
on
it or not.” She looked back at the near-empty polka-dotted bread wrapper.

Miss Hattie McGaha, a thin little birdlike lady, said, “Well, there's no sense fixing him something to eat,” and she followed the others, fluttering her hands helplessly.

From the porch he could see others coming, clouds of dust preceding and following the various cars, horses, trucks; some came on foot at a half-run, shielding their faces as vehicles passed them and arriving covered with a gold-colored film. They came through the gate, subdued, and greeted one another on the porch in quiet tones. Jake sat in a rocking chair in the midst of them, staring out at the front yard. Everyone looked at him but no one spoke except two or three men in shirtsleeves who patted him on the back and said, “It's okay, boy. It's okay.”

The ladies stood off together in a little cluster, just not knowing this time what to do at all.

Whenever there had been a death, he had gone too; now it had come home to him; the people were coming here. Brother Patrick came, wearing a suit even though it was summertime. People stepped aside as he came up and shook Jake's hand, the way he would have done with anyone. Then he opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but nothing seemed to come, so he closed it and just shook harder. Someone whispered in his ear, “She's inside, Brother.” Then he let go and went into the house.

Things moved on through the afternoon like that. People were all over the porch and the yard, in groups now, talking louder, laughing if they wanted. Once someone brought him a glass of iced tea, and once someone brought him a bowl of homemade ice cream. It was then a long car came down the road and pulled around to the side of the house. By the time he finished the ice cream, it had gone slowly away, and a man near him remarked that it was a relief to get that done. Someone touched him on the shoulder to go to the bathroom, and when he passed through the kitchen he saw more cakes and pies on the table than he had ever seen all together before. He sat on the porch again later, thinking of them. The sound of talking went on around and above him, rising and falling like bee hums; he rocked with the rhythm, warm air falling over him and falling away again, the smells of grass and clover so intense, he knew how it would feel to have his face in them.

For a while all he knew after that was the far-off hum of speech and the sweet smell of clover; and after that, for a long time, all he knew was the look of the black car going away.

When he woke, he saw a group of people standing at the gate, shaking hands all around. Carrying cakes and pies, everyone left but two men. The one he knew best, Wilroy Sheaffer, said, “He's awake,” as they came back across the porch.

The other, Cotter May, said, “You want some supper, Jake?”

There were still a few people in the yard, and he could hear someone in the house. The day had lessened, and with it the heat. He stretched his legs out and rocked a little bit, and then he nodded. Just as the two men were turning away, Jake got up suddenly and caught Wilroy by the sleeve. He told him and told him about the chickens, pointing at the hen house until finally Wilroy understood. “You hear that, Cotter,” he said. “He knows it's time to feed them chickens. It's been done, Jake,” he said. “It's all done been taken care of. Everything.” He called into the kitchen to his wife, who had been a friend of Jake's mother, “Mary Margaret! Woman, fix this boy some supper.”

When his wife came from the kitchen, he said, “Do you know this boy knew it was time to feed them chickens?”

Mary Margaret beamed at Jake. “Well, now, I declare. Your supper's on the table, Jake.
Table
,” she said, raising her voice and her finger to point at the same time.

Everybody watched him as he went inside. “That
boy
is near 'bout old as I am,” Cotter said from the swing.

“Oh well, you know,” Mary Margaret said, in a hushing tone.

Cotter's spinster sister, Ruth Edna, who had been closer to Jake and his mother than anyone, had come onto the porch from the kitchen now. She gave Cotter a swat on the head with one of the cardboard fans the undertaker had left. “Now we don't know how much
he does know
,” she said.

Mary Margaret said, “We ought to go in and see about him. We're the ones to, now.”

“Well, then we got to get on home,” Wilroy said.

They all went down the hall, single file. “I hate to think of all we got to do when we get there,” Mary Margaret said.

The Mays lived together, and Ruth Edna looked over her shoulder at her brother. “Us too,” she said meaningfully.

“Now I don't no'm,” Cotter said, grimacing. He rubbed his hand across his back. “This day has been about all I can take. I'm wore out.” He coughed lightly, ignoring the thin set of his sister's lips.

Jake was seated at the table carefully picking the lima beans out of his bowl of succotash: popping them into his mouth and sucking his fingers loudly. They all huddled around him making little sounds, offering a spoon and tucking a napkin under his chin. Finally they decided to leave him alone. “Let be what'll be,” was the way Wilroy put it; and they were all anxious to get home.

The last stragglers, who had been on a little inspection tour of the house and yard, came around to the back of the house just then and yelled up that they were going. “Wait a minute,” Mary Margaret said. “Did you all bring the chocolate cake or the banana pudding?”

“Pudding and a little pan of fudge,” came back the answer. “Eloise says leave that.”

Mary Margaret carried them out onto the porch. “No sense leaving them here for him to get sick on eating them all up at once.”

She came back into the house and when her somewhat broad expanse had cleared the doorway, Jake saw the two being carried away as the others had been. The little tin pan of fudge caught a last glint of afternoon sun and shone for a second like silver. The succotash was tasteless in his mouth tuned for sweetness. The two women, who had looked around their dead friend's house to see that everything was all right, came back now, bustling themselves together, ready to go. “Well, boy,” Wilroy said.

“Well,” Mary Margaret said.

“There's milk in the box,” Ruth Edna said. “
Milk
.”

“I hate to leave him,” Mary Margaret said. “Dark coming on. You think he knows how to light the lamp?”

“Sure,” Wilroy said. “He knew about them chickens, didn't he? Don't forget to feed the chickens tomorrow now, boy,” he said, louder. “And if you don't know what to do with that cow, put a rope around her neck and bring her into town. Somebody'll help you.”

“He can't understand all that,” his wife said.

“Shoot,” Wilroy said, as if somebody were deaf, “that boy can understand more'n we think he can. Come on. We got to get home, woman.”

The women stood at the table, looking down at the last two cakes. Between them, Jake looked up at them and then down at the cakes. “You reckon we ought to leave one?” Mary Margaret said.

“Oh, I reckon one,” Miss May said. “It seems so funny giving all those others back like that.”

“Well, we couldn't have left them here for him to eat all up at once,” Mary Margaret said.

“No,” said the other. “And wasn't there a lot! Wouldn't she have been proud?”

“Bless her heart,” Mary Margaret said. “Do you want to leave yours or mine?”

“Oh, I don't know,” Ruth Edna said. They studied the two. “Mine's not much. Just something I did up as quick as I could when I heard. Fell a little. Didn't give it good time to cool.”

Mary Margaret put her head on one side. “Hmn, a little,” she said. “Not your best.” They looked at hers; angel food with a perfect rise, and sworls of white icing lapping each other all over it: all the ladies had exclaimed. “I did put a little into mine,” she said. “I tell you. I could take mine on up to the cake sale at the Baptist church tomorrow.”

“Well, go ahead,” Ruth Edna said. “Mine's littler anyway. Here, Jake. Here, honey. Eat this nice cake.” She cut him a piece and put it on the side of his plate. “I'm going to put the rest up here,” she said, and put it in the top part of the cupboard.

“He's watching,” Mary Margaret said.

“Well,” Miss May said, hesitantly. “Oh come on, they're blowing the horn.”

Mary Margaret took her cake and followed her out of the room; then she suddenly came running back in and said, “Bye-bye, Jake, honey. Bye-bye. You come uptown soon now, you hear.”

It was going to be evening. There was quiet in the chicken yard and quiet out over the garden. Beyond it, dark had come into the gullies, and a row of little wild persimmon trees stood out black on the horizon. He could see all the way across to them from where he sat in the kitchen, and two birds, black as ravens against the red-and-gold sky, hovered over them an instant, then settled out of sight. In the silence of outdoors, he heard a walnut fall from the old tree in the side yard and break open against the hard ground. And in the silence of the house he heard only the clock in the bedroom and the sound of his own breathing. He was alone and he knew that.

Presently he ate the cake. His fingers dug into and out of the dark sticky chocolate, and he sucked them loudly, glad of his own noise. He had no hunger for more when he finished the piece and did not move from the table. He could feel that beyond him the house was dark, knew that, sitting in the doorway, he was watching the last of daylight. Occasionally, from a good distance away, he would catch the sound of a car horn. He thought of the dog and wished that it had not left him. He remembered the whole afternoon and was glad of the noise and the people as they had moved about him. He wished they had not gone away.