A Gathering of Old Men Read Online Free Page B

didn’t—and Mathu did. But she’s going to protect Mathu. She’s going to protect him even if she has to get every other black person in this state involved. She’s already got two old fools down there, Rufe and Johnny Paul, claiming they did it. But that’s not enough for her. She wants more. Ten, fifteen, twenty, a thousand more. She wants them to get twelve-gauge shotguns, number five shells, fire the guns, keep the empty shells, so that when Mapes points his finger at Mathu, they can all say— Who do you know don’t like Fix? Get them on that phone.”
    Now she started crying, bawling there like a lunatic. “Oh, Lord, have mercy, Jesus. Don’t make me do nothing like that. Please, Miss Merle. Please, Ma’am, Miss Merle, don’t make me do nothing like that.”
    I grabbed her in the collar and slapped her two or three times.
    “Don’t you tell me don’t make you do nothing like that,” I told her. “You think I’m having fun? You tell me who don’t like Fix or I start slapping some more. Now, who don’t like Fix?”
    She threw her head back, her black, round face quivering there like jelly, and the tears just pouring down her cheeks. I knew I was being unmerciful, taking out my frustration on her, but I didn’t care. If I was going to be in it, then they allwould be in it. And if I had to slap her around to let her know she was going to be in it, then that was just too bad. “Who don’t like Fix?” I asked her again.
    “Clatoo, that’s for sure,” Bea said. “Bad blood been there for years.”
    I looked down at Bea, but she was already sucking on that straw again.
    I tried to remember what Fix had done to Clatoo. I knew most of the history of that river and of that parish the past fifty years. I tried to remember now what Fix and Clatoo had had it about. Then I remembered. It was not Fix, it was that crazy brother of his, Forest Boutan, who had tried to rape one of Clatoo’s sisters. She had defended herself by chopping him half dozen times with a cane knife. She didn’t kill him, but he was well marked for the rest of his days. And she was sent to the pen for the rest of hers, where after so many years she died insane. That happened just before the Second World War.
    “Clatoo still at Glenn?” I asked Janey.
    She was still trying to get away from me, but I was known to have two of the strongest hands in St. Raphael Parish.
    “Yes, Ma’am,” she said when she couldn’t break loose. “Still there, gardening.”
    “Has he got a phone?”
    “I, I, I—” she said.
    I yanked on the collar of her dress. “Speak up, dammit.”
    “He stay there with Emma,” she said, crying.
    “What name Emma goes under?”
    “Henderson,” she said. “I believe—yes, Ma’am. It’s Henderson.”
    I turned her loose, and she started rubbing the side of her neck.
    “I’m going in there and get that number out the phone book,” I told her. “You and Bea think up some more names. Think up a dozen of them. We might as well all go to jail—
    or all go to the crazy house—one. Where’s that phone book?”
    “On the table by the fireplace,” Janey said.
    “When I get through with Clatoo, you all better have me some more names ready,” I said. “You hear me, don’t you?”
    “Yes, Ma’am,” she said.
    “First, get me another drink,” Bea said, handing Janey the glass.
    “Lord, have mercy,” Janey said. “Don’t I have enough trouble already, Miss Bea?”
    “You take this glass and get in there and get me another drink,” Bea said. “I’ll help you with your names when you come back.”
    Janey took the glass, and I got my drink off the banister, and we went inside together. She went into the back to get Bea another drink, and I went to the phone to call Clatoo.

Robert Louis Stevenson Banks

aka

Chimley
    Me and Mat was down there fishing. We goes fishing every Tuesday and every Thursday. We got just one little spot now. Ain’t like it used to be when you had the whole river to fish