Clock Without Hands Read Online Free Page A

Sunday before Christmas. It was probably a fleeting depression."
    "Sometimes I think it was—" The Judge stopped, for if he had said another word he might have cried. Malone patted his arm and the Judge, controlling himself, started again. "Sometimes I think it was to spite me."
    "Oh, no! Surely not, sit. It was some depression that no one could have seen or controlled."
    "Maybe," said the Judge, "but that very day we had been quarreling."
    "What about it? Every family quarrels."
    "My son was trying to break an axiom."
    "Axiom? What kind of axiom?"
    "It was about something inconsequential. It was a case about a black man it was my duty to sentence."
    "You are just blaming yourself needlessly," Malone said.
    "We were sitting at the table with coffee and cigars and French cognac—the ladies were in the parlor—and Johnny got more and more excited and finally he shouted something to me and rushed upstairs. We heard the shot a few minutes later."
    "He was always impetuous."
    "None of the young people these days seem to consult their elders. My son up and got married after a dance. He woke up his mother and me and said, 'Mirabelle and I are married.' They had eloped to a justice of the peace, mind you. It was a great grief to his mother—although later it was a blessing in disguise."
    "Your grandson is the image of his father," Malone said.
    "The living image. Have you ever seen two boys so shining?"
    "It must be a great comfort to you."
    The Judge mouthed his cigar before he answered: "Comfort—anxiety—he is all that is left."
    "Is he going to study for the law and enter politics?"
    "No!" the Judge said violently. "I don't want the boy in law or politics."
    "Jester is a boy who could make his career in anything," Malone said.
    "Death," said the old Judge, "is the great treachery. J.T., you feel the doctors believe you have a fatal disease. I don't think so. With all due respect to the medical profession, the doctors don't know what death is—who can know? Even Doc Tatum. I, an old man, have expected death for fifteen years. But death is too cunning. When you watch for it and finally face it, it never comes. It corners around sideways. It slays the unaware as often as it does the ones who watch for it. Oh, what, J.T.? What happened to my radiant son?"
    "Fox," Malone asked, "do you believe in the eternal life?"
    "I do as far as I can encompass the thought of eternity. I know that my son will always live within me, and my grandson within him and within me. But what is eternity?"
    "At church," Malone said, "Dr. Watson preached a sermon on the salvation that draws a bead on death."
    "A pretty phrase—I wish I had said it. But no sense at all." He added finally, "No, I don't believe in eternity as far as religion goes. I believe in the things I know and the descendants who come after me. I believe in my forebears, too. Do you call that eternity?"
    Malone asked suddenly, "Have you ever seen a blue-eyed Nigra?"
    "A Nigra with blue eyes you mean?"
    Malone said, "I don't mean the weak-eyed blue of old colored people. I mean the gray-blue of a young colored boy. There's one like that around this town, and today he startled me."
    The Judge's eyes were like blue bubbles and he finished his drink before he spoke. "I know the nigger you're thinking of."
    "Who is he?"
    "He's just a nigger around the town who's of no interest to me. He gives massages and caters—a jack-of-all-trades. Also, he is a well-trained singer."
    Malone said, "I ran into him in an alley behind the store and he gave me such a shock."
    The Judge said, with an emphasis that seemed at the moment peculiar to Malone, "Sherman Pew, that's the nigger's name, is of no interest to me. However, I'm thinking of taking him on as a houseboy because of the shortage of help."
    "I never saw such strange eyes," Malone said.
    "A woods colt," the Judge said; "something wrong between the sheets. He was left a foundling in the Holy Ascension Church."
    Malone felt that the Judge had