Уильям Макгиверн - Odds Against Tomorrow

“Damn it, shut up!” Earl shouted.

“That’s the way,” Ingram said, in a tone of mocking approval. “Don’t talk about it. Lie, cheat — but oh for Lordy sakes, don’t say nothing about it. Treat people like dirt, but don’t be crude and discuss it.” Ingram laughed and pulled the car keys from his pocket. The Silver Star gleamed and flashed in the light. “But you want to talk about these, don’t you? And saving your neck. That’s all right. That’s nice and clean, isn’t it?”

“Give it here,” Earl said, putting out his hand. “Give it here, Sambo.”

“You need old black Sambo now, don’t you?”

“Give them to me!” Earl’s voice rose in a shout; Ingram’s defiance justified the anger pounding through his body. He pulled the gun from his pocket. “Give ’em here,” he said softly. “I’m not kidding.”

“You can’t shoot me,” Ingram said, laughing at the hot anger in Earl’s face. “Who’d you go to ball games with then? Who’ll you talk about the Army with? You can’t shoot your old buddy.”

Earl took a quick, long stride toward him and jammed the gun into his stomach. When Ingram doubled up, gasping painfully for breath, Earl brought the gun barrel down on his head with an abrupt, chopping gesture.

The old man sat upright, his eyes bright with pleasure. As Ingram’s body pitched to the floor, he cried, “That’s the way to handle ’em. Put the iron to ’em.”

Lorraine knelt smoothly and quickly and took the keys from Ingram’s motionless hand. “Let’s get away from here,” she said to Earl. “Please, for God’s sake.”

Earl stared down at Ingram, the gun hanging limply at his side. “Why didn’t he hide the keys?” he muttered. “Throw them away or something.”

“Earl, please!” Lorraine’s voice was shaking. “Please.”

“Waving ’em around like a fool,” Earl said. “Didn’t he know better? Communications character. Didn’t know nothing.” He shrugged wearily. “Give me a hand with him, Lory. We’ll put him on the couch.”

“What difference does it make?”

“I don’t know. God, I don’t know. But give me a hand. Come on, move. Come on, Lory.”

After they lifted Ingram’s body onto the sofa, Earl looked at him for an instant in silence, appraising his heavy breathing and the blood running brightly down his temple and cheek. “I didn’t hit him hard,” he said to Lorraine. “Just enough to put him out for a while. That’s all I did, I swear.”

Lorraine pulled her coat tightly about her throat and hurried toward the door. The old man grinned at Earl who was still standing beside the sofa staring at Ingram. “Go with her,” he said. “You got a long life ahead of you, son.” He pushed the covers back and rummaged around under his bed, hanging over the side like a big gray crab. “Here it is,” he said, as his clawing hand touched the Bible. “The Word.” He flopped back into bed exhausted and triumphant. “Me and the colored boy will read some prayers for you. We’ll shout till God hears us, and saves you from evil and death. Go on, leave us now.”

Earl couldn’t make himself move. “Sambo?” he said softly.

Lorraine looked back from the door and cried, “Earl!” When he didn’t turn, she ran across the room and shook his arm roughly. “What’s the matter with you?”

“I’m all right,” he muttered. “I’m okay.” He saw Ingram’s eyelids flutter. “Go out and turn the car around, Lory,” he said.

“Why won’t you come?’” she cried softly.

He jerked himself free from her desperate hands. “Do what I tell you. Turn the car around. Tap the horn when you’re ready.” He stared into her white, strained face. “Do what I tell you!”

She backed away from him, moistening her lips, and then turned and ran from the room, her heels sounding with a frantic clatter on the hard floor.

Earl saw that Ingram was staring up at him, his eyes bright with fear and wonder. “I’m going to leave you some dough,” he muttered. He took out the money Lorraine had given him, worked three tens loose with his thumb and let them flutter to the foot of the sofa. “There’s thirty bucks. It’s not much, but it’s all we can spare. With what you’ve got of your own, it’s something, Sambo.”

Ingram’s expression was grave; he seemed to be searching for something in Earl’s face, probing at him with soft wondering eyes.

“I can’t give you any more,” Earl said. He saw that the old man was watching him, the gloomy light shining on his gray hair and soft silvery whiskers. Night had fallen now, pressing with black finality against the windows. Earl shifted uneasily as he heard the wind clawing at the sides of the house like an angry animal. “You got a chance,” he said, trying to force a note of conviction into his voice. “There must be some colored folks living here in the country. They’d put you up, wouldn’t they? You got money to smooth your way with. Think about that, eh?”

Ingram didn’t answer him; his eyes were full of speculation, but the line of bright, crusted blood was like a seal drawn across his dry lips.

“You think I’m ratting on you,” Earl said bitterly. “Why don’t you say it? Say something, damn it. You helped me, now I’m walking out on you — that’s what you’re thinking, I know.” Ingram said nothing, and Earl came closer to him, and cried softly, “It’s got to be this way, Sambo. Don’t you see? Lory and me have got to take off. I’ve got to go with her. Everything I am makes it what I’ve got to do. We’re running to save our lives. It’s the way life is. It’s rotten, maybe, but I didn’t make up the rules. Well, did I, Sambo? Did I?” Earl heard his voice rising to a shout; he could feel the words swelling in his throat like filth he needed to eject from his body. “I didn’t make up the rules, remember that! I didn’t do nothing to you. You can’t blame me. I’m not responsible for you, am I?”

“Read the book of God!” The old man intoned the words slowly and solemnly. “He’s got the answers. Don’t matter whether you’re black or white, there’s where to find the answers.”

Ingram was sick and frightened, but more than that he was puzzled — he didn’t understand Earl or himself, and that seemed more important now than his fears or his illness.

In some devious way he had led Earl to this last moment of shame. Why had he done it? To humiliate him, just to see this look of shame in his eyes? Was it that way with all colored folks, he wondered, with their smiles and head bobbings, their unctuous courtship of the most evil and arrogant things in people. Cultivating their faults till they grew so big they couldn’t be hidden any more... Was that all they wanted? To make white people worse?

If that’s all he’d wanted, he was no better than Earl. The relationship had just been an exercise in deceit, with both of them using kindness and understanding as their weapons. There was no honesty in it at all. It would have been kinder to walk out on him and let him die. He would have died without shame, anyway. It was wrong to treat a man decently just to get the whip hand over him. It was scheming and vicious. Not just dumb and scared like Earl.

“Listen!” the old man cried triumphantly. “Here’s Ecclesiasticus. Get this now: ‘God created man of the Earth, and made him after his own image—’” He laughed shrilly, peering sideways at Earl and Ingram. “Ain’t that rich? Ain’t that a thought to tickle your ribs?”

“Haven’t you anything to say?” Earl said, looking quickly over his shoulder at the door. “I’m leaving you some dough, Sambo. I’m doing the best I can for you.”

“And listen here,” the old man said. “Listen to this.”