J. Powers - The Stories of J.F. Powers

The only thing we seed when we gets to the Louisiana is one old coon by the name of Old Ivy. He is locking up. We asks him about Sleep Bailey, but Old Ivy is playing dumb and all he says is, “Suh? Suh?” like he don’t know what we mean.

“Turn on them there lights,” we says, “so’s we can see.”

Old Ivy turns them on.

“Where’s the crowd,” we says, “that’s always around?”

“Done went,” Old Ivy says.

“So they’s done went,” Skeeter says. “Well, if they’s trying to steal that piano-playing nigger away they won’t get very far.”

“No, they won’t get very far with that,” Clyde says. “Hey, just seeing all them bottles is got me feeling kind of dry-like.”

So we gets Old Ivy to put all the liquor on the bar and us boys refreshes ourselfs. Skeeter tells Old Ivy to put some beer out for chasers.

Old Ivy says they is fresh out of cold beer.

“It don’t have to be cold,” Skeeter says. “We ain’t proud.”

Old Ivy drags all the bottled beer out on the bar with the other. Then he goes back into the kitchen behind the bar and we don’t see him no more for a little.

“Hey, old nigger,” Skeeter says. “Don’t try and sneak out the back way.”

“No, suh,” Old Ivy says.

“Hey, Old Ivy,” Clyde says. “You got something to eat back there?”

“Suh?” He just gives us that old suh . “Suh?”

“You heard him,” Skeeter says.

“No, suh,” Old Ivy says, and we seed him in the service window.

“Guess maybe he’s deef,” Skeeter says. “You old coon, I hope you ain’t blind!” And Skeeter grabs a bottle of beer and lams it at Old Ivy’s head. Old Ivy ducks and the big end of the bottle sticks in the wall and don’t break. It is just beaverboard, the wall.

All us boys gets the same idee and we starts heaving the beer bottles through the window where Old Ivy was standing, but ain’t no more.

“Hit the nigger baby!”

“Nigger in the fence!”

We keeps this up until we done run out of bottles, all except Skeeter that’s been saving one. “Hey, wait,” he says. “It’s all right now, Grampaw. Come on, old boy, you can come out now.”

But Old Ivy don’t show hisself. I am wondering if he got hit on a rebound.

“Damn it, boy,” Skeeter says. “Bring us some food. Or you want us to come back in there?”

“Suh?” It’s that old suh again. “Yes, suh,” Old Ivy says in the kitchen, but we don’t see him.

Then we do. And Skeeter, he lets go the last bottle with all he’s got. It hits Old Ivy right in the head. That was a mean thing Skeeter done, I think, but then I see it’s only the cook’s hat Old Ivy’s got in his hand that got hit. He was holding it up like his head is inside, but it ain’t.

The boys all laughs when they seed what Old Ivy done to fool Skeeter.

“Like in war when you fool the enemy,” Clyde says.

“That’s a smart nigger,” I say.

“So that’s a smart nigger, huh?” Skeeter says. “I’ll take and show you what I do to smart niggers that gets smart with me!”

“Cut it out,” Clyde says. “Leave him alone. He ain’t hurting nothing. You just leave that old coon be.” That is Clyde for you, always sticking up for somebody, even a nigger.

Clyde and me goes into the next room looking for a place to heave, as Clyde has got to. It is awful dark, but pretty soon our eyes gets used to it, and we can see some tables and chairs and a juke box and some beer signs on the walls. It must be where they do their dancing. I am just standing there ready to hold Clyde’s head, as he is easing hisself, when I begins to hear a piano like a radio is on low. I can just barely pick it out, a couple a notes at a time, sad music, blues music, nigger music.

It ain’t no radio. It is a piano on the other side of the room. I am ready to go and look into it when Clyde says, “It ain’t nothing.” Ain’t nothing! Sometimes I can’t understand Clyde for the life of me. But I already got my own idee about the piano.

About then Skeeter and Ace comes in the room yelling for Clyde in the dark, saying the boys out front is moving on to the next place. We hear a hell of a racket out by the bar, like they broke the mirror, and then it’s pretty still and we know they is almost all left.

Skeeter gives us one more yell and Ace says, “Hey, Clyde, you fall in?” They is about to leave when Skeeter, I guess it is, hears the piano just like we been hearing it. All this time Clyde has got his hand over my mouth like he don’t want me to say we is there.

Skeeter calls Old Ivy and says he should turn on the lights, and when Old Ivy starts that suh business again Skeeter lays one on him that I can hear in the dark.

So Old Ivy turns on the lights, a lot of creepy greens, reds, and blues. Then Clyde and me both seed what I already guessed — it’s the Bailey nigger playing the piano — and Skeeter and Ace seed it is him and we all seed each other.

And right then, damn if the nigger don’t start in to sing a song. Like he didn’t know what was what! Like he didn’t know what we come for! That’s what I call a foxy nigger.

Skeeter yells at him to stop singing and to come away from the piano. He stops singing, but he don’t move. So we all goes over to the piano.

“What’s your name, nigger?” Skeeter says.

“Bailey,” Sleep says, reading Skeeter’s lips.

Old Ivy comes over and he is saying a lot of stuff like, “That boy’s just a borned fool. Just seem like he got to put his foot in it some kind of way.”

Sleep hits a couple a notes light on the piano that sounds nice and pretty.

“You know what we come for?” Skeeter says.

Sleep hits them same two notes again, nice and pretty, and shakes his head.

“Sure you don’t know, boy?” Clyde says.

Sleep is just about to play them notes again when Skeeter hits him across the paws with a fungo bat. Then Sleep says, “I spect you after me on account of that Miss Beck I fish out of the river.”

“That’s right,” Skeeter says. “You spect right.”

“You know what they is saying uptown, Sleep?” I say.

“I heard,” Sleep says.

“They is saying,” I say, “you raped Clara and throwed her in the river to cover up.”

“That’s just a lie,” Sleep says.

“Who says it’s a lie?” Clyde says.

“That’s just a white-folks lie,” Sleep says. “It’s God’s truth.”

“How you going to prove it?” Clyde says.

“Yeah,” I say. “How you going to prove it?”

“How you going to prove it to them, son?” Old Ivy says.

“Here, ain’t I?” Sleep says.

“Yeah, you’s here all right, nigger,” Skeeter says, “but don’t you wish you wasn’t!”

“If I’m here I guess I got no call to be scared,” Sleep says. “Don’t it prove nothing if I’m here, if I didn’t run away? Don’t that prove nothing?”

“Naw,” Skeeter says. “It don’t prove nothing. It’s just a smart nigger trick.”

“Wait till Miss Beck come to and talk,” Sleep says. “I ain’t scared.”

“No,” Old Ivy says, “you ain’t scared. He sure ain’t scared a bit, is he, Mr Bullen? That’s a good sign he ain’t done nothing bad, ain’t it, Mr Bullen?”

“Well,” Clyde says. “I don’t know about that…”

Skeeter says, “You sure you feel all right, Clyde?”

“What you mean you don’t know, Clyde?” Ace says. “Clara is knocked up and this is the bastard done it!”

“Who the hell else, Clyde?” I say. I wonder is Clyde dreaming or what.

“He ain’t a bad boy like that, Mr Bullen,” Old Ivy says, working on Clyde.

“I tell you what,” Clyde says.

“Aw, stop it, Clyde,” Skeeter and Ace both says. “We got enough!”