Джон Макдональд - A Flash of Green

“I know.”

“Anyhow, one week from today it will be over. And then maybe my classes will fill up again. It seems so asinine to deprive those kids of something they love just because Mortie, for aesthetic reasons, thinks the loveliest bay in the county shouldn’t be turned into a housing project.”

They went out the terrace door into the side yard. Kat looked at her watch and saw it was almost five o’clock. “Send mine home soon, dear.”

“Floss can feed them. Don’t worry about them, Kat. I’ll bring them on home later on, really.”

“Well... they’d probably wake Jimmy up. If they won’t be any bother.”

“They never are.”

She watched Natalie walk out the driveway and turn toward her house. As she turned to go back in, a soft voice near at hand startled her. “Miz Hubble?”

“Oh! Barnett, I didn’t see you there.”

He came forward, away from the screen of shrubbery, moving slowly, turning a stained old cloth cap in his thick dark hands. “I didn’ get to this yard, yesterday,” he said, staring beyond her.

“I know. I wondered where you were.”

“Can’t get onto it tomorra neither, Miz Hubble.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Truth is, this time of year and all, I got me so loaded up on work, there’s some I has to let drop off. That’s the way it goes.”

“Do you mean you can’t work for me any more, Barnett?”

“Yassum,” he said.

“I know it doesn’t amount to very much money, and if you say you can’t, I guess you can’t. But I want you to see if you can find me somebody who can do it for me.”

“I kin surely try, Miz Hubble. But I jus doan know who.”

There was something very strange about him, the way he was standing, not even looking toward her, turning the cap around and around. Suddenly she understood.

“Who’s making you quit?” she demanded angrily.

“It’s just I got more than I...”

“Nonsense! Don’t you dare lie to me!”

His glance drifted toward her, apprehensive, uncomfortable, and slid away again. He swallowed, licked his lips. “Maybe I could fit this yard back in a little later on.”

“Who scared you?”

He looked directly at her. He straightened slightly and his voice had more dignity. “I’m not scared, m’am. I lived my whole life the way I got to live it. You have your head in the lion’s mouth, you do like my daddy told me. You lie quiet. A man said words to me on my telephone. And there’s other folks working for other white folks got the same words said. There’s no colored cops in Pigeon Town, m’am. Not yet there isn’t. Mister Van, he would have knowed how it is, without having to say anybody scared me. I’ll do the most I can.”

“I’m sorry, Barnett. It’s just that... they don’t seem to overlook anything...” She realized that for the first time since it had all begun she was close to uncontrollable tears. She made herself smile. “I was angry for a moment.”

He looked down into the cloth cap. “And it could be a lie about not being scared none. Decent colored people can always have their house fired by some boughten nigger.” He looked around. “I got things pretty good here. If’n you could do a little and that Mister Gus would do some of the heavy things, I could be back soon as it looks all right. This isn’t a lastin’ kind of thing.”

She had the television set on at ten o’clock, the sound turned low, so she did not hear Jimmy Wing getting up until he walked out with his jacket over his arm, startling her.

“Well! How did you sleep?” she said, turning the set off.

“So hard I had a hell of a time figuring out where I was when I woke up.”

“I was afraid the kids would wake you. I made them be quiet going to bed, but when they whisper they sound like steam engines.”

He sat on the couch and lit a cigarette. “Everything that happened today is a little blurred.”

“That’s the way it should be.”

“What did I get? About six hours. And when I get back to the cottage, I’ll want eight or ten more.”

“You could have stayed right where you were.”

“Makes a bad impression on the neighbors. And everything you do these days has to be above reproach, friend.”

“Or I won’t get any yard work done? Move to Palm County, the best of tropical living among friendly people. Brother!”

“What about yard work?”

She repeated the conversation with Barnett Mayberry, and said, “Two hours a week, for heaven’s sake! I’m unclean. I’m not fit to work for.”

“It’ll be the same at the Jennings’ and the Lipes’s and the Halleys’. Part of the pattern. Make all you people as uncomfortable as possible, and keep you too busy to fight the bay fill. If Barnett ignored the suggestion, maybe nothing at all would happen. But why should he take the chance? You must be a trial to him, dear. You missed all your cues. You were supposed to understand just how things are, and go right along with his story about being too busy to work on your yard, and accept the fiction he’d try to find somebody else. Then a month from now he’d stop by and say things had eased up and he could come back to work if you hadn’t gotten somebody else.”

“I’m no damn good at your native folk dances, Jimmy, and I have no intention of learning them.”

“Barnett will put up with you.”

“Jimmy, you look a little better.”

“Thanks to you. And thanks for helping me through all the red tape, too. Laura’s got all she can do taking care of Sid. Kat?”

“That’s a strange expression you’re wearing, sir.”

“I feel strange.”

“Do you feel ill?”

“No. Nothing like that. You know what happens in color-plate work where the registration is a little bit off.”

“What? Oh, the ghost people, like with three mouths, all different colors.”

“That’s me.”

“But you’ve got to expect to feel a little...”

“Not just since I heard about Gloria. For longer than that. What if some time I want to talk to you?”

“You can always talk to me.”

“Really talk to you, Kat. Peel off the lid. Show you where the snakes live.”

“I’d listen. You know all my snakes by their first names.”

“It wouldn’t be that simple. All you’d have to do is listen to all of it, then give me no opinion, just let me go. I have all the opinions I can use.”

“You know, you’re pretty silly.”

“Am I?”

“Of course you are. Everybody goes around killing people. Only the good ones know what they’re doing. That’s the penalty, I suppose.”

“You’re a fantastic woman.”

“Just how do you mean that?”

“In the best of all possible ways. So goodnight before I open the wrong valve. To scramble the metaphors, dear Kat, I know the wheel is crooked, but I want to make my money last as long as I can.”

She walked out to the car with him. For a time it looked as if the motor would not catch. But as the starter began to grind with an ominous slowness, it caught, ran raggedly and then smoothed out.

He looked up at her out of the car window and said, “The hell of it is, I can want a Mercedes, but not very much. Or a flight to Paris, but not as if I ached for it. I’m in the lousy middle, you know? The world is for people who either ache for the shiny things so bad their teeth hurt, or who don’t want them at all at all. How about us slobs in the middle? Do I sound sorry for myself?”

“Not enough to bother either of us.”

“Before I get really maudlin, farewell.”

“Will you work tomorrow?”

“I’d rather than not.”

“So I’ll see you for the coffee break, Jimmy.”

After he drove away she stood out in the driveway and looked at the sky for a little while. The stars were bright and close. She saw a shooting star, and with the wry habit of this past year, said politely, “No thank you.” They were always giving you free wishes. Lately four-leaf clovers had become easy to find. But no thanks indeed. Not even for a flash of green, sir, if you should give me that notorious rarity. No flash of green, no monkey’s paw, no star light star bright. We tucked another one into the ground today. This one was Jimmy’s. And we’ll take our turns when the time comes. With or without clover.