when breakfast was over he wandered listlessly into the sitting room and looked all around, but he did not see any place where he would like to sit down. he felt deeply idle and empty and at the same time gravely exhilarated, as if this were the morning of his birthday, except that this day seemed even more particularly his own day. there was nothing in the way it looked which was not ordinary, but it was filled with a noiseless and invisible kind of energy. he could see his mother’s face while she told them about it and hear her voice, over and over, and silently, over and over, while he looked around the sitting room and through the window into the street, words repeated themselves, he’s dead. he died last night while i was asleep and now it was already morning. he has already been dead since way last night and i didn’t even know until i woke up. he has been dead all night while i was asleep and now it is morning and i am awake but he is still dead and he will stay right on being dead all afternoon and all night and all tomorrow while i am asleep again and wake up again and go to sleep again and he can’t come back home again ever any more but i will see him once more before he is taken away. dead now. he died last night while i was asleep and now it is already morning.
a boy went by with his books in a strap.
two girls went by with their satchels.
he went to the hat rack and took his satchel and his hat and started back down the hall to the kitchen to get his lunch; then he remembered his new cap. but it was upstairs. it would be in mama’s and daddy’s room, he could remember when she took it off his head. he did not want to go in for it where she was lying down and now he realized, too, that he did not want to wear it. he would like to tell her good-bye before he went to school, but he did not want to go in and see her lying down and looking like that. he kept on towards the kitchen. he would tell aunt hannah good-bye instead.
she was at the sink washing dishes and catherine sat on a kitchen chair watching her. he looked all around but he could not see any lunch. i guess she doesn’t know about lunch, he reflected. she did not seem to realize that he was there so, after a moment, he said, “good-bye.”
“what-is-it?” she said and turned her lowered head, peering. “why, rufus!” she exclaimed, in such a tone that he wondered what he had done. “you’re not going to school,” she said, and now he realized that she was not mad at him.
“i can stay out of school?”
“of course you can. you must. today and tomorrow as well and—for a sufficient time. a few days. now put up your things, and stay right in this house, child.”
he looked at her and said to himself: but then they can’t see me; but he knew there was no use begging her; already she was busy with the dishes again.
he went back along the hall towards the hat rack. in the first moment he had been only surprised and exhilarated not to have to go to school, and something of this sense of privilege remained, but almost immediately he was also disappointed. he could now see vividly how they would all look up when he came into the schoolroom and how the teacher would say something nice about his father and about him, and he knew that on this day everybody would treat him well, and even look up to him, for something had happened to him today which had not happened to any other boy in school, any other boy in town. they might even give him part of their lunches.
he felt even more profoundly empty and idle than before.
he laid down his satchel on the seat of the hat rack, but he kept his hat on. she’ll spank me, he thought. even worse, he could foresee her particular, crackling kind of anger. i won’t let her find out, he told himself. taking great care to be silent, he let himself out the front door.
the air was cool and gray and here and there along the street, shapeless and watery sunlight strayed and vanished. now that he was in this outdoor air he felt even more listless and powerful; he was alone, and the silent, invisible energy. was everywhere. he stood on the porch and supposed that everyone he saw passing knew of an event so famous. a man was walking quickly up the street and as rufus watched him, and waited for the man to meet his eyes, he felt a great quiet lifting within him of pride and of shyness, and he felt his face break into a smile, and then an uncontrollable grin, which he knew he must try to make sober again; but the man walked past without looking at him, and so did the next man who walked past in the other direction. two schoolboys passed whose faces he knew, so he knew that they must know his, but they did not even seem to see him. arthur and alvin tripp came down their front steps and along the far sidewalk and now he was sure, and came down his own front steps and halfway out to the sidewalk, but then he stopped, for now, although both of them looked across into his eyes, and he into theirs, they did not cross the street to him or even say hello, but kept on their way, still looking into his eyes with a kind of shy curiosity, even when their heads were turned almost backwards on their necks, and he turned his own head slowly, watching them go by, but when he saw that they were not going to speak he took care not to speak either.
what’s the matter with them, he wondered, and still watched them; and even now, far down the street, arthur kept turning his head, and for several steps alvin walked backwards.
what are they mad about?
now they no longer looked around, and now he watched them vanish under the hill.
maybe they don’t know, he thought. maybe the others don’t know, either.
he came out to the sidewalk.
maybe everybody knew. or maybe he knew something of great importance which nobody else knew. the alternatives were not at all distinct in his mind; he was puzzled, but no less proud and expectant than before. my daddy’s dead, he said to himself slowly, and then, shyly, he said it aloud: “my daddy’s dead.” nobody in sight seemed to have heard; he had said it to nobody in particular. “my daddy’s dead,” he said again, chiefly for his own benefit. it sounded powerful, solid, and entirely creditable, and he knew that if need be he would tell people. he watched a large, slow man come towards him and waited for the man to look at him and acknowledge the fact first, but when the man was just ahead of him, and still did not appear even to have seen him, he told him, “my daddy’s dead,” but the man did not seem to hear him, he just swung on by. he took care to tell the next man sooner and the man’s face looked almost as if he were dodging a blow but he went on by, looking back a few steps later with a worried face; and after a few steps more he turned and came slowly back.
“what was that you said, sonny?” he asked; he was frowning slightly.
“my daddy’s dead,” rufus said, expectantly.
“you mean that sure enough?” the man asked.
“he died last night when i was asleep and now he can’t come home ever any more.”
the man looked at him as if something hurt him.
“where do you live, sonny?”
“right here”; he showed with his eyes.
“do your folks know you out here wandern round?”
he felt his stomach go empty. he looked frankly into his eyes and nodded quickly.
the man just looked at him and rufus realized: he doesn’t believe me. how do they always know?
“you better just go on back in the house, son,” he said. “they won’t like you being out here on the street.” he kept looking at him, hard.
rufus looked into his eyes with reproach and apprehension, and turned in at his walk. the man still stood there. rufus went on slowly up his steps, and looked around. the man was on his way again but at the moment rufus looked around, he did too, and now he stopped again.
he shook his head and said, in a friendly voice which made rufus feel ashamed, “how would your daddy like it, you out here telling strangers how he’s dead?”
rufus opened the door, taking care not to make a sound, and stepped in and silently closed it, and hurried into the sitting room. through the curtains he watched the man. he still stood there, lighting a cigarette, but now he started walking again. he looked back once and rufus felt, with a quailing of shame and fear, he sees me; but the man immediately looked away again and rufus watched him until he was out of sight.
how would your daddy like it?
he thought of the way they teased him and did things to him, and how mad his father got when he just came home. he thought how different it would be today if he only didn’t have to stay home from school.
he let himself out again and stole back between the houses to the alley, and walked along the alley, listening to the cinders cracking under each step, until he came near the sidewalk. he was not in front of his own home now, or even on highland avenue; he was coming into the side street down from his home, and he felt that here nobody would identify him with his home and send him back to it. what he could see from the mouth of the alley was much less familiar to him, and he took the last few steps which brought him out onto the sidewalk with deliberation and shyness. he was doing something he had been told not to do.
he looked up the street and he could see the corner he knew so well, where he always met the others so unhappily, and, farther away, the corner around which his father always disappeared on the way to work, and first appeared on his way home from work. he felt it would be good luck that he would not be meeting them at that corner. slowly, uneasily, he turned his head, and looked down the side street in the other direction; and there they were: three together, and two along the far side of the street, and one alone, farther off, and another alone, farther off, and, without importance to him, some girls here and there, as well. he knew the faces of all of these boys well, though he was not sure of any of their names. the moment he saw them all he was sure they saw him, and sure that they knew. he stood still and waited for them, looking from one to another of them, into their eyes, and step by step at their several distances, each of them at all times looking into his eyes and knowing, they came silently nearer. waiting, in silence, during those many seconds before the first of them came really near him, he felt that it was so long to wait, and be watched so closely and silently, and to watch back, that he wanted to go back into the alley and not be seen by them or by anybody else, and yet at the same time he knew that they were all approaching him with the realization that something had happened to him that had not happened to any other boy in town, and that now at last they were bound to think well of him; and the nearer they came but were yet at a distance, the more the gray, sober air was charged with the great energy and with a sense of glory and of danger, and the deeper and more exciting the silence became, and the more tall, proud, shy and exposed he felt; so that as they came still nearer he once again felt his face break into a wide smile, with which he had nothing to do, and, feeling that there was something deeply wrong in such a smile, tried his best to quieten his face and told them, shyly and proudly, “my daddy’s dead.”
of the first three who came up, two merely looked at him and the third said, “huh! betcha he ain’t”; and rufus, astounded that they did not know and that they should disbelieve him, said, “why he is so!”
“where’s your satchel at?” said the boy who had spoken. “you’re just making up a lie so you can lay out of school.”
“i am not laying out,” rufus replied. “i was going to school and my aunt hannah told me i didn’t have to go to school today or tomorrow or not till—not for a few days. she said i mustn’t. so i am not laying out. i’m just staying out.”
and another of the boys said, “that’s right. if his daddy is dead he don’t have to go back to school till after the funerl.”
while rufus had been speaking two other boys had crossed over to join them and now one of them said, “he don’t have to. he can lay out cause his daddy got killed,” and rufus looked at the boy gratefully and the boy looked back at him, it seemed to rufus, with deference.
but the first boy who had spoken said, resentfully, “how do you know?”
and the second boy, while his companion nodded, said, “cause my daddy seen it in the paper. can’t your daddy read the paper?”
the paper, rufus thought; it’s even in the paper! and he looked wisely at the first boy. and the first boy, interested enough to ignore the remark against his father, said, “well how did he get killed, then?” and rufus, realizing with respect that it was even more creditable to get killed than just to die, took a deep breath and said, “why, he was ...”; but the boy whose father had seen it in the paper was already talking, so he listened, instead, feeling as if all this were being spoken for him, and on his behalf, and in his praise, and feeling it all the more as he looked from one silent boy to the next and saw that their eyes were constantly on him. and rufus listened, too, with as much interest as they did, while the boy said with relish, “in his ole tin lizzie, that’s how. he was driving along in his ole tin lizzie and it hit a rock and throwed him out in the ditch and run up a eight-foot bank and then fell back and turned over and over and landed right on top of him whomph and mashed every bone in his body, that’s all. and somebody come and found him and he was dead already time they got there, that’s how.”
“he was instantly killed,” rufus began, and expected to go ahead and correct some of the details of the account, but nobody seemed to hear him, for two other boys had come up and just as he began to speak one of them said, “your daddy got his name in the paper didn he, and you too,” and he saw that now all the boys looked at him with new respect.
“he’s dead,” he told them. “he got killed.”
“that’s what my daddy says,” one of them said, and the other said, “what you get for driving a auto when you’re drunk, that’s what my dad says,” and the two of them looked gravely at the other boys, nodding, and at rufus.
“what’s drunk?” rufus asked.
“what’s drunk?” one of the boys mocked incredulously: “drunk is fulla good ole whiskey”; and he began to stagger about in circles with his knees weak and his head lolling. “at’s what drunk is.”
“then he wasn’t,” rufus said.
“how do you know?”
“he wasn’t drunk because that wasn’t how he died. the wheel hit a rock and the other wheel, the one you steer with, just hit him on the chin, but it hit him so hard it killed him. he was instantly killed.”
“what’s instantly killed?” one of them asked.
“what do you care?” another said.
“right off like that,” an older boy explained, snapping his fingers. another boy joined the group. thinking of what instantly meant, and how his father’s name was in the paper and his own too, and how he had got killed, not just died, he was not listening to them very clearly for a few moments, and then, all of a sudden, he began to realize that he was the center of everything and that they all knew it and that they waited to hear him tell the true account of it.
“i don’t know nothing about no chin,” the boy whose father saw it in the paper was saying. “way i heard it he was a-drivin along in his ole tin lizzie and he hit a rock and ole tin lizzie run off the road and showed him out and run up a eight-foot bank and turned over and over and fell back down on top of him whomp.”
“how do you know?” an older boy was saying. “you wasn’t there. anybody here knows it’s him.” and he pointed at rufus and rufus was startled from his revery.
“why?” asked the boy who had just come up.
“cause it’s his daddy,” one of them explained.
“it’s my daddy,” rufus said.
“what happened?” asked still another boy, at the fringe of the group.
“my daddy got killed,” rufus said.
“his daddy got killed,” several of the others explained.
“my daddy says he bets he was drunk.”
“good ole whiskey!”
“shut up, what’s your daddy know about it.”
“was he drunk?”
“no,” rufus said.
“no,” two others said.
“let him tell it.”
“yeah, you tell it.”
“anybody here ought to know, it’s him.”
“come on and tell us.”
“good ole whiskey.”
“shut your mouth.”
“well come on and tell us, then.”
they became silent and all of them looked at him. rufus looked back into their eyes in the sudden deep stillness. a man walked by, stepping into the gutter to skirt them.
rufus said, quietly, “he was coming home from grampa’s last night, grampa follet. he’s very sick and daddy had to go up way in the middle of the night to see him, and he was hurrying as fast as he could to get back home because he was so late. and there was a cotter pin worked loose.”
“what’s a cotter pin?”
“shut up.”
“a cotter pin is what holds things together underneath, that you steer with. it worked loose and fell out so that when one of the front wheels hit a loose rock it wrenched the wheel and he couldn’t steer and the auto ran down off the road with an awful bump and they saw where the wheel you steer with hit him right on the chin and he was instantly killed. he was thrown all the way out of the auto and it ran up an eight-foot emb—embackment and then it rolled back down and it was upside down beside him when they found him. there was not a mark on his body. only a little tiny blue mark right on the end of the chin and another on his lip.”
in the silence he could see the auto upside down with its wheels in the air and his father lying beside it with the little blue marks on his chin and on his lip.
“heck,” one of them said, “how can that kill anybody?”
he felt a kind of sullen stirring among the others, and he felt that he was not believed, or that they did not think very well of his father for being killed so easily.
“it was just exactly the way it just happened to hit him, uncle andrew says. he says it was just a chance in a million. it gave him a concush, con, concush—it did something to his brain that killed him.”
“just a chance in a million,” one of the older boys said gravely, and another gravely nodded.
“a million trillion,” another said.
“knocked him crazy as a loon,” another cried, and with a waggling forefinger he made a rapid blubbery noise against his loose lower lip.
“shut yer goddamn mouth,” an older boy said coldly. “ain’t you got no sense at all?”
“way i heard it, ole tin lizzie just rolled right back on top of him whomp.”
this account of it was false, rufus was sure, but it seemed to him more exciting than his own, and more creditable to his father and to him, and nobody could question, scornfully, whether that could kill, as they could of just a blow on the chin; so he didn’t try to contradict. he felt that he was lying, and in some way being disloyal as well, but he said only, “he was instantly killed. he didn’t have to feel any pain.”
“never even knowed what hit him,” a boy said quietly. “that’s what my dad says.”
“no,” rufus said. it had not occurred to him that way. “i guess he didn’t.” never even knowed what hit him. knew.
“reckon that ole tin lizzie is done for now. huh?”
he wondered if there was some meanness behind calling it an old tin lizzie. “i guess so,” he said.
“good ole waggin, but she done broke down.”
his father sang that.
“no more joy rides in that ole tin lizzie, huh rufus?”
“i guess not,” rufus replied shyly.
he began to realize that for some moments now a bell, the school bell, had been weltering on the dark gray air; he realized it because at this moment the last of its reverberations were fading.
“last bell,” one of the boys said in sudden alarm.
“come on, we’re goana git hell,” another said; and within another second rufus was watching them all run dwindling away up the street, and around the corner into highland avenue, as fast as they could go, and all round him the morning was empty and still. he stood still and watched the corner for almost half a minute after the fattest of them, and then the smallest, had disappeared; then he walked slowly back along the alley, hearing once more the sober crumbling of the cinders under each step, and up through the narrow side yard between the houses, and up the steps of the front porch.
in the paper! he looked for it beside the door, but it was not there. he listened carefully, but he could not bear anything. he let himself quietly through the front door, at the moment his aunt hannah came from the sitting room into the front hall. she wore a cloth over her hair and in her hands she was carrying the smoking stand. she did not see him at first and he saw how fierce and lonely her face looked. he tried to make himself small but just then she wheeled on him, her lenses flashing, and exclaimed, “rufus follet, where on earth have you been!” his stomach quailed, for her voice was so angry it was as if it were crackling with sparks.
“outdoors.”
“where, outdoors! i’ve been looking for you all over the place.”
“just out. back in the alley.”
“didn’t you hear me calling you?”
he shook his head.
“i shouted until my voice was hoarse.”
he kept shaking his head. “honest,” he said.
“now listen to me carefully. you mustn’t go outdoors today. stay right here inside this house, do you understand?”
he nodded. he felt suddenly that he had done an awful thing.
“i know it’s hard to,” she said more gently, “but you’ve got to. help catherine with her coloring. read a book. you promise?”
“yes’m.”
“and don’t do anything to disturb your mother.”
“no’m.”
she went on down the hall and he watched her. what was she doing with the pipes and the ash trays, he wondered. he considered sneaking behind her, for he knew that she could not see at all well, yet he would be sure to get caught, for her hearing was very sharp. all the same, he sneaked along to the back of the hall and watched her empty the ashes into the garbage pail and rap out the pipes against its rim. then she stood with the pipes in her hand, looking around uncertainly; finally she put the pipes and the ash tray on the cupboard shelf, and set the smoking stand in the corner of the kitchen behind the stove. he went back along the hall on tiptoe and into the sitting room.
catherine sat in the little chair by the side window with a picture book on her knees. her crayons were all over the window sill and she was working intently with an orange crayon. she looked up when he came in and looked down again and kept on working.
he did not want to help her, be wanted to be my himself and see if he could find the paper with the names in it, but he felt that he ought to try to be good, for by now he felt a dark uneasiness about something, he was not quite sure what, that he had done. he walked over to her. “i’ll help you,” he said.
“no,” catherine said, without even looking up. it was the mother goose book and with her orange crayon she was scrawling all over the cow which jumped over the moon, inside and outside the lines of the cow.
“aunt hannah says to,” he said, disgusted to see what she was doing to the cow.
“no,” catherine said, and again she did not look up or stop scrawling for a second.
“that ain’t no color for a cow,” he said. “whoever saw an orange cow?” she made no reply, but he could see that her face was getting red. “besides, you’re not even coloring inside the cow,” he said. “just look at that. you’re just running that crayon around all over the place and it isn’t even the right color.” she bore down even harder and harder with the crayon and pushed it in a wider and wider tangle of lines and all of a sudden it snapped and the long part rolled to the floor. “see now, you busted it,” rufus said.
“leave me alone!” she tried to draw with the stub of the crayon but it was too short, and the paper got in the way. she looked along the window sill and selected a brown crayon.
“what you goana do with that brown one?” rufus said. “you already got all that orange all over everything, what you goana do with that brown one?” catherine took the brown crayon and made a brutal tangle of dark lines all over the orange lines. “now all you did is just spoil it,” rufus said. “you don’t know how to draw!”
“quit it!” catherine yelled, and all of a sudden she was crying. he heard his aunt hannah’s sharp voice from the kitchen: “rufus?”
he was furious with catherine. “crybaby,” he whispered with cold hatred: “tattletale!”
and there was aunt hannah at the door, just as mad as a hornet. “now, what’s the matter? what have you done to her!” she walked straight at him.
it wasn’t fair. how did she know he was doing anything? with a feeling of real righteousness he talked back: “i didn’t do one single thing to her. she was just messing everything up on her picture and i tried to help her like you told me to and all of a sudden she started to cry.”
“what did he do, catherine?”
“he wouldn’t let me alone.”
“why good night, i never even touched you and you’re a liar if you say i did!”
all of a sudden he felt himself gripped by the shoulders and shaken and he turned his rattling head from his sister to look into his aunt hannah’s freezing glare.
“now you just listen to me,” she said. “are you listening?” she sputtered. “are you listening?” she said still more intensely.
“yes,” he managed to get out, though the word was all shaken up.
“i don’t want to spank you on this day of all days, but if i hear you say one more rough thing like that to your sister i’ll give you a spanking you’ll remember to your dying day, do you hear me? do you hear me?”
“yes.”
“and if you tease her or make her cry just one more time i’ll—i’ll turn the whole matter over to your uncle andrew and we’ll see what he’ll do about it. do you want me to call him? he’s upstairs this minute! shall i call him?” she stopped shaking him and looked at him. “shall i?” he shook his head; he was terrified. “all right, but this is my last warning. do you understand?”
“yes’m.”
“now if you can’t play with catherine in peace like a decent boy just—stay by yourself. look at some pictures. read a book. but you be quiet. and good. do you hear me?”
“yes’m.”
“very well.” she stood up and her joints snapped. “come with me, catherine,” she said. “let’s bring your crayons.” and she helped catherine gather up the crayons and the stubs from the window sill and from the carpet. catherine’s face was still red but she was not crying any more. as she passed rufus she gave him a glance filled with satisfaction, and he answered it with a glance of helpless malevolence.
he listened towards upstairs. if his uncle andrew had overheard this, there would really be trouble. but there was no evidence that he had. rufus felt weak in the knees and in the stomach. he went over to the chair beside the fireplace and sat down.
it was mean to pester catherine like that but he hadn’t wanted to do anything for her anyway. and why did she have to holler like that and bring aunt hannah running? he remembered the way her face got red and he knew that he had really been mean to her and he was sorry. but what did she holler for, like a regular crybaby? he would be very careful today, but sooner or later he sure would get back on her. darn crybaby. tattletale.
the others really did pay him some attention, though. anybody here ought to know, it’s him. his daddy got killed. yeah you tell it. come on and tell us. just a chance in a million. a million trillion. never even knowed, knew, what hit him. shut yer goddamn mouth. ain’t you got no sense at all?
instantly killed.
concussion, that was it. concussion of the brain.
knocked him crazy as a loon, bibblibblebble.
shut yer goddam mouth.
but there was something that made him feel wrong.
ole tin lizzie.
what you get for driving a auto when you’re drunk, that’s what my dad says.
good ole whiskey.
something he did.
ole tin lizzie just rolled back down on top of him whomp.
didn’t either.
he didn’t say it didn’t. not clear enough.
heck, how can that kill anybody?
did, though. just a chance in a million. million trillion.
instantly killed.
worse than that, he did.
what.
how would your daddy like it?
he would like me to be with them without them teasing; looking up to me.
how would your daddy like it?
like what?
going out in the street like that when he is dead.
out in the street like what?
showing off to people because he is dead.
he wants me to get along with them.
so i tell them he is dead and they look up to me, they don’t tease me.
showing off because he’s dead, that’s all you can show off about. any other thing they’d tease me and i wouldn’t fight back.
how would your daddy like it?
but he likes me to get along with them. that’s why i—went out—showed off.
he felt so uneasy, deep inside his stomach, that he could not think about it any more. he wished he hadn’t done it. he wished he could go back and not do anything of the kind. he wished his father could know about it and tell him that yes he was bad but it was all right he didn’t mean to be bad. he was glad his father didn’t know because if his father knew he would think even worse of him than ever. but if his father’s soul was around, always, watching over them, then he knew. and that was worst of anything because there was no way to hide from a soul, and no way to talk to it, either. he just knows, and it couldn’t say anything to him, and he couldn’t say anything to it. it couldn’t whip him either, but it could sit and look at him and be ashamed of him.
“i didn’t mean it,” he said aloud. “i didn’t mean to do bad.”
i wanted to show you my cap, he added, silently.
he looked at his father’s morsechair.
not a mark on his body.
he still looked at the chair. with a sense of deep stealth and secrecy he finally went over and stood beside it. after a few moments, and after listening most intently, to be sure that nobody was near, he smelled of the chair, its deeply hollowed seat, the arms, the back. there was only a cold smell of tobacco and, high along the back, a faint smell of hair. he thought of the ash tray on its weighted strap on the arm; it was empty. he ran his finger inside it; there was only a dim smudge of ash. there was nothing like enough to keep in his pocket or wrap up in a paper. he looked at his finger for a moment and licked it; his tongue tasted of darkness.
