Death In The Family, A - James Agee [84]
But he had felt that although maybe she was proud of the name, he was not. How could you be proud of a name that everybody laughed at? Once when they were less noisy, and one of them said to him, quietly, “That’s a nigger’s name,” he had tried to feel proud and had said, “It is not either, it’s a very fine old name and I got it from my Great-granpa Lynch,” they yelled, “Then your granpa’s a nigger too,” and ran off down the street yelling, “Rufus is a nigger, Rufus’ granpa’s a nigger, he’s a ning-ger, he’s a nin-ger,” and he had yelled after them, “He is not, either, it’s my great-granpa and he is not!”; but after that they sometimes opened a conversation by asking, “How’s your nigger grandpaw?” and he had to try to explain all over again that it was his great-grandpa and he was not colored, but they never seemed to pay any attention.
He could not understand what amused them so much about this game, or why they should pretend to be all kindness and interest for the sake of deceiving him into doing something still again that he knew they knew better than to do, but it gradually became clear to him that no matter how much they pretended good, they always meant meanness, and that the only way to guard against this was never to believe them, and never to do what they asked him to. And so in time he found that no matter how nice they asked, he was not deceived by them and would not tell them his name, and this made him feel much better, except that now they seemed to have much less interest in him. He did not want them to go by without even looking at him, or just saying something mean or sneering as they passed, pretending so successfully that they meant to hit him with their books, that he had to duck; he only wanted them not to tease and fool him; he only wanted them to be nice to him and like him. And so he remained very ready to do whatever seemed necessary to be liked, except that one thing, telling his name, which was clearly not ever a good thing to do. And so, as long as they didn’t ask him his name (and they soon knew that this joke was no good any more), he continued to hope against hope that in every other way, they were not trying to tease or fool him. Now they would come up to him looking quite serious, the older boys, and say, as if it were a very serious question,
Rufus Rastus Johnson Brown
What you gonna do when the rent comes roun?
He always felt that they were still teasing him about his name, when they said that; there was something about the word “Rastus” that they said in such a tone that he knew they disliked both names and held both in contempt, and he could not understand why they gave him so many names when only one was really his and his last name was really Follet. But at least they knew what his name was now, even if most of them pronounced it “Roofeass”; at least they weren’t pretending they didn’t know; it wasn’t as bad as that. Besides, what they were really doing was asking him a question, “What you gonna do when the rent comes roun?” Though they asked it every time and it seemed a nonsensical question. They seemed to really want to know, and if he could answer them, then he could really tell them something they really didn’t know and then maybe they would really like him and not tease him. Yet he realized that this too must be teasing. They did not really want to know. How could they, when the question had no meaning? What was the rent? What did it look like when it came roun? It probably looked very mean or maybe it looked nice but was mean when you got to know it. And what would you do when it came roun? What could you do if you didn’t even know what it was? Or if it was just something they made up, that wasn’t really alive, just a story? He wanted to ask what the rent was, but he suspected that that was exactly