The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers [147]
Small a child as he is. I always had a deep respect for scholars.’
The motion of the wagon jolted his back. He looked up at the branches overhead, and then when there was no shade he covered his face with a handkerchief to shield his eyes from the sun. It was not possible that this could be the end. Always he had felt in him the strong, true purpose. For forty years his mission was his life and his life was his mission. And yet all remained to be done and nothing was completed.
‘Yes, Benedict Mady, I right glad to have you with us again. I been waiting to ask you about this peculiar feeling in my right foot. A queer feeling like my foot gone to sleep. I taken and rubbed it with liniment. I hoping you will find me a good treatment.’
‘I will do what I can.’
‘Yes, I glad to have you. I believe in all kinfolks sticking together--blood kin and marriage kin. I believe in all us struggling along and helping each other out, and some day us will have a reward in the Beyond.’
‘Pshaw!’ Doctor Copeland said bitterly. ‘I believe in justice now.’
‘What that you say you believe in? You speak so hoarse I ain’t able to hear you.’
‘In justice for us. Justice for us Negroes!’
‘That right.’
He felt the fire in him and he could not be still. He wanted to sit up and speak in a loud voice-yet when he tried to raise himself he could not find the strength. The words in his heart grew big and they would not be silent But the old man had ceased to listen and there was no one to hear him.
‘Git, Lee Jackson. Git, Honey. Pick up your feets and quit this here poking. Us got a long way to go.’
Afternoon.
Jake ran at a violent, clumsy pace. He went through Weavers Lane and then cut into a side alley, climbed a fence, and hastened onward. Nausea rose in his belly so that there was the taste of vomit in his throat. A barking dog chased beside him until he stopped long enough to threaten it with a rock.
His eyes were wide with horror and he held his hand clapped to his open mouth.
Christ! So this was the finish. A brawl. A riot. A fight with every man for himself. Bloody heads and eyes cut with broken bottles. Christ! And the wheezy music of the flying jinny above the noise. The dropped hamburgers and cotton candy and the screaming younguns. And him in it all. Fighting blind with the dust and sun. The sharp cut of teeth against his knuckles. And laughing. Christ! And the feeling that he had let loose a wild, hard rhythm in him that wouldn’t stop. And then looking close into the dead black face and not knowing.
Not even knowing if he had killed or not. But wait. Christ! Nobody could have stopped it.
Jake slowed and jerked his head nervously to look behind him.
The alley was empty. He vomited and wiped his mouth and forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. Afterward he rested for a minute and felt better. He had run for about eight blocks and with short cuts there was about half a mile to go. The dizziness cleared in his head so that from all the wild feelings he could remember facts. He started off again, this time at a steady jog.
Nobody could have stopped it. All through the summer he had stamped them out like sudden fires. All but this one. And this fight nobody could have stopped. It seemed to blaze up out of nothing. He had been working on the machinery of the swings and had stopped to get a glass of water. As he passed across the grounds he saw a white boy and a Negro walking around each other. They were both drunk. Half the crowd was drunk that afternoon, for it was Saturday and the mills had run full time that week. The heat and the sun were sickening and there was a heavy stink in the air.
He saw the two fighters close in on each other. But he knew that this was not the beginning. He had felt a big fight coming for a long time. And the funny thing was he found time to think of all this. He stood watching for about five seconds before he pushed into the crowd. In that short time he thought of many things. He thought of Singer. He thought of the sullen summer afternoons and the black, hot nights, of all the