The Known World - Edward P. Jones [94]
“Sure you do. You sure do. I’m tellin you I got what ails you, honey. Got that and more to spare.” In the wintertime, the man had advised the boy, you can wrap yourself up in all that young stuff, and then you don’t need to come out till springtime. Stay hibernatin like them bears. “Just gimme one chance to show you what I gots, honey. Just one chance.”
Delphie looked up and down the lane. The rain was gentle right then, not hard, and she could see that just by how the sparse patches of grass did not lean and fuss when the rain hit them. Her eyes came back to Stamford and she realized that she pitied him more than she had ever pitied any human being. More than even a child lying dead and motherless in the road. She remembered what he called out in his dreams in the days after Clement beat him.
Stamford reached up and touched her breast. Now the titty, the man had advised the boy, is the real talker on a woman, you see what I mean. You have to tell it what you want even when that damn young stuff’s mouth is saying something opposite a what you want. Talk to the titty first and the door will open just like that.
Delphie took his hand from her breast, firmly, and Stamford let it drop down to his side. His blood had soaked seven large rags. With his other hand Stamford wiped the rain from his face, but it was all for nothing because he was standing in the open and more rain quickly covered his face. Finally, he saw what she saw. The rain stopped for about ten seconds and, his mouth still locked in a grin, Stamford looked around to see what the new silence was all about. When he returned, she was waiting. “I would not ever be with you,” she said. The rain came back. Delphie stepped closer to him and for just that moment he was hopeful, forgetting her words and taking in the smell of her. Delphie put her hands to his shoulders, held on to them, taking the full measure of him. “You too heavy a man for me to carry, Stamford. I done carried heavy men and I know how they can break your back. I ain’t got but this one back and I don’t want it broke again, least not before it can see fifty years.” She stepped back, turned and went into her home. She was used to nursing people, trying to heal them, and so it was a long moment before she shut the door, and when she did shut it, it made no sound.
Stamford stepped fully out into the lane, into mud. The man, the adviser, was silent in his head. He walked absently away from where he was originally headed and trudged through the mud toward Caldonia’s house. As the rain came harder, he understood that he was actually walking away from his own cabin and he turned around and through the heavy rain tried to make out just which cabin was his own. He went down the lane. The mud pulled at him. He walked on and gradually became aware of his surroundings. He passed Celeste and Elias’s cabin. He stopped. It’s rainin, he thought. Damn if it ain’t rainin cats and dogs out here.
He stood there for a very long time, and the longer he stood, the more he sank. All the heart he had for living in the world began to leave him. He could feel the life running down his chest, his arms and legs, doing something for the ground that it had never been able to do for him. If God had asked him if he was ready right then, there would have been only one answer. “Just take me on home. Or spit me down to hell, I don’t care anymore. Just take me away from this.”
He stepped on, slowed down by the mud.
As he neared his cabin, another door opened and Delores, seven years old, came out of her place with a bucket in her hand. Once she hit the lane, with Stamford only three feet away, she slipped and fell into the mud.
“You gotdamn little fool,” Stamford said, helping the child up. “What you doin out here in all this mess?”
“Goin to get some blueberries,” Delores said. In one part of the world, way off to the right