The sound and the fury
“No she’s not,” I says. “We’re going to fix that right now.” She looked
at me, the cup in her hand. She brushed her hair back from her face, her
kimono slipping off her shoulder. “You put that cup down and come in
here a minute,” I says.
“What for?” she says.
“Come on,” I says. “Put that cup in the sink and come in here.”
“What you up to now, Jason?” Dilsey says.
“You may think you can run over me like you do your grandmother and
everybody else,” I says, “But you’ll find out different. I’ll give you
ten seconds to put that cup down like I told you.”
She quit looking at me. She looked at Dilsey. “What time is it, Dilsey?”
she says. “When it’s ten seconds, you whistle. Just a half a cup.
Dilsey, pl—”
I grabbed her by the arm. She dropped the cup. It broke on the floor and
she jerked back, looking at me, but I held her arm. Dilsey got up from
her chair.
“You, Jason,” she says.
“You turn me loose,” Quentin says, “I’ll slap you.”
“You will, will you?” I says, “You will will you?” She slapped at me. I
caught that hand too and held her like a wildcat. “You will, will you?”
I says. “You think you will?”
“You, Jason!” Dilsey says. I dragged her into the diningroom. Her kimono
came unfastened, flapping about her, damn near naked. Dilsey came
hobbling along. I turned and kicked the door shut in her face.
“You keep out of here,” I says.
Quentin was leaning against the table, fastening her kimono. I looked at
her.
“Now,” I says, “I want to know what you mean, playing out of school and
telling your grandmother lies and forging her name on your report and
worrying her sick. What do you mean by it?”
She didn’t say anything. She was fastening her kimono up under her chin,
pulling it tight around her, looking at me. She hadn’t got around to
painting herself yet and her face looked like she had polished it with a
gun rag. I went and grabbed her wrist. “What do you mean?” I says.
“None of your damn business,” she says. “You turn me loose.”
Dilsey came in the door. “You, Jason,” she says.
“You get out of here, like I told you,” I says, not even looking back.
“I want to know where you go when you play out of school,” I says. “You
keep off the streets, or I’d see you. Who do you play out with? Are you
hiding out in the woods with one of those damn slick-headed jellybeans?
Is that where you go?”
“You—you old goddamn!” she says. She fought, but I held her. “You damn
old goddamn!” she says.
“I’ll show you,” I says. “You may can scare an old woman off, but I’ll
show you who’s got hold of you now.” I held her with one hand, then she
quit fighting and watched me, her eyes getting wide and black.
“What are you going to do?” she says.
“You wait until I get this belt out and I’ll show you,” I says, pulling
my belt out. Then Dilsey grabbed my arm.
“Jason,” she says, “You, Jason! Aint you shamed of yourself.”
“Dilsey,” Quentin says, “Dilsey.”
“I aint gwine let him,” Dilsey says, “Dont you worry, honey.” She held
to my arm. Then the belt came out and I jerked loose and flung her away.
She stumbled into the table. She was so old she couldn’t do any more
than move hardly. But that’s all right: we need somebody in the kitchen
to eat up the grub the young ones cant tote off. She came hobbling
between us, trying to hold me again. “Hit me, den,” she says, “ef nothin
else but hittin somebody wont do you. Hit me,” she says.
“You think I wont?” I says.
“I dont put no devilment beyond you,” she says. Then I heard Mother on
the stairs. I might have known she wasn’t going to keep out of it. I let
go. She stumbled back against the wall, holding her kimono shut.
“All right,” I says, “We’ll just put this off a while. But dont think
you can run it over me. I’m not an old woman, nor an old half dead
nigger, either. You damn little slut,” I says.
“Dilsey,” she says, “Dilsey, I want my mother.”
Dilsey went to her. “Now, now,” she says, “He aint gwine so much as lay
his hand on you while Ise here.” Mother came on down the stairs.
“Jason,” she says, “Dilsey.”
“Now, now,” Dilsey says, “I aint gwine let him tech you.” She put her
hand on Quentin. She knocked it down.
“You damn old nigger,” she says. She ran toward the door.
“Dilsey,” Mother says on the stairs. Quentin ran up the stairs, passing
her. “Quentin,” Mother says, “You, Quentin.” Quentin ran on. I could
hear her when she reached the top, then in the hall. Then the door
slammed.
Mother had stopped. Then she came on. “Dilsey,” she says.
“All right,” Dilsey says, “Ise comin. You go on and git dat car and wait
now,” she says, “so you kin cahy her to school.”
“Dont you worry,” I says. “I’ll take her to school and I’m going to see
that she stays there. I’ve started this thing, and I’m going through
with it.”
“Jason,” Mother says on the stairs.
“Go on, now,” Dilsey says, going toward the door. “You want to git her
started too? Ise comin, Miss Cahline.”
I went on out. I could hear them on the steps. “You go on back to bed
now,” Dilsey was saying, “Dont you know you aint feeling well enough to
git up yet? Go on back, now. I’m gwine to see she gits to school in
time.”
I went on out the back to back the car out, then I had to go all the way
round to the front before I found them.
“I thought I told you to put that tire on the back of the car,” I says.
“I aint had time,” Luster says. “Aint nobody to watch him till mammy git
done in de kitchen.”
“Yes,” I says, “I feed a whole damn kitchen full of niggers to follow
around after him, but if I want an automobile tire changed, I have to do
it myself.”
“I aint had nobody to leave him wid,” he says. Then he begun moaning and
slobbering.
“Take him on round to the back,” I says. “What the hell makes you want
to keep him around here where people can see him?” I made them go on,
before he got started bellowing good. It’s bad enough on Sundays, with
that damn field full of people that haven’t got a side show and six
niggers to feed, knocking a damn oversize mothball around. He’s going to
keep on running up and down that fence and bellowing every time they
come in sight until first thing I know they’re going to begin charging
me golf dues, then Mother and Dilsey’ll have to get a couple of china
door knobs and a walking stick and work it out, unless I play at night
with a lantern. Then they’d send us all to Jackson, maybe. God knows,
they’d hold Old Home week when that happened.
I went on back to the garage. There was the tire, leaning against the
wall, but be damned if I was going to put it on. I backed out and turned
around. She was standing by the drive. I says,
“I know you haven’t got any books: I just want to ask you what you did
with them, if it’s any of my business. Of course I haven’t got any right
to ask,” I says, “I’m just the one that paid $11.65 for them last
September.”
“Mother buys my books,” she says. “There’s not a cent of your money on
me. I’d starve first.”
“Yes?” I says. “You tell your grandmother that and see what she says.
You dont look all the way naked,” I says, “even if that stuff on your
face does hide more of you than anything else you’ve got on.”
“Do you think your money or hers either paid for a cent of this?” she
says.
“Ask your grandmother,” I says. “Ask her what became of those checks.
You saw her burn one of them, as I remember.” She wasn’t even listening,
with her face all gummed up with paint and her eyes hard as a fice
dog’s.
“Do you know what I’d do if I thought your money or hers either bought
one cent of this?” she says, putting her hand on her dress.
“What would you do?” I says, “Wear a barrel?”
“I’d tear it right off and throw it into the street,” she says. “Dont
you believe me?”
“Sure you would,” I says. “You do it every time.”
“See if I wouldn’t,” She says. She grabbed the neck of her dress in both
hands and made like she would tear it.
“You tear that dress,” I says, “And I’ll give you a whipping right here
that you’ll remember all your life.”
“See if I dont,” she says. Then I saw that she really was trying to tear
it, to tear it right off of her. By the time I got the car stopped and
grabbed her hands there was about a dozen people looking. It made me so
mad for a minute it kind of blinded me.
“You do a thing like that again and I’ll make you sorry you ever drew
breath,” I says.
“I’m sorry now,” she says. She quit, then her eyes turned kind of funny
and I says to myself if you cry here in this car, on the street, I’ll
whip you. I’ll wear you out. Lucky for her she didn’t, so I turned her
wrists loose and drove on. Luckily we were near an alley, where I could
turn into the back street and dodge the square. They were already
putting the tent up in Beard’s lot. Earl had already given me the two
passes for our show windows. She sat there with her face turned away,
chewing her lip. “I’m sorry now,” she says. “I dont see why I was ever
born.”
“And I know of at least one other person that dont understand all he
knows about that,” I says. I stopped in front of the school house. The
bell had rung, and the last of them were just going in. “You’re on time
for once, anyway,” I says. “Are you going in there and stay there, or am
I coming with you and make you?” She got out and banged the door.
“Remember what I say,” I says, “I mean it. Let me hear one more time
that you were slipping up and down back alleys with one of those damn
squirts.”
She turned back at that. “I dont slip around,” she says. “I dare anybody
to know everything I do.”
“And they all know it, too,” I says. “Everybody in this town knows what
you are. But I wont have it anymore, you hear? I dont care what you do,
myself,” I says, “But I’ve got a position in this town, and I’m not
going to have any member of my family going on like a nigger wench. You
hear me?”
“I dont care,” she says, “I’m bad and I’m going to hell, and I dont
care. I’d rather be in hell than anywhere where you are.”
“If I hear one more time that you haven’t been to school, you’ll wish
you were in hell,” I says. She turned and ran on across the yard. “One
more time, remember,” I says. She didn’t look back.
I went to the postoffice and got the mail and drove on to the store and
parked. Earl looked at me when I came in. I gave him a chance to say
something about my being late, but he just said,
“Those cultivators have come. You’d better help Uncle Job put them up.”
I went on to the back, where old Job was uncrating them, at the rate of
about three bolts to the hour.
“You ought to be working for me,” I says. “Every other no-count nigger
in town eats in my kitchen.”
“I works to suit de man whut pays me Sat’dy night,” he says. “When I
does dat, it dont leave me a whole lot of time to please other folks.”
He screwed up a nut. “Aint nobody works much in dis country cep de
boll-weevil, noways,” he says.
“You’d better be glad you’re not a boll-weevil waiting on those
cultivators,” I says. “You’d work yourself to death before they’d be
ready to prevent you.”
“Dat’s de troof,” he says, “Boll-weevil got tough time. Work ev’y day in
de week out in de hot sun, rain er shine. Aint got no front porch to set
on en watch de wattermilyuns growin and Sat’dy dont mean nothin a-tall
to him.”
“Saturday wouldn’t mean nothing to you, either,” I says, “if it depended
on me to pay you wages. Get those things out of the crates now and drag
them inside.”
I opened her letter first and took the check out. Just like a woman. Six
days late. Yet they try to make men believe that they’re capable of
conducting a business. How long would a man that thought the first of
the month came on the sixth last in business. And like as not, when they
sent the bank statement out, she would want to know why I never
deposited my salary until the sixth. Things like that never occur to a