I was as bent as Boon, and — during the next step anyway — even more culpable. Because (I realised; no: knew; it was obvious; Boon himself admitted it in so many words) I was smarter than Boon. I realised, felt suddenly that same exultant fever-flash which Faustus himself must have experienced: that of we two doomed and irrevocable, I was the leader, I was the boss, the master.
Aunt Callie was already standing on the front gallery, carrying Alexander and yelling.
“Dry up,” I said. “Aint dinner ready? The automobile broke down. Boon fixed it. We never had time to get the gasoline and now I have to eat in a hurry and go back and help him fill the tank.” I went back to the dining room. Dinner was already on the table.
Lessep and Maury were already eating. Aunt Callie had already dressed them (she had dressed them to go seventeen miles out to Cousin Zack’s to spend four days as if they were going to Memphis; I dont know why, unless it was because she didn’t have anything else to do between the time Mother and Father left and dinner. Because Maury and Alexander would both have to take a nap before we could leave) but by the front of his blouse, she would have to wash Maury off and dress him again.
Even then, I finished before they did and went back (Aunt Callie was still yelling, not loud in the house of course. But what could she do, single-handed — and a Negro — against Non-virtue?) across the street to Grandfather’s. Ned had probably left for town as soon as the automobile drove off. But he would probably come back for his dinner. He had. We stood in the back yard. He blinked at me. Quite often, most of the time in fact, his eyes had a reddish look, like a fox’s. “Why dont you aim to stay out there?” he said.
“I promised some fellows we would slip off tomorrow and try a new fishing hole one of them knows about.”
Ned blinked at me. “So you aims to ride out to McCaslin with Boon Hogganbeck and then turn right around and come back with him. Only you got to have something to tell Miss Louisa so she’ll let you come back and so you needs me to front for you.”
“No,” I said. “I dont need anything from you. I’m just telling you so you’ll know where I am and they wont blame you. I aint even going to bother you. I’m going to stay with Cousin Ike.” Before the rest of them came, I mean my brothers, when Mother and Father were out late at night and Grandfather and Grandmother were gone too, I used to stay with Ned and Delphine.
Sometimes I would sleep in their house all night, just for fun. I could have done that now, if it would have worked. But Cousin Ike lived alone in a single room over his hardware store. Even if Ned (or somebody else concerned) asked him point-blank if I was with him Saturday night, it would be at least Monday by then, and I had already decided quick and hard not to think about Monday. You see, if only people didn’t refuse quick and hard to think about next Monday, Virtue wouldn’t have such a hard and thankless time of it.
“I see,” Ned said. “You aint needing nothing from me. You just being big-hearted to save me bother and worry over you. Save everybody bother and worry that comes around wanting to know why you aint out at McCaslin where your paw told you to be.” He blinked at me. “Hee hee hee,” he said.
“All right,” I said. “Tell Father I went fishing on Sunday while they were gone. See if I care.”
“I aint fixing to tell nobody nothing about you,” he said. “You aint none of my business. You’s Callie’s business unto your maw gets back. Unlessen you gonter transfer to Mr Ike’s business for tonight, like you said.” He blinked at me. “When is Boon Hogganbeck coming for yawl?”
“Pretty soon now,” I said. “And you better not let Father or Boss hear you calling him Boon Hogganbeck.”
“I calls him Mister in plenty of time for him to earn it,” Ned said. “Let alone deserve it.” He said, “Hee hee hee.”
You see? I was doing the best I could. My trouble was, the tools I had to use. The innocence and the ignorance: I not only didn’t have strength and knowledge, I didn’t even have time enough. When the fates, gods — all right, Non-virtue — give you opportunities, the least they can do is give you room. But at least Cousin Ike was easy to find on Saturday. “You bet,” he said. “Come and stay with me tonight. Maybe we’ll go fishing tomorrow — just dont tell your father.”
“No sir,” I said. “Not stay with you tonight. I’m going to stay with Ned and Delphine, like I always do. I just wanted you to know, since Mother’s not here where I can tell her. I mean, ask her.” You see: doing the best I could with what I had, knew. Not that I was losing faith in ultimate success: it simply seemed to me that Non-virtue was wasting in merely testing me that time which was urgent and even desperate for greater ends. I went back home, not running: Jefferson must not see me running; but as fast as I could without it. You see, I did not dare trust Boon unbacked in Aunt Callie’s hands.
I was in time. In fact, it was Boon and the automobile who were late. Aunt Callie even had Maury and Alexander re-dressed again; if they had had naps since dinner, it was the shortest fastest sleep on record in our house. Also, Ned was there, where he had no business being. No, that’s not right. I mean, his being there was completely wrong: not being at our house, he was often there, but being anywhere where he could be doing something useful with Grandfather and Grandmother out of town. Because he was carrying the baggage out — the wicker basket of Alexander’s diapers and other personal odds and ends, the grips containing mine and Lessep’s and Maury’s clothes for four days, and Aunt Callie’s cloth-wrapped bundle, lumping them without order at the gate and telling Aunt Callie: “You might just as well set down and rest your feet. Boon Hogganbeck’s done broke that thing and is somewhere trying to fix it. If you really wants to get out to McCaslin before suppertime, telefoam Mr Ballott at the stable to send Son Thomas with the carriage and I’ll drive you out there like folks ought to travel.”
And after a while it began to look like Ned was right. Half past one came (which time Alexander and Maury could have spent sleeping) and no Boon; then Maury and Alexander could have slept another half an hour on top of that; Ned had said “I tole you so” so many times by now that Aunt Callie had quit yelling about Boon and yelled at Ned himself until he went and sat in the scuppernong arbor; she was just about to send me to look for Boon and the automobile when he drove up. When I saw him, I was terrified.
He had changed his clothes. I mean, he had shaved and he had on not merely a white shirt but a clean one, with a collar and necktie; without doubt when he got out of the car to load us in he would have a coat over his arm and the first thing Aunt Callie would see when she reached the car would be his grip on the floor.
Horror, but rage too (not at Boon: I discovered, realised that at once) at myself, who should have known, anticipated this, having known (I realised this too now) all my life that who dealt with Boon dealt with a child and had not merely to cope with but even anticipate its unpredictable vagaries; not the folly of Boon’s lack of the simplest rudiments of common sense, but the shame of my failure to anticipate, assume he would lack them, saying, crying to Whoever it is you indict in such crises Dont You realise I aint but eleven years old? How do You expect me to do all this at just eleven years old? Dont You see You are putting on me more than I can handle? But in the next second, rage at Boon too: not that his stupidity had now wrecked for good our motor trip to Memphis (that’s right, Memphis as our destination has never been mentioned, either to you or between Boon and me.
Why should it have been? Where else did we have to go? Indeed, where else could anyone in north Mississippi want to go?
Some aged and finished creature on his or her deathbed might contemplate or fear a more distant destination, but they were not Boon and me). In fact, at this moment I wished I had never heard of Memphis or Boon or automobiles either; I was on Colonel Sartoris’s side now, to have abolished Mr Buffaloe and his dream both from the face of the earth at the instant of
