Because this was just January; that Christmas ball wasn’t barely three weeks old yet. Even when they chose sides it was still jest fun, because most of them had jest come to watch and listen anyhow, even after somebody beat the Judge’s mallet on the table until they quit laughing and joking and hushed and one of the aldermen said, “I dont know how much it will cost to drain that tank, but I for one will be damned — —”
“I do,” Lawyer Stevens says. “I already asked. It will cost three hundred and eighty dollars to rig a auxiliary tank long enough to drain and then fill the other one up again and then dismantle the auxiliary and get shut of it. It wont cost nothing to send somebody down inside of it to look because I’ll do that myself.”
“All right,” the alderman says. “Then I will still be damned — —”
“All right,” Lawyer says. “Then I will pay for it myself,” and the old bonding feller, the white vest one, saying “Gentlemen. Gentlemen. Gentlemen.” and the young one, the first one, standing up now and hollering:
“Dont you see, Mr Stevens? Dont you see, Mr Stevens? If you find brass in the tank, there wont be no crime because the brass already belongs to the city?”
“I already thought of that too,” Lawyer says. “The brass still belongs to the city even if we dont drain the tank. Only, where is it at?” and the little bonding feller saying:
“Wait! Wait! That aint what I meant. I mean if the brass aint missing there aint no crime because it wasn’t never stole.”
“Tom Tom Bird and Tomey’s Turl Beauchamp says it was because they stole it,” Lawyer says. Now they was two aldermen talking at once, saying,
“Hold up here; hold up here,” until finally the loudest one, Henry Best, won:
“Then who are you charging, Gavin? Are them nigras under Manfred’s bond too?”
“But there aint no crime! We know the brass is in that tank because that’s where the nigras said they put it!” the little bonding feller was hollering and all this time the big one, the white vest one, still saying “Gentlemen. Gentlemen. Gentlemen.” like a big bass drum a far piece off that never nobody paid any attention to nohow; until Henry Best hollered,
“Wait, god damn it,” so loud that they did hush and Henry said: “Them nigras confessed they stole that brass, but there aint no evidence of theft until we drain that tank.
So right now, they didn’t steal no brass. And if we drain that damn tank and find brass in it, they did steal brass and are guilty of theft. Only, as soon as we find brass in that tank, they never stole any brass because the brass is not just once more in the possession of the city: it aint never been out of it. God damn it, Gavin, is that what you are trying to tell us? Then what the hell do you want? What in hell do you want?”
And Lawyer Stevens setting there calm and still, with his face still white and still as paper. And maybe he hadn’t learned how to fight yet neither. But he still hadn’t heard about no rule against trying. “That’s right,” he says. “If there is brass in that tank — valuable property of the city unlawfully constrained into that tank by the connivance and condonance of a employee of the city, a crime has been committed.
If we find brass in that tank — valuable property belonging to the city unlawfully constrained into that tank with the connivance or condonance of a employee of the city, even if it is recovered, a attempt at a crime has been condoned by a employee of the city. But that tank per se and what brass may or may not per se be in it, is beside the point. What we have engaged the attention of this honorable bonding company about is, jest which malfeasance did our honorable mayor commit? Jest which crime by who did our chief servant of our city condone?” Because he didn’t know either what he wanted. And even when next day his paw told him what his behavior acted like he wanted and for a minute Lawyer even agreed, that still wasn’t it.
Because that was all they got then, which wasn’t nothing to be settled jest off-hand by a passel of amateurs like a alderman board. It was something for a professional, a sho-enough active judge; whether they aimed to or not, they had done got themselves now to where they would have to have a court. Though I didn’t know Judge Dukinfield was in the crowd until Henry Best stood up and looked out at us and hollered “Judge Dukinfield, is Judge Dukinfield still here?” and Judge Dukinfield stood up in the back and says,
“Yes, Henry?”
“I reckon we’ll have to have help, Judge,” Henry says. “I reckon you heard as much of this as we done, and we all hope you made more sense out of it than we done—”
“Yes; all right,” Judge Dukinfield says. “We will hold the hearing here in chambers tomorrow morning at nine. I dont believe either plaintiff or defendant will need more counsel than are represented tonight but they are welcome to bring juniors if they like — or should we say seconds?”
Then we all got up to leave, still laughing and talking and joking back and forth, still not taking no sides but just mainly enjoying it, jest being in principle on whichever other side from them two foreign bonding fellers for the simple reason that they was foreigners, not even paying no attention to Lawyer’s twin sister standing there by him now until you could almost hear her telling Henry Best: “Now you’re satisfied; maybe you can let him alone now;” not even paying no attention when a boy — I didn’t recognise who he was — come burrowing through and up to the table and handed Lawyer something and Lawyer taken it; not realising until tomorrow that something had happened between that meeting that night and the next morning that we never knowed about and it’s my opinion we aint going to, just going on home or about our business until the Square was empty except for that one light in his and his paw’s office over the hardware store where he was setting alone — provided it was him of course and providing he was alone — how does the feller say it? inviting his soul?
FIVE
Gavin Stevens
THE POETS ARE wrong of course. According to them I should even have known the note was on the way, let alone who it was from. As it was, I didn’t even know who it was from after I read it. But then, poets are almost always wrong about facts. That’s because they are not really interested in facts: only in truth: which is why the truth they speak is so true that even those who hate poets by simple natural instinct are exalted and terrified by it.
No: that’s wrong. It’s because you dont dare to hope, you are afraid to hope. Not afraid of the extent of hope of which you are capable, but that you — the frail web of bone and flesh snaring that fragile temeritous boundless aspirant sleepless with dream and hope — cannot match it; as Ratliff would say, Knowing always you wont never be man enough to do the harm and damage you would do if you were just man enough. — and, he might add, or maybe I do it for him, thank God for it. Ay, thank God for it or thank anything else for it that will give you any peace after it’s too late; peace in which to coddle that frail web and its unsleeping ensnared anguish both on your knee and whisper to it: There, there, it’s all right; I know you are brave.
The first thing I did on entering the office was to turn on all the lights; if it hadn’t been January and the thermometer in the low thirties I would have propped the door to stand open too for that much more of a Mississippi gentleman’s tender circumspection toward her good name. The second thing I did was to think My God all the lights on for the whole town to see because now I would have Grover Winbush (the night marshal) up the stairs as surely as if I had sent for him since with the usual single desk lamp on he would have thought I was merely working and would let me alone, where with all of them burning like this he would come up certainly, not to surprise the intruder but to participate in the conversation.
So I should have leaped to turn them off again, knowing that once I moved, turned loose the chair arms I would probably bolt, flee, run home to Maggie who has tried to be my mother ever since ours died and someday may succeed.
So I just sat there thinking how if there were only time and means to communicate, suggest, project onto her wherever she might be at this moment between
