Out of the Night That Covers Me by Pat Cunningham Devoto

Author:Pat Cunningham Devoto [CUNNINGHAM DEVOTO, PAT]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000
ISBN: 9780759521308
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2001-01-03T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 30

THEN next morning, Tuway had not returned, and so it fell to John to take the Judge over to the cotton gin for coffee. Saturday was the day that colored people went to town and white people were supposed to stay off the streets. The white men met at the cotton gin to “shoot the bull,” the Judge said. He told John to drop him off at the gin and then go on home. He could find his way back.

“No, sir,” he said in a matter-of-fact way. “Tuway said I better stay or—”

“Ah yes, I forgot Tuway’s admonition.”

They were standing on the front porch, next to large white wooden columns that had seen better days. A small pile of wood dust left by carpenter ants lay at the bottom of the column the Judge held to. “Probably if he doesn’t get back, I’ll have to stay over till Sunday,” John said. He glanced sideways to see the Judge’s reaction. Seeing none, he ventured further. “I probably need to so I can go to church with y’all.” He glanced again . . . and nothing. “It’s because my religious education is not what it should be.”

“Is that right?” the Judge said as he negotiated the front steps, using the black iron railing Tuway had built for him.

“Yes, sir,” John said, standing close beside the Judge. They left the steps and front yard to navigate the sidewalk, skirting around cracks in the cement caused by the oak tree roots. The Judge felt with his cane for cracks he had memorized.

“And did you and Mrs. Vance come to that conclusion this morning?”

“Yes, sir, we did.”

“The part about how your religious education was suffering?”

“Yes, sir. She said the Baptists would have none of that.” He tried to gauge the Judge’s face to see just how far he might go.

“None of what? Dare I ask?”

“None of having a little person like myself left to the vicissitudes of life.”

“I think you’re pushing it there. The vicissitudes of life?”

“I’m just saying what she said.” He tried, and failed, to look innocent. “She said it right after I told her it had been so long, I couldn’t even remember how to say my prayers, only I forgot to tell her that last night, so I told her about it this morning. Probably Sunday school would do me a world of good.”

He told the Judge a curb was coming up. They walked across the street in silence. John kept watching the sidewalk but continued selling. “Did you realize she’s been the organist at the First Baptist Church of Lower Peach Tree for ten years? Did you know that, ten years? I was just amazed.”

“I’ll bet you were,” the Judge said.

They were entering the cotton gin grounds. Empty wagons with tufts of cotton caught in wire-mesh sides sat idle on a dusty dirt field that served, when cotton was in season, as the assembly line for wagons from all over the county. An aging tin roof covered the building that held the bailing mechanisms.

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