The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers [58]
‘Seem to me,’ Portia said finally, ‘if us can just get a lot of white peoples to write letters about Willie it might help out some. I already been to see Mr. Brannon. He written exactly what I told him to. He were at his café after it all happened like he is ever night. So I just went in there and explained how it was. I taken the letter home with me. I done put it in the Bible so I won’t lose it or dirty it’
‘What did the letter say?’
‘Mr. Brannon he wrote just hike I asked him to. The letter tell about how Willie has been working for Mr. Brannon going on three year. It tell how Willie is one fine upstanding colored boy and how he hasn’t ever been in no trouble before now. It tell how he always had plenty chances to take things in the café if he were like some other type of colored boy and how--’
‘Pshaw!’ said Doctor Copeland. ‘All that is no good.’
‘Us just can’t sit around and wait. With Willie locked up in the jail. My Willie, who is such a sweet boy even if he did do wrong tonight. Us just can’t sit around and wait’
‘We will have to. That is the only thing we can do.’
‘Well, I know I ain’t’ Portia got up from the chair. Her eyes roved distractedly around the room as though searching for something. Then abruptly she went toward the front door.
‘Wait a minute,’ said Doctor Copeland. ‘Where do you intend to go now?’
‘I got to work. I sure got to keep my job. I sure have to stay on with Mrs. Kelly and get my pay ever week.’
‘I want to go to the jail,’ said Doctor Copeland. ‘Maybe I can see William.’
‘I going to drop by the jail on my way to work. I got to send Highboy off to his work, too--else he liable to sit there grieving about Willie all the morning.’
Doctor Copeland dressed hurriedly and joined Portia in the hall. They went out into the cool, blue autumn morning. The men at the jail were rude to them and they were able to find out very little. Doctor Copeland then went to consult a lawyer with whom he had had dealings before. The following days were long and full of worried thoughts. At the end of three weeks the trial for William was held and he was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon. He was sentenced to nine months of hard labor and sent immediately to a prison in the northern part of the state.
Even now the strong true purpose was always in him, but he had no time in which to think on it He went from one house to another and the work was unending. Very early in the morning he drove off in the automobile, and then at eleven o’clock the patients came to the office. After the sharp autumn air outside there would be a hot, stale odor in the house that made him cough. The benches in the hall were always full of sick and patient Negroes who waited for him, and sometimes even the front porch and his bedroom would be crowded. All the day and frequently half the night there was work. Because of the tiredness in him he wanted sometimes to lie down on the floor and beat with his fists and cry. If he could rest he might get well. He had tuberculosis of the lungs, and he measured his temperature four times a day and had an X-ray once a month.
But he could not rest. For there was another thing bigger than the tiredness--and this was the strong true purpose.
He would think of this purpose until sometimes, after a long day and night of work, he would become blank so that he would forget for a minute just what the purpose was. And then it would come to him again and he would be restless and eager to take on a new task. But the words often stuck in his mouth, and his voice now was hoarse and not loud as it had been before. He pushed the words into the sick and patient faces of the Negroes who were his people.
Often he talked to Mr. Singer. With him he spoke of chemistry and the enigma of the universe. Of the infinitesimal sperm and the cleavage of the ripened egg. Of the complex million-fold division of the cells. Of the mystery of living matter and the simplicity of death. And also he spoke with him of race.
‘My people were brought from the great plains, and the dark, green jungles,’ he said once to Mr. Singer.