The Spyglass Tree (19 page)

When I left, they were still talking about Giles Cunningham, but on the way back to the dormitory I was thinking about Old Dewitt Dawkins once more because he was the one that listening to Deke Whatley always made me remember again. Old Dewitt Dawkins who had the best reputation of any baseball umpire and prizefight referee anywhere in the Mobile and Gulf Coast area.

Old Dewitt Dawkins, also known as Judge Dawk the Hawk because when he used to come into Shade’s Tonsorial Parlor across from Boom Men’s Union Hall on Greens Avenue (always with the latest editions of the Reach and Spalding baseball guides and his up-to-date world’s almanac), it was very much as if the circuit judge had come to town to hold court and deliver verdicts, which he did with lip-smacking precision in a diction that was deliberately stilted.

The first thing that probably came to most people’s minds when you mentioned Dewitt Dawkins was the way he used to call baseball games back in those days before the radio sportscasters became the voice you associated with the ongoing action. There was a time when all of the baseball youngsters in Gasoline Point used to say
In the window!
for a called strike because that was the way Dawk the Hawk (as in hawkeye) called them.

But what the political gospel according to Deke Whatley had brought back to my mind was something that I had heard from Old Dewitt Dawkins in his high seat on the shoe-shine stand in Shade’s barbershop one rainy afternoon in August of the summer before my junior year at Mobile County Training School when he was explaining why we already had too many people signifying and not nearly enough qualifying.

Not that he wasn’t still calling balls and strikes. No matter what he was talking about, he spread his hands to give the safe-on-base sign when he agreed with or approved of something. When
somebody made a point or he himself was giving the word, he gave the strike sign to indicate it was on target, which was to say
In the window!
So to show his disagreement or disapproval, he jerked his thumb giving the
out
sign to which he would sometimes add with his most stiltedly precise enunciation:

Out of my face, out of my face. Out of my face, you disgrace to the human race
.

What the hell do we need with some more loudmouth hustlers out there carrying on like they got to get those people told because nobody ever did before, he said that afternoon.

That many of us were all in Shade’s because the game with Maysville had been called for weather in the second inning. Hell, as far as that goes, we already had a silver-tongue orator none other than the one and only Honorable Fred Douglass himself doing that all the way back during bondage and on into the war for Emancipation and right on through the whole Reconstruction mess and into the times of old Grover Cleveland, and I don’t know anybody that ever did it better since.

He said, We don’t need any more horror stories trying to put the shame on those people as if they don’t know what the hell they themselves been doing to us all these years. Just look at what they did to
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
. Those same people put on black faces and turned the whole goddamn thing into a big road-show minstrel, traveling all over the country.

So much for getting them told, he said, and then he said, Now I’m going to tell you something once and for all about the shame and the blame. If you got the problem and don’t buckle down and come up with a solution, hang your own goddamn head in shame, and if you go all the way through college and don’t come back with some answers, shame on us all.

W
hat happened between Giles Cunningham and Dudley Philpot out at the Pit while I was browsing in the periodicals room later on that afternoon had really begun almost a week earlier when Giles Cunningham and Wiley Peyton had stopped Will Spradley as he came along the railroad spur that used to run from the loading ramp and coal chute at the campus power plant and on through town and out to the siding at the station where trains eastbound from Montgomery and westbound from Atlanta used to stop without being flagged in those days.

It was payday for most people who didn’t work on the campus, and before leaving on a three-day business trip up to Chattanooga, Giles Cunningham was making the rounds to collect a few overdue personal loans he had made during the past several months. When he and Wiley Peyton saw Will Spradley, they were on their way to see who just happened to be hanging out in Jack’s Chicken Shack just outside the campus entrance near the band cottage.

Will Spradley had been just rounding the bend near the old Strickland mansion and had been coming on walking that loping walk toward where the first downtown subdivision began, when Wiley Peyton who was driving saw him and said, Well, here’s your Will what’s-his-name over there, and Giles Cunningham had said, Pull over, and Wiley Peyton had brought the big Cadillac onto the soft shoulder and shut off the motor, and Giles Cunningham had said, Spradley, Will; and Will Spradley had jumped and said, Gile, what say, Gile? and came down the grade and across the grassy ditch and up to the car and said, Gile, again. What say, Gile?

Will Spradley had stood looking into the car but at the dashboard, not at Giles Cunningham who was not looking at him either but at the misty early spring tree-line beyond the fence on the other side of the spur tracks and who said, Don’t you have a little something to see me about? and Will Spradley had said, Yeah, Gile, sure Gile, I ain’t forgot it, Gile.

I was just going on down into town and I was coming right on by to see you just as soon as I took care of some other little business first, Will Spradley had said then, talking and then listening, but still not looking at anything but the dashboard, and when there was no reply he had gone on and said, That’s exactly what I was on my way to do, Gile.

Then Giles Cunningham had said, So here I am just tickled to death to save you that long walk. He still didn’t look at him but he was listening very carefully because he knew that with Will Spradley you almost always had to read between the lines.

I’m going to have to see you a little later, Gile.

Today’s payday, ain’t it?

I mean later on today, Gile. I’m talking about today, a little later on today, Gile.

You been paid, ain’t you?

I’m going to see you later on, Gile. I’m going to have your money then, every penny I been owing you, Gile.

You mean, you ain’t got it on you? I thought you just said you already been paid.

I mean, I just want you to let me see you a little later on, Gile. That’s all I mean. I just mean I can’t pay you right now, he said, and Giles Cunningham said, Now what kind of shit is this, man? You got your paycheck, didn’t you, or is that it?

Wiley Peyton sat at the steering, wheel looking along the corridor of the March green branches of the wooded bend on the left side of which you could see the turnoff that led to the stone pillars and wrought-iron gates to the old Strickland manor house. The strip of off-campus shops, including Jack’s Chicken Shack, was out of sight about a quarter of a mile farther along, and then there was the campus.

He heard what was being said and not being said, and it was all old stuff to him, and besides it was not really anything that concerned him. What he spent most of his time dealing with was the operation of the Pit. But even so he heard Will Spradley say that he had the check with him, and he knew what was coming next.

Aw, hell, man, I thought you were talking about some kind of a problem.

So I’m going to see you later on, Gile.

You already got your check, so see me now.

But it ain’t cashed yet, Gile. That’s how come I got to be getting on downtown just now.

Man, what the hell you talking about? The goddamn bank been closed for nearly two hours.

But that’s not what I’m talking about, Gile. I got some other little business I got to see to first. Then I going to be right on out there to see you.

Where you going to see me?

At your place.

Which place?

Which one you going to be at?

I’m on my way out of town.

Well, when you get back then.

The hell you will. Here, I’ll cash your check. He stretched his legs, pushing his shoulders against the back of the seat and pulled a roll of bills out and took a fountain pen and a flat check-holder from his inside coat pocket.

Hey, you can’t do that, Gile.

Can’t do what, man?

You can’t cash it.

Man, you wasting my time. Sign that goddamn check and hand it here.

Will Spradley didn’t move. He was looking at both of them then, but Wiley Peyton was still looking straight ahead, and Giles Cunningham just sat waiting and listening as if not looking at anything in particular, but he saw Will Spradley take a step back from the car as he heard him say, I can’t do it, Gile. I done told you I’m going to pay you what I owe you and I will, but I owe somebody else and he supposed to cash my check.

Man, what’s the difference who cashes it? Now you going to sign that fucking check and hand it here, or do I have to get out of this car and kick your ass? Man, I don’t feel like kicking nobody’s ass today. I just want my little change so I can be on my way. Look, I’m even going to forget about the goddamn interest. Here, just sign the son-of-a-bitch and get the hell out of my face.

Aw right, Gile, Will Spradley said then. But I’m telling you, man. I’m talking about Dud Philpot.

So when Giles Cunningham looked out from where he was sitting at the desk in the office he shared with Wiley Peyton at the Pit and saw the dull gray Plymouth come crunching onto the gravel driveway and saw Dudley Philpot hop out, not even pausing to slam the
door, and come fuming into the dining room, he was not surprised because Will Spradley had already been there with a message from him.

Through the door to the dining area you could see several people sitting on stools eating at the counter and there were several more at a table near the jukebox. Wiley Peyton sat at the cash register because it was that part of the late afternoon when business was always very light and someone had to relieve the regular cashier so that she could always have three hours off before the dinner rush began.

Without really looking up from what he was doing, Giles Cunningham could see Dud Philpot go over to Wiley Peyton, and Wiley Peyton pointing him toward the office and then there he was, just standing with his hands on his hips, trying to look his white boss-man look but also trying to get his breath back without seeming to, and at first Giles Cunningham went on doing what he was doing and then he looked up as if he had just seen him. But he didn’t say anything.

Wasn’t Will Spradley in here?

I was under the impression that he left out of here some time ago, but I don’t know which way he went.

Well, didn’t he tell you what I said?

He didn’t say nothing that made any sense at all to me, and I didn’t have time to be bothered with him today anyway.

You didn’t have time to be bothered with Will Spradley? It was me that sent Will Spradley in here. Me.

Well, what he said didn’t make no sense.

He was standing up then, and he picked up some papers and moved over to the filing cabinet by the window, dropped them into the wire basket on top and stood for a moment, not as if he were listening and waiting, but as if trying to decide what office routine detail had to be taken care of next.

So what the hell you think I came all the way out here for?

I figured you were trying to catch up with Will Spradley and I told you he ain’t out here. He was in here all right, but that was a while ago.

I came out here to see you, Giles Cunningham, and you damn well know it, and you damn well know why, so cut out the horseshit.

Man, I sure must have missed something somewhere along the line, because I sure in hell can’t remember ever having any dealings with you in my life. So I don’t know what you talking about.

I’m talking about that check.

Well, there sure ain’t nothing I can do about that because I already deposited it. I told Will Spradley that and I thought for sure that he had told you by now.

Now listen here, Giles Cunningham, Will tells me he begged you not to cash that check in the first place. Is that right?

It sure is. He didn’t tell you no lie about that.

And that’s what you got to answer to me for.

Man, you can’t be saying that Will Spradley told you something to make you believe I took more out of that check than I had coming to me. I don’t know what he did with the rest of his cash after he left me, but he sure in the hell can’t blame it on me. Hell, I didn’t even take out all I had coming.

But he knew very well that nobody was accusing him of any such thing. He was cross-talking Dudley Philpot and they both knew it because they both also knew what very old and very grim down-home game Dudley Philpot was turning the matter of Will Spradley’s paycheck into, although Dudley Philpot would never have called it a game, because to him games were something you played for fun and what he had on his hands was the very urgent obligation to keep things in proper order.

But to Giles Cunningham it was no less a game for being as serious and dangerous as it was. The very way that Dudley Philpot
was standing there just inside the door with his hands on his hips was an unmistakable part of the game, and so was the way he himself was pretending not to notice how much more upset Dudley Philpot was becoming.

Outside the window there was the highway of black rubbery-looking asphalt in the afternoon mist, with the cars and trucks splitting by, buzzing and rumbling as if in a passing parade in a newsreel world apart, and he remembered the trip back from Chattanooga in the rain and wondered when he was going to find time to have that Tennessee and northern Alabama red-clay hillbilly mud washed off his white sidewalls.

Then he realized that Dudley Philpot was swearing at him and he was not surprised because that was a part of the game, too, but at first it was as if all Dudley Philpot was saying was nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger, and that didn’t surprise him either, and then what he heard was answer me nigger answer me answer me and he said, I don’t answer to no name like that
.