capable of it. In any case, all minds were closed to her when that word was passed around. It made the old women draw their lips together; made small children look away from her in shame; made young men fantasize elaborate torture for her—just to get the saliva back in their mouths when they saw her.
Every one of them imagined the scene, each according to his own predilections—Sula underneath some white man—and it filled them with choking disgust. There was nothing lower she could do, nothing filthier. The fact that their own skin color was proof that it had happened in their own families was no deterrent to their bile. Nor was the willingness of black men to lie in the beds of white women a consideration that might lead them toward tolerance. They insisted that all unions between white men and black women be rape; for a black woman to be willing was literally unthinkable. In that way, they regarded integration with precisely the same venom that white people did.
So they laid broomsticks across their doors at night and sprinkled salt on porch steps. But aside from one or two unsuccessful efforts to collect the dust from her footsteps, they did nothing to harm her. As always the black people looked at evil stony-eyed and let it run.
Sula acknowledged none of their attempts at counter-conjure or their gossip and seemed to need the services of nobody. So they watched her far more closely than they watched any other roach or bitch in the town, and their alertness was gratified. Things began to happen.
First off, Teapot knocked on her door to see if she had any bottles. He was the five-year-old son of an indifferent mother, all of whose interests sat around the door of the Time and a Half Pool Hall. Her name was Betty but she was called Teapot’s Mamma because being his mamma was precisely her major failure. When Sula said no, the boy turned around and fell down the steps. He couldn’t get up right away and Sula went to help him. His mother, just then tripping home, saw Sula bending over her son’s pained face. She flew into a fit of concerned, if drunken, motherhood, and dragged Teapot home. She told everybody that Sula had pushed him, and talked so strongly about it she was forced to abide by the advice of her friends and take him to the county hospital. The two dollars she hated to release turned out to be well spent, for Teapot did have a fracture, although the doctor said poor diet had contributed substantially to the daintiness of his bones. Teapot’s Mamma got a lot of attention anyway and immersed herself in a role she had shown no inclination for: motherhood. The very idea of a grown woman hurting her boy kept her teeth on edge. She became the most devoted mother: sober, clean and industrious. No more nickels for Teapot to go to Dick’s for a breakfast of Mr. Goodbars and soda pop: no more long hours of him alone or wandering the roads while she was otherwise engaged. Her change was a distinct improvement, although little Teapot did miss those quiet times at Dick’s.
Other things happened. Mr. Finley sat on his porch sucking chicken bones, as he had done for thirteen years, looked up, saw Sula, choked on a bone and died on the spot. That incident, and Teapot’s Mamma, cleared up for everybody the meaning of the birthmark over her eye; it was not a stemmed rose, or a snake, it was Hannah’s ashes marking her from the very beginning.
She came to their church suppers without underwear, bought their steaming platters of food and merely picked at it—relishing nothing, exclaiming over no one’s ribs or cobbler. They believed that she was laughing at their God.
And the fury she created in the women of the town was incredible—for she would lay their husbands once and then no more. Hannah had been a nuisance, but she was complimenting the women, in a way, by wanting their husbands. Sula was trying them out and discarding them without any excuse the men could swallow. So the women, to justify their own judgment, cherished their men more, soothed the pride and vanity Sula had bruised.
Among the weighty evidence piling up was the fact that Sula did not look her age. She was near thirty and, unlike them, had lost no teeth, suffered no bruises, developed no ring of fat at the waist or pocket at the back of her neck. It was rumored that she had had no childhood diseases, was never known to have chicken pox, croup or even a runny nose. She had played rough as a child—where were the scars? Except for a funny-shaped finger and that evil birthmark, she was free of any normal signs of vulnerability. Some of the men, who as boys had dated her, remembered that on picnics neither gnats nor mosquitoes would settle on her. Patsy, Hannah’s one-time friend, agreed and said not only that, but she had witnessed the fact that when Sula drank beer she never belched.
The most damning evidence, however, came from Dessie, who was a big Daughter Elk and knew things. At one of the social meetings she revealed something to her friends.
“Yeh, well I noticed something long time ago. Ain’t said nothing ’bout it ’cause I wasn’t sure what it meant. Well…I did mention it to Ivy but not nobody else. I disremember how long ago. ’Bout a month or two I guess ’cause I hadn’t put down my new linoleum yet. Did you see it, Cora? It’s that kind we saw in the catalogue.”
“Naw.”
“Get on with it, Dessie.”
“Well, Cora was with me when we looked in the catalogue…”
“We all know ’bout your linoleum. What we don’t know is…”
“OK. Let me tell it, will you? Just before the linoleum come I was out front and seed Shadrack carryin’ on as usual…up by the well…walkin’ ’round it salutin’ and carryin’ on. You know how he does…hollerin’ commands and…”
“Will you get on with it?”
“Who’s tellin’ this? Me or you?”
“You.”
“Well, let me tell it then. Like I say, he was just cuttin’ up as usual when Miss Sula Mae walks by on the other side of the road. And quick as that”—she snapped her fingers—“he stopped and cut on over ’cross the road, steppin’ over to her like a tall turkey in short corn. And guess what? He tips his hat.”
“Shadrack don’t wear no hat.”
“I know that but he tipped it anyway. You know what I mean. He acted like he had a hat and reached up for it and tipped it at her. Now you know Shadrack ain’t civil to nobody!”
“Sure ain’t.”
“Even when you buyin’ his fish he’s cussin’. If you ain’t got the right change he cussin’ you. If you act like a fish ain’t too fresh he snatch it out of your hand like he doin’ you the favor.”
“Well, everybody know he a reprobate.”
