“There’s no point in gnawing it, Sydney, like a dog with a bone. Swallow it or drop it.”
“Can’t do either one.”
“You have to. It ain’t your bone.”
“You have taken leave of your senses, woman. It is my bone and right now it’s stuck in my craw. I live here too. So do you and so does Jadine. My family lives here—not just his. If that nigger wants to steal something or kill somebody you think he’s going to skip us, just ’cause we don’t own it? Hell, no. I sat up in that chair all night, didn’t I? Mr. Street slept like a log. He was snoring like a hound when I went in there this morning.”
“He drank a lot, Jadine says.” She reached in the oven and poked a baking potato.
“Ain’t that much whiskey in the world make a man sleep with a wife-raper down the hall.”
“He didn’t rape anybody. Didn’t even try.”
“Oh? You know what’s on his mind, do you?”
“I know he’s been here long enough and quiet enough to rape, kill, steal—do whatever he wanted and all he did was eat.”
“You amaze me. You really amaze me. All these years I thought I knew you.”
“You’re tired, honey. You didn’t sleep hardly any at all with that gun in your lap, and carrying it around under your coat ain’t making things better. You really ought to put it back where it belongs.”
“Long as he’s in this house, it belongs with me.”
“Come on, now. It’s barely noon. Mr. Street’ll get rid of him just like Jadine said. Then everything will be just like it was.”
“Like it was? Like it was, eh? Not by a long shot. When I brought him his coffee and rolls, he never said a word. Just ‘More coffee, please.’ Ondine, it’s more than just being here, you know. I mean, Mr. Street had him stay in the guest room. The guest room. You understand me?”
“Well?”
“What do you mean, ‘well’?”
“I don’t know what you’re driving at.”
“Where do we sleep? Ondine?”
“Me and you?”
“You heard me.”
“We sleep where we’re supposed to.”
“Where’s that?”
“It’s nice down there, Sydney. And you know it is: sitting room,
“But where is it?”
“Over there.”
“Over where?”
“Up over the downstairs kitchen.”
“Right. Up over the downstairs kitchen.”
“Jadine sleeps up there. With them.”
“Jadine? Now I am through. You comparing Jadine to a…a…stinking ignorant swamp nigger? To a wild-eyed pervert who hides in women’s closets? Do you know what he said to me?”
“‘Hi’?”
“Before that. When I was bringing him down the stairs under the barrel of my gun?”
“No, what’d he say?”
“Could he take a leak.”
“A leak?”
“A leak! I got him with his hands up and the safety off and he wants to stop and pee!”
“That’s nerve all right.”
“Nerve? He’s crazy, that’s what. You understand me? Crazy. Liable to do anything. And I have to show him to the guest room and lay him out some fresh pajamas. The guest room, right next to Jadine. I told her to keep that door locked and not to open it up for nobody.”
“You should have left it at that. You didn’t have to go creeping up there all night to make sure. Scared her to death.”
“Wait a minute. Whose side you on?”
“Your side, naturally. Our side. I’m not arguing for him. I told you last night what I thought about it. I just want to calm you down. He’s leaving, Sydney. But we’re not, and I don’t want no big rift between you and Mr. Street about where that Negro slept and why and so forth. I want us to stay here. Like we have been. That old man loves you. Loves us both. Look what he gives us at Christmas.”
