I said, “It has done him good to have you here.”
He shook his head. “You talked with him yesterday.” “Yes. He did seem a little worried about you.”
He laughed. “A few days ago Glory said to me, ‘He’s fragile. We don’t want to kill him.’ We! It’s true, though. I don’t want to kill him. So I thought I might be able to speak with you. This will be my last attempt, I promise.”
I almost reminded him my own health is not perfect, which would have been foolish, since on second thought I could not really imagine that any revelation he might make would strike me down.
He took a little leather case out of his breast pocket and opened it and held it in front of me. His hand was not steady, and I had to put on my reading glasses, but then I could see it fairly well. It was posed like a portrait photograph — himself, a young woman, and a boy about five or six. The woman was seated in a chair with the child standing next to her, and young Boughton was standing behind them. It was Jack Boughton, a colored woman, and a light-skinned colored boy.
Boughton looked at the picture and then he snapped the case shut and slipped it back into his pocket. He said, “You see,” and his voice was so controlled it sounded bitter, “you see, I also have a wife and child.” Then he just watched me for a minute or two, clearly hoping he would not have to take offense. “That’s a fine-looking family,” I said.
He nodded. “She’s a fine woman. He’s a fine boy. I’m a lucky man.” He smiled.
“And you’re afraid this might kill your father?”
He shrugged. “It came near enough killing her father. And her mother. They curse the day I was born.” He laughed and touched his hand to his face. “As you know, I have considerable experience antagonizing people, but this is on another level entirely.” I was thinking my own thoughts, so he said, “Maybe not.
Maybe that’s just how it seems to me—” and then he sat there studying his hands.
So I said, “Well, how long have you been married?” And regretted the question.
He cleared his throat. “We are married in the eyes of God, as they say. Who does not provide a certificate, but who also does not enforce anti-miscegenation laws. The Deus Absconditus at His most benign. Sorry.” He smiled. “In the eyes of God we have been man and wife for about eight years. We have lived as man and wife a total of seventeen months, two weeks, and a day.”
I remarked that we have never had those laws here in Iowa, and he said, “Yes, Iowa, the shining star of radicalism.”
So I asked him if he came here to be married.
He shook his head. “Her father doesn’t want her to marry me. Her father is also a minister, by the way. I suppose that was inevitable. And there is a good Christian man down there in Tennessee, a friend of the family, who is willing to marry my wife and adopt my son. They think this is very kind of him. I suppose it is. They believe it would be best for everybody.” He said, “And the fact is, I have had considerable difficulty looking after my family. From time to time they have gone back to Tennessee, when things were too difficult. That’s where they are now.” He said, “I can’t really ask her to make a final break with her family under the circumstances.” He cleared his throat.
We were just quiet. Then he said, “You know the chief thing her father has against me? He takes me for an atheist!
Delia says he thinks all white men are atheists, the only difference is that some of them are aware of it. Delia is my wife.”
I said, “Well, from certain things you have said, I have gotten the impression that you are an atheist.”
He nodded. “It is probably truer to say I am in a state of categorical unbelief. I don’t even believe God doesn’t exist, if you see what I mean. Of course this is a matter of concern to my wife, too. Partly for my sake. Partly for the boy’s. I lied to her about it for a little while. When I told her the truth, I believe she thought she could rescue me. As I said, when she first knew me, she took me for a man of the cloth. Many people make that mistake.” He laughed. “I generally correct them. I did her.”
Now, the fact is, I don’t know how old Boughton would take all this. It surprised me to realize that. I think it is an issue we never discussed in all our years of discussing everything. It just didn’t come up.
I said, “I take it you’ve talked to Glory.”
“No. I can’t do that. She’d just break her heart over it. She can tell there’s something on my mind. She probably thinks I’m in trouble. I believe my father thinks so, too.”
“I believe he does.”
He nodded. “He was crying yesterday.” He looked at me. “I have disappointed him again.” And then he said, controlling his voice, “I haven’t had any word from my wife since I left St. Louis. I have been waiting to hear from her. I have written to her a number of times — What is the proverb? ‘Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.’” He smiled.
