“Bill, I went to school with you!”
Colum’s face was hard in the windy light. “I never did like you, Steve. And now I don’t like you at all.”
“If this is all over Lavinia Walters, that damn nigger woman, it’s silly. I didn’t do nothing to her.”
“Nothing you haven’t done to a dozen others over the years.”
Mack Brown, up front, at the steering wheel, drooped his cigarette in his trap mouth. “I’m ignorant, I forget. What about this Lavinia, tell me, I’d like to hear it again.”
“She was a nervy, goddamn sort of colored woman,” said Sam, in the backseat, holding Steve. “Why, she even had the goddamn nerve to walk down Main Street yesterday carrying a little child in her arms. And you know what she was saying, Mack, out loud, so all the white folks could hear? She says, ‘This is the child of Steve Nolan’!”
“Wasn’t that dirty of her?”
They took a side road now, off toward the carnival grounds, over bumpy road.
“That ain’t all. She went in every store where a Negro had never been in years, and she stood among the people and said, ‘Looky here, this is Steve Nolan’s baby. Steve Nolan.’”
The sweat was pouring down Steve’s face. He began to fight. Sam just squeezed his throat hard and Steve quieted. “Go on with the story,” said Mack, in the front seat.
“The way it all happened was Steve was ambling along the country road one afternoon in his Ford when he saw the prettiest colored girl, Lavinia Walters, walking along. And he stopped the car and told her if she didn’t get in he’d tell the police she stole his wallet. And she was afraid, so she let him drive her off into the swamp for an hour.”
“Is that what happened?” Mack Brown drew up beside the carnival tents. Being Monday night, the carnival was dead, unlit, the tents flapped softly in a warm wind. Somewhere a few dim blue lanterns burned, throwing ghastly lights on huge sideshow signs.
Sam Nash’s hand moved before Steve’s face, patting his cheeks, pinching and testing his chin, pinching the flesh on Steve’s arms gently, approvingly. And for the first time, in the blue light, Steve saw the tattoos on Sam’s hands, and he knew the tattoos went up the arms and all over Sam’s body, he was the Carnival Tattoo Man. And as they sat there, the car silent, the trip over, all of them drenched with sweat, waiting, Sam finished the story.
“Well, Steve here made Lavinia meet him twice a week in the swamp, or else he’d turn her in, he said. She knew she was colored and wouldn’t have much chance against a white man’s word. And so yesterday she had the unmitigated nerve to walk down the main street of the town saying to everybody, everybody, mind you, this here is Steve Nolan’s baby!”
“There’s a woman ought to be hanged.” Mack Brown turned and looked back at the men in the rear seat.
“She was, Mack,” Sam assured him. “But we’re ahead of our story. After she went through town saying that bad thing to everybody, she stopped right in front of Simpson’s Grocery, right by the porch, you know, where all the men sit, and there was that rain barrel there. And she took her baby and pushed it down under the water, watching the bubbles come up. And she said, one last time, ‘This is Steve Nolan’s child.’ Then she turned and walked off, with nothing in her hands.”
That was the story.
Steve Nolan waited for them to shoot him. Cigarette smoke idled through the car.
“I—I had nothing to do with her being hung last night,” said Steve.
“Was she hung?” asked Mack.
Sam shrugged. “She was found this morning in her shack by the river. Some say she committed suicide. Others say somebody visited her and strung her up to make it look like suicide. Now, Steve—” Sam tapped him softly on the chest. “Which story do you think’s the right one?”
“She hung herself!” screamed Steve.
“Shh. Not so loud. We can hear you, Steve.” Gently.
“We kind of figure, Steve,” said Bill Colum. “You got pretty mad when she had the nerve to call your name and drown your baby on Main Street. So you fixed her for good and thought nobody would ever bother you.”
“You should be ashamed.” Steve had his false bravado up now, suddenly. “You’re no real southerner, Sam Nash. Let go of me, goddamn it.”
“Steve, let me tell you something.” And Sam ripped all the buttons off Steve’s white shirt with one twist of his hand. “We’re a damn queer kind of southerners. We don’t happen to like your kind. We been watching and thinking about you a long time, Steve, and tonight we couldn’t stand thinking about you no more.” He tore the rest of the shirt off Steve.
“You going to whip me?” said Steve, looking at his bare chest.
“No. Something far better than that.” Sam jerked his head. “Bring him in the tent.”
“No!” But he was yanked out and dragged into a dark tent, where a light was pulled on. Shadows swayed on all sides. They strapped him on a table and stood smiling with their thoughts. Over him, Steve saw a sign. TATTOOS! ANY DESIGN, ANY COLOR! And he began to get sick.
“Guess what I’m g