It is not the slow motion of the car door
swinging to the uneven idle of the motor
that catches his eye. Nor the slight
movement of leaves and branches.
Somebody is watching him.
A silhouette sits at the back of the
billboard. The slow dangle of a bare leg
is the only motion. The mesh of
beams looks like a web. The billboard
is empty except for the lone figure.
“Goddammit!” He snatches out the
pistol. “Git down!”
The shadows in the trees waver and
merge like a field of tall reeds marching
gently under the steady touch of the
wind. Nillmon wipes his mouth with
his sleeve.
“Nigger, can’t you hear?”
The figure, almost liquid in his giant
movements, begins a slow descent,
swinging across a shaft of sunlight like
an acrobat. He drops to the ground
and stands. A muscular black youth.
Bands of fading light make imperfect
angles and spears across his red shirt
and black arms.
“Who else is up there?”
“My brother.”
“All right, move!”
The tall youth slides into motion on the
path made by children. But he carefully
steps around the beams, over a few
rocks, and proceeds toward the road.
“Black boy, I’m goin to see you put
every piece of that glass back in place.”
Nillmon watches the rear of the figure
moving down the path, and he feels
a rush of blood to his head when he
thinks of the bullet going right through
the dark head.
“I didn’t break it,” the youth says without
turning around or slowing his pace.
“Nigger, you in trouble,” says Nillmon.
They reach the car. The youth is looking
straight ahead. “Aside from gettin your
ass beat, and payin for that glass, you
goin to jail. Git in.”
The youth turns slowly — as if in some
fearful trance — and is about to look
squarely at the other man, but instead he
rivets his eyes on the white man’s neck.
“Boy, what’s your name?”Nillmon asks.
Cowbells sound up the road. The youth
shifts his weight, wets his lips, and
looks off. Far, far down the road, cows
gather at a fence and a voice yells, a
dog barks, and then the cattle neck into
the crossing, and some are mooing.
“Fon.”
“Goddamnit, Fon what?”
The sun has almost fallen. The shadow of
the car bounces nervously. Then it stops.
“Alfonso.”
Nillmon squeezes the pistol butt. This
boy ain’t no halfwit. Nillmon knows
he is going to break him now. The nigger
is trying to act bad. Maybe he’d break
him later.Maybe Gus and Ed would
want a piece of him. He looks at the
youth and he can’t decide whether he is
bad or not. He hates to see a fool-headed
nigger get it. No fun in it. He sees a
thin line of smoke coming from the
back seat of his car. Sniffing and leaning,
he sees that his back seat, where the
black stone landed, is smoldering.
“Set fire to it, too, eh?” He moves
toward Fon.
He swings his foot upward, aiming for
Fon’s rear. Seeming to anticipate the
move, Fon, without moving his legs,
twists his back and avoids the blow,
which strikes the air.
“Nobody threw that rock from there,”
Fon says.
BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE
Then he snaps his neck back toward the
road for a second look.
Nillmon attempts to approach the
figure. The youth is standing with the
weight of his body on one leg.Nillmon
stops in front of him and searches for
signs of resistance. The youth holds his
head level, but his eyes glare outward,
always away from the eyes of the white
man, as if they were protecting some
secret. Nillmon searches the billboard
and trees. The nigger is a half-wit.
15
He smothers a strange impulse to laugh
and spits down the incline, jerking
his eyes toward the road, over the levee
cotton and through the trees.