A Gathering of Old Men by Ernest J. Gaines

the crowd. Clatoo was the only person sitting on that end of the garry, and still Mapes pretended he couldn’t find him. Then when he did, he stared at Clatoo long and hard. He thought if he stared at him long enough, Clatoo was bound to look down. But Clatoo didn’t look down. He sat there with that shotgun over his legs, looking straight back at Mapes.
    “What’s the matter with you, Clatoo?” Mapes said. “You’re the last person I thought would be looking for trouble.”
    “That’s been my trouble,” Clatoo said.
    “What?” Mapes said. Mapes was looking at him the way white folks do round here, looking at him hard.
    “I ain’t had no trouble with the law,” Clatoo said.
    “Meaning?” Mapes said.
    “I’m old,” Clatoo said.
    “Meaning?” Mapes said.
    “About time I had li’l trouble with the law before I died,” Clatoo said.
    “You really want to go to jail, don’t you?” Mapes said.
    “I figured I was on my way there when I shot him,” Clatoo said.
    “Amen,” Beulah said, from the steps.
    Mapes looked at Clatoo the way white folks know how to look at a nigger when they think he’s being smart.
    “Isn’t it a little bit late for you to be getting militant around here?” Mapes asked Clatoo.
    “I always been militant,” Clatoo said. “My intrance gone sour, keeping my militance down.”
    “Sure now,” Mapes said, looking at him hard.
    “Sure now is right,” Clatoo said. “No use talking to Mathu. He didn’t do nothing. I did it.”
    “Sure now,” Mapes said.
    “Now, there y’all go again, there y’all go again,” Dirty Red said. Dirty Red was squatting by the walk with that little short, wet cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. If it was not the same one he had a minute ago, it looked just like it. You never seen Dirty Red lighting a new cigarette. When you seen it, it was already half gone—wet, dirty-looking, and half gone. He probably had a bunch of them in his pocket like that—dirty and half gone. “I don’t see how come y’all won’t let a man get—”
    “Shut up,” Mapes said. “You and nobody in your family ever done a thing in this world but worked hard to avoid work.”
    “Till today,” Dirty Red said. He looked up at Mapes, with his head cocked a little to the side to keep the smoke out his eyes. “Today, I—”
    “You trying to cut in on me when I’m talking to you?” Mapes asked him.
    “Look like he’s doing more than just trying,” Johnny Paul said, from the other side of Mapes.
    Mapes turned quick. Just his head. He was too fat to turn his body fast. “You, too, Johnny Paul?” he said.
    Johnny Paul nodded his head. “Me too.”
    Mapes was still looking around at Johnny Paul when Jacob Aguillard spoke up.
    “No, Dirty Red, Johnny Paul. Uh-uh, Clatoo. It was me,” he said. “I remember what that crowd did to my sister.”
    “I see,” Mapes said, looking at Jacob now.
    “You see what?” Johnny Paul said.
    Mapes was still looking at Jacob when Ding Lejeune spoke up. Ding and his brother Bing stood close together between the walk and the garden.
    “I kilt him,” Ding said, thumping his chest. “Me, me—not them, not my brother. Me. What they did to my sister’s little girl—Michelle Gigi.”
    “I see,” Mapes said, looking at Ding and Bing at the same time. “I see.”
    Johnny Paul grunted out loud. “No, you don’t see.”
    He wasn’t looking at Mapes, he was looking toward the tractor and the trailers of cane out there in the road. But I could tell he wasn’t seeing any of that. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking until I saw his eyes shifting up the quarters where his mama and papa used to stay. But the old house wasn’t there now. It had gone like all the others had gone. Now weeds covered the place where the house used to be. “Y’all look,” he said. “Look now. Y’all see anything? What y’all see?”
    “I see nothing but weeds, Johnny Paul,” Mapes said. “If that’s what you’re trying to