He was up now and singing as he mended things he had broken the day before. Some old pieces ofsong he'd learned on the prison farm or in the War afterward. Nothing like what they sang at SweetHome, where yearning fashioned every note.
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The songs he knew from Georgia were flat-headed nails for pounding and pounding and pounding.
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Lay my bead on the railroad line,Train come along, pacify my mind.
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If I had my weight in lime,I'd whip my captain till he went stone blind.
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five-cent nickel, Ten-cent dime,Busting rocks is busting time.
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But they didn't fit, these songs. They were too loud, had too much power for the little house choreshe was engaged in — resetting table legs; glazing.
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He couldn't go back to "Storm upon the Waters" that they sang under the trees of Sweet Home, sohe contented himself with mmmmmmmmm, throwing in a line if one occurred to him, and whatoccurred over and over was "Bare feet and chamomile sap,/ Took off my shoes; took off my hat."It was tempting to change the words (gimme back my shoes; gimme back my hat), because hedidn't believe he could live with a woman — any woman — for over two out of three months. Thatwas about as long as he could abide one place. After Delaware and before that Alfred, Georgia,where he slept underground and crawled into sunlight for the sole purpose of breaking rock,walking off when he got ready was the only way he could convince himself that he would nolonger have to sleep, pee, eat or swing a sledge hammer in chains. But this was not a normalwoman in a normal house. As soon as he had stepped through the red light he knew that, comparedto 124, the rest of the world was bald. After Alfred he had shut down a generous portion of hishead, operating on the part that helped him walk, eat, sleep, sing. If he could do those things —with a little work and a little sex thrown in — he asked for no more, for more required him todwell on Halle's face and Sixo laughing. To recall trembling in a box built into the ground.
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Grateful for the daylight spent doing mule work in a quarry because he did not tremble when hehad a hammer in his hands. The box had done what Sweet Home had not, what working like an assand living like a dog had not: drove him crazy so he would not lose his mind.
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By the time he got to Ohio, then to Cincinnati, then to Halle Suggs' mother's house, he thought hehad seen and felt it all. Even now as he put back the window frame he had smashed, he could notaccount for the pleasure in his surprise at seeing Halle's wife alive, barefoot with uncovered hair— walking around the corner of the house with her shoes and stockings in her hands. The closedportion of his head opened like a greased lock.
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"I was thinking of looking for work around here. What you think?""Ain't much. River mostly. And hogs.""Well, I never worked on water, but I can pick up anything heavy as me, hogs included.""Whitepeople better here than Kentucky but you may have to scramble some.""It ain't whether I scramble; it's where. You saying it's all right to scramble here?""Better than all right.""Your girl, Denver. Seems to me she's of a different mind." "Why you say that?""She's got a waiting way about her. Something she's expecting and it ain't me.""I don't know what it could be.""Well, whatever it is, she believes I'm interrupting it.""Don't worry about her. She's a charmed child. From the beginning.""Is that right?""Uh huh. Nothing bad can happen to her. Look at it. Everybody I knew dead or gone or dead andgone. Not her. Not my Denver. Even when I was carrying her, when it got clear that I wasn't goingto make it — which meant she wasn't going to make it either — she pulled a whitegirl out of thehill. The last thing you'd expect to help. And when the Schoolteacher found us and came busting inhere with the law and a shotgun — ""Schoolteacher found you?""Took a while, but he did. Finally.""And he didn't take you back?""Oh, no. I wasn't going back there. I don't care who found who. Any life but not that one. I went tojail instead. Denver was just a baby so she went right along with me. Rats bit everything in therebut her."Paul D turned away. He wanted to know more about it, but jail talk put him back in Alfred,Georgia.
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"I need some nails. Anybody around here I can borrow from or should I go to town?""May as well go to town. You'll need other things."One night and they were talking like a couple. They had skipped love and promise and wentdirectly to "You saying it's all right to scramble here?"To Sethe, the future was a matter of keeping the past at bay. The "better life" she believed she andDenver were living was simply not that other one.
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The fact that Paul D had come out of "that other one" into her bed was better too; and the notion ofa future with him, or for that matter without him, was beginning to stroke her mind. As for Denver, the job Sethe had of keeping her from the past that was still waiting for her was all that mattered.
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PLEASANTLY TROUBLED, Sethe avoided the keeping room and Denver's sidelong looks. Asshe expected, since life was like that — it didn't do any good. Denver ran a mighty interferenceand on the third day flat-out asked Paul D how long he was going to hang around.
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The phrase hurt him so much he missed the table. The coffee cup hit the floor and rolled down thesloping boards toward the front door.
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"Hang around?" Paul D didn't even look at the mess he had made.
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"Denver! What's got into you?" Sethe looked at her daughter, feeling more embarrassed thanangry.
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Paul D scratched the hair on his chin. "Maybe I should make tracks.""No!" Sethe was surprised by how loud she said it. "He know what he needs," said Denver.
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"Well, you don't," Sethe told her, "and you must not know what you need either. I don't want tohear another word out of you.""I just asked if — ""Hush! You make tracks. Go somewhere and sit down."Denver picked up her plate and left the table but not before adding a chicken back and more breadto the heap she was carrying away.
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Paul D leaned over to wipe the spilled coffee with his blue handkerchief.
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"I'll get that." Sethe jumped up and went to the stove. Behind itvarious cloths hung, each in some stage of drying. In silence she wiped the floor and retrieved thecup. Then she poured him another cupful, and set it carefully before him. Paul D touched its rimbut didn't say anything — as though even "thank you" was an obligation he could not meet and thecoffee itself a gift he could not take.
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Sethe resumed her chair and the silence continued. Finally she realized that if it was going to bebroken she would have to do it.
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"I didn't train her like that."Paul D stroked the rim of the cup.
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"And I'm as surprised by her manners as you are hurt by em."Paul D looked at Sethe. "Is there history to her question?""History? What you mean?""I mean, did she have to ask that, or want to ask it, of anybody else before me?"