338
PARTISAN REVIEW
She smiled, too, but she said nothing. She was quiet for a long
time. And I said, "Mama, don't you worry about nothing. I'll be
writing all the time, and you be getting the checks. . . ."
"I want to talk to you about your brother," she said, suddenly.
"If
anything happens to me he ain't going to have nobody to look
out for him."
"Mama," I said, "ain't nothing going to happen to you
or
Sonny. Sonny's all right. He's a good boy and he's got good sense."
"It ain't a question of his being a good boy," Mama said, "nor
of his having good sense. It ain't only the bad ones, nor yet the dumb
ones that gets sucked under." She stopped, looking .at me. "Your
Daddy once had a brother," she said, and she smiled in a way that
made me feel she was in pain. "You didn't never know that, did you?"
"No," I said, "I never knew that," and I watched her face.
"Oh, yes," she said, "your Daddy had a brother." She looked
out of the window again. "I know you never saw your Daddy cry.
But
I
did-many a time, through
all
these years."
I asked her, "What happened to his brother? How come nobody's
ever talked about him?"
This was the first time I ever saw my mother look old.
"His brother got killed," she said, "when he was just a little
younger than you are now. I knew him. He was a fine boy. He was
maybe a little full of the devil, but he didn't mean nobody no harm."
Then she stopped and the room was silent, exactly as it had some–
times been on those Sunday afternoons. Mama kept looking out into
the streets.
"He used to have a job in the mill," she said, "and, like all
young folks, he just liked to perform on Saturday nights. Saturday
nights, him and your father would drift around to different places,
go to dances and things like that, or just sit around with people
they knew, and your father's brother would sing, he had a fine voice,
and play along with himself on his guitar. Well, this particular
Saturday night, him and your father was coming home from some
place, and they were both a little drunk and there was a moon that
night, it was bright like day. Your father's brother was feeling kind
of good, and he was whistling to himself, and he had his guitar
slung over his shoulder. They was coming down a hill and beneath
them was a road that turned off from the highway. Well, your father's
