When I saw the lantern coming in the dark, without seeing him, I knew my daddy held it. He walked over to where I sat, and stood before me. The light of the lantern cast a yellow glow over both of us. My daddy set the lantern down, then sat down himself with the lantern between us. He didn’t say anything at first, and all there was for a spell were the sounds of the creek, the night wings of the forest, and our own breathing. I started to get up.
“Sit down, Paul.”
I sat back down, took a rock, and threw it into the creek. The water splashed, and I threw another. “How’d you know I was here?” I said.
“Don’t you think I know where you go on this land?”
I glanced at him, then picked up another rock.
“I know you’re angry.”
I threw the rock.
“I know you’re hating me right now, and I don’t blame you for that. But I’m not apologizing for what I did. It’s past time you learned these things, and I’d whip you again, twice as hard, if it meant saving your life.”
“What life?” I asked. “Walking around every day kowtowing to white folks, even my own brother?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
I grunted.
“I suppose you think it’s easy for me to say that.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Well, I can’t say how it feels to be a colored man. All I can say is how it feels to be the father of one, and I’m telling you, it’s an uneasy feeling.”
I looked hard at him now. “It was easy enough for you to whip me in front of everybody.”
“You think it was? Well, it wasn’t.” He breathed hard, in a sigh. “All your life I’ve protected you. Don’t you know that? But I just can’t protect you in the same way I do Robert, George, and Hammond. I know how white men treat colored men, how white folks treat colored folks, and I know maybe I’ve been wrong in not making you understand earlier that the way I treat you is not the way every white man is going to treat you.”
“I expect I know that already.”
“Maybe you know it, but I’ve always been around to protect you. I know there were some things I’ve been wrong about in the way I’ve brought up you and Cassie, but I’ve tried to do the best I could by you. I’ve whipped you for doing wrong before. They were always whippings meant to teach you something, make you remember not to do it again. Difference today was I not only wanted you to remember that whipping, but to think on the fact that no matter how bad that strap hurt you today, what can come to you if you go hitting another white man, not just your brother and his friends, will be worse than that. Son, hitting a white man could cost you your life, and it won’t necessarily be an easy death. I’ve seen men lynched. I’ve seen men quartered. I’ve seen men burned.” He shook his head. “I’d rather whip you every day of your life and have you hate me every day for the rest of it than see that happen to you.”
There was silence again between us, and neither of us hurried to break it. Finally, I said quietly, “Robert was wrong.”
“To your thinking.”
“He was wrong.” I wasn’t changing my mind about that.
“Maybe. But don’t you see it doesn’t matter? Wrong or not, he’s white. The way it is, he’s of age now, and that’s all that matters.”
“I’ve had fights with Robert before.”
“That was as children. Children, no matter what color, are allowed to have their squabbles. That’s overlooked. Now, though, Robert’s of age, and you can’t go around hitting him anytime you feel like it. You should’ve already known that. A black daddy would have made sure his son understood that before now. I expect I put off too long seeing that you understood it.”
I threw my last stone into the water and turned to question him. “But why in front of the Waverlys? Why’d you have to whip me in front of them?”
My daddy’s eyes met mine in the lantern light. “Because they were here, and the thing is, with their being here, there was nothing else I could do but whip you. I didn’t chastise you, then maybe they’d figure they’d take care of you themselves . . . now or down the road. But whether they were here or not, it was time I did what I did just the same.”
“Something you wouldn’t’ve done if I was white.”
My daddy acceded to that. “I wouldn’t have had to. I’m going to tell you something, Paul. I know I’ve had to bring you up differently from your brothers—you and your sister both—but that’s because no matter how much I’ve tried to bring you all up as much the same as possible, the rest of the country isn’t about to accept you as the same. You’re a boy of color, and if folks know that, that’s how they’re going to see you. What I’ve tried to do is give you something to build on, an education and a trade. But for the rest of it—getting through this world alive—you’re going to have to use your head. You’ve got a good mind, son. You’re smart. Maybe too smart. You’ve got yourself a mind like a steel trap, and that kind of mind for a colored boy could get you in a whole lot of trouble. You’re my son, but I don’t care how white you look, most white folks in these parts will call you and every other person of color ‘nigger,’ and to them that’s all you are. They don’t care how white you look, you sass a white man, you hit a white man, they’ll kill you.”