Go Set a Watchman
Page 57He put down the salt shaker. “But let Henry Clinton show any signs of deviatin’ from the norm and Maycomb says, not ‘That’s the Clinton in him,’ but ‘That’s the trash in him.’”
“Hank. That is untrue and you know it. It’s unfair and it’s ungenerous, but more than anything in this world it’s just not true!”
“Jean Louise, it is true,” said Henry gently. “You’ve probably never even thought about it—”
“Hank, you’ve got some kind of complex.”
“I haven’t got anything of the kind. I just know Maycomb. I’m not in the least sensitive about it, but good Lord, I’m certainly aware of it. It says to me that there are certain things I can’t do and certain things I must do if I—”
“If you what?”
“Well, sweetie, I would really like to live here, and I like the things other men like. I want to keep the respect of this town, I want to serve it, I want to make a name for myself as a lawyer, I want to make money, I want to marry and have a family—”
“In that order, I suppose!”
Jean Louise got up from the booth and marched out of the drugstore. Henry followed on her heels. At the door he turned and yelled he’d get the check in a minute.
“Jean Louise, stop!”
“Well?”
“Honey, I’m only trying to make you see—”
“I see all right!” she said. “I see a scared little man; I see a little man who’s scared not to do what Atticus tells him, who’s scared not to stand on his own two feet, who’s scared not to sit around with the rest of the red-blooded men—”
She started walking. She thought she was walking in the general direction of the car. She thought she had parked it in front of the office.
“Jean Louise, will you please wait a minute?”
“All right, I’m waiting.”
“You know I told you there were things you’d always taken for granted—”“Hell yes, I’ve been taking a lot of things for granted. The very things I’ve loved about you. I looked up to you like God knows what because you worked like hell for everything you ever had, for everything you’ve made yourself. I thought a lot of things went with it, but they obviously aren’t there. I thought you had guts, I thought—”
She walked down the sidewalk, unaware that Maycomb was looking at her, that Henry was walking beside her pitifully, comically.
“God damn you, what?”
“I just want to ask you one thing, one thing—what the hell do you expect me to do? Tell me, what the hell do you expect me to do?”
“Do? I expect you to keep your gold-plated ass out of citizens’ councils! I don’t give a damn if Atticus is sitting across from you, if the King of England’s on your right and the Lord Jehovah’s on your left—I expect you to be a man, that’s all!”
She drew in her breath sharply. “I—you go through a goddamned war, that’s one kind of being scared, but you get through it, you get through it. Then you come home to be scared the rest of your life—scared of Maycomb! Maycomb, Alabama—oh brother!”
They had come to the door of the office.
Henry grabbed her shoulders. “Jean Louise, will you stop one second? Please? Listen to me. I know I’m not much, but think one minute. Please think. This is my life, this town, don’t you understand that? God damn it, I’m part of Maycomb County’s trash, but I’m part of Maycomb County. I’m a coward, I’m a little man, I’m not worth killing, but this is my home. What do you want me to do, go shout from the housetops that I am Henry Clinton and I’m here to tell you you’re all wet? I’ve got to live here, Jean Louise. Don’t you understand that?”
“I understand that you’re a goddamned hypocrite.”
“I am trying to make you see, my darling, that you are permitted a sweet luxury I’m not. You can shout to high heaven, I cannot. How can I be of any use to a town if it’s against me? If I went out and—look, you will admit that I have a certain amount of education and a certain usefulness in Maycomb—you admit that? A millhand can’t do my job. Now, shall I throw all that down the drain, go back down the county to the store and sell people flour when I could be helping them with what legal talent I have? Which is worth more?”
“Henry, how can you live with yourself?”
“Hank, we are poles apart. I don’t know much but I know one thing. I know I can’t live with you. I cannot live with a hypocrite.”
A dry, pleasant voice behind her said, “I don’t know why you can’t. Hypocrites have just as much right to live in this world as anybody.”
She turned around and stared at her father. His hat was pushed back on his head; his eyebrows were raised; he was smiling at her.
17
“HANK,” SAID ATTICUS, “why don’t you go have a long look at the roses on the square? Estelle might give you one if you ask her right. Looks like I’m the only one who’s asked her right today.”
Atticus put his hand to his lapel, where was tucked a fresh scarlet bud. Jean Louise glanced toward the square and saw Estelle, black against the afternoon sun, steadily hoeing under the bushes.