Go Set a Watchman (To Kill a Mockingbird #2)(70)

Henry checked her: “Look, honey. Have you ever considered that men, especially men, must conform to certain demands of the community they live in simply so they can be of service to it?

“Maycomb County’s home to me, honey. It’s the best place I know to live in. I’ve built up a good record here from the time I was a kid. Maycomb knows me, and I know Maycomb. Maycomb trusts me, and I trust Maycomb. My bread and butter comes from this town, and Maycomb’s given me a good living.

“But Maycomb asks certain things in return. It asks you to lead a reasonably clean life, it asks that you join the Kiwanis Club, to go to church on Sunday, it asks you to conform to its ways—”

Henry examined the salt shaker, moving his thumb up and down its grooved sides. “Remember this, honey,” he said. “I’ve had to work like a dog for everything I ever had. I worked in that store across the square—I was so tired most of the time it was all I could do to keep up with my lessons. In the summer I worked at home in Mamma’s store, and when I wasn’t working there I was hammering in the house. Jean Louise, I’ve had to scratch since I was a kid for the things you and Jem took for granted. I’ve never had some of the things you take for granted and I never will. All I have to fall back on is myself—”

“That’s all any of us have, Hank.”

“No it isn’t. Not here.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there are some things I simply can’t do that you can.”

“And why am I such a privileged character?”

“You’re a Finch.”

“So I’m a Finch. So what?”

“So you can parade around town in your dungarees with your shirttail out and barefooted if you want to. Maycomb says, ‘That’s the Finch in her, that’s just Her Way.’ Maycomb grins and goes about its business: old Scout Finch never changes. Maycomb’s delighted and perfectly ready to believe you went swimming in the river buck naked. ‘Hasn’t changed a bit,’ it says. ‘Same old Jean Louise. Remember when she—?’”

He 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!”

She stopped.

“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—”