Free Collected Short Fiction by V. S. Naipaul Page A

Errol and myself – went to the cinema. We were sitting in a row, laughing and talking all during the film, having a good time.
    A voice from behind said, very quietly, ‘Shut up.’
    We turned and saw Big Foot.
    He lazily pulled out a knife from his trouser pocket, flicked the blade open, and stuck it in the back of my chair.
    He looked up at the screen and said in a frightening friendly way, ‘Talk.’
    We didn’t say a word for the rest of the film.
    Afterwards Hat said, ‘You does only get policeman son behaving in that way. Policeman son and priest son.’
    Boyee said, ‘You mean Big Foot is priest son?’
    Hat said, ‘You too stupid. Priests and them does have children?’
    We heard a lot about Big Foot’s father from Hat. It seemed he was as much a terror as Big Foot. Sometimes when Boyee and Errol and I were comparing notes about beatings, Boyee said, ‘The blows we get is nothing to what Big Foot uses to get from his father. That is how he get so big, you know. I meet a boy from Belmont the other day in the savannah, and this boy tell me that blows does make you grow.’
    Errol said, ‘You is a blasted fool, man. How you does let people give you stupidness like that?’
    And once Hat said, ‘Every day Big Foot father, the policeman, giving Big Foot blows. Like medicine. Three times a day after meals. And hear Big Foot talk afterwards. He used to say, “When I get big and have children, I go beat them, beat them.” ’
    I didn’t say it then, because I was ashamed; but I had often felt the same way when my mother beat me.
    I asked Hat, ‘And Big Foot mother? She used to beat him too?’
    Hat, said, ‘Oh, God! That woulda kill him. Big Foot didn’t have any mother. His father didn’t married, thank God.’
    The Americans were crawling all over Port of Spain in those days, making the city really hot. Children didn’t take long to find out that they were easy people, always ready to give with both hands. Hat began working a small racket. He had five of us going all over the district begging for chewing gum and chocolate. For every packet of chewing gum we gave him we got a cent. Sometimes I made as much as twelve cents in a day. Some boy told me later that Hat was selling the chewing gum for six cents a packet, but I didn’t believe it.
    One afternoon, standing on the pavement outside my house, I saw an American soldier down the street, coming towards me. It was about two o’clock in the afternoon, very hot, and the street was practically empty.
    The American behaved in a very surprising way when I sprinted down to ask, ‘Got any gum, Joe?’
    He mumbled something about begging kids and I think he was going to slap me or cuff me. He wasn’t very big, but I was afraid. I think he was drunk.
    He set his mouth.
    A gruff voice said, ‘Look, leave the boy alone, you hear.’
    It was Big Foot.
    Not another word was said. The American, suddenly humble, walked away, making a great pretence of not being in a hurry.
    Big Foot didn’t even look at me.
    I never said again, ‘Got any gum, Joe?’
    Yet this did not make me like Big Foot. I was, I believe, a little more afraid of him.
    I told Hat about the American and Big Foot.
    Hat said, ‘All the Americans not like that. You can’t throw away twelve cents a day like that.’
    But I refused to beg any more.
    I said, ‘If it wasn’t for Big Foot, the man woulda kill me.’
    Hat said, ‘You know, is a good thing Big Foot father dead before Big Foot really get big.’
    I said, ‘What happen to Big Foot father, then?’
    Hat said, ‘You ain’t hear? It was a famous thing. A crowd ofblack people beat him up and kill him in 1937 when they was having the riots in the oilfields. Big Foot father was playing hero, just like Big Foot playing hero now.’
    I said, ‘Hat, why you don’t like Big Foot?’
    Hat said, ‘I ain’t have anything against him.’
    I said, ‘Why you fraid him so, then?’
    Hat said, ‘Ain’t you fraid him too?’
    I nodded. ‘But