Mr. Dolphus Raymond, the man who lives with a black woman and has mixed children, offered Dill a sip of his drink to settle his stomach. I said, “Dill, you watch out, now,” because I knew Mr. Raymond drank alcohol out of that bottle in the brown paper bag.
Dill let go of the straw and said, “Scout, it’s nothing but Coca-Cola!”
Mr. Raymond leaned up against the tree-trunk. “You little folks won’t tell on me now, will you? It’d ruin my reputation if you did.”
“You mean all you drink in that sack’s Coca-Cola? Just plain Coca-Cola?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mr. Raymond nodded. I liked his smell: it was of leather, horses, and cottonseed. He wore the only English riding boots I had ever seen. “That’s all I drink, most of the time.”
“Then you just pretend to be drunk? Why?”
“Well,” Mr. Raymond said, “Some folks don’t like that I lie with a black woman since I’m white. So even though I don’t care what they think, I try to give ‘em a reason. It helps folks if they can latch onto a reason. When I come to town, which is seldom, if I weave a little and drink out of this sack, folks can say Dolphus Raymond is drunk on whiskey – and that’s why he won’t change his ways. He can’t help himself, that’s why he lives the way he does.”
I told Mr. Raymond, “That ain’t honest, making yourself out badder than you already –“
“It ain’t honest but it’s mighty helpful to folks. Secretly, Scout, I’m not much of a drinker, but you see they could never, ever understand that I live like I do because that’s the way I want to live.”
Mr. Raymond also said, “Dill was crying and feeling sick about the racism he saw in that courtroom. But when he gets older he won’t cry anymore.”
