At Viv's call to lunch Joe climbed down the ladder, content that he had fixed the roof and Hank's worries both at the same time. There was nothing to it; just get Hank and the boy together and have everybody talk things out. Whatever was chewing at them, he was sure all it needed was a good healthy airing. They weren't neither of them nincompoops. They could surely see it wasn't any good going around with chips on their shoulders, they could surely see that. Nothing could be gained, and, if it kept on, Hank stood to lose sleep he needed to keep the job rolling. Lee stood to lose a mouthful of teeth. That was all there was to it. He'd make them see the lay of the land.
But after checking out the scene at the lunch table he decided to hold off for a few days on his suggestion for mediation. Hank brooded behind a newspaper with heavy, rumbling silence, and Lee, smoking and staring out the kitchen window with tragic, defeated eyes and an anemic pallor to his cheeks, didn't look capable of sustaining the shock of a haircut, let alone the loss of a mouthful of teeth. Looking at Lee, Joe was amazed that this could be the same person he had watched just yesterday scale a fifteen-degree slope at a run with a choker chain in his hand. He sure looked brought down and troubled, Lee did . . .
Lee stares down at his plate, and the plate stares back from two wild egg-yolk eyes and wrinkles a bacon grin; like a mask of a skull the plate is . . . reminding him of another mask (the little boy stood looking at the mask, fighting tears) and another, long-ago Halloween (looking from the mask pathetically up toward his mother: "I can't see why I got to wear it--I can't see why I even got to go!" Hank took the mask from her hand and grinned at it. "Looks fine to me," he said). Lee stabs the yolk of one eye and stirs it over the bacon . . .
"You better get hold of some of them eggs, Leland," Joe advised, "before you expire on the spot. Oh, I know what's botherin' you; you slep' too late. You oughta been up there on the roof with me, breathing of the firmament."
Lee turns slowly to give Joe a trenchant smile. "I was up there with you, Josephus. In spirit." I had decided before coming to breakfast that it would best serve my plan to win Viv's sympathy by being bitter and hurt as a result of Hank's overbearing treatment of me last night. "Yes, in spirit I was up there from the first crack of dawn and rattle of daylight. I was up there with you every stroke of that hammer."
Joe slapped his cheek. "I never thought for a second. And that's d'rectly above your room, ain't it? Oh man, you musta thought things was really comin' apart in man-sized chunks. You reckon you'll pull through? You still got just oh the faintest tremble to your lip. . . ."
"I did consider running to warn Henny Penny and Foxy Loxy," I laughed. In spite of my resolute bitterness, I couldn't help being amused by Joe Ben. "But I do reckon I'll pull through, though, shellshock notwithstanding."
"I'm truly sorry," Joe apologized. "I know how a man who's got to be woked up all the time durin' the week hates to be woked on the weekend when he doesn't got to."
"Apology accepted"--and wondered: But how can you know, Joe? How can you possibly know how I feel about being woked, Joe, when you've probably been up before dawn every day of your life?
Joe Ben constituted a phenomenon to me in more ways than one; quite apart from his appearance, he was one of those extremely remarkable beings whose hearts pump pure elixir of Benzedrine through a body made of latex rubber. Always high, always on the go, always looking overnourished and under-fleshed, for all he ate. He devoted so much energy to his meals that one was apt to wonder how he kept from expiring in the very act of eating, like the car that died at the gas station because it burned fuel faster than the pump could deliver it.
Having demolished the skull face on his plate, Lee pushes it from him, shuddering . . . (The little boy tried to ignore Hank's opinion of the mask: "Mother, I don't care about trick-an'-treating. If I don't care why do I have to--" Hank scooped him up before he could finish and perched him on his shoulder. "Bee-cause, bub, how you ever gonna get fierce, you don't learn to get out yonder an' meet the Hide-behind in his own territory? Takes some grit an' gumption, but it's gotta be did or you'll spend your life in a hole like a gopher. Here, stick this mask on; we'll get into town an' scare the pants off the folks.") and tries to ignore the unexplained threat from a plate of eggs. . . .
"Joe," I said casually, after a small silence, "you know . . . I'm inclined to take you up on that offer you made me."
"Sure enough, you bet." Then asked casually, after a large mouthful of toast, "Just what offer was that?"
"To give me a chance to witness first hand the power of your faith in action, to visit your church for Saturday services . . . don't you recall?"
"Yeah! the church! you come! oh man yeah! But it ain't exactly a church, I mean it is a church, but it ain't exactly--you know, steeples and stained-glass windows and pulpits . . . it's more sort of a tent is what it actually is. A tent? huh?" He uttered a short laugh of dawning wonder. "Yeah, that's what it is--a tent--how about that?"
"Apparently your cathedral's architecture has never impressed itself on you before."
"But, hey, Lee, listen, one thing. Jan an' me wasn't planning to come right back out. It's Halloween, for one thing; I aim to give the kids a chance to trick-or-treat a little bit tonight."
"Yes, Leland," Jan corroborated in a small voice, "we'll be going over to our new place after church. To paint some in the kitchen. But you're of course welcome to spend the day there an' come back with us tonight."
"Shoot a monkey, yes!" Joe Ben snapped his fingers. "You ever paint much, Lee? Why it's a gas, you know? It's prime fun! Swarp swarp. A wave of the hand and bright red! orange! green . . . !"
"Off-white an' morning mist an' pastel green, Joe dear." Jan toned down his hues.
"Sure! But what do you say, Lee? If you can handle a brush--we'll give you a sort of try-out, to see if you're equal to it first--but if you are . . . it'd be a nice way to fill the wait."
I told him that I was afraid that, after a session with Brother Walker, I might be a bit too unsteady to wield a sure brush, but gave him the names of a few other fellows I knew who might be interested. . . .
"Joe Harper? Huck who? Lee, them boys town boys?"
"A joke, Joe, forget it."
Which he immediately did as he launched into an enthusiastic description of the plans he had for his bathroom's color motif: "A man, don't you agree, needs something to look at all that time besides white porcelain? Something wild, something gassy?"
I let Joe Ben and his wife discuss bathroom fixtures while I finished my eggs . . .
... A threat that he finally attributes to the fear he had as a child of being forced to eat a raw egg . . . (from Hank's shoulder the little boy gave his mother a last entreating look, but she said only, "Have fun, Leland.") and to the fact that Hank is obviously still quite upset. . . .
Joe was in high spirits even for Joe. He had missed the hostilities last night and had gone to bed ignorant of the redeclaration of the cold war between Hank and me, and had spent a night dreaming visionary dreams of brotherhood while his relatives wrangled below Joe's Utopia: a color-filled world of garlands and maypoles, of bluebirds and marigolds, where Man Is Good to His Brother Simply Because It Is More Fun. Poor fool Joe with your Tinker Toy mind and scrambled world . . . The story is told that when Joe was a child his cousins emptied his Christmas stocking and replaced the gifts with horse manure. Joe took one look and bolted for the door, eyes glittering with excitement. "Wait, Joe, where you going? What did ol' Santa bring you?" According to the story Joe paused at the door for a piece of rope. "Brought me a bran'-new pony but he got away. I'll catch 'em if I hurry."
And ever since then it seemed that Joe had been accepting more than his share of hardship as good fortune, and more than his share of shit as a sign of Shetland ponies just around the corner, Thoroughbred stallions just up the road. Were one to show him that the horses didn't exist, never had existed, only the joke, only the shit, he would have thanked the giver for the fertilizer and started a vegetable gard
en. Were I to tell him I wanted to ride to church with him solely to complete my rendezvous with Viv he would have rejoiced that I was cementing relations with Hank by becoming better friends with his wife.
Lee sees Hank glance briefly at him from behind the paper; eyes troubled and mouth searching for a kind and prudent phrase that will make everything all right again. He cannot find it. The mouth closes in defeat, and before the paper is lifted again Lee sees an expression of helplessness that makes him feel both elated and somewhat troubled. . . .
But I liked the little gnome too much to risk the truth with him. What I did tell him: "I don't mind, Joe, waiting till dark to come home. Besides, I think I heard--didn't I hear you say, Viv, that you were thinking about driving in for low tide this afternoon after some clams?"
Viv sat darning socks on a chrome kitchen stool with the toes of her tennis shoes hooked under a gleaming rung and a sock pulled over a light bulb. She drew the needle through the knot and brought the thread to her gleaming row of sharp little teeth Snip! "Not clams, Lee"--guardedly, looking into her darning box for another sock--"rock oysters. Yes. I mentioned that I might be coming in, but I don't know . . ." She looked toward Hank. The newspaper rustled across the table, straining its newsprint eardrums.
"Can I ride back with you? If you do come in?"
"Shall I pick you up at Joe and Jan's new house or where? If I do?"
"That'll be fine."
She slid the bulb into another sock; a GE eye winked at me slyly from a woolen rim.
"So . . ." I had a date. I stood up from the table. "Ready when you are, Joe."
"Right. You kids! Squeaks, get the kids in the boat. Get all your stuff. Hup! Hup!"
Wink. The eye was gradually stitched closed with white woolen eyelashes. Snip. "So I guess I'll see you later, Lee?" she asked with tense indifference and a white woolen thread hanging from her lip.
"Yeah, I guess." I yawned over my shoulder as I followed Joe out of the kitchen. "Later"--and yawned again: I could be as indifferent as they come.
For a second, after Hank returns to his newspaper, unable to go through with his start, Lee longs to run to his brother and ask for his forgiveness and his help: Hank, pull me up! save me! don't let me die down here like an insect! (The little boy turned from his mother. "Hank, I'm awful tired--" Hank knuckled the boy's head. "Don't be a sissy now, sport--ol' Hankus'll keep the dark from gettin' you.")--but decides instead: The devil with him; what does he care? and clamps his jaw indignantly . . .
In the front room Hank asked if I was planning on staying in town a while to hobnob with the hobgoblins after church. I told him I might, yes; he grinned--"Little of God, then a little of ghosts, is that it, bub?" as though our unfortunate argument were forgotten. "Well . . . keep a tight hold on it."
As a matter of fact, I thought, leaving the house, when it comes to being tensely indifferent, all three of us can swing it pretty skillfully . . .
In the daylight sky outside, Lee finds the full moon waiting, like one who has stayed up all night to see the action and is not going to miss it now ("If you're ever gonna get through this ol' world," Hank told the child as they left the house, "you're gonna have to get big enough to take the dark of it.")--a daylight moon, staring at him even more fiercely than had the plate of eggs--and his indignation begins to quickly melt . . .
As we drove the road to town, Joe was so enthusiastic at the prospect of a convert that he took it upon himself to relate to me the tale of how he came to be saved. . . . "Come at me one night in a dream!" he shouted, trying to make himself heard above the pick-up's roar; though all the noise--the throb of the tires on the pavement, the kids in back hooting Halloween horns and twirling ratchet-clattering noisemakers--somehow added to the effect of his tale. "Just like it come to David an' them others. All day, all week, we'd been working a piece of swamp up a good deal north of here--oh, let me see, this was a good seven, eight years back, weren't it, Jan? When I got the call told me to join the church? In the early part of spring--and the wind had been blowin' to take the hair right off your head. It ain't so dangerous cutting in the wind as some say, especially you keep a good track of what's what . . . check for snags with high limbs that might bust off and like that--I ever tell you about Judy Stamper? Aaron's little grandkid? She was just walking along one day, through the state park back up river it was, too, and got hammered flat by a spruce limb. In a state park, by gosh! Her mom and dad up and left the country for keeps. Like to kilt ol' Aaron. Wasn't exceptional windy, neithers, nice summer day--they was out picknickin'--she just left the picnic table a second to go off behind the bushes to see a man about a dog and kerwhack, just like that, dead as a door-nail . . . Man!"
He sat soberly shaking his head over the tragedy, until he recalled the story from which he had digressed. "But, oh yeah!" A wide white smile flashed from his orange face and he went on with the tale.
"It'd been windy, like I said, an' that night when I went off to sleep I had this dream like I was up topping this spar and the wind commenced to blow and blow till wasn't a thing still; everything whirling this way and that and a great . . . big . . . voice booms out Joe Ben . . . Joe Ben, thou must be saved and I said sure sure ain't I been planning to all along? but let me first get this here tree topped we're running way behind and here it is March! So I go back to chopping . . . and that wind cranks up a notch. And the voice comes again: Joe Ben, Joe Ben, go get yourself saved and I says okay can you just hang on a second for chrissakes? Can't you see I'm bustin' my butt hurryin'? And went to choppin' again. And then the wind really cut loose! If it'd been blowing before, it was just warming up. Trees come loose outa the ground and walked around the countryside like dancers; houses went to whippin' past in the air; big old geese came zipping by backwards. . . . And there I am, blowed out from that tree stiff at an angle, hanging with just my fingernails. Flapping like a flag. Joe Ben, Joe Ben--go get--But that was enough for me. I jumped right up in bed."
"That's right," Jan confirmed. "He did jump right up in bed. In March."
"And I says, 'Jan, get up an' get on your clothes. We're gonna be saved!' "
"That's right. That's just what he said. To get up an'--"
"Yeah, just like that. We were livin' in the old Atkins place at the time, down river--just made a down payment on it, you recall, Jan? Couple months later, Lee, the old crackerbox just jumped in the river like a frog. Just one day kersplash! I swear, I no more thought it would cave off like that than I thought it could fly! But she did. Jan lost her mama's antique spinet piano, too."
"It did. I'd nearly forgot that. Just like a frog it--"
"So right the next day I went to see Brother Walker."
"After your house was lost?" I was a little confused by the chronology of his narrative. "Or after--"
"Oh no, I mean right after The Dream! And let me tell you. You want to hear something make your hair stand up on end? As soon, the very instant I took them vows, the very instant I took them vows and drunk that water diluted right from the River Jordan, you know what taken place? You know what?"
I laughed and told him I would be afraid to guess.
"Jan, she got pregnant with our firstborn is just exactly what!"
"That's so. I did. Right after."
"Right after," he emphasized.
"Incredible," I marveled. "It's hard to imagine an elixir of such potency. She became pregnant the moment after you drank the diluted water?"
"Yes sir! The very instant."
"I'd have given something to witness that event."
"Oh, man, the Strength of the Lord is a Caution." Joe shook his head respectfully. "Like Brother Walker tell us, 'God is a Highballer in Heaven.' A highballer, see, is a old loggin' term for a guy who did about twice as much as others. 'A Highballer in Heaven with a Lowballer in Hell!' That's the kind of talk Brother Walker uses, Leland; he doesn't come on with a lot of this highhanded crap other preachers talk. He lays 'em right on the line!"
"That's so. Right on the l
ine."
The pale daylight moon darts along through the trees, keeping them in sight. That drivel about men being affected by the full moon--wolfbane and so on--is nonsense, complete nonsense . . .
Joe and his wife continued talking about their church all the way in to Wakonda. I had planned to beg off attending the services by developing a sudden headache, but Joe's enthusiasm was such that I couldn't disappoint him and was compelled to accompany him to the carnival grounds, where a huge two-masted maroon tent housed his version of God. We were early. The folding chairs placed in neat rows about the bright wood-shaving-strewn interior of the tent were only partly filled with long-jowled fishermen or loggers, haunted by their own dreams of windy death. Joe and Jan insisted on taking their usual seats in the front row. "Where Brother Walker really gets his teeth into you, Leland; c'mon." But I declined, saying I would feel conspicuous. "And, as I am a newcomer in the Lord's tent, Joe, I think it might be best to try my first sample of this potent new faith from the back row, out of reach of the good brother's molars, all right?"
And from this vantage point I was able to slip up the aisle a few minutes after services jumped off, without disturbing the worship of the red-faced believers or the rock-and-roll catechism that Brother Walker's blind wife was whanging out on her electric steel guitar. I got out of that tent just in time.
Complete and utter nonsense. Those other times when the moon happened to be full, nothing but coincidences; coincidence and nothing more. I say just in time because when I got outside I found a weird and whirly feeling sifting down on me from the thumb-smudged sky, a giddy and giggly sensation foaming up out of the cracked earth. Then it finally dawned on me: Nitwit, you have a pot hangover is all. The "aftergrass," Peters called it. Residual high that occasionally comes on about noon the day after blowing up too much of the Mexican laughing grass the night before. Nothing very dire. Compared to the living death of an alcohol hangover, this day-after high is a small price to pay for a night-before kick. There's no sickness; no headache; none of the baked tongue or bowled eyeballs that alcohol leaves one with--only a minor euphoria, and a dreamy, air-walking, time-stretching state that is often very pleasant. But it can tend to make the world appear a little goofy, and if one is in a goofy situation anyway--like a rhythm-and-blues church--it can tend to make it a lot goofier.