I said, What is it?
It’s for the service. For the revivals. Remember me and Deacon Wilhite talking about it?
No, sir.
Sho, you remember. It’s for you to come up out of. You’re going to be resurrected so the sinners can find life ever-lasting. Bliss, a preacher is a man who carries God’s load. And that’s the whole earth, Bliss boy. The whole earth and all the people. And he smiled.
Oh! I said. I remembered. But before it hadn’t meant too much. Since then, Juney had gone away and I had seen one. Juney’s was pine painted black, without curves. This was fancy, all carved and covered with white cloth. It seemed to roll and grow beneath my eyes, while he held his belly in his hands, thumbs in trousers top, his great shoes creaking as he walked around it, proudly.
How you like it?
He was examining the lid, swinging it smoothly up and down with his hand. I couldn’t see how it was put together. It seemed to be all white cloth bleeding into pink and pink into white again, over the scrolls. Then he let the lid down again and I could see two angels curved in its center. They were blowing long-belled valveless trumpets as they went flying. Behind them, in the egg-shaped space in which they trumpeted and flew, were carved clouds. Their eyes looked down. I said,
Is it for me?
Sho, didn’t I tell you? We get it all worked out the way we want it and then, sinners, watch out!
Suddenly I could feel my fingers turn cold at the tips.
But why is it so big, I said. I’m not that tall. In fact, I’m pretty little for my age.
Yeah, but this one has got to last, Bliss. Can’t be always buying you one of these like I do when you scuff out your shoes or bust out the seat of your britches.
But my feet won’t even touch the end, I said. I hadn’t looked inside.
Yeah, but in a few years they will. By time your voice starts to change your feet will be pushing out one end and your head out the other. I don’t want even to have to think about another one before then.
But couldn’t you get a littler one?
You mean “smaller”—but that’s just what we don’t want, Bliss. If it’s too small, they won’t notice it or think of it as applying to them. If it’s too big, they’ll laugh when you come rising up. No, Bliss, it’s got to be this size. They have to see it and feel it for what it is, not take it for a toy like one of those little tin wagons or autos. Down there in Mexico one time I saw them selling sugar candy made in this shape, but ain’t no use in trying to sugar-coat it. No, sir, Bliss. They have got to see it and know what they’re seeing is where they’ve all got to end up. Bliss, that there sitting right there on those sawhorses is everybody’s last clean shirt, as the old saying goes. And they’ve got to realize that when that sickle starts to cut its swarth, it don’t play no favorites. Everybody goes when that wagon comes, Bliss; babies and grandmaws too, ‘cause there simply ain’t no exceptions made. Death is like Justice is supposed to be. So you see, Bliss, it’s got to be of a certain size. Hop in there and let’s see how it fits….
No, please. Please, Daddy Hickman. PLEASE!
It’s just for a little while, Bliss. You won’t be in the dark long, and you’ll be wearing your white dress suit with the satin lapels and the long pants with the satin stripes. You’ll like that, won’t you, Bliss? Sure you will. In that pretty suit? Course! And you breathe through this here tube we fixed here in the lid. See? It comes through right here—you hear what I’m saying, Bliss? All right then, pay attention. Look here at this tube. All you have to do is lay there and breathe through it. Just breathe in and out like you always do; only through the tube. And when you hear me say, Suffer the little children … you push it up inside the lid, so’s they can’t see it when Deacon Wilhite goes to open up the lid …
But then I won’t have any air….
Now don’t worry about that, there’ll be air enough inside the box. Besides, Deacon Wilhite will open it right away….
But suppose something happens and …
Nothing’s going to happen, Bliss.
Yes, but suppose he forgets?
He won’t forget. How’s he going to forget when you’re the center of the services?
But I’m scaird. In all that darkness and with that silk cloth around my mouth and eyes.
Silk, he said. He looked down at me steadily. What else you want it lined with, Bliss? Cotton? Would you feel any better about it if it was lined with something most folks have to work all their lives and wear every day—weekdays and Sunday? Something that most of our folks never get away from? You don’t want that, do you?
He touched my shoulder with his finger. I said, Do you?
I shook my head, shamed.
He watched me, his head to one side. I’d do it myself, Bliss, but it wouldn’t mean as much for the people. It wouldn’t touch them in the same way. Besides, I’m so big most towns wouldn’t have men strong enough to carry me. We don’t want to have to break anybody’s back just to save their souls, do you, Bliss?
I don’t guess so, but…
Of course not, he said quickly. And it won’t be but a few minutes, Bliss. You can even take Teddy with you—no, I guess you better take your Easter bunny. With your Easter bunny you won’t be afraid, will you? Course not. And like I tell you, it will last no longer than it takes for the boys to march you down the aisle. I’ll have you some good strong, big fellows, so you don’t have to worry about them dropping you. Now, Bliss: you’ll hear the music and they’ll set it down in front of the pulpit. Then more music and preaching. Then Deacon Wilhite will open the lid. Then I’ll say, Suffer the little children, and you sit up, see? I say do you see, Bliss?
Yessuh.
Say Sir!
Sir.
Good. Don’t talk like I talk; talk like I say talk. Words are your business, boy. Not just the Word. Words are everything. The key to the Rock, the answer to the Question.
Yes, sir.
Now, when you rise up, you come up slow—don’t go bolting up like no jack-in-the-box, understand? You don’t want to scair the living daylights out of anybody. You want to come up slow and easy. And be sure you don’t mess up your hair. I want the part to be still in it, neat. So don’t forget when we close you in—and don’t be chewing on no gum or sucking on no sour balls, you hear? Hear me now…
Yes, sir, I said. I couldn’t turn away my eyes. His voice rolled on as I wondered which of the two with the trumpets was Gabriel….
… It depends on the size of the church, Bliss. You listening to me?
Yes, sir.
Well, now when you hear me say, Suffer the little children, you sit up slow and, like I tell you, things are going to get quiet as the grave. That’s the way it’ll be.
He stood silently for a moment, one hand on his chin, the other against his hip, one great leg pushed forward, bending at the knee. He wore striped pants.
Bliss, I almost forgot something important: I better have the ladies get us some flowers. Roses would be good. Red ones. Ain’t nobody in this town got any lilies—least not anybody we know. I’m glad I thought of it in time.
Now, Bliss. We’ll have it sitting near the pulpit so when you rise up you’ll be facing to the side and every living soul will see you. But I don’t want you to open your eyes right off. Yes, and you better have your Bible in your hands—and leave that rabbit down in there. You won’t forget that, will you?
No, sir.
Good. And what are you suppose to say when you rise up?
I ask the Lord how come he has forsaken me.
That’s right. That’s correct, Bliss. But say it with the true feeling, hear? And in good English. That’s right, Bliss; in Good Book English. I guess it’s ‘bout time I started reading you some Shakespeare and Emerson. Yes, it’s about time. Who’s Emerson? He was a preacher too, Bliss. Just like you. He wrote a heap of stuff and he was what is called a philosopher. Main thing though is that he knew that every tub has to sit on its own bottom. Have you remembered the rest of the serm
on I taught you?
Yes, sir; but in the dark I…
Never mind the dark—when you come to Why hast Thou forsaken me, on the me, I want you to open your eyes and let your head go back. And you want to spread out your arms wide—like this, see? Lemme see you try it.
Like this?
That’s right. That’s pretty good. Only you better look sad, too. You got to look like you feel it, Bliss. You want to feel like everybody has put you down. Then you start with, I am the resurrection and the life—say it after me:
I am the resurrection…
I am the resurrection…
… And the life …
And the life …
That’s good, but not too fast now. I am the lily of the valley…
I’m the lily of the valley…
Uh huh, that’s pretty good—I am the bright and morning star….
… The bright and morning star.
Thy rod…
Thy rod and thy staff.
Good, Bliss. I couldn’t trap you. That’s enough. You must remember that all of those I’s have got to be in it. Don’t leave out any of those I’s, Bliss; because it takes a heap of I’s before they can see the true vision or even hear the true word.
Yes, sir. But can I take Teddy too?
Teddy? Just why you got to have that confounded bear with you all the time, Bliss? Ain’t the Easter bunny enough? And your little white leather Bible, your kid-bound Word of God? Ain’t that enough for you, Bliss?
But it’s dark in there and I feel braver with Teddy. Because you see, Teddy’s a bear and bears aren’t afraid of the dark.
Never mind all that, Bliss. And don’t you start preaching me no sermon; specially none of those you make up yourself. You preach what I been teaching you and there’ll be folks enough out there tonight who’ll be willing to listen to you. I tell you, Bliss, you’re going to make a fine preacher and you’re starting at just the right age. You’re just a little over six and Jesus Christ himself didn’t start until he was twelve. But you have to go leave that bear alone. The other day I even heard you preaching to that bear. Bliss, bears don’t give a continental about the Word. Did you ever hear tell of a bear of God? Of course not. There’s the Lamb of God, and the Holy Dove, and one of the saints, Jerome, had him a lion. And another had him a bull of some kind—probably an old-fashioned airplane, since he had wings—he said under his breath, and Peter had the keys to the Rock. But no bear, Bliss. So you think about that, you hear?
He looked at me with that gentle, joking look, smiling in his eyes and I felt better.
You think you could eat some ice cream?
Oh, yes, sir.
You do? Well, here; take this four-bits and go get us each a pint. You look today like you could eat just about a pint. What I mean is, you look kind of hot.
He leaned back and squinted down.
I can even see the steam rising out of your collar, Bliss. In fact, I suspect you’re on fire, so you better hurry. Make mine strawberry. Without a doubt, ice cream is good for a man’s belly, and when he has to sing and preach a lot like I do, it’s good for his throat too. Wait a second—where’d I put that money? Here it is. I thought I’d lost it. Ice cream is good if you don’t overdo it—but I don’t guess I have to recommend it to you though, do I, Bliss? ‘Cause you’re already sunk chin deep in the ice cream habit. Fact, Bliss, if eating ice cream was a sin you’d sail to hell in a freezer. Ha, ha! I’m sorry, now don’t look at me like that. I was only kidding, little boy. Here, take this dime and bring us some of those chocolate marshmallow cookies you love so well. Hurry on now, and watch out for those wagons and autos….
Yes, that was how it began, and that was Hickman.
When he laughed his belly shook like a Santa Claus. A great kettledrum of deep laughter. Huge, tall, slow-moving. Like a carriage of state in ceremonial parade until on the platform, then a man of words evoking action. Black Garrick, Alonzo Zuber, Daddy Hickman.
God’s Golden-voiced Hickman
Better known as
GOD’S TROMBONE,
they billed him. Brother A.Z. to Deacon Wilhite, when they were alone. They drank elderberry wine beneath the trees together, discussing the Word; me with a mug of milk and a buttered slice of homemade bread…. That was the beginning and we made every church in the circuit. I learned to rise up slow, the white Bible between my palms, my head thrusting sharp into the frenzied shouting and up, up, into the certainty of his mellow voice soaring isolated and calm like a note of spring water burbling in a glade haunted by the counterrhythms of tumbling, nectar-drunk bumblebees.
I used to lie within, trembling. Breathing through the tube, the hot air and hearing the hypnotic music, the steady moaning beneath the rhythmic clapping of hands, trembling as the boys marched me down a thousand aisles on a thousand nights and days. In the dark, trembling in the dark. Lying in the dark while his words seemed to fall like drops of rain upon the resonant lid. Until each time just as the shapes seemed to close in upon me, Deacon Wilhite would raise the lid and I’d rise up slowly, as he taught me, with the white Bible between my palms, careful not to disturb my hair on the tufted pink lining. Trembling now, with the true hysteria in my cry:
LORD, LORD, WHY HAST THOU …?
Then came the night that changed it all. Yes, Bliss is here, for I can see myself, Bliss, again, dropping down from the back of the platform with the seven black-suited preachers in their high-backed chairs onto the soft earth covered with sawdust, hearing the surge of fevered song rising above me as Daddy Hickman’s voice sustained a note without apparent need for breath, rising high above the tent as I moved carefully out into the dark to avoid the ropes and tent stakes, walking softly over the sawdust and heading then across the clearing for the trees where Deacon Wilhite and the big boys were waiting. I moved reluctantly as always, yet hurrying; thinking, he still hasn’t breathed. He’s still up there, hearing Daddy Hickman soaring above the rest like a great dark bird of light, a sweet yet anguished mellowing cry. Still hearing it hovering there as I began to run to where I can see the shadowy figures standing around where it lies white and threatening upon a table set beneath the pines. Leaning huge against a tree off to the side is the specially built theatrical trunk they carried it in. Then I am approaching the table with dragging feet, hearing one of the boys giggling and saying, What you saying there, Deadman? And I look at it with horror—pink, frog-mouthed, with opened lid. Then looking back without answering, I see with longing the bright warmth of the light beneath the tent and catch the surging movements of the worshippers as they rock in time to the song which now seems to rise up to the still, sustained line of Daddy Hickman’s transcendent cry. Then Deacon Wilhite said, Come on little preacher, in you go! Lifting me, his hands firm around my ribs, then my feet beginning to kick as I hear the boys giggling, then going inside and the rest of me slipping past Teddy and Easter bunny, prone now and taking my Bible in my hands and the shivery beginning as the tufted top brings the blackness down.
At Deacon Wilhite’s signal they raise me and it is as though the earth has fallen away, leaving me suspended in air. I seem to float in the blackness, the jolting of their measured footsteps guided by Deacon Wilhite’s precise instructions, across the contoured ground, all coming to me muted through the pink insulation of the padding which lined the bottom, top, and sides, reaching me at blunt points along my shoulders, buttocks, thighs, heels. A beast with twelve disjointed legs coursing along, and I its inner ear, anxiety; its anxious heart; straining to hear if the voice that sustained its line and me still soared. Because I believed that if he breathed while I was trapped inside, I’d never emerge. And hearing the creaking of a handle near my ear, the thump of Cylee’s knuckle against the side to let me know he was out there, giggling squint-eyed at my fear. Through the thick satin-choke of the lining the remote singing seeming miles away and the rhythmical clapping of hands coming to me like sharp, bright flashes of lightning, promising rain. Moving along on the tips of their measure
d strides like a boat in a slow current as I breathe through the tube in the lid of the hot ejaculatory air, hushed now by the entry and passage among them of that ritual coat of silk and satin, my stiff dark costume made necessary to their absurd and eternal play of death and resurrection….
No, not me but another. Bliss. Resting on his lids, black inside, yet he knew that it was pink, a soft, silky pink blackness around his face, covering even his nostrils. Always the blackness. Inside everything became blackness, even the white Bible and Teddy, even his white suit. It was black even around his ears, deadening the sound except for Reverend Hickman’s soaring song; which now, noodling up there high above, had taken on the softness of the piece of black velvet cloth from which Grandma Wilhite had made a nice full-dress overcoat—only better, because it had a wide cape for a collar. Ayee, but blackness.
He listened intently, one hand gripping the white Bible, the other frozen to Teddy’s paw. Teddy was down there where the top didn’t open at all, unafraid, a bold bad bear. He listened to the voice sustaining itself of its lyrics, the words rising out of the Word like Ezekiel’s wheels; without breath, straining desperately to keep its throbbing waves coming to him, thinking, If he stops to breathe I’ll die. My breath will stop too. Just like Adam’s if God had coughed or sneezed.
And yet he knew that he was breathing noisily through the tube set in the lid. Hurry, Daddy Hickman, he thought. Hurry and say the word. Please, let me rise up. Let me come up and out into the light and air….
Bliss?
So they were walking me slowly over the smooth ground and I could feel the slight rocking movement as the box shifted on their shoulders. And I thought, That means we’re out in the clearing. Trees back there, voices that-a-way, life and light up there. Hurry! They’re moving slow, like an old boat drifting down the big river in the night and me inside looking up into the black sky, no moon or stars and all the folks gone far beyond the levees. And I could feel the shivering creeping up my legs now and squeezed Teddy’s paw to force it down. Then the rising rhythm of the clapping hands were coming to me like storming waves heard from a distance; like waves that struck the boat and flew off into the black sky like silver sparks from the shaking of the shimmering tambourines, showering at the zenith like the tails of skyrockets. If I could only open my eyes. It hangs heavy-heavy over my lids. Please hurry! Restore my sight. The night is black and I am far … far … I thought of Easter bunny, he came from the dark inside of a red-and-white striped egg….