“I take it with thanks for her,” the blind man said. “Put it in your sack,” he said to her.
Haze thrust the peeler at her again, but he was still looking at the blind man.
“I won’t have it,” she muttered.
“Take it like I told you,” the blind man said shortly.
After a second she took it and shoved it in the sack where the tracts were. “It ain’t mine,” she said. “I don’t want none of it. I got it but it ain’t mine.”
“She thanks you for it,” the blind man said. “I knew somebody was following me.”
“I ain’t followed you nowhere,” Haze said. “I followed her to say I ain’t beholden for none of her fast eye like she gave me back yonder.” He didn’t look at her, he looked at the blind man.
“What do you mean?” she shouted. “I never gave you no fast eye. I only watch you tearing up that tract. He tore it up in little pieces,” she said, pushing the blind man’s shoulder. “He tore it up and sprinkled it over the ground like salt and wiped his hands on his pants.”
“He followed me,” the blind man said. “Wouldn’t anybody follow you. I can hear the urge for Jesus in his voice.”
“Jesus,” Haze muttered, “my Jesus.” He sat down by the girl’s leg. His head was at her knee and he set his hand on the step next to her foot. She had on men’s shoes and black cotton stockings. The shoes were laced up tight and tied in precise bows. She moved herself away roughly and sat down behind the blind man.
“Listen at his cursing,” she said in a low tone. “He never followed you.”
“Listen,” the blind man said, “you can’t run away from Jesus. Jesus is a fact. If who you’re looking for is Jesus, the sound of it will be in your voice.”
“I don’t hear nothing in his voice,” Enoch Emery said. “I know a whole heap about Jesus because I attended thisyer Rodemill Boys’ Bible Academy that a woman sent me to. If it was anything about Jesus in his voice I could certainly hear it.” He had got up onto the lion’s back and he was sitting there sideways cross-legged.
The blind man reached out again and his hands suddenly covered Haze’s face. For a second Haze didn’t move or make any sound. Then he knocked the hands off. “Quit it,” he said in a faint voice. “You don’t know nothing about me.”
“You got a secret need,” the blind man said. “Them that know Jesus once can’t escape Him in the end.”
“I ain’t never known Him,” Haze said.
“You got a least knowledge,” the blind man said. “That’s enough. You know His name and you’re marked. If Jesus has marked you there ain’t nothing you can do about it. Them that have knowledge can’t swap it for ignorance.” He was leaning forward but in the wrong direction so that he appeared to be talking to the step below Haze’s foot. Haze sat leaning backward with the black hat tilted forward over his face.
“My daddy looks just like Jesus,” Enoch said from the lion’s back. “His hair hangs to his shoulders. Only difference is he’s got a scar acrost his chin. I ain’t never seen who my mother is.”
“You’re marked with knowledge,” the blind man said. “You know what sin is and only them that know what it is can commit it. I knew all the time we were walking here somebody was following me,” he said. “You couldn’t have followed her. Wouldn’t anybody follow her. I could feel there was somebody near with an urge for Jesus.”
“There ain’t nothing for your pain but Jesus,” the girl said suddenly. She leaned forward and stuck her arm out with her finger pointed at Haze’s shoulder, but he spat down the steps and didn’t look at her. “Listen,” she said in a louder voice, “this here man and woman killed this little baby. It was her own child but it was ugly and she never give it any love. This child had Jesus and this woman didn’t have nothing but good looks and a man she was living in sin with. She sent the child away and it come back and she sent it away again and it come back again and ever time she sent it away it come back to where her and this man was living in sin. They strangled it with a silk stocking and hung it up in the chimney. It didn’t give her any peace after that, though. Everything she looked at was that child. Jesus made it beautiful to haunt her. She couldn’t lie with that man without she saw it, staring through the chimney at her, shining through the brick in the middle of the night.” She moved her feet around so that just the tips of them stuck out from her skirt which she had pulled tight around her legs. “She didn’t have nothing but good looks,” she said in a loud fast voice. “That ain’t enough. No sirree.”
“My Jesus,” Haze said.
“It ain’t enough,” she repeated.
“I hear them scraping their feet inside there,” the blind man said. “Get out the tracts, they’re fixing to come out.”
“What we gonna do?” Enoch asked. “What’s inside theter building?”
“A program letting out,” the blind man said. The child took the tracts out the gunny sack and gave him two bunches of them, tied with a string. “You and Enoch Emery go over on that side and give out,” he said to her. “Me and this boy’ll stay over here.”
“He don’t have no business touching them,” she said. “He don’t want to do nothing but shred them up.”
“Go like I told you,” the blind man said.
She stood there a second, scowling. Then she said, “You come on if you’re coming,” to Enoch Emery and Enoch jumped off the lion and followed her over to the other side.
The blind man was reaching forward. Haze ducked to the side but the blind man was next to him on the step with his hand clamped around his arm. He leaned forward so that he was facing Haze’s knee and he said in a fast whisper, “You followed me here because you’re in sin but you can be a testament to the Lord. Repent! Go to the head of the stairs and renounce your sins and distribute these tracts to the people,” and he thrust the stack of pamphlets into Haze’s hand.
Haze jerked his arm away but he only pulled the blind man nearer. “Listen,” he said, “I’m as clean as you are.”
“Fornication,” the blind man said.
“That ain’t nothing but a word,” Haze said. “If I was in sin I was in it before I ever committed any. Ain’t no change come in me.” He was trying to pry the fingers off from around his arm but the blind man kept wrapping them tighter. “I don’t believe in sin,” he said. “Take your hand off me.”
“You do,” the blind man said, “you’re marked.”
“I ain’t marked,” Haze said, “I’m free.”
“You’re marked free,” the blind man said. “Jesus loves you and you can’t escape his mark. Go to the head of the stairs and. . . .”
Haze jerked his arm free and jumped up. “I’ll take them up there and throw them over into the bushes,” he said. “You be looking! See can you see.”
“I can see more than you!” the blind man shouted. “You got eyes and see not, ears and hear not, but Jesus’ll make you see!”
“You be watching if you can see!” Haze said, and started running up the steps. People were already coming out the auditorium doors and some were halfway down the steps. He pushed through them with his elbows out like sharp wings and when he got to the top, a new surge of them pushed him back almost to where he had started up. He fought through them again until somebody hollered, “Make room for this idiot!” and people got out of his way. He rushed to the top and pushed his way over to the side and stood there, glaring and panting.
“I never followed him,” he said aloud. “I wouldn’t follow a blind fool like that. My Jesus.” He stood against the building, holding the stack of leaflets by the string. A fat man stopped near him to light a cigar, and Haze pushed his shoulder. “Look down yonder,” he said. “See that blind man down there, he’s giving out tracts. Jesus. You ought to see him and he’s got this here ugly child dressed up in woman’s clothes, giving them out too. My Jesus.”
“There’s always
fanatics,” the fat man said, moving on.
“My Jesus,” Haze said. He leaned forward near an old woman with orange hair and a collar of red wooden beads. “You better get on the other side, lady,” he said. “There’s a fool down there giving out tracts.” The crowd behind the old woman pushed her on, but she looked at him for an instant with two bright flea eyes. He started toward her through the people but she was already too far away, and he pushed back to where he had been standing against the wall. “Sweet Jesus Christ crucified,” he said, and felt something turn in his chest. The crowd was moving fast. It was like a big spread ravelling and the separate threads disappeared down the dark streets until there was nothing left of it and he was standing on the porch of the auditorium by himself. The tracts were speckled all over the steps and on the sidewalk and out into the street. The blind man was standing down on the first step, bent over, feeling for the crumpled pamphlets scattered around him. Enoch Emery was over on the other side, standing on the lion’s head and trying to balance himself, and the child was picking up the pamphlets that were not too crushed to use again and putting them back in the gunny sack.
I don’t need no Jesus, Haze said. I don’t need no Jesus. I got Leora Watts.
He ran down the steps to where the blind man was, and stopped. He stood there for a second just out of reach of his hands which had begun to grope forward, hunting the sound of his step, and then he started across the street. He was on the other side before the voice pierced after him. He turned and saw the blind man standing in the middle of the street, shouting, “Shrike! Shrike! My name is Asa Shrike when you want me!” A car had to swerve to the side to keep from hitting him.
Haze drew his head down nearer his hunched shoulders and went on quickly. He didn’t look back until he heard the footsteps coming behind him.
“Now that we got shut of them,” Enoch Emery panted, “whyn’t we go sommer and have us some fun?”
“Listen,” Haze said roughly, “I got business of my own. I seen all of you I want.” He began walking very fast.
Enoch kept skipping steps to keep up. “I been here two months,” he said, “and I don’t know nobody. People ain’t friendly here. I got me a room and there ain’t never nobody in it but me. My daddy said I had to come. I wouldn’t never have come but he made me. I think I seen you sommers before. You ain’t from Stockwell, are you?”
“No.”
“Melsy?”
“No.”
“Sawmill set up there oncet,” Enoch said. “Look like you had a kind of familer face.”
They walked on without saying anything until they got on the main street again. It was almost deserted. “Goodbye,” Haze said and quickened his walk again.
“I’m going thisaway too,” Enoch said in a sullen voice. On the left there was a movie house where the electric bill was being changed. “We hadn’t got tied up with them hicks, we could have gone to a show,” he muttered. He strode along at Haze’s elbow, talking in a half mumble, half whine. Once he caught at his sleeve to slow him down and Haze jerked it away. “He made me come,” he said in a cracked voice. Haze looked at him and saw he was crying, his face seamed and wet and a purple-pink color. “I ain’t but eighteen year,” he cried, “and he made me come and I don’t know nobody, nobody here’ll have nothing to do with nobody else. They ain’t friendly. He done gone off with a woman and made me come but she ain’t gonna stay for long, he’s gonna beat hell out of her before she gets herself stuck to a chair. You the first familer face I seen in two months, I seen you sommers before. I know I seen you sommers before.”
Haze looked straight ahead with his face set hard, and Enoch kept up the half mumble, half blubber. They passed a church and a hotel and an antique shop and turned up a street full of brick houses, each alike in the darkness.
“If you want you a woman you don’t have to be follerin nothing looked like her,” Enoch said. “I heard about where there’s a house full of two-dollar ones. Whyn’t we go have us some fun? I could pay you back next week.”
“Look,” Haze said, “I’m going where I stay—two doors from here. I got a woman. I got a woman, you understand? I don’t need to go with you.”
“I could pay you back next week,” Enoch said. “I work at the city zoo. I guard a gate and I get paid ever week.”
“Get away from me,” Haze said.
“People ain’t friendly here. You ain’t from here and you ain’t friendly neither.”
Haze didn’t answer him. He went on with his neck drawn close to his shoulder blades as if he were cold.
“You don’t know nobody neither,” Enoch said. “You ain’t got no woman or nothing to do. I knew when I first seen you you didn’t have nobody or nothing. I seen you and I knew it.”
“This is where I live,” Haze said, and he turned up the walk of the house without looking back at Enoch.
Enoch stopped. “Yeah,” he cried, “oh yeah,” and he ran his sleeve under his nose to stop the snivel. “Yeah,” he cried. “Go on where you goin but looker here.” He slapped at his pocket and ran up and caught Haze’s sleeve and rattled the peeler box at him. “She give me this. She give it to me and there ain’t nothing you can do about it. She invited me to come to see them and not you and it was you follerin them.” His eyes glinted through his tears and his face stretched in an evil crooked grin.
Haze’s mouth jerked but he didn’t say anything. He stood there for an instant, small in the middle of the steps, and then he raised his arm and hurled the stack of tracts he had been carrying. It hit Enoch in the chest and knocked his mouth open. He stood looking, with his mouth hanging open, at where it had hit his front, and then he turned and tore off down the street; and Haze went into the house.
The night before was the first time he had slept with Leora Watts or any woman, and he had not been very successful with her. When he finished, he was like something washed ashore on her, and she had made obscene comments about him, which he remembered gradually during the day. He was uneasy in the thought of going to her again. He didn’t know what she would say when she opened the door and saw him there.
When she opened the door and saw him there, she said, “Ha ha.” She was a big blonde woman with a green nightgown on. “What do YOU want?” she said.
He put his face into what he thought was an all-knowing expression but it was only stretched a little on one side. The black wool hat sat on his head squarely. Leora left the door open and went back to the bed. He came in with his hat on and when it knocked the sacked electric light bulb, he took it off. Leora rested her face on her hand and watched him. He began to move around the room examining this and that. His throat got dryer and his heart began to grip him like a little ape clutching the bars of its cage. He sat down on the edge of her bed, with his hat in his hand.
Leora’s eyes had narrowed some and her mouth had widened and got thin as a knife blade. “That Jesus-seeing hat!” she said. She sat up and pulled her nightgown from under her and took it off. She reached for his hat and put it on her head and sat with her hands on her hips, watching him. Haze stared blank-faced for a minute, then he made three quick noises that were laughs. He jumped for the electric light cord and undressed in the dark.
Once when he was small, his father took him and his sister, Ruby, to a carnival that stopped in Melsy. There was one tent that cost more money, a little off to the side. A dried-up man with a horn voice was barking it. He never said what was inside. He said it was so SINsational that it would cost any man wanted to see it thirty-five cents, and it was so EXclusive, only fifteen could get in at a time. His father sent him and Ruby to a tent where two monkeys danced, and then he made for it, moving shuttle-faced and close to the walls of things, like he moved. Haze left the monkeys and followed him, but he didn’t have thirty-five cents. He asked the barker what was inside.
“Beat it,” the man said, “there ain’t no pop and there ain’t no monkeys.”
“I already seen them,” he said.
“That’s fine,” the man said, “beat it.”
“I got fifteen cents,” he said. “Whyn’t you lemme in and I could see half of it.” It’s something about a privy, he was thinking. It’s some men in a privy. Then he thought, maybe it’s a man and a woman in a privy. She wouldn’t want me in there. “I got fifteen cents,” he said.
“It’s more than half over,” the man said, fanning with his straw hat. “You run along.”
“That’ll be fifteen cents worth then,” Haze said.
“Scram,” the man said.
“Is it a nigger?” Haze asked. “Are they doing something to a nigger?”
The man leaned off his platform and his dried-up face drew into a glare. “Where’d you get that idear?” he said.
“I don’t know,” Haze said.
“How old are you?” the man asked.
“Twelve,” Haze said. He was ten.
“Gimme that fifteen cents,” the man said, “and get in there.”
He slid the money on the platform and scrambled to get in before it was over. He went through the flap of the tent and inside there was another tent and he went through that. His face was hot through to the back of his head. All he could see were the backs of the men. He climbed up on a bench and looked over their heads. They were looking down into a lowered place where something white was lying, squirming a little, in a box lined with black cloth. For a second he thought it was a skinned animal and then he saw it was a woman. She was fat and she had a face like an ordinary woman except there was a mole on the corner of her lip, that moved when she grinned, and one on her side, that was moving too. Haze’s head became so heavy he couldn’t turn it away from her.
“Had one of thernther built in ever casket,” his father, up toward the front, said, “be a heap ready to go sooner.”
He recognized the voice without looking. He fell down off the bench and scrambled out the tent. He crawled out under the side of the outside one because he didn’t want to pass the barker. He got in the back of a truck and sat down in the far corner of it. The carnival was making a tin roar outside.