«If you gotta thirst, and the water done gone, PRAY to the Lord, pray on and on.» Outstretching her arms, balanced like a tightrope walker, she stepped into the yard, and strutted round Joel’s tree stump. «If you gotta lover, and the lover done gone, PRAY to the Lord, pray on and on.»
High in chinaberry towers the wind moved swift as a river, the frenzied leaves, caught in its current, frothed like surf on the sky’s shore. And slowly the land came to seem as though it were submerged in dark deep water. The fern undulated like sea-floor plants, the cabin loomed mysterious as a sunken galleon hulk, and Zoo, with her fluid, insinuating grace, could only be, Joel thought, the mermaid bride of an old drowned pirate.
«If you gotta hunger, and the food done gone, PRAY to the Lord, pray on and on.»
A yellow tabby loped across the yard, and sprang nimbly into Jesus Fever’s lap; it was the cat Joel had seen skulking in the garden lilac. Clambering to the old man’s shoulder, it smooched its crafty mug next to the puny cheek, its tawny astonished eyes blazing at Joel. It rumbled as the little Negro stroked the striped belly. Minus his derby hat, Jesus Fever’s skull, except for sparse sprouts of motheaten wool, was like a ball of burnished metal; a black suit double his size sagged dilapidatedly on his delicate frame, and he wore tiny high-button shoes of orange leather. The spirit of the service was rousing him mightily, and, from time to time, he honked his nose between his fingers, tossing the discharge into the fern.
The rhythmic chain of Zoo’s half-sung, half-shouted phrases rose and fell like her pounding foot, and her earrings, dangling with the sway of her head, shot flecks of sparkle. «Listen oh Lord when us pray, kindly hear what us has to say. . .»
Silent lightning zigzagged miles away, then another bolt, this a dragon of crackling white, now not too distant, was followed by a crawling thunder-roll. A bantam rooster raced for the safety of a
well-shed, and the triangular shadow of a crow flock cut the sky.
«I cold,» complained Jesus petulantly. «Leg all swole up with rain. I cold. . .» The cat curled in his lap, its head flopped over his knee like a wilted dahlia.
The off-on flash of Zoo’s gold tooth made Joel’s heart suddenly like a rock rattling in his chest, for it suggested to him a certain winking neon sign:R. R. Oliver’s Funeral Estb. Darkness.R. R. Oliver’s Funeral Estb. Darkness. «Downright tacky, but they don’t charge too outlandish,» that’s what Ellen had said, standing before the plate window where a fan of gladiolas blushed livid under the electric letters publicizing a cheap but decent berth en route to the kingdom and the glory. Now here again he’d locked the door and thrown away the key: there was conspiracy abroad, even his father had a grudge against him, even God. Somewhere along the line he’d been played a mean trick. Only he didn’t know who or what to blame. He felt separated, without identity, a stone-boy mounted on the rotted stump; there was no connection linking himself and the waterfall of elderberry leaves cascading on the ground, or, rising beyond, the Landing’s steep, intricate roof.
«I cold. I wants to wrap up in the bed. It gonna storm.»
«Hold your tater, Papadaddy.»
Then an unusual thing occurred: as if following the directions of a treasure map, Zoo took three measured paces toward a dingy little rose bush, and, frowning up at the sky, discarded the red ribbon binding her throat. A narrow scar circled her neck like a necklace of purple wire; she traced a finger over it lightly.
«When the time come for that Keg Brown to go, Lord, just you send him back in a hounddog’s nasty shape, ol hound ain’t nobody wants to trifle with: a haunted dog.»
It was as though a brutal hawk had soared down and clawed away Joel’s eyelids, forcing him to gape at her throat. Zoo. Maybe she was like him, and the world had a grudge against her, too. But christamighty he didn’t want to end up with a scar like that. Except what chance have you got when there is always trickery in one hand, and danger in the other. No chance whatsoever. None. A coldness went along his spine. Thunder boomed overhead. The earth shook. He leaped off the stump, and made for the house, his loosened shirt-tail flying behind; run, run, run, his heart told him, and wham! he’d pitched headlong into a briar patch.
This was a kind of freak accident. He’d seen the patch, known it for an obstacle, and yet, as though deliberately, he’d thrown himself upon it. But the stinging briar scratches seemed to cleanse him of bewilderment and misery, just as the devil, in fanatic cults, is supposedly, through self-imposed pain, driven from the soul. Realizing the tender concern in Zoo’s face as she helped him to his feet, he felt a fool: she was, after all, his friend, and there was no need to be afraid. «Here, little old bad boy,» she said kindly, plucking briar needles off his breeches, «how come you act so ugly? Huh, hurt me and Papadaddy’s feelins.» She took his hand, and led him to the porch.
«Hee hee hee,» cackled Jesus, «I tumble thataway, I bust every bone.»
Zoo picked up her accordion and, reclining against a porch-pole, presently, with careless effort,
produced a hesitant, discordant melody. And her grandfather, in a disappointed child’s wheedling singsong, reiterated his grievances; he was about to perish of chill, but what matter; who gave a goldarn whether he lived or died? and why didn’t Zoo, inasmuch as he’d performed his Sabbath duty, tuck him in his good warm bed and leave him in peace? oh there were cruel folk in this world, and heartless ways.
«Hush up and bow that head, Papadaddy,» said Zoo. «We gonna end this meetin proper-like. We gonna tell Him our prayers. Joel, honey, bow that head.»
The trio on the porch were figures in a woodcut engraving: the Ancient on his throne of splendid pillows, a yellow pet relaxed in his lap gazing gravely in the drowning light at the small servant bowed at its master’s feet, and the arms of the black arrow-like daughter lifted above them all, as if in benediction.
But there was no prayer in Joel’s mind; rather, nothing a net of words could capture, for, with one exception, all his prayers of the past had been simple concrete requests: God, give me a bicycle, a knife with seven blades, a box of oil paints. Only how, how, could you say something so indefinite, so meaningless as this: God, let me be loved.
«Amen,» whispered Zoo.
And in this moment, like a swift intake of breath, the rain came.
4
«Can’t we be more specific?» said Randolph, languidly pouring a glass of sherry. «Was she fat, tall, lean?»
«It was hard to tell,» said Joel.
Outside in the night, rain washed the roof with close slanted sounds, but here kerosene lamps spun webs of mellow light in the darkest corner, and the kitchen-window mirrored the scene like a golden looking glass. So far Joel’s first supper at the Landing had gone along well enough. He felt very much at ease with Randolph, who, at each conversational lag, introduced topics which might interest and flatter a boy of thirteen: Joel found himself holding forth exceedingly well (he thought) on Do Human Beings Inhabit Mars? How Do You Suppose Egyptians Really Mummified Folks? Are Head-hunters Still Active? and other conversational subjects. It was due more or less to an overdose of sherry (disliking the taste, but goaded by the hope of getting sure enough drunk. . . now wouldn’t he have something to write Sammy Silverstein!. . . three thimble glasses had been drained) that Joel mentioned the Lady.
«Heat,» said Randolph. «Exposing one’s bare head to the sun occasionally results in minor
hallucinations. Dear me, yes. Once, some years ago, while airing in the garden, I seemed quite distinctly to see a sunflower transformed into a man’s face, the face of a scrappy little boxer I admired at one point, a Mexican named Pepe Alvarez.» He fondled his chin reflectively, and wrinkled his nose, as if to convey that this name had for him particular implications. «Stunning experience, so impressive I cut the flower, and pressed it in a book; even now, if I come across it I fancy. . . but that is neither here nor there. It was the sun, I’m sure. Amy dearest, what do you think?»
Amy, who was brooding over her food, glanced up, rather startled. «No more for me, thank you,» she said.
Randolph frowned in mock annoyance. «As usual, out picking the little blue flower of forgetfulness.»
Her narrow face softened with pleasure. «Silvertongued devil,» she said, unreserved adoration brightening her sharp little eyes, and making them, for an instant, almost beautiful.
«To begin at the beginning, then,» he said, and burped(«Excusez-moi, s’il vous plaît. Blackeyed peas, you understand; most indigestible»). He patted his lips daintily. «Now where was I, oh yes. . . Joel refuses to be persuaded we at the Landing aren’t harboring spirits.»
«That isn’t what I said,» Joel protested.
«Some of Missouri’s chatter,» was Amy’s calm opinion. «Just a hotbed of crazy nigger-notions, that girl. Remember when she wrung the neck off every chicken on the place? Oh, it isn’t funny, don’t laugh. I’ve sometimes wondered what would happen if
