«To be brief: Ed and Amy were married in New Orleans. It was, you see, her fantasy come true; she was at last what she’d always wanted to be, a nurse. . . with a more or less permanent position. Then we all came back to the Landing; Amy’s idea, and the only solution, for he would never be well again. I suppose we shall go on together until the house sinks, until the garden grows up and weeds hide us in their depth.»
Randolph, pushing aside his drawing board, slumped over on the desk; dusk had come while he talked, and swept the room bluely; outside, sparrows were calling to roost, their nightfall chatter punctuated by a solemn frog. Pretty soon Zoo would be ringing the supper bell. None of this was apparent to Joel; he was not even aware of any stiffness from having sat so long in one position: it was as though Randolph’s voice continued saying in his head things that were real enough, but not necessary to believe.
He was confused because the story had been like a movie with neither plot nor motive: had Randolph really shot his father? And, most important of all, where was the ending? What had happened to Dolores and old awful Pepe Alvarez? That is what he wanted to know, and that is what he asked.
«If I knew. . .» said Randolph, pausing, holding a match to a candle; the sudden light flattered his face, made the pink hairless skin more impeccably young. «But, my dear, so few things are fulfilled: what
are most lives but a series of incompleted episodes?’We work in the dark, we do what we can, we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task . . .’ It is wanting to know the end that makes us believe in God, or witchcraft, believe, at least, in something.»
Joel still wanted to know: «Didn’t you ever even try to find out where they got off to?»
«Over there,» said Randolph with a tired smile, «is a five-pound volume listing every town and hamlet on the globe; it is what I believe in, this almanac: day by day I’ve gone through it writing Pepe always in care of the postmaster; just notes, nothing but my name and what we will for convenience call address. Oh, I know that I shall never have an answer. But it gives me something to believe in. And that is peace.»
Downstairs the supper bell sounded. Randolph did not move. His face seemed to contract with a look of sad guilt. «I’ve been very weak this afternoon, very wicked,» he said, rising for Joel to accept an invitation of open arms. «Do forgive me, darling Joel.» Then, in a voice as urgent as the bell, he added: «And please, tell me what I want to hear.»
Joel remembered. «Everything,» he said gently, «everything is going to be all right.»
9
Jesus Fever was a sick man. For over a week he’d been unable to hold anything on his stomach. His skin was parched like an old leaf, and his eyes, milky with film, saw strange things: Randolph’s father, he swore, was lurking in a corner of the cabin; all the funny papers and Coca-Cola pictures plastering the walls were, he complained, crooked and aggravating; a noise like the crack of a whip snapped in his head; a bouquet of sunflowers Joel had brought became suddenly a flock of canaries crazily singing and circling the room; he was worried to frenzy by a stranger staring at him from a gloomy little mirror hung above the mantel. Little Sunshine, arriving to give what aid he could, covered the mirror with a flour sack in order that, as he explained, Jesus Fever’s soul could not be trapped there; he hung a charm around the old man’s neck, sprinkled magic ginger powder in the air, and disappeared before moonrise. «Zoo, child,» said Jesus, «how come you let me freeze thisaway? Fix the fire, child, it’s colder ‘n a well-bottom.»
Zoo took a reasoning tone. «Papadaddy, now honey, we all us gonna melt. . . so hot Mister Randolph done change clothes three times today.» But Jesus would not listen, and asked for a quilt to wrap around his legs, a wool sock to stretch over his head: the whole house, he argued, was rattling with wind: why, look, there was old Mr. Skully, his fine red beard turned white with frost. So Zoo went out in the dark of the yard to find an armful of kindling.
Joel, left in charge, started when Jesus beckoned to him secretively. The old man was sitting in a rattan rocker, a worn scrapquilt of velvet flowers covering his knees. He could not stay in bed: a horizontal position interfered with his breathing. «Rock my rocker, son,» he said in a reedy voice, «it’s kinda restful like. . . makes me feel I’m ridin in a wagon an got a long way to go.» A kerosene lamp burned in the room. The chair, shadowed on the wall, swished a gentle drowsy sound. «Can’t you feel the cold, son?»
«Mama was always cold, too,» said Joel, prickly chill tingling his spine. Don’t die, he thought, and as he pushed the chair back and forth the runners whispered, don’t die, don’t die. For if Jesus Fever died, then Zoo would go away, and there would be no one but Amy, Randolph, his father. It was not so much these three, however, but the Landing, and the fragile hush of living under a glass bell. Maybe Randolph would take him away: there had been some mention of a trip. And he’d written Ellen again, surely something would come of that.
«Papadaddy,» said Zoo, lugging in a bundle of wood, «you is mighty thoughtless makin me hunt round out there in the dark where theys all kinda wild creatures crawlin just hungry for a nip outa tasty me. They is a wildcat smell on the air, they is, I declare. And who knows but what Keg’s done runaway from the cabin gang? Joel, honey, latch the door.»
When the fire commenced to burn Jesus asked that his chair be brought nearer the hearth. «I used to could play the fiddle,» he said, wistfully watching the flames slide upward «. . . rheumatism stole all the music outa my fingers.» He shook his head, and sucked his gums, and spit into the fire. «Don’t fuss with me, child,» he complained as Zoo tried to adjust the quilt. «Tell you now, bring me my sword.»
She returned from the other room bearing a beautiful sword with a silver handle: across the blade there was inscribed, Unsheath Me Not Without Reason — Sheath Me Not Without Honor. «Mister Randolph’s granddaddy gimme this, that be more ‘n sixty year ago.» In the past days he’d one by one called forth all his treasures: a dusty cracked violin, his derby with the feather, a Mickey Mouse watch, his high-button orange shoes, three little monkeys who neither saw, heard nor spoke evil, these and other precious things lay strewn around the cabin, for he would not allow them to be put again out of sight.
Zoo presented Joel with a handful of pecans and gave him a pair of pliers to crack them with. «I’m not hungry,» he said and rested his head in her lap. It was not a comfortable lap like Ellen’s. You could feel too precisely tensed muscle and sharp bone. But she played her fingers through his hair, and that was sweet. «Zoo,» he said softly, not wanting the old man to hear, «Zoo, he’s going to die, isn’t he?»
«I spec so,» she said, and there was little feeling in her voice.
«And then will you go away?»
«I reckon.»
At this Joel straightened and looked at her angrily. «But why, Zoo?» he demanded. ‘Tell me why!»
«Hush, child, speak quiet.» A slow moment followed in which she twisted her neckerchief, felt for and found the charm Little Sunshine had given her. «Ain’t gonna hold good forever,» she said, tapping the charm. «Someday he gonna come back here looking for to slice me up. I knows it good as anythin. I seen it in my dreams, and the floor don’t creak, but what my heart stops. Every time a dog howls I think, that’s him, that’s him on his way, on accounta dogs just naturally hate that Keg and start to holler time they smell him.»
«I’d protect you, Zoo,» he pleaded. «Honest, I’d never let nobody hurt you.»
Zoo laughed, and her laugh seemed to fly around the room like a frightening black bird. «Why, Keg could drop you with just the look of his eyes!» She began to shiver in the suffocating room. «One day he gonna come crawlin through that window, and won’t nobody hear nothin; else I’ll find him waitin in the dark tween here and the house, gotta long shiny razor: Lawd, I seen it a million times. So I gotta run, gotta go where there’s snow and he ain’t gonna catch me.»
Joel squeezed her wrist. «If you’d let me go with you, Zoo. .
