who rode in back squatting on top of a mountain of watermelons. The driver of the truck got out: «A real
low man puffin a cigar like a bull; he ain’t wearin no shirt an all this red hair growin even on his shoulders
an hands; so quiet he walks through the grass, an looks at me so sweet I reckon maybe he sorry my feets
is cut an maybe’s gonna ax me why don’t I ride in his fine car?» Go on, he told her, tapping his cigar so
the ash was flung in her face, go on, gal, get down in the ditch; never mind why, says the man, and
shoved her so she rolled over the embankment, landing on her back helpless as a junebug. «Lord, I sure
commenced to hoop n’ holler an this little bull-man says I hush up else he’s gonna bust out my brains.»
She got up and started to run, but those other two boys, answering the driver’s whistle, jumped down
into the ditch and cut her off at either end; both these boys wore panama hats, and one had on a pair of
sailor pants and a soldier’s shirt: it was he who caught her and called for the Negro to bring a rifle. «That
mean nigger look a whole lot like Keg, an he put that rifle up side my ear, an the man, he done tore my
pretty dress straight down the front, an tells them panama boys theys to set to: I hear the Lord’s voice
talkin down that gun barrel, an the Lord said Zoo, you done took the wrong road and come the wrong
way, you et of the apple, he said, an hits pure rotten, an outa the sky my Lord look down an brung
comfort, an whilst them devils went jerkin like billygoats right then and there in all my shameful sufferin I
said holy words: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I’ll fear no evil, for you is
with me Lord, yea verily, I say, an them fools laughed, but my Lord took that sailor boy’s shape, an us,
me an the Lord, us loved.» The boys had removed their panama hats; now they put them on again, and
one said to the driver, well, what was wrong with him? and the driver sucked his cigar and scratched
behind his ear and said, well, to tell the truth, he wasn’t much one for being watched; O.K., said the
boys, and climbed back up the bank, the Negro following after them, all three laughing, which made the
driver’s cheek twitch and his eyes «go yellow like an ol tomcat; an it was peculiar, cause he was one
scared man.» He did not move to touch her, but squatted impotent at her side like a bereaved lover, like
an idol, then the truck-horn blew, the boys called, and he bent close: «He pushed that cigar in my
belly-button, Lord, in me was born fire like a child. . .»
Joel plugged his ears; what Zoo said was ugly, he was sick-sorry she’d ever come back, she
ought to be punished. «Stop that, Zoo,» he said, «I won’t listen, I won’t. . .» but Zoo’s lips quivered, her
eyes blindly twisted toward the inner vision; and in the roar of silence she was a pantomime: the joy of
Jesus demented her face and glittered like a sweat, like a preacher her finger shook the air, agonies of joy
jerked her breasts, her lips bared for a lowdown shout: in sucked her guts, wide swung her arms
embracing the eternal: she was a cross, she was crucified. He saw without hearing, and it was more
terrible for that, and after she’d gone, docilely taking the broth bowl with her, he kept his fingers in his
ears till the ringing grew so loud it deafened even the memory of sound.
They were sure John Brown would never make it up the hill: «If he simply lay down and rolled
over on us, I wouldn’t blame him,» said Randolph, and Joel tightened his muscles, hoping this might make
the mule’s load lighter. They had a croquet sack for saddle and rope for reins, nevertheless they managed
to stay astride, though Randolph wobbled perilously, grunting all the while, and eating endless hardboiled
eggs which Joel handed him from a picnic basket he held. «Another egg, my dear, I’m feeling most
frightfully seasick again: if you feel something coming up always put something down.»
It was a smoky day, the sky like a rained-on tinroof, the sun, when you saw it, fishbelly pale, and
Joel, who had been routed out of bed and rushed away with such inconsiderate haste, he’d not had time
in which to dress decently, was goosepimpled with cold, for he wore a thin T-shirt (turned inside out),
and a pair of summer knickers with most of the buttons busted off the fly. At least he had on regular
shoes, whereas Randolph wore only carpet slippers. «My feet have expanded so ominously it’s all I can
do to squeeze them into these; really, in the light of day what a ghoul I must look: I have the damnedest
sensation that every time this sad beast moves my hair falls in floods, and my eyes: are they spinning like
dice? Of course I reek of mothballs. . .» The suit he wore gave off their odor like a gas; a shrunken linen
suit stiff with starch and ironed shiny, it bulged and creaked like medieval armor, and he handled himself
with exaggerated gingerness, for the seams kept announcing bawdy intentions.
Toward twelve they dismounted, and spread their picnic under a tree. Randolph had brought
along a fruitjar of scuppernong wine; he gargled it like mouth wash, and when there was no more, Joel
made use of the empty jar to trap ants: The Pious Insect, Randolph called them, and said: «They fill me
with oh so much admiration and ah so much gloom: such puritan spirit in their mindless march of Godly
industry, but can so anti-individual a government admit the poetry of what is past understanding?
Certainly the man who refused to carry his crumb would find assassins on his trail, and doom in every
smile. As for me, I prefer the solitary mole: he is no rose dependent upon thorn and root, nor ant whose
time of being is organized by the unalterable herd: sightless, he goes his separate way, knowing truth and
freedom are attitudes of the spirit.» He smoothed his hair, and laughed: at himself, it seemed. «If I were as
wise as the mole, if I were free and equal, then what an admirable whorehouse I should be the Madame
of; more likely, though, I would end up just Mrs. Nobody in Particular, a dumpy corsetless creature with
a brickhead husband and stepladder brats and a pot of stew on the stove.» Hurriedly, as if bringing an
important message, an ant climbed up his neck, and disappeared into his ear. «There’s an ant inside your
head,» said Joel, but Randolph, with the briefest nod, went on talking. So Joel cuddled up to him and,
politely as he could, peered into his ear. The idea of an ant swimming inside a human head so enthralled
him that it was some while before he became aware of silence, and the tense prolonged asking of
Randolph’s eyes: it was a look which made Joel prickle mysteriously. «I was looking for the ant,» he said.
«It went inside your ear; that could be dangerous, I mean, like swallowing a pin.»
»Or defeat,» said Randolph, his face sinking into sugary folds of resignation.
The gentle jog of John Brown’s trot set ajar the brittle woods; sycamores released their
spice-brown leaves in a rain of October: like veins dappled trails veered through storms of showering
yellow; perched on dying towers of jack-in-the-pulpit cranberry beetles sang of their approach, and
tree-toads no bigger than dewdrops, skipped and shrilled, relaying the news through the light that was
dusk all day. They followed the remnants of a road down which once had spun the wheels of lacquered
carriages carrying verbena-scented ladies who twittered like linnets in the shade of parasols, and leathery
cotton rich gentlemen gruffing at each other through a violet haze of Havana smoke, and their children,
prim little girls with mint crushed in their handkerchiefs, and boys with mean blackberry eyes, little boys
who sent their sisters screaming with tales of roaring tigers. Gusts of autumn, exhaling through the
inheriting weeds, grieved for the cruel velvet children and their virile bearded fathers: Was, said the
weeds, Gone, said the sky, Dead, said the woods, but the full laments of history were left to the
Whippoorwill.
As seagulls inform the sailor of land’s nearness, so a twist of smoke unfurling beyond a range of
pines announced the Cloud Hotel. John Brown’s hoofs made a sucking sound in the swamp mud as they
circled the green shores of Drownin Pond: Joel looked over the water, hoping to glimpse the Creole or
the gambler; alas, those sly and slimy fellows did not show themselves. But anchored off shore was a
bent, man-shaped tree with moss streaming from its crown like scarecrow hair; sunset birds,
hullabalooing around this island roost, detonated the desolate scene with cheerless cries, and only catfish
bubbles ruffled the level eel-like slickness of the pond: in a burst, like the screaming of the birds, Joel
heard the lovely laughing splashful girls splashing diamond fountains, the lovely harp-voiced girls, silent
now, gone to the arms of their lovers, the Creole and the gambler.
The hotel rose before them like a mound of bones, a widow’s-walk steepled the roof, and leaning
over its fence was Little Sunshine, who had a telescope trained upon the path; as they came closer he
began a furious gesturing which at first seemed a too frantic welcome, but as his frenzy dissipated not at
all, they
