«Shoot, boy, the country’s just fulla folks what knows everythin, and don’t unnerstand nothin, just fullofem,» she said, and began to prod her upper teeth: she had a flashy gold tooth, and it occurred to Joel that the prodding was designed for attracting his attention to it. «Now one reason is, I get lonesome: what I all the time say is, you ain’t got no notion what lonesome is till you stayed a spell at the Landin. And there ain’t no mens round here I’m innerested in, leastwise not at the present: one time there was this mean buzzard name of Keg, but he did a crime to me and landed hisself on the chain gang, which is sweet justice considerin the lowdown kinda trash he was.
I’m only a girl of fourteen when he did this bad thing to me.» A fist-like knot of flies, hovering over a sugar jar, dispersed every whichaway as she swung an irritated hand. «Yessir, Keg Brown, that’s the name he go by.» With a fingertip she shined her gold tooth to a brighter luster while her slanted eyes scrutinized Joel; these eyes were like wild foxgrapes, or two discs of black porcelain, and they looked out intelligently from their almond slits. «I gotta longin for city life poisonin my blood cause I was brung up in St. Louis till Papadaddy fetched me here for to nurse him in his dyin days. Papadaddy was past ninety then, and they say he ain’t long for this world, so I come. That be thirteen year ago, and now it look to me like Papadaddy gonna outlive Methusaleh. Make no mistake, I love Papadaddy, but when he gone I sure aimin to light out for Washington, D.C., or Boston, Coneckikut. And that’s what I thinks bout when I thinks bout God.»
«Why not New Orleans?» said Joel. «There are all kinds of good-looking fellows in New Orleans.»
«Aw, I ain’t studyin no New Orleans. It ain’t only the mens, honey: I wants to be where they got snow, and not all this sunshine. I wants to walk around in snow up to my hips: watch it come outa the sky in gret big globs. Oh, pretty. . . pretty. You ever see the snow?»
Rather breathlessly, Joel lied and claimed that he most certainly had; it was a pardonable deception, for he had a great yearning to see bona fide snow: next to owning the Koh-i-noor diamond, that was his ultimate secret wish. Sometimes, on flat boring afternoons, he’d squatted on the curb of St. Deval Street and daydreamed silent pearly snowclouds into sifting coldly through the boughs of the dry, dirty trees.
Snow falling in August and silvering the glassy pavement, the ghostly flakes icing his hair, coating rooftops, changing the grimy old neighborhood into a hushed frozen white wasteland uninhabited except for himself and a menagerie of wonder-beasts: albino antelopes, and ivory-breasted snowbirds; and occasionally there were humans, such fantastic folk as Mr. Mystery, the vaudeville hypnotist, and Lucky Rogers, the movie star, and Madame Veronica, who read fortunes in a Vieux Carré tearoom. «It was one stormy night in Canada that I saw the snow,» he said, though the farthest north he’d ever set foot was Richmond, Virginia. «We were lost in the mountains, Mother and me, and snow, tons and tons of it, was piling up all around us. And we lived in an ice-cold cave for a solid week, and we kept slapping each other to stay awake: if you fall asleep in snow, chances are you’ll never see the light of day again.»
«Then what happened?» said Missouri, disbelief subtly narrowing her eyes.
«Well, things got worse and worse. Mama cried, and the tears froze on her face like little BB bullets, and she was always cold. . .» Nothing had warmed her, not the fine wool blankets, not the mugs of hot toddy Ellen fixed. «Each night hungry wolves howled in the mountains, and I prayed. . .» In the darkness of the garage he’d prayed, and in the lavatory at school, and in the first row of the Nemo Theatre while duelling gangsters went unnoticed on the magic screen. «The snow kept falling, and heavy drifts blocked the entrance to the cave, but uh. . .» Stuck. It was the end of a Saturday serial that leaves the hero locked in a slowly filling gas chamber.
«And?»
«And a man in a red coat, a Canadian Mountie, rescued us. . . only me, really: Mama had already frozen to death.»
Missouri denounced him with considerable disgust. «You is a gret big story.»
«Honest, cross my heart,» and he ex-ed his chest.
«Uh uh. You Mama die in the sick bed. Mister Randolph say so.»
Somehow, spinning the tale, Joel had believed every word; the cave, the howling wolves, these had seemed more real than Missouri and her long neck, or Miss Amy, or the shadowy kitchen. «You won’t tattle, will you, Missouri? About what a liar I am.»
She patted his arm gently. «Course not, honey. Come to think, I wish I had me a two-bit piece for every story I done told. Sides, you tell good lies, the kind I likes to hear. We gonna get along just elegant: me, I ain’t but eight years older’n you, and you been to the school.» Her voice, which was like melted chocolate, was warm and tender. «Les us be friends.»
«O.K.,» said Joel, toasting her with his coffee cup, «friends.»
«And somethin else is, you call me Zoo. Zoo’s my rightful name, and I always been called by that till Papadaddy let on it stood for Missouri, which is the state where is located the city of St. Louis.Then, Miss Amy ‘n Mister Randolph, they so proper: Missouri this ‘n Missouri t’other, day in, day out. Huh! You call me Zoo.»
Joel saw an opening. «Does my father call you Zoo?»
She dipped down into the blouse of her gingham dress, and withdrew a silver compact. Opening it, she took a pinch of snuff, and sniffed it up her wide nose. «Happy Dip, that’s the bestest brand.»
«Is he awful sick — Mister Sansom?» Joel persisted.
«Take a pinch,» she said, extending her compact.
And he accepted, anxious not to offend her. The ginger-colored powder had a scalding, miserable taste, like devil’s pepper; he sneezed, and when water sprang up in his eyes he covered his face ashamedly with his hands.
«You laughin or cryin, boy?»
«Cryin,» he whimpered, and this came close to truth. «Everybody in the house is stone deaf.»
«I ain’t deaf, honey,» said Zoo, sounding sincerely concerned. «Have the backache and stomach jitters, but I ain’t deaf.»
«Then why does everybody act so queer? Gee whiz, every time I mention Mister Sansom you’d think. . . you’d think. . . and in the town. . .» He rubbed his eyes and peeked at Zoo. «Like just now, when I asked if he was really ill. . .»
Zoo glanced worriedly at the window where fig leaves pressed against the glass like green listening ears. «Miss Amy done tol you he ain’t the healthiest man.»
The flies buzzed back to the sugar jar, and the ticktuck of the defective clock was loud. «Is he
going to die?» said Joel.
The scrape of a chair. Zoo was up and rinsing pans in a tub with water from a well-bucket. «We friends, that’s fine,» she said, talking over her shoulder. «Only don’t never ax me nothin bout Mister Sansom. Miss Amy the one take care of him. Ax her. Ax Mister Randolph. I ain’t in noways messed up with Mister Sansom; don’t even fix him his vittels. Me and Papadaddy, us got our own troubles.»
Joel snapped shut the snuff compact, and revolved it in his hands, examining the unique design. It was round and the silver was cut like a turtle’s shell; a real butterfly, arranged under a film of lime glass, figured the lid; the butterfly wings were the luminously misty orange of a full moon. So elegant a case, he reasoned, was never meant for ordinary snuff, but rare golden powders, precious witch potions, love sand.
«Yessir, us got our own troubles.»
«Zoo,» he said, «where’d you get this?»
She was kneeling on the floor cursing quietly as she shoveled ashes out of the stove. The firelight rippled over her black face and danced a yellow light in her foxgrape eyes which now cut sideways questioningly. «My box?» she said. «Mister Randolph gimme it one Christmas way long ago. He make it hisself, makes lotsa pretty dodads long that line.»
Joel studied the compact with awed respect; he would’ve sworn it was store-bought. Distastefully he recalled his own attempts at hand-made gifts: necktie racks, tool kits, and the like; they were mighty sorry by comparison. He comforted himself with the thought that Cousin Randolph must be older than he’d supposed.
«I usta been usin it for cheek-red,» said Zoo, advancing to claim her treasure. She dipped more snuff before redepositing it down her dress-front. «But seein as I don’t go over to Noon City no more (ain’t been in two years), I reckoned it’d do to keep my Happy Dip good ‘n dry. Sides, no sense paintin up less there’s mens round a lady is innerested in. . . which there ain’t.» A mean expression pinched her face as she gazed at the sunspots freckling the linoleum. «That Keg Brown, the one what landed on the chain gang cause he did me a bad turn, I hope they got him out swingin a ninety-pound pick under this hot sun.» And, as if it were sore, she touched her long neck lightly. «Well,» she sighed, «spec I best get to
