A Cry of Angels (32 page)

Em couldn't be expected to understand, so I had to make up my own mind. And I had. As soon as he lay down for his nap I had slipped away.

And now that I'd come this far, I told myself, I had to go through with it.

After a last check of the streets for someone who might recognize me, I shoved open the door and marched in.

And all the confidence I had mustered promptly went to shreds under the eyes of the charity ladies. Middle-aged, wealthy, dressed in the best from Atlanta's fashion houses, they were two bright Easter eggs among the pile of rags. One was sitting in a lawn chair knitting, talking to another standing at the counter. The one at the counter glanced up, then finished what she was saying before turning to me, smoothing her hips. "Yes?"

"I'd like a pair of pants, please."

"Oh?" She lifted an eyebrow at the knitter and spread her virgin white hands on the counter. "And who might you be?"

"Earl Whitaker. I'll take anything at all," I said, then added, "My aunt used to give a lot."

"Couldn't your parents come in with you?

No, ma'am."

The knitter stood up to have a better look at me. She squinted through her tinted glasses. They exchanged looks.

"Are you from around here?'' said the first one.

"Maybe he's from out in the country," said the knitter. "Are you from out in the country?"

"No, ma'am—I just need one pair—for school. I could pay you something . . ."

"Well, no, it's for charity. That's what the Center is for—for charity, but we don't usually give out to children. Now, if your mother's ashamed to come in . . ."

I wasn't going to make it. Fear you can fight against, shout down with anger. But not shame. There is no defense against shame. "Never mind," I said, "I don't need them."

I turned around and came face to face with Em Jojohn, staring through the glass.

The door banged open and there he stood, in as grand a rage as I had ever seen. "What the hell are you doin' here!" he roared. "Didn't you hear what I told you?"

"I don't give a damn what you told me!" I shouted back at him.

I wanted to get away and hide. I started by him and he grabbed my arm and flung me back.

"
You don't beg
!"

"You don't tell me what to do! Get out of my way!"

The charity ladies moved farther down the counter. One of them glanced at the telephone.

"Who are you to talk anyway? The first time I ever saw you, you was begging!"

"I beg!" he shouted furiously. "I do anything I want to!
You don't beg
!" And with that he grabbed me by the nape of the neck and literally threw me out into the street.

I scrambled to my feet and charged him, dimly aware of people stopping to look, of the ladies cowering at the door. He grabbed my shirt and snatched me into the alley.

"I'll kill you, Jojohn! So help me God, I'll kill you!" I twisted and managed to land a solid kick into him. He howled in pain and slammed me up against the brick wall. "I ain't never put a hand to you yet, boy . . . !"

I caught him hard on the chin. He shook it off and I caught him from the other side. He growled and stepped back, and I went head first into a pile of crates.

He dragged me out by the heels and shook me violently until I thought my neck would snap, then he shoved his face close to mine.

"Look at you! See what it done to you! I can beg 'cause sons a bitches owes me! It don't shame me. But look at you! Don't you
never
do nothin' that shames you!" And he flung me over his shoulder and carried me, fighting and kicking and yelling with every ounce of strength I had, out through the block of stores, along the ware houses, across the railroad and down into the Ape Yard.

He strode down the middle of the road, cars slowing and moving around us, people leaning out to stare. I continued to fight him, shouting myself hoarse with every cuss word I knew, until finally, striding across the iron bridge of Twig Creek, he growled with exasperation and heaved me over the rail.

I surfaced gasping in the freezing cold water to fling a final set of epithets after him as he continued up the road, muttering and slinging his arms.

We went back to scouting up odd jobs around town, which wasn't much but a little yard work here and there, and helping a couple of the warehouses with their fall inventories. Tio offered to reopen my account at the store but I turned him down. It was too much of a strain getting the other one paid off. Besides, I told him, trying not to gag on the words, we had a few shelves of Em's vegetables that the boarders had canned for him.

The boarders were still doing well, and still having us up for supper, but there was a growing concern among all of us during that time, and from a source none of us would have expected. It was the tone of the letters coming from North Carolina, a tone that was anything but like Miss Esther. The boarders wrote to her faithfully once a week, and under their prodding I managed to get off a note to her now and then—mostly the ''I'm fine, how are you?" variety—but the sporadic responses we got back were becoming less inquiring about what was going on around the house, the neighborhood; they dropped their advice about cleaning and canning, their raucous anecdotes, and were centering more and more on the small, confined world in which Miss Esther now found herself, becoming ever more morose with each writing.

The boarders were down at the store one Friday afternoon when I came in, and Mrs. Bell was just finishing reading the latest one to Mr. Teague:

" . . . took us all out to supper at a restaurant last night. It was good to be out for a change, but I couldn't enjoy it. He fussed the whole time. He sent his dinner back three times. I told him he better not send it back anymore or. they might spit in it or something. Lucille got upset about that and we had to leave.
"They haven't talked to me all day. I don't care.
"It sure is pretty out the window. I always did like the fall. It always made me want to be up and about doing things. But I just don't have the energy I used to. The doctor says I'm sleeping too much.
"I guess I'm just catching up on all I lost with you all. ha.
"Must close now, it's getting harder to see to write. It comes on me sometimes. It must be this new medicine, I think I may be allergic to it.
Love to all, Esther."

Mrs. Bell tucked the letter back in its envelope and handed it to me.

"It just don't sound like Esther," said Mrs. Porter. "She's not happy up there."

"Well, of course she ain't happy," said Mr. Rampey. "Would you be, locked in with that tribe?"

"Esther's very strong," said Mrs. Bell. "I'm sure her son is caring for her the best he can."

"Oh, for God's sake," snapped Mr. Jurgen, jerking open the drink cooler, "that son of hers couldn't properly care for a hog! Would you like a drink, Lester?"

"Not out of there," said Mr. Rampey.

"I'd like a Dr. Pepper, please," said Mrs. Metcalf. "You know,'' she said, "maybe she is allergic to her medicine . . ."

Mr. Burroughs pulled out a Pepsi and held it aloft. "What happened to that box that used to freeze 'em?" he wanted to know.

"I wish we'd never let her go," said Mrs. Cline. "We could have taken care of her."

"Come in, Theron, come in," called Mr. Teague over the register. Theron Walsh, the young black man who read meters for the power company in the Ape Yard, came in the store. "What can I do for you?"

"Mr. Teague, I come to see can I use your telephone. They want me to call the po-lice down there."

"Police? Where, down where? Who wants you to call?"

"The welfare lady, down at Miz Lampham's, lady lives down in the bottom. She's been sick lately and now she's in there and the do' locked and the welfare lady say we better get the po-lice. She said would I come up and call."

Mr. Teague came out from behind the counter. "I'll go see about her. Tio!"

"I'll come too, you might need some help," said Mr. Burroughs.

"Yeah," said Mr. Rampey. "Woody,
hey Woody
!" Mr. Woodall dropped his Nehi on the floor. "Come on," said Mr. Rampey, motioning. Mr. Jurgen was already holding the door.

"You ladies take care of the store," said Mr. Teague.

"But," protested Mrs. Metcalf, "we don't know . . ."

"Prices are stamped on most everything," said Mr. Teague. "If it ain't, charge whatever seems fair. Go right in, go right in," he said to two black women coming in, "you'll be more'n taken care of."

The Lampham woman had been in the hollow less than a year. She lived alone in a shack in Fletchter Bottom. When we arrived there was already a small crowd milling about the yard. A couple of young boys clung to the window sill, trying to peer in.

The young white woman from the welfare department was on the porch. "We can see her in bed in there," she said. "Where are the police?"

"Never mind the police," said Mr. Teague, making his way stiffly up the steps. "How long since anybody's checked on her?"

"The neighbors say she hasn't been seen for two or three days. One of my clients called the office."

"I thought she was on the welfare. Ain't you been keepin' a check on her?"

"Well, no," the woman corrected him, "she's not on welfare. . ."

"But she signed up better 'n four months ago," said Mr. Teague. "She told me so herself."

"She did fill out an application, but it was incomplete so it was never processed."

"What!"

"The medical history was incomplete. It was sent over to the Senior Citizens Visiting Committee to have someone call on her to check it out, but . . ."

"God almighty damn," muttered Mr. Burroughs.

"Listen, we're overworked as it is . . ." Mr. Teague was already trying the door. "Wait, now, don't you think we ought to call . . ."

"Stand aside there, Alvah!" Mr. Burroughs strode briskly across the porch and his size-thirteen brogan landed beside the flimsy door knob. The door banged opened and Mr. Teague marched into the house.

The skeletal old black woman raised herself feebly and groped on the night table for her glasses. Mr. Teague went straight to her bedside and bent down to look in her face. "It's Alvah Teague, what's wrong with you, Ruby?"

She wet her lips and tried to speak.

"How long since you seen the doctor?"

"Who—who is it?" She was frightened and confused.

Mr. Teague walked to the door. "Anybody know her people?"

A woman stepped forward. "She got a boy down in Columbus, Mist' Teague. He were due to be sent overseas."

Mr. Teague put his hands on his hips, blinking, thinking. He looked up at Mr. Burroughs. The other man looked down at the woman and slowly wiped his mouth. "Ramp!"

He reached down and snatched back the sheets, exposing legs as small as a child's. Mr. Rampey knelt on the other side of the bed and they lifted her carefully and made their way out through the crowd.

Mr. Rampey looked up at the welfare lady. "How come you people can take such good care of them that
don't
need it."

With the help of Jurgen and Woodall, they eased themselves and the Lampham woman on the truck bed and sat cradling her in their arms. Tio adjusted the bricks under the seat and got back behind the wheel. ''Easy now, boy," said Mr. Teague, "watch them ruts."

Dr. Breisner pronounced it pneumonia, with complications. "And with the malnutrition . . . hell." He gave her a shot and sent Tio to the drugstore with two prescriptions. "I don't give her the night, though."

"Shouldn't she be in the hospital?" asked Mrs. Porter.

Dr. Breisner sighed. "Hell, I wouldn't even move her again. They'll just kill her up there. Let her sleep."

Out in the hall, Dr. Breisner said, "Well, Horace, looks like you've got another guest," and, with a sardonic smile added, "I didn't know you were taking in the black ones now."

Mr. Burroughs looked in at the women slowly gathering their rockers about the bed. Two of them were fixing a tent. Farette came in with a steaming kettle.

"Is she black, Huff?" He shook his head. "Well, you know, when you get our age you don't see too good."

They walked together down the stairs. "Well, anyhow," said Dr. Breisner, "this one won't be with you too long."

"Aw, hell, that's what you've promised all the rest of us at one time or another, and we'll be around to take you in. By the way, how your boys doin', Huff?"

"Doin' fine. The oldest one, Henry, just made captain; he and Mary are still in Pensacola. Tad finished up his doctorate this fall at the university, and of course Joseph is still in high school."

Surprised, Mr. Burroughs said, "I didn't know Tad was gonna make a doctor too."

"Hell, not a real doctor. A
Ph.D.
, in history, for Christ's sake. Fact, he's been in and out of town all summer doing work on his dissertation."

"On his what?"

"He's doing his final project for his degree on Pollard County history." Dr. Breisner shook his head. "Gotta hand it to him, though, he pulled one off there. He got a two-thousand-dollar grant from the Pollard Centennial Commission to do a pamphlet on the history of the granite industry here, you know, the hundred years since the Poncini brothers, and the promise of a five-hundred-dollar bonus if he locates the Robinson grave . . . he's spent most of his time this summer on that."

"Hell, they've dug up half the Johns property lookin' for that scutter and they ain't found him yet."

"Yeah, but Tad says he's on to something they don't know about. He's got this theory. Anyway, he says come centennial time in January he'll be ready to spring old Easter Robinson once and for all."

Well," said Mr. Burroughs, "still and all, the town would do better with another real doctor than a dead Civil War bandit. Want a little something, Huff?"

Dr. Breisner shook his head, but Mr. Rampey was already at his elbow twisting a cork. The doctor took a long swallow and came up wet-eyed. "Damn, Ramp, that's awful! Where you buyin' it now?

Travis Turner, and I believe the son of a bitch is cutting it with Clorox."

"Pour it out. That damn stuff'll eat out your stomach."