The Complete Stories (12 page)

Hazel Motes didn't open his tract. He looked at the outside of it and then he tore it across. He put the two pieces together and tore them across again. He kept restacking the pieces and tearing them again until he had a little handful of confetti. He turned his hand over and let the shredded leaflet sprinkle to the ground. Then he looked up and saw the blind man's child not three feet away, watching him. Her mouth was open and her eyes glittered on him like two chips of green bottle glass. She had on a black dress and there was a white gunny sack hung over her shoulder. Haze scowled and began rubbing his sticky hands on his pants.

“I seen you,” she said. Then she moved quickly over to where the blind man was standing now, beside the card table. Most of the people had moved off.

The peeler man leaned over the card table and said, “Hey!” to the blind man. “I reckon that showed you. Trying to horn in.” But the blind man stood there with his chin tilted back slightly as if he saw something over their heads.

“Lookerhere,” Enoch Emery said, “I ain't got but a dollar sixteen cent but I.…”

“Yah,” the man said, as if he were going to make the blind man see him, “I reckon that'll show you you can't muscle in on me. Sold eight peelers, sold.…”

“Give me one of them,” the child said, pointing to the peelers.

“Hanh?” he said.

She reached in her pocket and drew out a long coin purse and opened it. “Give me one of them,” she said, holding out two fifty cent pieces.

The man eyed the money with his mouth hiked on one side. “A buck fifty, sister,” he said.

She pulled her hand in quickly and all at once glared around at Hazel Motes as if he had made a noise at her. The blind man was moving off. She stood a second glaring red-faced at Haze and then she turned and followed the blind man. Haze started suddenly.

“Listen,” Enoch Emery said, “I ain't got but a dollar sixteen cent and I want me one of them.…”

“You can keep it,” the man said, taking the bucket off the card table. “This ain't no cut-rate joint.”

Hazel Motes stood staring after the blind man, jerking his hands in and out of his pockets. He looked as if he were trying to move forward and backward at the same time. Then suddenly he thrust two bills at the man selling peelers and snatched a box off the card table and started down the street. In just a second Enoch Emery was panting at his elbow.

“My, I reckon you got a heap of money,” Enoch Emery said. Haze turned the corner and saw them about a block ahead of him. Then he slowed down some and saw Enoch Emery there. Enoch had on a yellowish white suit with a pinkish white shirt and his tie was a greenpeaish color. He was grinning. He looked like a friendly hound dog with light mange. “How long you been here?” he inquired.

“Two days,” Haze muttered.

“I been here two months,” Enoch said. “I work for the city. Where you work?”

“Not working,” Haze said.

“That's too bad,” Enoch said. “I work for the city.” He skipped a step to get in line with Haze, then he said, “I'm eighteen year old and I ain't been here but two months and I already work for the city.”

“That's fine,” Haze said. He pulled his hat down farther on the side Enoch Emery was on and walked faster.

“I didn't ketch your name good,” Enoch said.

Haze said his name.

“You look like you might be follering them hicks,” Enoch remarked. “You go in for a lot of Jesus?”

“No,” Haze said.

“No, me neither, not much,” Enoch agreed. “I went to thisyer Rodemill Boys' Bible Academy for four weeks. Thisyer woman that traded me from my daddy she sent me; she was a Welfare woman. Jesus, four weeks and I thought I was gonna be sanctified crazy.”

Haze walked to the end of the block and Enoch stayed all the time at his elbow, panting and talking. When Haze started across the street, Enoch yelled, “Don't you see theter light! That means you got to wait!” A cop blew a whistle and a car blasted its horn and stopped short. Haze went on across, keeping his eyes on the blind man in the middle of the block. The policeman kept blowing the whistle. He crossed the street over to where Haze was and stopped him. He had a thin face and oval-shaped yellow eyes.

“You know what that little thing hanging up there is for?” he asked, pointing to the traffic light over the intersection.

“I didn't see it,” Haze said.

The policeman looked at him without saying anything. A few people stopped. He rolled his eyes at them. “Maybe you thought the red ones was for white folks and the green ones for colored,” he said.

“Yeah, I thought that,” Haze said. “Take your hand off me.”

The policeman took his hand off and put it on his hip. He backed one step away and said, “You tell all your friends about these lights. Red is to stop, green is to go—men and women, white folks and niggers, all go on the same light. You tell all your friends so when they come to town, they'll know.” The people laughed.

“I'll look after him,” Enoch Emery said, pushing in by the policeman. “He ain't been here but only two days. I'll look after him.”

“How long you been here?” the cop asked.

“I was born and raised here,” Enoch said. “This is my ole home town. I'll take care of him for you. Hey wait!” he yelled at Haze. “Wait on me!” He pushed out the crowd and caught up with him. “I reckon I saved you that time,” he said.

“I'm obliged,” Haze said.

“It wasn't nothing,” Enoch said. “Why don't we go in Walgreen's and get us a soda? Ain't no nightclubs open this early.”

“I don't like no drugstores,” Haze said. “Goodby.”

“That's all right,” Enoch said. “I reckon I'll go along and keep you company for a while.” He looked up ahead at the couple and said, “I sho wouldn't want to get messed up with no hicks this time of night, particularly the Jesus kind. I done had enough of them myself. Thisyer woman that traded me from my daddy didn't do nothing but pray. Me and daddy, we moved around with a sawmill where we worked and it set up outside Boonville one summer and here come thisyer woman.” He caught hold of Haze's coat. “Only objection I got to Taulkinham is there's too many people on the street,” he said confidentially, “look like they ain't satisfied until they knock you down—well, here she come and I reckon she took a fancy to me. I was twelve year old and I could sing some hymns good I learnt off a nigger. So here she comes taking a fancy to me and traded me off my daddy and took me to Boonville to live with her. She had a brick house but it was Jesus all day long.” While he was talking he was looking up at Haze, studying his face. All of a sudden he bumped into a little man lost in a pair of faded overalls. “Whyn't you look where you going?” he growled.

The little man stopped short and raised his arm in a vicious gesture and a mean dog look came on his face. “Who you tellin what?” he snarled.

“You see,” Enoch said, jumping to catch up with Haze, “all they want to do is knock you down. I ain't never been to such a unfriendly place before. Even with that woman. I stayed with her for two months in that house of hers,” he went on, “and then come fall she sent me to the Rodemill Boys' Bible Academy and I thought that sho was gonna be some relief. This woman was hard to get along with—she wasn't old, I reckon she was forty year old—but she sho was ugly. She had theseyer brown glasses and her hair was so thin it looked like ham gravy trickling over her skull. I thought it was gonna be some certain relief to get to that Academy. I had run away oncet on her and she got me back and come to find out she had papers on me and she could send me to the penitentiary if I didn't stay with her so I sho was glad to get to theter Academy. You ever been to a academy?”

Haze didn't seem to hear the question. He still had his eye on the blind man in the next block.

“Well, it won't no relief,” Enoch said. “Good Jesus, it won't no relief. I run away from there after four weeks and durn if she didn't get me back and brought me to that house of hers again. I got out though.” He waited a minute. “You want to know how?”

After a second he said, “I scared hell out of that woman, that's how. I studied on it and studied on it. I even prayed. I said, ‘Jesus, show me the way to get out of here without killing thisyer woman and getting sent to the penitentiary.' And durn if He didn't. I got up one morning at just daylight and I went in her room without my pants on and pulled the sheet off her and giver a heart attackt. Then I went back to my daddy and we ain't seen hide of her since.

“Your jaw just crawls,” he observed, watching the side of Haze's face. “You don't never laugh. I wouldn't be surprised if you wasn't a real wealthy man.”

Haze turned down a side street. The blind man and the girl were on the corner a block ahead.

“Well, I reckon we gonna ketch up with em after all,” Enoch said. “Ain't that girl ugly, though? You seen them shoes she has on? Men's shoes, looks like. You know many people here?”

“No,” Haze said.

“You ain't gonna know none neither. This is one more hard place to make friends in. I been here two months and I don't know nobody, look like all they want to do is knock you down. I reckon you got a right heap of money,” he said. “I ain't got none. Had, I'd sho know what to do with it.” The man and the girl stopped on the corner and turned up the left side of the street. “We catching up,” he said. “I bet we'll be at some meeting singing hymns with her and her daddy if we don't watch out.”

Up in the next block there was a large building with columns and a dome. The blind man and the child were going toward it. There was a car parked in every space around the building and on the other side the street and up and down the streets near it. “That ain't no picture show,” Enoch said. The blind man and the girl turned up the steps to the building. The steps went all the way across the front, and on either side there were stone lions sitting on pedestals. “Ain't no church,” Enoch said. Haze stopped at the steps. He looked as if he were trying to settle his face into an expression. He pulled the black hat forward at a nasty angle and started toward the two, who had sat down in the corner by one of the lions.

As they came nearer the blind man leaned forward as if he were listening to the footsteps, then he stood up, holding a tract out in his hand.

“Sit down,” the child said in a loud voice. “It ain't nobody but them two boys.”

“Nobody but us,” Enoch Emery said. “Me and him been follerin you all about a mile.”

“I knew somebody was following me,” the blind man said. “Sit down.”

“They ain't here for nothing but to make fun,” the child said. She looked as if she smelled something bad. The blind man was feeling out to touch them. Haze stood just out of reach of his hands, squinting at him as if he were trying to see the empty eye sockets under the green glasses.

“It ain't me, it's him,” Enoch said. “He's been running after yawl ever since back yonder by them potato peelers. We bought one of em.”

“I knew somebody was following me!” the blind man said. “I felt it all the way back yonder.”

“I ain't followed you,” Haze said. He felt the peeler box in his hand and looked at the girl. The black knitted cap came down almost to her eyes. She looked as if she might be thirteen or fourteen years old. “I ain't followed you nowhere,” he said sourly. “I followed her.” He stuck the peeler box out at her.

She jumped back and looked as if she were going to swallow her face. “I don't want that thing,” she said. “What you think I want with that thing? Take it. It ain't mine. I don't want it!”

“I take it with thanks for her,” the blind man said. “Put it in your sack,” he said to her.

Haze thrust the peeler at her again, but he was still looking at the blind man.

“I won't have it,” she muttered.

“Take it like I told you,” the blind man said shortly.

After a second she took it and shoved it in the sack where the tracts were. “It ain't mine,” she said. “I don't want none of it. I got it but it ain't mine.”

“She thanks you for it,” the blind man said. “I knew somebody was following me.”

“I ain't followed you nowhere,” Haze said. “I followed her to say I ain't beholden for none of her fast eye like she gave me back yonder.” He didn't look at her, he looked at the blind man.

“What do you mean?” she shouted. “I never gave you no fast eye. I only watch you tearing up that tract. He tore it up in little pieces,” she said, pushing the blind man's shoulder. “He tore it up and sprinkled it over the ground like salt and wiped his hands on his pants.”

“He followed me,” the blind man said. “Wouldn't anybody follow you. I can hear the urge for Jesus in his voice.”

“Jesus,” Haze muttered, “my Jesus.” He sat down by the girl's leg. His head was at her knee and he set his hand on the step next to her foot. She had on men's shoes and black cotton stockings. The shoes were laced up tight and tied in precise bows. She moved herself away roughly and sat down behind the blind man.

“Listen at his cursing,” she said in a low tone. “He never followed you.”

“Listen,” the blind man said, “you can't run away from Jesus. Jesus is a fact. If who you're looking for is Jesus, the sound of it will be in your voice.”

“I don't hear nothing in his voice,” Enoch Emery said. “I know a whole heap about Jesus because I attended thisyer Rodemill Boys' Bible Academy that a woman sent me to. If it was anything about Jesus in his voice I could certainly hear it.” He had got up onto the lion's back and he was sitting there sideways cross-legged.

The blind man reached out again and his hands suddenly covered Haze's face. For a second Haze didn't move or make any sound. Then he knocked the hands off. “Quit it,” he said in a faint voice. “You don't know nothing about me.”