A Cry of Angels (33 page)

"Well, if that damn Baptist courthouse gang wouldn't keep the county voted dry . . ."

"I've got a bottle of good stuff in the car. Come with me, boy, and I'll send it in. Keep an eye on the old woman, Horace. I'll stop by in the morning—if I don't hear from you before then."

"She'll be here," said Mr. Burroughs. He leaned against the porch post. "That crowd upstairs won't let her go."

Finally, we got a break. Jayell, no longer able to bear watching Gwen leave the house for work, and apparently having drunk his melancholic self-pity to the dregs, came tearing out of convalescence and took the job with Smithbilt Homes. They had no major projects going in Quarrytown at the time, only an occasional house or two contracted by individuals, but on those Jayell gave Em, the shop boys and me every hour of work he could. His new income also enabled him to reopen the shop for repairs and cabinet work.

Jayell's first assignment was the bogging Abbeville development, where his first action was to cut the work force by half. He reorganized the teams of heavy-equipment operators, carpenters, masons, electricians and painters and put them on strictly scheduled plans, would not tolerate the slightest holdup or delay, and unleashed his maniacal wrath on any supplier with a late delivery. Within a couple of weeks the project was not only moving again but ahead of schedule, with a precision and attention to quality construction that made even the
FHA
inspectors shake their heads. Several of Smithbilt's board members flew up from Miami to inspect the job. They had long luncheons with Jayell, and took back some of his designs.

Gwen was ecstatic. She and Jayell had been invited to join the country club. She was having her genealogy traced with an eye toward the
DAR
. She began giving lavish parties—lavish by Jayell's standards anyway. Jayell's idea of a big get-together was to bring his television set and a washtub of iced beer down to the shop for himself, Em, Skeeter and Carlos to watch Tech stomp Georgia. Gwen had him start a swimming pool in the backyard like the Henderson's ("Now? In September?"), and for his birthday surprised him with the announcement that with her first paycheck of the school year she had made a down payment on a lot at Lake Lorraine.

It seemed Jayell was being ensconced at last in what he had called that "nouveau middle class."

"Great God in heaven!" he moaned over the din of a Dirsey's Saturday night. "You know what I did last night? I played mahjong! Mah-damn-shong! Can you believe it? With Herbie Craft and his wife, for pete's sake. A lousy vice-president of First National Bank, a high-class loan shark, and she's treatin' the bastard like royalty! 'Dear,' she says—says, 'you know Mr. Craft.' And I say, 'Sure I know him. He repossessed my mama's first refrigerator!'
Hooo
—you should have seen his face!" Jayell took a long draught of beer and sleeved his mouth. "And you know where she is tonight? She's at the armory practicin' a play for that Little Theater she helped organize. Yessir, she's in her black toreadors and a little yellow blouse pulled up and tied up to here, and she's prancing around that stage and gettin' kissed by Wendell Hines! And you know sump'n else?" Jayell's eyes narrowed menacingly. "When it opens, I'll have to go and watch him do it, and
applaud
the son of a bitch!"

There was silence at the bar. They all sympathized with him. It threw a pall on the place.

"Kee-rist," muttered a truck driver from New Jersey, and ordered fresh beers all around.

"Kee-rist," echoed Em, and reached for his.

Gwen had grown increasingly cool to me, even at school, and avoided Em altogether. The shop boys, being black, posed no social threat to her. But Em and I were different, and I could tell she never knew quite what to do about us.

Then, a few days after that night at Dirsey's, she managed that final break between Jayell and the Ape Yard. A minor happenstance gave her the opportunity and she seized on it, and Em and I were ordered away for good.

Em and I were helping Jayell pour cement for the swimming pool. The missionary board was meeting at Gwen's house that day, so we had strict instructions to keep outside, which we did, except for slipping into the kitchen for water, since the plumbers working on the pool had turned off the outside spigot. Soon after the guests arrived I stepped in for a drink, and since it was the day after the Little Theater opening, they were taking time before the meeting to congratulate Gwen on the play, which she had not only played a leading role in but also directed. Sissy Davis, the mayor's sister, was reading the review in the
Star
:

". . . and certain to be nominated for the Quarrytown Little Theater's first Oscar is a delightful newcomer to our community, Gwendolyn Burns Crooms. Mrs. Crooms, a member of the Quarrytown High faculty (where she assumes the duties of drama coach from the capable hands of Thelma Martin, who is on leave of absence this year), was a prime mover this summer in the establishment of the Little Theater, and proved last night that she is not only a capable director but a splendid actress as well. She was utterly delightful as the vampish ex-wife, Clara, and literally threw herself into the role.
"Frivolous, witty and charming, her face often conveyed more than words, and even the lift of an eyebrow could be devastating. She was completely believable as the cunning Clara, struggling to win back her ex-husband's affections. Estelle Watson, as the best friend, apparently had some difficulty in getting her lines across to the audience, but Wendell Hines and Carl Lee Wyche were perfect as the boisterous army buddies, Pit Stop and Ed, and kept the audience in gales of laughter. Technical director Lorne Suggs' inspired stage setting provided a worthy frame for this top drawer production, written by our own Hal T. Whitmire of the
Star
staff. The play will run two more nights, Friday and Saturday, with an 8:30 P.M. curtain time. Tickets are one dollar-fifty cents for students—and may be purchased at the door, or at the
Star
office."

"Well!" Sissy Davis put down the paper and looked around the room. "It seems we have a celebrity in our midst today!" The ladies put down their Sanka for a burst of applause.

"Oh, really," fluttered Gwen, "the cast, the crew, they were all just so marvelous to work with. And with their help I have to say it was as good as anything I've seen in Atlanta." The ladies put down their cups for another round of applause. "We're off to an excellent start," she continued, "and with the continued support of the community, and the talents of people like Lorne Suggs, we just can't help but have the finest Little Theater in Georgia." That brought applause for Hilda Suggs, the director's wife, to be passed on to her husband. "Now, really," said Gwen, "we should get on with our meeting. I'm sure Reverend March has other commitments."

The ladies dutifully put away their cake and coffee and the minister led into a discussion of the church's sponsored missionary, one Reverend Pritchard, who was toiling among some natives in New Guinea. I was about to slip back out to work, but became so engrossed in the trials of the missionary, outlined in a letter which the pastor read aloud, that I couldn't tear myself away.

It seemed the Reverend Pritchard was working with a stone-age tribe that hadn't the foggiest notion of any kind of civilization, and were the stubbornest lot, he believed, to whom anyone had ever tried to bring the Lord. And the Reverend was up to his elbows. They hadn't any more care for religion than a bunch of hogs, he said, and thought services at chapel nothing more than a grand time for settling intervillage squabbles. A man couldn't shut his eyes in prayer for fear of getting brained by his neighbor. He was at his wit's end. His wife had made some progress in curtailing fornication in the schoolhouse this year, but for his part, he could see little hope for elevating this lot to salvation while they were still killing one another at vespers. He closed with a request for the congregation's prayers, and a couple more gross of brassieres. It seemed the men of the village, in a childish display of jealousy, wouldn't let their wives wear them unless they had them too. The Reverend also needed another shipment of Testaments and toilet paper, but asked that they be packed separately this time, as the savages still hadn't learned the difference.

"Huh!" rumbled a voice through the quiet. "Seems to me your Reverend needs to get off his knees and spray that crowd with bird shot!" Everyone looked up as Em Jojohn loped in and hung his bulk on the mantel. "Forgo your Testaments and send him a good twelve-gauge, that's what's needed to fetch that bunch."

Gwen looked about frantically. Her eyes fell on me. I shrugged and waggled my water glass, disclaiming any responsibility. "This is Mr. Jojohn," she said uncomfortably, "he's helping my husband in the yard."

"Funny thing about religion, Reverend." Em studied his cigarette and flicked an ash in the vase. "It don't seem worthwhile to transplant it when it springs up so natural by itself. Take the case of Waldo Payne."

"I—I'm afraid I don't see your point," said the minister.

"The point? Why, the point is simple." Em paced the hearth, warming to his talk, a rambling monologue that I knew would lead nowhere and accomplish nothing but to get him out of the sun for a few minutes. "There was this fellow named Waldo Payne I used to tie steel with. Wild'un, they called him. He was a wild'un too. Come out of Cumberland Gap. A real scrapper, I mean into sump'n
all
the time! Seems like it didn't come a Monday the job super wasn't down at the jail bailin' Waldo out of one scrape or another. But a worker? You never seen the beat. Come hot weather or cold, there wasn't a rod buster on the job could come anywhere near him for layin' in steel. Take a day it's a hundred in the shade and everybody else is eatin' salt tablets and suckin' the water can, old Wild'un's in the steel pile hollerin', 'Where's them number elebens!' Put him on a sewage tank with two other guys and big horizontals going up, and you never see Waldo on the lighter end. No sir, he's in the middle with the curve and the weight, and workin' the others to keep up with him too. He'd lay them big bars acrost his knees and climb that tank like a monkey, with the others just a scramblin', 'cause you see, once the middle got higher than the ends, the weight was throwed on them! Then before they got their wall belts hitched good, old Waldo'd have his saddle ties on and was back down at the steel pile, hollerin', 'Gimme them number elebens.'"

Em shook his head and chuckled and drained somebody's coffee cup, and continued before Gwen could interrupt. "One day, up in Virginia, we was pouring this dam. Waldo was handling the concrete bucket. They was pouring through a chute in the river and lettin' the concrete set up under water. Well, nobody knows how it happened; wasn't carelessness 'cause Jimmy Leggett was the crane operator, and Jimmy Leggett could take a drag line and pick your hat off the ground, but somehow Waldo got bumped with the concrete bucket, and down the chute he went."

"Oh." Sissy Davis put a hand to her mouth. "How awful!"

Em lit a cigarette and took his time. Gwen sat staring at the floor.

"Well?" said another lady. "Did they get him out?"

"Get him out? From under forty foot of water with three yards of concrete on him? How were they gonna get him out of that?"

"Then what did they do?"

"Why, the only thing they could do—they started pouring concrete again."

"On top of him?" asked the minister incredulously.

Em grimaced and rubbed his neck impatiently. "Well, there wasn't no way to pour
around
him, was there? 'Sides, if they stopped, and let the concrete set up, there'd be a seam, a weak place. Naw, when the super come running and was told what happened, he just told 'em to get on with it, and went for the sheriff."

"What a terrible tragedy," said Sissy Davis.

"Not altogether," said Em. "Waldo's wife was compensated, and folks said she seemed a lot happier with the insurance money than she'd ever been with Wild'un. As for him, well, he lived like he wanted and got buried in style. What more could any man want? Think about it, the whole Emalette River dam for a vault! Ain't a pharaoh or emperor ever had a tomb that'd stand up to Waldo Payne's."

Something was worrying the preacher. He just couldn't leave it alone. "I still fail to see the relevance of that to our discussion of religion."

"Coming to that, Reverend." Em pointed to Gwen's coffee cup. "You through with that?" She nodded without lifting her head, and he picked it up and drained it. "Well, when the dam was near completion the super had a big stone vase fitted into the side, just below the guard rail, to put flowers in. Some of Wild'un's pals requested it, in a kind of memorial. And when the job was finished one of the local churches took it up, and put in flowers for Wild'un regular. Then, as time went on, strangers got to dropping in change to help pay for the flowers, thinking it was some kind of shrine or something. Then young folks got to courting up there, and throwing in pennies to make wishes and stuff. Well, before long word got around among the hill people that the dam had healing powers, and a faith healer got to holding revivals up there, and before you knew it, it got to be such a hazard with the crowds holding up traffic and the faithful falling in the river that the law stepped in and had the vase knocked off. They even had to put up a watchman's booth to keep traffic moving until things quieted down again; which it did even'chally, though some said the watchman took money from hard believers for a long time after. But, as I said, it did quiet down even'chally and things got back to normal."

The preacher waited, but it became obvious the Indian was through. He pressed his thumbs to his temples. "I'm afraid, Mr.—ah, Jojohn, I still don't see your point."

"You don't." Em shrugged his shoulders in exasperation. "Well, that's all for me, then," he said, heading for the hall, "for I can't make it no plainer."

I shook my head. He had done it again. His purpose accomplished, cool, refreshed, leaving behind confusion. On another occasion, for another crowd, he might have delivered up his story on sweet Sally Flagg who took on Fort Bragg.