A Cry of Angels (36 page)

"Well," said Em, looking at the torn fender and jagged hole in the muffler, "you got it all back together, but I can't says that's much of an improvement."

"She's old and she's been treated rough," said Tio, "but she's still got a lot of romp in her." He threw a leg over the seat and rocked down on the starter. The old bike quivered, but sat. Again he tried, and again the machine managed to calm itself. Em pushed back his hat and grinned. Tio jiggled a spark-plug wire, worked the gas, and rocked down hard. There was a violent awakening, a breath of indecision, then the motor caught, lunged hysterically for several moments, then settled into a loping, clattering idle. Em Jojohn yelled and clapped his hands.

Grinning with excitement, Tio wiped his hands and worked the throttle until the old engine was revved into a state of shuddering fenders, then lifted his foot and went blasting across the pasture. Halfway across he got it under control, chugged two laps around the bumpy pasture, and finally came coasting back, beaming in triumph and kicking down the stand. "You see that?" he yelled. "She wanted to run right out from under me! I'm tellin' you, this here could be the hottest thing on the road!"

"She's already that," said Em, touching the engine, "and she ain't more'n cranked up good."

"Give me a turn," I yelled. Tio quickly explained the brakes and twist-grip throttle, and Em steadied the heavy bike while I got aboard. A moment later I was bumping over the grass in utter disbelief, exhilarating in the swish of the wind and the strange new feeling of power in hand. I slowly circled the field, bouncing with excitement and waving to the cows, who stood watching from the safety of the woods. "Unbelievable!" was all I could say on returning. "It's just absolutely unbelievable!"

When I dismounted Tio was trying to talk Em into taking a turn. The Indian was aghast. "You remind me of a damn fool," he said.

"Ain't nothing to it," said Tio, "you can do it if Earl can. Look, here's your throttle . . ."

Em backed away, shaking his head. "Anybody'd set two gallon of gas afire and get straddle of it ain't right in his head."

"Then I'll drive," said Tio. "Get on behind me and I'll show you how easy it is."

"Go on, Em, let him take you for a turn." Em got interested in the clouds and Tio and I waited, steeped in that ruthless determination to share an experience. Seeing that we weren't going to back down, and too proud to walk away himself, Em realized finally that he was caught. After several silent moments of shooting glances at the bike, at us, and back at the clouds, he abruptly flung himself on the seat and wrapped his arms around Tio's waist.

"Slack off," Tio protested, "you're cuttin' off my wind!"

After some more shuffling and resettling, getting his feet placed just right and battening down his hat, Em was ready. Tio kicked off and the overloaded bike went laboring over the hill. On the first return Em looked over and managed a tentative smile, but maintained a grip that had Tio mouth-breathing. One more lap and Tio dismounted, gasping. "You can handle it now," he wheezed, and stretched himself on the grass.

Em eased cautiously forward and gave the seat a couple of test bounces. He looked uncertainly at me.

"Go ahead, Em, you can do it."

A study in concentration, he pushed off, wobbled a few yards, and fell on his side.

"You got to keep it balanced," said Tio as we righted him, "like on a bicycle."

"I can do it. I can do it."

Em mounted and tried again. "More speed!" yelled Tio. "More speed!" Em twisted the throttle and the bike blasted into a smoother path. "That's it! That's the way!" Em wavered uncertainly around the hill, and when he emerged on the north side still in control, we cheered and clapped our hands. Em flashed a broad smile and flapped his elbows with exhilaration, which, with a twist-grip throttle, was a decided mistake.

Under the sudden surge of gasoline, the engine sputtered, caught and leaped ahead in a smoky, blue roar.

We watched helplessly as the Indian streaked across the mud flat, jumped a gully, narrowly missed the pear tree, hit a log and went all heels and elbows into a pile of dry branches. When we got to him he was thrashing out, cursing majestically, blood beading in white scratches on his face and neck. Tio got to the whirling bike and shut it down.

"Leave 'er alone!" roared Jojohn, ripping branches from his collar. "Get your hands off her!"

"Aw, come on, Em, you gave it a good ride," said Tio.

"Yeah," I said, "ain't no use killing yourself."

Shoving us aside, Em furiously lifted the offending machine, carried it to a level place, and slammed it down on its devilish wheels. Flinging himself once more in the saddle, he commanded, "Fire her up again!"

"Em, you're gonna tear it up," moaned Tio.

"I'm gonna ride her," Em reasoned, "or I'm gonna wrap her around that goddamned tree!" He shoved his Vaseline jar at me. "Hold my matches."

Tio sighed and rocked down the starter, and Indian and bike went to war again. Tio and I sat down on the log to wait.

Around the pasture they dipped and climbed. Em held the throttle at exact dead level, puttering smoothly across the grassy flat, circling the upper end in precisely the same tracks, chugging businesslike along the edge of the woods.

Growing bored with watching him, Tio and I played mumbletypeg on a log. We wrestled awhile. We played Tarzan in the pear tree and saw who could hang one-armed the longest. Tio found an interesting bug and we toyed with it for a good half-hour until, without warning, the bug lifted wings we didn't know it had and flew away.

"You reckon he just don't know how to shut it down and is too proud to say so?" Tio wondered.

"No," I said, watching him go by, "Em's found a new world, and he's trying to come to terms with it. I wouldn't count too much on gettin' your bike back."

"Aw," said Tio, finally, turning for home, "Mr. Teague'd never let me keep it anyway."

I leaned against the pear tree and after a while began to doze. The sinking sun turned the Georgia hills to burnished copper. Crickets called to the approaching dark.

Round and round went the Indian, locked into his route like a carnival pony, elbows rigid, his face fixed in wonderment, leaning gently into the turns.

Tio forgave the loss of the bike; in fact, within a week he was hot on the idea that what it needed was a cart, and was hard at work building that. Jayell helped him with the design and supplied tubing and lumber, and Em and I helped him scour Bledsoe's and the foundry for angle braces and wheels. It was a dandy; lightweight, maneuverable, and capable of carrying the three of us without strain. Em painted it yellow and drove it around to all his river haunts, showing it off, bragging about it. He never came to trust it entirely, and remained a frightened driver, but he got where he wanted to go, and after two or three weeks could even bring it to a halt without going over the handlebars.

"Damnit, hold still!"

"You cut me!" I jumped off the stool and rubbed my stinging neck. My hand came away with blood on it. "Look at that! Would you just look at that?"

"Jes' a little nick. Set down." Em grabbed my arm and pulled me back on the stool. "Never heard such carryin' on over a little scratch."

"I'll probably get blood poisoning. Whoever heard of cuttin' hair with hedge shears anyway?"

"Seventy-five cents for a barber—ain't no sense in it. Tilt your head so I can wipe it off."

"Don't use that towel, it's dirty. Get the yellow one."

Em flipped the towel back over the rafter and pulled down the clean one. "The way you wash clothes, it's hard to tell."

"Well, if you got any complaints, the washtub's on the wall and the rub board right beside it."

"I got no complaints."

"And the next time you polish your boots I wish you'd use a newspaper. Look at that floor."

Work had been scarce, and it was cold; the thermometer hung at twelve degrees and the wind howled up out of the Ape Yard in gusts that lifted tin and sent a bird side-stepping to get his balance. And worst of all, it was Christmas. That whiplash frenzy of joy that cracked at the end of each dying year was flying upon us again.

Holidays always seemed forced on us somehow, as though they originated elsewhere and the Ape Yard only imitated, without knowing why. It was as if an order came down saying, "All right, Ape Yard, it's Valentine's Day. Never mind how you feel, it's the
calendar day
for you to LOVE! Swap those cutout hearts. Christmas! Christmas . . . Savior's birthday—no, it's not actually His birthday, but it's the day we've set aside for it, now stir yourselves! New Year's! Happy New Year Everybody . . . !"

During the two weeks before Christmas, Em and I had combed the town for work, but despite the commercial frenzy of the season, jobs were not easy to find. They were snapped up by vacationing students to buy their sweethearts ID bracelets and hi-fi albums. We helped Triangle Hardware relocate in a new building, cleaned bricks at a burned-out service station, and for three days I filled in for an ailing soda jerk at Saxon's pharmacy. Em was almost relieved when he was laid off from the job on the coal truck. Wasn't his kind of dirt, he said.

Christmas Eve the town lay exhausted. Last-minute shoppers combed the stores under the weary eyes of clock-watching clerks. At the clubs and halls white jacketed Negroes trayed drinks to those already too drunk to heed the combos' call to dance. The firemen's wreaths hung from lampposts with the same air of loss and desolation as the peeling Nativity scene propped on the courthouse lawn, while around town, church choirs hopefully primed their "messiahs." On Rock Crusher Road hotblooded virgins wallowed in bushes of crinolines to consummate new "steadies," sealed with mustard-seed lockets and St. Christopher medals. Young married couples, tired, broke but happy, cruised the streets listening to carols and showing their children the Christmas lights. And along the Ape Yard, children lay dreaming of leather cowboy suits and dolls that walked and talked and all the beautiful toys that wheeled and flashed, while their mothers filled show boxes with fruit and bulk candy and cardboard games, and shame-drunken fathers spat in the grate.

The field behind the garage was beautiful: the night blue-cold clear, and the grass still shimmering from a trace of snow in the morning. While Em cut my hair I soaked my thumb in a cup of cold water. I was going to lose the nail, it was already darkening, but the throbbing was slowing and numbness overtaking the pain. Despite the accident I felt lucky to have gotten the two days' work at the water department sorting pipe fittings for inventory. The pay was good, a dollar an hour, and nobody ever rushed anybody at the water department. I should have watched Ronnie with that box of ells, though, I know he was clumsy. Ronnie was the city manager's son, home from college for the holidays, who worked with one hand and fondled a white pipe with the other.

"Finger still hurtin'?"

"It's all right."

Em dusted baking soda down my neck and I got down to brush out the hair. I didn't want to look in the mirror.

"
Mehhrrry Chris-mus
! Ho-Ho-Hoooo!
Meh-rry
!
Mehrry
. . . !" Tio bounced through the door in a cotton beard, clutching an enormous bulge under his jacket.

"Now, ain't that a sight," said Em, "a pregnant black Santa Claus."

Tio sat on the footlocker and crossed his legs. "Go ahead and laugh and have your simple-minded fun, while I set here and decide whether I'm gonna get up and leave, or, in the spirit of the season, take pity on them that don't know no better"—he unzipped his jacket and pulled out a jar of purplish liquid—"and allow you to share my Christmas cheer."

Instantly sobered, Em leaned down and inspected the jar. "Where in this world," he whispered reverently, "did you find muskydine wine?"

"Somebody left off two gallon at the store. Mr. Teague went to bed with the other jar a little while ago."

There was a hurried scramble for glasses and I got my first taste of homemade wine. It was something of a disappointment, strong and acrid and not at all the mellow flavor I expected. "You got to develop a taste for it," said Em, refilling his glass, "just sip along and let it get to know you."

Tio belched and waggled his glass. "Spare me a little more, then. Me and that stuff's ole friends already."

Em grudgingly complied, but held on to the jar. We talked along and sipped wine for a while. At least I sipped, Tio and Em were guzzling. When an hour or so had passed, and the wine slowed its descent in the jar, Em suddenly looked around and said, "Damn, I'm starved. When we gonna eat, Earl?"

"Yes, sir, food. Coming right up." I got up and looked in the cupboard. "What would you like, some canned spaghetti?"

"Oh, my Lord."

"I could reheat the pig's feet and okra."

"Not for me."

"How about if I fry up some fatback?"

"Boy, you're gonna fry my stomach to death."

"Well, that's it, unless you want to go down to the cafe."

"How much we got in the birdhouse?"

I shook my head, remembering. "Not enough to go to the cafe."

Em groaned and stretched himself on the cot. "Here it is Christmas Eve. Tomorra everybody in this town will be havin' ham and tur-key, with dres-sin', cranberry sauce, hot biscuits, giblet gravy, and here we are—what y'all going to have, Tio?"

"Mr. Teague generally fixes a chicken, unless he sells 'em all."

"Chicken! You hear that, boy? How long since we had a piece of chicken?"

"Not since that last Sunday at Miss Esther's, I guess."

Suddenly Em sat up. He looked at me, as though trying to remember something. Then he was up, stomping into his boots. "By God, we're gonna have us a chicken!"

"How?"

"You remember that old bastard with the dairy farm that done us out that money? He had a whole house full of chickens."

"You ain't thinkin' . . ."

"The hell I ain't!"

Tio was on his feet immediately, glassy-eyed and erupting with questions.

"Need some wire," Em said, "straight baling wire. Ought to be some down in the shed, that and a long stick of some kind." Tio found the wire and Em pulled the handle out of a broken hoe. He tied the wire to one end of the hoe handle, ran it through a nail bent to form a loop, and back along the handle to the other end, where he wrapped it around his hand. He made a loop with the wire, snapped it shut on the chair post a couple of times to test it out, and turned and grinned at us. "Get out the bike," he said.