Three Days Before the Shooting ... (52 page)

Suddenly Bowlegs stepped close and looked him up and down, frowning.

Yeah, man, you might be right about your behind, he said. But while I don’t see no feathers, your
mouth
is getting awful long and sharp. And while you always been black now I be dam’ if you ain’t begun to turn
blue
black!

Man, he said, taking a swing at Bowlegs, you better watch that stuff ‘cause I don’t play with no chillen.

Hey, Rev, he said, here’s a church song my big brother taught me. He up in Chicago and this one’s
really
religious:

Well, the tom cat jumped the she-cat
By the bank of a stream
Started howling and begging for that
Natural cream
.
Soon the she-cat was spitting and
A-scratching and a-kicking up sand
Then the he-cat up and farted
Like a natural man
.
The she-cat she jumped salty, looked around
And screamed
,
Said, Hold it right there, daddy
,
Until your mama’s been redeemed
.

As they laughed he joined in with his juicy mouth, rearing back with his thumbs thrust in his suspenders.

Hell, he said, I’m a poet and didn’t know it.

He did a rooster strut, flapping his arms and scuffing up the dust.

Hey, y’all, he said, listen to this:

Bliss, Bliss
Cat piss miss!

He flicked his fingers at me like a magician, taking my name in vain.

Man, you sho got a fine kinda name to put down a conjur with. If a man was to say your name at two dogs gitting they ashes hauled the he-dog’ll git a dog-knot in his peter as big as a baseball! They be hung up for ninety-nine days. That’s right y’all. You say Rev’s name to a guy throwing rocks at you and he couldn’t hit the side of a barn with a wiffle tree! Heck, Bliss, you say your name and hook fingers with another guy when a dog’s taking him a hockey and you lock up his bowels like a smokehouse! Yeah, man, the First National Bank! Constipate that fool for life!

They laughed at me. I saw a good egg rock now and looked at him, mad. I was going to sin. Saint Peter, he got the keys.

Since you think you’re so smart, now here’s one for you, I said.
Meat Whistle
. That’s for you.

What?

He puzzled up his face.

You heard me, I said.
Meat Whistle
.

He bucked his eyes like I had hit him. It was quiet. I bent and picked up the rock. Someone snickered.

What you mean? he said, I never heard of no
meat
whistle….

They looked at us, changing sides now. Ha, he got you! one of them said. Ain’t but one kind of meat whistle and us all got one, ain’t we, y’all?

Yeah, yeah, that’s right, they said.

The whites of his eyes were turning red. I backed away.

What kinda dam’ whistle is that, he said. It bet’ not be what I think it is.

He doubled up his fists.

I watched his eyes.

It blows some real bad-smelling tunes, don’t it, Bliss? one of the others said.

I watched his eyes, red. You ain’t the only one who knows stuff like that, I said. Just because I’m a preacher, don’t think you can run over me.

They were laughing at him now.

Tell him ‘bout it, Rev!

Ole Bliss is awright!

Watch out now, ole Rev’s colored blood is rising….

Indian, man! Look at him!

Ole Bliss is awright! Look at him, y’all. He probably got him some mean cracker blood too, man!

He looked angry, his lips pouting. Maybe you know this one, I said.

Clank, clank, clank, I said and waited, watching his eyes.

What you mean, “clank, clank, clank,” little ole yella som’bitch?

Clank, clank, clank, I said, that’s your mama walking in her cast-iron drawers.

Seeing his face looming close, I moved.

He came on at me but too late, I wasn’t there. Always switch the rhythm—

Watch out, Bliss! they called, but I missed him not. I struck hard, seeing his surprise as the blood burst from his forehead like juice from a crushed blackberry. His face went gray as his hand flew to his forehead. I looked, then I ran backwards with sin running with me in my eyes. I held the rock cupped in my hand like an egg, feeling his blood on my fingers. On this rock I will build my … Kept it with Teddy, my leather-bound Bible.

You shoulda used some catpiss, man, their shouts sounded behind me. ‘Cause he ain’t missed
nothing
. Look at ole Rev run! Boooom! Barney-O-Bliss, man! Barney-O-Blissomobile.

Put some salt on his tail. You aim to catch him you got to turn on the gas, man.

Man, he may be a reverend but he runs like hell!

Taking it on the lamb chop, man.

Aches, breaks. Wine and crackers, you’re out, Bliss. Out!

No, I’ll be there when he arrives. We agreed…. I’ll…

They relaxed in their chairs, the whiskey between them. Only the air-conditioning unit hummed below their voices. O’Brien was intense.

Listen, he said. Dam’ it, we’re losing your state and my state and even
New York seems doubtful. You’ll have to lay off the nigger issue because the niggers and the New York Jews are out to get us. This year they don’t have to take it and they won’t. Here, try one of these. No, smoke it. There’s plenty where that comes from…. But you restrain yourself, you hear? We want you to curb that mouth of yours or else….
Make me whole, patch my sole … It hurts
here and here and there and there
.

We made every church in the circuit. Lights! Camera!

Suffer the little children to come suffer the little children to come sufferthelittlechil-drentocome Sufferthelittlechildrentohospodepomeli—

Why don’t they hurry and open the light? Please, Please, Please, Daddy!

And I rose up slow, the white Bible between my palms, my panicky head thrusting up into frenzied shouting and the hushed silence, up, up, up, up—into the certainty of his mellow voice now soaring isolated and calm like a note of spring water burbling in a glade haunted by the counter-rhythm of tumbling, nectar-drunk bumblebees….

Teddy, Teddy! Where’s my bear? Daddy!

You bear as you’ve sown. A growl.

Then, he appeared out of the brilliant darkness, dark and handsome.

You must not be startled at this blessed boy-chile, sisters and brothers, he intoned. Not by this little jewel. For it has been said that a little child shall lead them. Oh, yes! Where He leads me, I shall
follow
. Amen! And our God said, “Go ye into the wilderness and preach the Word,” and this child has answered the sacred call. And he obeys. Suffer the little children. Yes! And it is said that the child is father to the man. So why be surprised over the size, shape, color of the vessel? Why not listen to his small sweet voice and drink in the life-giving water of the Word?…

Listen to the lamb, he said. But I heard the bear a-growling. Teddy! Teddy! Where? Gone on the lamb’s chop.

I used to lie within the box, trembling. Breathing through the tube, the hot air heavy with muted hypnotic music, hear the steady moaning beneath the rhythmic clapping of hands. And boxed they marched me down a thousand aisles on a thousand nights and days. In the dark! Trembling in the dark. Lying in the dark while the words seemed to fall like drops of rain upon the resonant lid. Until each time, just at the moment the black shapes seemed to close in upon me, smothering me, Deacon Wilhite would calmly raise the lid and I’d rise up slowly, slowly, creating a scene. Frightened, I arose, slowly, stiffly, as melodramatic as della Francesca’s bombastic ham actor flaunting his shroud. With my white Bible between my palms, carefully lest the pink lining disturb my parted hair. Trembling now, with the true hysteria of my voice giving cry: LORD, LORD, WHY….

Mankind? What? Correct. Lights in. Camera!

Donelson, the makeup is too pasty. The dark skin shines through like green ghosts
.

Yeah, but you tell me how to make up a flock of crows to look like swans
.

Donelson, you can do anything that you really try. In the beginning is the image. Use your imagination, man. Imagine a nation. New. Look into the camera’s omniscent eye, there’s a magic in it. And the crows shall be…

Whiter than swans? Balls! Let’s change the script and make them Chinamen or Indians…. What do you say, Karp?

And in the confusion birthed by women that world rolled on like rushes on a Moviola. There’d be shouting and singing and that big woman in Jacksonville came running down front, looking like a fullback in a nurse’s helper’s uniform, crying, He’s the Lamb of God, he is! And trying to lift me out and Teddy coming up with my legs and my cap pistol catching in the lining and Daddy Hickman grabbing her just in time to prevent the congregation from seeing, saying sotto voce, Deacon Wilhite,
git
this confounded woman away from here even if you have to put a headlock on the fool! She’s about to upset
everything!

He took Teddy and refused to buy me a soda and the next night I refused to rise up. I refused the call, just lay there in the throbbing death-like stillness with the top up and my eyes closed against the brilliant light and him looming with outstretched arms above me, until he got them singing strong and came down and promised me I could have Teddy back…. When?
Beary
me not in lone Calv’ry…
. Then standing there above me the shadow leaving and the light bright to my opened eyes, saying, This boy chile, brothers and sisters, lies here in a holy coma. No doubt he’s seeing visions beyond this wicked world. Ah, but he shall rise up as all the saved shall rise up—on that morning….

But I didn’t budge, demanding an ice-cream cone with silence. Vanilla I wanted.

Suffer the little children to come…
.

Flora was in the alley picking sunflowers. We were alone. I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours, I said.

What! Button up your britches, lil ole boy, she said. You ain’t even old enough to dog-water.

But I just want to
see
.

You goin’ see stars, that’s what you gonna see, ‘cause I’m goin’ to tell my mama if you don’t go ‘way.

Nine stitches saved Choc Charlie, or so they say.

One morning shining his shoes in Georgia I heard him singing,

I’m going to the Nation, baby
,
Going to the Territory
.
Says I’m going to the Nation …
Going to the Territory…

like any lonesome sinner but making it sound like “Beulah Land,” puzzling me.

It haunts here and there; in and out
.

Why don’t Revern’ Hickman open…. They were all hicks; I told me then, that’s why I renounced them beyond all recovery. What a hickery-docket was Hick hock—the camera, Donelson; we’ve got to keep moving west. Hail to the great hickrocracy. It hurts there. The waters of life. Thirst. Texas hots. Ladies and gentlemen, I swear, it was a strange adventure.

I met Mr. Rabbit
Down by the pea vine
And I asked him where he’s gwine
Well, he said, Just kiss my b’hin’
And skipped on down the pea vine

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker! I should like to call to the attention of this great body the insidious activities of those alien-minded groups who refuse the sacred obligations of becoming true Americans….
How here I reject them and out
of my rejection rule them. They create their own darkness and in their embarrassment left all to chance my changed opportunity. It haunts hard in this moment…
. Oh, they sweep around us with their foreign ways. Yes, and in the second and third generations they reject even these foreign but respectable traditional modes of their parents and become barbarians, maimed men; moral terrorists, winos, full of self-pity. Men filled only with the defeatist spirit of rejection. They become whiners and complainers, demanding the deification of their sloth. The soft touch. Nothing here in our fine, hard-won American tradition is good enough for them. Always it is some other way of life which wins them. It is the false promises of our enemies for which they thirst and hunger. Yes, and sabotage! Mr. Speaker, in their arrogance they would destroy our tender vines. And in their fury they would weaken the firm foundation of our way of life. In their malicious frenzy to evade responsibility they would destroy that which has given them shelter and substance, and the right to create themselves. Oh yes! Yes! These rootless ones would uproot us all! Consider the time-scene: When they watch our glorious flag passing on parade they greet it with an inward sneer. When we honor our fallen dead, they secretly applaud the marksmanship of our enemies. When we set forth to preserve our honor and the sanctity of our homes and the health of our customs they would cast into the smooth machinery of our national life their intractable and treacherous wooden shoes. Abuse, abuse! In the name of lawful dissent they seek our destruction. They would poison the spring of our unity. They would destroy the horses of our power. They would reduce our sacred diversity and dominate us! They would send the zapper of their hate to mine the defenses of our belief. They would pull down the protective walls of our fortress. But leave us to the peaceful glories of this great land they will not!