Stories (2011) (5 page)

And he had this thing for Halloween, because that was the
night the Lord took his sister to hell, and he might have taken her to glory
had she had any bible4earning or God-sense. But she didn't have a drop, and it
was partly his own fault, because he knew about God and could sing some hymns
pretty good. But he'd never turned a word of benediction or gospel music in her
direction. Not one word. Nor had his mama, and his papa wasn't around to do
squat.

The old man ran off with a bucktoothed laundry woman that
used to go house to house taking in wash and bringing it back the next day, but
when she took in their wash, she took in Papa too, and she never brought either
of them back. And if that wasn't bad enough, the laundry contained everything
they had in the way of decent clothes, including a couple of pairs of nice
dress pants and some pinstriped shirts like niggers wear to funerals. This left
him with one old pair of faded overalls that he used to wear to slop the hogs
before the critters killed and ate Granny and they had to get rid of them
because they didn't want to eat nothing that had eaten somebody they knew. So,
it wasn't bad enough Papa ran off with a beaver-toothed wash woman and his
sister was a drooling retard, he now had only the one pair of ugly, old
overalls to wear to school, and this gave the other kids three things to tease him
about, and they never missed a chance to do it. Well, four things. He was kind
of ugly too.

It got tiresome.

* * *

Preacher Judd could remember nights waking up with his
sister crawled up in the bed alongside him, lying on her back, eyes wide open,
her face bathed in cool moonlight, picking her nose and eating what she found,
while he rested on one elbow and tried to figure out why she was that way.

He finally gave up figuring, decided that she ought to have
some fun, and he could have some fun too. Come Halloween, he got him a bar of
soap for marking up windows and a few rocks for knocking out some, and he made
his sister and himself ghost-suits out of old sheets in which he cut mouth and
eye holes.

This was her fifteenth year and she had never been
trick-or-treating. He had designs that she should go this time, and they did,
and later after they'd done it, he walked her back home, and later yet, they
found her out back of the house in her ghost-suit, only the sheet had turned
red because her head was bashed in with something and she had bled out like an
ankle-hung hog. And someone had turned her trick-or-treat sack-the handle of
which was still clutched in her fat grip-inside out and taken every bit of
candy she'd gotten from the neighbors.

The sheriff came out, pulled up the sheet and saw that she
was naked under it, and he looked her over and said that she looked raped to
him, and that she had been killed by bizarre hands.

Bizarre hands never did make sense to Preacher Judd, but he
loved the sound of it, and never did let it slip away, and when he would tell
about his poor sister, naked under the sheets, her brains smashed out and her
trick-or-treat bag turned inside out, he'd never miss ending the story with the
sheriff's line about her having died by bizarre hands.

It had a kind of ring to it.

* * *

He parked his Dodge by the roadside, got out and walked up
to the Widow Case's, sipping on a Frosty Root Been But even though it was late
October, the Southern sun was as hot as Satan's ass and the root beer was
anything but frosty.

Preacher Judd was decked out in his black suit, white shin
and black loafers with black and white checked socks, and he had on his black
hat, which was short-brimmed and made him look, he thought, exactly like a
traveling preacher ought to look.

Widow Case was out at the well, cranking a bucket of water,
and nearby, running hell out of a hill of ants with a stick she was waggling,
was the retarded girl, and Preacher Judd thought she looked remarkably like his
sister.

He came up, took off his hat and held it over his chest as
though he were pressing his heart into proper place, and smiled at the widow
with all his goldbacked teeth.

Widow Case put one hand on a bony hip, used the other to
prop the bucket of water on the well-curbing. She looked like a shaved weasel,
Preacher Judd thought, though her ankles weren't shaved a bit and were
perfectly weasel-like.

The hair there was thick and black enough to be mistaken for
thin socks at a distance.

"Reckon you've come far enough," she said.
"You look like one of them Jehovah Witnesses or such, or one of them kind
that run around with snakes in their teeth and hop to nigger music."

"No ma'm, I don't hop to nothing, and last snake I seen
I run over with my can

"You here to take up money for missionaries to give to
them starving African niggers? If you are, forget it. I don't give to the
niggers around here, sure ain't giving to no hungry foreign niggers that can't
even speak English."

"Ain't collecting money for nobody. Not even
myself."

"Well, I ain't seen you around here before, and I don't
know you from white rice. You might be one of them mash murderers for all I
know."

"No ma'm, I ain't a mash murderer, and I ain't from
around here. I'm from East Texas."

She gave him a hard look. "Lots of niggers there."

"Place is rotten with them. Can't throw a dog tick
without you've hit a burrhead in the noggin'. That's one of the reasons I'm
traveling through here, so I can talk to white folks about God. Talking to
niggers is like," and he lifted a hand to point, "talking to that
well-curbing there, only that well-curbing is smarter and a lot less likely to
sass, since it ain't expecting no civil rights or a chance to crowd up with our
young' ns in schools. It knows its place and it stays there, and that's
something for that well-curbing, if it ain't nothing for niggers."

"Amen."

Preacher Judd was feeling pretty good now. He could see she
was starting to eat out of his hand. He put on his hat and looked at the girl.
She was on her elbows now, her head down and her butt up. The dress she was
wearing was way too short and had broken open in back from her having outgrown
it. Her panties were dirtstained and there was gravel, like little BBs hanging
off of them. He thought she had legs that looked strong enough to wrap around
an alligator's neck and choke it to death.

"Cindereller there," the widow said, noticing he
was watching, "ain't gonna have to worry about going to school with
niggers. She ain't got the sense of a nigger. She ain't got no sense at all. A
dead rabbit knows more than she knows.

All she does is play around all day, eat bugs and such and
drool. In case you haven't noticed, she's simple."

* * *

"Yes ma'm, I noticed. Had a sister the same way. She
got killed on a Halloween night, was raped and murdered and had her
trick-or-treat candy stolen, and it was done, the sheriff said, by bizarre
hands."

"No kiddin'?"

Preacher Judd held up a hand. "No kiddin'. She went on
to hell, I reckon, 'cause she didn't have any God talk in her. And retard or
not, she deserved some so she wouldn't have to cook for eternity. I mean, think
on it. How hot it must be down there, her boiling in her own sweat, and she
didn't do nothing, and it's mostly my fault 'cause I didn't teach her a thing
about The Lord Jesus and his daddy, God."

Widow Case thought that over. "Took her Halloween candy
too, huh?"

"Whole kit and kaboodle. Rape, murder and candy theft,
one fatal swoop. That's why I hate to see a young'n like yours who 'night not
have no Word of God in her. . Is she without training?"

"She ain't even toilet trained. You couldn't perch her
on the outdoor convenience if she was sick and her manage to hit the bole. She
can't do nothing that don't make a mess. You can't teach her a thing. Half the
time she don't even know her name." As if to prove this, Widow Case
called, "Cindereller."

Cinderella had one eye against the ant ill now and was
trying to look down the hole. Her butt was way up and she was rocking forward on
her knees.

"See," said Widow Case, throwing up her hands.
"She's worse than any little ole baby, and it ain't no easy row to hoe
with her here and me not having a man around to do the heavy work."

"I can see that . . . By the way, call me Preacher Judd
. . . And can I help you tote that bucket up to the house there?"

"Well now," said Widow Case, looking all the more
like a weasel, "I'd appreciate that kindly."

*  *  *

He got the bucket and they walked up to the house.
Cinderella followed, and pretty soon she was circling around him like she was a
shark closing in for the kill, the circles each time getting a mite smaller.
She did this by running with her back bent and her knuckles almost touching the
ground. Ropes of saliva dripped out of her mouth.

Watching her, Preacher Judd got a sort of warm feeling all
over. She certainly reminded him of his sister. Only she had liked to scoop up
dirt, dog mess and stuff as she ran, and toss it at him. It wasn't a thing he
thought he'd missed until just that moment, but now the truth was out and he
felt a little tearyeyed. He half-hoped Cinderella would pick up something and
throw it on him.

The house was a big, drafty thing circled by a wide flower
bed that didn't look to have been worked in years. A narrow porch ran half-way
around it, and the front porch had man4all windows on either side of the door.

Inside, Preacher Judd hung his hat on one of the foil
wrapped rabbit ears perched on top of an old Sylvania TV set, and followed the
widow and her child into the kitchen.

The kitchen had big iron frying pans hanging on wall pegs,
and there was a framed embroidery that read GOD WATCHES OVER THIS HOUSE. It had
been faded by sunlight coming through the window over the sink.

Preacher Judd sat the bucket on the ice box-the old sort
that used real ice-then they all went back to the living room. Widow Case told
him to sit down and asked him if he'd like some iced tea.

"Yes, this bottle of Frosty ain't so good." He
took the bottle out of his coat pocket and gave it to her.

Widow Case held it up and squinted at the little line of
liquid in the bottom.

"You gonna want this?"

"No, ma'm, just pour what's left out and you can have
the deposit." He took his Bible from his other pocket and opened it.
"You don't mind if I try and read a verse or two to your Cindy, do
you?"

"You make an effort on that while I fix us some tea.
And I'll bring some things for ham sandwiches, too."

"That would be right nice. I could use a bite."

Widow Case went to the kitchen and Preacher Judd smiled at
Cinderella. "You know tonight's Halloween, Cindy?"

Cinderella pulled up her dress, picked a stray ant off her
knee and ate it.

"Halloween is my favorite time of the year," he
continued. "That may be strange for a preacher to say, considering it's a
devil thing, but I've always loved it.

It just does something to my blood. It's like a tonic for
me, you know?"

She didn't know. Cinderella went over to the TV and turned
it on.

Preacher Judd got up, turned it off. "Let's don't run
the Sylvania right now, baby child," he said. "Let's you and me talk
about God."

Cinderella squatted down in front of the set, not seeming to
notice it had been cut off. She watched the dark screen like the White Rabbit
considering a plunge down the rabbit hole.

Glancing out the window, Preacher Judd saw that the sun
looked like a dripped cherry snowcone melting into the clay road that led out
to Highway 80, and already the tumble bug of night was rolling in blue-black
and heavy. A feeling of frustration went over him, because he knew he was
losing time and he knew what he had to do.

Opening his Bible, he read a verse and Cinderella didn't so
much as look up until he finished and said a prayer and ended it with
"Amen."

"Uhman," she said suddenly.

Preacher Judd jumped with surprise, slammed the Bible shut
and dunked it in his pocket. "Well, well now," he said with delight,
"that does it. She's got some Bible training."

Widow Case came in with the tray of fixing. "What's
that?"

"She said some of a prayer," Preacher Judd said.
"That cinches it. God don't expect much from retards, and that ought to do
for keeping her from burning in hell." He practically skipped over to the
woman and her tray, stuck two fingers in a glass of tea, whirled and sprinkled
the drops on Cinderella's head.

Cinderella held out a hand as if checking for rain.

Preacher Judd bellowed out, "I pronounce you baptized.
In the name of God, The Son, and The Holy Ghost. Amen."

"Well, I'll swan," the widow said. "That
there tea works for baptizing?" She sat the tray on the coffee table.

"It ain't the tea water, it's what's said and who says
it that makes it take…

Consider that gal legal baptized . . . Now, she ought to
have some fun too, don't you think? Not having a full head of brains don't mean
she shouldn't have some fun."

"She likes what she does with them ants," Widow
Case said.

"I know, but I'm talking about something special. It's
Halloween. Time for young folks to have fun, even if they are retards. In fact,
retards like it better than anyone else. They love this stuff. A thing my
sister enjoyed was dressing up like a ghost."

"Ghost?" Widow Case was seated on the couch,
making the sandwiches. She had a big butcher knife and she was using it to
spread mustard on bread and cut ham slices.

"We took this old sheet, you see, cut some mouth and
eye holes in it, then we wore them and went trick-or-treating."