Three Days Before the Shooting ... (70 page)

“‘Now, now, we’re taking you where your folks is. You’ll be all right. You sure will.’

“But the woman wouldn’t stop screaming, Bliss. And she’s cussing—speaking out some of the worse oaths that ever fell from the lips of Man. We’re flying through the dark and I can see the eyes of wild things shining all along, at first ahead of us glowing up and then disappearing. And the sound of galloping that those horses made! They were hitting a lick on that road like they were in a battle charge.

“‘Reveren’ Hickman,’ Sister Beaumasher yelled over to me.

“‘Yes, Sister?’ I called back over to her.

“‘I say, are you praying?’

“‘Praying?’ I yelled, ‘Praying! Sister, my whole body and soul is crying to God, but it’s ‘bout as much as I can do t’hold on to these devilish reins. You just keep that woman’s hands from scratching my face.’

“Well, about that time, Bliss, we hit a straightaway, past some fields, and
way off to one side I looked and saw somebody’s barn on fire. It was like a dream, Bliss. There we were making better time than the Hamiltonian with foam flying from those white horses’ bits, the woman screeching, leather straining, hooves pounding, and Sister Beaumasher no longer talking to the woman but moaning a prayer like she’s bent over a washtub somewhere on a peaceful sunny morning and managing to sound so through all that rushing air; and then, then there it was; way off yonder across the dark fields, that big barn filling the night with silent flames. It was too far to see if anyone was there to know about it, and it was too big for nobody except us not to see it; and as we raced on there seemed no way NOT to see it burning across the night. We seemed to wheel around it, the earth was so flat and the road so long. Lonesome, Bliss, that sight was lonesome. Way yonder, isolated and lighting up the sky and the dark around it. And then as we swung and swayed around a curve where the road swept into a tree-lined lane I looked through the flickering of the trees and saw it give way and collapse. The flames spread sparks and swept up toward the sky. Poor man, I thought; poor man, God help him, just as the buggy hit a rough stretch of road. And I was praying then, boy; I was really praying. I prayed,

“‘Lord, bless these axles and these singletrees,

“‘Lord, bless these bits, these bridles, and the reins,

“‘Keep, Lord, these wheels and rubber tires hugging solid to Thy solid earth,

“‘And bless, Lord, these hames, these cruppers, and this carriage tongue.

“‘Yea, bless, Lord, these breast-straps and these leather bellybands,

“‘Yea, Lord, and whatever you may choose to do with me,

“‘Bless, Master, please this straining whiffletree!’

“And listening to those pounding hooves and feeling those horses trying to snatch my arms right out of their sockets I said, ‘And Lord, even bless this wild redheaded woman sitting here between us who, in her outrageous pride, interrupted our praise to Thee. And bless, too, that man back there with his burning barn. And since, Lord, you know all about Sister Beaumasher and me being caught out here on this rocky, night-shrouded road, all I ask is that you keep us focused in Thy merciful all-seeing eye until we reach the living end….’

“Those horses moved, Bliss. Zip, and we’re through the lane and passing through a damp place like a swamp, then up a hill through a burst of heat. And all the time, Bliss, I should have been praying for you. Because after all I suppose a lot of prayer and sweat and dedication, as well as money-greed and show-off pride and general wickedness had gone into making that buggy because it held together through all that rough ride and with its wheels humming like guitar strings took me and Sister Beaumasher and a pretty hot time before they let us go. So there between a baby, a buggy, and a burning
barn, I prayed the wrong prayer. I left you out, Bliss, and right there and then you started to wander. But you, I left you in some of the sisters’ hands and you misbehaved. Bliss, you was the one who needed praying for and I neglected you….”

He, Bliss, sat at the kitchen table drinking the ice-cold lemonade and listening to the tinkle the chunk of ice made when he stirred it with his finger. The others were sitting quietly in the room with Daddy Hickman and he could see Sister Wilhite nodding in her chair over near the window. Sister Wilhite’s tired, he thought. She’s been up all night and Deacon has too. He looked at the cooking stove, dull black with shining nickel parts around the bottom made in the shape of scrolls. They’re the same shape as the scrolls on the lid of my coffin, he thought. Why do they put scrolls on everything? Sister Wilhite’s sewing machine has scrolls made into the iron part where her feet go to pedal and it has scrolls painted in gold in the long shining block that holds the shiny wheel and the needle. Scrolls on everything. People don’t have scrolls, though. But maybe you just can’t see them. Sister Georgia … Scroll, Scroll Jellyroll … That’s a good rhyme—but sinful… Jellyroll. The stovepipe rose straight up and then curved and went out through a hole up near the ceiling. The wallpaper up there was black where the smoke had leaked through. The stove was cold. No fire is showing through the airholes in the door where the wood and coal went, and he thought, It’s sleeping too. It’s resting, taking a summer vacation. It works hard in the winter though, it goes all day long eating up wood and coal and making ashes. From early in the morning ‘til late at night and sometimes they stoke it and it burns all night too. It’s just coasting then though, but it’s working. Summertime is easy except for Sunday, when a lot of folks have to eat string beans, turnip greens, cabbage and salt pork, sweet-potato pie, ham hocks and collards, egg-cornbread and dandelion greens is good for you. Make you big and strong. Summer is easy except for those good things so the stove can take a rest. It wakes up for oatmeal for breakfast and eggs and grits and coffee but then it goes out. Not a stick of wood in the corner or bucket of coal. No heat for lemonade but it’s good. In the fall is the busy time. In the fall they’ll be killing the hogs and taking the chitterlings and the members will be bringing a whole pig to Daddy Hickman all scalded and scrubbed clean, then he’ll give it to Deacon Wilhite and Deacon’ll give it to Sister Wilhite and that’s when the stove will really have to work. The door where the fire goes’ll be cherry red and the stovepipe too. That big pot on the back there will be puffing like a steam engine Meshack, Shadrach, and Abednego, and I like black-eyed peas and curly pig tails and collards, hogs head hopping John—Pa don’t raise no cotton or corn and neither no potatoes, but Lord God the tomatoes. I like candied yams, spare ribs, and Sister Wilhite’s apple brown Betty with
that good hard sauce. Sister Lucy, Daddy Hickman said that time, Don’t let the you-know-whos learn how good you can cook, because they’re liable to chain you to a kitchen stove for ninety-nine years and a day. Chained? she said. I already been chained for fifteen years. I wouldn’t want to be chained to any stove, but Sister Lucy just laughed about it and looked at Deacon. He looked at Sister Wilhite sleeping in the chair. She’s really getting it, that sleep, he thought. She’s making up for lost time….

Then he must have dreamed, because Sister Georgia was there in the kitchen and she was leading him over to the red-hot stove and asking him about Meshack, Shadrach, and old bigheaded Abernathy and shaking him—

But it wasn’t Sister Georgia, it was Sister Wilhite.

“Wake up, Revern’ Bliss,” she said, “Revern’ is calling you.” And he got up sleepily and yawned and she guided him into the bedroom.

The others were still there, sitting around and talking quietly. Then he was at the bed looking once more at the bandaged face. Daddy Hickman’s eye was closed, hidden beneath the bandages and he thought,
He’s asleep
, when Sister Wilhite spoke up.

“Here’s Revern’ Bliss, Brother A.Z.” And there was Daddy Hickman’s eye, looking into his own.

“Well, there you are, Bliss,” Daddy Hickman said. “Did you have enough lemonade?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s fine. That’s very good. So what have you been doing?”

“I had a nap and I’ve been wondering….”

“Wondering, Bliss? What about?”

He hesitated, looking at Deacon Wilhite, who sat with his legs crossed, smoking. He was sorry he had said it, but it had come out.

“About that lady,” he said.

“No, Revern’ Bliss,” Sister Wilhite said from behind him. “Let’s forget about that. Now let Revern’ rest….”

“It’s all right,” Daddy Hickman said. Then the eye bored into his face. “She frightened you, didn’t she, boy?”

He bowed his head. “Yes, sir, she sure did.”

Then he tried to stop the rest from coming out, but it was too late. “She said she was my mama …”

Daddy Hickman lifted his hands quickly and lowered them back to the sheet. “Poor Bliss, poor baby boy,” he said, “you really had yourself a time….”

“Revern’,” Sister Wilhite said, “don’t you think you should rest?”

Daddy Hickman waved his hand toward Sister Wilhite.

“Is she, Daddy Hickman?” he said.

“Is she what, Bliss?”

“My mother?”

“That crazy woman? Oh, no, Bliss,” Daddy Hickman said. “You took her seriously, didn’t you? Well, I guess I might as well tell you the story, Bliss. Sit here on the bed.”

He sat, aware that the others were listening as he watched Daddy Hickman’s eye. Daddy Hickman was making a cage of his big long fingers.

“No, Bliss,” he said. “The first thing you have to understand is that this is a strange country. There’s no logic to it or to its ways. In fact, it’s been half-crazy from the beginning and it’s got so many crazy crooks and turns and blind alleys in it, that half the time a man can’t tell where he is or who he is. To tell the truth, Bliss, he can’t tell reason from
un
reason, and it’s so mixed up and confused that if we tried to straighten it out right this minute, half the folks out there running around would have to be locked up. You following me, Bliss?”

“You mean everybody is
crazy?”

“In a way of speaking, Bliss. Because the only logic and sanity is the logic and sanity of God, and down here it’s been turned wrongside out and upside down. You have to watch yourself, Bliss, in a situation like this. Otherwise you won’t know what’s sense and what’s foolishness. Or what’s to be laughed at and what’s to be cried over. Or if you’re yourself or what somebody else says you are. Now you take that woman, she yelled some wild words during our services and got everybody upset and now you don’t know what to think about her, and when you see me all wrapped up like the mummy of old King Tut or somebody like that, you think that what she said has to have some truth in it. So that’s where the confusion and the craziness comes in, Bliss. We have to feel pity for her, Bliss, that’s what we have to feel. No anger or fear—even though she upset the meeting and got a few lumps knocked on my head. And we can’t afford to believe in what she says, not that woman. Nor in what she does, either. She’s a sad woman, Bliss, and she’s dangerous too; but when you step away and look at her calmly you have to admit that whatever she did or does or whoever she is, the poor woman’s crazy as a coot.”

“She’s crazy all right,” Sister Lucy said. “Now you said something
I
can understand.”

“Oh, you can understand all right, Sister Lucy,” Daddy Hickman said, “but you don’t want to let yourself understand. You want something you can be angry about; something you can hold on to with ease and no need to trouble yourself with the nature of the true situation. You don’t want to worry your humanity.”

“Maybe so,” Sister Lucy said, “but I see that frightened child and I see you all wrapped in bandages and I can still see that woman dressed in red interrupting in the House of God, claiming that child—and I’m supposed to feel sorry for …”

“Yes,” Daddy Hickman said. “Yes, you are. Job’s God didn’t promise him any easy time, remember.”

“No, he didn’t.” Sister Lucy said. “But I never been rich or had all the blessings Job had, neither.”

“We’ll talk about that some other time,” Daddy Hickman said. “You have your own riches. You just have to recognize what they are. So Bliss, not only is that woman sad, she’s crazy as a coot. That woman has wilder dreams than a hop fiend.”

“What’s ‘hop,’ Daddy Hickman?”

“It’s dope, Bliss, drugs, and worse than gin and whiskey….”

“Oh! Has she been taking some?”

“I don’t know, Bliss; it’s just a way of speaking. The point is that the woman has wild ideas and does wild things. But because she’s from a rich family she can go around acting out any notion that comes into her mind.”

“Now that’s something I can understand,” Sister Lucy said.

“They taught that they own the world,” Sister Wilhite said.

“Just like they got it in a jug, Revern’ Bliss,” another sister said.

“Here,” Sister Lucy said, and she held out a licorice cigar.

“Thank you, Sister Lucy.”

“So listen,” Daddy Hickman said. “Let me tell Revern’ Bliss a bit about that woman. A few years back she was supposed to get married. She was going to have a big wedding and everything, but then the fellow who she was supposed to marry was killed when his buggy was struck by the Southern at the crossroads and the poor woman seemed to strip her gears….”