Wise Blood (4 page)

“Listen folks,” he said, “one at a time, there’s plenty to go around, just don’t push,
a half a dozen peeled potatoes to the first person stepping up to buy.” He got back
behind the card table quietly and started holding up the peeler boxes. “Step on up,
plenty to go around,” he said, “no need to crowd.”

Haze didn’t open his tract. He looked at the outside of it and then he tore it across.
He put the two pieces together and tore them across again. He kept re-stacking the
pieces and tearing them again until he had a little handful of confetti. He turned
his hand over and let the shredded leaflet sprinkle to the ground. Then he looked
up and saw the blind man’s child not three feet away, watching him. Her mouth was
open and her eyes glittered on him like two chips of green bottle glass. She had a
white gunny sack hung over her shoulder. Haze scowled and began rubbing his sticky
hands on his pants.

“I seen you,” she said. Then she moved quickly over to where the blind man was standing
now, beside the card table, and turned her head and looked at Haze from there. Most
of the people had moved off.

The peeler man leaned over the card table and said, “Hey!” to the blind man. “I reckon
that showed you. Trying to horn in.”

“Lookerhere,” Enoch Emery said, “I ain’t got but a dollar sixteen cent but I…”

“Yah,” the man said, “I reckon that’ll show you you can’t muscle in on me. Sold eight
peelers, sold…”

“Give me one of them,” the blind man’s child said, pointing to the peelers.

“Hanh,” he said.

She was untying a handkerchief. She untied two fifty-cent pieces out of the knotted
corner of it. “Give me one of them,” she said, holding out the money.

The man eyed it with his mouth hiked to one side. “A buck fifty, sister,” he said.

She pulled her hand in quickly and all at once glared at Hazel Motes as if he had
made a noise at her. The blind man was moving on. She stood a second glaring at Haze,
and then she turned and followed the blind man. Haze started.

“Listen,” Enoch Emery said, “I ain’t got but a dollar sixteen cent and I want me one
of them…”

“You can keep it,” the man said, taking the bucket off the card table. “This ain’t
no cut-rate joint.”

Haze could see the blind man moving down the street some distance away. He stood staring
after him, jerking his hands in and out of his pockets as if he were trying to move
forward and backward at the same time. Then suddenly he thrust two dollars at the
man selling peelers and snatched a box off the card table and started running down
the street. In a second Enoch Emery was panting at his elbow. “My, I reckon you got
a heap of money,” Enoch Emery said.

Haze saw the child catch up with the blind man and take him by the elbow. They were
about a block ahead of him. He slowed down some and saw Enoch Emery there. Enoch had
on a yellowish white suit and a pinkish white shirt and his tie was the color of green
peas. He was smiling. He looked like a friendly hound dog with light mange. “How long
you been here?” he inquired.

“Two days,” Haze muttered.

“I been here two months,” Enoch said. “I work for the city. Where you work?”

“Not working,” Haze said.

“That’s too bad,” Enoch said. “I work for the city.” He skipped a step to get in line
with Haze, then he said, “I’m eighteen year old and I ain’t been here but two months
and I already work for the city.”

“That’s fine,” Haze said. He pulled his hat down farther on the side Enoch Emery was
on and walked very fast. The blind man up ahead began to make mock bows to the right
and left.

“I didn’t ketch your name good,” Enoch said.

Haze said his name.

“You look like you might be follerin’ them hicks,” Enoch remarked. “You go in for
a lot of Jesus business?”

“No,” Haze said.

“No, me neither, not much,” Enoch agreed. “I went to thisyer Rodemill Boys’ Bible
Academy for four weeks. Thisyer woman that traded me from my daddy she sent me. She
was a Welfare woman. Jesus, four weeks and I thought I was going to be sanctified
crazy.”

Haze walked to the end of the block and Enoch stayed at his elbow, panting and talking.
When Haze started across the street, Enoch yelled, “Don’t you see theter light! That
means you got to wait!” A cop blew a whistle and a car blasted its horn and stopped
short. Haze went on across, keeping his eyes on the blind man in the middle of the
block. The policeman kept on blowing his whistle. He crossed the street to where Haze
was and stopped him. He had a thin face and oval-shaped yellow eyes.

“You know what that little thing hanging up there is for?” he asked, pointing to the
traffic light over the intersection.

“I didn’t see it,” Haze said.

The policeman looked at him without saying anything. A few people stopped. He rolled
his eyes at them. “Maybe you thought the red ones was for white folks and the green
ones for niggers,” he said.

“Yeah I thought that,” Haze said. “Take your hand off me.”

The policeman took his hand off and put it on his hip. He backed one step away and
said, “You tell all your friends about these lights. Red is to stop, green is to go—men
and women, white folks and niggers, all go on the same light. You tell all your friends
so when they come to town, they’ll know.” The people laughed.

“I’ll look after him,” Enoch Emery said, pushing in by the policeman. “He ain’t been
here but only two days. I’ll look after him.”

“How long you been here?” the cop asked.

“I was born and raised here,” Enoch said. “This is my ol’ home town. I’ll take care
of him for you. Hey wait!” he yelled at Haze. “Wait on me!” He pushed out of the crowd
and caught up with him. “I reckon I saved you that time,” he said.

“I’m obliged,” Haze said.

“It wasn’t nothing,” Enoch said. “Whyn’t we go in Walgreen’s and get us a soda? Ain’t
no night clubs open this early.”

“I don’t like drug stores,” Haze said. “Good-by.”

“That’s all right,” Enoch said. “I reckon I’ll go along and keep you company for a
while.” He looked up ahead at the blind man and the child and said, “I sho wouldn’t
want to get messed up with no hicks this time of night, particularly the Jesus kind.
I done had enough of them myself. Thisyer Welfare woman that traded me from my daddy
didn’t do nothing but pray. Me and daddy we moved around with a sawmill where we worked
and it set up outside Boonville one summer and here come thisyer woman.” He caught
hold of Haze’s coat. “Only objection I got to Taulkinham is there’s too many people
on the streets,” he said confidentially. “Look like all they want to do is knock you
down—well here she come and I reckon she took a fancy to me. I was twelve year old
and I could sing some hymns good I learnt off a nigger. So here she comes taking a
fancy to me and traded me off my daddy and took me to Boonville to live with her.
She had a brick house but it was Jesus all day long.” A little man lost in a pair
of faded overalls jostled him. “Whyn’t you look wher you going?” Enoch growled.

The little man stopped and raised his arm in a vicious gesture and a nasty-dog look
came on his face. “Who you tellin’ what?” he snarled.

“You see,” Enoch said, jumping to catch up with Haze, “all they want to do is knock
you down. I ain’t never been to such a unfriendly place before. Even with that woman.
I stayed with her for two months in that house of hers,” he went on, “and then come
fall she sent me to the Rodemill Boys’ Bible Academy and I thought that sho was going
to be some relief. This woman was hard to get along with—she wasn’t old, I reckon
she was forty year old—but she sho was ugly. She had theseyer brown glasses and her
hair was so thin it looked like ham gravy trickling over her skull. I thought it was
going to be some certain relief to get to theter Academy. I had run away oncet on
her and she got me back and come to find out she had papers on me and she could send
me to the penitentiary if I didn’t stay with her so I sho was glad to get to theter
Academy. You ever been to a academy?”

Haze didn’t seem to hear the question.

“Well, it won’t no relief,” Enoch said. “Good Jesus, it won’t no relief. I run away
from there after four weeks and durn if she didn’t get me back and brought me to that
house of hers again. I got out though.” He waited a minute. “You want to know how?”

After a second he said, “I scared hell out of that woman, that’s how. I studied on
it and studied on it. I even prayed. I said, ‘Jesus, show me the way to get out of
here without killing thisyer woman and getting sent to the penitentiary,’ and durn
if He didn’t. I got up one morning at just daylight and I went in her room without
my pants on and pulled the sheet off her and giver a heart attact. Then I went back
to my daddy and we ain’t seen hide of her since.

“Your jaw just crawls,” he observed, watching the side of Haze’s face. “You don’t
never laugh. I wouldn’t be surprised if you wasn’t a real wealthy man.”

Haze turned down a side street. The blind man and the girl were on the corner a block
ahead. “Well, I reckon we going to ketch up with them after all,” Enoch said. “You
know many people here?”

“No,” Haze said.

“You ain’t gonna know none neither. This is one more hard place to make friends in.
I been here two months and I don’t know nobody. Look like all they want to do is knock
you down. I reckon you got a right heap of money,” he said. “I ain’t got none. Had,
I’d sho know what to do with it.” The blind man and his child stopped on the corner
and turned up the left side of the street. “We ketchin’ up,” he said. “I bet we’ll
be at some meeting singing hymns with her and her daddy if we don’t watch out.”

Up in the next block there was a large building with columns and a dome. The blind
man and the girl were going toward it. There was a car parked in every space around
the building and on the other side of the street and up and down the streets near
it. “That ain’t no picture show,” Enoch said. The blind man and the girl turned up
the steps to the building. The steps went all the way across the front, and on either
side there were stone lions sitting on pedestals. “Ain’t no church,” Enoch said. Haze
stopped at the steps. He looked as if he were trying to settle his face into an expression.
He pulled the black hat forward at a sharp angle and started toward the two, who had
sat down in the corner by one of the lions. He came up to where the blind man was
without saying anything and stood leaning forward in front of him as if he were trying
to see through the black glasses. The child stared at him.

The blind man’s mouth thinned slightly. “I can smell the sin on your breath,” he said.

Haze drew back.

“What’d you follow me for?”

“I never followed you,” Haze said.

“She said you were following,” the blind man said, jerking his thumb in the direction
of the child.

“I ain’t followed you,” Haze said. He felt the peeler box in his hand and looked at
the girl. Her black knitted cap made a straight line across her forehead. She grinned
suddenly and then quickly drew her expression back together as if she smelled something
bad. “I ain’t followed you nowhere,” Haze said. “I followed her.” He stuck the peeler
out at her.

At first she looked as if she were going to grab it, but she didn’t. “I don’t want
that thing,” she said. “What you think I want with that thing? Take it. It ain’t mine.
I don’t want it!”

“You take it,” the blind man said. “You put it in your sack and shut up before I hit
you.”

Haze thrust the peeler at her again.

“I won’t have it,” she muttered.

“You take it like I told you,” the blind man said. “He never followed you.”

She took it and shoved it in the sack where the tracts were. “It ain’t mine,” she
said. “I got it but it ain’t mine.”

“I followed her to say I ain’t beholden for none of her fast eye like she gave me
back there,” Haze said, looking at the blind man.

“What you mean?” she shouted. “I never looked at you with no fast eye. I only watched
you tearing up that tract. He tore it up in little pieces,” she said, pushing the
blind man’s shoulder. “He tore it up and sprinkled it all over the ground like salt
and wiped his hands on his pants.”

“He followed me,” the blind man said. “Nobody would follow you. I can hear the urge
for Jesus in his voice.”

“Jesus,” Haze muttered. “My Jesus.” He sat down by the girl’s leg and set his hand
on the step next to her foot. She had on sneakers and black cotton stockings.

“Listen at him cursing,” she said in a low tone. “He never followed you, Papa.”

The blind man gave his edgy laugh. “Listen boy,” he said, “you can’t run away from
Jesus. Jesus is a fact.”

“I know a whole heap about Jesus,” Enoch said. “I attended thisyer Rodemill Boys’
Bible Academy that a woman sent me to. If it’s anything you want to know about Jesus,
just ast me.” He had got up on the lion’s back and he was sitting there sideways,
cross-legged.

“I come a long way,” Haze said, “since I would believe anything. I come halfway around
the world.”

“Me too,” Enoch Emery said.

“You ain’t come so far that you could keep from following me,” the blind man said.
He reached out suddenly and his hands covered Haze’s face. For a second Haze didn’t
move or make any sound. Then he knocked the hands off.

“Quit it,” he said in a faint voice. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“My daddy looks just like Jesus,” Enoch remarked from the lion’s back. “His hair hangs
to his shoulders. Only difference is he’s got a scar acrost his chin. I ain’t never
seen who my mother is.”

“Some preacher has left his mark on you,” the blind man said with a kind of snicker.
“Did you follow for me to take it off or give you another one?”

“Listen here, there’s nothing for your pain but Jesus,” the child said suddenly. She
tapped Haze on the shoulder. He sat there with his black hat tilted forward over his
face. “Listen,” she said in a louder voice, “this here man and woman killed this little
baby. It was her own child but it was ugly and she never give it any love. This child
had Jesus and this woman didn’t have nothing but good looks and a man she was living
in sin with. She sent the child away and it come back and she sent it away again and
it come back again and ever’ time she sent it away, it come back to where her and
this man was living in sin. They strangled it with a silk stocking and hung it up
in the chimney. It didn’t give her any peace after that, though. Everything she looked
at was that child. Jesus made it beautiful to haunt her. She couldn’t lie with that
man without she saw it, staring through the chimney at her, shining through the brick
in the middle of the night.”