“It’s more than half over,” the man said, fanning with his straw hat. “You run along.”
“That’ll be fifteen cents worth then,” Haze said.
“Scram,” the man said.
“Is it a nigger?” Haze asked. “Are they doing something to a nigger?”
The man leaned off his platform and his dried-up face drew into a glare. “Where’d you get that idear?” he said.
“I don’t know,” Haze said.
“How old are you?” the man asked.
“Twelve,” Haze said. He was ten.
“Gimme that fifteen cents,” the man said, “and get in there.”
He slid the money on the platform and scrambled to get in before it was over. He went through the flap of the tent and inside there was another tent and he went through that. His face was hot through to the back of his head. All he could see were the backs of the men. He climbed up on a bench and looked over their heads. They were looking down into a lowered place where something white was lying, squirming a little, in a box lined with black cloth. For a second he thought it was a skinned animal and then he saw it was a woman. She was fat and she had a face like an ordinary woman except there was a mole on the corner of her lip, that moved when she grinned, and one on her side, that was moving too. Haze’s head became so heavy he couldn’t turn it away from her.
“Had one of themther built in ever casket,” his father, up toward the front, said, “be a heap ready to go sooner.”
He recognized the voice without looking. He fell down off the bench and scrambled out the tent. He crawled out under the side of the outside one because he didn’t want to pass the barker. He got in the back of a truck and sat down in the far corner of it. The carnival was making a tin roar outside.
His mother was standing by the washpot in the yard, looking at him, when he got home. She wore black all the time and her dresses were longer than other women’s. She was standing there straight, looking at him. He slid behind a tree and got out of her view, but in a few minutes he could feel her watching him through the tree. He saw the lowered place and the casket again and a thin woman in the casket who was too long for it. Her head stuck up at one end and her knees were raised to make her fit. She had a cross-shaped face and hair pulled close to her head, and she was twisting and trying to cover herself while the men looked down. He stood flat against the tree, dry-throated. She left the wash pot and come toward him with a stick. She said, “What you seen?”
“What you seen?” she said.
“What you seen?” she said, using the same tone of voice all the time. She hit him across the legs with the stick, but he was like part of the tree. “Jesus died to redeem you,” she said.
“I never ast Him,” he muttered.
She didn’t hit him again but she stood looking at him, shutmouthed, and he forgot the guilt of the tent for the nameless unplaced guilt that was in him. In a minute she threw the stick away from her and went back to the wash pot, shutmouthed.
The next day he took his shoes in secret out into the woods. He never wore them except for revivals and in winter. He took them out of the box and filled the bottoms of them with stones and small rocks and then he put them on. He laced them up tight and walked in them through the woods what he knew to be a mile, until he came to a creek, and then he sat down and took them off and eased his feet in the wet sand. He thought, that ought to satisfy Him. Nothing happened. If a stone had fallen he would have taken it for a sign. After a while he drew his feet out the sand and let them dry, and then he put the shoes on again with the rocks still in them and he walked a half mile back before he took them off.
The Heart of the Park (1949)
ENOCH EMERY knew when he woke up that today the person he could show it to was going to come. He knew by his blood. He had wise blood like his daddy.
At two o’clock that afternoon, he greeted the second-shift gate guard. “You ain’t but only fifteen minutes late,” he said irritably. “But I stayed. I could of went on but I stayed.” He wore a green uniform with yellow piping on the neck and sleeves and a yellow stripe down the outside of each leg. The second-shift guard, a boy with a jutting shale-textured face and a toothpick in his mouth, wore the same. The gate they were standing by was made of iron bars and the concrete arch that held it was fashioned to look like two trees; branches curved to form the top of it where twisted letters said, CITY FOREST PARK. The second-shift guard leaned against one of the trunks and began prodding between his teeth with the pick.
“Ever day,” Enoch complained; “look like ever day I lose fifteen good minutes standing here waiting on you.”
Every day when he got off duty, he went into the park and every day when he went in, he did the same things. He went first to the swimming pool. He was afraid of the water but he liked to sit up on the bank above it if there were any women in the pool, and watch them. There was one woman who came every Monday who wore a bathing suit that was split on each hip. At first he thought she didn’t know it, and instead of watching openly on the bank, he had crawled into some bushes, snickering to himself and had watched from there. There had been no one else in the pool—the crowds didn’t come until four o’clock—to tell her about the split and she had splashed around in the water and then lain up on the edge of the pool asleep for almost an hour, all the time without suspecting there was somebody in the bushes looking at where she came out of the suit. Then on another day when he stopped a little later, he saw three women, all with their suits split, the pool full of people, and nobody paying them any mind. That was how the city was—always surprising him. He visited a whore every time he had two dollars to spare but he was continually being shocked by the looseness he saw in the open. He crawled into the bushes out of a sense of propriety. Very often the women would pull the suit straps down off their shoulders and lie stretched out.
The park was the heart of the city. He had come to the city—with a knowing in his blood—he had established himself at the heart of it. Every day he looked at the heart of it; every day; and he was so stunned and awed and overwhelmed that just to think about it made him sweat. There was something, in the center of the park, that he had discovered. It was a mystery, although it was right there in a glass case for everybody to see and there was a typewritten card telling all about it right there. But there was something the card couldn’t say and what it couldn’t say was inside him, a terrible knowledge without any words to it, a terrible knowledge like a big nerve growing inside him. He could not show the mystery to just anybody; but he had to show it to somebody. Who he had to show it to was a special person. This person could not be from the city but he didn’t know why. He knew he would know him when he saw him and he knew that he would have to see him soon or the nerve inside him would grow so big that he would be forced to rob a bank or jump on a woman or drive a stolen car into the side of a building. His blood all morning had been saying the person would come today.
He left the second-shift guard and approached the pool from a discreet footpath that led behind the ladies’ end of the bath house to a small clearing where the entire pool could be seen at once. There was nobody in it—the water was bottle-green and motionless—but he saw, coming up the other side and heading for the bath house, the woman with the two little boys. She came every other day or so and brought the two children. She would go in the water with them and swim down the pool and then she would lie up on the side in the sun. She had a stained white bathing suit that fit her like a sack, and Enoch had watched her with pleasure on several occasions. He moved from the clearing up a slope to some abelia bushes. There was a nice tunnel under them and he crawled into it until he came to a slightly wider place where he was accustomed to sit. He settled himself and adjusted the abelia so that he could see through it properly. His face was always very red in the bushes. Anyone who parted the abelia sprigs at just that place would think he saw a devil and would fall down the slope and into the poo!. The woman and the two little boys entered the bath house. Enoch neve
r wept immediately to the dark secret center of the park. That was the peak of the afternoon. The other things he did built up to it and they had become very formal and necessary. When he left the bushes, he would go to the FROSTY BOTTLE, a hot-dog stand in the shape of an Orange Crush with frost painted in blue around the top of it. Here he would have a chocolate malted milkshake and would make a few suggestive remarks to the waitress whom he believed to be secretly in love with him. After that he would go to see the animals. They were in a long set of steel cages like Alcatraz Penitentiary in the movies. The cages were electrically heated in the winter and air-conditioned in the summer and there were six men hired to wait on the animals and feed them T-bone steaks. The animals didn’t do anything but lie around. Enoch watched them every day, full of awe and hate. Then he went there.
The two little boys ran out the bath house and dove into the water, and simultaneously a grating noise issued from the driveway on the other side of the pool. Enoch’s head pierced out the bushes. He saw a high rat-colored car passing, which sounded as if its motor were dragging out the back. The car passed and he could hear it rattle around the turn in the drive-way. He listened carefully, trying to hear if it would stop. The noise receded and then gradually grew louder. The car passed again. Enoch saw this time that there was only one person in it, a man. The sound of it died away again and then grew louder. The car carne around a third time and stopped almost directly opposite Enoch across the pool. The man in the car looked out the window and down the grass slope to the water where the two little boys were splashing and screaming. Enoch’s head was as far out the bushes as it could come and he was squinting. The door by the man was tied on with a rope. The man got out the other door and walked in front of the car and came halfway down the slope to the pool. He stood there a minute as if he were looking for somebody and then he sat down stiffly on the grass. He had on a suit that looked as if it had glare in it. He sat with his knees drawn up. “Well, I’ll be dog,” Enoch said. “Well, I’ll be dog.”
He began crawling out of the bushes immediately, his heart moving so fast it was like one of those motorcycles at fairs that the fellow drives around the walls of a pit. He even remembered the man’s name—Mr. Hazel Weaver. In a second he appeared on all fours at the end of the abelia and looked across the pool. The blue figure was still sitting there in the same position. He had the look of being held there, like by an invisible hand, like if the hand lifted up, the figure would spring across the pool in one leap without the expression on his face changing once.
The woman came out the bath house and went straight to the diving board. She spread her arms out and began to bounce, making a big heavy flapping sound with the board. Then suddenly she swirled backwards and disappeared below the water. Mr. Hazel Weaver’s head turned very slowly, following her down the pool.
Enoch got up and went down the path behind the bath house. He came stealthily out on the other side and started walking toward Haze. He stayed on the top of the slope, moving softly in the grass just off the sidewalk, and making no noise. When he was directly behind him, he sat down on the edge of the sidewalk. If his arms had been ten feet long, he could have put his hands on Haze’s shoulders. He studied him quietly.
The woman was climbing out the pool, chinning herself up on the side. First her face appeared, long and cadaverous, with a bandage-like bathing cap coming down almost to her eyes, and sharp teeth protruding from her mouth. Then she rose on her hands until a large foot and leg came up from behind her and another on the other side and she was out, squatting there, panting. She stood up loosely and shook herself, and stamped in the water dripping off her. She was facing them and she grinned. Enoch could see a part of Hazel Weaver’s face watching the woman. It didn’t grin in return but it kept on watching her as she padded over to a spot of sun almost directly under where they were sitting. Enoch had to move a little to see.
The woman sat down in the spot of sun and took off her bathing cap. Her hair was short and matted and all sorts of colors, from deep rust to a polluted lemon yellow. She shook her head and then she looked up at Hazel Weaver again, grinning through her pointed teeth. She stretched herself out in the spot of sun, raising her knees and settling her backbone down against the concrete. The two little boys, at the other end of the water, were knocking each other’s heads against the side of the pool. She settled herself until she was flat against the concrete and then she reached up and pulled the bathing suit straps off her shoulders.
“King Jesus!” Enoch whispered and before he could get his eyes off the woman, Haze Weaver had sprung up and was almost to his car. The woman was sitting straight up with the suit half off her in front, and Enoch was looking both ways at once. He wrenched his attention loose from the woman and darted after Hazel Weaver.
“Wait on me!” he shouted and waved his arms in front of the car which was already rattling and starting to go. Hazel Weaver cut off the motor. His face behind the windshield was sour and froglike; it looked like it had a shout closed up in it, it looked like one of those closet doors in gangster pictures where there is somebody tied to a chair behind it with a towel in his mouth.
“Well,” Enoch said, “I declare if it ain’t Hazel Weaver. How are you, Hazel?”
“The guard said I’d find you at the swimming pool,” Hazel Weaver said. “He said you hid in the bushes and watched the swimming.”
Enoch blushed. “I allus have admired swimming,” he said. Then he stuck his head farther through the winelow. “You were looking for me?” he exclaimed.
“Those people,” Haze said, “those people named Moats—did she tell you where they lived?”
Enoch didn’t seem to hear. “You came out here special to see me?” he said.
“Asa and Sabbath Moats—she gave you the peeler. Did she tell you where they lived?”
Enoch eased his head out the car. He opened the door and climbed in beside Haze. For a minute he only looked at him, wetting his lips. Then he whispered, “I got to show you something.”
“I’m looking for those people,” Haze said. “I got to see that man. Did she tell you where they live?”
“I got to show you this thing,” Enoch said. “I got to show it to you, here, this afternoon. I got to.” He gripped Hazel Weaver’s arm and Hazel Weaver shook him off.
“Did she tell you where they live?” he said again.
Enoch kept wetting his lips. They were pale except for his fever blister, which was purple. “Sho,” he said. “Ain’t she invited me to come see her and bring my harp? I got to show you this thing,” he said, “then I’ll tell you.”
“What thing?” Haze muttered.
“This thing I got to show you,” Enoch said. “Drive straight on ahead and I’ll tell you where to stop.”
“I don’t want to see anything of yours,” Hazel Weaver said. “I got to have that address.”
“I won’t be able to remember it unless you come,” Enoch said. He didn’t look at Hazel Weaver. He looked out the window. In a minute the car started. Enoch’s blood was beating fast. He knew he had to go to the FROSTY BOTTLE and the zoo before there, and he foresaw a terrible struggle with Hazel Weaver. He would have to get him there, even if he had to hit him over the head with a rock, and carry him on his back right up to it.
Enoch’s brain was divided into two parts. The part in communication with his blood did the figuring but it never said anything in words. The other part was stocked up with all kinds of words and phrases. While the first part was figuring how to get Hazel Weaver through the FROSTY BOTTLE and the zoo, the second inquired, “Where’d you git thisyer fine car? You ought to paint you some signs on the outside it, like ‘step-in, baby’—I seen one with that on it, then I seen another with…”
Hazel Weaver’s face might have been cut out the side of a rock.
“My daddy once owned a yeller Ford automobile he won on a ticket,” Enoch murmured. “It had a roll-up top and two arials and a squirril tail all come with it. He swapped it off. Stop here! S
top here!” he yelled—they were passing the FROSTY BOTTLE.
“Where is it?” Hazel Weaver said as soon as they were inside. They were in a dark room with a counter across the back of it and brown stools like toadstools in front of the counter. On the wall facing the door there was a large advertisement for ice cream, showing a cow dressed like a housewife.
“It ain’t here,” Enoch said. “We have to stop here on the way and get something to eat. What you want?”
“Nothing,” Haze muttered. He stood stiffly in the middle of the room with his hands in his pockets and his neck drawn down inside his collar.
“Well, sit down,” Enoch said. “I have to have a little drink.”
Something stirred behind the counter and a woman with bobbed hair like a man’s got up from a chair where she had been reading the newspaper, and came forward. She looked sourly at Enoch. She had on a once-white uniform clotted with brown stains. “What you want?” she said in a loud voice, leaning close to his ear as if he were deaf. She had a man’s face and big muscled arms.
“I want a chocolate malted milkshake, baby girl,” Enoch said softly. “I want a lot of ice cream in it.”
She turned fiercely from him and glared at Haze.
“He says he don’t want nothing but to sit down and look at you for a while,” Enoch said. “He ain’t hungry but for just to see you.”
Haze looked woodenly at the woman and she turned her back on him and began mixing the milkshake. He sat down on the last stool in the row and started cracking his knuckles.
Enoch watched him carefully. “I reckon you done changed some,” he murmured after a few minutes.
Haze’s neck jerked around and he started forward. “Give me those people’s address. Right now,” he said.
It came to Enoch in an instant. The police. His face was suddenly suffused with secret knowledge. “I reckon you ain’t as uppity as you used to be,” he said. “I reckon maybe,” he said, “you ain’t got so much cause now as you had then.” Stole theter automobile, he thought.