Three Days Before the Shooting ... (57 page)

Yes, sir, I said.

That’s right, he said, many times you will have to preach goodness out of badness, little boy. Yes, and hope out of hopelessness. God made the world
and gave it a chance, and when it’s bad we have to remember that it’s still his plan for it to be redeemed through the striving of a few good women and men. So come on, we’re going to walk down there and take us a good look. We’re going to do it in style too, with some popcorn and peanuts and some Cracker Jacks and candy bars. You might as well get some idea of what you will have to fight against, because I don’t believe you can really lead folks if you never have to face up to any of the temptations they face. Christ had to put on the flesh, Bliss; you understand? And I was a sinner man too.

Yes, sir.

But wait here a second, Bliss—

He looked deep into me and I felt a tremor. Sir? I said.

He hesitated, his eyes becoming sad. Then:

Now don’t think this is going to become a habit, Bliss. I know you’re going to like being there looking in the dark, even though you have to climb those filthy, piss-soaked stairs to get there. Oh, yes, you’re going to enjoy looking at the pictures just about like I used to enjoy being up there on the bandstand playing music for folks to enjoy themselves to, back there in the olden days before I was called. Yes, you’re going to like looking at the pictures, most likely you’re going to be bug-eyed with the excitement; but I’m telling you right now that it’s one of those pleasures we preachers have to leave to other folks. And I’ll tell you why, little preacher: Too much looking at those pictures is going to have a lot of folks raising a crop of confusion. The picture show hasn’t been here but a short while but I can see it coming already. Because folks are getting themselves mixed up with those shadows spread out against the wall, with things that are no more than some smoke drifting up from hell or dreams pouring out of a bottle. So they lose touch with who they’re supposed to be, Bliss. They forget to be what the Book tells them they were meant to be—and that’s in God’s
own
image. One of the preacher’s jobs, his main job, Bliss, is to help folks find themselves and to keep reminding them to remember who they are. So you see, those pictures can go against our purpose. If they look at those shows too often they’ll get all mixed up with so many of those shadows that they’ll lose their way. They won’t know who they
are
, is what I mean. So you see, if we start going to the picture show all the time, folks will think we’re going to the Devil and backsliding from what we preach. We have to set them an example, Bliss; so we’re going in there for the first and last time—

Now don’t look at me like that; I know it seems like every time a preacher turns around there’s something else he has to give up. But, Bliss, there’s a benefit in it too, because pretty soon he develops control over himself.
Self-control’s
the word, Bliss. That’s right, you develop discipline, and you live so you can feel the grain of things and you learn to taste the sweet that’s in the bitter and the bitter in the sweet too and you live more deeply and earnestly. A man doesn’t live just one life, Bliss, he lives more lives than a cat—only he
doesn’t like to face it because the bitter is there nine-times-nine, right along with the sweet that he wants all the time. So he forgets.

You too, Daddy Hickman? I said. Do you have more than one life?

He smiled down at me.

Me too, Bliss, he said. Me too.

But how? How can they have nine lives and not know it?

They forget and wander on, Bliss. But let’s us leave this now and go face up to those shadows. Maybe the Master meant for them to show us some of the many sides of the old good-bad. I know, Bliss, you don’t understand that, but you will, boy. You will….

Ah, but by then Body had brought the news:

We were sitting on the porch-edge eating peanuts, goober peas, as Deacon Wilhite called them. Discarded hulls littered the ground below the contented dangling of our feet. We were barefoot—I was allowed to be that day—and in overalls. A flock of sparrows rested on the strands of electric wire across the unpaved road, darting down from time to time and sending up little clouds of dust. Body was humming as he chewed. Except in church we were always together, he was my right hand.

Body said.

Bliss, you see that thing they all talking about?

Who, I said.

All the kids. You seen it yet?

Seen what, Body? Why do you always start preaching before you state your text?

You the preacher, ain’t you? Look like to me a preacher’d
know
what a man is talking about.

I looked at him hard and he grinned, trying to keep his face straight.

You ought to know where all the words come from, even before anybody starts to talk. Preachers is supposed to see visions and things, ain’t they?

Now don’t start playing around with God’s work, I warned him. Like Daddy Hickman says, everybody has to die and pay their bills…. Have I seen what?

That thing Sammy Leatherman’s got to play with. It makes pictures.

No, I haven’t. You mean a kodak? I’ve seen one of those. Daddy Hickman has him a big one. Made like a box with little pearly glass windows in it and one round one, like an eye.

He shook his head. I put down the peanuts and fitted my fingers together. I said,

Here’s the roof
Here’s the steeple,
Open it up and see
the people
.

Body sneered. That steeple’s got dirt under those fingernail shingles, why don’t you wash your hands? Besides, you think I’m a baby? Lots of folks have those kodaks, this here is something different.

Well, what is it then?

I don’t rightly know, he said. I just heard some guys talking about it down at the liberty stable. But they was white and I didn’t want to ask them any questions. I rather be ignorant than ask them anything.

So why didn’t you ask Sammy, he ain’t white.

Naw, he a Jew; but he looks white, and sometimes he acts white too. Specially when he’s with some of those white guys who think they so fine.

He always talks to me, I said. Calls me
rabbi
.

The doubt came into Body’s eyes like a think cloud. He frowned. He was my right hand and I could feel his doubt.

You look white too, Rev, he said. Why you let him call you “rabbit”?

I looked away, toward the dusting birds. They were ruffled out and fluttering.

Body, cain’t you hear? I said he calls me
rabbi
.

Oh, it sounds like my little brother trying to spell rabbit. Re-abbi-tee,
rabbit
, he say. He a fool, man.

He sure is, he’s your brother, ain’t he?

Don’t start that now, you a preacher, remember? How come you let Sammy play the dozens with you, you want to be white?

NO! And Sammy ain’t white and that’s not playing the dozens, it means “preacher” in Jew talk. Quit acting a fool. What kind of box is this you heard them talking about?

His lids came down low and his eyes hid when I tried to look for the truth in them.

All I know is that it makes pictures, Body said.

It makes pictures and not a kodak?

That’s right, Rev.

I chewed awhile and thought of all the things I had heard about but hadn’t seen; airplanes and angels and Stutz Bearcats and Stanley Steamers. Then I thought I had it:

It makes pictures but not a kodak? So maybe he’s got hold to one of those big ones like they use to take your picture at the carnival. You know, the kind they take you out of wet and you have to wait around until you dry….

Body shook his head. No, Rev, this here is something different. This is something they say you have to be in the dark to see. These folks come out already dry.

You mean a nickelodeon? I heard them talking about one of those when we were out there preaching in Denver.

I don’t think so, Rev, but maybe that’s what they meant. But, man, how’s
Sammy doing to get something like that just to play with? A thing like that must cost about a zillion dollars.

I don’t know, I said. But remember, his papa has that grocery store. Besides, Sammy’s so smart he might’ve made him one, man.

That’s right, he a Jew, ain’t he? He talk much of that Jew talk to you, Bliss?

No, how could he when I can’t talk back? I wish you would remember some more about that box. It’s probably like the magic lantern I seen one time—except in those the pictures don’t move.

I hulled seven peanuts and chewed them. I could smell the fresh roasted smell and I tried to imagine what Body had heard while his voice flowed on about the Jews. Somehow I seemed to remember Daddy Hickman describing something similar but it kept sliding away from me, like when you bob for apples floating in a tub.

Say, Rev, Body said.

What?

Can’t you hear? I said do you remember in the Bible where it tells about Samson and it says he had him a boy to lead him up to the wall so he could shake that building down?

That’s right, I said.

Well, answer me this, you think that little boy got killed?

Killed
, I said, who killed him?

What I mean is, do you think that maybe old Samson forgot to tell that boy what he was fixing to do?

I cut my eyes over at Body. I didn’t like the idea. Once Daddy Hickman had said:
Bliss, you must be a hero just like that little lad who led blind Samson to the wall, because a great many grown folks are blind and have to be led toward the light…
. The question worried me and I could hear Body popping peanut hulls. I was looking up at the ceiling of the porch where dirt daubers were building a nest.

Look, Body, I said, I truly don’t feel like working today. Because, you see, while you’re out playing cowboy and acting the fool and going on cotton picks and chunking rocks at trains and things like that,
I
have to always be preaching and praying and studying my Bible….

What’s all that got to do with what I asked you? You want somebody to cry for you?

No, I said, but right now it looks to you like we just eating these here good goobers and talking together and watching those sparrows out there beating up dust in the road—but I’m really resting from my pastoral duties, just like Daddy Hickman does; understand? So now I just want to think some more about this box that Sammy Leatherman’s supposed to have. How did those white boys say it looked?

Man, Body said, you just like a bulldog with a bone when you start to
thinking about something. I done told you, they say Sammy got him a machine that has people in it…

People
in it? Watch out there, Body….

He rolled over, looking at me now.

Sho, Rev—folks. They say he point it at the wall and stands back in the dark cranking on a handle and they come out and move around. Just like a gang of ghosts, man.

Like ghosts?

Yeah, Body said. That’s how he can keep so many of ‘em in that machine. Ghosts don’t wear no shoes so you can jam a heap of ‘em in a tight place.

Body, you expect me to believe that?

He frowned. Now listen here, Bliss, I had done left that box because I wanted to talk about Samson and you didn’t want to. So don’t come trying to call me no lie….

Forget about Samson, man. Where does he have this thing?

In his daddy’s basement under the grocery store. You got a nickel?

I looked far down the street, past the chinaberry trees. Some little kids were pushing a big one on a racer made out of a board and some baby-buggy wheels. He was guiding it with a rope like a team of horses, with them drawn all up in a knot, pushing.

I said: Man, we ought to go somewhere and roast these goober peas some more. That would make them even better. Maybe Sister Judson would do it for us. She makes some fine fried pies too, and she just might be baking today; I have to remember to pray for her tonight, she’s a nice lady. What’s a nickel got to do with it?

‘Cause Sammy charges you two cents to see them come out and move.

I looked at him. Body had a round face with laughing eyes and a smooth black skin. He was a head taller than me and very strong. He saw me doubting and grinned. He was going to tease.

They
move
, man, he said. I swear on my grandmother that they come out of that machine and
move
. And that ain’t all: They walk and talk—only you can’t hear what they say—and they dance and fist-fight and shoot and stab one another; and sometimes they even kiss, but not too much. And they drink liquor, man, and go staggering all around and they hit one another in the face with pies.

They sound like folks, all right. I said.

They folks all right, Body said. And they ride hosses and fight some Indians and all stuff like that. They say it’s real nice, Bliss. It’s really keen.