Child of God (6 page)

What’s your plans now? said the sheriff.

Go home, said Ballard.

And what then. What sort of meanness have you got laid out for next.

I ain’t got any laid out.

I figure you ought to give us a clue. Make it more fair. Let’s see: failure to comply with a court order, public disturbance, assault and battery, public drunk, rape. I guess murder is next on the list ain’t it? Or what things is it you’ve done that we ain’t found out yet.

I ain’t done nothin, Ballard said. You just got it in for me.

The sheriff had his arms folded and he was rocking slightly on his heels, studying the sullen reprobate before him. Well, he said. I guess you better get your ass on home. These people here in town won’t put up with your shit.

I ain’t ast nothin from nobody in this chickenshit town.

You better get your ass on home, Ballard.

Ain’t a goddamn thing keepin me here cept you goin on at the mouth.

The sheriff stepped from in front of him. Ballard went on by and up the street. About halfway along the block he looked back. The sheriff was still watching him.

You kindly got henhouse ways yourself, Sheriff, he said.

H
E HAD THAT RIFLE FROM
when he was just almost a boy. He worked for old man Whaley settin fenceposts at eight cents a post to buy it. Told me he quit midmornin right in the middle of the field the day he got enough money. I don’t remember what he give for it but I think it come to over seven hundred posts.

I’ll say one thing. He could by god shoot it. Hit anything he could see. I seen him shoot a spider out of a web in the top of a big redoak one time and we was far from the tree as from here to the road yonder.

They run him off out at the fair one time. Wouldn’t let him shoot no more.

I remember back a number of years, talkin about
fairs, they had a old boy come through would shoot live pigeons with ye. Him with a rifle and you with a shotgun. Or anything else. He must of had a truckload of pigeons. Had a boy out in the middle of a field with a crateful and he’d holler and the boy’d let one slip and he’d raise his rifle and blam, he’d dust it. Misters, he could strictly make the feathers fly. We’d never seen the like of shootin. They was a bunch of us pretty hotshot birdhunters lost our money out there fore we got it figured out. What he was doin, this boy was loadin the old pigeons up the ass with them little firecrackers. They’d take off like they was home free and get up about so high and blam, it’d blow their asses out. He’d just shoot directly he seen the feathers fly. You couldn’t tell it. Or I take that back, somebody did finally. I don’t remember who it was. Reached and grabbed the rifle out of the old boy’s hand fore he could shoot and the old pigeon just went blam anyways. They like to tarred and feathered him over it.

That reminds me of this carnival they had up in Newport one time. They was a feller up there had this ape or gorilla, ever what it was, stood about so high. It was nigh tall as Jimmy yonder. They had it to where you could put on boxin gloves and get in this ring with it and if you could stay in there with him three minutes they’d give ye fifty dollars.

Well, these old boys I was with they kept at me and kept at me. I had this little old gal on my arm kept lookin up at me about like a poleaxed calf. These old boys eggin me on. I think we’d drunk a little whiskey
too, I disremember. Anyways I got to studyin this here ape and I thought: Well hell. He ain’t big as me. They had him up there on a chain. I remember he was settin on a stool eatin a head of red cabbage. Directly I said: Shit. Raised my old hand and told the feller I’d try it one time.

Well, they got us back there and got the gloves on me and all, and this feller that owned the ape, he told me, said: Now don’t hit him too hard out there cause if you do you’ll make him mad and you’ll be in some real trouble. I thought to myself: Well he’s tryin to save his ape a whippin is what he’s tryin to do. Tryin to protect his investment.

Anyways, I come out and climbed in the ring there. Felt pretty much a fool, all my buddies out there a hollerin and goin on and I looked down at this little gal I was with and give her a big wink and about that time they brought the old ape out. Had a muzzle on him. He kindly looked me over. Well, they called out our names and everthing, I forget what the old ape’s name was, and this old boy rung a big dinner bell and I stepped out and circled the old ape. Showed him a little footwork there. He didn’t look like he was goin to do nothin much so I reached out and busted him one. He just kindly looked at me. Well, I didn’t do nothin but square off and hit him again. Popped him right in the side of the head. When I done that his old head jerked back and his eyes went kindly funny and I said: Well, well, how sweet it is. I’d done spent the fifty dollars. I ducked around and went to hit him
again and about that time he jumped right on top of my head and crammed his foot in my mouth and like to tore my jaw off. I couldn’t even holler for help. I thought they never would get that thing off of me.

B
ALLARD AMONG THE FAIR-
goers stepping gingerly through the mud. Down sawdust lanes among the pitchtents and lights and cones of cottoncandy and past painted stalls with tiers of prizes and dolls and animals dangling from guyropes. A ferriswheel stood against the sky like a gaudy bracelet and little hawkwinged goatsuckers shuttled among the upflung strobes of light with gape mouths and weird cries.

Where celluloid goldfish bobbed in a tank he leaned with his dipnet and watched the other fishers. An attendant took the fish from their nets and read the numbers on their undersides and shook his head no or reached down a small kewpie or a plaster cat. While
he was so occupied an old man next to Ballard was trying to steer two fish into his dipnet at the same time. They would not fit and the old man grown impatient steered them to the edge of the tank and with a sweep of the net splashed fish and water down the front of a woman standing next to him. The woman looked down. The fish were lying in the grass. You must be crazy, she said. Or drunk one. The old man gripped his net. The attendant leaned to them. What’s the matter here, he said.

I didn’t do nothin, said the old man.

Ballard was dipping up fish and dumping them back, studying the numbers on the prizes. The woman with the wet dress pointed at him. That man yonder is cheatin, she said.

Okay buddy, said the attendant, reaching for his net. You get one for a dime, three for a quarter.

I ain’t got one yet, said Ballard.

You’ve done put back a dozen.

I ain’t got one, said Ballard, holding his net.

Well get one and look at the rest.

Ballard shrugged up his shoulders and eyed the fish. He dipped one up.

The attendant took the fish and looked at it. No winner, he said, and pitched the fish back in the tank and took the net from Ballard.

I might not be done playin, said Ballard.

And then again you might, said the attendant.

Ballard gave the man a cold cat’s look and spat in the water and turned to go. The lady who’d been splashed was watching him with a half fearful look of vindication.
As Ballard went past he spoke to her through his teeth. You a busynosed old whore, ain’t ye? he said.

He stirred as he went the weight of dimes in the toe of his pocket. Riflefire guided him, a muted sound that he sorted from among the cries of barkers and pitchmen. A busy booth with longlegged boys crouched at the counter. Across the back of the gallery mechanical ducks tottered and creaked and the rifles cracked and spat.

Step right up, step right up, test your skill and win a prize, sang the shooting gallery man. Yes sir, how about you?

I’m studyin it, said Ballard. What do ye get?

The pitchman pointed with his cane to rows of stuffed animals in ascending size. The bottom row, he said …

Never mind them, said Ballard. What do you have to do to get them big’ns yonder.

The pitchman pointed to small cards on a wire. Shoot out the small red dot, he said in a singsong voice. You have five shots in which to do it and you take your choice of any prize in the house.

Ballard had his dimes out. How much is it? he said.

Twenty-five cents.

He laid three dimes on the counter. The pitchman stood a rifle up and slid a brass tube of shells into the magazine. It was a pump rifle and it was fastened to the counter by a chain.

Ballard put the nickel in his pocket and raised the rifle.

Elbow rests permitted, sang the pitchman.

I don’t need no rest, said Ballard. He fired five times, lowering the rifle between rounds. When he was done he pointed aloft. Let me have that there big bear, he said.

The pitchman trolleyed the little card down a wire and unpinned it and handed it to Ballard. All of the red must be removed from the card to win, he said. He was looking elsewhere and didn’t even seem to be talking to Ballard.

Ballard took the card in his hand and looked at it. You mean this here? he said.

All of the red must be removed.

Ballard’s card had a single hole in the middle of it. Along one edge of the hole was the faintest piece of red lint.

Why hell fire, said Ballard. He slapped three more dimes on the counter. Step right up, said the pitchman, loading the rifle.

When the card came back you could’nt have found any red on it with a microscope. The pitchman handed down a ponderous mohair teddybear and Ballard slapped down three dimes again.

When he had won two bears and a tiger and a small audience the pitchman took the rifle away from him. That’s it for you, buddy, he hissed.

You never said nothin about how many times you could win.

Step right up, sang the barker. Who’s next now. Three big grand prizes per person is the house limit. Who’s our next big winner.

Ballard loaded up his bears and the tiger and started off through the crowd. They lord look at what all he’s won, said a woman. Ballard smiled tightly. Young girls’ faces floated past, bland and smooth as cream. Some eyed his toys. The crowd was moving toward the edge of a field and assembling there, Ballard among them, a sea of country people watching into the dark for some midnight contest to begin.

A light sputtered off in the field and a bluetailed rocket went skittering toward Canis Major. High above their upturned faces it burst, sprays of lit glycerine flaring across the night, trailing down the sky in loosely falling ribbons of hot spectra soon burnt to naught. Another went up, a long whishing sound, fishtailing aloft. In the bloom of its opening you could see like its shadow the image of the rocket gone before, the puff of black smoke and ashen trails arcing out and down like a huge and dark medusa squatting in the sky. In the bloom of light too you could see two men out in the field crouched over their crate of fireworks like assassins or bridgeblowers. And you could see among the faces a young girl with candyapple on her lips and her eyes wide. Her pale hair smelled of soap, womanchild from beyond the years, rapt below the sulphur glow and pitchlight of some medieval fun fair. A lean skylong candle skewered the black pools in her eyes. Her fingers clutched. In the flood of this breaking brimstone galaxy she saw the man with the bears watching her and she edged closer to the girl by her side and brushed her hair with two fingers quickly.