Half of Paradise (16 page)

“You think they will?”

“Today’s Friday. Carp and fruit for lunch,” Brother Samuel said.

“I seen some carp and garfish eating off a drowned cow once,” Daddy Claxton said.

Evans walked over to the embankment of dirt and squatted on his haunches, looking down at the men. Small clods rolled from around his boots into the ditch.

“The captain wants a new latrine dug,” he said.

“We dug the last one. It’s gang six’s turn,” Billy Jo said.

“The captain likes the way we dig latrines. We do a good job. He might even let us keep digging them from now on. Boudreaux and what’s your name, get up here.”

Toussaint and Avery climbed out of the ditch.

“You see that line of scrub over there? Dig a trench fifteen feet long and three deep.”

“We ain’t got a shovel.”

“Claxton, hand up your shovel.”

“It’s checked out to me. I got to hand it back in.”

“Let’s have it.”

Evans took the shovel by its handle and gave it to Avery.

“Give Claxton your pick.”

Avery slid it down the embankment to the old man.

They walked over to the line of brush. Avery marked out the edge of the trench with his shovel. Evans stood off in the shade of the trees to watch them.

“I’ll break the ground and you dig after me,” Toussaint said.

They went to work. Toussaint drove the pick into the cracked earth and snapped the brush roots loose. Avery dug from one end of the trench and worked in a pattern towards the other side.

“What makes Billy Jo and Jeffry think they can make it?” he said.

“Billy Jo has got a brother on the outside. He’s supposed to help them.”

“You think you could make it with somebody on the outside?”

“Not when everybody in camp knows about it,” Toussaint said. “Billy Jo says his brother is going to meet them in a car. I’m surprised he ain’t give out the license number.”

“You might have a chance with help on the outside.”

“You thinking about leaving us?”

“It passed through my mind.”

“You can get out in a year. Serve your time. A year ain’t nothing. If you break out and get caught they add five more on your sentence.’

“Do you ever think about breaking out?”

“I wouldn’t talk about it if I did,” Toussaint said. “You’re young. Wait it out.”

The trench deepened. It was almost time for lunch.

“Why were you in detention?” Avery said.

“Talking during roll call.”

“They gave you a day for that?”

“No, two days. They let me out to put somebody else in.”

“Who put you in?”

“Evans.”

“He must have it against you.”

“He don’t like nobody.”

“He looks like he enjoys his work.”

“It takes a certain type man to be a hack,” Toussaint said.

“Does he ride you like that all the time?”

“You said you were from Martinique parish.”

“Yes.”

“Talk about Martinique parish, then.”

They worked for a half hour in silence.

“What do you figure on doing when your time is up?” Toussaint said.

“I just got here. I haven’t thought about it.”

“You’ll start thinking about it soon. You won’t think about nothing else after a while.”

“I might go to New Orleans.”

“What for?”

“I’ve never been there.”

“Ain’t you got a home?”

“There’s nothing left of it now. My daddy was a cane planter. We used to own twenty acres. The last I heard some man bought it at the sheriff’s tax sale to build a subdivision.”

“I lived in New Orleans. I worked on the docks.”

“What’s the chance of getting a job?”

“Fair. What kind of work you done?”

“Oil exploration.”

“I know a man down there might help you.”

“They say New Orleans is a good town.”

“You planning on staying out of the whiskey business?” Toussaint said.

“I’ll probably stay on the drinking end of it.”

“You can’t boil out the misery with corn.”

“You can make a good dent in it, though.”

“You’re too young to have a taste for whiskey.”

“I’m not too young to be digging a latrine with you, so let’s get off my age.”

“Whiskey can eat you up.”

“I’ve seen a lot more eaten up, and whiskey didn’t do it.”

Evans blew his whistle for the lunch break. The men climbed out of the ditch and formed a line behind a pickup truck parked in the shade. Toussaint and Avery dropped their tools in the unfinished trench and got in line with the others. The tin plates and spoons were handed out. The trusties served the food from the big aluminum containers placed on the bed of the truck. The men sat in the shade and ate.

“You told me we was having oranges,” Jeffry said.

“I ain’t the warden. I can’t know what they’re going to do,” Billy Jo said.

“You said we was getting oranges.”

“Drink the tea. It helps your stomach,” Brother Samuel said.

“It’s just like the drinking water.”

“Stop bitching,” Billy Jo said.

“I seen some carp eating off a dead cow once,” Daddy Claxton said.

“Maybe you’re swallowing the same carp,” someone said.

“It wouldn’t bother me none. I eat worse. When I was a boy my pap used to bring home garfish that was caught up on land in the flood basin.”

“This tea ain’t no different from the water,” Jeffry said.

“It’s boiled. That makes it different. Drink it and shut up,” Billy Jo said.

“I’ll puke up my dinner.”

“Let Brother Samuel work on you,” a man from gang two said.

“He didn’t do me no good.”

“You wasn’t cooperating,” the man said.

“I ain’t got my powers no more,” Brother Samuel said.

“You know that ain’t true, Brother. What’s that thing around your neck?”

Brother Samuel touched the wooden disk that hung on a leather cord.

“The Black Man give it to me. These letters is written in a language that ain’t even used no more. It means I got the power to control spirits.”

“I thought you didn’t have no powers.”

“I still got my magic powers. I ain’t got my spiritual ones.”

“What’s the difference?”

“My magic ones is from the Black Man, and the others is from the Lord. I ain’t had no truck with the Black Man since he made me sin agin Jesus.”

“Look at it this way,” the inmate from gang two said. “If you use the Black Man’s powers to do the work of Jesus, then you can get back at him for making you sin.”

“I ain’t thought of it that way.”

“Ain’t it the work of the Lord to heal people? Well, that’s just what you’re doing.”

“That’s the way I figure it, too,” Daddy Claxton said.

“Use some of them things you carry around with you,” the inmate from two said. His name was Benoit. He was dark complexioned and unshaved, with close set pig-eyes, and he smelled of sweat and earth.

“I ain’t sure it’s right. I gone back to following the Word.”

“Lay down, Jeffry, and let him heal you.”

“I don’t want to be healed. I tried it once. It don’t work.”

“Sure it works,” Benoit said.

“I’m about to puke from this fish already. I don’t want nobody fooling with me.”

“Tell him to get hisself healed, Billy Jo.”

“Get yourself healed,” Billy Jo said, his mouth filled with bread and carp.

“Let me be.”

“Go ahead, Brother.”

“I ain’t sure.”

“It ain’t Jesus’ will to let a man suffer when you can cure him.”

“You want me to try, Jeffry?”

“No.”

“Don’t listen to him. He’s sick in the head with fever,” Benoit said.

“His head’s all right. He ain’t got faith,” Brother Samuel said.

“You got no faith, Jeffry,” Benoit said.

“You guys let me alone.”

Most of the men had finished lunch and came over to watch.

“How about it, Brother?”

“I’ll try.”

The men held Jeffry’s arms and legs to the ground and pulled up his shirt to expose his stomach.

“Goddamn you bastards! Leave go! Do you hear me! I’m sick! Turn loose!”

He struggled for a moment and then became still. He twisted his head up to watch his stomach and to see what Brother Samuel was going to do.

“What’s them things you got?” Daddy Claxton said.

“Them’s what I control the spirits with.”

He knelt beside Jeffry, his face the color of mud under the straw hat that came down to his ears. His large ill-fitting clothes were damp with sweat.

“I’m going to use my moccasin fang and turtle foot first. It ain’t going to hurt none, you’ll just feel something pulling on you when the spirit leaves your body.”

“You guys got no right to let him do this,” Jeffry said.

“It’s time you got religion,” Benoit said.

“This ain’t religion. It’s conjuring. Don’t let him touch me with that stuff.”

“Lie still,” Brother Samuel said. “I’m going to make a cross on your belly.”

He drew a white impression of a horizontal line across Jeffry’s stomach with the turtle foot, then drew a vertical line through it with the snake fang. He placed the fang and the foot on the ground beside a piece of string and the ball of hair taken from a cow’s stomach. He folded his hands together and rocked slowly back and forth.

“Goddamn each of you bastards,” Jeffry said. He struggled again. The men held him firmly. The figure of the cross was pink and white on his stomach.

“Great Belial,” Brother Samuel began, “cast out of the spirits of Zion that want this man to bow before the bloody hill where you wrecked the faith of mighty Jerusalem, and let him take the snake to his cheek.” Samuel picked up the snake fang in his fingers and held the curved ivory point over Jeffry’s stomach. “With the sign of your kingdom I plunge the poison of the shade into your enemy’s heart.” He brought the snake fang down and struck the center of the cross.

“I’m bleeding,” Jeffry said. “Look at what you done. You stuck me full of poison. I heard you say so.”

There was a small drop of blood at the joint of the cross.

“I never seen nothing like that,” Daddy Claxton said.

“Jeffry don’t look good.”

“What the hell do you think I look like when somebody is sticking snake poison in me?”

“I didn’t put no poison in you,” Brother Samuel said.

“I heard you say it.”

“That’s just part of what I got to say to cast out the spirit.”

“You feel any different?” Daddy Claxton said.

“Yeah. I got a hole in my belly that I didn’t have five minutes ago.”

“I reckon it takes some extra conjuring to get you healed,” Benoit said.

“I had my fill. I don’t want no more.”

“It’s a powerful spirit got hold of you,” Brother Samuel said.

“It ain’t no spirit. It’s the runs. Everybody gets the runs,” Jeffry said.

“Try another cure, Brother Samuel.”

“Not on me. I ain’t having no more.” The men still held him to the ground.

“I ain’t got but one left.”

“Go ahead and use it. Jeffry is willing to do anything to get rid of the runs.”

“You sonsofbitches.”

“Don’t use cuss words when we’re talking about things of the spirit,” Benoit said, his pig-eyes smiling at Jeffry.

“I wouldn’t do this to none of you when you was sick,” Jeffry said.

“That’s because you got no charity. You got no faith, neither. Ain’t that right? Jeffry’s got no faith.”

“You rotten bas…”

A man clamped his hand over Jeffry’s mouth.

“Get on with the conjuring. We got to use force to get him healed.”

Jeffry’s eyes rolled wildly.

“What are you going to do with that ball of hair?” Benoit said.

“It’s for casting out the spirit.”

“How’s it work?” Daddy Claxton said.

“I send the spirit out of Jeffry into the ball of hair, and then I set fire to it and let the spirit free again.”

“What happens if he don’t get free?”

“Belial will send another spirit into my body to make me turn him loose.”

“Who’s this Belial guy?” Billy Jo said.

“He was one of the angels the Lord run out of Heaven,” Brother Samuel said.

“I never heard of no Belial,” Billy Jo said.

“That’s because you and Jeffry got no religion,” Benoit said.

“I don’t need none.”

“Mmpppppppht,” Jeffry said, beneath the clamped hand.

Brother Samuel held the ball of hair to Jeffry’s stomach and closed his eyes and began to speak in a language that none of the men could understand. He rolled the ball in a circle and his voice became a chant. Jeffry’s stomach started quivering under Brother Samuel’s hands. The pink and white impression of the cross had disappeared, and only the small smear of blood remained. Brother Samuel chanted louder and rocked on his knees, with his body bent over Jeffry.

“Is that all there is to it?” Billy Jo said.

“I got to set the spirit free.”

“You mean he’s inside that ball of hair?”

“Take it and hold it in your hand.”

“I don’t want it,” Billy Jo said.

Samuel offered it to Daddy Claxton.

“I ain’t touching it,” the old man said.

“I’ll hold it,” Benoit said.

Brother Samuel put it in his hand.

“It jumped! My God, there’s something in it!” He jerked his hand away and let it drop to the ground. The men were grinning at him. “I tell you it jumped. I ain’t lying. I felt it bump in my hand like it was alive.”

“The sun must have fried your brains.”

“One of you guys pick it up.” No one did. “Go ahead, pick it up. See if I’m lying. It tried to jump out of my hand.”

“You been drinking the kerosene from the line shack again?” Billy Jo said.

“All right, bastard. You pick it up.”

“You can play witch doctor if you want. I ain’t making an ass out of myself.”

“Turn Jeffry loose,” Brother Samuel said.

Jeffry wiped his mouth with his hand and tucked in his shirt. There was spittle and pink finger marks around his mouth.

“You see this piece of string?” Brother Samuel said. “I’m tying three knots in it. I’m going to give it to you, and I want you to put it in your pocket and not look at it till tonight. When the knots is gone your stomach won’t bother you no more.”

“You mean them knots is going away by theirself?” Daddy Claxton said.