Juneteenth (33 page)

Or the trains running wild and threatening to jump the track and crash into the white sections below, with smoke and steam threatening to scald the air and bring hellfire to those trapped there in their favored seats—screaming as fireman and engineer battled to the death with the Devil now become a Dalton boy or a James or a
Younger, whose horses of devil flesh outran again and again the iron horses of the trains, upgrade and down, with their bullets flying to burst ever against the sacred sanctuary of Uncle Sam’s mail cars, where the gold was stored and the hero waited; killing multitudes of clerks and passengers, armed and unarmed alike, in joy and in anger, in fear and in fun. And bushwhacking the Sheriff and his deputies again and again, dropping them over cliffs and into cascading waterfalls, until like the sun the Hero loomed and doomed the arch-villain to join his victims, tossed too from a cliff, shot in the belly with the blood flowing dark; or hung blackhooded with his men, three in a row, to drop from a common scaffold to swing like sawdust-filled dolls in lonely winds.

All whirled through my mind as filtered through Body’s and the others’ eyes and made concrete in their shouting pantomime of conflict, their accurately aimed pistol and rifle blasts, their dying falls with faces fixed in death’s most dramatic agony as their imaginary six-shooters blazed one last poetic bullet of banging justice to bring their murderers down down down to hell, now heaving heaven high in wonder beneath our feet …

So I wanted to leave the place unentered, even if it had a steeple higher than any church in the world, leave it, pass it ever by, rather than see it once, then never to enter it again—with all the countless unseen episodes to remain a mystery and like my mother flown forever.

But I could not say it, nor could I refuse; for no language existed between child and man. So I, Bliss the preacher, ascended, climbed, holding reluctantly Daddy Hickman’s huge hand, climbed up the steep, narrow stairs crackling with peanut hulls and discarded candy wrappers through the stench of urine—up into the hot, breathing darkness, up, until the roof seemed to rest upon the crowns of our heads.… And as we come into the pink-tinted light
with its tiered, inverted hierarchical order of seats, white at bottom, black at top, I pull back upon his hand, frightened by what I do not know. And he says, Come along, Bliss boy—deep and comforting in the dark. It’s all right, he says, I’m going with you. You just hold my hand.

And I ascended, holding on….

Mr. Movie-Man, she said … and I touched her dark hair, smiling, dreaming. Yes, I said … still remembering …

The pink light faded as we moved like blind men. All was darkness now and vague shapes, the crackling of bags and candy wrappers, the dry popping of peanut hulls being opened and dropped to the floor. Back and forth behind us voices sounded in the mellow idiom as we found seats and waited for the magic to begin. Daddy Hickman sighed, resting back, overflowing his seat so that I could feel his side pressing against me beneath the iron armrest. I settled back.

Why don’t they hurry and get this shoot-’em-up started, someone behind us said. It was a sinner.

Git
started?
a deep voice said. Fool, don’t you know that it was already started before we even sat down. Have you done gone stone blind?

It was another sinner. I could tell by the don’t-give-a-damn tease in his gravelly voice.

No, the first sinner said. I don’t see nothing and you don’t neither. Because when it comes to looking at shoot-’em-ups I’m the best that ever did it. What’s more, I can see you, my man, and that ain’t so easy to do in the dark.

Well, the deep voice said, it’s starting and I’m already looking and you don’t even know it. So maybe you see me but you sho in hell don’t see what I see.

Yeah, I know, but that because you drunk or else you been smoking those Mexican cubebs agin.

Listening, I looked to see how Daddy Hickman was reacting. Silently eating popcorn, he seemed to ignore them, feeding the white kernels into his mouth from his great fist like a huge boy.

See there, the second sinner said, because you black you’re trying to low-rate me. All right, call me drunk if you want to but any fool knows that a shoot-’em-up don’t have no end or beginning but go on playing all the time. They keep on running even when the lights is on. Hell, it’s just like the moon in the daytime, you don’t see it but it’s dam’ sho up there.

Now I
know
you been drinking, the first sinner said. Man, you high.

No, but I been studying this mess. Now when the man turns off the lights and tells everybody to take off, you think these folks in the shoot-’em-ups go away.

You dam’ right …

Yeah, and you think they just wait around somewhere until the nighttime comes and then they come out again.

That’s right.

I know, but that’s because you’re a fool. You ignorant. But in fact, it’s just like the moon, and folks who got sense know that the moon is hanging up there all day long….

Oh come on, man. Everybody knows about the moon.

Yeah, but you don’t understand that the same thing happens with these shoot-’em-up guys. All those guys, even the houses and things, they don’t go nowhere when the lights come on. Hell naw! They just stay right here, with shooting and fighting and hoss riding and eating and drinking and jiving them gals and having a ball after the man puts us out and locks the door downstairs and goes on home to inspect his jellyroll. That’s how it really is.

Bull, the first sinner said. Bull!

No bull, man nothing! Folks like us get tired and have to get some sleep and maybe eat some grits and greens, but hell, those people in
the shoot-’em-ups they lay right there in the bend. They don’t need no rest….

Dam’ if you don’t make it sound like they in slavery, cousin, another sinner said.

Now you got it, the deep-voiced one said. Ace, take it from me, they in slavery. And man, just like the old folks say, slavery is a war and war is hell!

They laughed.

I was disturbed. Could this be true? Could the people in the pictures always be there working even in the dark, even while they were crowded back into the machine? Forever and forever and forever?

I turned to look at the laughing men. They slouched in their seats, their heads back. One had a gold tooth that flashed in the dim light. Maybe they were just making up a lie for fun, like the boys did at school.

Bliss, Daddy Hickman said.

He touched my arm. Bliss, it’s coming on, he said.

I tensed and it was as though he knew before it happened, as though it switched on at his word. For there came a spill of light from behind us, flooding past our heads and down to become a wide world of earth and sky in springtime. And there was a white house with a wide park of lawn with flowers and trees in mellow morning haze.… 
Far shot to medium, to close: poiema, pathema, mathema—who’d ever dream I’d know? Me, hidden in their very eyes …
Then it happened, I went out of me, up and around like a butterfly in a curve of flight and there was moss in the trees and a single bird flipped its tail and flew up and away, and I was drawn through the wall and into the action. Over there, graceful trees along a cobblestone drive now occupied by a carriage with a smooth black coachman in livery sitting high and hinkty proud holding the reins above
the gleaming backs and arched necks and shining harness of the horses, sitting like a king, wearing a shiny flat-topped hat with a little brush in its band. I am above them as it moves to stop before the big house and a man opens the coach door and descends, hurrying along the walk to the porch, and I descend and go along behind him. He wears a uniform with saber and sash, boots to his knees.
Ep-aulets
(that’s the way to say it) show as his cape swings aside and hangs behind him like a trail as he takes long strides, handsome and tall. A black man in a black suit with white ruffles at the neck meets him at the columns of the porch and in answer to a question points to a great doorway, then moves ahead to open the door and then steps aside with a little bow, like Body’s when he has to recite a verse on an Easter program at church.
Jesus wept, Body says and bows, looking warily at his mother across the pews. She had taught him a longer verse but either he’s forgot it, or refuses to recite it on a bet. It’s the shortest verse in the Bible and the other boys snicker. He’d gotten away with it again.… Body bowed and hurried back to his seat….
The servant’s bow is lower and he holds it until the man sweeps past and I go in behind the man and now I can see past him, over his shoulder, into a large room bright with sunlight and vases of flowers. Near a big window a pretty lady with hair parted in the middle and drawn down to her ears in little curls sits at a piano and as she looks up surprised and then with pleasure I think suddenly,
What is the color of her hair?
And I wish to get past the man to see if she has freckles on her nose, but he keeps coming towards me and I strain to get behind him. I press on as in a dream. It’s very hard to do but I made it—only she doesn’t see me as she looks up at the man who is still ahead of me. And as I strain to draw closer something happens—and I feel myself falling out….

Disturbed, I fly back to my seat, hearing in my mind Body saying
Man, them ghosts don’t wear no shoes
as I sat back beside Daddy Hickman
watching her loom shy and strange, smiling out into the dark not even seeing me in the cool sweet flooding of light. I feel high and lonely. My eyes tickled with tears, until she grew soft and hazy, still looking outward, dreamy-eyed into the darkness and then I knew.

Look, I said, Daddy Hickman, it’s her….

Unh-huh, he said. He shifted contentedly beside me. Unh-huh.

But he doesn’t hear me, I thought,
because he’s still in the room. He’s still there back in the wall
. I couldn’t see him there because he was also here, his body pressing forward in the seat. And as she moved toward the man in the elegant room, I searched his face for a sign of recognition. I touched his arm twice, then saw him looking down at me with a smile. Then his hand came up, holding the bag of popcorn towards me.

Excuse me, Bliss boy, he said. Take some.

No thank you, sir, I said. It’s her, the same one. You see?

Huh?

It’s
her
, I said.

He glanced at me and back again to the screen. Oh sure, he said. She’s the lead, Bliss, the heroine. She’ll be all through the picture. Because, you see, everything turns around her. Have some. He pushed the bag toward me and I took some, thinking,
He doesn’t want to hear me. He doesn’t want to tell me….

Looking back to the wall, I watched them talking earnestly in the room below, then suddenly Daddy Hickman turned listening to something behind us and I felt myself slip in again and then the man was outside the house and I was above it a ways, watching some men on horses come cantering along the curving drive, moving past the hedges and the tulip trees. They wore uniforms and flowing capes and were proud. And some had whiskers and wore swords. Then I went over their heads and was looking behind the house where
some of our own people were watching them coming on. I could tell that they were excited but trying not to show it, leaning forward with hands on hips or holding the handles of their rakes and hoes, looking. Some of the women wore headcloths and had no shoes. I saw a big lazy dog come out of the hedge and bark at the horses. One of the horses, a white one, shied. Then I moved along behind the horses again. I couldn’t smell, only see. Couldn’t hear clearly either, but some. Where has she gone? I wondered.

Above the house now, I could see a road curving through rolling countryside and on it another body of horsemen, riding hard, in close formation, the dust rising from the horses’ hooves. Their buckles and buttons sparkled along the lines. They were coming on. The banner streaming, riders slanting forward in the wind.

And now they were passing some croppers’ cabins and some of our people wearing old clothes, head rags, bonnets and floppy straw hats came out and stood, and some others who were dragging cotton sacks raised up in the fields and looked at the men up high and all our people waved.… Then a sinner behind me said something and I fell out again, hard. I was mad.

Here they go again, y’all, the sinner said. Dad blame it! In a second them peckerwoods will be fighting over us again. I sho be glad when they git it over with and done.

Me too, the second sinner said. You’d think they’d git taird of the same thing over and over again.

They already taird, but they have to keep on fighting till they can tell it straight. Oh yeah, they taird all right.

Hell, Ace, they ain’t never going to get it straight. That’s why they keep on messing with it, so that they won’t
have
to get it straight.

Listen, you granny dodgers, a voice behind them commanded, I want you to
hush up!

Hey, granny dodger, who you calling a granny dodger?

You, granny dodger, so shut up before I kick yo’ granny dodgin’ butt!

They were quiet. I moved behind my eyes as when I tried to fall asleep, then I slipped in again, looking for her.

I was back in the big house now and she was coming out of the door and I thought,
It’s her all right
, and I started in close to see her when her face swelled up—then something snapped and I fell out. My face felt slapped. High up behind me I could hear a flapping sound, very fast—like a window shade when the spring is too tight—then slowing down to a whirr.

From my seat now I could see only a series of black numbers flashing before me in a harsh white light that danced with specks and squiggles. I was breathing hard and my eyes tickled like tears. I was straining to keep it, thinking
Please don’t say anything. Please don’t say …
I closed my eyes tightly and throbbed my eardrums but I heard anyway.

That was the end of the reel, Bliss, Daddy Hickman said. Just sit tight a second and it’ll take up where it left off….

Yes, sir, I said. I wanted to ask him again but was afraid that now he’d understand and say no….