backed out the other side, white. “You ain’t gonna let one of these go by!” he said.
The boy guffawed and looked at the other people gathered around. He had yellow hair and a fox-shaped face.
“What’s yer name?” the peeler man asked.
“Name Enoch Emery,” the boy said and snuffled.
“Boy with a pretty name like that ought to have one of these,” the man said, rolling his eyes, trying to warm up the others. Nobody laughed but the boy. Then a man stand-sT ing across from Hazel Motes laughed, not a pleasant laugh but one that had a sharp edge. He was a tall cadaverous man with a black suit and a black hat on. He had on dark glasses and his cheeks were streaked with lines that looked as if they had been painted on and had faded. They gave him the expression of a grinning mandrill. As soon as he laughed, he began to move forward in a deliberate way, jiggling a tin cup in one hand and tapping a white cane in front of him with the other. Just behind him there came a child, handing out leaflets. She had on a black dress and a black knitted cap pulled down low on her forehead; there was a fringe of brown hair sticking out from it on either side; she had a long face and a short sharp nose. The man selling peelers was irritated when he saw the people looking at this pair instead of him. “How about you, you there,” he said, pointing at Haze. “You’ll never be able to get a bargain like this in any store.”
Haze was looking at the blind man and the child. “Hey I” Enoch Emery said, reaching across a woman and punching his arm. “He’s talking to you! He’s talking to youl” Enoch had to punch him again before he looked at the peeler man.
“Whyn’t you take one of these home to yer wife?” the peeler man was saying.
“Don’t have one,” Haze muttered, looking back at the blind man again.
“Well, you got a dear old mother, ain’t you?”
“No.”
“Well pshaw,” the man said, with his hand cupped to the people, “he needs one theseyer just to keep him company.”
Enoch Emery thought that was so funny that he doubled over and slapped his knee, but Hazel Motes didn’t look as if he had heard it yet. “I’m going to give away a half a dozen peeled potatoes to the first person purchasing one theseyer machines,” the man said. “Who’s gonna step up first? Only a dollar and a half for a machine’d cost you three dollars in any store!” Enoch Emery began fumbling in his pockets. “You’ll thank the day you ever stopped here,” the man said, “youll never forget it. Ever’ one of you people purchasing one theseyer machines’ll never forget it!”
The blind man was moving forward slowly, saying in a kind of garbled mutter, “Help a blind preacher. If you won’t repent, give up a nickel. I can use it as good as you. Help a blind unemployed preacher. Wouldn’t you rather have me beg than preach? Come on and give a nickel if you won’t repent.”
There were not many people gathered around but the ones who were began to move off. When the machine- seller saw this, he leaned, glaring over the card table. “Hey you!” he yelled at the blind man. “What you think you doing? Who you think you are, running people off from here?” The blind man didn’t pay any attention to him. He kept on rattling the cup and the child kept on handing out the pamphlets. He passed Enoch Emery and came on toward Haze, hitting the white cane out at an angle from his leg. Haze leaned forward and saw that the lines on his face were not painted on; they were scars.
“What the hell you think you doing?” the man selling peelers yelled. “I got these people together, how you think you can horn in?”
The child held one of the pamphlets out to Haze and he grabbed it. The words on the outside of it said, “Jesus Calls You.”
“I’d like to know who the hell you think you are!” the man with the peelers was yelling. The child went back to where he was and handed him a tract. He looked at it for an instant with his lip curled and then he charged around the card table, upsetting the bucket of potatoes. “These damn Jesus fanatics,” he yelled, glaring around, trying to find the blind man. New people gathered, hoping to see a disturbance. “These goddam Communist foreigners!” the peeler man screamed. “I got this crowd together!” He stopped, realizing there was a crowd.
“Listen folks,” he said, “one at a time, there’s plenty to go around, just don’t push, a half a dozen peeled potatoes to the first person stepping up to buy.” He got back behind the card table quietly and started holding up the peeler boxes. “Step on up, plenty to go around,” he said, “no need to crowd.”
Haze didn’t open his tract. He looked at the outside of it and then he tore it across. He put the two pieces together and tore them across again. He kept re-stacking the pieces and tearing them again until he had a little handful of confetti. He turned his hand over and let the shredded leaflet sprinkle to the ground. Then he looked up and saw the blind man’s child not three feet away, watching him. Her mouth was open and her eyes glittered on him like two chips of green bottle glass. She had a white gunny sack hung over her shoulder. Haze scowled and began rubbing his sticky hands on his pants.
“I seen you,” she said. Then she moved quickly over to where the blind man was standing now, beside the card table, and turned her head and looked at Haze from there. Most of the people had moved off.
The peeler man leaned over the card table and said, “Heyl” to the blind man. “I reckon that showed you. Trying to horn in.”
“Lookerhere,” Enoch Emery said, “I ain’t got but a dollar sixteen cent but I…”
“Yah,” the man said, “I reckon that’ll show you you can’t muscle in on me. Sold eight peelers, sold…”
“Give me one of them,” the blind man’s child said, pointing to the peelers.
“Hanh,” he said.
She was untying a handkerchief. She untied two fifty-cent pieces out of the knotted corner of it. “Give me one of them,” she said, holding out the money.
The man eyed it with his mouth hiked to one side. “A buck fifty, sister,” he said.
She pulled her hand in quickly and all at once glared at Hazel Motes as if he had made a noise at her. The blind man was moving on. She stood a second glaring at Haze, and then she turned and followed the blind man. Haze started.
