“Listen,” Enoch Emery said, “I ain’t got but a dollar sixteen cent and I want me one of them…”
“You can keep it,” the man said, taking the bucket off the card table. “This ain’t no cut-rate joint.”
Haze could see the blind man moving down the street some distance away. He stood staring after him, jerking his hands in and out of his pockets as if he were trying to move forward and backward at the same time. Then suddenly he thrust two dollars at the man selling peelers and snatched a box off the card table and started running down the street. In a second Enoch Emery was panting at his elbow. “My, I reckon you got a heap of money,” Enoch Emery said.
Haze saw the child catch up with the blind man and take him by the elbow. They were about a block ahead of him. He slowed down some and saw Enoch Emery there. Enoch had on a yellowish white suit and a pinkish white shirt and his tie was the color of green peas. He was smiling. He looked like a friendly hound dog with light mange. “How long you been here?” he inquired.
“Two days,” Haze muttered.
“I been here two months,” Enoch said. “I work for the city. Where you work?”
“Not working,” Haze said.
“That’s too bad,” Enoch said. “I work for the city.” He skipped a step to get in line with Haze, then he said, “I’m eighteen year old and I ain’t been here but two months and I already work for the city.”
“That’s fine,” Haze said. He pulled his hat down farther on the side Enoch Emery was on and walked very fast. The blind man up ahead began to make mock bows to the right and left.
“I didn’t ketch your name good,” Enoch said.
Haze said his name.
“You look like you might be follerin* them hicks,” Enoch remarked. “You go in for a lot of Jesus business?”
“No,” Haze said.
“No, me neither, not much,” Enoch agreed. “I went to thisyer Rodemill Boys’ Bible Academy for four weeks. Thisyer woman that traded me from my daddy she sent me. She was a Welfare woman. Jesus, four weeks and I thought I was going to be sanctified crazy.”
Haze walked to the end of the block and Enoch stayed at his elbow, panting and talking. When Haze started across the street, Enoch yelled, “Don’t you see theter light! That means you got to wait!*’ A cop blew a whistle and a car blasted its horn and stopped short. Haze went on across, keeping his eyes on the blind man in the middle of the block. The policeman kept on blowing his whistle. He crossed the street to where Haze was and stopped him. He had a thin face and oval-shaped yellow eyes.
“You know what that little thing hanging up there is for?” he asked, pointing to the traffic light over the intersection.
“I didn’t see it,” Haze said.
The policeman looked at him without saying anything. A few people stopped. He rolled his eyes at them. “Maybe you thought the red ones was for white folks and the green ones for niggers,” he said.
“Yeah I thought that,” Haze said. “Take your hand off me.”
The policeman took his hand off and put it on his hip. He backed one step away and said, “You tell all your friends about these lights. Red is to stop, green is to go-men and women, white folks and niggers, all go on the same light. You tell all your friends so when they come to town, they’ll know.” The people laughed.
“I’ll look after him,” Enoch Emery said, pushing in by the policeman. “He ain’t been here but only two days .1*11 look after him.”
“How long you been here?” the cop asked.
“I was born and raised here,” Enoch said. “This is my oF home town. Ill take care of him for you. Hey wait!” he yelled at Haze. “Wait on mel” He pushed out of the crowd and caught up with him. “I reckon I saved you that time,” he said.
“I’m obliged,” Haze said.
“It wasn’t nothing,” Enoch said. “Whyn’t we go in Walgreen’s and get us a soda? Ain’t no night clubs open this early.”
“I don’t like drug stores,” Haze said. “Good-by.”
“That’s all right,” Enoch said. “I reckon I’ll go along and keep you company for a while.” He looked up ahead at the blind man and the child and said, “I sho wouldn’t want to get messed up with no hicks this time of night, particularly the Jesus kind. I done had enough of them myself. Thisyer Welfare woman that traded me from my daddy didn’t do nothing but pray. Me and daddy we moved around with a sawmill where we worked and it set up outside Boonville one summer and here come thisyer woman.” He caught hold of Haze’s coat. “Only objection I got to Taulkinham is there’s too many people on the streets,” he said confidentially. “Look like all they want to do is knock you down—well here she come and I reckon she took a fancy to me. I was twelve year old and I could sing some hymns good I learnt off a nigger. So here she comes taking a fancy to me and traded me off my daddy and took me to Boonville to live with her. She had a brick house but it was Jesus all day long.” A little man lost in a pair of faded overalls jostled him. “Whyn’t you look wher you going?” Enoch growled.
The little man stopped and raised his arm in a vicious gesture and a nasty-dog look came on his face. “Who you tellin’ what?” he snarled.
“You see,” Enoch said, jumping to catch up with Haze, “all they want to do is knock you down. I ain’t never been to such a unfriendly place before. Even with that woman. I stayed with her for two months in that house of hers,” he went on, “and then come fall she sent me to the Rodemill Boys’ Bible Academy and I thought that sho was going to be some relief. This woman was hard to get along with—she wasn’t old, I reckon she was forty year old—but she sho was ugly. She had theseyer brown glasses and her hair was so thin it looked like ham gravy trickling over her skull. I thought it was going to be some certain relief to get to theter Academy. I had run away oncet on her and she got me back and come to find out she had papers on me and she could send me to the penitentiary if I didn’t stay with her so I sho was glad to get to theter Academy. You ever been to a academy?”
