take it off or give you another one?”
“Listen here, there’s nothing for your pain but Jesus,” the child said suddenly. She tapped Haze on the shoulder. He sat there with his black hat tilted forward over his face. “Listen,” she said in a louder voice, “this here man and woman killed this little baby. It was her own child but it was ugly and she never give it any love. This child had Jesus and this woman didn’t have nothing but good looks and a man she was living in sin with. She sent the child away and it come back and she sent it away again and it come back again and ever* time she sent it away, it come back to where her and this man was living in sin. They strangled it with a silk stocking and hung it up in the chimney. It didn’t give her any peace after that, though. Everything she looked at was that child. Jesus made it beautiful to haunt her. She couldn’t lie with that man without she saw it, staring through the chimney at her, shining through the brick in the middle of the night.”
“My Jesus,” Haze muttered.
“She didn’t have nothing but good looks,” she said in the loud fast voice. “That ain’t enough. No sirree.”
“I hear them scraping their feet inside there,” the blind man said. “Get out the tracts, they’re fixing to come out.”
“It ain’t enough,” she repeated.
“What we gonna do?” Enoch asked. “What’s inside theter building?”
“A program letting out,” the blind man said. “My congregation.”
The child took the tracts out of the gunny sack and gave him two bunches of them, tied with a string. “You and the other boy go over on that side and give out,” he said to her. “Me and the one that followed me’ll stay over here.”
“He don’t have no business touching them,” she said. “He don’t want to do anything but shred them up.”
“Go like I told you,” the blind man said.
She stood there a second, scowling. Then she said, “You come on if you’re coming,” to Enoch Emery and Enoch jumped off the lion and followed her over to the other side.
Haze ducked down a step but the blind man’s hand shot out and clamped him around the arm. He said in a fast whisper, “Repent! Go to the head of the stairs and renounce your sins and distribute these tracts to the people!” and he thrust a stack of pamphlets into Haze’s hand.
Haze jerked his arm away but he only pulled the blind man nearer. “Listen,” he said, “I’m as clean as you are.”
“Fornication and blasphemy and what else?” the blind man said.
“They ain’t nothing but words,” Haze said. “If I was in sin I was in it before I ever committed any. There’s no change come in me.” He was trying to pry the fingers off from around his arm but the blind man kept wrapping them tighter. “I don’t believe in sin,” Haze said, “take your hand off me.”
“Jesus loves you,” the blind man said in a flat mocking voice, “Jesus loves you, Jesus loves you…”
“Nothing matters but that Jesus don’t exist/’ Haze said, pulling his arm free.
“Go to the head of the stairs and distribute these tracts and…”
“Ill take them up there and throw them over into the bushes!” Haze shouted. “You be watching and see can you see.”
“I can see more than you!” the blind man yelled, laughing. “You got eyes and see not, ears and hear not, but you’ll have to see some time.”
“You be watching if you can see!” Haze said, and started running up the steps. A crowd of people were already coming out the auditorium doors and some were halfway down the steps. He pushed through them with his elbows out like sharp wings and when he got to the top, a new surge of them pushed him back almost to where he had started up. He fought through them again until somebody shouted, “Make room for this idiot!” and people got out of his way. He rushed to the top and pushed his way over to the side and stood there, glaring and panting.
“I never followed him,” he said aloud. “I wouldn’t follow a blind fool like that. My Jesus.” He stood against the building, holding the stack of leaflets by the string. A fat man stopped near him to light a cigar and Haze pushed his shoulder. “Look down yonder,” he said. “See that blind man down there? He’s giving out tracts and begging. Jesus. You ought to see him and he’s got this here ugly child dressed up in woman’s clothes, giving them out too. My Jesus.”
“There’s always fanatics,” the fat man said, moving on.
“My Jesus,” Haze said. He leaned forward near an old woman with blufc hair and a collar of red wooden beads. “You better get on the other side, lady,” he said. “There’s a fool down there giving out tracts.” The crowd behind the old woman pushed her on, but she looked at him for an instant with two bright flea eyes. He started toward her through the people but she was already too far away and he pushed back to where he had been standing against the wall. “Sweet Jesus Christ Crucified,” he said, “I want to tell you people something. Maybe you think you’re not clean because you don’t believe. Well you are clean, let me tell you that. Every one of you people are clean and let me tell you why if you think it’s because of Jesus Christ Crucified you’re wrong. I don’t say he wasn’t crucified but I say it wasn’t for you. Listenhere, I’m a preacher myself and I preach the truth.” The crowd was moving fast. It was like a large spread raveling and the separate threads disappeared down the dark streets. “Don’t I know what exists and what don’t?” he cried. “Don’t I have eyes in my head? Am I a blind man? Listenhere,” he called, “I’m going to preach a new church—the church of truth without Jesus Christ Crucified. It won’t cost you nothing to join my church. It’s not started yet but it’s going to be.” The few people who were left glanced at him once or twice. There were tracts scattered below over the sidewalk and out on the street. The blind man was sitting on the bottom step. Enoch Emery was on the other side, standing on the lion’s head, trying to balance himself, and the child was standing near him, watching Haze. “I don’t need Jesus/’ Haze said. “What do I need with Jesus? I got Leora Watts.”
He went down the stairs quietly to where the blind man was and stopped. He stood there a second and the blind man laughed. Haze moved away, and started across the street. He was on the other side before the voice pierced after him. He turned and saw the blind man standing in the middle of the street, shouting, “Hawks, Hawks, my name is Asa Hawks when you try to follow me again!” A car had to swerve to the side to keep from hitting him. “Repent!” he shouted and laughed and ran forward a little way, pretending he was going to come after Haze and grab him.
