“I like cereals, too. I have some others.”
“Cap'n Crunch?”
“No, Mr. Pye. I don't have no Cap'n Crunch. How about Special K?”
“Ain't that just like Wheaties? O’Dell don't like Wheaties. He did, long as there was sugar on it, till they put that Michael Jordan on the box. Where we come from, we hate the niggers. I know we're supposed to love the niggers these days, but you try and love our niggers up at Mcalester and they just laugh and cut your throat. Killed me a big nigger, that's what started this whole goddamned ball rolling.”
“I do have some Frosted Mini-Wheats.”
“Frosted Mini-Wheats! O’Dell, you hear that? Frosted Mini-Wheats! This gal has Frosted Mini-Wheats!”
“Weeny-eets! Weeny-eets!” O’Dell began to chant, his vague features united in a rapturous passion.
“You come along then, O’Dell,” she said, and took the big man inside.
Lamar turned to Richard.
“Your gal's pretty goddamned sweet, if you ask me. You better make her happy or I'll crack your skull.”
That's when Richard knew he was lost.
Lamar was thinking about painting the house. It was a mottled gray, peeling and sad. He wanted it to be cheery, blinding white, the white of happy white folks on a rich farm, with lots of kids. He had a brief rare little brush with fantasy: all of them there, Ruta Beth and Richard and O’Dell and Lamar, all of them happy in that house. But even as he drew some warmth from it, he knew it would never happen.
Goddamn Johnny Cop had seen to that. If Johnny Cop hadn't a-shot his daddy, lo those many years ago, he'd never be in this mess, with all these worries, all these things to think about. And now he was getting hot again.
Still, he could paint the house. That would be his next project. He could scrape the old dead paint off, take a week or so, then sand down to new wood, another week. Take maybe two weeks to give the place another coat. O’Dell could do some of the work, although O’Dell's tiny mind had never had much in the way of skill. O’Dell could dig or hoe or plow all day long, seven days a week, but he couldn't do anything that involved thinking. He just didn't understand.
“O’Dell, now, think we gonna knock off for the day,” Lamar said. It was six-thirty p . of the third day of the second week. They'd finished re roofing the barn, and they'd restrung about a mile of fence between Ruta Beth's and the Mcgillavery's property, because the Mcgillavery's cows kept breaking into Ruta's far field and that meant the Mcgillavery boys would come looking for them, and that would be trouble.
He and O’Dell walked back to the house.
“O’Dell, go wash,” he said.
“Wash-wash, for dinner.”
“Din,” O’Dell said and went merrily off.
He knew he'd find Ruta Beth out back, working at her wheel. It amazed him what she could do. Just the lump of clay, the pumping of her foot, the spinning of the wheel, and some kind of miraculous thing occurred.
Goddamn! He loved to watch it.
And there she was, hunched over the spinning wheel, her hands actually sunk into the blurred muck, her face intense and furious. The muck seemed to be spinning itself into something thin and graceful today, like a candleholder that he remembered his mama had before his mama died.
“Amazin' what you can do,” he said.
She almost never blinked; she had this funny way of just looking at something until she'd sucked it dry. It amazed him that she wasn't afraid of him, a man killer like him, with
“Mr. Pye,” she said, 'it ain't nothing, really. You could do it.”
“Me, nah. I'd mess it up. But go on. Love to watch you.”
She worked intently for another few minutes. Then she said, 'What will you do? Them cops won't never stop looking. You have to move on.”
“I know. I hate to go. Ain't ever seen O’Dell so happy.
It's where he should be. Can't hurt nobody, can't get in no trouble, no liquor, no niggers or hacks trying to take from him. He could be happy here.”
“You love him. Everybody says you are the meanest man there is, but you love him.”
“He's all I got. We go way back.”
“It's so beautiful. But they will get you. Stories like yours never have happy endings.”
“This here place is my happy ending.”
“I swear, I don't see no bad in you.”
“But bad is what I am. I guess I was homed to it, on account of what happened to my daddy. I never once looked back. Only thing I's ever any good at.”
“You could have been a farmer.”
“Then somebody come and try and walk on you. You can't let that happen. So you stop ’em, and next thing, you're pn the run. That's how it started. Goddamned Uncle Jack kept O’Dell in the barn. Kept him chained. Beat him.
His own son. Beat that boy. He got thirty dollars a month from the county to keep that boy on account of his being so sick in the brain and he didn't spend a goddamned penny of it on O’Dell. Only reason he took me in is because the state paid him twenty-two dollars a month on me, so as to get me out of their reform school. He was brother to my daddy Jim, who was killed dead by state troopers over in Arkansas, and when my mama Edna Sue died and they put me in their reform school and I give them so goddamn much trouble, 'cause people was always trying to back you down, and I just got it in my fool head nobody was going to back me down, anyway, they sent me to my uncle and his wife Camilla, and I was just shit to him, shit that brought in a Social Services check.
“One day he beat O’Dell so goddamned bad I thought the boy would die.
Because O’Dell had shat up his pants. They had so much trouble teaching O’Dell about the bathroom.
Anyway, I reckoned to stop it. Caught Uncle Jack along the Perkinsville Road, drunk as usual on O’Dell's money. Ain't done nothing in my life that made me feel so good as when I put the blade into that mean old bastard. And it's been like that ever since, me watching out for O’Dell, him for me, we was all we had in the goddamned world. And it wasn't so bad, we'd made our place, until goddamned Junior Jefferson pulled his stunt.”
It was as complete an accounting of his life as he'd ever given to anybody.
“You've had such a hard time.”
“The House is full of men with hard lives. We're just like them, that's all.”
“It's a sad story. Mr. Pye, I honestly believe if you'd have caught a break somewhere along the line, you could have been a great man.”
“I don't know why you'd say such a thing. I'm just a piece of scum.”
“But what would you do if you could do anything?”
Lamar thought. The question had never been put to him before.
“I'd like to invent a ray,” he said.
“You know, like a beam of light. And everything you shine it on, you make it fair. You shine it and there's a lot of money and nobody's sick or angry or nothing, you just make people happy. That's what I'd do. A happy ray. I'd shine it in all the prisons and all the shithole, jerkwater towns. I'd shine it on O’Dell and he could talk and his mouth would be mended up. I'd even shine it on the niggers, yes, goddammit, I would, and they would change their evil ways.”
She beheld him gravely.
“That is the sweetest thing I ever did hear.”
“Well, it won't never happen,” said Lamar.
“You're like that ray. You give people hope. You watch.
They'll believe in you like in Jesus or Mr. Elvis Presley.
They know you stand for freedom.”
She touched his knee.
“I thought you loved that Richard. He showed me that letter.”
“I guess I did. Don't know why I thought so much of poor Richard. He ain't but a ninny. I doubt he has hair on his privates. What is it you want? I'll give you everything you want.”
