Dark Benediction

“Doodle…?”

“When are you coming for us, father?” came in a ghost whisper from the bed. “When, when?”

“What are you talking about, Doodie?” The cast-iron stove-lid clattered on the hot metal as she lifted it nervously aside. She glanced down briefly at the red coals in the stove, then back at Doodie.

“Very soon… very soon!” he whispered.

Lucey chucked the stick of wood in atop the coals, then stood staring at the bed until the flames licked up about the lid-hole to glisten orange on her sweat-glazed face.

“Who are you talkin’ to, Doodie?”

She expected no answer, but after several seconds, his breathing grew deeper. Then it came: “My father.”

Luccy’s plump mouth went slowly shut and her hand quivered as she fumbled for the stove lid.

“Your pa is dead, Doodle. You know that.”

The emaciated youth stirred on the bed, picked himself up slowly on one arm, and turned to look at her, his eyes blazing. “You lie!” he cried. “Mama, you lie!”

“Doodie!”

“I hate you, Mama. I hate all of you, and I’ll make you pay. I’ll be like him.”

The stove lid clattered back in place. She wiped her hands nervously on her dress. “You’re sick, Doodie! You’re not right in the mind. You never even seed your pa.”

“I talk to him,” the boy said. “He tells me things. He told me why you’re my mother. He told me how. And he told me who I am.”

“You’re my son!” Lucey’s voice had gone up an octave, and she edged defensively away.

“Only half of me, Mama.” The boy said, then laughed defiantly. “Only half of me is even human. You knew that when he came here, and paid you to have his baby.”

“Doodie!”

“You can’t lie to me, Mama. He tells me. He knows.”

“He was just a man, Doodie. Now he’s gone. He never came back, do you hear?”

The boy stared out the window at the rain-shroud. When he spoke again, it was in a small slow voice of contempt.

“It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t want you to believe—any of you.” He paused to snicker. “He doesn’t want to warn you what we’re going to do.”

Lucey shook her head slowly. “Lord, have mercy on me,” she breathed. “I know I done wrong. But please, punish old Lucey and not my boy.”

“I ain’t crazy, Mama.”

“If you ain’t crazy, you’re ‘witched,’ and talkin’ to the dead.”

“He ain’t dead. He’s Outside.”

Lucey’s eyes flickered quickly to the door.

“And he’s comin’ back—soon.” The boy chuckled. “Then he’ll make me like him, and it won’t hurt to listen.”

“You talk like he wasn’t a man. I seed him, and you didn’t. Your pa was just a man, Doodie.”

“No, Mama. He showed you a man because he wanted you to see a man. Next time, he’ll come the way he really is.”

“Why would your pa come back,” she snorted, summoning courage to stir the pot. “What would he want here? If you was right in the head, you wouldn’t get fits, and you’d know you never seed him. What’s his name? You don’t even know his name.”

“His name is a purple bitter with black velvet, Mama. Only there isn’t any word.”

“Fits,” she moaned. “A child with fits.”

“The crawlers, you mean? That’s when be talks to me. It hurts at first.”

She advanced on him with a big tin spoon, and shook it at him. “You’re sick, Doodie. And don’t you carry on so. A doctor’s what you need… if only Mama had some money.”

“I won’t fuss with you, Mama.”

“Huh!” She stood there for a moment, shaking her head. Then she went back to stir the pot. Odorous steam arose to perfume the shack.

The boy turned his head to watch her with luminous eyes. “The fits are when be talks, Mama. Honest they are. It’s like electricity inside me. I wish I could tell you how.”

“Sick!” She shook her head vigorously. “Sick, that’s all.”

“If I was all like him, it wouldn’t hurt. It only hurts because I’m half like you.”

“Doodie, you’re gonna drive your old mother to her grave. Why do you torment me so?”

He turned back to the window and fell silent… determinedly, hostilely silent. The silence grew like an angry thing in the cabin, and Lucey’s noises at the stove only served to punctuate it.

“Where does your father stay, Doodie?” she asked at last, in cautious desperation.

“Outside…”

“Gitalong! Wheah outside, in a palmetto scrub? In the cypress swamp?”

“Way Outside. Outside the world.”

“Who taught you such silliness? Spirits an’ such! I ought to tan you good, Doodie!”

“From another world,” the boy went on.

“An’ he talks to you from the other world?” Doodie nodded solemnly.

Lucey stirred vigorously at the pot, her face creased in a dark frown. Lots of folks believed in spirits, and lots of folks believed in mediums. But Lucey had got herself straight with the Lord.

“I’m gonna call the parson,” she grunted flatly.

“Why?”

“Christian folks don’t truck with spirits.”

“He’s no spirit, Mama. He’s like a man, only he’s not. He comes from a star.”

She set her jaw and fell grimly silent. She didn’t like to remember Doodie’s father. He’d come seeking shelter from a storm, and he was big and taciturn, and he made love like a machine. Lucey had been younger then— younger and wilder, and not afraid of shame. He’d vanished as quickly as he’d come.

When he had gone, it almost felt like he’d been there to accomplish an errand, some piece of business that had to be handled hastily and efficiently.

“Why’d he want a son?” she scoffed. “If what you say is true—which it ain’t.”

The boy stirred restlessly. “Maybe I shouldn’t tell.”

“You tell Mama.”

“You won’t believe it anyway,” he said listlessly. “He fixed it so I’d look human. He fixed it so he could talk to me. I tell him things. Things he could find out himself if he wanted to.”

“What does he want to know?”

“How humans work inside.”

“Livers and lungs and such? Sssssst! Silliest I ever—”

“And brains. Now they know.”

“They?”

“Pa’s people. You’ll see. Now they know, and they’re corning to run things. Things will be different, lots different.”

“When?”

“Soon. Only pa’s coming sooner. He’s their… their…” The boy groped for a word. “He’s like a detective.”

Lucey took the corn bread out of the oven and sank despairingly into a chair. “Doodie, Doodie…”

“What, Mama?”

“Oh, Sweet Jesus! What did I do, what did I do? He’s a child of the devil. Fits an’ lies and puny ways. Lord, have mercy on me.”

With an effort, the boy sat up to stare at her weakly. “He’s no devil, Mama. He’s no man, but he’s better than a man. You’ll see.”