Ginny Gall полностью

Delvin turned away. He was afraid he was about to start crying. He felt as if a huge part of him was breaking off, shelving away — as if he was big as a town or a continent, something huge about him that he had never noticed now shifting, rumbling and sliding down, contravening solidity and the future. “You got to excuse me,” he said, ran and pushed through the door of Heberson’s outhouse, shucked, squatted and let loose his bowels. Even as he did so something urged him to flee instantly. He had to grip one of the worn two-by-four supports to hold himself in place. He felt sick, as if his insides had melted in a corrosive heat. He strained over himself, the pungent stink rising as he did so. “Lord God, suppose me,” he said. “Suppose me into your way right now. O Help me help me help me.” He was falling through himself and for a second thought he would pass out. But he came back. He tore off a sheet of the old Collier’s Encyclopedia hanging backless on a hook and cleaned himself, fixed his clothes and came out again into the vaguely light-muddled dark behind the store where the Ghost, pale and swaying, piecing out a mountain tune, waited.

“You done fo it now, aint you?” the Ghost said.

The stars faint above the city like pale drops flicked off heaven’s fingers. Never to be the same again. Tick time, he thought, Little Time.

“Was there anything going on at home?”

“I aint been over there, but when I left out Mr. Oliver was preparing a body — Miss Freedly from over on Godown street, that old woman who used to boil up those pots of molasses in her backyard? You didn’t shoot her, did you?

“No. She died?”

“Yeah. Waked up dead in her bed this morning, Elmer said. Mr. Oliver is probably just finishing with her now. Funeral’s tomorrow.”

“Would you tell them I have some business over in town and probably won’t be in tonight?”

“Will they believe me?”

“Tell em I’m going shining for rabbits with some boys.”

“Can I go?”

“It’s just something I want you to tell them.”

“Okay.”

They were sitting now on a couple of bottomless rush chairs that Mr. Heberson had set beside a storage shed for possible repairing. Mr. Heberson ran a sideline in repaired used furniture. The backyard was piled with couches and broken tables and smashed-up chairs. From the grocery’s double back doors came the sound of Heberson’s crystal radio playing white church music. Delvin listened for a minute; a few passages were soothing, then a run of growly, stiff exhorting was not. He wanted to phonecall Mr. Oliver, but he better forgo that. A wan emptiness revealed itself under his heart. He longed to go lie down on the big red and gold rug in Mr. O’s bedroom and read his book on sea voyages — longed to be there right now turning the big stiff pages, listening to Mr. O humming under his breath. But he didn’t want to have to tell him what happened. The Ghost’s information had plunged him into a terror so brusque and enveloping he could hardly think. As if a whole scotched world has just shook into place and he stood in the middle of it. A scotched world in a scotched world, he thought and almost laughed. Poor white boy. He hoped he wasn’t dead. Off in the lonely leaf strew of the mountain. Loneliness flooding along inside him as he thought this.

He told the Ghost to run on to the house and then he waited a while before going into the grocery and buying a bag of crackers and some store cheese. Then he crossed the Row to Onely’s house. It was a shanty made of boards tacked onto poles and a roof of slats covered in disintegrating tarpaper. He sneaked up through the smelly yard, a skinny pale dog snuffling and bowing-up with delight at his side, and looked through a crack. There was no sign of Onely. As he walked away down the alley Onely called to him from a mass of elderberry bushes. He stepped out to meet Delvin. The alley smelled like dead animals. Gray puffed clouds were out all over the sky, sliding along, hauled like barges by a great current before a pinched moon. Onely had a hat, an old soft snapbrim with a hole in the crown, pulled over his eyes. He didn’t push it back to talk to Delvin.

“I was afraid you’d run off to turn me in,” he said. His large teeth gleamed as he spoke.

“I wouldn’t do that. I didn’t even think of it. Besides, we’re two colored boys. They’d be more happy to fry two than one.”

“I hadn’t seen anything unusual around here,” Onely said.

Delvin told him about the Ghost’s visit to the police station.

“That humbugger. He probably turned us in.”

“He wouldn’t. He’s a free-hearted soul.”

“You think they want to keep it quiet til they catch us?”

“They couldn’t do that. This is the kind of thing word gets around on. You sure you shot that boy?”

“You heard him cry out yourself.”

“I heard somebody.”

“That was probably the somebody that said They shot ’im. Dang. Even if we’d missed him by a mile, they know we’s black uns and they’ll come at us just the same. You shouldn’t a spooked em.”

Delvin thought that too but he didn’t say anything.