A minute or two passed in the watching where all the madness was just a distant murmur in mah ear, as if infected by mah sense of quietude, and then ah saw the left foot twitch and almost immediately ah saw it twitch a second time – this dead foot – trying to gain someone’s attention, ah expect – and after much floccillating she was remembered, and the stronger men of the concourse were upon her, hoisting the wheelchair and the gagging woman out of the turbid, reeking shallows and into the rain. Wilma Eldridge wore a hood of tar-black sewage that stretched down over the tops of her shoulders, the rest of her body being coated in a lamina of surface scum – dead leaves, rotten reeds, bulrush seeds. She was lifted, rigid and blue, back into the chair by the Schultz twins, all three ignoring the ferret-like fussings of her husband. Baker Wiggam dropped his massive grey greatcoat over her shivering body as the cripple lifted her face to the inclement heavens and let the hood of filth be washed away.
Somewhat sobered by the incident, the crowd, with the intention of deferring its baptism for a short time, gathered around the bank, whilst Abie Poe, who had himself climbed from the waters, stood behind the decrepit wheelchair, gripping it by the handles. Conducting a long, drawn-out scan of his congregation, staring into silence each of those that still talked, he took one deep nasal intake of air, then cried out, ‘Can you smell the sulphur? Breathe it, everyone. Learn that stench! Sulphur! The stink of Satan!’ He leaned over Wilma Eldridge and spoke softly to the stunned crone – to her, yes, yet to all – the way only Poe knew how, his tirades being full of sinister whispers and poison hisses, though never a word escaped unheard.
‘Praise be to God, Wilma Eldridge,’ he whispered. ‘Satan, thy name is Calamity. The Devil’s is the hand that pusheth us forth? into the abyss! But it is the hand of the Lord that pulleth us out!
‘Hallelujah!’ bleated the crowd sequaciously.
By now ah had kind of shrunk behind some bulrushes, the whole turn of Poe’s blood-sneaping homily becoming suddenly very intimidating – intimidating? To be honest, all that stuff about who’s pushing and who’s pulling gave me the fucking black chatters – know what ah mean? Ah felt at that moment in time about as comfortable as a chippie in a church, shrinking and shivering down there in the rushes.
Then, from only a few feet away, came the sing-song tauntings of a child, pealing out above the din of the rain, above the mob’s dumbfusion, above the tumid throb throb throb of mah heart’s condition.
‘There’s ya Deevil! There’s ya arm that done the pushing! Him, there! Ah seen him do it! Threw the safety catch and let her roll! Kerspla-a-ash!! See? In the reeds yonder, chicken-scared ’cause he knows he done it!’
Fists Wiggam stood, legs astride, puffed up with spite, one pudgy arm pointed at me as he yelled ‘Idjit threw her in the sewer! Idjit threw her in the sewer!’ with screwed up nose and sour mouth. ‘There’s ya stinker! There’s ya stinker!’
Suddenly everybody seemed to have taken a step in mah direction! Then another!
In no time at all Poe had loomed out of the mob, rolling one soppy sleeve of his unnerwear way up above the elbow. He plunged his arm into the rushes and hauled me out, one huge, black hand clamped vice-like about the back of mah neck.
The whole damn mob crowded around, all staring and craning and looking disgusted – all nodding and going ‘uh-huh’ and ‘ye-e-s’ and ‘that’s the one,’ and suddenly there were two hundred witnesses all crying ‘ Sabotage!’ Ah just stared at the ground, Poe’s steely fingers still clamped around mah neck.
‘Who are ya, baw?’ snarled Poe, and then to the crowd, ‘Who owns this child?’
Fists Wiggam piped up. ‘This kid’s trash, Preacher! Lives in the shack yonder.’ And again his little fat hand did its bit of pointing.
‘What’s your name?’ said Poe, grabbing me by the chin and jerking mah face upward so he could better see me. ‘I asked you your name, baw.’
‘Ain’t got one! Couldn’t speak it if he had’n! He’s a idjit! His daddy’s got hill in him! He’s schoopid dumb, Preacher!’ squealed Fists… and ah reached over and shoved mah hand down his throat and tore his tongue out by the roots, slapping the whole bloody lump of green meat, still twitching, into the fat little fucker’s horrified hands… but ah did not. No, ah did not. Instead ah looked up into Poe’s terrible face. The intensity with which he stared at me was becoming almost embarrassing. And then, before mah eyes, ah saw his face dramatically change. The cruel crimson scar blanched and became a pale violet, and his vulturous eyes glazed, turned hyalescent – but strangely smokey too, as if the hell-fire that had raged behind them had burnt itself out, but still smouldered steadily. His tone of voice became suddenly hollow, and when he spoke to me it was as if he was addressing someone inside of me. The crowd moved closer, mouths agape, infected by the preacher’s turn of mood.
‘Behold, a child which hath a dumb spirit. How long hath this futile spirit been within? I say life-long! I say possibly ten long years hath his spirit lain dumb.’
‘Wrong. Thirteen and a half,’ ah thought.
‘O faithless generation, how long must I suffer thee?’ cried Poe.
‘How long must I suffer thee?!’ cried ah, inside.
‘I am the spirit of Elijah,’ continued Poe, weirdly, ‘a little cleansing, a little healing, a little crying in the wilderness.’
The crowd moved in and ah sought desperately for an opening in its ranks.
‘If thou canst believe, then anything is possible. Dost thou truly believe?’ asked the preacher, abstractly, and a few said ‘Ye’ and ‘Ah do’ – uncertain of who the preacher was talking to.
‘Then dumb spirit, I charge thee! Come out of this child and enter no more!’ Poe cried out.
And, well, ah felt a squirming of mah entrails and suddenly ah knew – ah just knew that ah was going to speak – yes, ah did – and the squirming tore into mah chest and roiled up mah glottis into mah mouth, and ah spat with all mah heart. A great glob of sputum hit Abie Poe on the right knee, dangling greenly there, then dripped and slid obscenely down his foot and between his toes.
Ah gnashed mah teeth. Ah frothed. Ah foamed. Ah shook mah head wildly, and suddenly all the words ah had ever wanted to speak were there for mah choosing, all crammed up to be first spoken, mah body now free of the dumb spirit.
The crowd widened, drew back, thinned as ah bucked and neighed and thrashed and beat mah breast and crossed mah eyes, and made ready to shout ‘Hallelujah! Praise God in Heaven for His mercy!’ as ah wept and laughed and wept and rolled around in a puddle.
The people moving slowly away shook their heads grimly and muttered things that ah could not hear, as ah flailed and weaved and writhed mah way up the hill – the crowd quite distant now.
Ah lay in the grass, breathless and naked, and watched them trudge wearily toward the road that took them home, and ah flattened the wet grass unner mah chin with mah hand, and, turning mah head to the side, gently laid it down, ear pressed to the muddy earth, and ah listened to the sound of the rain as it crashed down all about me.
XI
Ah remember a time of eudemonia. A time when skies were azure blue and streaked with veils of cirrus – or else they carried the hull of a cotton-coloured cumulus across their infinite waters. A time when the shrill song of the cicada filled the vale and the cedar’s low sough mingled with the hush and mutter of the cane crop’s relentless unner-song. A time filled with the scent of pine and orange flowers. When jack-o’-lanterns and will-o’-the-wisps shone in the brakes and bracken. When the humming breath of summer grazed the cheek of shallow waters, sending bulrushes all a-reeling. Ah remember a time when years were quartered into seasons, when day became night. A time of dusks and dawns and suns and moons. When all the valley green worked toward the ingathering, the munificent harvest and the rewards of honest toil, of good health, of well-being, of Christian charity, of brotherly love and the love of God, all beneath the boon of a golden sun. Ah remember a time when there was peace in the valley.