The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers [119]
He met the writer of signs whose chalked message he had seen the past November. From the first day of their meeting the old man clung to him like an evil genius. His name was Simms and he preached on the sidewalks. The winter cold had kept him indoors, but in the spring he was out on the streets all day.
His white hair was soft and ragged on his neck and he carried around with him a woman’s big silk pocketbook full of chalk and Jesus ads. His eyes were bright and crazy. Simms tried to convert him.
‘Child of adversity, I smell the sinful stink of beer on thy breath. And you smoke cigarettes. If the Lord had wanted us to smoke cigarettes He would have said so in His Book. The mark of Satan is on thy brow. I see it. Repent. Let me show you the light.’ Jake rolled up his eyes and made a slow pious sign in the air.
Then he opened his oil-stained hand. ‘I reveal this only to you,’ he said in a low stage voice. Simms looked down at the scar in his palm. Jake leaned closer and whispered: ‘And there’s the other sign. The sign you know. For I was born with them.’
Simms backed against the fence. With a womanish gesture he lifted a lock of silver hair from his forehead and smoothed it back on his head. Nervously his tongue licked the corners of his mouth. Jake laughed.
‘Blasphemer!’ Simms screamed. ‘God will get you. You and all your crew. God remembers the scoffers. He watches after me. God watches everybody but He watches me the most. Like He did Moses. God tells me things in the night. God will get you.’ He took Simms down to a corner store for Coca-Colas and peanut-butter crackers. Simms began to work on him again. When he left for the show Simms ran along behind him. ‘Come to this corner tonight at seven o’clock. Jesus has a message just for you.’ The first days of April were windy and warm. White clouds trailed across the blue sky. In the wind there was the smell of the river and also the fresher smell of fields beyond the town. The show was crowded every day from four in the afternoon until midnight. The crowd was a tough one. With the new spring he felt an undertone of trouble. One night he was working on the machinery of the swings when suddenly he was roused from thought by the sounds of angry voices. Quickly he pushed through the crowd until he saw a white girl fighting with a colored girl by the ticket booth of the flying-jinny. He wrenched them apart, but still they struggled to get at each other. The crowd took sides and there was a bedlam of noise. The white girl was a hunchback. She held something tight in her hand. ‘I seen you,’ the colored girl yelled. ‘I ghy beat that hunch off your back, too.’
‘Hush your mouth, you black nigger! ‘ ‘Low-down factory tag. I done paid my money and I ghy ride. White man, you make her give me back my ticket.’
‘Black nigger slut! ‘ Jake looked from one to the other. The crowd pressed close. There were mumbled opinions on every side. ‘I seen Lurie drop her ticket and I watched this here white lady pick it up. That the truth,’ a colored boy said. ‘No nigger going to put her hands on no white girl while--. ‘You quit that pushing me. I ready to hit back even if your skin do be white.’ Roughly Jake pushed into the thick of the crowd. ‘All right! ‘ he yelled. ‘Move on--break it up. Every damn one of you.’ There was something about the size of his fists that made the people drift sullenly away. Jake turned back to the two girls.
‘This here the way it is,’ said the colored girl. I bet I one of the few peoples here who done saved over fifty cents till Friday night. I done ironed double this week. I done paid a good nickel for that ticket she holding. And now I means to ride. Jake settled the trouble quickly. He let the hunchback keep the disputed ticket and issued another one to the colored girl. For the rest of that evening there were no more quarrels. But Jake moved alertly through the crowd. He was troubled and uneasy.
In addition to himself there were five other employees at the show--two men to operate the swings and take tickets and three girls to manage the booths. This did not count Patterson.