A Cry of Angels

by Jeff Fields

  I started for the door. "I'll go get Jayell and the others and . . ."

  I felt a hand grab my arm and I went spinning to the floor. Em stood over me, jowls quivering.

  "I'm done messin' with you! You'll do what I tole you!"

  "If you want to go, go!" I shouted at him. "I'm not runnin' anywhere!"

  "Then I'm gonna drag you, boy!"

  I jumped to my feet. "I ain't afraid! You hear me? I ain't afraid!"

  "Boy, listen to me. Only damned fools ain't afraid. Right now I'm more scared than I ever been. I don't want to die. You don't begin to care about life till you realize it's got no purpose, then it's everything. And when you ain't part of nothin', when you don't belong nowhere or to nobody and all you got is yourself, when you die it don't mean nothin', the world just comes to an end."

  "You talk about not belongin' to nothin'—you got the whole thing started up and soon as trouble comes you want to cut out!"

  "Me? I ain't responsible!"

  "Yes, you are, and it's time you owned up to it. You're as much a part of it as anybody else, even more. They couldn't have done what they're doin' if it hadn't been for you!"

  "I ain't responsible!" he shouted, drawing back as though I'd touched him with fire.

  "Who's idea was it to make that tree fall on Jayell's house? If it hadn't been for that he'd never have started those houses. And who was it convinced the old people they could make it after Miss Esther left? Who told Mr. Teague he could take on that chain store? When I could hardly move that arm, who was it wanted to race to the top of a tree? You're responsible, Em Jojohn. You're responsible for all of us!"

  He stood glaring at me, the fury distilled to two fierce points in his eyes.

  "I could cut off my hands," he said quietly, "for the day I pulled you out of that fire."

  He turned away, mouth-breathing, trying to control his rage.

  "Fire . . . ? Em . . ." I reached to touch him and he slapped my hand away. "Em, what about the fire?"

  His voice rasped with bitterness. "All I ever wanted was to be left alone . . ." He leaned a fist on the table, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps.

  It was all swirling—the broken pieces, the dream, the monster hands reaching for me . . .

  "Em—it was you? You pulled me out of the fire?"

  He kept his back to me. After a moment, his head lowered and Em started talking, the words pulsing slowly, as though he bled them.

  ". . . comin' along the road, and I seen it burnin'. I couldn't get 'em out, wasn't no way I could get 'em out, it was like a tinder box. They was caught in the bedroom and it was a solid wall of flame. The man tried to get through it and he couldn't . . . the woman was screamin', then I heard you screamin' in the room 'crost the breezeway. I bust in and got you out. I don't know how—the bed was burnin', your clothes were afire. But I got you out. Somehow I got you out.

  "And it didn't hit me till I'd got you in the yard and rolled you in the ditch and stood holdin' you while the neighbors come—with you carryin' on out of your head, lookin' at me like I was some demon out of hell, your eyes wild, accusin' me . . . it didn't hit me till then what I'd done."

  "I hung around the hospital while they tried to find somebody to take you, watchin' you lay there day after day, starin' at the wall, not talkin', not movin'. The doctor said you'd be all right soon as your arm healed up and you got with your people. But I knew you wouldn't be all right."

  "I tried to forget. I done everything to forget. I wished many times I'd just kept walkin' down that road and let you be with your mama and papa. But I didn't. I got in there and pulled you back. And now there was a child that should'a been dead, was probably meant to be dead, a sharecropper's kid that'd never get proper treatment, that nobody'd ever give a damn for, partly crippled, all messed up in your head and not able to get along in the world, and I was the one responsible."

  "It hung over me. I couldn't shake it. So when I found out they'd sent you to Georgia, I found myself movin' that way. I said, I'll just have a look at him, see he's gettin' along all right."

  "And then I found you—creepin' about the place like a little scared animal, settin' by the drainpipe to pass the night, wakin' up screamin' every time you fell asleep . . ."

  The Indian's voice trailed off.

  So there it was. My mind was drifting back to the unexplained trips, the ramblings up the road—Em's attempted escapes, from me. Me, the one mistake in his solitary life. I thought of the returnings, the nights of agony, the hatred in his eyes, never suspecting the cause of that agony, the object of that awesome, barely controlled rage . . .

  My attention came sharply back to the present. I glanced out the window at the lights glowing in the deceptive peacefulness of the hollow, a sudden panicky feeling welling up in me.

  With perfect clarity I saw that in the clash that now was coming, it was Em, the innocent, of no importance to either side, who was most sure to be sacrificed.

  And I would be responsible.

  I had to get him out of there, but alone, on his instincts, where he had the best chance.

  I circled the table in front of him fighting to control my voice.

  "All right," I said, "you helped me, but you used me too. Now we're even. Go on, get out of here."

  Em raised his head and looked at me.

  "You used me, Em. I told you I didn't need you the last time you came back, but still you kept hanging around. It's because you didn't want to go, and I was just an excuse!"

  He straightened slowly, the bitter anguish in his face twisting as he struggled for comprehension.

  "You slipped up, Em. You got comfortable. It wasn't easy bein' on the road, fightin' the whole world to be your Own Man, was it? But it was easy here in the Ape Yard. You had a place to sleep, you could get fed without too much trouble, nobody to mess with you. You even quit fightin' and scrappin'! How long's it been since you were in a fight anyway? A year? What's the matter, did they wear you down, Em? You lost your nerve? Oh, sure, you stood up to Bobo, with all those white folks backin' you up! But you been hidin' out ever since. You've just plain lost your nerve, haven't you, big 'un? You're afraid to be the old Em anymore!"

  He moved, and checked himself. He stood over me, flushed, shaking, his fingers opening, closing. I moved around the table, watching, trying to gauge him.

  "So, go on, get out of here, nobody's got you penned up. You know, I used to think that collie dog up the street hated you so much and took on so when you passed because he was behind that fence and he could sense that you were so free. But you're just like him, snarlin' and snappin' and makin' a lot of noise—only for you the gate's been open all the time. So go, if you still got the guts." I grabbed up the canvas bag and flung it into his face. "Go on, you old whipped dog, tuck your tail between your legs and git!"

  With a roar he suddenly threw the table aside, an unexpected move that cut me off from the door, and came racing for me, his powerful hands raised, his face hideous. I backed away, looking for an opening, but I was trapped. The dark thing that had tormented him so long was on the surface now, in control and coming for me.

  "Easy, man."

  Em whirled on the motion and stood crouched.

  It was a young black man, in a metal studded belt, sighting down a double-barreled shotgun.

  There was another man coming in the door behind him, a short, fat man, with the cherubic features of a black Santa Claus.

  "What say, what say," said Bubba White.

  Em straightened. The dog boy immediately stepped clear and shouldered his weapon. Both hammers were cocked.

  "Easy now, Em," said Bubba White. "Ernie just got that scattergun yesterday, and he's itchin' for a chance to test the pattern."

  "What you want, Bubba?"

  "Jes' want you to come down to my place. Set down, have a friendly drink."

  "Well, like to, Bubba, but I's just tellin' the boy, it's time ole Em was easin' up the road."

  "Naw . . . ain't no need to rush off
now, Em. Time to leave was a week or two ago, before you put your nose in where it didn't belong. Now, folks wants you to stay . . . told me to be sure you did."

  "Let him go," I said, "he won't cause you no—"

  Bubba White put a hand in my face and shoved me toward the corner. "Stan' over there and keep your mouth shut! And don't bother to run, there's plenty more downstairs." He turned back to Em, and began pulling lengths of chain and padlocks from his coat pockets. "Jes' go down to my place, Em, till this is all over. Don't want you mixin' in where you got no business again."

  "Then what?" said Em. He was keeping a worried eye on me.

  Very carefully, very slowly, I lifted the chicken catcher from the corner.

  "Then we'll see," said Bubba White. He waddled forward, watching Em cautiously. "Now, you jes' put your hands out for me, straight out, and don't do nothin' rambunctious. You gon' do that for me now, ain't you?"

  "Uh-huh," said Em, "uh-huh."

  The wire loop was directly over the dog boy's head. I let it drop, and yanked back as hard as I could as Em dodged aside.

  The first blast from the scattergun raked the wall and window bursting the fish tank, shredding the Lone Ranger poster and blowing the souvenir G-string into flying fuzz. Em's hands hit Bubba White's chest so hard I heard the little fat man's breath lock in his throat. He reeled backward into the dog boy with such force his shoulder went through the flimsy weatherboarding. The second charge triggered and cleaned the lamp off the table and shattered everything on the kitchen shelves.

  In the dark and falling glass I heard the trap door thrown open and a flop in the garage below. A moment later the walls shook with the roar of a revving motor.

  "Comin' out!" Bubba screamed out the window. "Comin' out!"

  There were footsteps running toward the garage, then the sound of doors batting open and the startled cries of men scrambling to get out of the way. From the window I saw the bike tear up the yard toward the boardinghouse. It crashed through the sham hedge and swerved under the old grape arbor, Jojohn fighting for control. It circled and veered up the driveway toward the street, but it was blocked by cars. Headlights came on, men ran out waving their arms. At the last moment Jojohn braked and the cart came around in a flying skid that sent the men climbing fenders.

  Back he came, full throttle, bumping through the backyard and scattering converging shadows. It seemed at that moment that the bike became alive. It was like a skittish, charging animal with a mind of its own, dodging among the fruit trees, careening perilously off the brick borders of flower beds, bucketing over bushes and sending lawn chairs spinning, smashing down rotted clothesline and grape arbor poles—plunging and shying from the frantic hands that grappled for it, and narrowly, sometimes miraculously, avoiding certain disaster, with the helpless, frightened Indian clinging to the back.

  Then the bike was turned and heading back toward the garage. He came crashing through the shrubbery and circled in front of the garage. "Wooooo!" he sang in the wind. "Wooooo!"

  Then Bubba's men were running back, closing in on him in a large semicircle, and with a sudden burst of the throttle the Indian swerved down by the garage and went over the edge of the gully.

  I jumped out on the shed in time to see him cut hard to hold the slope as he slid down. The bike bottomed, clawed up the other side, then leveled off to the right and went flying, vines and branches ripping. A moment later he burst into the moonlight on the hardcurled mud of the pasture and disappeared into the Ape Yard.

  "Let him go!" Bubba White was crying. "Don't go chasin' him. Been too much ruckus already! Get the boy!"

  Ernie appeared behind me on the shed and shoved me roughly off into waiting hands below. "Don't you give no more trouble," Bubba said, still wheezing somewhat from the blow to his chest. "I'll slit your throat like a pig."

  As they dragged me up to the cars by the boardinghouse I saw why the commotion had failed to bring the boarders. I could see them seated at the dining-room table. A dog boy cradling a gun waved at Bubba and pulled down the shade.

  Teague's grocery stood fully lit against only a scattering of yellow lights along the hill. It was deadly quiet, with none of the usual Friday night frolicking. There was no traffic in the streets.

  Bubba White led us up the back stairs to the kitchen, where a dog boy let us in. I was shoved through the kitchen to Mr. Teague's front room, which faced the street.

  The first thing that caught my eye was Jayell and Phaedra, lying bound and gagged on Mr. Teague's bed. Mr. Teague and Tio sat on the couch, a dog boy's pistol at the back of their heads. Doc Bobo sat in a wingback chair, his fingers steepled under his nose. The door closed softly behind us, and I turned and looked up into the face of Clyde Fay.

  "I told you, no noise," Doc Bobo said.

  "Couldn't help it," said Bubba White. "The Indian got away . . ."

  "What!"

  "Thanks to him!" said Bubba, shoving me forward.

  "Ahhh, yes, the loft rat." Doc Bobo pressed down the tape around his bandaged nose. "Well, he's the one I wanted." He smiled at my surprise. "Makes no difference about the Indian," he said. "If I know him, he's in Carolina by now." He dropped his hand and cocked an eye at Bubba. "The boarders?"

  "They tucked in for the night."

  Doc Bobo nodded once. "Well"—he pulled himself to his feet and looked around—"I believe now, Mr. Teague, you and I can conclude our business." He opened his coat and pulled out a sheaf of legal papers. "We'll just get your signature on these and we'll be done."

  He stepped closer and extended a fountain pen. Mr. Teague sat staring at the floor.

  "Come now, Mr. Teague, I'm going to take you out of all this grief. You don't need this; a man your age needs to be relaxing, enjoying himself."

  Mr. Teague looked up. "You need to be in hell, nigger."

  Doc Bobo drew back and his hand smacked hard across the old man's face. "I've had enough of that, you damned old piece of white trash—and I'm through wasting time with you! Fay!"

  Clyde Fay crossed the room and seized Tio by the throat and lifted him in the air like a puppy. He stood holding him at arm's length, watching him with his hands. I lunged forward and felt hands grip me.

  Mr. Teague started up and Bobo shoved him back on the sofa and brandished the papers under his nose. "Sign 'em, or see his neck get wrung like a chicken!"

  His face white, Mr. Teague fumbled the papers in his lap. He took the pen and scribbled his signature.

  "All five copies." Doc Bobo smiled. He put his fists on his hips as he watched the old man sign. Tio was gagging, struggling for breath. "Don't know why I didn't see it before," said Bobo. "Could have saved everybody a whole lot of trouble. But it wasn't until I saw you buck up in defense of the boy that I saw the key to you, Mr. Teague."

  Mr. Teague scribbled on the last page and shoved the papers back at Bobo. "Now, for God's sake, let him down!"

  Doc Bobo checked the signatures. He turned to Fay and nodded, and the giant let Tio drop to the floor. Mr. Teague got up to go to him, and when he passed Doc Bobo, the undertaker looked at Fay and nodded.

  I watched in shock as Fay's hands closed on the back of the old man's neck. Straining with the effort, the black man turned and lifted him off the floor and threw him full force headfirst into the wall.

  Mr. Teague lay crumpled like a doll. A pool of blood slowly started to ooze from his head.

  I couldn't move.

  After a moment Tio went and knelt beside him. He lifted the bleeding head and cradled it in his lap and sat looking down into the small, drawn face. "Ah, little man," he whispered, "little man . . ."

  "You didn't have to kill him!" I screamed at Bobo.

  "Kill him? Why no, the old man simply fell down the stairs. It happens all the time. Just as boys tend to wander and their bones are sometimes found in creeks and abandoned wells. Bring them!" Tio and I were seized and dragged toward the door. Doc Bobo leaned over Jayell and Phaedra, struggling on the bed. "Don't worry, you won't be
harmed. You and the old people will only be kept out of sight until our big weekend celebration is over, then you will be free to go where you wish, to tell any story you like."

  44

  The Ape Yard stood waiting in the smoky, brick-red dawn. There had been rain in the night, and when the first hazy slivers of sunlight began to worm their way through the trees beyond the river, heavy black clouds still lay banked to the south. Silent lightning licked at the distant earth.

  Doc Bobo's voice rang through the quiet. "Get 'em out! Get 'em all out here!"

  Tio and I stood beside him on the steps of the Rainbow Supper Club and watched the dog boys move from house to house, kicking in doors, snapping orders, herding people into the streets. We watched as they stumbled out, hesitant, frightened, dodging the swinging belts, moving along the ridges and clay paths toward us in the lower end of the hollow. The hillsides filled with them, hundreds of them, old people, sleepy children stepping tenderly with new-wakened feet, families clinging together, people swinging down from porches, pushing through weeds and around the little brown shacks, under clothes left on the line overnight, soot-grimed and speckled with rain. Slowly they gathered above us, lining the banks and ridges, and stood waiting in the earthen light and smoke of breakfast fires that rolled heavily over the rooftops and climbed along the hills.

  They stood and watched and waited, in the smoky, brick-red dawn.

  The dog boys came back to the supper club and stood in the yard and on the porch, about a dozen of them, vicious-looking, muscular men, some with shoulder holsters protruding from their expensively tailored jackets. On the hill across the road two more were coming down the slope, driving before them the boys from the job: Carlos, Skeeter, Jackie, Willie Daniels. Simon and Loomis struggled to carry Speck Turner between them, his head bleeding. The dog boys whipped them all to their knees on the bank and came to the porch.

  Doc Bobo waited for silence.