9

Jesus Fever was a sick man. For over a week he'd been unable to hold anything on his stomach. His skin was parched like an old leaf, and his eyes, milky with film, saw strange things: Randolph's father, he swore, was lurking in a corner of the cabin; all the funny papers and Coca-Cola pictures plastering the walls were, he complained, crooked and aggravating; a noise like the crack of a whip snapped in his head; a bouquet of sunflowers Joel had brought became suddenly a flock of canaries crazily singing and circling the room; he was worried to frenzy by a stranger staring at him from a gloomy little mirror hung above the mantel. Little Sunshine, arriving to give what aid he could, covered the mirror with a flour sack in order that, as he explained, Jesus Fever's soul could not be trapped there; he hung a charm around the old man's neck, sprinkled magic ginger powder in the air, and disappeared before moonrise. "Zoo, child," said Jesus, "how come you let me freeze thisaway? Fix the fire, child, it's colder 'n a well-bottom."

Zoo took a reasoning tone. "Papadaddy, now honey, we all us gonna melt… so hot Mister Randolph done change clothes three times today." But Jesus would not listen, and asked for a quilt to wrap around his legs, a wool sock to stretch over his head: the whole house, he argued, was rattling with wind: why, look, there was old Mr. Skully, his fine red beard turned white with frost. So Zoo went out in the dark of the yard to find an armful of kindling.

Joel, left in charge, started when Jesus beckoned to him secretively. The old man was sitting in a rattan rocker, a worn scrapquilt of velvet flowers covering his knees. He could not stay in bed: a horizontal position interfered with his breathing. "Rock my rocker, son," he said in a reedy voice, "it's kinda restful like… makes me feel I'm ridin in a wagon an got a long way to go." A kerosene lamp burned in the room. The chair, shadowed on the wall, swished a gentle drowsy sound. "Can't you feel the cold, son?"

"Mama was always cold, too," said Joel, prickly chill tingling his spine. Don't die, he thought, and as he pushed the chair back and forth the runners whispered, don't die, don't die. For if Jesus Fever died, then Zoo would go away, and there would be no one but Amy, Randolph, his father. It was not so much these three, however, but the Landing, and the fragile hush of living under a glass bell. Maybe Randolph would take him away: there had been some mention of a trip. And he'd written Ellen again, surely something would come of that.

"Papadaddy," said Zoo, lugging in a bundle of wood, "you is mighty thoughtless makin me hunt round out there in the dark where theys all kinda wild creatures crawlin just hungry for a nip outa tasty me. They is a wildcat smell on the air, they is, I declare. And who knows but what Keg's done runaway from the cabin gang? Joel, honey, latch the door."

When the fire commenced to burn Jesus asked that his chair be brought nearer the hearth. "I used to could play the fiddle," he said, wistfully watching the flames slide upward"… rheumatism stole all the music outa my fingers." He shook his head, and sucked his gums, and spit into the fire. "Don't fuss with me, child," he complained as Zoo tried to adjust the quilt. "Tell you now, bring me my sword." She returned from the other room bearing a beautiful sword with a silver handle: across the blade there was inscribed, Unsheath Me Not Without Reason-Sheath Me Not Without Honor. "Mister Randolph's granddaddy gimme this, that be more 'n sixty year ago." In the past days he'd one by one called forth all his treasures: a dusty cracked violin, his derby with the feather, a Mickey Mouse watch, his high-button orange shoes, three little monkeys who neither saw, heard nor spoke evil, these and other precious things lay strewn around the cabin, for he would not allow them to be put again out of sight.

Zoo presented Joel with a handful of pecans and gave him a pair of pliers to crack them with. "I'm not hungry," he said and rested his head in her lap. It was not a comfortable lap like Ellen's. You could feel too precisely tensed muscle and sharp bone. But she played her fingers through his hair, and that was sweet. "Zoo," he said softly, not wanting the old man to hear, "Zoo, he's going to die, isn't he?"

"I spec so," she said, and there was little feeling in her voice.

"And then will you go away?"

"I reckon."

At this Joel straightened and looked at her angrily. "But why, Zoo?" he demanded. 'Tell me why!"

"Hush, child, speak quiet." A slow moment followed in which she twisted her neckerchief, felt for and found the charm Little Sunshine had given her. "Ain't gonna hold good forever," she said, tapping the charm. "Someday he gonna come back here looking for to slice me up. I knows it good as anythin. I seen it in my dreams, and the floor don't creak, but what my heart stops. Every time a dog howls I think, that's him, that's him on his way, on accounta dogs just naturally hate that Keg and start to holler time they smell him."

"I'd protect you, Zoo," he pleaded. "Honest, I'd never let nobody hurt you."

Zoo laughed, and her laugh seemed to fly around the room like a frightening black bird. "Why, Keg could drop you with just the look of his eyes!" She began to shiver in the suffocating room. "One day he gonna come crawlin through that window, and won't nobody hear nothin; else I'll find him waitin in the dark tween here and the house, gotta long shiny razor: Lawd, I seen it a million times. So I gotta run, gotta go where there's snow and he ain't gonna catch me."

Joel squeezed her wrist. "If you'd let me go with you, Zoo… oh, we could have such a lot of fun."

"Don't talk foolishness, baby."

The yellow tabby scooted from under the bed, darted before the fire, arched its back and hissed. "What he see?" cried Jesus, pointing his sword: firelight ran up the gaunt blade like a gold spider. "Answer me, cat, you see somethin?" The cat relaxed on its haunches, and fixed the old man coldly. Jesus giggled. "Try to joke ol Jesus," he said, wagging his finger. "Try to scare him." His blindlike blue-looking eyes closed; he tilted back his head so that the stocking-foot dangled like a Chinese pigtail, sighed and said: "Ain't got no time left for to joke, cat." And then, holding the sword to his chest: "Mister Skully gimme this my weddin day; me and my woman, us just jumped over a broom, and Mister Skully, he say, 'All right now, Jesus, you is married. Travelin Preacher come tell me and my woman that ain't proper, say the Lawd ain't gonna put up with it: sure enough, the cat done killed Toby, and my woman grieves herself so she hangs on a tree, big cozy lady got the branch bent double: back when I was just so high my daddy cut his switches offen that tree…" remembering, it was as if his mind were an island in time, the past surrounding sea.

Joel cracked a pecan, and tossed the hull into the fire. "Zoo," he said, "did you ever hear of anybody called Alcibiades?"

"Who that you say?"

"Alcibiades. I don't know. It's somebody Randolph says I look like."

Zoo considered. "You musta heard wrong, honey. The name he most likely said is Alicaster. Alicaster Jones is a Paradise Chapel boy what used to sing in the choir. Looks like a white angel, so pretty he got the preacher and all kinda men and ladies lovin him up. Leastwise, that's what folks say."

"I'll bet I can sing better than him," said Joel. "You know, I bet I could sing in vaudeville shows and make a whole lot of money, enough money to buy you a fur coat, Zoo, and dresses like they show in the Sunday papers."

"I want red dresses," said Zoo, entering the spirit. "Look real nice in red, I do. We gonna have us a car?"

Joel was delirious. It seemed so real. There he was bathed by spotlights, and wearing a tuxedo with a gardenia in his lapel. But there was only one song he knew how to sing all the way through. So he said, "Listen, Zoo," and sang, "Silent Night, Holy Night, all is calm, all is bright, round yon Vir…" his voice, up to this point high and sweet like a girl's, broke in an ugly, mystifying way.