Arcadio (11 page)

When we got to the confined cell I asked Sam Policheck to please to give me ten minutes alone with Old John and Sam Policheck said, you'll be lucky if you get two because I don't believe he has that many left. And there was sweet Old John all silver with a beard all over his breast and silver hair aflowing over his shoulders. You are a prophet from
La Biblia
I says, and fell upon his silver breast and cried. Please hurry I don't have many breaths left before the last one, Old John said to me, who are you what have you come for what do you want? In a hurry I showed him the Bull Durham sack of Sweet Janine's hair. Old John cried and was so weak on his cot could hardly take the little sack in's shaking hand. And I told him of Hondo's tribulations and
desgracias
and of his death at the big hand of Ethelreda. And before Old John begun to breathe his last breath I whispered give me directions where is the buried Savings and Loan and where is the hole you dug with Hondo. Old John whispered me they filled the wrong hole with Instant Cement, look in the corner by the Rose a Sharon and these were his last words with his last breath, he died lovingly in my arms I had got there just in time. And then I looked up and saw on the wall all the names, saw Tomasso's homework of arithmetic figuring that he did when this cell was his schoolroom:
2+2+2
=6 and his little name scribbled T-o-m-a-s-s-o and saw
God Loves Me
and
Suffer the Little Children
when twas his Sunday School with Nan Policheck and saw the name of my mother C-h-u-p-a, mother and son names on the walls who never saw each other and saw H-o-n-d-o and saw O-l-d J-o-h-n and there I wrote my name Arcadio and wrote
has finally come here but too late
, you wan hear. And the salt of my tears would have rusted my face if I had not wiped them off. But I was stuck back with the curl of hair again, you wan hear. I will have to wait to hear the thoughts of God and
Jesucristo
to know what to do with this curl of hair I said. For one more minute, though, I sat and played my frenchharp music for Old John, twas “The Waltz of the Spotted Dog.”

Sam Policheck come to the confined cell and says why are you playing “The Missoura Waltz,” did you know that it is one of my favorites? I do not know what is “The Missoura Waltz” I says, what I was playin was an old song from the Show called “The Waltz of the Spotted Dog.” Well it's “The Missoura Waltz” the very tune. This was news to me. Then I asked Sam Policheck if I could bury Old John in the yard and he said where do you have in mind and I says under the Rose a Sharon tree and Sam Policheck said that it was okay. Where is Nan Policheck your wife I asked Sam Policheck. Dead said Sam Policheck. And buried in the jailyard why do you ask?

And then I told Sam Policheck who I was, that is a friend of Hondo Holloway's and Tomasso's half blood brother and the son of Chupa the woman who stole the green dress, all former prisoners of the Missoura jail and under his lock and key and Sam Policheck threw me into the jail cell and locked the lock without one word. Oh God and
Jesucristo
here was I a prisoner in the Missoura jail! Like St. Paul that I have told you, you wan hear, and that then was an earthquake in
La Biblia
for to shake open the prison door and that there a basket was let down to him. Oh God and
Jesucristo
I called out, free me from the bondage like your son
Santo Pablo
. But right away come back Sam Policheck to my prison door and I said in my best words Mr. Policheck could I persuade you two things, one that you call a resident of the town Ethelreda Johansson to come out and be at the burial of Old John, and two to let me dig the grave for Old John like you earlier promised me. Okay, says Sam Policheck, you will be doing Missoura jail a favor before he smells. And use the lime we use, lime's out back in the shed. And that was how I found myself joyfully sliding through the blessed hole that once Tomasso got free in and when it was finally made big enough by Ethelreda's great big hand. I said Ethelreda you can help get rid of the sin in you for killing Hondo Holloway if you will come by night and help me with your big hands dig the old hole bigger so that I can fit into it. I am a big person. But first I'll dig, myself, the grave of sweet Old John. And when we'd put him in it made a cardboard tombstone out of a box top and on it wrote his name
OLD
JOHN
.

Ethelreda said her confession of forgiveness amends to me, said she had been waiting for somebody to come to the town that she could make her amends with, said now she realized that she did not know her own strength like Hondo the very man she had wiped out with her big hand. Pore Hondo I says was wiped out by the hand of somebody didn't know their own strength just like him. Pore Hondo, says Ethelreda, I will do something in his memory, what would you suggest? Dig the hole bigger, I says. So she come by night and help me find the Rose a Sharon tree and then we found the beloved old hole that was first dug by Hondo and Old John to help Tomasso, then by Old John mostly to help Hondo Holloway, twas probably what caused him to breathe his last breath, then by Ethelreda's big hands to help me, Arcadio, crawl through where the others had gone. And I felt such great love for them that ud gone before me as I was acrawlin through, Tomasso and then Hondo Holloway that had crawled through and excaped into the world free. When I come out the end twas dark midnight and I was on a hill one way looking at a big town sparkling, other way down in the valley looking at Missoura jail where Ethelreda was now. Farewell I says farewell Missoura jail and in my arms the baitbox of Saving and Loan that according to Old John's instructions I had plucked up from the Rose a Sharon's roots that clutched it safely under the ground of Missoura jail. And the curl of little hair in the Bull Durham sack tucked against my breast. But oh my God and
Jesucristo
just as I come out the other side of the hole I heard great cries and twas Ethelreda, they had caught her. And now she would be thrown into the cell where all the rest of us had been. Sam Policheck had caught pore Ethelreda and now she would be his prisoner. Who would free Ethelreda Johansson I wondered as I started out for the bitter town of Sweet Janine with the golden baitbox—I will tell you why it was golden directly—of Savings and Loan. Those two pore sisters of that bitter town, I thought, one murdered accidentally and the other jailed for life as she was ahelpin out somebody else—me excaping through the old hole. One day I says to myself I will return to Missoura jail and try to bail out Ethelreda Johansson.

Well twas another journey this one towards the bitter town of Sweet Janine with under my arm the golden baitbox that had turned to gold from rust of the Rose a Sharon. Twas not always under my arm twas sometimes between my legs as I laid asleep at night for fear of
ladrones
thiefs. The Rose a Sharon tree had given such a sweet smell to the baitbox that the sweet smell followed me all day long and twas sweet in my nostrils all night long. I am the Rose a Sharon like the Bible says about
el rey bello
the beautiful King Solomon. The baitbox was so golden with rust of the roots of the Rose a Sharon and the golden rust had locked it up forever looked like, God knows what kind of a bank can open it, I says to myself. But on I traveled with it. I did not dare to ask
noticias
of any bank where a bank of savings and loan would be in the towns because I would be beaten up and robbed and thiefs would run off with the golden baitbox, so I could not ask
noticias
. But I tried to follow the same path to Sweet Janine's bitter town that I had traveled before. But town was achangin so fast, whole buildings fell and other ones rose up before you could get to Missoura jail and back to where you come from. Ethelreda had told me that her and Sweet Janine's bitter town could be seen for a long ways on the road by noticing a swarm of black rathawks over a certain place. These rathawks was ahuntin for a very famous pack of smart rats, white and nobody had ever heard of a white rat before, that had lived in that town for many many years and could never be caught in any trap or killed in any way, they were the most smartest rats ever known—and
white
, you wan hear? The bitter town of Sweet Janine had put this circle of black rathawks in the air over the town to keep out an eye. Everbody keepin out an eye, you wan hear, even rathawks. These black rathawks were treated like kings and queens by the town and was given everthing that they would want, pure beef and pure whipped cream and artichokes for some reason these black rathawks liked artichokes and this bitter town had to send for these artichokes. This is what they told me. These black rathawks was always in the air, their circle was never broken night nor day, no one ever saw the circle broken, old old men that had grown up in the bitter town from children said that they had never seen the circle broken. How do they rest? I asked one of these old old men. Who knows? answered the man. At night the rathawks called to let you know that they were there. The nightcall of the rathawks over the bitter town of Sweet Janine was a terrible sound to hear,
demonio;
and when I first heard it I says this town is a bitter town. You wan hear? Which one was the pride of the bitter town I asked a person of the town, rats or rathawks. I do not know, said that person, they are both world-famous. Well I have never heard of them before I got to this town, I says. That's because you do not know anything, this person says to me. To give you an idea of how bitter this town was.

SO
I
KEPT
OUT
AN
EYE
for a circle of birds. And suddenly up ahead of me one mornin I seen what I knew was the bitter town of Sweet Janine because there was a circle of birds over it. These must be the famous rathawks keeping out an eye for the famous smart white rats. And then night fell black on me and asleepin in an old shed I heard the terrible calls of the rathawks all night long and I shivered and thought this is a bitter town. Next mornin I went straight to a sign that says
SAVINGS
AND
LOAN
and in there I returned the golden baitbox of money to the Savings and Loan bank personally to the President named Fred Shanks. Would you possibly be kin to a Shanks that used to run a Show? I asked this President named Shanks. My distant cousin, said President Shanks—real distant, never met the crook that used my name on a bunch of hot checks and almost reduced the surplus of this Savings and Loan Bank to a zero. The police was after him but they never caught him. Oh my God another posse, I says, and this one after Old Shanks—there was a posse out after everbody, a posse was ahuntin the hunters that was afleein the posse, soon there would be a posse hunting a posse. What is this world, you wan hear. But in all my runnin and huntin I was yet to see one posse.

This President Fred Shanks told me about the
desgracia
of the Show. That the Show was gone. That the Show was fallen into ashes on the ground from a terrible fire caused by a rampage of Heracles the Lion that after all the years suddenly got back his
feroz
, Heracles become again
feroz
as he was in his old wild days before the Show and leapt up on Old Shanks and tore out his throat and then tore off his old balls and pulled aloose his arms and tore him to pieces and the Show caught all afire and burned down to the ground, everthing. But where is Heracles the Lion? I asked. At large, said the President. All the towns are keepin out an eye for him and there are a dozen posses. What is this life, what is this world, I says, My God and
Jesucristo
.

And then Fred Shanks pulled out a newspaper story of it and said that there it told that a Dwarft was almost a hero fightin to the last the terrible conflagration with big buckets of water twict as big as he was until, newspaper said, the fire got him. They found him kneeling in a shape of prayin and when somebody touched him said a whole Dwarft fell into ashes on the ground. My God a whole Dwarft of ashes. What is this world? But looked like Eddy the Dwarft prayed, he must have remembered my
Biblia Blanca
, that I told him and he wouldn't listen but I guess he did guess that some of
La Biblia
got into his little Dwarft ear ‘bout as big as a snail. Must've prayed, little Mescan Dwarft Eddy Gonzales that said he was an atheist. God save his lonesome little soul. I'll remember him a minute now, in this afternoon; but he was still a mean little codger. You wan hear?

The piece of the newspaper that the President Fred Shanks showed me did not mention nowhere the gilded chair or the jewel wagon. Guess they're ashes too. Shanks give that golden chair to me when I was young I'd seen him nailin and sawin something secret many days, said twas a secret what he was amakin and then seen on his fingers gold, seen gold; and then he called to me one night to come and see and twas the chair of gold. Set in it, he said, go on set in it and I was ascared at first to set in something gold like that; but Shanks got hold of me and carried me in's arms, gentle then, to the chair and sweetly set me down, into the golden chair. And twas lust of me,
lujuria
, that made him do it,
lujuria
, lust that made him build a chair of gold. I saw some tears, I'm pretty sure, in Shankses eye. Thank you Shanks, I said, and I felt good then do you hear,
Oyente?
Wouldn't you, if somebody'd give you that and'd built on it and built on it; wouldn't you? Felt good? So Shanks I'll remember a minute right now in this afternoon under this old trestle that you told me that you loved me that one night long ago in the jewel wagon, called me your
joya morena
, Mescan words I told you, means a dark jewel, a jewel in a jewel wagon that you bought for me, you said. And oh I guess I got to remember that there uz times when you uz gentle with me
suave
and I'll ‘member them for just a minute too, before I forget you forever; and I remember so many times I saw you so
feroz
of me in jealousy and that I saw you take a knife at me to keep me all your own if I should have a feelin' for another; even for the Dwarft you took at knife at me to make me swear to you he never touched me and I swore to you I never let him touch me, twas a lie Old Shanks my God I've had one half the world of Satan on me why should I turn down one pore Dwarft to learn God's Bible? You wan hear. And so I say to you
Oyente
that I have to give just one warm thought for Old Shanks again right now here before you as you listen: he half lost his sad mean mind for me and I have seen him beg me beg me just to say I love you. I forgive and I make amends of my forgiveness to lost Shanks, especially for the chair of gold which even then could not make me say to Shanks I love you, not even for the jewel wagon that he give me, this was in the early days when I was young and come to him to get a job with the Show you will remember
Oyente
how I told you, how I revealed myself to this man Shanks out in the fields when I was young and run away from the
China Boy
do you remember?
Sí
. Now I want to say before God and
Jesucristo
and before you
Oyente
that I forgive and make amends of my forgiveness to lost Shanks. But when he saw that he would never have me all his own that is when his mind got mean on me because he couldn't have me, onct I took a piece of glass, of a beer bottle, and put it at his lips to harelip him if he would try to touch me once I slept with a great big rock beside my pillow that I would bash in's head if he come at me in my sleep and in some nights I'd wake up when the little dog barked—bark ‘bout as big as a little bitty mouse—and see at the window Shankses face,
demonio
, of wanting my body while I slept naked on my bed it was so hot in that jewel wagon. And one terrible night I felt him on me in the dark I thought twas a hot animal from the Sideshow, wet and hair and hot and quiet and with my piece of beer bottle under my bed with my piece of glass I cut his lip and give him the scar on's lip forevermore until he died by the
feroz
of Heracles the Lion, hairlipped, Shanks had the sign of's lust,
lujuria
, of's madness over me cut upon his lip, he'd been
cut
, a little pink curl on's lip that he'd run his tongue on, over and over, twas a sign of his madness and I knew it; and he never come at me again. Old Shanks.