Then, on April 16, the news is of two arrests: two Hell's Angels in their mid twenties, from Buffalo. For a full day and more, it's believed in Hammond that the murderers of the Garlock boy have been found and the case is over.
Jinx's first thought is elation. Not me! Not me! Somebody else!
His second thought is pure shame. But I'm the one!
He doesn't go to church the way his father does, but he maybe believes in God. maybe. He believes, if there's a God, God will send a sign.
'Cause you know you're the one.
'Cause can't anyone else take your place.
Jinx's father is a religious manhe'd be a preacher if he could speak above a hoarse cracked whisper but Jinx Fairchild isn't religious out of an old childhood dread of sinking right into Jesus Christ the way his father did, his father and too many others, howling and screaming and weeping on the gospel hours, the sound of it like snakes in a frenzy. Jesus Christ the Redeemer. God the Holy kather In a panic Jinx thinks, Not me! Please God somebody else!
He's in terror of a sign that will be unmistakable, but he can't stop himself one day from drifting up Gowanda Street to the block where the Garlocks live, across the street from Loblaw's, where Minnie shops and where, back in high school, Sugar Baby had a job baggingpissy little job he walked off of, just like that, snapped his fingers and told whoever it was who was hassling him to go fuck.
There's the Garlock house. Ramshackle and rotten looking, like any nigger house except for the size. But niggers wouldn't be allowed to rent in this block.
This here a white folks' block. Lily white.
Any niggers try to rent here, they get their heads broke.
A rundown, shabby neighborhood. Row houses, and a brown stone tenement , and some little shops, and the Loblaw's set back in a lot that needs re paving, and the Garlock house with windows open and curtains or strips of plastic trailing out, trash on the front porch, children's toys on the sidewalk. Jinx stands across the street as if transfixed, arms crossed on his chest and hands gripped tight under his armpits, staring, fearful of seeing here in the unsparing overhead sunshine what he suddenly realizes he has been seeing in dreams: Little Red Garlock living as big and brash as he'd ever been, pushing through that ratty screen door, pedaling past on a bicycle too small for his ham sized legs and haunches. He'd catch sight of Jinx Fairchild over here and smile that slow lewd delighted smile of his. Hey, nigger. Black nigger cock.
Jinx's eyes go heavy, hooded, almost sleepy. But he can't move his legs to carry him away.
There's a small child playing by himself in the gutter in front of the Garlock house, a little boy maybe three years old, fair haired but pudgy, the Garlock look in his face; Jinx can make out that look, even from across the street. He's playing with a re d rubber ball and suddenly the ball bounces and rolls out into the street and Jinx runs out, swoops down to retrieve it; a single smooth motion and he's tossing it back to the little boy, who's gaping at him dull witted, astonished, then breaks out into a smile. Big beautiful smile.
Jinx trots on away not looking back. Knows that hillbillies hate Negroes so their children must hate them too.
On his long shaky legs Jinx Fairchild is three blocks away before it occurs to him, yes, he's had his sign.
God trying to tell you something but ain't going to tell you what.
These days, his eyes bloodshot and his lips chewed at, Jinx is fearful of his father. He has the idea that Woodrow Fairchild Senior is possessed of the ability to see right into Jinx's soul.
through his eyes and into his soul. And Pa would tell him to confess his crime: Go to the police and confess; get down on your knees, boy, and pray Jesus Christ to save you; cast all sin out of your heart and be whole again.
Pa, I can't.
Pa, don't make me.
Can't sleep and can't eat and can't concentrate in school so he skips classes but not to run with his pals; these days, Jinx Fairchild is avoiding his pals too. Even Sugar Baby, who might take one cool appraising look at him and know. Hey, man, what the hell? You mixed up in that Garlock shit?
The fear is like a clot of phlegm he can't swallow but can't cough up either.
Mostly, Jinx fears his father. Knows Minnie isn't going to ask him one more question about is he sick feeling or what's on his mind; no danger from her.
Woodrow Fairchild Senior spends his re tired days fishing for bass and catfish in the river with his friends; in summer, tending his garden, a familiar sight on East Avenue with its wall of sunflowers at the rear and its big blazing clumps of marigolds and zinnias and black eyed susans amid the vegetables; and drifting around town to take in the sights and hire himself out for odd jobs, though at sixty four, a crippled sort of dwarf hunch to his back and his head askew on his shoulders with a look of perpetual surprise, there aren't many handyman tasks he can do. His days of loading and unloading white men's trucks, shoveling coal into white men's furnaces, are about over. He has a small monthly disability pension from the U. S.
Government since he was injured in an army training camp, years ago, but this pension, Minnie says scornfully, is as close to nothing as you can get without its being nothing: half of it goes for the sickly sweet Mogen David wine mister Fairchild drinks in secret or seemingly in secret; everyone knows and half to the Second Coming African Church of Christ the Redeemer where he's a church deacon.
Minnie Fairchild scorns her oldish absent headed husband for most of his ways, but his churchgoing ways infuriate her. What's that mean, church deacon'? Minnie has asked, and Woodrow has said, in his hoarse, whispery voice, his voice that's like the wind in dried corn husks, Means I help out, and Minnie says, Help out'? Help out' how? and Woodrow says, mumbling, Jes' help out, Rev'nd Goomer depend on me, and Minnie says, Yes, but how? You tell me how? Where's the money go you give to him?
'Depend on you'on you. you tell me how. Surely there's a place for that old timey shoutin' and howlin' and stampin' around kind of religion, Minnie says, her nostrils flaring in derision, like there's a place for lots of things from down South, conjure ladies and voodoo mumbo jumbo, but this place ain't it. Minnie's scorn for Woodrow rose to a fury some years ago when he'd been fired from his janitor job at Precious Blood Elementary School: a little girl said she had dreams of him, his black face and the way he carried himself, sort of scuttling like a crab, things he said, threatened and it wasn't clear whether these dreams might not be somehow re al, based upon actual events, the Negro janitor at Precious Blood whispering nasty words to this little white girl, re aching up into her panties and the girl's parents were naturally upset, and the Catholic sister who was principal of Precious Blood was naturally upset, and poor Woodrow Fairchild with his broken voice and skewed head and paralyzing shyness in the company of whites made no effort to defend himself. just gave up, came back home. Ever after he's been are tired.
That Woodrow Fair:hildhe a sly one.
Pokin' in some little white girl's drawers and got away with it, almost.
He did? That dried up hunched old thing?
Wasn't always dried upnoner them are.
Still, he lucky to be walkin' around. Head on his shoulders even If it ain't right.
It was in 1920, as a young man of twenty eight from South Carolina, that Woodrow Fairchild enlisted in the U. S. Army, and in training camp in northern Texas he suffered the accident that partly disabled him for life. details of which he never remembered afterward. The accident took place not on the training field but just outside the barracks to which he'd been assigned, a fall from some steps, a confusion of bodies, and next thing he knew he woke in the army hospital with injuries to the upper back and shoulders and neck, his larynx crushed as if someone had set his booted foot upon it and stepped down hard.
and harder still. But in the hospital, Woodrow Fairchild didn't re member a thing, never did remember, speaks even now of the accident as if it had fallen from the sky upon him, wholly unpremeditated, as inaccessible to interpretation as any act of God falling from the sky or ripping up out of the bowels of the earth, praise the Lord. Minnie Fairchild says to her boys, Verlyn and Woodrow, Junior, You see what happens, you join up with the U. S. Army? Some poor ignorant good intentioned Negro boy, in there with all them crackers? As if Verlyn and Woodrow needed to be told.
Now Jinx has grown so tall, his father looks short to him not wizened, because Woodrow Fairchild does have muscles, and a large head, gray grizzled hair like wires but wrongly short, like it's showing disrespect to him for his sons to stand in his presence.
So
Jinx avoids his presence. Or slouches, or sits. Or squats.
Looking up at him as he's looking up at him now, this warm drizzly day at the end of April, Jinx has trotted down to where Pa is sitting on a stump at the bottom of the garden thinking Now 1 will tell him thinking I won't need to tell him. he will see it in my face and he sees his father is playing checkers with himself, checkerboard on his knees, re d pieces to the left, black to the right; it looks as if, with three kings, red is winning. a peace to the wettish air like the hush of fresh bread cooling.
Woodrow Sr. has a dark much creased skin like the leather of an old valise, a flattened veiny nose, kindly eyes, badly decayed yellow teeth. so much older than his wife that people always think he must be his children's grandfather; and Jinx tends to think of him as grandfatherly, affectionate as Minnie isn't always affectionate any longer, but not so shrewdly watchful as Minnie, not so judging. Jinx knows enough not to interrupt his father's checker game, squats beside him watching its progress. Left hand against right hand, what does it mean? To what purpose, such a game? Jinx waits patiently, growing more and more frightened yet at the same time becoming more and more calm; he's thinking he has surrendered himself to his father like the sinners in the old gospel hymn He's Got the Whole World in His Hands : Now I am here, I am here.
When the game is over Jinx's father asks him how's he been, voice hoarse and worse cracked than Jinx has heard it in some time, and Jinx says, after hesitating a moment, Not so good, and his father murmurs something vague and consoling and mildly inquisitive, laying a hand on Jinx's head as if conferring a blessing. It's a big warm hand, finger span from temple to temple. Jinx peers up at him like a small child hot with guilt. Don t you see it in my face? Don't you know?
In a blind rush of words Jinx says, Pa, I made this mistake I guess.
About three weeks ago. Was in Chaney's just closing up and this girl came running in. Jinx hesitates. Should he say the girl was white?
Is that part of the story? White girl, he says weakly.
I don't know her re al well but I know her some. A nice girl. Couple years younger than me. And she was scared. said there was this guy, this nasty mouth guy from the neighborhood, after her.
And. Jinx pauses again. He's beginning to sweat. His father's big hand is on his shoulder now and his father's eyes have a look of retreating, contracting. Jinx senses that after hearing the words white girl his father stopped listening.
Once Jinx says the name Garlock he won't be able to unsay it.
Jinx is squatting on his heels in the soft earth; his thighs and knees have begun to ache. It's a long dread moment that he and Woodrow Fairchild Senior stare at each other as if they've never seen each other before. Jinx is thinking, He knows. Jinx is thinking, He doesn't he doesn't know. Got into a fight, Jinx whispers. But there is no way to continue and no way to re treat, unless Pa forces it from him, which, it seems, Pa is not going to do. The elder man's eyes are narrowed nearly to closing.
Jinx finds himself crouched with his cheek against his father's knee, sobbing.
God, he hadn't meant this! Hadn't meant anything like this!
Like a baby he gives himself up to hot shameful sobbing as he hasn't done in years. And Pa hugs him hugs him hard. Pa lets him cry, Pa's praying over him, directly addressing the Lord Jesus Christ as if Jinx Fairchild isn't even there.
In this awkward position they re main, Woodrow Fairchild Senior and his son Jinx, for many minutes.
Does he believe in God? In the Lord Jesus Christ?
Does he believe in the devil?
That night, the thought comes to him, light as the gossamer of milkweed seed, If that white girl wasn't living, wouldn't anybody know.
Says Virgil Starling, arm slung around Persia Courtney's rib cage as he walks her, staggering steady, hips banging, into the kitchen, Know what you need, baby? Some good solid food in you.
Persia protests. Oh, honey I don't think I could manage.
Leaning on him, hiding her face in his neck.
She'd almost said keep it down. Don't think I could keep it down.
Thank God she hadn't.
Persia Courtney's sweet caramel skinned lover, beautiful Virgil Starling, like no man she's known. Just the look of that man.
