The Neon Bible (5 page)

We went to Aunt Mae's room, and she helped me take off my clothes. I waited by her window while she put on her nightgown which she always wore. I felt her come up beside me.

"David, do you pray every night before you go to sleep?"

I told Aunt Mae that I did sometimes, and I wondered why she wanted to ask me a question like that. I didn't think she ever thought about praying.

"Come kneel with me by the window, David, and we'll pray that your mother feels well tomorrow and that nothing happens to your Poppa tonight and that you and I. . . that you and I won't be hurt too bad tomorrow or ever again."

That seemed like a beautiful prayer, so I looked out the window and began, and my eye fell on the neon Bible below and I couldn't go on. Then I saw the stars in the heaven shining like the beautiful prayer, and I began again, and the prayer came out without even thinking, and I offered it up to the stars and the night sky.

Three

The next morning Aunt Mae got me up and dressed me for school. Mother was alright, but she was still sleeping, so Aunt Mae said she'd make me some breakfast. I never saw Aunt Mae do anything in the kitchen, and I wondered what she was going to fix. While I was washing my face, I heard her getting ready downstairs, slamming the icebox and walking back and forth in the kitchen.

When I came down, the food was on the table. She had a pile of biscuits in a bowl, so I took one and began to butter it. The bottom was all burnt, and the inside was still wet dough. I was hungry, though, because all I had the night before was the water and hush puppies. She brought a pan to the table with some brown fried eggs floating around in about two inches of fat. There was such a proud look on her face that I said, "Oh, Aunt Mae, those look good," when I saw them. That made her happy, and we sat and ate the eggs and biscuits like they were real fine.

I got my books and the lunch Aunt Mae made for me and left for school. There were a lot of things on my mind. Where was Poppa? I thought he'd be back at the house in the morning, but I hadn't said anything to Aunt Mae, and she didn't talk to me about it. Then I remembered that I didn't do the work in my copybook for Mrs. Watkins. I couldn't get in any more trouble with her, so I put my books and lunch down by the side of the path and got my pencil out and sat down. I could feel the seat of my pants getting wet from the dew on the grass, and I thought how funny that was going to look. With the copybook slipping off my knee every time I went to write a letter, the page began to look bad. My A's looked like D's, and sometimes my commas slid all the way down to the next line. I finally finished it and got up and pulled the little wet blades of grass off my pants.

I still had to get off the hill and cross town to get to school. The sun was up pretty well now. That meant that there wasn't too much time. Something felt heavy in my stomach, and I was sure it was those eggs and biscuits of Aunt Mae's. With the taste of the eggs still in my throat, I began to belch, and belch hard. Belching always made my throat feel hot, so I started to breathe the cool hill air through my mouth. It made me feel a little better, but the burning was still way down, in my chest, and it stayed there.

I got off the hill onto a street and decided to take the shortest way I could. It was the street right behind Main where they had all the little restaurants and mechanics' shops. Usually I went another way, through the pretty houses, because I liked it better.

Here they had old boxes in the gutter and old hubcaps and big garbage cans covered with flies that had such a strong smell I had to hold my nose when I passed. It was dark in the mechanics' places, with old cars on wooden blocks or bodies without wheels hanging from chains. The mechanics sat around in the doorways waiting for some business, and every word they spoke had "Christ" in it or "damn" or something like that. I wondered why Poppa had never been a mechanic, and thought that maybe he had been at one time, or maybe his father, because he never told me anything about his family, my grandpeople.

The mechanics' places were mostly tin garages with old oilcans out in front and in the alleys. When it rained there, the water in the gutters was never clear but had purple and green colors on it that made any kind of design you wanted when you moved the water with your finger. I don't think the mechanics ever shaved, and I wondered how they got all the grease off their skin when they went home at night.

There was one of those little restaurants between almost every mechanic's shop. They were named the DeLux Kitchen or Joe's or Kwik-Meal or Mother Eva's or other names like that. In front of every one there was a blackboard with the food they were having for the day, and it was always something like beans with rice or pork chops with beans or beans and chicken. I never knew how they could sell food so cheap, because there wasn't any meal that cost more than fifty cents. It must have been that they didn't have to pay much for the buildings they used.

The barroom was on this street too. All along the front they had fake marble with neon lettering around the door and windows. I never saw what it looked like on the inside because it was always closed when I passed in the morning. I don't suppose anyone was meant to look above the first floor. The marble and neon stopped there, and the rest up to the roof was old weatherboards, brown and gray. There were three windows up there, big long ones that led onto a wooden balcony like all the old buildings in town had on the second floor. In the morning they were usually closed, but sometimes they were open and things were drying out on the balcony. They must have been women's underwear, but not like any I'd seen at home. They were made out of black lace with little shiny red rosebuds sewed on them in different places. Sometimes there were sheets hanging out too, or pillowcases or black net stockings like no one in town wore. When I got to Mr. Farney's room in school, I found out who lived there.

There were plenty empty lots along the street too, just like all over town. The only thing different was that they weren't kept clean like the others. They had big weeds in them, and sunflowers and wild violets. The mechanics threw their old oilcans and car parts in them when there wasn't enough room left in the alleys or the gutter. Next to the barroom they had one full of old rotting chairs and beer cases where about ten mangy cats lived. Of course the cats were all over here, in the empty lots and everywhere. They hung around the back doors of the diners for food, and you could always see them climbing in and out of the garbage cans with their ribs showing through their fur. I often thought of what a hard life these cats had and how if people only took care of them what nice pets they could be. They were always having kittens, but I knew what Poppa would do if I brought one home. Once I saw him throw a brick at a cat that was in our yard, a little one that I was trying to give some old meat to.

When I got to the end of this street, I just had to turn left to get to the school. The boys and girls were beginning to go in when I was about a block away, so I ran to be sure I wouldn't be late. My face was all red, and I was out of breath by the time I got to Mrs. Watkins'. I was the last one to take my seat, which was in the front row "right under her eye." She got down off her platform and came over to where I sat. I didn't look up at her, but my eye followed the pattern on her dress, a bouquet of faded flowers.

"Well, class, we have someone who just got here on time today."

I thought I could make out one of the flowers to be a daisy.

"He's one of the poor folks that lives up in the hills and don't have the money to buy an alarm clock."

Some of her pets in the class giggled -- the preacher's daughter by his first wife, her niece, the boy who stayed after school to beat out the erasers. Now I saw that the flower wasn't a daisy but really a white rose. She hit me with her knee.

"Get up."

I stood up, and then everyone began to giggle, and I saw a terrible look come over Mrs. Watkins' face.

"What's everybody laughing at?"

She was mad at the whole class now, not only me, and then I remembered the seat of my pants and how it must have looked. Everyone stopped giggling and talking except her pets, who hadn't started in the first place. The boy who cleaned the erasers raised his hand. Mrs. Watkins nodded at him.

"Look at the back of him." He pointed at the wet of my pants.

I almost tried to pull my buttocks in when I heard him say that, but Mrs. Watkins had already spun me around. She looked happy to me.

"What's the matter? Try to sleep in your clothes?"

Everybody screamed at this, even her pets, or maybe I should say, especially her pets. My throat was burning again, and all of a sudden I belched the loudest I'd ever heard anyone do it. Mrs. Watkins slapped me so hard I felt my head roll back on my shoulders. The ring she had from the auxiliary of the preacher's church made a small cut on my cheek. She was holding on to me by the arm.

"I've never had a pupil like you, son. You know, the state doesn't have to accept everyone into their schools. Did you know that? Well, you might find out about it soon enough. Come with me."

She grabbed my books and my lunch and took me with her to the empty room. I was frightened the way she looked at me. There were two or three old chairs in the room and an old desk. When she had closed the door, she pushed me into one of the chairs.

"I'm going to report you to the state authorities, do you hear that? They'll get you, son, they'll get you. I hope the Lord will be merciful with you for your behavior to those trying to instruct you in His path. You and your family are fallen-away Christians. You are not on the church rolls anymore. I see that. I see all those things. You may remain in this room to meditate on your failings, and you will not leave until I come for you."

She closed the door and left. I knew we didn't go to the preacher's anymore because we didn't have any money to pay the church pledge. I wondered what she was going to do with me about the state authorities. Would I be put out of school because of Aunt Mae's eggs? I tried to be mad at Aunt Mae, but I couldn't. I just hoped that when I was put out of school they never told Aunt Mae why. She was probably belching at home right now, and she'd know.

I was wondering how long Mrs. Watkins was going to leave me in the room, too. The pants were beginning to dry, but the wet had soaked through and it was uncomfortable. I wanted to be outside in the sun where they could dry quicker through to my skin. There were two windows in the room, but one had no glass in it. A little air came through that one, so I tried to open the other, but it wouldn't move.

After a while I got used to the smell in the room, but at first I didn't know what to make of it. I looked all around and saw some old wine bottles in one corner, and I picked one up and smelled its sweet strong odor. But that wasn't the only thing making the whole room smell the way it did. I can't say what it smelled like. There was a little of the old wine smell, but there were other ones too. It smelled musty and dirty, and yet that cheap kind of perfume Aunt Mae used was there, and the smell of a cigarette and a leather jacket. Something was grating under my foot, and when I lifted it, the thing was a bobby pin. I knew none of the girls in school used bobby pins except some of the big ones in Mr. Farney's room.

Through the door I could hear Mrs. Watkins down the hall in class, and I heard Mr. Farney's funny high voice too. Miss Moore's classes were out on a field trip into the hills to get some clay for modeling. There was a lock on the door, so I locked it and took my clothes off and hung my pants on one of the chairs to dry. It felt good to be naked, but I knew that no one better find me like that.

The sun was really up and coming in bright and strong through the open window. I had never stood naked in the sunlight, so I went to the window and let the yellow light fall on me. My body looked pale white except for my arms and face, and the breeze blew cool all around me.

I stood there for a long time looking out at the trees up on the hill and the blue sky with only a few clouds above the tallest pines. They moved slowly along, and I watched one all the way till it went behind the hill. I made one out to look like Aunt Mae's face, then it turned into a witch and then into what looked like an old man with a beard before it passed away.

Suddenly I felt someone's eyes on me, and there was a woman on the sidewalk with a bag of groceries staring at me. I jumped away from the window to get my clothes. They were dry, so I put them on. When I went back to the window she was gone, and I looked down the block and couldn't see her. I wondered where she went and if she saw me well. No one ever saw me naked but Aunt Mae and Mother and Poppa. Maybe the doctor when I was born, and the nurses, and once when I went to the doctor to have him look at me. I don't know why, but it makes you feel funny to have someone see you naked, it makes you feel nasty, though it shouldn't.

Out in the yard I heard everyone coming out from their classes. I looked at the sun, and it was straight overhead, so it was lunchtime. I got out Aunt Mae's lunch from under my books. She had it wrapped in a piece of newspaper with a rubber band around it. There were a few of the old hush puppies Mother made the night before and a sandwich with a little piece of ham on it. She didn't put any butter on the sandwich, but there was a flower packed in the lunch from the little garden Aunt Mae had tried to grow. I knew it was the only flower that had come out from the little plants she had. It was only a few blue petals, and I don't know what kind it was because I'd never seen such a weak-looking flower before. I took it back to her when I went home. She was so glad to have it back and so proud of it that I thought how nice it was of her to put it in my lunch when she thought it was so valuable.

Mrs. Watkins came out into the yard with our class and sat on a bench near the flagpole. I sat at the window and ate my sandwich, but she never looked over at where I was. I wondered if she called the state yet about me. If she would have just looked at me I could tell what she was thinking, but she never did, she just sat there and talked to Mr. Farney, although I knew she didn't like him. Mr. Farney was surprised to have Mrs. Watkins talking to him, and he showed it on his face. She always talked to people about him. It helped to have Mrs. Watkins like you in town. Mr. Farney knew this, and he was agreeing with everything she said, at least that's the way it looked from where I sat. He looked so uneasy I felt sorry for him.

I finished my sandwich and hoped I was outside and not in trouble. I picked up Aunt Mae's flower, and it smelled nice but faint. It seemed like such a wrong flower to be hers. Aunt Mae was more like a big bright sweet-smelling flower to me. A red one, maybe, that had a strong smell like honeysuckle, but not quite so innocent.

After a while someone rang the bell, and everyone went inside again. I heard them moving along the halls outside the door in the sort of steady file of thump-thump that the classes always made. When it all got quiet, the teachers' voices began again, Mrs. Watkins' through the nose, Miss Moore's, whose class had returned, sort of sweet, and Mr. Farney's high and trailing. The sun was getting lower. I wondered if the people from the state were coming. They probably were at the capital, and it would naturally take a while to get to town.