Sweet Everlasting

21

It was almost like he was up there making fun of preachers too, the way he dressed and carried on, wearing that white suit with a red necktie and a big red handkerchief sticking out of his pocket, and he even had him a bright red Bible. He combed his hair up high, swirled it around, and it shined and it never moved. It's true that he was one of the best singers I ever heard, to this day. Could have sung on the television. And he made folks laugh, with the different voices he did, and he made them cry, and he cried too. It was kind of fun to watch him, but it got old quick. And then when he cried I could tell he'd just worked up the tears, like they do in the movies. I could tell it easy. And I thought to myself there's too many real tears being cried for somebody to be going around pretending. And that, on top of him being somewhere between a clown and a stage act and a preacher—the preacher being the least part of it—that got off with me. I told myself before he was half done preaching that I wouldn't be coming back. Susan seen how disgusted I was when we was walking home, but I never did explain it to her, except for saying that one thing, and so she might have thought I was thinking about one kind of foolishness when I was really thinking about another one. 21 It was Thursday evening of the same week, right about sundown. W.D. was out playing in the yard, and Susan had come back to the house after working in the flower garden. I'd been asleep and was in the kitchen fixing us a bite to eat. 160 Susan went in the bathroom and stayed in there so long I almost knocked on the door. It was dark when she come out. I'd already called W.D. in, but he'd begged me to let him keep on playing with his toy cars in the driveway till suppertime. The driveway was lit up by the porch light, and I said all right, but told him it wouldn't be long before we'd be calling him in. When Susan come out, she sat at the kitchen table and watched me do the litle bit of cooking I was doing. I was fixing us a breakfast for supper, something I done pretty regular. I'd scrambled up some eggs with cheese, and I'd fried some ham and made us some redeye gravy to pour over the grits and to sop up with the biscuits. Susan sat at the table and looked down at her hands, frowning. I said, "I was beginning to think I was going to have to come see about you." She give me a weak smile and said, "I'm just moving slow." She took a deep breath and let it out. "I hadn't been feeling too good." For the first few days after I told her about my spells and about Isaiah, Susan had treated me real gentle. She brought me things, like she might just show up with a glass of lemonade and give it to me. She made me a cake. She'd want to sit beside me and hold my hand. But then she'd changed, got quiet and stopped paying me all that attention, which was fine, since I felt all right and I didn't need her to be doing them things. Everything was ready to eat now, and I turned off the stove and started to put the food on the table. I said, "I been noticing that. You reckon it's something you ought to go to the doctor about?" She shook her head. "Where is W.D.?" "I told him he could stay out a little bit longer. He's in the driveway." 161 I started to walk out to get him, but she said, "Why don't you wait a minute?" I could hear the train coming out of that curve off 129. You could always hear it when it had left the mill spur and picked up speed good. First it made a booming sound on the tracks and then as it come toward the crossing you'd hear the whistle...