Wise Blood Read Online Free PDF Page B

time,” he said.
    “I’m obliged,” Haze said.
    “It wasn’t nothing,” Enoch said. “Whyn’t we go in Walgreen’s and get us a soda? Ain’t
     no night clubs open this early.”
    “I don’t like drug stores,” Haze said. “Good-by.”
    “That’s all right,” Enoch said. “I reckon I’ll go along and keep you company for a
     while.” He looked up ahead at the blind man and the child and said, “I sho wouldn’t
     want to get messed up with no hicks this time of night, particularly the Jesus kind.
     I done had enough of them myself. Thisyer Welfare woman that traded me from my daddy
     didn’t do nothing but pray. Me and daddy we moved around with a sawmill where we worked
     and it set up outside Boonville one summer and here come thisyer woman.” He caught
     hold of Haze’s coat. “Only objection I got to Taulkinham is there’s too many people
     on the streets,” he said confidentially. “Look like all they want to do is knock you
     down—well here she come and I reckon she took a fancy to me. I was twelve year old
     and I could sing some hymns good I learnt off a nigger. So here she comes taking a
     fancy to me and traded me off my daddy and took me to Boonville to live with her.
     She had a brick house but it was Jesus all day long.” A little man lost in a pair
     of faded overalls jostled him. “Whyn’t you look wher you going?” Enoch growled.
    The little man stopped and raised his arm in a vicious gesture and a nasty-dog look
     came on his face. “Who you tellin’ what?” he snarled.
    “You see,” Enoch said, jumping to catch up with Haze, “all they want to do is knock
     you down. I ain’t never been to such a unfriendly place before. Even with that woman.
     I stayed with her for two months in that house of hers,” he went on, “and then come
     fall she sent me to the Rodemill Boys’ Bible Academy and I thought that sho was going
     to be some relief. This woman was hard to get along with—she wasn’t old, I reckon
     she was forty year old—but she sho was ugly. She had theseyer brown glasses and her
     hair was so thin it looked like ham gravy trickling over her skull. I thought it was
     going to be some certain relief to get to theter Academy. I had run away oncet on
     her and she got me back and come to find out she had papers on me and she could send
     me to the penitentiary if I didn’t stay with her so I sho was glad to get to theter
     Academy. You ever been to a academy?”
    Haze didn’t seem to hear the question.
    “Well, it won’t no relief,” Enoch said. “Good Jesus, it won’t no relief. I run away
     from there after four weeks and durn if she didn’t get me back and brought me to that
     house of hers again. I got out though.” He waited a minute. “You want to know how?”
    After a second he said, “I scared hell out of that woman, that’s how. I studied on
     it and studied on it. I even prayed. I said, ‘Jesus, show me the way to get out of
     here without killing thisyer woman and getting sent to the penitentiary,’ and durn
     if He didn’t. I got up one morning at just daylight and I went in her room without
     my pants on and pulled the sheet off her and giver a heart attact. Then I went back
     to my daddy and we ain’t seen hide of her since.
    “Your jaw just crawls,” he observed, watching the side of Haze’s face. “You don’t
     never laugh. I wouldn’t be surprised if you wasn’t a real wealthy man.”
    Haze turned down a side street. The blind man and the girl were on the corner a block
     ahead. “Well, I reckon we going to ketch up with them after all,” Enoch said. “You
     know many people here?”
    “No,” Haze said.
    “You ain’t gonna know none neither. This is one more hard place to make friends in.
     I been here two months and I don’t know nobody. Look like all they want to do is knock
     you down. I reckon you got a right heap of money,” he said. “I ain’t got none. Had,
     I’d sho know what to do with it.” The