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By Root 2277 0

Hazel Motes laughed. He was a tall man with light green glasses and a black suit and a black wool hat like a preacher’s hat, and he was leaning on a white cane. The laugh sounded as if it came from something tied up in a croker sack. It was evident he was a blind man. He had his hand on the shoulder of a big-boned child with a black knitted cap pulled down low on her forehead and a fringe of orange hair sticking out from it on either side. She had a long face and a short sharp nose. The people began to look at the two of them instead of the man selling peelers. This irritated the man selling peelers. “How about you, you there,” he said, pointing at Hazel Motes. “You’ll never be able to get a bargain like this in any store.”

“Hey!” Enoch Emery said, reaching across a woman and punching Haze’s arm. “He’s talking to you! He’s talking to you!” Haze was looking at the blind man and the child. Enoch Emery had to punch him again.

“Whyn’t you take one of these home to yer wife?” the peeler man was saying.

“I ain’t none,” Haze muttered without drawing his attention from the blind man.

“Well, you got a dear old mother, ain’t you?”

“No.”

“Well shaw,” the man said, with his hand cupped to the people, “he needs one theseyer just to keep him company.”

Enoch Emery thought that was so funny that he leaned over and slapped his knee, but Hazel Motes didn’t look as if he had heard it yet. “I’m going to give away half a dozen peeled potatoes to the first person purchasing one theseyer machines,” the man said. “Who’s gonna step up first? Only a dollar and a half for a machine’d cost you three dollars in any store!” Enoch Emery began fumbling in his pockets. “You’ll thank the day you ever stopped here,” the man said, “you’ll never forget it. Ever one of you people purchasing one theseyer machines’ll never forget it.”

The blind man began to move straight forward suddenly and the peeler man got ready to hand him one of the green boxes, but he went past the card table and turned, moving at a right angle back in among the people. He was handing something out. Then Haze saw that the child was moving around too, giving out white leaflets. There were not many people gathered there, but the ones who were began to move off. When the machine-seller saw this, he leaned, glaring, over the card table. “Hey you!” he yelled at the blind man, “what you think you doing? Who you think you are, running people off from here?”

The blind man didn’t pay him any mind. He kept on handing out the pamphlets. He handed one at Enoch Emery and then he came toward Haze, hitting the white cane at an angle from his leg.

“What the hell you think you doing:” the man selling peelers yelled. “I got these people together, how you think you can horn in?”

The blind man had a peculiar boiled looking red face. He thrust one of the pamphlets a little to the side of Haze and Haze grabbed it. It was a tract. The words on the outside of it said, “Jesus Calls You.”

“I’d like to know who the hell you think you are!” the man with the peelers was yelling. The child p”ssed the card table again and handed him a tract. He looked at it fur an instant with his lip curled, and then he charged around the card table, upsetting the bucket of potatoes. “These damn Jesus fanatics,” he yelled, glaring around, trying to find the blind man. More people had gathered, hoping to see a disturbance, and the blind man had disappeared among them. “These goddam Communist Jesus Foreigners!” the peeler man screamed. “I got this crowd together!” He stopped, realizing there was a crowd.

“Listen folks,” he said, “one at a time, there’s plenty to go around, just don’t push, a half dozen peeled potatoes to the first person stepping up to buy.” He got back behind the card table quietly and started holding up the peeler boxes. “Step on up, plenty to go around,” he said, “no need to crowd.”

Hazel Motes didn’t open his tract. He looked at the outside of it and then he tore it across. He put the two pieces together and tore them across again. He kept restacking the pieces and tearing them again until he had a little