The Complete Stories - Flannery O'Connor [50]
She stared at him, startled and then outraged. “What do you think I care!” she screamed. “Why should I give a goddamm what you are?”
“Come on,” Enoch whined, “come on or I won’t tell you where them people live.” He caught Haze’s arm and pulled him back from the counter and toward the door.
“You bastard!” the woman screamed, “what do you think I care about any of you filthy boys?”
Hazel Weaver pushed the door open quickly and went out. He got back in his car, and Enoch jumped in behind him. “Okay,” Enoch said, “drive straight on ahead down this road.”
“What do you want for telling me?” Haze said. “I’m not staying here. I have to go. I can’t stay here any longer.”
Enoch shuddered. He began wetting his lips. “I got to show it to you,” he said hoarsely. “I can’t show it to nobody but you. I had a sign it was you when I seen you drive up at the pool. I knew all morning somebody was gonna come and then when I saw you at the pool, I had thisyer sign.”
“I don’t care about your signs,” Haze said.
“I go to see it ever day,” Enoch said. “I go ever day but I ain’t ever been able to take nobody else with me. I had to wait on the sign. I’ll tell you them people’s address just as soon as you see it. You got to see it,” he said. “When you see it, something’s going to happen.”
“Nothing’s going to happen,” Haze said.
He started the car again and Enoch sat forward on the seat. “Them animals,” he muttered. “We got to walk by them first. It won’t take long for that. It won’t take a minute.” He saw the animals waiting evil-eyed for him, ready to throw him off time. He thought what if the police were screaming out here now with sirens and squad cars and they got to Hazel Weaver just before he showed it to him.
“I got to see those people,” Haze said.
“Stop here! Stop here!” Enoch cried.
There was a long shining row of steel cages over to the left and behind the bars, black figures were sitting or pacing. “Get out,” Enoch said. “This won’t take one second.”
Haze got out. Then he stopped. “I got to see those people,” he said.
“Okay, okay, come on,” Enoch whined.
“I don’t believe you know the address.”
“I do! I do!” Enoch cried. “It begins with a two, now come on!” He pulled Haze toward the cages. There were two black bears in the first one. They were sitting facing each other like two matrons having tea, their faces polite and self-absorbed. “They don’t do nothing but sit there all day and stink,” Enoch said. “A man comes and washes theseyer cages out ever morning with a hose and it stinks just as much as if he’d left it.” Every animal there had a personal haughty hatred for him like society people have for climbers. He went on past two more cages of bears, not even looking at them, and then he stopped at the next cage where there were two yellow-eyed wolves nosing around the edges of the concrete. “Hyenas,” he said. “I ain’t got no use for hyenas.” He leaned closer and spit into the cage, hitting one of the wolves on the leg. It shuttled to one side, giving him a slanted evil look. For a second he forgot Hazel Weaver. Then he looked back quickly to make sure he was still there. He was right behind him. He was not looking at the animals. Thinking about them police, Enoch thought. He said, “Come on, we don’t have to look at all theseyer monkeys that come next.” Usually he stopped at every cage and made an obscene comment aloud to himself, but today the animals were only a form he had to get through. He hurried past the cages of monkeys, looking back two or three times to make sure Hazel Weaver was behind him. At the last of the monkey cages, he stopped as if he couldn’t help himself.
“Look at that ape,” he said, glaring. The animal had its back to him, gray except for a small pink seat. “If I had a ass like that,” he said prudishly, “I’d sit on it. I wouldn’t be exposing it to all these people come to this park. Come on, we don’t have to look at theseyer birds that come next.” He ran past the cages of birds and then he was at the end