The Complete Stories - Flannery O'Connor [84]
“And his and my carfare,” she said. “It’ll be twict we have to ride the car.”
He went in the bedroom again to get the money and when he came back, she and the boy were both standing in the middle of the room. She was taking stock. “I couldn’t smell those dead cigarette butts long if I was ever to come sit with you,” she said, shaking him down in his coat.
“Here’s the change,” the father said. He went to the door and opened it wide and waited.
After she had counted the money she slipped it somewhere inside her coat and walked over to a watercolor hanging near the phonograph. “I know what time it is,” she said, peering closely at the black lines crossing into broken planes of violent color. “I ought to. My shift goes on at 10 P.M. and don’t get off till 5 and it takes me one hour to ride the Vine Street car.”
“Oh, I see,” he said. “Well, we’ll expect him back tonight, about eight or nine?”
“Maybe later,” she said. “We’re going to the river to a healing. This particular preacher don’t get around this way often. I wouldn’t have paid for that,” she said, nodding at the painting, “I would have drew it myself.”
“All right, Mrs. Connin, we’ll see you then,” he said drumming on the door.
A toneless voice called from the bedroom, ‘Bring me an icepack.”
“Too bad his mamma’s sick,” Mrs. Corwin said. “What’s her trouble?”
“We don’t know,” he muttered.
“We’ll ask the preacher to pray for her. He’s healed a lot of folks. The Reverend Bevel Summers. Maybe she ought to see him sometime.”
“Maybe so,” he said. “We’ll see you tonight,” and he disappeared into the bedroom and left them to go.
The little boy stared at her silently, his nose and eyes running. He was four or five. He had a long face and bulging chin and half-shut eyes set far apart. He seemed mute and patient, like an old sheep waiting to be let out.
“You’ll like this preacher,” she said. “The Reverend Bevel Summers. You ought to hear him sing.”
The bedroom door opened suddenly and the father stuck his head out and said, “Good-by, old man. Have a good time.”
“Good-by,” the little boy said and jumped as if he had been shot.
Mrs. Connin gave the watercolor another look. Then they went out into the hall and rang for the elevator. “I wouldn’t have drew it,” she said.
Outside the gray morning was blocked off on either side by the unlit empty buildings. “It’s going to fair up later,” she said, “but this is the last time we’ll be able to have any preaching at the river this year. Wipe your nose, Sugar Boy.”
He began rubbing his sleeve across it but she stopped him. “That ain’t nice,” she said. “Where’s your handkerchief?’
He put his hands in his pockets and pretended to look for it while she waited. “Some people don’t care how they send one off,” she murmured to her reflection in the coffee shop window. “You pervide.” She took a red and blue flowered handkerchief out of her pocket and stooped down and began to work on his nose. “Now blow,” she said and he blew. “You can borry it. Put it in your pocket.”
He folded it up and put it in his pocket carefully and they walked on to the corner and leaned against the side of a closed drugstore to wait for the car. Mrs. Connin turned up her coat collar so that it met her hat in the back. Her eyelids began to droop and she looked as if she might go to sleep against the wall. The little boy put a slight pressure on her hand.
“What’s your name?” she asked in a drowsy voice. “I don’t know but only your last name. I should have found out your first name.”
His name was Harry Ashfield and he had never thought at any time before of changing it. “Bevel,” he said.
Mrs. Connin raised herself from the wall. “Why ain’t that a coincident!” she said. “I told you that’s the name of this preacher!”
“Bevel,” he repeated.
She stood looking down at him as if he had become a marvel to her. “I’ll have to see you meet