The Complete Stories - Flannery O'Connor [89]
The boy in the river glanced at the old man quickly and raised his fist. “Believe Jesus or the devil!” he cried. “Testify to one or the other!”
“I know from my own self-experience,” a woman’s mysterious voice called from the knot of people, “I know from it that this preacher can heal. My eyes have been opened! I testify to Jesus!”
The preacher lifted his arms quickly and began to repeat all that he had said before about the River and the Kingdom of Christ and the old man sat on the bumper, fixing him with a narrow squint. From time to time Bevel stared at him again from around Mrs. Connin.
A man in overalls and a brown coat leaned forward and dipped his hand in the water quickly and shook it and leaned back, and a woman held a baby over the edge of the bank and splashed its feet with water. One man moved a little distance away and sat down on the bank and took off his shoes and waded out into the stream; he stood there for a few minutes with his face tilted as far back as it would go, then he waded back and put on his shoes. All this time, the preacher sang and did not appear to watch what went on.
As soon as he stopped singing, Mrs. Cannin lifted Bevel up and said, “Listen here, preacher, I got a boy from town today that I’m keeping. His mamma’s sick and he wants you to pray for her. And this is a coincident—his name is Bevel! Bevel,” she said, turning to look at the people behind her, “same as his. Ain’t that a coincident, though?”
There were some murmurs and Bevel turned and grinned over her shoulder at the faces looking at him. “Bevel,” he said in a loud jaunty voice.
“Listen,” Mrs. Connin said, “have you ever been Baptized, Bevel?”
He only grinned.
“I suspect he ain’t ever been Baptized,” Mrs. Connin said, raising her eyebrows at the preacher.
“Swang him over here,” the preacher said and took a stride forward and caught him.
He held him in the crook of his arm and looked at the grinning face. Bevel rolled his eyes in a comical way and thrust his face forward, close to the preacher’s. “My name is Bevvvuuuuul,” he said in a loud deep voice and let the tip of his tongue slide across his mouth.
The preacher didn’t smile. His bony face was rigid and his narrow gray eyes reflected the almost colorless sky. There was a loud laugh from the old man sitting on the car bumper and Bevel grasped the back of the preacher’s collar and held it tightly. The grin had already disappeared from his face. He had the sudden feeling that this was not a joke. Where he lived everything was a joke. From the preacher’s face, he knew immediately that nothing the preacher said or did was a joke. “My mother named me that,” he said quickly.
“Have you ever been Baptized?” the preacher asked.
“What’s that?” he murmured.
“If I Baptize you,” the preacher said, “you’ll be able to go to the Kingdom of Christ. You’ll be washed in the river of suffering, son, and you’ll go by the deep river of life. Do you want that?”
“Yes,” the child said, and thought, I won’t go back to the apartment then, I’ll go under the river.
“You won’t be the same again,” the preacher said. “You’ll count.” Then he turned his face to the people and began to preach and Bevel looked over his shoulder at the pieces of the white sun scattered in the river. Suddenly the preacher said, “All right, I’m going to Baptize you now,” and without more warning, he tightened his hold and swung him upside down and plunged his head into the water. He held him under while he said the words of Baptism and then he jerked him up again and looked sternly at the gasping child. Bevel’s eyes were dark and dilated. “You count now,” the preacher said. “You didn’t even count before.”
The little boy was too shocked to cry. He spit out the muddy water and rubbed his wet sleeve into his eyes and over his face.
“Don’t forget his mamma,” Mrs. Connin called. “He wants you to pray for his mamma. She’s sick.”
“Lord,” the preacher said, “we pray for somebody in affiiction who isn’t here to testify. Is your mother sick in the hospital?” he asked.