Wise Blood - Flannery O'Connor [23]
"King Jesus!" Enoch whispered and before he could get his eyes off the woman, Hazel Motes had sprung up and was almost to his car. The woman was sitting straight up with the suit half off her in front, and Enoch was looking both ways at once.
He wrenched his attention loose from the woman and darted after Hazel Motes. "Wait on me!" he shouted and waved his arms in front of the car which was already rattling and starting to go. Hazel Motes cut off the motor.
His face behind the windshield was sour and frog-like; it looked as if it had a shout closed up in it; it looked like one of those closet doors in gangster pictures where someone is tied to a chair behind it with a towel in his mouth.
"Well," Enoch said, "I declare if it ain't Hazel Motes. How are you, Hazel?"
"The guard said I'd find you at the swimming pool" Hazel Motes said. "He said you hid in the bushes and watched the swimming."
Enoch blushed. "I allus have admired swimming," he said. Then he stuck his head farther through the window. "You were looking for me?" he exclaimed.
"That blind man," Haze said, "that blind man named Hawks--did his child tell you where they lived?"
Enoch didn't seem to hear. "You came out here special to see me?" he said.
"Asa Hawks. His child gave you the peeler. Did she tell you where they lived?"
Enoch eased his head out of the car. He opened the door and climbed in beside Haze. For a minute he only looked at him, wetting his lips. Then he whispered, "I got to show you something."
"I'm looking for those people," Haze said. "I got to see that man. Did she tell you where they lived?"
"I got to show you this thing," Enoch said. "I got to show it to you, here, this afternoon. I got to." He pipped Hazel Motes's arm and Haze shook him off.
"Did she tell you where they live?" he said again.
Enoch kept wetting his lips. They were pale except for his fever blister, which was purple. "Cert'nly," he said. "Ain't she invited me to come to see her and bring my mouth organ? I got to show you this thing, then I’ll tell you."
"What thing?" Haze muttered.
"This thing I got to show you," Enoch said. "Drive straight on ahead and I'll tell you where to stop."
"I don't want to see anything of yours," Haze Motes said. "I want that address."
Enoch didn't look at Hazel Motes. He looked out the window. "I won't be able to remember it unless you come," he said. In a minute the car started. Enoch's blood was beating fast. He knew he had to go to the Frosty Bottle and the zoo before there, and he foresaw a terrible struggle with Hazel Motes. He would have to get him there, even if he had to hit him over the head with a rock and carry him on his back up to it.
Enoch's brain was divided into two parts. The part in communication with his blood did the figuring but it never said anything in words. The other part was stocked up with all kinds of words and phrases. While the first part was figuring how to get Hazel Motes through the Frosty Bottle and the zoo, the second inquired, "Where'd you git thisyer fine car? You ought to paint you some signs on the outside it, like 'Step-in, baby'--I seen one with that on it, then I seen another, said..."
Hazel Motes's face might have been cut out of the side of a rock.
"My daddy once owned a yeller Ford automobile he won on a ticket" Enoch murmured. "It had a roll-top and two aerials and a squirrel tail all come with it. He swapped it off. Stop here! Stop here!" he yelled--they were passing the Frosty Bottle.
"Where is it?" Hazel Motes said as soon as they were inside. They were in a dark room with a counter across the back of it and brown stools like toad stools in front of the