Barry Hannah - Ray

Ralph and Robert, my rich brothers, approve. But because of them, I can’t even say my name.

But then I had to go back, to see Sister, to see if she’s still there at the railroad tracks.

She was. Her gown was wet with tears and she was shivering bad.

“Nothing’ll help,” she said.

Henceforward we were together.

“Sister, do you have a real name?” I said.

“Sister’s enough,” said she, “but my real name is Betty, and my age is eighteen. My grandmother was a Presbyterian missionary, but the Chinese Communists killed her. My pappy’s from Mississippi. He ain’t worth nothing, but there he is. He never worried about too much and his words is always kind. It was hateful for him to get shot in the kneecap in World War Two. But there he is. I don’t want to talk about my momma too much because I don’t like her. Her name’s Agnes and she acts like that name.”

“Well,” said I, “I did my part in hurting the gooks back for you, Sister. I flew support missions for B-52 bombers in Vietnam.”

“You flew what?”

“An F-4, called the Phantom. It’s a jet airplane.”

“I’ve seen them jets pass over me and thought about them,” Sister said.

Her figure and face were lively and charming. Her legs were open, dark-skinned, negligent, as in the posture of lust. She had Cajun blood from her mother. Her hair was thick and black, and I suppose her beauty was astounding, even in the dirty gown and her eyes red with nervous grief.

I don’t feel that good about women anyway, nor gooks, nor sand-niggers, nor doctors, nor anything human that moves, with its zealous raving habits. Then I met Sister and my trust came back, my body was flooded with hope.

“You hear about Uncle Sweat?” she asked me once while we were making love. “He tried to take off a plane and crashed it into the state pen, Parchman, over in Mississippi. They didn’t even have to get a judge or nothing. He was already there.”

“Never heard about him.”

“Last week Aunt Viola was in a rage about Uncle Tom’s carelessness and she dropped a chain saw on her foot.”

“Terrible.”

The thing I like about Sister is that every hurt she mentions, every hurt she has, she gives it back twice in love. She beats the hell out of my wife, who looks like somebody on television.

My town now is Tuscaloosa. I want you to know about some of the people here. My friend Charlie DeSoto, for example. He and his sweetheart Eileen came in, both of them wanting the drug that would help them stay in love without the grinding nervousness they had, because they were in love and they wanted to make it stick. Yet they induced tension in each other. Charlie was going for the booze, Eileen for the Compazines and coffee.

The name DeSoto was important, Charlie thought. He’s a manager of the soap factory to the south of town and has made happen important steps toward antipollution of the Black Warrior River, into which his factory used to dump all the chemical wastes it had. It killed fish, and generally screwed up the water vegetation for fifteen miles downriver.

One night Charlie was waked up by a noise in his backyard. He caught hold of his hatchet, hoping it was a criminal, for his life had been dull lately. But when he went outdoors in the cold air, DeSoto — who was of course the namesake of Hernando de Soto, the discoverer of the Mississippi River who perished in 1542, probably of greed and arrogance — saw there was no criminal. The man in the backyard was not running. He was crawling, almost wallowing, toiling on the brown rye grass of Charlie’s yard. The man lifted his face and said, “Listen, friend, I can’t take it anymore.”

DeSoto considered that for a while, a whole day, actually. Charlie liked considering things. Best of all, Charlie DeSoto liked considering Mr. Wently. Now this Wently was a man who came by DeSoto’s house every morning, every morning at exactly 7:45. This Wently was a man somewhere in his seventies, and he was regular. But so was the dog, Albert. Albert belonged to two gentle lesbians, Marjorie and Jane. And the minute Wently showed himself on the block, Albert came out viciously and barked. But the old man was never appalled, for he knew Albert was just a loud coward.

DeSoto wanted to kill Mr. Wently, was the problem. He could murder Mr. Wently for the regularity of his habits. Wently had a three-piece suit and sunglasses and a cane. DeSoto owned no gun, but if he had one, he would have killed Wently first thing.

One day it was a glorious day, and the red and yellow leaves were falling all around the street, since it was fall, the dying beautiful season of the year.

DeSoto was reading about the original de Soto according to Rangel, his diarist on the expedition from Florida.

Sunday. October tenth, the Governor de Soto entered the village of Tuscaloosa, which is called Athlacia, a recent village. And the chief was on a kind of balcony on a mound at one end of the square, his head covered with a kind of coif like the almaizal, so that his headdress was like a Moor’s, which gave him an aspect of authority. He also wore a mantle of feathers down to his feet, very imposing. He was as tall as that Tony of the Emperor, our lord’s guard. A fine and comely emperor of a man.

Hernando remained seated with him a short time, and after a little he arose and said that they should come to eat, and he took him with him and the Indians came to dance. And they danced very well in the fashion of rustics in Spain. At night Tuscaloosa desired to go, and our Commander de Soto told him that he must sleep there. He slept there notwithstanding his reluctance.

The next day de Soto our Governor asked him for carriers and the rest of them he said he would give at Mobile, the province of one of his principal vassals.

Monday. October eighteen, St. Luke’s day, the Governor de Soto came to Mobile, having passed that day by several villages and mountains with two Christians slain by Indians who did not take our passing through their village peaceably. The soldiers stayed behind to forage and scatter themselves, for the region appeared populous. And there came with the Governor only forty horsemen as an advance guard, and after they tarried a little, that the Governor might not show weakness, he entered into the village with the chief, Tuscaloosa, and all his guard went in with him. The Indians danced an areyto. While this was going on, some soldiers saw them putting bows and arrows slyly among some palm leaves and other Christians saw that below the cabins were full of people concealed.

The Governor put his helmet on his head. He warned the soldiers. Luis de Moscoso and Baltasar de Gallegos, and Espindola, the captain of the guard, and only seven or eight soldiers were present. Gallegos went for Tuscaloosa, but the chief was hidden in a cabin and Gallegos with his knife slashed off the arm of an attacking Indian. Some got to their horses and killed the savages with lances. I was hit thrice by arrows. Women and even boys of four years fought with the Christians. Twenty-two of us died until the other Christians rescued us with the firearms.

At the last, we had twenty-two dead and their fortification was empty. We had killed four thousand of them.

Many pearls and a great store of corn were found.

Tuscaloosa and all his family were dead. We turned the great tall Indian over. A soldier named Stellus had fired the buss straight through his chest from five lengths.

Sometimes Charlie DeSoto read that passage to renew himself with his old perhaps ancestor. He got neither any special horror nor delight from it, but it reminded him of the adventurous perversity in himself that he cherished.

Then he thought: What was the it that fellow was talking about he said he couldn’t take any more of?