Toni Morrison - Paradise

Oh, how the men loved putting it back together; how proud it had made them, how devoted. A good thing, she thought, as far as it went, but it went too far. A utility became a shrine (cautioned against not only in scary Deuteronomy but in lovely Corinthians II as well) and, like anything that offended Him, destroyed its own self. Nobody better to make the point than the wayward young who turned it into a different kind of oven. One where the warming flesh was human. When Royal and the other two, Destry and one of Pious DuPres' daughters, asked for a meeting, it was quickly agreed upon. No one had called a town meeting in years. Everybody, including Soane and Dovey, thought the young people would first apologize for their behavior and then pledge to clean up and maintain the site. Instead they came with a plan of their own. A plan that completed what the fist had begun. Royal, called Roy, took the floor and, without notes, gave a speech perfect in every way but intelligibility. Nobody knew what he was talking about and the parts that could be understood were plumb foolish. He said they were way out-of-date; that things had changed everywhere but in Ruby. He wanted to give the Oven a name, to have meetings there to talk about how handsome they were while giving themselves ugly names. Like not American. Like African. All Soane knew about Africa was the seventy-five cents she gave to the missionary society collection. She had the same level of interest in Africans as they had in her: none. But Roy talked about them like they were neighbors or, worse, family. And he talked about white people as though he had just discovered them and seemed to think what he'd learned was news.

Yet there was something more and else in his speech. Not so much what could be agreed or disagreed with, but a kind of winged accusation. Against whites, yes, but also against them-the townspeople listening, their own parents, grandparents, the Ruby grownfolk. As though there was a new and more manly way to deal with whites. Not the Blackhorse or Morgan way, but some African-type thing full of new words, new color combinations and new haircuts. Suggesting that outsmarting whites was craven. That they had to be told, rejected, confronted. Because the old way was slow, limited to just a few, and weak. This last accusation swole Deek's neck and, on a weekday, had him blowing out the brains of quail to keep his own from exploding.

He would be pulling in with a bag of them any minute now, and later on Soane would serve up a platter of their tender, browned halves. So she contemplated rice or sweet potatoes as the contents of her cup steeped. When she swallowed the last drop, the back door opened.

"What's that?"

She liked the smell of him. Windy-wet and grassy. "Nothing."

Deek tossed his sack on the floor. "Give me some of it, then."

"Go on, Deek. How many?"

"Twelve. Gave six to Sargeant. " Deek sat down and before taking off his jacket unlaced his boots. "Enough to take care of two suppers. "

"K. D. go with you?"

"No. Why?" He grunted with the effort of debooting. Soane picked up the boots and put them on the back porch. "He's hard to find these days. Up to something, I bet."

"You put coffee on? Like what?"

Soane sniffed the dark air, testing its weight, before closing the door. "Can't tell, exactly. But he has too many reasons for wearing thin shoes."

"Chasing tail, I expect. 'Member that gal dragged herself in town some time back and was staying out to that Convent?" Soane turned to him, coffee tin at her breast as she eased off the lid. "Why you say 'dragged'? Why you have to say 'dragged' like that? You see her?"

"No, but other folks did."

"And?"

Deek yawned. "And nothing. Coffee, baby. Coffee, coffee."

"So don't say 'dragged.' "

"Okay, okay. She didn't drag in." Deek laughed, dropping his outer clothes on the floor. "She floated in."

"What's wrong with the closet, Deek?" Soane looked at the waterproof pants, the black and red jacket, the flannel shirt. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

"Heard her shoes had six-inch heels."

"You lying."

"And flying."

"Well. If she's still at the Convent, she must be all right." Deek massaged his toes. "You just partial to those women out there. I'd be careful if I was you. How many of them now? Four?"

"Three. The old lady died, remember?"

Deek stared at her, then looked away. "What old lady?"

"The Reverend Mother. Who'd you think?"

"Oh, right. Yeah." Deek continued stirring the blood in his feet.

Then he laughed. "First time Roger got to use his big new van."

"Ambulance," said Soane, gathering up his clothes. "Brought three payments in the next day. Hope he can keep up the rest. Not enough hospital or mortuary business around here justify that overpriced buggy he got."

The coffee smell was starting, and Deek rubbed his palms.

"Is he hurting?" Soane asked.

"Not yet. But since his profit depends on the sick and the dead, I'd just as soon he went bankrupt."

"Deek!"

"Couldn't do a damn thing for my boys. Buried in a bag like kittens."

"They had lovely coffins! Lovely!"

"Yeah, but inside…."

"Quit, Deek. Why don't you just quit." Soane touched her throat. "I 'spect he'll make out. If I go before he does. In which case, well, you know what to do. I don't feature riding in that van nohow, but I want a top-of-the-line box, so he'll make out just fine. Fleet's the one in trouble." He stood at the sink and lathered his hands. "You keep saying that. How come?"

"Mail order."

"What?" Soane poured coffee into the big blue cup her husband preferred.

"You all go to Demby, don't you? When you want a toaster or an electric iron you order out of a catalogue and go all the way out there to pick it up. Where's that put him?"

"Fleet never has much on hand. And what he does have has been there too long. That lounge chair changed colors three times sitting in the window."

"That's why," said Deek. "If he can't move old inventory, he can't buy new."

"He used to do all right."

Deek tipped a little coffee into the saucer. "Ten years ago. Five." The dark pool rippled under his breath. "Boys coming out of Veetnam, getting married, setting up. War money. Farms doing okay, everybody doing okay." He sucked at the saucer rim and sighed his pleasure. "Now, well…."

"I don't understand, Deek."

"I do." He smiled up at her. "You don't need to."

She had not meant that she didn't understand what he was talking about. She'd meant she didn't understand why he wasn't worried enough by their friends' money problems to help them out. Why, for instance, couldn't Menus have kept the house he bought? But Soane didn't try to explain; she just looked closely at his face. Smooth, still handsome after twenty-six years and beaming, now, with satisfaction. Shooting well that morning had settled him and returned things to the way they ought to be. Coffee the right color; the right temperature. And later today, quail without their brains would melt in his mouth. Every day the weather permitted, Deacon Morgan drove his brilliant black sedan three-fourths of a mile. From his own house on St. John Street, he turned right at the corner onto Central, passed Luke, Mark and Matthew, then parked neatly in front of the bank. The silliness of driving to where he could walk in less time than it took to smoke a cigar was eliminated, in his view, by the weight of the gesture. His car was big and whatever he did in it was horsepower and worthy of comment: how he washed and waxed it himself-never letting K. D. or any enterprising youngster touch it; how he chewed but did not light cigars in it; how he never leaned on it, but if you had a conversation with him, standing near it, he combed the hood with his fingernails, scraping flecks he alone could see, and buffing invisible stains with his pocket handkerchief. He laughed along with friends at his vanity, because he knew their delight at his weakness went hand in hand with their awe: the magical way he (and his twin) accumulated money. His prophetic wisdom. His total memory. The most powerful of which was one of his earliest.