Toni Morrison - Paradise

At first she thought Sargeant must have known all about it. He raised corn in those fields. But there was no mistaking the astonishment on his face or on any of the others' when they heard. The problem was whether to notify the law or not. Not, it was decided. Even to bury them would be admitting to something they had no hand in. When some of the men went to look, much of their attention was not on the scene at hand but west on the Convent that loomed in their sight line. She should have known then. Had she been paying attention, first to the buzzards, then to the minds of men, she would not be using up all her Wrigley's and gasoline on a mission she hoped would be her last. Eyesight too dim, joints too stiff-this was no work for a gifted midwife. But God had given her the task, bless His holy heart, and at thirty miles an hour on a hot July night, she knew she was traveling in His time, not outside it. It was He who placed her there; encouraged her to look for the medicine best picked dry at night. The streambed was dry; the coming rain would remedy that even as it softened the two-legged mandrake root. She had heard light laughter and radio music traveling from the Oven. Young couples courting. At least they were in the open, she thought, not scrambling up into a hayloft or under a blanket in the back of a truck. Then the laughter and the music stopped. Deep male voices gave orders; flashlights cut shafts on bodies, faces, hands and what they carried. Without a murmur, the couples left, but the men didn't. Leaning against the Oven's walls or squatting on their haunches, they clustered in darkness.

Lone shrouded her own flashlight with her apron and would have moved invisibly to the rear of Holy Redeemer, where her car was parked, had she not remembered the other events she had ignored or misunderstood: the Lenten buzzards; Apollo's new handgun. She clicked herself back into complete darkness and sat down on the thirsty grass. She had to stop nursing resentment at the townspeople's refusal of her services; stop stealing penny revenge by ignoring what was going on and letting evil have its way. Playing blind was to avoid the language God spoke in. He did not thunder instructions or whisper messages into ears. Oh, no. He was a liberating God. A teacher who taught you how to learn, to see for yourself. His signs were clear, abundantly so, if you stopped steeping in vanity's sour juice and paid attention to His world. He wanted her to hear the men gathered at the Oven to decide and figure out how to run the Convent women off, and if He wanted her to witness that, He must also want her to do something about it. At first she didn't know what was going on, or what to do. But as in the past when she was confused, she closed her eyes and whispered, "Thy will. Thy will." The voices rose then, and she heard as clear as if she had been standing among them what they said to one another and what they meant. What they vocalized and what they did not.

There were nine of them. Some smoked, some sighed, as one by one they began to speak. Much of what they said Lone had heard before, although without the rough scales the words grew as they snaked through the night air. The topic was not new, but it had none of the delight that dressed the theme when delivered from a pulpit. Reverend Cary had captured the subject in a sermon so well received he included a version of it every Sunday.

"What have you given up to live here?" he asked, hitting "up" like a soprano. "What sacrifice do you make every day to live here in God's beauty, His bounty, His peace?"

"Tell us, Reverend. Say it."

"I'll tell you what." Reverend Cary chuckled.

"Yes, sir."

"Go ahead, now."

Reverend Cary had lifted his right hand straight in the air and curled it into a fist. Then, one finger at a time, he began to list what the congregation had deprived itself of.

"Television."

The congregation rippled with laughter.

"Disco."

They laughed merrily, louder, shaking their heads.

"Policemen."

They roared with laughter.

"Picture shows, filthy music." He continued with fingers from his left hand. "Wickedness in the streets, theft in the night, murder in the morning. Liquor for lunch and dope for dinner. That's what you have given up."

Each item drew sighs and moans of sorrow. Suffused with gratitude for having refused and escaped the sordid, the cruel, the ungodly, all of the up-to-date evils disguised as pleasure, each member of the congregation could feel his or her heart swell with pity for those who wrestled with those "sacrifices."

But there was no pity here. Here, when the men spoke of the ruination that was upon them-how Ruby was changing in intolerable ways-they did not think to fix it by extending a hand in fellowship or love. They mapped defense instead and honed evidence for its need, till each piece fit an already polished groove. A few did most of the talking, some said little and two said nothing at all, but silent though they were, Lone knew the leadership was twinned. Remember how they scandalized the wedding? What you say? Uh huh and it was that very same day I caught them kissing on each other in the back of that ratty Cadillac. Very same day, and if that wasn't enough to please the devil, two more was fighting over them in the dirt. Right down in it. Lord, I hate a nasty woman. Sweetie said they tried their best to poison her. I heard that too. Got caught in a snowstorm out that way and took shelter with them. Should have known better. Well, you know Sweetie. Anyway said she heard noises coming from somewhere in that house. Sounded to her like little babies crying. What in God's name little babies doing out there? You asking me? Whatever it is, it ain't natural. Well, it used to house little girls, didn't it? Yeah, I remember. Said it was a school. School for what? What they teaching out there? Sargeant, didn't you find marijuana growing in the middle of your alfalfa? Yep. Sure did. That don't surprise me. All I know is they beat Arnette up some when she went out there to confront them about the lies they told her. She thinks they kept her baby and told her it was stillborn. My wife says they did an abortion on her. You believe it? I don't know, but I wouldn't put it past them. What I do know is how messed up her face was. Aw, man. We can't have this.

Roger told me that the Mother-you know, the old white one used to shop here sometimes? — well, he said when she died she weighed less than fifty pounds and shone like sulfur. Jesus! Said the girl he dropped off there was openly flirting with him. That's the one half naked all the time? I knew something was wrong with her from the time she stepped off the bus. How she get a bus to come out here anyway? Guess, why don't you? You think they got powers? I know they got powers. Question is whose power is stronger. Why don't they just get on out, leave? Huh! Would you if you had a big old house to live in without having to work for it? Something's going on out there, and I don't like any of it. No men. Kissing on themselves. Babies hid away. Jesus! No telling what else. Look what happened to Billie Delia after she started hanging around out there. Knocked her mama down the stairs and took off for that place like a shoat hunting teat. I hear they drink like fish too. The old woman was always drunk when I saw her and remember the first words out their mouths when they came to the wedding? Anything to drink is what they asked for and when they got a glass of lemonade, they acted like they'd been spit on and walked on out the door. I remember that. Bitches. More like witches. But look here, brother, the bones beat all. I can't believe a whole family died out there without nobody knowing it. They wasn't all that far away, know what I'm saying? Can't nobody tell me they left the road and got themselves lost in a field with a big old house less than two miles away. They would have seen it. Had to. The man would have got out and walked to it, see what I mean? He could reason, couldn't he, and even if he couldn't reason he could see. How you going to miss a house that size out here in land flat as a nail head? You saying they had something to do with it? Listen, nothing ever happened around here like what's going on now. Before those heifers came to town this was a peaceable kingdom. The others before them at least had some religion. These here sluts out there by themselves never step foot in church and I bet you a dollar to a fat nickel they ain't thinking about one either. They don't need men and they don't need God. Can't say they haven't been warned. Asked first and then warned. If they stayed to themselves, that'd be something. But they don't. They meddle. Drawing folks out there like flies to shit and everybody who goes near them is maimed somehow and the mess is seeping back into our homes, our families. We can't have it, you all. Can't have it at all.