CHILD OF GOD

By ROARK BRADFORD

From Harper’s

When Willie told the preacher that morning that “ev’ything is all O.K., Revund,” he meant it from the bottom of his heart. The hawking of the rain crow from the limb of the dead cottonwood, sounded like the song of a mocking bird. The monotonous patter of rain on the tin roof lulled him into gentle restfulness. The damp, dirty stench that floated up from the dark closeness of the cells below him was like a sedative. Even the lyelike coffee served to remind him that the jailer was his friend.

“Cap’m Archie tole me I could have ev’ything I wanted fer brekfus,” he explained as he caught the minister sniffing and eyeing the scant remains of the meal. “An’ I tole him I b’lieve I’d take some po’k chops an’ cawfee, ef’n hit wuz all right. An’ hyar it is.”

“You mean dar hit wuz,” admonished the preacher. “Now yo’ flesh is fed, Willie, whut ’bout yo’ soul?”

Willie beamed a broad, knowing smile. “My soul,” he said tolerantly, “is all O.K. An’ Revund,” he continued jubilantly, “Cap’m Archie say he gonter bring me a ten-cent cigar to go walkin’ up de gallows wid in my mouf.” The minister’s face was a study in expression. “An’ I makes me a speech up yonder”—jerking his arm toward the gallows high in the roof of the jail—“an’ den——”

“Den which, son?” Preacher Moore was eager to find a point of contact at which he could begin his prepared message of consolation.

“I’se Glory bound!” Willie declared with enthusiasm.

While the condemned man talked and the preacher listened, the Great State of Louisiana prepared to exact its penalty in the form of the life of Willie Malone because “he did feloniously, wilfully, and of his deliberately premeditated malice aforethought, make an assault on one Thurston Gibbs, and a certain gun which then and there was loaded with gunpowder and buckshot and was by him, the said Willie Malone, had and held in both hands, he, the said Willie Malone, did then and there feloniously and of malice aforethought shoot off and discharge at and upon the said Thurston Gibbs thereby, and by thus striking the said Thurston Gibbs with the buckshots inflicting on and in the body one mortal wound of which said mortal wound the said Thurston Gibbs then and there instantly died. And so the said Willie Malone did in the manner and form aforesaid, feloniously and of deliberately premeditated malice aforethought, kill and murder the said Thurston Gibbs in the Parish of Wilton aforesaid, against the peace and dignity of the Great State of Louisiana.”

It all came out at the trial. Hogs had been running in Willie’s cornfield. The hogs belonged to Mr. Gibbs. And when Willie asked him to keep them home Mr. Gibbs had cursed him. Willie then bought a shotgun and some buckshot. Everybody agreed upon that much of it. Willie said he aimed to shoot the hogs and that when he heard something rustling the long blades he fired, thinking it was a hog. The district attorney pointed out that it was impossible to get a witness who could say what was in a man’s mind and, therefore, he’d leave it to the jury as to whether Willie was hog hunting or man hunting.

The jury was divided upon the point, but all agreed that no nigger had any right to shoot a white man’s hogs, anyway, much less shoot a white man. So they found him guilty as charged.

Willie had rather enjoyed his stay in jail. Two or three times his lawyer came and talked to him in a low voice and had him make his cross mark on many important-looking pieces of paper. It all gave him a feeling of importance hitherto not experienced.

He liked “Cap’m Archie,” too—Cap’m Archie was always making jokes, and didn’t make him do any work around the jail except a little sweeping. And during the long cool spring evenings, when the stars twinkled in the sky and the fiddling of the katydids out in the weed patch back of the jail floated in between the long iron-barred windows, Cap’m Archie would have one of the short-time prisoners drag his chair back to Willie’s own private cage and Willie would sing for him.

Willie did like to sing—church songs, mostly. But sometimes when he felt sad and lonesome he’d sing the one that began:

There were many verses, and to these Willie had added a hundred others. He was good at that. When they locked up that Caldonie for cutting her husband because he stole one of her hens and a chicken brood and gave it to another woman, Willie celebrated the occasion by adding:

Cap’m Archie had laughed at that one and it made Willie happy.

Not long after that Cap’m Archie sent for him to come to the office. Cap’m Archie looked sad that day, and it made Willie feel sad. So when Cap’m Archie told him the Supreme Court had turned him down and that he would have to hang Willie was much relieved.

“Shuh! Cap’m Archie,” Willie consoled, “dat ain’ nothin’ to go worryin’ ’bout. I thought hit mought er been somethin’ wrong, de way you had yo’ face strung out. Shuh! Ain’ dat de same as de jedge done tole me?”

That afternoon Reverend Moore, Negro preacher, was ushered into Willie’s cell, and under his exhortations Willie was converted. He had been converted annually ever since he could remember but he always had been too busy to follow it up. This time he had ample leisure in which to contemplate Christianity and draw mental pictures of it. Willie was keenly interested.

The preacher had spared no detail his imagination could supply as to the glories of heaven, and these Willie supplemented with the colourful pigments of his own imagination. Heaven was a wonderful place. Willie wanted to go there.

“Hyar dey comes, son,” the preacher said kindly. “Git up off’n yo’ knees.”

Cap’m Archie unlocked the cage door with keys that rattled nervously in his hand. Behind the jailer were half a dozen others—the doctor, two brothers of the man he had killed, the editor of the Wilton Parish Gazette, and a short, stubby, mean-looking man that Willie disliked instinctively. He had never seen him before, and the pale-green, watery eyes that squinted out at him through shaggy eyelashes made Willie feel bad. “I loves him too,” Willie insisted under his breath. “Got ter love him. ‘Makes me love ev’ybody—hit’s good ernuff fer me’”—Willie recalled the words from the old song. “An’ I guess he is somebody. But I be dog ef’n he looks like much, Ole Green Eyes.”

“Ready to go, Willie?” It was Cap’m Archie. His voice was kind and filled with sorrow. Willie hated to see Cap’m Archie like that. But when the jailer’s teeth clicked together and he said briskly, “Here, slip your hands into these,” it did not sound so sad, and Willie obeyed with alacrity.

“I bet you fergits my cigar, Cap’m Archie,” Willie countered as his arms were being pinioned behind him.

“Cut out that damned foolishness! Come on here, nigger. I ain’t got all day to fool.” It was the stubby little man who assumed charge.

“Makes me love ev’ybody,” Willie hummed desperately under his breath. “Hit’s good ernuff for me.”

“Good ernuff fer anybody,” seconded the preacher loudly, happy that he had found some place to enter into the ceremony with the dignity of his calling. “Hit’s de ole time religion, and hit’s good ernuff fer me!”

As the party marched up the narrow steps to the gallows, the Negro prisoners on the lower tier of cells caught up the refrain and the brick walls of the little jail reverberated with:

The climb to the gallows took a remarkably short time and Willie noticed that as soon as they arrived there “Ole Green Eyes” rushed to the rope that was lying handy and began making a loop in the end of it.

“Makes me love ev’ybody,” Willie insisted.

Everybody seemed nervous. Cap’m Archie couldn’t look at him. The editor was talking with big words to the elder of the Gibbses and said something about “dancing on the air.” Willie didn’t understand it but he knew he wasn’t going to dance on anything. Dancing would send him straight to hell. He had the preacher’s word for it.

He edged over toward Cap’m Archie.

“When does I make my speech, Cap’m Archie?” he asked.

The jailer did not look up. “In a minute,” he replied. “When you are ready to—when they stand you over there.” He pointed to the trapdoor with his foot.

“Come over here, nigger.” It was “Ole Green Eyes” again. Willie stood on the trapdoor.

“Makes me love ev’ybody,” he kept repeating as the knot was being drawn close to his ear. “Makes me love ev’ybody.”

When the knot was finished the little stubby man slipped a black hood over Willie’s head and stepped back. A jaybird on a dead limb of the cottonwood broke out in a scathing chatter of malediction at the crow. A dog howled mournfully in the jail yard below. The katydids in the weed patch opened with a wild symphony of fiddling. “Somethin’ ’bout to happen,” Willie concluded. “I guess I better make my speech.”

He threw back his shoulders and raised his chin as though about to address a large congregation.

“Folkses,” he began in a clear, strong voice, “I has a few words I wants to say to y’all——”

“Too late now, nigger.” It was that stubby little man. And even as the trap gave way under his feet Willie began:

“Makes me love ev’ybody.”

Willie did not finish that line, however. He was interrupted in the midst of it by a long blast on a horn. It was a loud, thundering blast and it startled him. He looked into the direction from which it came and there, charging down the road, he saw four prancing horses drawing a snow-white chariot. It was a beautiful sight. He had seen some such rig the time when he went to the circus at Baton Rouge. But this rig was even prettier than the circus carriages. Big white plumes bobbed from the crown-pieces of the bridles, and the horses pranced and danced along, raising a terrible dust.

“Great day!” he exclaimed. “Class sho’ is comin’ down de road to-day.”

In a minute the carriage was in front of him, and with much suddenness it came to a halt, the horses falling back on their haunches to check the momentum.

“Git up hyar, boy, an’ le’s git goin’,” the driver called down. “Us is late, as it is or—else you is early.”

Willie scrambled to the seat beside the driver. As the horses raced onward he enjoyed the thrill of the speedy ride, the wind rushing by his ears, the sparkle of the gold and silver harness, the dexterity with which the driver held the horses in the road with one hand and cracked the whip over their heads with the other.

“You drives right well, boy,” he observed. “What’s yo’ name?”

“Jehu,” replied the driver.

“Jehu-which?”

“Jest Jehu,” replied the driver.

“Who dat boy wid de hawn in his han’?”

“Gab’l.”

The monosyllabic replies of his companion irritated Willie. He wanted conversation and he intended to have it.

“How long you been——” he began, but suddenly Gabriel raised his trumpet to his lips and blew a deafening blast which almost lifted Willie from his seat.

“Hol’ tight,” cautioned Jehu, and the chariot stopped suddenly.

Willie saw an old man in a black slouch hat and cutaway coat, walking very alertly toward the carriage. His face was cleanly shaven except for a moustache and goatee which gave him a distinguished appearance. Willie instinctively knew that this quality-gentleman was going to ride on the plush seats inside, so he leaped down and opened the door of the carriage. The old man halted a few paces from him and cast a surveying glance at the horses.

“That checkrein is too tight on that off-lead horse,” he said. “It is a pity that I have to ’tend to these trifles, but damn it all, I can’t stand to see fine horseflesh suffer on account of triflin’ niggers.”

Willie quickly ran and lowered the checkrein and climbed back to his seat.

“You oughter know better’n to check up dat hoss so high,” he admonished Jehu with a proprietary air. “Us likes our hosses to have a heap er room.”

Jehu did not reply. He held steadily to the reins, and the carriage fairly flew through the misty haze. Willie wanted to ask for the reins himself. He felt he could drive much more to his own satisfaction but, withal, he admitted, Jehu was doing very well. A minute later, however, when the lead horse bolted just as they approached a long bridge, and Jehu prevented a crash by expert manœuvring of the reins, Willie was glad he was not driving.

“Does dat ev’y time at the bridge,” Jehu volunteered as the team settled down to a long gallop across the structure. “Lots er times us misses an’ de folks in de chariot gits drownded tryin’ to cross Jurdan.”

“Dat de Jurdan, huh?” asked Willie. “I be dog,” and he gripped tightly to the seat.

The chariot rolled off the bridge and up to the front of a white pearly gate where it stopped. Willie dropped confidently to the ground, opened the chariot door, and assisted the distinguished old passenger to alight. St. Peter swung the big gate open.

“Welcome, Colonel,” he said. “It gives me great pleasure to greet you personally after having known you indirectly for these many years. She’s waiting for you under the crêpe myrtles. Cherub, escort the Colonel to Miss Julia.”

Willie thought that was great, and he was thrilled almost to ecstasy when the old gentleman gave him a curt nod in recognition of his service.

As soon as the old man had disappeared behind the cherub, St. Peter dropped his air of formality.

“Well, well,” he said, “if it ain’t that worthless Willie Malone. Willie, how’d you git here, son?”

That was language Willie could understand and appreciate.

“St. Peter,” he replied, “I jes’ got on de chariot an’ rid up hyar.”

“Well,” said St. Peter, “I guess you better try on a pair of wings, then. Here, Cherub. Bring out a pair of wings for old Willie Malone.”

St. Peter helped the cherub adjust the wings.

“Now you’re fixed, son,” he announced. “Fly away!”

And Willie flew. He flew among the golden clouds and down long narrow golden streets. He flew over mansions of gold and sparkling rivers. High into the air and close to the ground he flew. He tried a few fancy turns, such as he had seen birds perform among the chinaberry trees. He dived at the surface of the water and grabbed at the golden fish and then climbed again by lusty flaps of his wings, as pelicans do. And he did it perfectly.

“Doggone my hide,” he exclaimed, “dis is somethin’ like!”

After a few hours the novelty began to wear off. He was high in the air, maybe a mile high, he estimated. So he pointed one wing at an angle and began gliding down, making a huge spiral as he descended. Halfway down, he reversed the cant of his wings and came down the rest of the way, flying backwards.

He landed right in the midst of a group of other angels who were seated around the Great Throne. Upon the throne sat the Great Lord God. Willie recognized him instantly because of the distinction with which he sat upon his throne and by the carefree tilt of his huge, bejewelled crown almost hiding one eye and by the angle at which the ten-cent cigar was cocked. Willie was a little frightened, and dazzled by the regal splendour of it all, but he settled down noiselessly to the ground, and was made to feel perfectly at home, by the informal greeting he received.

“I bet you want to hear some music, don’t you, Willie?” asked the Great Lord God and, without waiting for Willie’s reply, he continued, “Little David, play on your harp.”

“What shall I play, Great Lord God?” asked Little David.

“Play something calm and low, Little David,” said the Great Lord God. “Do not alarm my people.”

David struck a chord or two on his harp. It was beautiful. The mellow music floated straight to Willie’s heart. One or two of the other angels started humming with the music and, almost unconscious of where he was, Willie added his low, rich bass to the chorus:

After several verses Willie began to feel a personal sorrow for the passengers of the Titanic. The music stopped suddenly, and the Great Lord God commanded, “Little David, play something quick and lively. Let the skies rock with mirth. Let the heavens open wide. Let the stars and the moon shine out. Let my people shout with joy.”

And as soon as the command was issued all the angels began dancing and singing as Little David played:

Several more songs followed and finally Willie began to tire of singing. The party broke up, the angels flying away in groups of twos and threes. Soon no one was left before the throne except Willie.

Willie felt slightly embarrassed there, with no one around except the Great Lord God. He figured he might be intruding or something, or that perhaps he’d better go out and fly some more. But as he was turning over the idea a tall, kindly looking angel, more strikingly handsome than any he had ever seen, strolled up and sat down familiarly by the side of the Great Lord God. At first Willie thought it was Cap’m Archie. There was kindness and understanding in his face, just like Cap’m Archie’s face. But it wasn’t Cap’m Archie. Cap’m Archie had no scars on his hands and feet as had this angel.

As he puzzled over the matter he faintly remembered a story his old mammy had told him about a man with scars on his hands and feet, and he recalled the lines of a song that Cap’m Archie used to make him sing:

Some way, Willie could not place him. But he felt much more at ease for his presence.

“What you thinking about, Willie?” the kindly angel asked. “You don’t seem to be enjoying yourself so much.”

Willie did not know exactly what to reply. He rummaged through his mind hastily. He had been entirely happy for ever so long, not a thing had gone wrong. Everybody had been so nice to him. The music had been beautiful and just the songs he liked to sing. His wings fitted perfectly and St. Peter had been wonderful. So had Jehu. And Cap’m Archie—he had given him everything he could think of and a heap he did not think of. Of course there was the matter of the cigar. He wanted to go to the gallows with a cigar in his mouth. But that wasn’t Cap’m Archie’s fault ... and, too, maybe Cap’m Archie had forgotten the cigar. He had so many things to think about. Willie concluded that if it were the cigar he would say nothing about it to the kind angel because he did not want to embarrass Cap’m Archie. He did not really want to go to the gallows with a cigar, anyway, he decided.

“But I did want ter make dat speech,” he concluded.

“What speech is that?” asked the kindly faced angel.

Willie explained in great detail, and the angel and the Great Lord God listened intently.

“But hit wa’n’t Cap’m Archie’s fault,” he declared.

“Whose fault was it, then?” demanded the Great Lord God.

“Hit mought er been—onderstan’, I ain’ s’cusin’ nobody,” Willie faltered, “but hit mought er been Ole Green Eyes. But I loves ev’ybody—him, too,” he added hastily.

“I know the scoundrel,” declared the Great Lord God. “He’s been plaguing me for years and years. But this is too much.” The brow of the Great Lord God clouded in anger and he shouted with a terrible roar, like seven peals of thunder, “Cherub, bring me a bolt of forked lightning that I may strike that man from the face of the earth.”

The cherub brought the lightning, and the Great Lord God was about to hurl it. But the kind angel touched his arm gently.

“I wouldn’t, Father,” said the angel. “He might not have understood that the speech was to have been the biggest thing in Willie’s life.”

The Great Lord God stayed his hand and turned upon the kind angel. “Of course he understood. That’s why he didn’t let him make it. He’s just low-down mean. I’ve put up with enough of it.”

“But,” insisted the kind angel, “it will do no good to strike him down with lightning. It would frighten many people. And it would start new arguments over religion and that would lead to controversies and they would lead to hatreds and hatreds lead to——”

“I’ve heard that speech a million times, Son,” said the Great Lord God, “and you needn’t go into details. I admit you are right,” and he handed the lightning bolt back to the cherub. “But,” continued the Great Lord God, “I will not let this thing pass.” His brow clouded in anger again. “I am the Great I am,” he roared, “and my commands shall be obeyed.” The kind angel sat meekly and argued no further.

“Willie Malone,” commanded the Great Lord God in a tone of thunder.

“Yassuh, Great Lord God,” replied Willie, jumping to his feet.

“You go right back down yonder and make that speech. He’s sitting in the jail office right now with Captain Archie. Now go and do my commands.”

Willie lost no time in getting to the jail. As he approached, he noticed a half-dozen Negroes—friends of his—standing in the rain about the big steel door entry to the lower cells. But he hurried by them with only a curt “hy-dy, boys.” The fact that they ignored him stung a little but he had no time to lose. He went straight to the office entrance.

The green-eyed man was seated at a table fingering five new ten-dollar bills. The coroner was scratching away with a pen on a big official-looking document. The editor and the two Gibbses were talking in low tones. Cap’m Archie was hunched down in his chair at his desk, looking at the floor. Willie stood a minute respectfully, hoping Cap’m Archie would notice him and inquire what he wanted.

But Cap’m Archie did not look toward him and Willie tried a scheme that had worked many times for him.

“Cap’m, suh,” he said, “don’ you want dis ole dirty flo’ swep’ up er somethin’?”

But Cap’m Archie acted as though he did not hear.

Willie cogitated. Maybe he was worrying about forgetting the cigar.

But as the thought came to Willie Cap’m Archie slowly reached to his vest pocket and drew out a single long black cigar and studied it intently.

“You got the mate to that’n, Sheriff?” Ole Green Eyes quit shuffling the new bills and directed his attention toward the cigar.

“Nope,” replied Cap’m Archie, “I ain’t got the mate to this’n.” And he tightened his grip on the cigar until he had broken and crushed it. “And if I did have it,” he added, “I’d damn well keep it.”

“No hard feelings, Sheriff,” offered Green Eyes. “I see you ain’t used to it. Cheer up. It’s just another nigger less.”

A scraping of feet in the jail hall at the side of the office attracted the attention of both Cap’m Archie and Green Eyes. Willie followed their gaze through the barred hall door and saw six Negroes carrying a long black box toward the big jail door. Behind the box marched Preacher Moore, directing and exhorting as he went.

“There he goes now—out of yer jail and out of yer life. It’s all over and yer duty’s done.”

Cap’m Archie squeezed the cigar tightly, crumbling it into tiny bits.

The green-eyed man essayed a cackling laugh. “And so’s mine,” he continued, picking up the five bills, “so I guess I’ll be going.”

Willie had been standing by in respectful silence since the white folks had indicated by ignoring him that they were too busy to talk to him. White people are that way, Willie had learned. Sometimes they will talk with you and laugh with you. And sometimes when they are busy they won’t pay any attention to you unless you get in their way or something. Then they will curse you. Willie knew how to get along with white folks.

But things were different now. He had business with Mister Green Eyes.

“Wait a minute, Cap’m, suh,” he addressed the green-eyed man.

Green Eyes stiffened, blinked his eyes, passed his hand across his forehead, and frowned. He stuck the money into his pocket quickly and grabbed for his hat.

“Wait a minute, Cap’m,” Willie pleaded. “I got ter make my speech.”

The green-eyed man turned pale and shut his eyes tightly, gritting his teeth and shaking his head as if in an effort to clear his brain.

“Sheriff,” he said with a great struggle for calmness in his voice, “I need a drink. I—I—I’m sort of nervous, I reckon.”

“There’s the doctor,” Cap’m Archie replied calmly, nodding toward the coroner.

“But, Cap’m, suh, wait,” interjected Willie, “lemme make my speech——”

The green-eyed man yelled and ran to the doctor.

“Get me a drink, Doctor!” he begged. “A drink! For God’s sake. I’m all shot to hell, Doctor. Get me a drink, quick.”

“What’s the matter, man?” demanded the doctor. “What is it?”

“That damned nigger, Doctor. I’m seein’ things. So help me. He wants to make a speech, Doctor——”

“Dat’s all right, Cap’m,” Willie insisted. “Hit ain’t no mean speech.”

“O-ww-w-w—Doctor,” screamed the green-eyed man. “There he is again.”

The coroner and Cap’m Archie caught the hangman and led him to a chair.

“Calm down, man,” said the doctor. “Your nerves are upset.”

“But that nigger, that damned nigger! I see him.”

“Well, he isn’t going to hurt you, man. He’s——”

“Nawsuh, I wa’n’t gonter hurt nobody,” Willie assured him. “I jes’ was gonter say a few words.”

The man struggled wildly, and it was only with the added strength of the two Gibbses and the editor that they succeeded in holding him in his chair. He was alternately crying and cursing, trembling weakly and fighting wildly.

“That damned nigger! I see him! I see him!” he kept shouting. “He wants to make a speech!”

“Hold him until I can fix a hypodermic,” ordered the doctor.

“I jes’ gonter make my speech,” Willie pleaded again in an effort to calm the green-eyed man. “I ain’ gonter do nothin’ but jes’ tawk.”

But instead of being soothed, the man became more violent and but for the utmost strength of four men, he would have escaped. They held him, though. Held him in the chair while his eyes glared in wild frenzy, his huge neck swelled even bigger, his face turned purple, and his breath came in short rasping gasps. “Git away, damned nigger. I see you. Ow-ww-ww!”

“I jes’ on’y got a few words I wanner say,” Willie began again. And after one lunge at the sound of Willie’s voice the man quieted down, and his eyes stared glassily at nothing, although his neck still bulged. The colour of his face changed to an ugly blue and his mouth dropped open and dripped frothy saliva. And while the green-eyed man sat limp in the chair Willie Malone completed his speech:

“I jes’ wanner say I ain’t got no hard feelin’s agin nobody an’ I don’ want nobody to has no hard feelin’s agin me. An’ I wants to meet you all in heaven.”