and the car shot backward because the man had left it in reverse.
In a second he got it going forward and he drove off crookedly, past the man and the
boy still standing there watching. He kept going forward, thinking nothing and sweating.
For a long time he stayed on the street he was on. He had a hard time holding the
car in the road. He went past railroad yards for about a half-mile and then warehouses.
When he tried to slow the car down, it stopped altogether and then he had to start
it again. He went past long blocks of gray houses and then blocks of better, yellow
houses. It began to drizzle rain and he turned on the windshield wipers; they made
a great clatter like two idiots clapping in church. He went past blocks of white houses,
each sitting with an ugly dog face on a square of grass. Finally he went over a viaduct
and found the highway.
He began going very fast.
The highway was ragged with filling stations and trailer camps and roadhouses. After
a while there were stretches where red gulleys dropped off on either side of the road
and behind them there were patches of field buttoned together with 666 posts. The
sky leaked over all of it and then it began to leak into the car. The head of a string
of pigs appeared snout-up over the ditch and he had to screech to a stop and watch
the rear of the last pig disappear shaking into the ditch on the other side. He started
the car again and went on. He had the feeling that everything he saw was a broken-off
piece of some giant blank thing that he had forgotten had happened to him. A black
pick-up truck turned off a side road in front of him. On the back of it an iron bed
and a chair and table were tied, and on top of them, a crate of barred-rock chickens.
The truck went very slowly, with a rumbling sound, and in the middle of the road.
Haze started pounding his horn and he had hit it three times before he realized it
didn’t make any sound. The crate was stuffed so full of wet barred-rock chickens that
the ones facing him had their heads outside the bars. The truck didn’t go any faster
and he was forced to drive slowly. The fields stretched sodden on either side until
they hit the scrub pines.
The road turned and went down hill and a high embankment appeared on one side with
pines standing on it, facing a gray boulder that jutted out of the opposite gulley
wall. White letters on the boulder said, WOE TO THE BLASPHEMER AND WHOREMONGER! WILL
HELL SWALLOW YOU UP? The pick-up truck slowed even more as if it were reading the
sign and Haze pounded his empty horn. He beat on it and beat on it but it didn’t make
any sound. The pick-up truck went on, bumping the glum barred-rock chickens over the
edge of the next hill. Haze’s car was stopped and his eyes were turned toward the
two words at the bottom of the sign. They said in smaller letters, “Jesus Saves.”
He sat looking at the sign and he didn’t hear the horn. An oil truck as long as a
railroad car was behind him. In a second a red square face was at his car window.
It watched the back of his neck and hat for a minute and then a hand came in and sat
on his shoulder. “What you doing parked in the middle of the road?” the truck driver
asked.
Haze turned his fragile placed-looking face toward him. “Take your hand off me,” he
said. “I’m reading the sign.”
The driver’s expression and his hand stayed exactly the way they were, as if he didn’t
hear very well.
“There’s no person a whoremonger, who wasn’t something worse first,” Haze said. “That’s
not the sin, nor blasphemy. The sin came before them.”
The truck driver’s face remained exactly the same.
“Jesus is a trick on niggers,” Haze said.
The driver put both his hands on the window and gripped it. He looked as if he intended
to pick up the car. “Will you get your goddam outhouse off the middle of the road?”
he said.
“I don’t have to run
In a second he got it going forward and he drove off crookedly, past the man and the
boy still standing there watching. He kept going forward, thinking nothing and sweating.
For a long time he stayed on the street he was on. He had a hard time holding the
car in the road. He went past railroad yards for about a half-mile and then warehouses.
When he tried to slow the car down, it stopped altogether and then he had to start
it again. He went past long blocks of gray houses and then blocks of better, yellow
houses. It began to drizzle rain and he turned on the windshield wipers; they made
a great clatter like two idiots clapping in church. He went past blocks of white houses,
each sitting with an ugly dog face on a square of grass. Finally he went over a viaduct
and found the highway.
He began going very fast.
The highway was ragged with filling stations and trailer camps and roadhouses. After
a while there were stretches where red gulleys dropped off on either side of the road
and behind them there were patches of field buttoned together with 666 posts. The
sky leaked over all of it and then it began to leak into the car. The head of a string
of pigs appeared snout-up over the ditch and he had to screech to a stop and watch
the rear of the last pig disappear shaking into the ditch on the other side. He started
the car again and went on. He had the feeling that everything he saw was a broken-off
piece of some giant blank thing that he had forgotten had happened to him. A black
pick-up truck turned off a side road in front of him. On the back of it an iron bed
and a chair and table were tied, and on top of them, a crate of barred-rock chickens.
The truck went very slowly, with a rumbling sound, and in the middle of the road.
Haze started pounding his horn and he had hit it three times before he realized it
didn’t make any sound. The crate was stuffed so full of wet barred-rock chickens that
the ones facing him had their heads outside the bars. The truck didn’t go any faster
and he was forced to drive slowly. The fields stretched sodden on either side until
they hit the scrub pines.
The road turned and went down hill and a high embankment appeared on one side with
pines standing on it, facing a gray boulder that jutted out of the opposite gulley
wall. White letters on the boulder said, WOE TO THE BLASPHEMER AND WHOREMONGER! WILL
HELL SWALLOW YOU UP? The pick-up truck slowed even more as if it were reading the
sign and Haze pounded his empty horn. He beat on it and beat on it but it didn’t make
any sound. The pick-up truck went on, bumping the glum barred-rock chickens over the
edge of the next hill. Haze’s car was stopped and his eyes were turned toward the
two words at the bottom of the sign. They said in smaller letters, “Jesus Saves.”
He sat looking at the sign and he didn’t hear the horn. An oil truck as long as a
railroad car was behind him. In a second a red square face was at his car window.
It watched the back of his neck and hat for a minute and then a hand came in and sat
on his shoulder. “What you doing parked in the middle of the road?” the truck driver
asked.
Haze turned his fragile placed-looking face toward him. “Take your hand off me,” he
said. “I’m reading the sign.”
The driver’s expression and his hand stayed exactly the way they were, as if he didn’t
hear very well.
“There’s no person a whoremonger, who wasn’t something worse first,” Haze said. “That’s
not the sin, nor blasphemy. The sin came before them.”
The truck driver’s face remained exactly the same.
“Jesus is a trick on niggers,” Haze said.
The driver put both his hands on the window and gripped it. He looked as if he intended
to pick up the car. “Will you get your goddam outhouse off the middle of the road?”
he said.
“I don’t have to run
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