Arcadio (12 page)

About the story of the newspaper what was the name of the town I asked this President Fred Shanks and he said I don know, newspaper does not give name of the town. But who cares the name of the town said Fred Shanks you are apprehended hereby for robbery of a Savings and Loan Bank. How do I know who somebody named Hondo Holloway is, he said,
you
had the money on you! And President Fred Shanks threw me into jail in this bitter town.

But what had happened was that over in the Missoura jail Ethelreda had told Sam Policheck of her killing of Hondo Holloway with her big hand when he come to beg forgiveness, for the murder of her sister Sweet Janine. And God and
Jesucristo
helped Ethelreda sweeten up her nature and beg forgiveness for diggin the hole bigger for me and helped her talk to Sam Policheck about excaping through the hole away from Missoura jail and into the world. Your wife Nan Policheck has been a long time deceased said Ethelreda, and I would like to free you from your own jail. World outside has got a lots that you don even know about. Includin me, added Ethelreda. So would you understand that there was Sam Policheck ahelpin dig the hole bigger—for himself—and for Ethelreda! And one night Sam Policheck followed Ethelreda through the hole that he had helped make big enough; and they both come out into the world free and both full of forgiveness and glad that they was free and wanting to make amends to all of those that had been thrown into the cell of Missoura jail by Sam Policheck.

First thing that I have to do, Ethelreda says to Sam Policheck, Ethelreda said, is make forgiveness amends to Hondo Holloway. How can you make amends to a dead man asked Sam Policheck, Ethelreda said he said. Take him off of the cold stone slab at the Morgue in the terrible town where I lived, says Ethelreda; and where he has laid ever since I struck him the fatal blow. So first thing they done, this excaped couple and the last ones of all of us to leave the old Missoura jail and to board it up forever, since the town was plannin to open up a new one in a shoppin center it was goin to build next to a cultural center it was goin to build, somebody said; meantime all crooks run free in the town; first thing they done was to head for the bitter town where pore lonesome Hondo laid cold dead on a slab of stone all this time without a livin soul to claim him with a sign on him that said
PERSON
UNKNOWN
. And to take off the sign and carry him back to boarded-up Missoura jail and bury him there under the Rose a Sharon where so much had been buried—Old John and the golden baitbox of Savings and Loan to name two. What are the others? I don know guess I was exaggeratin. No I wasn't because Nan Policheck was buried in that jailyard too but not under the Rose a Sharon. Anyways Ethelreda laid Hondo Holloway in the ground of Missoura jail under the bloomin Rose a Sharon tree that always was abloomin, never anybody saw ever that sweet little tree ‘ithout a blossom on it. Old ground'd been dug up so much just opened up on its own before Ethelreda when she lifted up her great big hand, didn't even have to dig, ground just opened up to take body of Hondo Holloway in it, seemed like he was home. This's what Ethelreda Johansson told me.

So big Ethelreda made her forgiveness to Hondo Holloway by diggin with her own big shovelin hand, the very one that struck him down to death, iz grave. And next to the grave of Old John where the cardboard tombstone made of a box top said
OLD
JOHN
printed long ago, whenever it was, when was it my
Oyente
do you know? can you follow all the years and all the happenings that I've told you, how many years? how many things happened? What is this world
Oyente?
You wan hear. But now I felt better about my friend Hondo cause I knew where his grave was and said that I'd one day go back to the Missoura jail to put flowers on it. But guess I didn't have to since I'm sure sweet Rose a Sharon tree dropped flowers enough on it night and day, flowers on the grave of Old John, too.

And one night when there was heard a big esplosion in the bitter town of Sweet Janine the jail door of mine opened like in
La Biblia Blanca
like in
San Pablo
, and when I run through the open door I found Ethelreda and Sam Policheck arunnin through the streets, we was in a reunion together! God and
Jesucristo
had brought us together again in a miraculous, in a
milagro
.

Why have you returned to this bitter town? I cried. And with my God Sam Policheck the
Bohunk
. I says this
Bohunk
out loud to him this time after what he had done to me, thrown me into Missoura jail. Everthing has changed all the past is forgotten and all is forgiven by everbody, cried out Ethelreda. And when I says I hope that includes pore Hondo Holloway that come to you in a pure heart and you wiped him down out of his life, pore Ethelreda Johansson cried biggest tears I've ever seen, they fell on the sidewalk of that bitter town like pancakes. You could hear her big tears flop down on the sidewalk. I was ascared a little, to see such a great big person acrying like that; and then she told me what I have just told you, about her amends of buryin Hondo Holloway off the cold slab into the blessed ground of Missoura jail that opened up to take him in. I'll go take flowers to iz grave she cried. Please, said Sam Policheck. Not back to Missoura jail. Although I second everything that is happening, said Sam Policheck, a very changed man. Nan Policheck was a little woman a good woman and a good little wife for a jailer, said Sam Policheck. But a little woman. Now I have me a good big one, Ethelreda Johansson, and ever-thing has changed I am no longer of a jail and have boarded it up and buried the keys under the Rose a Sharon by the hole of everbody's excape, said Sam Policheck. We have come, said Ethelreda right into what Sam Policheck was saying, for me to get a few of my things before the
desgracia
hits the town. Well I have just excaped from the jail of this town because of a terrible injustice of a President Fred Shanks but a mysterious esplosion busted open my jail door and I am at large again, I said.

The mysterious esplosion was a part of a warning, said Ethelreda, that there is about to begin an infernal battle to the death between rathawks and rats, we have for a long time known this would happen it was even prophesied by a famous Medium. What was the Medium's name? I asked. How would I know? answered Ethelreda. I thought it might be Gloria Ox, I said. But Ethelreda went right on into what I was sayin. Medium, Ethelreda went on, said that it will be preceded by a mysterious esplosion and a bloody battle will demolish the whole town forevermore. That is why I have returned to get a few things. Let em demolish it, I said, it is a bitter town. A town of nastiness, said Ethelreda, excuse the word but it is a nasty town. What happened to you in it? I asked. I have never told my story, said Ethelreda. Now that the town of my life is about to be demolished, I think I will. You'll have to be brief, said Sam Policheck. I'll hurry, she said. We were two sisters in a nasty town. Bitter, I said. Please, said Ethelreda. I have only a few minutes and my time is limited. My sister Janine and I suffered at the hands of a nasty town. That is a
gringo
espression, I said, that a town would have hands. Please, said Ethelreda. My time is limited. They were always, since we were just girls, trying to take advantage of we girls. Who? I asked. The town, said Ethelreda. I may, she said, not have to tell this if I continue to be interrupted and with such a limit on my time anyway, because of the coming any minute of this town's demolishment, as history and the Medium decreed that it would.
Gott!
said Ethelreda. It was the only time I ever heard her speak foreign. What does that mean translated? I asked Ethelreda. Not into Mescan but into Anglo. God said she. In Swedish—or German, I can't remember—we are Swedish, or my father was, with some German thrown into it. My mother Innisfree was Irish—so I am part Irish and part Swedish with some German and my mother had some Scotch in her so I have that, too. I hate to rush you, said Sam Policheck, but only to remind you that time is limited. I'll hurry, Ethelreda said. My father Hans Johansson ran the oldest bakery in the terrible town. He made the best bread in Texas, up every morn to bake it in a four-o'clock oven. The only sweet thing about the nasty town was that the smell of bread was being smelled by the people before dawn. But… I said. Please, cut in Ethelreda. I was only going to say, I said, that if the people of the terrible town were so nasty why was it good that they smelled your father Hanses bread every morn? He should have laid out a nasty smell over that nasty town.
Please!
cried Ethelreda. When I have such limited time! cried out Ethelreda, almost raising up her big hand.
Perdóname Usted!
I said.
Señora. Señora
Ethelreda Johansson Policheck. A beautiful name, Sam Policheck put in. But Ethelreda went on with her story. But my father was treated so nasty when somebody found an unmentionable object in a loaf of rye that he was forced to close down his ovens. The whole nasty town treated him like a dog and tried to run him out of town. What was the object in the rye? I asked. An unmentionable object, answered Ethelreda, but an object that is supposed to keep you from having babies. Which set the town against each other, two sides, those in favor of sexual pleasure and those in favor of just having babies. A condom said Sam Policheck. My God, I said. Who won, which side won? Please, said Ethelreda. My father Hans was forced to run out of the nasty town. What about your mother? I asked her. My mother Innisfree? said Ethelreda. Locked us up, we two girls, in our house and run out of town with my father Hans, saying that they would be back. But they never come back. So we were two girls waiting for some help. One sweet one and one great big one I says to myself. Who come with the help? I said to Ethelreda. Hondo Holloway, she said. O my God, I said. How did Hondo get there? Hiding out from some people who were after him, said Ethelreda. By a lake outside the town Hondo had pulled a man's arm out of its socket and the people were after him. He was only trying to help up the man because he had fallen into the lake and was adrownding. Hondo was so surprised by what he had done, that the man was crying out in pain from the arm that was pulled out and dangling, Hondo was so mixed up that he jumped into the lake, just where the man had been, and tried to drown hisself. Ethelreda said Hondo said. You wan hear. He did not know his own strength,
la mensura
, how to measure his own strength, I says to Ethelreda. Like me, said Ethelreda.
Sí
, I says. But pore Hondo Holloway died from it. I told you how much forgiveness I have given Hondo Holloway, cried out Ethelreda. How much amends can a woman make? she cried out, pore murderer.
Perdóname
, I says,
Señora
, escuse me. God knows, went on Ethelreda, how Hondo excaped from the lake and got into our basement which was so boarded up by our father Hans and our mother Innisfree Johansson. But we found him one morning. Janine did. My sister Janine. Sweet Janine! I says. Ethelreda said that you might as well to have a white butterfly in your house as to have Janine her frail white sister in your house. Sometimes said she thought a white scarf like a veil was afloatin around her and twas Janine; or said if you would think of in your mind's eye—we have no such espression—of a petal of a dogwood then that would be Janine; said she was a white saint said she was pure snow. Sweet Janine! I said and thought of Hondo Holloway that loved and killed her but didn't even know that he was doin it. I am having to rush my words, said Ethelreda, so I will rush on. So we had a nice life in the boarded-up house me and Janine and Hondo Holloway; that is, until…I am feeling the beginning shudder of the demolishment of the town! panted Ethelreda. And suddenly before she could say us any more of her story there was a terrible sound more than I can say to you, twas
demonio
, and we run, me and Ethelreda and Sam Policheck, out of the town that was beginning to be torn to pieces by the infernal battle of the rathawks and the white rats. And before we parted again, never to get to hear the rest of Ethelreda's story, I give to Ethelreda Johansson Policheck back the little curl of hair that once was Sweet Janine's and everbody forgive everbody once again and then run on their way to excape the fall of the bitter town.

I run on, and up on a hill I looked down and saw like of the evil cities of
La Biblia
flames and esplosions of the terrible destruction wrought by the rathawks and the rats and heard, even over the esplosions, the
demonio
cries of the rathawks shrieking over the bitter town of Sweet Janine.

And I went on my way awanderin.

YOU ARE PERHAPS
now asking for
noticias
of my father Hombre. Now while keeping out an eye for Chupa I now hunted Hombre my father whose nakedness I looked upon might have cursed me, I don know. And I guess I was still keeping out an eye for the Show, too. For Old Shanks that might not be dead and the glass wagon of jewels not broken, for any posters of the Show showing Heracles the Lion
feroz
, which was a lie but now was the truth. I kept all these eyes out. One day I asked myself, how many eyes I got? How many eyes I got to keep out for everthing? I'm blind with so many eyes out. That question ended, at that time, my hunting. I had out an eye for God and
Jesucristo
only. And I just went on at large telling my stories out of the White Bible, singing my song,
cantando
, to who would listen, a day for a day, a night for a night. And on my way to God.

I have no doubt that God sent me to where was my father Hombre, you wan hear? If you have stayed this long—the sun is falling behind the smokestack of whatever kind of mill that is that smokes up the smoke that lays over this place. What kind of shit is that what kind of people would lay that shit of smoke over where they breathe, what kind of people?—if you have stayed with me then you will hear about my father Hombre. If you wan go,
Oyente
, the air, as I have told you, will hear, for I will finish this song that I begun. I see you are still here,
compadre
. I never asked you who are you? You must be something like me to have stayed this long—from morn to almost night—and to have heard with such
hospitalidad
my whole long song—well, not all, there are some parts that I left out. I must go into the bushes to let nature have its way but never mind I will go on singing from the bushes,
quizás
maybe you will want to do the same over yonder while you go on listening. Can you listen while you let nature take its course can you listen while you piss? Some people find it hard to piss and listen. Or to piss and sing. I do not myself have any difficulty pissing and singing. You wan hear. Who are you, who are you that comes here under this rayroad trestle without a rayroad, in this riverbottom without a river. My song must be filling your ear. You will have to sing it out yourself to get my song out of your head. Like Julius Hohen-steckel, man I knew where was it, I don know. Anyway, who are you, are you going to sing my song to someone else? I do not care,
compadre
, I sing to what ear hears. I have done my best to sing you others' songs, hope you will do as well, should you try to sing again this singer's song. I have heard, God knows, some others' song sung out so badly tongue of the singer should be tied, that is no song they sing that is no music. You wan hear.