"What does it look like to you, Thedy?"

She took a thin step forward, making a slow indolent pendulum of hips. Her eyes were intent upon the jar, her lips drawing back to show feline milk teeth.

The dead pale thing hung in its serum.

Thedy snapped a dull-blue glance at Charlie, then back to the jar, and swept around quickly to clutch the wall. "It - it looks just like - you - Charlie!" she shouted hoa.r.s.ely.

The door slammed behind her.

The reverberation did not disturb the jar"s contents. But Charlie stood there, longing after her, neck muscles long, taut, heart pounding frantically, and then after his heart slowed a bit, he talked to the thing in the jar.

"I work the bottom land to the b.u.t.tbone ever" year, and she takes the money and rushes off down home visitin" her folks, nine weeks at a stretch. I can"t keep holt of her. She and the men from the store make fun of me. I can"t help it if I"m not whip-smart."

Philosophically, the contents of the jar gave no advice.

"Charlie?" Someone stood in the door.

Charlie turned, startled, then broke out a grin. It was some of the men from the General Store.

"Uh - Charlie - we - that is - we thought - well - we came up to have a look at that - stuff - you got in that there jar-"

July pa.s.sed warm, and it was August.

For the first time in years, Charlie was happy as tall corn growing after a drought. It was gratifying of an evening to hear boots slushing through the tall gra.s.s, the sound of men spitting into the ditch prior to setting foot on the porch, the sound of heavy bodies creaking across it, and the groan of the house as yet another shoulder leaned against its frame door and another voice said, as a hairy arm wiped clean the questioning mouth, "Kin I come in?"

With elaborate casualness, Charlie"d invite the arrivals in. There"d be chairs, soapboxes for all, or at least carpets to squat on. And by the time crickets were itching their legs into a summertime humming, and frogs were throat-swollen like ladies with goiters belching in the great night, the room would be full to bursting with people from all the bottom lands.

At first n.o.body would say anything. The first half-hour of such an evening, while people came in and got settled, was spent in carefully rolling cigarettes. Putting tobacco neatly into the rut of brown paper, loading it, tamping it, as they loaded and tamped and rolled their thoughts and fears and amazement for the evening. It gave them time to think. You could see their brains working behind their eyes as they fingered the cigarettes into smoking order.

It was kind of a rude church gathering. They sat, squatted, leaned on plaster walls, and one by one, with reverent awe, they stared at the jar upon its shelf.

They wouldn"t stare sudden-like. That would"ve been irreverent. No, they kind of did it slow, casual, as if they were glancing around the room - letting eyes fumble over just any old object that happened into their consciousness.

And - just by accident, of course - the focus of their wandering eyes would occur always at the same place. After a while all eyes in the room would be fastened to it, like pins stuck in some incredible pincushion. And the only sound would be someone sucking a corncob. Or the children"s barefooted scurry on the porch planks outside. Maybe some woman"s voice would come. "You kids git away, now! Git!" And with a giggle like soft, quick water, the bare feet would rush off to scare the bullfrogs.

Charlie would be up front, naturally, on his rocking chair, a plaid quilt under his lean rump, rocking slow, enjoying the fame and looked-up-toedness that came with keeping the jar.

Thedy, she"d be seen way back of the room with the women folks in a bunch like gray grapes, abiding their menfolk. Thedy looked like she was ripe for jealous screaming. But she said nothing, just watched men tromp into her living-room and set at the feet of Charlie staring at this here Holy Grail-like thing, and her lips were set as seven-day concrete and she spoke not a civil word to anybody.

After a period of proper silence, someone, maybe old Gramps Medknowe from Creek Road, would clear the phlegm from his old throat"s cavern, lean forward, blinking, wet his lips, maybe, and there"d be a curious tremble in his calloused fingers.

This would cue everyone to get ready for the talking to come. Ears were primed. People settled much as sows in warm mud after the rain.

Gramps looked a long while, measured his lips with a lizard tongue, then settled back and said, like always, in a high thin old man"s tenor, "Wonder what it is? Wonder if it"s a he or a she or just a plain old it? Sometimes I wake up nights, twist on my cornmatting, think about that jar setting here in the long dark. Think about it hangin" in liquid, peaceful and pale like an animal oyster. Sometimes I wake Ma and we both think of it -"

While talking, Gramps moved his fingers in a quavering pantomime. Everybody watched his thick thumb weave, and the other heavy-nailed fingers undulate.

" - we both lay there, thinkin". And we shivers. May be a hot night, trees sweatin", mosquitoes too hot to fly, but we shivers jest the same, and turn over, tryin" to sleep -"

Gramps lapsed back into silence, as if his speech was enough from him; let some other voice talk the wonder, awe, and strangeness.

Juke Marmer, from Willows Road, wiped sweat off his palms on the round of his knees and softly said, "I remember when I was a runnel-nosed gawk, we had a cat who was all the time makin" kittens. Lordamighty, she"d a litter ever" time she turned around and skipped a fence -" Juke spoke in a kind of holy softness, benevolent. "Well, we usually gave the kittens away, but when this one particular litter busted out, everybody within walkin" distance had one-two our cats by gift, already.

"So Ma busied on the back porch with a big gallon gla.s.s jar, filling it to the brim with water. It slopped in the sunlight. Ma said, "Juke, you drown them kittens!" I "member I stood there, the kittens mewed, running around, blind, small, helpless, and snugly. Just beginning to get their eyes open. I looked at Ma, I said, "Not me, Ma! You do it!" But Ma turned pale and said it had to be done and I was the only one handy. And she went off to stir gravy and fix chicken. I - I picked up one - kitten. I held it. It was warm, it made a mewing sound. I felt like running away, not ever coming back."

Juke nodded his head now, eyes bright, young, seeing into the past, making it stark, chiseling it out with hammer and knife of words, smoothing it into horrible bas-relief with his tongue.

"I dropped the kitten into the water. He closed his eyes, opened his mouth, gasping for air. I remember how the little white fangs showed, the pink tongue came out, and bubbles with it, in a line, to the top of the water!

"I remember to this day the way that kitten floated after it was all over, drifting around, around, slow and not worrying, looking out at me, not condemnin" me for what I had done. But not likin" me, either. Ahhhhh -"

Hearts beat fast. Eyes shifted quickly from Juke to the shelved jar, back to him, up again, a spectators" game, as one sees at a tennis tournament, interest changing from moment to moment, apprehensively.

A pause.

Jahdoo, the black man from Swamp Crick Road, tossed his ivory eyeb.a.l.l.s like a dusky juggler in his head. His dark knuckles knotted and flexed - gra.s.shoppers alive.

"You know what thet is? You know, you know? That am the center of Life, sure "nuff! Lord believe me, it am so!"

Swaying in a treelike rhythm, Jahdoo was blown by some swamp wind n.o.body could see, hear, or feel, but himself. His eyeb.a.l.l.s went around again, as if loosened from all mooring. His voice needled a dark thread pattern picking up each person by the lobes of their ears and sewing them into one unbreathing design.

"From that, lyin" back in the Middibamboo Sump, all sort o" thing crawl. It put out hand, it put out feet, it put out tongue an" horn an" it grow. Little bitty ameba, perhap. Then a frog with a bulge-throat fit ta bust! Yah!" He cracked knuckles. "It s...o...b..r on up to its gummy joints and it - it am a man! That am the center of creation. That am Middibamboo Mamma, from which we all come ten thousand year ago. Believe it!"

"Ten thousand year ago!" reiterated Granny Carnation.

"It am old! Looky it! It don" worra no more. It know better. It hang like pork chop in fryin" fat. It got eye to see with, but it don" blink "em, they don" look fretted, does they? No, man! It know betta. It know thet we done come from it, and we is going back to it!"

"What color eyes has it got?"

"Gray."

"Naw, green!"

"What color hair? Brown?"

"Black!"

"Red!"

"No, gray!"

Then Charlie would give his drawling opinion. Some nights he"d say the same thing, some nights not. It didn"t matter. When you said the same thing night after night in the deep summer, it always sounded different. The crickets changed it. The frogs changed it. The thing in the jar changed it. Charlie said, "What if an old man went back into the swamp, or maybe a young child, and wandered around for years and year"s lost in the drippin" trails and gullies, the wet ravines, in the nights, skin a-turnin" pale, and makin" cold and shrivelin" up. Bein" away from the sun he"d keep witherin" away up and up and finally sink into a muck-hole and lay in a kind of - solution, like the maggot mosquito sleepin" in liquid. Why, why - for all we know, this might be someone we know. Someone we pa.s.sed words with once on a time. For all we know -"

A hissing from among the womenfolks back in the shadows. One woman standing, eyes shining black, fumbling for words. Her name was Mrs. Tridden. She said, "Lots of little kids run stark naked into the swamp ever" year. They runs around and they never comes back. I almost got lost ma-self. I - I lost my little boy, Foley, that way. You - you don"t suppose!!"

Breaths were taken in, s.n.a.t.c.hed through nostrils, constricted, tightened. Mouths turned down at corners, bent by grim facial muscles. Heads turned on celery-stalk necks, and eyes read her horror and hope. It was in Mrs. Tridden"s body, wire-taut, holding onto the wall back of her with straight fingers stiff. "My baby," she whispered. She breathed it out. "My baby. My Foley! Foley! Foley, is that you? Foley! Foley, tell me, baby is that you!"

Everybody held his breath, turning to see the jar.

The thing in the jar said nothing. It just stared blind-white out upon the mult.i.tude. And deep in raw-boned bodies a secret fear juice ran like spring thaw, and the resolute ice of calm life and belief and easy humbleness was cracked down the middle by that juice and melted away in a gigantic torrent.

"It moved!" someone screamed.

"No, no, it didn"t move. Just your eyes playin" tricks!"

"Hones" ta G.o.d," cried Juke. "I saw it shift slow like a dead kitten."

"Hush up, now! It"s been dead a long, long time. Maybe since before you was born!"

"He made a sign!" screamed Mrs. Tridden, the mother woman. "That"s my baby, my Foley! My baby you got there! Three year old, he was! My baby lost and white in the swamp!" The sobbing broke out of her, then.

"Now, now, there now, Mrs. Tridden. There now. Set down and stop shakin". Ain"t no more your child"n mine. There, there." One of the womenfolk held her and faded out the sobbing into jerked breathing and a fluttering of her lips in b.u.t.terfly quickness as the breath stroked over them, afraid.

When all was quiet again, Granny Carnation, with a withered pink flower in her shoulder-length gray hair, sucked the pipe in her trap mouth and talked around it, shaking her head to make the hair dance in the light: "All this talking and shoving around words. Hah. Like as not we"ll never know what it is. Like as not if we could find out, we wouldn"t want to know. It"s like them magic tricks them magicians do at the show. Once you find the feke, it ain"t no more fun "n" the innards of a jackbob. We come collecting around here every ten nights or so, talking, social-like, with something, always something, to talk about. Stands to reason if we found out what the d.a.m.n thing is there"d be nothing to talk about, so there!"

"Well, d.a.m.n it to h.e.l.l!" rumbled a bull voice. "I don"t think it"s nothin"!"

Tom Carmody. Tom Carmody standing, as always, in shadow. Out on the porch, just his eyes staring in, his lips laughing at you dimly, mocking. His laughter got inside Charlie like a hornet sting. Thedy had put him up to it, Thedy was trying to undermine Charlie"s social life, she was!

"Nothing," joked Carmody harshly, "in that jar but a bunch of old jellyfish from Sea Cove, a-rottin" and a-stinkin" fit to whelp!"

"You mightn"t be jealous, Cousin Carmody?" asked Charlie.

"Haw!" snorted Carmody. "I jest come around ta watch you dumb nitwits jaw about nuthin". I gits a kick out of it. You notice I never set foot inside or took part. I"m goin" home right now. Anybody wanna come along with me?"

He got no offer of company. He laughed again, as if this were a bigger joke, how so many people could be so dumb, and Thedy was raking her palms with angry nails back of the room. Charlie felt a twinge of unexpected fear at this.

Carmody, still laughing, rapped off the porch with his high-heeled boots and the sound of crickets took him away.

Granny Carnation gummed her pipe. "Like I was saying before the storm; that thing on the shelf, why couldn"t it be sort of - all things? Lots of things. What they call a - gimmle -"

"Symbol?"

"That"s it. Symbol. Symbol of all the nights and days in the dead canebrake. Why"s it have to be one thing? Maybe it"s lots."

And the talking went on for another hour, and Thedy slipped away into the night on the track of Tom Carmody, and Charlie began to sweat. They were up to something, those two. They were planning something. Charlie sweated warm all the rest of the evening - The meeting broke up late, and Charlie bedded down with mixed emotions. The meeting had gone off well, but what about Thedy and Tom Carmody?

Very late, with certain star coveys shuttled down the sky marking the time as late, Charlie heard the shushing of the tall gra.s.s parted by her penduluming hips. Her heels tacked soft across the porch.

She lay soundlessly in bed, cat eyes staring at him. He couldn"t see them, but he could feel them staring.

"Charlie?"

He waited.

Then he said, "I"m awake."

Then she waited.

"Charlie?"

"What?"

"Bet you don"t know where I been, bet you don"t know where I been." It was a faint, derisive singsong in the night.

He waited.

She waited again. She couldn"t bear waiting long, though, and continued, "I been to the carnival over in Cape City. Tom Carmody drove me. We - we talked to the carny-boss, Charlie, we did, we did, we sure did." And she sort of giggled to herself, secretly.

Charlie stirred upright on an elbow.

She said, "We found out what it is in your jar, Charlie -" insinuatingly.

Charlie flumped over, hands to ears. "I don"t wanna hear."

"Oh, but you gotta hear, Charlie. It"s a good joke. Oh, it"s rare, Charlie," she hissed.

"Go - away," he said in a low firm voice.

"Unh-unh. No. No, sir, Charlie, honey. Not until I tell. We talked to the carny-boss and he - he almost died laughin", he said he sold it to some - hick - for twelve bucks. And it ain"t worth more than two dollars at most!"

Laughter bloomed in the dark, right out of her mouth, an awful kind of flower with her breath as its perfume. She finished it, snapping, quick: "It"s just junk, Charlie! Liquid rubber, papier-mache, silk, cotton, chemicals! That"s all! Got a metal framework inside it! That"s all! That"s all it is, Charlie! That"s all," she shrilled in triumph.

He sat up swiftly, ripping sheets apart in big fingers, roaring, tears coming bright on his cheeks. "I don"t wanna hear! Don"t wanna hear!" he bellowed over and over.

She teased. "Wait"11 everyone hears how fake it is! Won"t they laugh! Won"t they flap their lungs!"

He caught her wrists. "You ain"t - gonna tell them?"

"Ouch, you hurt me!"

"You ain"t gonna tell them."

"Wouldn"t want me known as a liar, would you, Charles?"

He flung her wrists like white sticks into a well. "Whyncha leave alone? You"re dirty! Dirty jealous of everything I do. I took shine off your nose when I brung the jar home. You didn"t sleep right until you ruined things!"

She laughed nastily. "Then I won"t tell everybody," she said.

He caught on to her. "You spoiled my fun. That"s all that counted. It don"t matter if you tell the rest. I know. And I"ll never have no more fun. You and that Tom Carmody. Him laughin". I wish I could stop him from laughin". He"s been laughin" for years at me! Well, you just go tell the rest, the other people now - might as well have your fun -"

He strode angrily, grabbed the jar so it sloshed, and would have flung it on the floor, but he stopped, trembling, and let it down softly on the rickety table. He leaned over it, sobbing. If he lost this, the world was gone. And he was losing Thedy, too. Every month that pa.s.sed she danced farther away, sneering at him, funning him. For too many years her hips had been the pendulum by which he reckoned the time of his living. But other men - Tom Carmody, for one - were reckoning time from the same source.

Thedy was standing, waiting for him to smash the jar. Instead, he petted it thoughtfully. He thought of the long, good evenings in the past month, those rich evenings of comradery, conversation woven into the fabric of the room. That, at least, was good, if nothing else.

He turned slowly to Thedy. "Thedy, you didn"t go to the carnival."

"Yes, I did."