That had been just yesterday morning, and now here he was standing in the middle of a lonely road miles away from the old man’s well and staring down at his hat sieved with bullets and flat as a pancake. Insects buzzed madly in the weeds and a bird called out weakly in the heat. He almost wished he had taken the farmer up on his offer. A dollar a day wasn’t much, but at least he’d still have his bowler. He began moving again, feeling the most awful pity for himself. As far back as he could remember, there hadn’t been a day when he wasn’t yearning for something he didn’t have. And that wore a man down after so many years, fighting that feeling day after day without any letup. Why couldn’t he ever be satisfied? Why did he keep fucking up? Suddenly he stopped and looked up into the sky. “Lawd,” he sobbed, “please, Lawd, I don’t want to live like this no more. I’m not a-lyin’ this time, I swear. I just want to see my folks now. You help ol’ Sugar through this one and I promise you…” He searched his mind for what he could pledge, but he couldn’t imagine what it might be. “I promise you…” he began again, but then he stopped. He had nothing of his own to offer. Even the little bit of money in his pocket was somebody else’s. A murdered woman’s, no less. He was nothing but a bum, a goddamn, worthless bum. Not once in his life had he ever done anything worthwhile. Wiping at his eyes, he took a deep breath to steady himself and continued on.
Before he was around the next curve the cravings kicked in again, and he beat his head with his fists until his nose and lips were bleeding and his clothes soaked with sweat. Exhausted, he dropped his arms to his sides and cast a hopeless look down the empty road. He was completely and utterly alone. “Lawd, ol’ Sugar…” he started to implore again, but then he realized, with a start, what he needed to do to make a clean break from his old life. It was so clear to him now, what he had to pledge. He did have a proper name, had been baptized with it in Finfish Creek when he was but three months old. And from this day forward, he was going to use it again. George. George Milford. Sugar was just some fool nickname a dirty whore had cursed him with, but no more. His pace quickened as the idea took hold. “What’s your name?” he asked himself in a strained, high-pitched voice. “George,” he answered in his own deep baritone, “George Milford.” He repeated this a number of times, letting it wrap around him, the old name salvaged from the past and the saving grace it would surely bring him in the future. He should have been in jail awaiting the hangman’s noose, or, if not that, lying with a bullet in his head back there in that field. But no, the Lord had kept him safe, been keeping him safe all along. Then he stopped and watched openmouthed as the most beautiful sunset he could ever recall unfurled like a richly colored carpet across the sky. He had been staring at it for several minutes before he noticed, off in one corner, a swatch of the golden shore that his mother used to talk about all the time. Dropping to his knees, he was just getting ready to sing the Great Redeemer’s praises when a hornet as big around as his thumb smacked him in the face and drove a black stinger deep into the fleshy tip of his nose; and before he could catch himself, he was clawing at his stinking skin again and screaming curses at Flora and all the other dirty motherfuckers who had ever done him wrong and begging the Devil for just enough liquor—a drop, a spit, a spoonful—to make his pain, his endless, endless pain, go away, if only for the time it took to get around the next bend.
39
WHEN ELLSWORTH FINALLY came in from the field, Eula didn’t say anything about seeing a colored boy lurking about, and so he decided not to mention his encounter with the one on the road. He was glad now that he hadn’t hired him. It would have been just another thing for her to worry about. Even so, harvesting corn by hand was hard work even for a young man, and Ellsworth, being convinced all day that the lazy bastard was watching him from the woods, was completely gutted from trying to show him how it was done. Not only that, his voice was shot to hell from all the singing he had done. Once he’d gotten started, he found that he couldn’t stop, and he must have sung “The Old Brown Nag” a hundred times. “What’s wrong?” Eula asked. “You catchin’ a cold?”
“No,” he squeaked softly. “Just wore out is all.”
“A summer cold,” she said. “They the hardest to get rid of.”
“I done told ye, I ain’t sick.”
“Well, you sure sound like it,” she said. “Good thing you don’t have to sing for your supper.”
After a meal of cornbread and beans and sliced tomatoes, they went out on the porch to sit a bit before bedtime. The day was quickly coming to an end, and the shadows cast across the yard became a little longer with each passing minute. As she had done every evening for the past few days, Eula wondered aloud why they hadn’t heard from Eddie yet. “You’d almost think he’s done forgot about us.”
“No,” Ellsworth said softly, “I don’t think that’s it. Like I told ye before, I imagine he’s been too busy.” He shifted uncomfortably in his rocking chair, and a feeling of disgust crept over him. He knew that the right thing to do was just go ahead and tell her the truth about Eddie, but whenever he got the chance, he balked. He couldn’t figure it out, unless maybe he’d covered for the boy so much he couldn’t break the habit now; and every day he kept it up, the harder it was not to do it.
“How about a hot cup of water with honey?” she asked. “That’ll soothe your throat some.”