Mercy Among the Children by David Adams Richards

Author:David Adams Richards [Richards, David Adams]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 978-0-307-37381-6
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Published: 2000-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

TEN

The next night it started to snow, and the snow came down over our small house and the yellow yard, and I thought of my rabbit snares I would check in the morning. I had to kill them because my father refused welfare and we needed to eat. It was always worse when the rabbit was alive because then I would have to find a stick of wood to club it.

My face was bruised and swollen, and Autumn and I sat in the far back room of the house, where the one chaise longue and our few summer things were kept. I looked at her for a long time, and then I said:

“Things will be different from now on — we will never be bothered from now on — I will not allow anything to happen to you from now on. Not a tear from your face will flow —”

At first she said nothing — stupefied, I suppose, at what I was whispering. It was like Adam talking to Eve — I had left my mother and father, left the valley of the Saints, and had been thrust forward into the thorns. There was a sense of myself apart from the wishes of my family.

“Do you believe in hell?” I said.

“Yes.”

“Do you believe in heaven?”

“Yes — but not as much as hell,” she said, smiling.

“Do you think good people go to church?”

“Yes.”

“Does Jay Beard go to church?”

“No! He hates church — he hates the priest. You know that.”

“Does the priest protect our family — has he been down to offer comfort? Has he ever said a kind thing about us at mass? Has he ever spoken to us when we went to catechism? Or has he told people to leave Mommie and Daddie alone?”

“No — of course not — he wouldn’t come near us!”

“Does Jay Beard protect our family?”

“Yes — with his life, it seems.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Well, I might have self-interest — but I would say offhand yes.”

“What do you think of him?” I said.

She thought a moment. Then, “I think he is wise,” she said.

“But is he as wise and brave as Dad?” I said, almost trembling.

“I suppose.”

“Would you like me to become more like Jay Beard?”

“No — like Dad,” she said.

“Do you think I could become like Jay Beard?”

“I’m not sure.”

I lighted a cigarette. She stared dumbfounded at me. Then I handed it to her. She inhaled and coughed and clutched at her throat in a mocking death throe. I lighted another for myself, and blew the smoke out slowly.

I stood — exercising my grand sense of morality — and I took out of my back jean pocket the heavy Bowie-shaped bone-handled knife with its seven-inch stainless steel blade. I had bought it with the money Rudy Bellanger gave me. I smiled at her when she looked at it.

“Oh,” she said. “Will that gut a rabbit?”

“I would someday like to become like Jay Beard — I have to!”

Autumn was silent. Yet I think the thought of freedom suddenly seemed promising to her.

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