Dad clouted him on the car.
‘Run! Don’t look!’
Will ran a step.
Dad blew another chord, yanked Will’s elbow, flung each of his arms.
‘Sing!’
‘What?’
‘God, boy, anything!’
The harmonica tried a bad ‘Swanee River.’
‘Dad.’ Will shuffled, shaking his head, immensely tired. ‘Silly . . . !’
‘Sure! We want that! Silly damn fool man! Silly harmonica! Bad off-key tune!’
Dad whooped. He circled like a dancing crane. He was not in the silliness yet. He wanted to crack through. He had to break the moment!
‘Wilclass="underline" louder, funnier, as the man said! Oh, hell, don’t let them drink your tears and want more! Will! Don’t let them take your crying, turn it upside down and use it for their own smile! I’ll be damned if death wears my sadness for glad rags. Don’t feed them one damn thing, Willy, loosen your bones! Breathe! Blow!’
He seized Will’s hair, shook him.
‘Nothing . . . funny. . .’
‘Sure there is! Me! You! Jim! All of us! The whole shooting works! Look!’
And Charles Halloway pulled faces, popped his eyes, mashed his nose, winked, cavorted like chimpanzee-ape, waltzed with the wind, tap-danced the dust, threw back his head to bay at the moon, dragging Will with him.
‘Death’s funny, God damn it! Bend, two, three, Will. Soft-shoe. Way down upon the Swanee River—what’s next, Will? . . . Far far away! Will, your God—awful voice! Damn girl soprano. Sparrow in a tin can. Jump, boy!’
WM went up, came down, cheeks hotter, a wincing like lemons in his throat. He felt balloons grow in his chest.
Dad sucked the silver harmonica.
‘That’s where the old folks Will spoke.
‘Stay!’ bellowed his father.
Shuffle, tap, bounce, jog.
Where was Jim! Jim was forgotten.
Dad jabbed his ribs, tickling.
‘De Camptown ladies sing this song!’
‘Doo-dah!’ yelled Will. ‘Doo-dah!’ he sang it now, with a tune. The balloon grew. His throat tickled.
‘Camptown race track, five miles long!’
‘Oh, doo-dah day!’
Man and boy did a minuet.
And in midstep it happened.
Will felt the balloon grow huge within him.
He smiled.
‘What?’ Dad was surprised by those teeth.
Will snorted. Will giggled.
‘What say?’ asked Dad.
The force of the exploding warm balloon alone shoved Will’s teeth apart, kicked his head back.
‘Dad! Dad!’
He bounded. He grabbed his Dad’s hand. He raced crazily, hollering, quacking like a duck, clucking like a chicken. His palms hit his throbbing knees. Dust flow off his soles.
‘Oh, Susanna!’
‘Oh, don’t you cry
‘—for me!’
‘For I’m come from
‘Alabama with my
‘Banjo on my
Together. ‘Knee!’
The harmonica knocked teeth, wheezing, Dad hocked forth great chords of squeeze-eyed hilarity, turning in a circle, jumping up to kick his heels.
‘Ha!’ They collided, half-collapsed, knocked elbows, cracked heads, which blew the air out faster. ‘Ha! Oh God, ha! Oh God. Will, Ha! Weak! Ha!’
In the middle of wild laughter—
A sneeze!
They spun. They stared.
Who lay there on the moonlit earth?
Jim? Jim Nightshade?
Had he stirred? Was his mouth wider, his eyelids quivering? Were his cheeks pinker?
Don’t took! Dad swung Will handily round in a further reel. They do-si-doed, hands extended, the harmonica seeping and guzzling raw tunes from a father who storked his legs and turkeyed his arms. They hopped Jim one way, hopped back, as if he were but a lump-stone on the grass.
‘Someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah! Someone’s in the kitchen
‘—I know-oh-oh-oh!’
Jim’s tongue slid out on his lips.
No one saw this. Or if they saw, ignored it, fearing it might pass.
Jim did the final things himself. His eyes opened. He watched the dancing fools. He could not believe. He had been off on a journey of years. Now, returned, no one said ‘Hi!’ All jigged Sambo-style. Tears might have jumped to his eyes. But before they could start, Jim’s mouth curved. He gave up a ghost of laughter. For, after all there indeed was silly Will and his silly old janitor dad racing like gorillas knuckle-dusting the meadows, their faces a puzzlement. They toppled above him, clapped bands, wiggled cars, bent to wash him all over with their now bright full-river flowing laughter that could not be stopped if the sky fell or the earth rent open, to blend their good mirth with his, to fuse-light and set him off in a detonation which could not stop exploding from ladyfingers to four-inchers to doomsday cannon crackers of delight!
And looking down, jolt-dancing his bones loose and delicious. Will thought: Jim don’t remember he was dead, so we won’t tell, not now-some day, sure, but not . . . Doo-dah! Doo-dah!
They didn’t even say ‘Hello, Jim’ or ‘Join in the dance,’ they just put out hands as if he had fallen from their swung pandemonium commotion and needed a boost back into the swarm. They yanked Jim. Jim flew. Jim came down dancing.
And Will knew, hand in hand, hot palm to palm, they had truly yelled, sung, gladly shouted the live blood back. They had slung Jim like the newborn, knocked his lungs, slapped his back, shocked joyous breath to where it made room.
Then Dad bent and Will leaped over him and Will bent and Dad jumped him and they both waited crouched in a line, wheezing songs, deliciously tired, while Jim swallowed spit, and ran full tilt. He got half over Dad when they all fell, rolled in the grass, all hoot-owl and donkey, all brass and cymbal as it must have been the first year of Creation, and Joy not yet thrown from the Garden.
Until at last they drew up their feet, socked each other’s shoulders, embraced knees tight, rocking, and looking with swift bright happiness at each other, growing wine-drunkenly quiet.
And when they were done smiling at each other’s faces as at burning torches, they looked away across the field.
And the black tent poles lay in elephant boneyards with the dead tents blowing away like the petals of a great black rose.
The only three people in a sleeping world, a rare trio of tomcats, they basked in the moon.
‘What happened?’ asked Jim, at last.
‘What didn’t!’ cried Dad.
And they laughed again, when suddenly Will grabbed Jim, held him tight and wept.
‘Hey,’ Jim said, over and over, quietly. ‘Hey hey . . .’
‘Jim, Jim,’ Will said. ‘We’ll be pals forever.’
‘Sure, hey sure.’ Jim was very quiet now.
‘It’s all right,’ said Dad. ‘Have a small cry. We’re out of the woods. Then we’ll laugh some more, going home.’
Will let Jim go.
They got to their feet and stood looking at each other Will examined his father, with fierce pride.
‘Oh, Dad, Dad, you did it, you did it!’
‘No, we did it together.’
‘But without you it’d all be over. Oh, Dad, I never knew you. I sure know you now.’
‘Do you, Will?’
‘Darn right!’
Each, to the other, shimmered in bright halos of wet light.
‘Why then, hello. Reply, son, and curtsey.’
Dad held out his hand. Will shook it. Both laughed and wiped their eyes, then looked quickly at the foot prints scattered in the dew over the hills.
‘Dad, will they ever come back?’
‘No. And yes.’ Dad tucked away his harmonica. ‘No not them. But yes, other people like them. Not in a carnival. God knows what shape they’ll come in next. But sunrise, noon, or at the latest, sunset tomorrow they’ll show. They’re on the road.’