Junior Ray. John Pritchard

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      The impossible is not attractive. Although, one can never know whether anything is impossible. And that is exactly what is attractive about Dostoyevsky’s mouse: it is the intolerable capacity to believe in infinite answers and unlimited options without, necessarily, making assumptions. Certainly, if I had been more the bullish “man of action” and less the mouse of thought, I would have been a better soldier. But soldier I am, and war this is. That I know. It is where that poses the problem. Where is all this effort, all this drama, going on? I think I am in Europe, the victim of a trick — the ambiguity here is acceptable because both Europe and I have fallen for the same deception. The question then becomes a matter of who is the trickster. However, all of that is too much a digression, and I must deal with the situation at hand, here and now, for it is I and not the larger framework — which has no blood and has no bones — that must live out my existence.

      Still, just where is that? To be sure, there is nothing humdrum about escape. And I have found the game to be not one of escape and evasion so much as one of escape and search, partly because evading these Nazis does not appear very difficult, and that is why I am able to pursue my search, as all the while they, poor Teutons, bumble about the landscape in search of me, sweating — no doubt even on these clear, cold and brittle days that bathe the sleeping fields in noisy ice — inside their rubber skins.

      That is when cotton undershirts become the enemy.

      You can do whatever you want to with the rest of that goo-gah; I just don’t want nobody to run off with it.

      And then there was that smart-ass black muthafukka, Bone Face. That dumb sumbich spelt it like one word, Boneface, but that’s because, bein’ black, he didn’t know no better. ’Course, he owned a lot of land and a whole buncha “cafes” all around the county and especially in the back alley behind the stores in St. Leo. And because of that, he pretty much controlled the rest of the niggas, and that’s why, when he died not too long ago, he had the biggest funeral there ever was in St. Leo, and half the people at it was white, the gotdamn sumbiches. If you didn’t know better, you’d think all them planters was a buncha Yankee-ass nigga lovers. But they are a strange crew—probably because so many of ’em goes up North to college. If it ain’t that, I don’t know what it is. All I know is they ain’t like good Christian folks like it is back in Clay City. Hell, a planter don’t think he’s alive unless he’s drivin forty miles to go eat’n or dancin’, and he sho don’t think it’s Sunday unless he’s got a house full of niggas and a pitcher of martinis set’n beside his ass.

      Let me just clarifiy one other thing—them black muthafukkas weren’t no minority. Not in that little Delta county, no-fukkin-sir. When I was deputy, back then, they was twenty thousand people in the town and county combined, but less than two thousand was white. And that’s the way it was in most of them Delta counties. That was back in the time when the Fourth of July was still considered a day of mournin’. One nem planters explained that to me one time. He said it was the Fall of Vicksburg. I could see it. Although, if you want to know the truth, that war didn’t have nothin’ to do with the likes of me and my kind. I know I wouldna fought for them rich, slave-ownin’ muthafukkas. Plus, I sure as hell wouldna wanted no slaves. Fuk that. The real slaves was the assholes who owned ’em, if you want my opinion.

      Anyway, I guess because of my background it was hard for me to ever really fit in down here in the Delta. But then, them other white sumbiches wouldna fit in back where my people come from in Clay City, over in the hills. And, actually, that has a lot to do with what happened, once you know how to look at it.

      It really could turn out that Voyd was the only one of ’em who truly saw my side of the thing. But, he’s such a dumb sumbich, that don’t say a lot for me. And I needed somebody to say somethin’ for me, gotdamn it, even if I was on the wrong side. Here’s what happened.

      One day, about ten in the morning, Leland Shaw come into the office at the lumber company and told Miss Willy that he was goin’ home. She said he didn’t wait for no answer; he just turned around and walked out the door. Then, for several days nobody seen nothin’ of him. But finally the neighbors realized he was inside his mama’s house, and they got worried that he wasn’t able to take care of hissef, whatever in the fuk that means, so they called Miss Helena Ferry, who was getting on up in years even then, and she called Dr. Austin, who was her cousin from Rosedale but who had set up practice in St. Leo back in the twenties, and he said leave it to him. So, the first thing he done was to call up Lawyer Montgomery, and him and Lawyer Montgomery went down to the bank and talked to the president, Mr. Humes. And since they was all three—or four, including Miss Helena—pretty much the same thing as family, they whipped up an idea that took care of the problem. For a moment.

      They got Sheriff Holston and me to come over to the house and help ’em take Leland to the “Rest Wing” of the new hospital where they more or less fixed him up his own little apartment, which had a big pitcha-window lookin’ east out across Highway 61 and an iron wreckin’ bar across the door that opened into the main hall. For the time being, they said, they didn’t want to send him up to Meffis to the Army hospital, nor did they want to ship him off to the insane asylum down at Whitfield. Lord, they said, that woulda been the end of him. Personally, I wished it hadda been. They said they believed Leland would be fine if he could just stay among people who knew him and that he would be happy, they believed, and comfortable there in the “Rest Wing” of the Mhoon County Hospital, right there in St. Leo, on the side of Highway 61. Truth is, they was all afraid he was gonna start runnin’ around nekkid.

      Well, boy, did those assholes have another thing comin’. They failed to realize that Leland Shaw didn’t know who the fuk they was or give a shit about who cared about him or that he was suppose–ably in St. Leo “among people who knew him.” As far as that crazy sumbich was concerned, he wuddn nowheres near St. Leo, and, in his warped-ass mind, all them kin and connections out there was probably the enemy. And, in my opinion, he wuddn about to be happy about nothin’ until he could get back home—wherever in the fuk he may have thought that was.

      Another thing I forgot to mention: he was real goosey. If you’d point your finger at him, he’d th’ow hissef on the floor and scramble around to get up under something. See, I figure that’s because he believed them German soldiers was about to nail him. Same thing if anybody shined a light at him, he’d dive up under something. He was the craziest sumbich I ever saw. And how anybody could’ve wasted any time lookin’ after him, I will never understand. I’da throwed his ass in the river a long time ago. People thought I was hard, but I say you had to be there. I know: they was there, too, but fukkum.

      One night, the nurse shined a flashlight on him just to make sure СКАЧАТЬ