Arcadio

by William Goyen

  Hombre told me that he just let his member lead him through his life day after day, was like a dog on a rope, said, old dog, been at me since I was nine years old, don know why I don jus cut it off and be shut of it. Why don you put it on the rayroad tracks and let the train cut it off way you said your legs was, I thought to myself, old flesh fiend. Pullin at me like an old dog, my father kept on, how could a man ignore a thing like that, wasn’t no powder puff I’ll tell you that, how’d anybody like to have a crowbar shove up between their legs all the time, big piece of iron between their legs all the time, like to drove me crazy, big crowbar. This is what Hombre told me cain’t say it exactly like he said, you know, in’s East Texas talkin, but that’s what Hombre said. Hombre still scared me some, with’s crazy orange wine eye when he got like that, don know what he would do to me, you wan hear, but I was ready to kill him if he tried some monkey business and if he showed himself to me, if he made me look upon his nakedness, the sin of Noah in Genesis 9 in the White Bible.

  Said when he found me gone that day back in Shuang Boy’s, he just let me go he did not send no posse after me, he just let me go. Where is Shuang Boy? I asked my father. Dead, my father answered. Of natural causes. What about China Boy? I asked. All to pieces, said my father. China Boy fell to pieces when Johna pushed the Chinaman down the stairs. But you said Shuang Boy died of natural causes, I said. Did, my father said, twas only natural somebody would kill an old crooked sonofabitch cocksucker rat like Shuang Boy.

  Who is taking care of you without any legs, I says. Nobody but a woman named Johna, says Hombre. You mean Juana, I says. Johna, she says Johna, Hombre said. O.K. I says, where’s Johna? And he says she’ll come around directly, and sure enough there come Johna at that time. My God I says to myself that’s Johna one of the China Boy women, the one, if I remember correctly, that first took me down with her, that taught it to me. Johna, I said, gazing at her, how is my father doin, thank you for taking care of my father. How you doin, said Johna, where you been we hunted everwhere for you. Everbody huntin for everbody, I says. And nobody finding anybody, or stayin for very long when they do, I says. You haven’t changed much, said Johna, bet you just like you always was, and her eyes went down to my groins. Well my father has changed very much I said to Johna, my God one third of him is missing since I last saw him. His best part is still here, says she. Would I know anything else but what he’s been tellin me ever since I arrived, I says. I didn’t say to her how much she’d changed, my God, una trucha vieja, an old trout, she was of a reddish hair and swollen-looking mouth and had old dog’s-ear breasts and a pair of dirty beads on and under her old dress was her blue thighs, spread a little and I saw between them, I saw her put out herself a little, old dog’s mouth hangin, twas as natural for her to put out herself as twas for anybody else to lift their foot. Now I could see that Johna was there to do more than just to take care of mi padre, I saw what they was doing—Hombre was doing exactly what Shuang Boy had done those years ago that I told you about, you wan hear, Hombre was sellin old Johna like Shuang Boy did. Old three-legged flesh fiend, I saw no hope for him, my own father. Nor for Johna, but I didn’t care, for she was not no blood of mine although I guess I did have a little soft feeling for her due to the early days of my going down with her first of all ever in my life with any woman, this was the first woman and you know what that feeling can be, comprendes? You wan hear? But I saw no help for my member-crazy father.

  It was before my father that I opened up La Biblia Blanca and tried to read out to him, but he could not hear. He drank his Red and touched his big old member and mumbled words I could not hear to his long member and twas like another person he was amumbling to. Shades of the China Boy. When I requested him please not to do that he say don’t you have no respect for what made you? Old dog. No, I says, you have not changed you are the same, got no memory except memory of flesh and lust memory you are cursed by your member. And only God and Jesucristo knows how much I hate to think of those old days and you the way you was, and that old Chinaman rat that sold myself to men and women before I could get a holt of myself and made me a fiend of the flesh—like you—until I run away and almost died with the suffering of Jesucristo until my own salvation come to me through the Father and Son in La Biblia Blanca. You are saying too much to me, Hombre said, for an old long-dicked stump-kneed man and belly full of Red. Johna go get me another shortdog or somebody go get it. I remember Sugarboy when you never slept or even eat much, just fucked, said the old three-legged fiend, said the poor lost esclavo slave to his own member, you couldn’t get enough of any of it, says Hombre, never slept or even eat much, just fucked. My father growled that word, it was the sound of a dog, feroz, and demonio and you will please to forgive the word from my mouth but I say what my damned father said. I saw that terrible picture again before me, that figura, of us, that beast feroz of hair and flesh hunching and ahunching and ahunching and ahunching. Chingada! I cried. Whored! And I run upon my father and was ready to choke him blue and push him over to the ground. But God held me back and I said I forgive you, Hombre, dick-poisoned padre, dick-sick Hombre, I turn you over to God and Jesucristo, Father and Son, do you hear me, I forgive you. Johna gazed at me with old eyes of a serpent and put out herself a little to me and showed a little more of it to me. I held my Biblia against my heart that was beating so hard could have knocked open the doors of St. Paul’s prison that he excaped out of in a basket or who was that, was that St. Peter, or when an angel come with a key and opened the prison door; or was it an earthquake—so many stories in La Biblia Blanca, cain’t get em straight—was it an earthquake that shook the prison and shook open the doors of the prison and broke off chains of the prisoners. And the jailer woke up and saw the prison shook open and tried to kill himself with his sword because he thought that the prisoners had excaped but Pablo Paul called out jailer do not kill yourself, because we are all here. No te hagas ningún mal, pués todos estamos aquí. We have not excaped. And then el carcelero the jailer come arunnin and fell down at Pablo’s feet and said que debo hacer para ser salvo? What do I have to do to be saved? And Pablo answered believe in Jesucristo and you shall be saved. And so Pablo baptized the jailer and all his family.

  You talk too much Mescan, said Hombre. Like your mama. But the point I says is that God was ahelping prisoners to excape like he helped me from the Show through the figura of my madre Chupa—God knows she was no angel—and like he helped my brother Tomasso excape through the hole from the Missoura jail. Comprendes amigo? You understand, Señor, Señorita? God opens doors and drops down baskets. Helped another time St. Paul excape in a basket that they let down to the ground from a jail. To them in jail that asks him for some help, God gives a basket. What are you now, a preacher? Hombre asked me. You come here to preach to me? and to save my dick-poisoned soul like you callin it, to save my dick-sick soul like you callin it? Your soul’s the prisoner of your sexual member, I said to him. Do you want to be a prisoner? My long sexual member as you are now callin it is the best thing I have, as you will remember. Johna said escuse me I’m going to get a shortdog of Red for Hombre over at Sweeny Mack’s. Why don’t you get two short-dogs—or hell three or four, I don care, I’m going to be drinkin em said Hombre. So you won’t keep havin to go back and forth to Sweeny Mack’s. Can’t get three or four, Hombre, answered Johna, until I do some work, my God what do you think I am a machine? This is a Hell couple, I said to myself, you wan hear, I am down in Hell with these two. Hombre said he wanted to tell me of his earlier days and said guess any father wants to, to his son, to tell him about earlier days. To tell you of my earlier days, he says, when we was all in East Texas, at the peckerwood sawmill. Knew that there’d be a pecker in it, I thought. And I said to Hombre see there’s already a pecker in it and you just started. ‘S always a pecker in it, said Hombre. When I was a boy in the sawmill town, I had the longest dick in the town and probly the county, was clear to me at an early age. Hombre I says you are talkin about your member when you sai
d you were going to tell me of your earlier days—so that I could have some information, some noticias of who I come from—but I ought to have known that that was all that he could talk about, his long member. What else do you have to talk about, I asked. What else is there to talk about when you have on you a very long dick that has been in charge of your whole life since your earlier days. Tell it to the Marines, I mumbled. What? my father Hombre asked. I said are you going to give it to a museum when you die? or maybe to a Sideshow? Hombre said, Sugarboy would you scratch stump of my knee, almost itches me crazy. No, I said. Johna will when she comes back from Sweeny Mack’s. Why is she so long? Hombre asked. She’s working for shortdog money, I told him. What do you think she is, a máquina machine? I saw my father’s esclavitud slavery and saw that God had sent me, Arcadio, his own child to come and free him from his terrible esclavitud. How was I to do it was my problem. And to free my mind of that memory—that figura that was scalded on my brain. I could hear Hombre say in my imagination when she comes back we can all three have it liked we used to. And sure enough I heard him growl in that dog’s voice, remember when we all three had it? And before me come again the infernal figura. Oh God I said, Oh Jesucristo I said, take from me this infernal figura of the past. Twas in that house on the wharf over the river, you remember, growled that voice, there was the three of us. We both had it at the same time Johna and me. I heard my father’s voice, demonio, growling like a dog feroz. You went crazy. Then we changed around and the woman part sat on me and leaned back to let Johna come at the man part, squattin. I was under, coming up from under, and Johna was squattin, straddlin. Then you just went crazy and took charge, like a bull. You had it all. We changed around so much, everbody going after everthing, we was all three just crazy people, couldn’t finally tell who was who or who was where. It seemed like we was all everthing. Never known anything like it. And we went on and on, night after night day after day, the three of us, over and over and over, fucking. You was puredee gold, pussy of gold and dick of gold, why did you run away, you belonged to me. And now I got no legs and can’t get up over anybody and live on Red and limp as a rope, why did you run away? Morphodite.

  I do not know what salvation come into me to keep me from killing my father Hombre. I should have known that twas La Biblia Blanca of God and Jesucristo in there, in that white sweet book. What I did instead of killing my father for lowrating me and of bringing before me the infernal figura, what I did instead of killing him was to turn my back to him and squat down and say get on my back. He did not say a word. I said Hombre, Padre, Papá, get up on my back and let’s go. He did not say a word and got up on my back. I helped him to excape. I walked out of town with my father on my back, and the knobs of his stump knees grinded into my ribs. Don’t grab so hard I cain’t breathe for God’s sakes, I choked out, let loose of me a little, old fucker, old member-cursed Hombre, old prisoner, Papá. We was quiet a long time until sundown, going along. Sometimes I felt the old hands of my father curl up around my neck, soft. Maybe he does love me I thought; his touch had loving in it. And a reaching, and I felt some tenderness and some salvation. But I heard my father’s voice say where is my Red? I did not answer. Where is my wine? he yelled. How do I know, I said, what am I supposed to do? Get Red, said Hombre, and he was achoking me. Well I’m not Johna, I said. We went on. Hombre begun to shake. I was walking like somebody with Saint Vituses Dance. Hombre was having wine fits. I’m going to fall I’m going to have the Red Fits, get wine get wine, Hombre shouted, I’m going to shake off, is it an earthquake, can’t hold on, stop and put me down and get me some Red. I squatted and Hombre shook off me like a bug, he shook in the dirt and dust flew and he tore off his clothes and then he whirled naked around like some kind of a bug and his head was back and his eyes was aglaring and red fume fuming out of iz mouth. My God his very breath is wine fume, I said to myself, arms thrashing wild and the dust comin up red and his long terrible member whipping up the dust and whipping at Hombre. I couldn’t get near him this infernal máquina whirling and the great member whipping in the red dust. And he suddenly stopped still in the red dust. Hombre! I called. Hombre! He was dead in the dust, covered with red dust, member like a tail, he was piece of the devil looked like, whipped to death in the dirt by his infernal member.

  I carried this piece of a red devil that did not seem no longer the body of a man, my father, till I found a well with a bucket hanging, and I dipped up wellwater and washed the body of my quietened father washed away the red fume with buckets of wellwater. But I said to myself as I was awashin Hombre, no wellwater in this world can wash away that fume on his soul only the water of Jesucristo can wash that fume away wash him Jesucristo wash my father clean. I buried this piece of my father in a graveyard I found up a ways on the road, found a big concrete tomb that its iron doors was open, must have been an earthquake come and burst open the iron doors come dice la Biblia, as the Bible says. On the tomb was written the big name HORK which is a name very hard for a Mescan to say, Hork, but that was the name; and then the names Johanna, Johan, Linda Sue. Johanna Hork my God. I laid my father Hombre on a shelf in this concrete tomb and when I come out I saw twas an angel settin on the rooftop, an angel of stone, looked green in the light of the moon, a green angel over Hombre my father, the color of my mother Chupa’s dress that night that I saw her onct more for a little while and I said to this green angel if you’re Chupa I left your devil husband with’s quietened member in the concrete room under you, ‘s member can’t get you anymore cain’t get him anymore what is this life green angel what is this world what is a mother what is a father?

  At the gate to the graveyard was Johna waiting for me. Is he dead, she asked me. And dead I said. Thank God, Johna said, now I can rest. Where have you come from how did you know? I followed you, Johna said, with Hombre on your back, where else was I to go, please let me go with you. We went on, me and this first woman, woman that took me down with her long ago in the China Boy. I guess I had this respect for her, a man never forgets the first going down. I could not at that first time understand the softness and the soft deepness, twas without a bottom no end to it; and the pain of it, am I hurting you I asked, this must hurt you. Baby, Johna said. And I never knew something like this. So you understand compadre, Oyente, you wan hear. Johna was especiál and even now something to be thought about, you wan hear. We went on. In a little ways farther we slept under a shed, twas a tomato shed, and when we woke up Johna was next to me and I felt warm in the dark her body was remembered to me as the early soft deep one of the China Boy and Johna says do you want some more of it? Of what, I says. Of what took you down for the first time at the China Boy. You mean at Shuang Boy’s? I says. Yes Johna said, do you want to have it again, years later, hair of the dog of long ago. Old dog, I says. You and Hombre was the only ones I ever felt it with. Do you? she asked me. Do you, I said, want to have it again, some more of it, of what took you down for the first time, you was the first to have it from me back in Shuang Boy’s. I don know, you wan hear, but I felt a wanting for old Johna and didn’t even feel that I had to ask Jesucristo about it then and didn’t even have the awful vision of the infernal figura now because of the third one of the figura my father Hombre was dead and his member put to rest, quietened by beating him down in the dust, his member had finally whipped him down in the red fume dust and he was laid up on a shelf in a concrete tomb of Hork with a stone green angel on the top, and there in the shed, twas a tomato shed, we come together, it had been so long but I just all unfolded and twas warm, not bad, bringing old memorias and seems to me now twas right for me to come back so long later to that first woman, you wan hear, twas the end woman, twas the first and last, for me twas the adiós piece, and not bad, you wan hear, an old máquina still doing pretty good work. Máquina, I said, has held up pretty good. Máquina, what is that, asked Johna. Like a machine, something that works good. Well it’s not a machine but it works good, said Johna. That’s what I’m saying, I says. I did it, is all I know, says
she. Like a lock, I said, like a lock takes and holds a key. I never felt much, you and Hombre was the only ones I ever felt it with, said Johna. You was just a more or less más o menos máquina, I says, for all those others. For the Red, said Johna, to get the Red for Hombre.