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"When I thinks bout Him, I thinks bout what I'm go
"Aren't you happy here?"
"Honey, there's things you too young to u
"I'm thirteen," he declared. "And you'd be surprised how much I know."
"Shoot, boy, the country's just fulla folks what knows everythin, and don't u
"Why not New Orleans?" said Joel. "There are all kinds of good-looking fellows in New Orleans."
"Aw, I ain't studyin no New Orleans. It ain't only the mens, honey: I wants to be where they got snow, and not all this sunshine. I wants to walk around in snow up to my hips: watch it come outa the sky in gret big globs. Oh, pretty… pretty. You ever see the snow?"
Rather breathlessly, Joel lied and claimed that he most certainly had; it was a pardonable deception, for he had a great yearning to see bona fide snow: next to owning the Koh-i-noor diamond, that was his ultimate secret wish. Sometimes, on flat boring afternoons, he'd squatted on the curb of St. Deval Street and daydreamed silent pearly snowclouds into sifting coldly through the boughs of the dry, dirty trees. Snow falling in August and silvering the glassy pavement, the ghostly flakes icing his hair, coating rooftops, changing the grimy old neighborhood into a hushed frozen white wasteland uninhabited except for himself and a menagerie of wonder-beasts: albino antelopes, and ivory-breasted snowbirds; and occasionally there were humans, such fantastic folk as Mr. Mystery, the vaudeville hypnotist, and Lucky Rogers, the movie star, and Madame Veronica, who read fortunes in a Vieux Carrй tearoom. "It was one stormy night in Canada that I saw the snow," he said, though the farthest north he'd ever set foot was Richmond, Virginia. "We were lost in the mountains, Mother and me, and snow, tons and tons of it, was piling up all around us. And we lived in an ice-cold cave for a solid week, and we kept slapping each other to stay awake: if you fall asleep in snow, chances are you'll never see the light of day again."
"Then what happened?" said Missouri, disbelief subtly narrowing her eyes.
"Well, things got worse and worse. Mama cried, and the tears froze on her face like little BB bullets, and she was always cold…" Nothing had warmed her, not the fine wool blankets, not the mugs of hot toddy Ellen fixed. "Each night hungry wolves howled in the mountains, and I prayed…" In the darkness of the garage he'd prayed, and in the lavatory at school, and in the first row of the Nemo Theatre while duelling gangsters went u
"And?"
"And a man in a red coat, a Canadian Mountie, rescued us… only me, really: Mama had already frozen to death."
Missouri denounced him with considerable disgust. "You is a gret big story."
"Honest, cross my heart," and he exed his chest.
"Uh uh. You Mama die in the sick bed. Mister Randolph say so."
Somehow, spi
She patted his arm gently. "Course not, honey. Come to think, I wish I had me a two-bit piece for every story I done told. Sides, you tell good lies, the kind I likes to hear. We go
"O. K.," said Joel, toasting her with his coffee cup, "friends."
"And somethin else is, you call me Zoo. Zoo's my rightful name, and I always been called by that till Papadaddy let on it stood for Missouri, which is the state where is located the city of St. Louis. Then, Miss Amy 'n Mister Randolph, they so proper: Missouri this 'n Missouri t'other, day in, day out. Huh! You call me Zoo."
Joel saw an opening. "Does my father call you Zoo?"
She dipped down into the blouse of her gingham dress, and withdrew a silver compact. Opening it, she took a pinch of snuff, and sniffed it up her wide nose. "Happy Dip, that's the bestest brand."
"Is he awful sick-Mister Sansom?" Joel persisted.
"Take a pinch," she said, extending her compact.
And he accepted, anxious not to offend her. The ginger-colored powder had a scalding, miserable taste, like devil's pepper; he sneezed, and when water sprang up in his eyes he covered his face ashamedly with his hands.
"You laughin or cryin, boy?"
"Cryin," he whimpered, and this came close to truth. "Everybody in the house is stone deaf."
"I ain't deaf, honey," said Zoo, sounding sincerely concerned. "Have the backache and stomach jitters, but I ain't deaf."
"Then why does everybody act so queer? Gee whiz, every time I mention Mister Sansom you'd think… you'd think… and in the town…" He rubbed his eyes and peeked at Zoo. "Like just now, when I asked if he was really ill…"
Zoo glanced worriedly at the window where fig leaves pressed against the glass like green listening ears. "Miss Amy done tol you he ain't the healthiest man."
The flies buzzed back to the sugar jar, and the ticktuck of the defective clock was loud. "Is he going to die?" said Joel.
The scrape of a chair. Zoo was up and rinsing pans in a tub with water from a well-bucket. "We friends, that's fine," she said, talking over her shoulder. "Only don't never ax me nothin bout Mister Sansom. Miss Amy the one take care of him. Ax her. Ax Mister Randolph. I ain't in noways messed up with Mister Sansom; don't even fix him his vittels. Me and Papadaddy, us got our own troubles."
Joel snapped shut the snuff compact, and revolved it in his hands, examining the unique design. It was round and the silver was cut like a turtle's shell; a real butterfly, arranged under a film of lime glass, figured the lid; the butterfly wings were the luminously misty orange of a full moon. So elegant a case, he reasoned, was never meant for ordinary snuff, but rare golden powders, precious witch potions, love sand.