Varina(50)

—Cuba, Cleon said. Land of Paradise. Rum and cigars make their own selves down there.

—Not the night for scoffing, Ryland said. This is the time for hope. Everything’s changed. We’re all cut loose. Possibilities whichever way we look.

The two men looked at each other and then they looked out the wide door. The city stretched across its hill and along the river like burning red hell itself.

—Yeah, Cleon said. Keep talking. You know everything.

—I know I never owned anybody but my own self, Ryland said. And half the time, all I can do is half-ass manage me, much less make a bunch of other people do my bidding.

The couple with the baby were putting together sandwiches of pork belly and day-old corn bread.

—Wouldn’t care to share that pone, would you? Ryland said. Belly too? A bite?

The man in the suit said, We’ve got little food.

—Break off a burnt edge, Ryland said. I won’t complain. Remember, we offered to share our liquor with you.

Cleon looked at Bristol and then looked back at Ry. He said, If we’re all cut loose and free to do as we please, then we might sell you some food.

Ryland and Bristol both laughed. Bristol said, We’ve not been paid in six months.

—White people all rich, Cleon said. But they sure go around poor-mouthing.

Ryland said, We’re not rich. For a whole year, we been fed worse than a general’s bird dog.

—Beefsteak and loaves of white bread, then? Cleon said. Great wedges of chocolate cake.

The man in the suit said, Pork tenderloin roasted over a wood fire and potatoes buttered yellow and then the whole plate covered with brown gravy.

Both men laughed.

—Not hardly, Bristol said.

—So no money at all? Cleon said.

Bristol said, I’ve got five dollars.

—Eight and pocket change, Ryland said.

—What I said, Cleon muttered. Rich.

—But which money? the other man said.

—Dixie paper, Ryland said.

—Hell, Cleon said. You boys nothing but truly broke. But I’d trade you some food for one of those pistols you’ve got stuck down your belts.

Ryland said, You’ve probably not had experience with firearms. They get you in trouble quicker than they get you out.

—Hey, Cleon said. Everybody else has got ’em. We want one too.

The other man said, Besides, they’re simple. I used to care for the guns when the big man went hunting. Load, aim, pull the trigger. Unless you’re drunk, and then you just pull the trigger. That’s the way he did it.

—What’s the worst pistol we’ve got? Ryland asked Bristol.

Bristol pulled a pepperbox with a broken grip out of his coat pocket. Ryland reached it to the men and they handled it and tested out the mechanism that turned the five barrels and then reached back corn bread sandwiches.

After they all finished eating, the man in the suit said, You boys expect this is truly the end?

—End of what? Ryland said.

—End of the war for you. For us, the Federals coming and setting us free.

—True fact, Bristol said. Sunrise tomorrow, new world coming for everybody. Day one.

—Y’all ever study the Testaments? the man said.

Ryland said, Naw. My momma and daddy was normally feeling so raw from Saturday-night drinking they couldn’t bother with Sunday morning.

The man lifted his hand toward the open door and said, That city on fire, there’s a story in the book of Daniel. About the night Babylon fell.

Bristol said, Please don’t say you’re a preacher?

The man said, No.

Ryland said, Proceed, Reverend.

—Well, the preacher said, what I was about to tell was about a big wild party in Babylon. A thousand of King Belshazzar’s men and whores eating his food and drinking his liquor, all of it made by his slaves. Pretty barefoot slave girls walking around serving drinks and fancy food off of big silver trays. Round about midnight—when everybody reached the point of drunk where you drink a bunch more or else there’s nowhere left to go but down—right in front of all these witnesses, a ghost hand appears in the air, clear as day. It’s holding a piece of charcoal. A giant hand, charcoal the size of a singletree. It scribes strange words on that plaster wall where Belshazzar stood. Letter after letter lit by candle flames or maybe pine torches. Letters jagged and crossways as a bundle of spilled kindling. Everybody gets quiet and spooked, and they watch close. When the hand gets done with what it has to say, it turns into smoke. Poof, gone. King’s men, they’re all full drunk and his whores too. But they’re all scared, and they start sobering up a little. They try to study the words, but nobody can read the writing on the wall. About then, Belshazzar’s main wife shows up. She comes in cool-tempered, not a bit mad at all the drunks. She gives the wall a quick look and says she knows a man, the best of all the magicians and palm-readers and dream-readers. Mojo man named Daniel. Knows the invisible world like the back of his hand. If he can’t read the writing, nobody can. Belshazzar sends out orders to get Daniel, and pretty soon big police haul him in. The king promises scarlet robes and gold chains and a job as foreman of all the king’s lands and slaves if he can read the writing. Daniel says, No. Not interested in the king’s fancy clothes and fancy job. But says he can read the writing clear as day. Words from a tongue ten thousand years old. Words for gold and silver, brass and iron. The names of the gods that the king and his men and whores praise above all. Things you can weigh on a scale or measure by a ruler or add and divide and count out piece by piece in order to sell. Daniel says that right that minute, the one instant they’re all living in, it’s the king getting weighed and measured and counted. And Belshazzar comes up short. He’s been using the wrong scales, the wrong ruler, wrong numbers. Daniel says to Belshazzar, You’re going to die before the night’s done, your kingdom burned down and a new kingdom growing up to take its place.