Flannery O'Connor

“ Leora’s eyes had narrowed some and her mouth had widened and got thin as a knife blade. “That Jesus-seeing hat!” she said. She sat up and pulled her nightgown from under her and took it off. She reached for his hat and put it on her head and sat with her hands on her hips, watching him. Haze stared blank-faced for a minute, then he made three quick noises that were laughs. He jumped for the electric light cord and undressed in the dark. ”

“ Garner would snap his fingers and wink at her at every opportunity; Bertha would think she was terrible; and Lucia would say in that silly voice of hers, "What have you been keeping from us, Willie? What have you been keeping from us?" and titter like she always did. But Miss Willerton couldn't think about that now; she had to plan her characters.
Lot would be tall, stooped, and shaggy but with sad eyes that made him look like a gentleman in spite of his red neck and big fumbling hands. ”

“ Haze said.
“You got a least knowledge,” the blind man said. “That’s enough. You know His name and you’re marked. If Jesus has marked you there ain’t nothing you can do about it. Them that have knowledge can’t swap it for ignorance.” He was leaning forward but in the wrong direction so that he appeared to be talking to the step below Haze’s foot. Haze sat leaning backward with the black hat tilted forward over his face.
“My daddy looks just like Jesus,” Enoch said from the lion’s back. “His hair hangs to his shoulders. Only difference is he’s got a scar acrost his chin. ”

“ Old Dudley would get out his gun and take it apart and, as Rabie cleaned the pieces, would explain the mechanism to him. Then he'd put it together again. Rabie always marveled at the way he could put it together again. Old Dudley would have liked to have explained New York to Rabie. If he could have showed it to Rabie, it wouldn't have been so big--he wouldn't have felt pressed down every time he went out in it, "It ain't so big," he would have said. "Don't let it get you down, Rabie. It's just like any other city and cities ain't all that complicated."
But they were. ”

“ Haze muttered without drawing his attention from the blind man.
“Well, you got a dear old mother, ain’t you?”
“No.”
“Well shaw,” the man said, with his hand cupped to the people, “he needs one theseyer just to keep him company.”
Enoch Emery thought that was so funny that he doubled over and slapped his knee, but Hazel Motes didn’t look as if he had heard it yet. “I’m going to give away half a dozen peeled potatoes to the first person purchasing one theseyer machines,” the man said. “Who’s gonna step up first? Only a dollar and a half for a machine’d cost you three dollars in any store!” ”

“ Miss Willerton added. She did not like to do the shopping. There was no reason those clerks should be so condescending. That boy wouldn't have dwaddled with Lucia. She paid for the eggs and tomatoes and left hurriedly. The place depressed her somehow.
Silly that a grocery should depress one--nothing in it but trifling domestic doings--women buying beans--riding children in those grocery co-carts--higgling about an eighth of a pound more or less of squash--what did they get out of it? Misa Willerton wondered. Where was there any chance for self-expression, for creation, for art? ”

“ He gripped a hand around each ankle and bent his knees up and rested his chin on a knee. "Our Father Who art in heaven, shoot 'em six and roll 'em seven," he said, giggling again. Boy, she'd smack his head in if she could hear him. God dammit, she'd smack his goddam head in. He rolled over in a fit of laughter. God dammit, she'd dress him off and wring his goddam neck like a goddam chicken. The laughing cut his side and he tried to hold it in but every time he thought of his goddam neck, he shook again. ”

“ The tracts were speckled all over the steps and on the sidewalk and out into the street. The blind man was standing down on the first step, bent over, feeling for the crumpled pamphlets scattered around him. Enoch Emery was over on the other side, standing on the lion’s head and trying to balance himself, and the child was picking up the pamphlets that were not too crushed to use again and putting them back in the gunny sack.
I don’t need no Jesus, Haze said. I don’t need no Jesus. I got Leora Watts. ”

“ Rayber said curtly.
"Yeah?" the barber said. "Well, this last speech was a killeroo! Ol' Hawk let them Mother Hubbards have it."
"A good many people," Rayber said, "consider Hawkson a demagog." He wondered if George knew what demagog meant. Should have said, "lying politician."
"Demagog!" The barber slapped his knee and whooped. "That's what Hawk said!" he howled. "Ain't that a shot! 'Folks,' he says, 'them Mother Hubbards says I'm a demagog.' Then he rears back and says sort of soft-like, 'Am I a demagog, you people?" ”

“ So here she comes taking a fancy to me and traded me off my daddy and took me to Boonville to live with her. She had a brick house but it was Jesus all day long.” While he was talking he was looking up at Haze, studying his face. All of a sudden he bumped into a little man lost in a pair of faded overalls. “Whyn’t you look where you going?” he growled.
The little man stopped short and raised his arm in a vicious gesture and a mean dog look came on his face. “Who you tellin what?” he snarled.
“You see,” Enoch said, jumping to catch up with Haze, “all they want to do is knock you down. ”

“ People boiled out of trains and up steps and over into the streets. They rolled off the street and down steps and into trains--black and white and yellow all mixed up like vegetables in soup. Everything was boiling. The trains swished in from tunnels, up canals, and all of a sudden stopped. The people coming out pushed through the people coming in and a noise rang and the train swooped off again. Old Dudley and the daughter had to go in three different ones before they got where they were going. He wondered why people ever went out of their houses. ”

“ Men’s shoes, looks like. You know many people here?”
“No,” Haze said.
“You ain’t gonna know none neither. This is one more hard place to make friends in. I been here two months and I don’t know nobody, look like all they want to do is knock you down. I reckon you got a right heap of money,” he said. “I ain’t got none. Had, I’d sho know what to do with it.” The man and the girl stopped on the corner and turned up the left side of the street. “We catching up,” he said. “I bet we’ll be at some meeting singing hymns with her and her daddy if we don’t watch out.” ”

“ Somewhere down the hall a woman shrilled something unintelligible out to the street; a radio was bleating the worn music to a soap serial; and a garbage can crashed down a fire-escape. The door to the next apartment slammed and a sharp footstep clipped down the hall. "That would be the nigger," Old Dudley muttered. "The nigger with the shiny shoes." He had been there a week when the nigger moved in. That Thursday he was looking out the door at the dog run halls when this nigger went into the next apartment. ”

“ Haze said. “Take your hand off me.”
The policeman took his hand off and put it on his hip. He backed one step away and said, “You tell all your friends about these lights. Red is to stop, green is to go—men and women, white folks and niggers, all go on the same light. You tell all your friends so when they come to town, they’ll know.” The people laughed.
“I’ll look after him,” Enoch Emery said, pushing in by the policeman. ”

“ After the Democratic White Primary, Rayber changed his barber. Three weeks before it, while he was shaving him, the barber asked, "who you gonna vote for?"
"Darmon," Rayber said.
"You a nigger-lover?"
Rayber started in the chair. He had not expected to be approached so brutally. "No," he said. If he had not been taken off balance, he would have said, "I am neither a negro nor a white-lover." He had said that before to Jacobs, the philosophy man, and--to show you how trying it is for liberals in Dalton--Jacobs--a man of his education--had muttered, "That's a poor way to be." ”

“ Thisyer woman that traded me from my daddy didn’t do nothing but pray. Me and daddy, we moved around with a sawmill where we worked and it set up outside Boonville one summer and here come thisyer woman.” He caught hold of Haze’s coat. “Only objection I got to Taulkinham is there’s too many people on the streets,” he said confidentially, “look like they ain’t satisfied until they knock you down—well, here she come and I reckon she took a fancy to me. I was twelve year old and I could sing some hymns good I learnt off a nigger. ”

“ Old Dudley was always afraid that when he went out in the dog runs, a door would suddenly open and one of the snipe-nosed men that hung off the window ledges in his undershirt would growl, "What are you doing here?" The door to the nigger's apartment was open and he could see a woman sitting in a chair by the window. "Yankee niggers," he muttered. She had on rimless glasses and there was a book in her lap. Niggers don't think they're dressed up till they got on glasses, Old Dudley thought. ”