Look what Santa Claus brought us and left on the doorstep, Uncle Doc,’ and Old Doc Hines said,
‘His name is Joseph,’ and they quit laughing and they looked at Old Doc Hines and the Jezebel said,
‘How do you know?’ and Old Doc Hines said,
‘The Lord says so,’ and then they laughed again, hollering,
‘It is so in the Book: Christmas, the son of Joe.
Joe, the son of Joe.
Joe Christmas,’ they said,
‘To Joe Christmas,’ and they tried to make Old Doc Hines drink too, to the Lord’s abomination, but he struck the cup aside.
And he just had to watch and to wait, and he did and it was in the Lord’s good time, for evil to come from evil.
And the doctor’s Jezebel come running from her lustful bed, still astink with sin and fear.
‘He was hid behind the bed,’ she says, and Old Doc Hines said,
‘You used that perfumed soap that tempted your own undoing, for the Lord’s abomination and outrage.
Suffer it,’ and she said,
‘You can talk to him.
I have seen you.
You could persuade him,’ and Old Doc Hines said,
‘I care no more for your fornications than God does,’ and she said,
‘He will tell and I will be fired.
I will be disgraced.’
Stinking with her lust and lechery she was then, standing before Old Doc Hines with the working of God’s will on her that minute, who had outraged the house where God housed His fatherless and motherless.
‘You ain’t nothing,’ Old Doc Hines said. ‘You and all sluts.
You are a instrument of God’s wrathful purpose that nere a sparrow can fall to earth.
You are a instrument of God, the same as Joe Christmas and Old Doc Hines.
And she went away and Old Doc Hines he waited and he watched and it wasn’t long before she come back and her face was like the face of a ravening beast of the desert.
‘I fixed him,’ she said, and Old Doc Hines said,
‘How fixed him,’ because it was not anything that Old Doc Hines didn’t know because the Lord did not keep His purpose hid from His chosen instrument, and Old Doc Hines said,
‘You have served the foreordained will of God.
You can go now and abominate Him in peace until the Day,’ and her face looked like the ravening beast of the desert; laughing out of her rotten colored dirt at God.
And they come and took him away.
Old Doc Hines saw him go away in the buggy and he went back to wait for God and God come and He said to Old Doc Hines,
‘You can go too now.
You have done My work.
There is no more evil here now but womanevil, not worthy for My chosen instrument to watch.’
And Old Doc Hines went when God told him to go.
But he kept in touch with God and at night he said,
‘That bastard, Lord,’ and God said,
‘He is still walking My earth,’ and Old Doc Hines kept in touch with God and at night he said,
‘That bastard, Lord,’ and God said,
‘He is still walking My earth,’ and Old Doc Hines kept in touch with God and one night he wrestled and he strove and he cried aloud,
‘That bastard, Lord!
I feel!
I feel the teeth and the fangs of evil!’ and God said,
‘It’s that bastard.
Your work is not done yet.
He’s a pollution and a abomination on My earth.’ ”
The sound of music from the distant church has long since ceased.
Through the open window there comes now only the peaceful and myriad sounds of the summer night.
Beyond the desk Hightower sits, looking more than ever like an awkward beast tricked and befooled of the need for flight, brought now to bay by those who tricked and fooled it.
The other three sit facing him; almost like a jury.
Two of them are also motionless, the woman with that stonevisaged patience of a waiting rock, the old man with a spent quality like a charred wick of a candle from which the flame has been violently blown away.