Demon Box

“Just look.” Dobbs spread his long arms. “We’re all at the front of the bus, aren’t we?”

Everybody laughed, even M’kehla. However pointless, it had scotched the dispute just in time. The band in the distance was finishing up “Yankee Doodle” and the sky was surging and heaving with the firework finale. Pleased with his diplomacy and timing, Dobbs swung back around in his driver seat and started the bus and headed for the exit to get a jump on the crowd. M’kehla leaned back in his seat, shaking his head, willing to shine it on for friendship’s sake.

But on the way out of the lot, as if that dark diamond was set on having the last severe laugh, Dobbs sideswiped a guy’s new white Malibu. Nothing bad. Dobbs stepped out to examine the car and apologize to the driver, and we all followed. The damage was slight and the guy amiable, but his wife was somehow panicked by the sudden sight of all of these strange men piling out. She shrank from us as though we were a pack of Hell’s Baddest Bikers.

Dobbs wasn’t carrying a license or any kind of liability so M’kehla offered his, along with a hundred-dollar bill. The guy looked at the tiny nick on his fender’s chrome strip, then at M’kehla’s big shoulders and bare chest, and said, Ah, forget it. No big deal. These things happen. Prudential will take care of it. Even shook hands with M’kehla instead of taking the money.

The last glorious volley of rockets spidered across the sky above; a multitudinous sigh lifted from the stadium. We were all bidding each other good night and hurrying back to our vehicles when the woman suddenly said “Oh” and stiffened. Before anyone could reach her she fell to the pavement, convulsing.

“Dear God no!” the husband cried, rushing to her. “She’s having a seizure!”

She was bowed backwards almost double in the man’s arms, shuddering like a sapling bent beneath a gale. The man was shaking her hysterically.

“She hasn’t done it in years. It’s all these explosions and these damn police lights! Help! Help!”

The wife had thrashed her way out of his arms and her head was sideways on the asphalt, growling and gnashing as if to bite the earth itself. M’kehla knelt to help.

“We got to stop her chewin’ her tongue, man,” he said. I recalled that Heliotrope was also an epileptic; he had tended to convulsions before. He scooped up the woman’s jerking head and forced the knuckle of his middle finger between her teeth. “Got to gag a little, then—”

But he couldn’t get in deep enough. She gnashed hard on the knuckle. M’kehla jerked it back with an involuntary hiss:

“Bitch!”

The guy went immediately nuts, worse than his wife. With a bellow he shoved the woman from his lap and sprang instantly to his feet to confront M’kehla.

“You watch your dirty mouth, nigger!”

It rang across the parking lot, louder than any starshell or horn. Everybody around the bus was absolutely stunned. Hurrying strangers stopped and turned for fifty yards in every direction, transfixed beneath the reverberation. The woman on the pavement ceased her convulsions and moaned with relief, as though she had passed some demon from her.

The demon had lodged in her husband. He raged on, prodding M’kehla in the breastbone with a stiffened hand.

“The fuckin hell is with you anyway, asshole? Huh? Sticking your fuckin finger in my wife’s mouth! Who do you think you are?”

M’kehla didn’t answer. He turned to the crowd of us with a What-else-can-I-tell-you? shrug. His eyes hooked to mine. I had to look away. I saw Quiston and Percy watching over the rear rail of the bus porch. Quiston was looking scared again, uncertain. Percy’s eyes were shining like M’kehla’s, with the same dark, igneous amusement.

It was after midnight before we chugged up the farm driveway. The men were sullen, the kids were crying, the women were disgusted with the whole silly affair. It was nearly one before all the guests had gathered up their scenes and headed home. Betsy and the kids went to bed. M’kehla and I sat in his bus and listened to his Bessie Smith tapes until almost dawn. Percy snored on the zebra skin. The crickets and the spheres creaked and hissed like dry bearings.

When the first light began to sift through the ash leaves, M’kehla stood up and stretched. We hadn’t talked for some time. There had been nothing to say. He turned off his amplifier and said he guessed it was time to once again embark.

I mentioned that he hadn’t had a wink in forty-eight hours. Shouldn’t he sleep? I knew he could not. I was wondering if either of us would ever again enjoy that blessed respite knitting up the raveled sleeve of care.

“ ‘Fraid not, Home. Me and Percy better get out before it closes up on us. Want to come?”