Free Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor Page A

said.
                "Asa Hawks. His child gave you the peeler. Did she tell you where they lived?"
                Enoch eased his head out of the car. He opened the door and climbed in beside Haze. For a minute he only looked at him, wetting his lips. Then he whispered, "I got to show you something."
                "I'm looking for those people," Haze said. "I got to see that man. Did she tell you where they lived?"
                "I got to show you this thing," Enoch said. "I got to show it to you, here, this afternoon. I got to.** He pipped Hazel Motes's arm and Haze shook him off.
                "Did she tell you where they live?" he said again.
                Enoch kept wetting his lips. They were pale except for his fever blister, which was purple. "Cert'nly," he said. "Ain't she invited me to come to see her and bring my mouth organ? I got to show you this thing, then 111 tell you."
                "What thing?" Haze muttered.
                "This thing I got to show you," Enoch said. "Drive straight on ahead and I'll tell you where to stop."
                "I don't want to see anything of yours," Haze Motes said. "I want that address."
                Enoch didn't look at Hazel Motes. He looked out the window. "I won't be able to remember it unless you come," he said. In a minute the car started. Enoch's blood was beating fast. He knew he had to go to the Frosty Bottle and the zoo before there, and he foresaw a terrible struggle with Hazel Motes. He would have to get him there, even if he had to hit him over the head with a rock and carry him on his back up to it.
                Enoch's brain was divided into two parts. The part in communication with his blood did the figuring but it never said anything in words. The other part was stocked up with all kinds of words and phrases. While the first part was figuring how to get Hazel Motes through the Frosty Bottle and the zoo, the second inquired, "Where'd you git thisyer fine car? You ought to paint you some signs on the outside it, like 'Step-in, baby'--I seen one with that on it, then I seen another, said..."
                Hazel Motes's face might have been cut out of the side of a rock.
                "My daddy once owned a yeller Ford automobile he won on a ticket/' Enoch murmured. "It had a roll-top and two aerials and a squirrel tail all come with it. He swapped it off. Stop here! Stop here!" he yelled--they were passing the Frosty Bottle.
                "Where is it?" Hazel Motes said as soon as they were inside. They were in a dark room with a counter across the back of it and brown stools like toad stools in front of the counter. On the wall facing the door there was a large advertisement for ice cream, showing a cow dressed up like a housewife.
                "It ain't here," Enoch said. "We have to stop here on the way and get something to eat. What you want?"
                "Nothing," Haze said. He stood stiffly in the middle of the room with his hands in his pockets.
                "Well, sit down," Enoch said. "I have to have a little drink."
                Something stirred behind the counter and a woman with bobbed hair like a man's got up from a chair where she had been reading the newspaper, and came forward. She looked sourly at Enoch. She had on a once-white uniform clotted with brown stains. "What you want?" she said in a loud voice, leaning close to his ear. She had a man's face and big muscled arms.
                "I want a chocolate malted milkshake, baby girl/' Enoch said softly. "I want a lot of ice cream in it"
                She turned fiercely from him and glared at Haze.
                "He says he don't want nothing but to sit down and look at you for a while/' Enoch said. "He ain't hungry but for just to see you."
                Haze looked