Joseph was sleeping, curled in a tight ball. Coot hadn’t heard him cough or wheeze since Marigold had touched him. He didn’t know how this could be.

Coot had gone most of his life feeling that the whole universe cared little for him.

A low voice from the cell beside him said,

“Cherokee, just outside Pittsburgh, Kansas.”

The words shocked Coot. He didn’t know what to say.

“We did a week of revival there,” E. P. said. “When you were little.” The big man didn’t look at Coot. He only stared forward in his cell. He dabbed his forehead. The man had always been a professional when it came to sweating. “You came down with a fever. We thought you were dead.”

“I don’t remember that.”

Nothing was said for a while. The old man seemed to be caught in his own private recollections. He only leaned back into his bed and let out a mighty sigh now and then.

“How old was I?” Coot finally asked.

“Six or seven. You were so sick, vomiting, crying, sick as a dog, and you got up on that stage, right there in front of God and Kansas, and you preached anyway. Forty-five minutes, white as a sheet, high fever and all. I’ll never forget it. Long as I live.”

The man laughed, then rolled over on his bed.

Coot wanted to let the man have it. He wanted to give the man every ugly word he had stored up from his years of living. But he also didn’t want to. And he didn’t want to more than he wanted to. “You ruined my life,” he finally settled on saying. “You ruined me.”

“Kid like you?” he said. “Nothing could ruin you.”

Later that day, the state police arrived. Men in uniforms opened the big man’s cell, and E. P. became a different man altogether. He became E. P. the joyful preacher. He was charming. He was clever. He was nice to the officers, and funny. And he even made a few of them smile.

Before he left the jailhouse, he turned to face Coot and he winked.

Eighty
Yawning Partners

It was late. The jailhouse was faintly alive with the sound of a young man’s tenor voice making a gentle melody. Coot hummed something. It was familiar to Marigold’s ears, but she couldn’t place the tune.

She listened, lying on the cot with her eyes closed.

The humming stopped. “You awake, Marigold?” Coot asked her.

“I’m awake,” she said.

“But your eyes are closed.”

“I’m pretend sleeping.”

“Pretend sleeping? Why?”

“Because I don’t know what else to do.”

She opened her eyes and saw the outline of Coot’s tall frame standing near the window of their cell. He was looking out at the world. He was a serious young man, but his eyes were kind.

“You okay?” he said.

She sighed. “Oh, I don’t know.”