Mary Hood and the speed of grace: catching up with Flannery O'Connor

Studies in Short Fiction, Wntr, 1996 by Joy A. Farmer

When they came to the main road, there were the men. Watching

for them. Waiting for them. They kicked their machines into life

and followed close, bumping them, slapping the old fenders,

yelling. The girl gave a wild glance around at the one by her door

and said, "Gran'ma?" and as he drew his pistol, "Gran'ma!" just as

the gun nosed into the open window. (73-74)

The bad-dream quality of this chase, which follows the cemetery scene with its suggestion of death, makes it seem like a descent into hell. Especially nightmarish are the stalling out of the grandmother's old Chevy in the wallow and the women's gaining of the Greer cottage, only to find the walls "ivied-over" (74), the door padlocked. And Mary Hood surely intends the reader to remember that the most infamous group of bikers calls itself the Hell's Angels. If her meaning is in doubt, the following exchange between the grandmother and one of the bikers removes any ambiguity:

"She's fifteen," her granny said. "You can go to jail."

"You can go to hell," he said.

"Probably will," her granny told him. "I'll save you a seat by

the fire." (73)

"The Artificial Nigger," of course, chronicles another descent into Hades: The infernal city of Atlanta, in which Mr. Head plays Virgil to Nelson's Dante, is complete with Cerberus ("a conductor with the face of an ancient bloated bulldog" [1981), underworld rivers (sewer passages linked with "the entrance to hell" [2041), and torments for the damned (the "pitchfork prongs" of Nelson's eyes piercing into Mr. Head's back [210]). Initially, Mr. Head is a tolerable guide to this modem-day City of Dis. For example, he temporarily manages to keep from getting lost by staying in sight of the train terminal. Moreover, he immediately recognizes and forestalls the threat to Nelson's innocence posed by the woman in the pink dress: "Nelson would have collapsed at her feet if Mr. Head had not pulled him roughly away" (207). Similarly, the grandmother in "How Far She Went" has some success in steering the granddaughter through the hell into which the girl's irresponsible behavior has plunged them both. For one thing, she is able to get the girl off the bike and away from the man who would destroy her innocence:

`She's underage.' just that. And put out her claiming hand with an

authority that made the girl's arms drop from the man's insolent

waist and her legs tremble . . . . The girl slid off the motorcycle.

(72)

For another, the grandmother almost manages to elude the bikers completely: "She had for the time being bested them; they were left behind. She was winning" (74). Nonetheless, as Mr. Head and Nelson's experience makes clear, hell is for souls that are spiritually lost; there, appropriately, clean getaways are fleeting illusions, the road leads nowhere except deeper and deeper into the uncharted wilderness, and all belongings get confiscated. Therefore, because pride has jeopardized his soul, Mr. Head loses the sack lunch and the way back to the train station. He then loses his grandson's trust. Finally, after his denial of poor Nelson makes clear the extent of Mr. Head's sinful nature, Mr. Head loses his perception of himself as an upright and decent individual. This perception is replaced by a despairing sense of his own depravity and a real vision of hell, which is finally a state of absolute desolation: