The Sweet By and By

by Todd Johnson

  “I know, your heart’s in the right place. It’s your hands I worry about.”

  Connie had always been known to stand up for herself or anybody else she thought was getting the short end of the stick. Honestly, I think that’s why they hired her right off at UPS when most of the drivers were men. They saw she had a backbone. Connie’s favorite quote was “R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Find out what it means to me,” only she acted like it was from the Bible instead of Aretha Franklin.

  At first I decide not to write Lynn Barber a thank-you note at all, but I change my mind and keep it real short.

  Dear Lynn, thank you for being a part of my wedding. I hope the day was special for you.

  Sincerely, Rhonda

  They always say, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.” But there’s more to it than that. Margaret Clayton also taught me that if you don’t have something nice to say, you can still say something, it’s all in the wording. Hell, I felt like the day prob’ly was special for Lynn; after all, she got smacked in the face.

  I have to save my thank-you note to Margaret and Bernice. I don’t know what to say, but I want it to be exactly right. The two of them brought me a present early when they came to get their hair done for the ceremony. Together they handed me something flat and square, wrapped in real elegant silver paper with purple ribbon. I told them I wished they hadn’t bought anything.

  Margaret said, “Honey, calm down, you haven’t seen what it is yet.”

  “It’s a picture!” Bernice yelled.

  “Well there you go,” Margaret added. “There’s nothing like a surprise.”

  Inside the box was a framed photo of the three of us that Lorraine took, all of us wearing Santa Claus hats in the salon. “My God, I was just gettin to know y’all,” I said. “Look how nervous I am!”

  Margaret answered, “Honey, you look fine. I, on the other hand, am quite sure I didn’t want to have that ridiculous hat on my head. That was some of Lorraine’s doing, left over from the Christmas party.”

  “They have a Christmas party every year!” Bernice added. Margaret patted her arm. “And I know you love it sweetheart, so I’m going to keep my mouth shut.”

  I couldn’t wait to show Connie. She asked if I was gonna put it out with my Christmas decorations.

  “Hell, those women mean a whole lot more to me than Christmas,” I said. “I’m leaving it out all the time. I still can’t believe they came.”

  “Why not?” Connie said. “You’re one of the most regular things in their lives.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  Connie kept on. “It’s what you do, Rhonda. You take care of em every time you wash their hair and tell em they look nice. Everybody needs takin care of. That’s why I never was a good beautician; I didn’t care enough about makin other women look good.”

  Before the wedding, Bernice had brought in a picture from a magazine of a girl with blond dreadlocks and said she wanted her hair done like that for a change. “I like that girl’s hair. It’s like rope,” she said. I talked her out of it by telling her that if I did that I wouldn’t be able to shampoo her hair the way she liked. I’m sure Cameron Stokes would have loved to see his mother with four-inch-long dreadlocks. Lorraine put their wedding clothes together for them. I could tell she took the time to pick out the dressiest things they had in their closets. Both of them had on suits, Bernice with a high-neck silk blouse and a big gold brooch and Margaret with a bow that tied at the neck and strands of pearls peeking out underneath it. When Mike and me turned around to face the congregation after it was over, my eyes went straight to them. They were the first faces I looked for. Bernice waved and blew a kiss. Mike waved back.

  Margaret made it to the head of the receiving line awful fast for someone whose legs are not always dependable. She let go of Lorraine’s arm and grabbed Mike’s hand in both of hers. “Now listen to me. You take care of this girl here. We’ll be watching you, son.”

  Bernice added, “We love her so very much,” and she did a curtsy that made her trip over her own feet.

  Mike kept her from falling, and Margaret quietly turned and told Lorraine to please put Bernice’s television on something besides the BBC.

  It’s hard to say “thank you” when you’re not sure what you’re thanking somebody for. I might write one line about the picture, but that don’t begin to tell it. I guess one thing I want them to know is that they’re the ones who’ve been taking care of me. Maybe only once a week, but faithful. I wish that word didn’t sound so religious. Faith to me is putting my heart where my hope is. I don’t have no doubt what Margaret Clayton and Bernice Stokes hope for me. I feel it every time I see em. I believe I can be happy, which is more than I was brought up to wish for. That’s progress, and I’m not one to sit around and wait.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  MARGARET

  Escaping was not my idea in the first place, I’ll swear with my hand on the Bible, something I have never done except the one time in my life I had to go to a court of law, and that was only because my maid Desiree shot her husband in the leg with a pistol. I’m not saying I didn’t want to get out, I mean I didn’t actually plot it. Where did we really think we were going to end up anyway without being tracked down? It would have to have been a hell of a lot further away than downtown Raleigh, I’ll tell you that. We’d have had to make it to a secluded beach in Mexico or somewhere, and that truly would have been a feat because the only thing I can say in Spanish is “burrito” and Bernice, well, need I say more?

  All that being the case, it was still worth every minute, even listening to my daughter Ann tell everybody in creation and me personally about a hundred times that she was so beside herself with worry that she got a migraine headache and had to go to bed sick for two days. Poor thing couldn’t swallow a thing but soda crackers and ginger ale. I’m sorry for her trouble, but she’s never been someplace like this that she couldn’t get out of if she wanted to.

  I do not want anybody’s pity. I’ve lived a long time on this earth and I’ve worn myself out in pleasure and in pain, and that’s enough. And I’ve never been sick to speak of except for the flu or a urinary infection sometimes, that’s it. I know my time’s coming sooner or later, we all do, but the kicker of it is, right here I sit, old as Methuselah, and most of the time I feel pretty damn good. The only time I’m a little bit out of sorts is when I eat something greasy, and that’s something that’s not going to change. I was raised on fried chicken, pork barbecue, and hot-as-fire sausage, and I have absolutely no intention of changing my diet now as long I can persuade Ann to smuggle contraband in here.

  As with most great escapes, timing was everything. I had woken up from my nap and was about to switch on the television but dropped the remote. It would ordinarily have to stay there until someone else picked it up. I don’t think I’m able to reach that far over the side of the bed without it looking like attempted suicide.

  “Don’t get up, don’t get up,” Bernice cried, walking in from the hallway. “We’ll get it for you, darlin.” The “we” meant herself and the stuffed animal she was carrying. I hadn’t yet gotten used to the fact that she no longer carried Mister Benny. It had definitely taken some time for her to get over his being burned up, but she was back to her old self now, and at her side waking or sleeping was her new friend, a bright red, white, and blue stuffed bulldog with no eyes. I had often asked Bernice if her friend had a name, but I finally gave up when all she said was, “You don’t know her. Her people are from Virginia.” I guess she figured if she never told anybody that bulldog’s name, she’d never risk the same fate as befell Mister Benny, who in my opinion was probably enjoying his eternal rest at this very moment at the bottom of the county landfill.

  Bernice put the remote on the table beside my bed, almost knocking over a water pitcher and my glass of ice. “Thank you Bernice, bless your heart. Otherwise, that thing would have to stay down there ’til doomsday or a nurse walks by, and I don’t know which one w
ill come first.”

  “I like helping you, Margaret.” Bernice smiled her usual toothy grin. “I’ll help you every day. You’re my neighbor.”

  “I am, sugar. You have no idea how much I appreciate that.”

  “I want to do something.” She leaned in real close, and I got a little nervous that her upper plate of dentures was so loose it would fall out of her mouth and onto my lap. “I want to leave here tonight. Both of us.”

  I stared directly into her eyes and said, “We’re here together and we’ll do all right, but don’t start thinking about getting out. It doesn’t lead to anything.”

  I was probably more blunt with her than I ought to have been, but I had to tell myself that same thing every now and again when I had a real good day, walking and eating and digesting. I might start wondering if I could sleep in my own bed again. I knew better. I knew better, and it didn’t matter if it made me mad or not.

  “We can go, we can go right now, I’ve got my own money,” Bernice continued, as serious as I’d ever heard her.

  “Bernice, you do not have any money, go to bed.”

  She promptly reached down inside the bosom of her nightgown and pulled out a wad of green, all crumpled up in a roll.

  “One, two, three, four, five, six…” She kept counting all the way up to ten twenty-dollar bills as she laid them down beside me on the blanket. I cranked myself up in the bed. No doubt about it, she had stashed away a nice little bankroll. The most I’d ever been able to keep tucked away was fifty dollars—that’s what Ann gave me to keep here “for emergencies” as she called them. I have no idea what kind of emergency she thinks happens here except one where an ambulance comes to get you, but I don’t argue. I like having a little cash around me.

  I lowered my voice. “Where in God’s name did this come from? Get over there and close that door.”

  Bernice peeked out into the hallway, pulled my door to, and scampered back in. The only sound was a quick “whish, whish” of her slide-on scuffs dragging across the linoleum floor.

  I picked the money up off the bed and handed it back. “I don’t know where you got this, but if you stole it, you’re going to be in more trouble than anybody who ever lived.”

  Bernice held her ground as usual. “It’s my money, all mine. Won it. You ask Alvin.”

  “Alvin?”

  “Poker playing. Ask Alvin. I won it. We play in the middle of the night. He’s supposed to be washing floors, but he bets money. I got ten bills right here. Just like the Ten Commandments. All the thou shalt nots. I memorized them. I won this money. It’s all mine. Always save for a rainy day. I hid it good too. But don’t hide your light under a bushel—that’s in the Bible. Did you know that?”

  I was accustomed to Bernice’s forays out of the sane world, but I had no idea what she was talking about. I knew she used to have money once upon a time, but I also knew that she didn’t have a cent of it to herself anymore.

  “Bernice, tell me where we’re going to go when we can’t even go to the parking lot? You take your money and put it wherever you got it from and go to bed.”

  She leaned in again. “I’ll show you. It’s a trick I saw Alvin do.”

  “Bernice…” I started to reiterate my objection, waiting for something sensible to come so I could say it and be done with it. Instead a crystal-clear picture dropped down in front of my eyes. It was the next morning and there was a bowl of cornflakes in front of me, and a local Baptist youth choir was at the door of my room in matching red T-shirts singing something like, “God is my Rock—rock on, God.” An epiphany of sorts.

  “Let’s do it.” I grabbed both her shoulders. “Right now, before I think another thing about it. Reach down there and undo this bed rail.”

  Sometimes things make more sense the more you think about them, and sometimes they make less, and it often doesn’t have to do with anything except the way you’re feeling in that exact minute. Right then, Bernice’s plan sounded like the most sensible thing in the world. It was like she knew she needed my brain, which is no great shakes, believe me, but she figured in her own special Bernice way that we’d make a good team. Don’t ever rule out how somebody’s mind might be working, even when it looks like it’s not working at all.

  “Get ready to go, let’s go, get ready,” Bernice said, scurrying back into the hall and to her room.

  “Don’t worry about me. You give me five minutes.”

  I managed to struggle into pants and a sports jacket, the same things I had taken off earlier. That’s the kind of outfit I liked for traveling because it was comfortable to sit in. Then I got my cane, just in case, and cracked open the door to take a look at the nurses’ station. There was a big clock hanging in the hallway with light-up numbers. Nine o’clock. Everybody went home after feeding us dinner and cleaning up except the janitors and a couple of nurses on duty. One was sitting at the desk flipping through a clipboard. I thought her name was Gina, and I did not have a good feeling about her. I had seen her stand right there when a buzzer was going off in somebody’s room and instead of checking to see what was wrong, she’d take her time talking to Alvin or another one of the cleaners about the best way to grow tomatoes. With all the halls sticking out from the nurses’ station like points on a star, trying to go anywhere except to the other end of our own hall meant we would have to pass right by her.

  Bernice reappeared, gesturing wildly. “Come on! Come on!”

  “Lead on,” I answered and pulled the door closed behind me as I stepped into the hall. The rail along the side of the wall made it easy for me to walk at a good clip. Gina looked up when we approached the desk. Before she could say anything, I told her I had a leg cramp and that I really didn’t want to have to take any pain medicine so Bernice was walking with me.

  “It’s late,” Gina said. I waited for her to say something more, but she didn’t, simply went back to shuffling papers.

  “I can’t wait to close my eyes,” I said loud enough so she could hear, and we strolled leisurely around the desk.

  When we got to the end of the hall opposite ours, Bernice reached down for something under one of the linoleum tiles. “This is my trick. Alvin does it so the door won’t lock. He smokes cigarettes outside. It’s my trick now,” she said and stuck the found object, a bent nail, into the crack of the door, enough to keep it from closing all the way.

  “Bernice, you win the prize. You and your friend…” I stopped. “Don’t you think it’s about time you told me her name?” I pointed at the eyeless bulldog crushed under her arm.

  She smiled and said, “You don’t know her. She’s from Virginia. You tell me a name.”

  Without even thinking, I said, “Well being that she’s patriotic colors and all, why don’t you call her Betsy Ross?” I knew Betsy Ross was not from Virginia, but I also knew Bernice didn’t know that, and I had no idea where she got the idea of Virginia anyway.

  “Betsy Ross! Betsy Ross is the boss!” Bernice was delighted.

  The air outside was fresh, just a little chilly, exactly the way I liked night air to be. I wanted to stand right where I was and do nothing but breathe, take it all in, but Bernice had hold of my arm and tugged me along. We walked past picnic tables at the edge of the parking lot and down the driveway toward the road. The trail of white cigarette butts on the ground told me that Alvin was not the only one doing the door trick.

  Cars passed in both directions, and directly across the road was a gas station and an Ace Hardware store, both closed, on either side of an all-night Tastee-Freez. It was Shangri-La as far as I was concerned because from my own window I couldn’t see one thing except a water tower and a trailer park at the edge of somebody’s dirt field.

  “Bernice sweetheart, I guess the Tastee-Freez has got our name on it. What do you think?”

  Nobody looked up when we walked in, not that there were more than a handful of people, just a couple of teenagers with their faces about two inches from each other, and a bearlike man wearing a baseball cap s
itting in a booth eating a hamburger in big bites, like a cow chewing cud. The lights were enough to blind a person—I have always despised bright lights in a room where somebody’s trying to eat.

  Bernice walked directly up to the counter where a girl with thick black lines painted around her eyes and what looked like a fish hook hanging out of her nose said flatly, “Help you?”

  “Y’all have banana splits?” Bernice stood up on her tiptoes and leaned in like she was saying magic words and then plopped Betsy Ross on the counter in front of the girl.

  “Let me help you, Bernice,” I intervened. The girl’s expression told me what she was thinking, staring at the red-white-and-blue bulldog. “God, this is one crazy old bitch. Why on my shift?”

  I picked up the dog and said, “I know Gardner Jr.’s going to be one happy boy when he gets this back.” I took a stab at making Betsy sound like she belonged to somebody other than an eighty-year-old woman. “Make it two banana splits, please,” I continued, gently pulling Bernice away from the counter with me toward a booth and out of suspicion’s line of fire.

  “Lots of nuts!” Bernice waved her hand to the girl, and I thought to myself, “You’re not kidding.”

  We took a booth across a narrow aisle from the hamburger man, who looked like a truck driver to me—he had that “I stay up all night and drive” look about him. I went to the self-serve area and brought back two cups of ice water, and when I sat down again, he looked at me rather suddenly, “’Scuse me, could you pass me that bottle of ketchup? Mine’s run out.” He pointed at a little tray of condiments on our table.

  “Yes sir, I can.” I reached over to him without getting up.

  “Thank you. I ’preciate it. I have to have ketchup on my hamburger. I like ketchup on every kind of meat, you name it, steak, chicken, pork chops. I like it on fish too. Shrimp, oysters, every kind of meat.”

  “I know what you mean, sometimes you need a little flavor.” I smiled. Bernice smiled too but didn’t say anything, thank the Lord. She was bouncing Betsy Ross in her lap like a baby she was trying to burp.