“The land, cattle, machinery, men. Well.” She paused. “All but one. You were right, Junior, about the Border Patrol coming. They came last night and took one of our men. Xavier.”
“What?” Lacy cried.
“Sad.” Her mom shook her head. “After all your daddy did for him, I caught Xavier stealing from us. Jewelry of mine. A necklace.” She watched Lacy serenely. “We couldn’t have an enemy among us. Your daddy couldn’t give a man like that papers, so the patrol took him. Xavier and one other man. A vagrant they found in Chilitown. Maybe that one that came to our door, Lacy. I don’t know. Listen to me, children,” she said, fixing her eyes on her daughter. “We are very rich now. We ruffled a few feathers along the way. That means we have to be careful of people—everyone, everywhere—who want to take what’s ours any way they can. We have to cast out threats to the family. Understand?”
She hit the word “family” hard, like it was hers to open the gate and let you in or not. Lacy was hot with anger but muddled, confused how truth was a threat and lies were safer, and at the table in front of Junior she asked her mom, “Are you Mexican?”
She saw it in her mom’s eyes briefly, a light flashing and shutting off. A cruel, sad thing she couldn’t name, but whatever it was, Lacy sensed something change between them. A terrible feeling like she was outside the family her mom talked about, even if she slept under the same roof and ate at the same table.
Junior turned his head from one to the other, watching.
Her mom laughed. “What a thing to ask! Are you feeling all right?” She pressed her hand to Lacy’s forehead. “I wonder if you’re running a fever.” She watched Lacy. “What I am,” she said slowly, “is a mother who takes care of her children and protects what’s theirs. You and Junior are the future.” Her eyes shone with unfallen tears. “I washed your uniform. Go get dressed.”
The whole drive to the pageant Lacy thought of Xavier. She wondered where he was as her troop paraded past the school cafeteria toward the stage. The Scouts assembled on a set of bleachers behind a gold velvet curtain. Lacy could barely keep from crying as it opened. She was blinded at first by the footlights, and in the whiteness she thought of the calf being born a few weeks ago. She could make out the cafeteria full of round tables with families eating lunch. She saw her mom and dad and Junior, front and center, a circle of mostly empty tables around them, and the families of the farmers she knew sitting farther back and to the sides. And it dawned on Lacy that it wasn’t like she thought in church. It wasn’t out of respect that the farmers gave her family space.
The scoutmaster swung her baton, and the Scouts around Lacy began to sing:
America, oh land of plenty,
Light of hope around the globe,
Send a dream to all our sisters
Who are hungry, sick, and cold.
Open your heart and your hand,
Do what’s right, take a stand,
And together, America
Will heal the world.
2
A Day’s Work
In a week Aaron Warner would leave his podunk town for Houston, to join the thousands of politicians, tycoons, and common men with tickets to the opening game at the Eighth Wonder of the World. The Astrodome! Aaron had memorized every detail about the place from the newspaper: eighteen stories tall, the dome a miracle of engineering can-do, and a scoreboard that lit up at each homer with a show of steam-nosed bulls and fireworks and cowboys shooting pistols. Mickey Mantle was playing the home team. LBJ and Lady Bird would be there. And Governor Connally would kick the whole thing off with the first-ever pitch in an air-conditioned stadium, chilled to a pleasant seventy-two degrees.
This trip to the modern Colosseum foreshadowed other journeys ahead, to college and the world that would soon be his oyster. Aaron didn’t leave for UT for a few months, but a wave of psychic goose bumps told him that his old life was ending and a new one was about to begin. All he had to do was give up one Saturday and tag along with his dad on a day’s work.
* * *
His principal, Mr. Richards, called him to the office a few days before, during seventh period, and surprised him with the tickets. The jackpot moment played out for Aaron in a kind of slow motion: Richards rising from his desk, tugging the lapels of his blazer until they crossed manfully over his tie, and fanning out the tickets in his hand. “The As-tro-dome,” he said with quiet reverence. “A graduation gift to Midland Robert E. Lee High School’s best running back and favorite senior.” Aaron’s jaw went slack. “Thank you, sir,” Aaron said in the charming voice he reserved for life at school. “I’ll talk to my parents. Thanks so much.”
Aaron stayed on campus until the janitor locked up that evening. On the walk home he pictured his family at the dinner table, around the centerpiece of plastic apples and grapes. His brother, Wally, would be slouched on his elbows, a freshman at Lee still playing with trains in the basement. Next to him all two hundred something pounds of their mom, holding on to the table edge to keep her hands still. And at the head would be Ernest, eyes shut as he said grace in a strained voice like Kermit the Frog. When he got to the house, Aaron took a breath on the porch. He retracted each sunbeam that had glowed from him that day—every boy he glad-handed and girl he teased, every tired teacher he made laugh—and once he had shrunk himself down to a hard, silent coal, he went in.
Nobody spoke as Aaron slid into his seat. Forks shoveled meatloaf and fluorescent mac and cheese. His mom smiled at him and chewed absently, tracing a chubby pinky along the rim of her prized Fiestaware. His dad rattled the ice in his sweet tea. “Stuck in traffic?” he said.
“Principal Richards got tickets to the Astrodome,” Aaron blurted.
“The Astrodome!” His mom’s tiny blue eyes twinkled above her flushed cheeks. “It looked huge on the TV.”
“The Yankees next weekend?” his dad asked. Aaron nodded. “Well, that’s fine,” Ernest murmured, his face opening in a rare smile.
“He invited me to go. As a graduation gift. Mr. Richards has a brother in Sugar Land we can stay with after the game, and come back Saturday morning, if…”
“Richards.” His dad munched a green bean with vague suspicion. “He fight in the war? Europe? Pacific?”
“Um,” Aaron mumbled, “he was maybe thirteen back then?”
Ernest shook his head. “Not the fighting type.”
Aaron felt like saying how Richards lobbied the UT scout to come watch his game against Permian, or how Richards fought for the scholarship he needed to get the hell out of nowheresville, but he held his tongue.
“It sounds like fun, Ernest,” his mom said quietly.
“Gertrude,” he snapped, “I’ll let you know if I need your—Sure!” He turned to Aaron. “I wish we could all drive to Houston for the big game, but some of us have to work six days a—”
“I work,” Aaron said. “I work my tail off at school and practice.”
“Fine.” He set his fork on his plate. “If you want to go to the Astrodome next weekend, show me how hard you work this Saturday. I got two big jobs I could use you on.” He watched Aaron. “Deal?” Aaron nodded. “Well, Gerty.” Ernest sighed irritably. “You happy?”
“Yes.” She patted her mouth with her napkin. “Meatloaf came out real juicy.”
* * *
So, early that Saturday morning, Aaron stood before his dresser in white Jockey briefs. His thick blond hair stuck out porcupine-style from his head. He nodded at the mirror, admiring the mercurial blue of his eyes, and yawned and studied the contents of his drawers. He was a careful keeper of his clothes. He thought of the dirty work ahead and, after real deliberation, chose to sacrifice a pair of old jeans and a Rebels sweatshirt for the sake of the Astrodome.
Through the bedroom door Aaron heard his mom’s high yet resonant voice, a bird trapped in a buttery chamber down her throat. In the hallway he could make out words broken up by Wally’s silences. “Doesn’t it take your breath away?” she asked. “Isn’t it amazing?�
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“What is?” Aaron strolled into the kitchen. He hated the pauses, waiting for his brother to speak. It made him cold and angry to watch Wally’s mouth twitch as he tried to get the words out. “What’s amazing?”
“This machine.” His mom held up a copy of Life. “‘Astonishing Revolution,’” she read aloud from the cover, her hands trembling at the weight of the magazine. “‘Ultrasonic waves show a baby in womb.’ I wish I could’ve seen you back then,” she said and patted Wally’s arm. He sat beside her, spooning Cap’n Crunch. “I didn’t need to see Aaron,” Gertrude reflected. “I could feel him kicking, trying to get somewhere else. But you were so peaceful I wondered sometimes if you were still there.”
“Mom?” Aaron said casually, sliding bread into the toaster. “I was thinking, since I’m giving a speech at graduation, maybe I’d buy a new shirt to wear. If you guys don’t have the—There’s my pocket money for UT that you’ve been saving.”
“Well,” she sighed. “You’re with your dad all day. Ask him.” His mom played dumb about money, even though she ran the numbers for the business. She took a bookkeeping course after high school, the only one of his parents to do something beyond what Aaron was about to achieve. But he had to ask his dad. A guy who didn’t know the first thing about how the world works or why the Roman Empire fell. He spread peanut butter on his toast with indignant precision and sat down at the table.
“You coming?” Aaron said to Wally. “Say goodbye to the seniors?”
“If-f-f-f’m here.”
“If you’re here?” Aaron laughed and took a big swagger of a bite. “Busy schedule this summer? Busy train schedule in the basement?”
Wally’s face clouded. He shot an ugly look at their mom. “Driving to—”
“Shush,” Gerty scolded, her mouth wrinkling into a frown. Then she gave Aaron a strange bright smile. “Your dad found a speech therapist to help Wally—express himself better. A good doctor, in Dallas, not like the ones here, so they have to drive there every week.”
“You’re coming, right?” Aaron asked her. “To my graduation?”
“I hope so.” She pushed her special chair back from the table. “But with my ailments…” She shrugged, muttering quietly to herself, “Have to see how I feel that morning.”
Aaron studied her as she settled back into the chair Ernest had customized for her. It was green metal with industrial casters on the legs so Gerty could roll where she needed to around the house, rising to cook, get in bed, or make the short, mysterious transit from chair to toilet. Aaron knew better than to talk about her ailments, so he rose and put his plate in the sink.
“Could you fix my bike?” she asked as he left. “The rope’s jumbled up. And, Aaron?” He stopped at the door and turned back to her. “Congratulations,” she said. “If I don’t make it.”
On the front porch Aaron put up the hood of his sweatshirt at the unseasonable chill and knelt beside the bike. He didn’t know where his dad found an oversize kid’s tricycle with a giant seat, but every day at three o’clock Gertrude Warner mounted her red set of wheels and budged cautiously down the driveway to get the mail. And though there was barely an incline, her husband had tied a rope to the handlebars that stretched as far as the mailbox, and no farther, to help pull herself back home when her feet needed a boost.
Aaron untangled the rope and stared at his dad’s truck, a burnt orange ’61 Econoline pickup. He could never decide which was worse: the color or the logo. The day his dad drove it home Aaron said, “Orange.” Ernest launched into some rigmarole about the color reminding clients of how dirty their carpets used to be, “The Before,” but Aaron was pretty sure it was the only one he could afford at the used lot outside of town. Then came the demented logo on the doors—KLEEN KARPETS—in a circle of white letters. Inside the circle was a blue vacuum cleaner with eyeballs on a smiling vacuum head and three pink tongues sticking out the vacuum mouth, ostensibly licking up dirt but really looking more like a trio of scrotums.
“Here,” his dad barked, walking out of the garage. He threw Aaron an orange baseball cap with the same logo, one of the dozens sitting unworn in a box by the washer/dryer. “Take off that Longhorns cap and try this on for size. Let’s load up.”
* * *
“He’s halfway to Odessa!” Ernest cried as they bumped along a desolate patch of Route 80. “Wake up! Almost there!” Aaron cast a sidelong glance at him. He was tan from working in the sun, an even nut color except for where the skin cancer had been. The doctor had done a cheap graft there, and afterward Ernest walked the world with a patch of Silly Putty–looking stuff on his neck the size of a half dollar.
“Bill’s my oldest client,” his dad began. “He closes one day a year and that’s where we come in. It is a race. To. The finish. Every carpet, drape, and armchair in the place: get done with one and it’s on to the next one, and the next one, and the—”
“Yup,” Aaron grunted. He looked out the window at the oil derricks. The field ran to the horizon, an eyesore of drills bobbing in the earth like hungry insects. Here and there were empty shacks. He remembered the fields at night when he was younger, the ghostly sunrise color as the rigs burned off gas they couldn’t hold. All the wasted potential burned up here, Aaron thought, and sank into his hood.
“Funny thing is,” Ernest resumed quietly, “the first day you ever come to work with me, and it’s right before you leave. Weeks, isn’t it? Till you go?”
“July,” Aaron mumbled. “Football orientation.”
“That’s what I said. Eleven weeks. First time we did this. Doesn’t have to be the last.”
Aaron caught the scent of a lecture. In the thousands of meals and hallway passes that made up their relationship, his dad had two modes—saying no and lecturing—and it was too early for either. But, sure enough, Ernest launched into the wonders of the family business again, how Granddad, rest in peace, started it with a wet vac and a vision, and built it up to two vacs so father and son could work side by side, the American way. Aaron tuned out. He’d heard the rumors about monster-jugged cheerleader Carrie Trills, like if a guy got on her prayer list she’d kiss his willy, and he was spiritually beating off to the possibility when he heard his name.
“Aaron!” Ernest repeated. “You listening? Did I tell you or not?”
“What?”
“How I met your mom. Me and Granddad were doing a job, and I took the upstairs, and in the last bedroom there was your mom in an armchair doing her correspondence course. Plump and pretty as a doll. She ignored me till I said, ‘Ma’am, I gotta clean your chair.’ ‘But where will I sit?’ she asked. I was twenty. She was the older woman.” His eyebrows did leaps of naughty joy. “Kleen Karpets isn’t just a family business—it brought me my family. Who knows?” he said ponderously. “Maybe you’ll find you a wife today.”
Aaron squinted to hold down the smirk tugging at his lips, real sure the girl of his dreams wasn’t in Midland and for damn sure he wasn’t cleaning her carpets. Ernest put on the blinker. A dark sign loomed on the highway. BLACK GOLD MOTOR LODGE, it read in light bulbs and flaking metallic yellow letters. A cartoon derrick shot up between the words and sent a gush of oil to the top of the sign, also in a trail of bulbs. The motel was a shabby, low-slung set of rooms covered in faded yellow siding. Black doors caked with dust opened onto the parking lot. Drills the size of elephants surrounded the motel on three sides, pumping a few feet past a dainty black picket fence that ran around the place.
“Lord,” Aaron mumbled, “who stays here?”
“Nobody today,” Ernest snapped. “That’s the point.” He stared at the steering wheel and then turned to Aaron. “Try and keep your mouth shut.” He got out and slammed the door. “Nutter!” he called to a gray-haired man smoking and making his way down the rickety office steps. “How the devil are you?”
Through the windshield Aaron watched them shake and slap at each other. Ernest play-kicked the oxygen tank the man had dragged down the steps behind him.
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“And who do we have here?” the man rasped when Aaron got out of the truck.
“My son, Aaron Warner. Shake the man’s hand,” Ernest ordered.
“Bill McNutt,” he said in the scratches of a former voice, “but friends and fools like this one here call me Nutter. You going into business with your dad?”
“I’m going to UT,” Aaron replied. “I’m a freshman this fall.”
“A college man!”
“Well, Bill,” Ernest said, chuckling, “we never got our heads stuck in any books and we made it this far, didn’t we? Aaron and I better see about cleaning some carpets.”
They unloaded the vacuums and carried them to the porch. Aaron followed Ernest through a door with a gold 1 on it and hit a wall of stale air. His dad threw back the drapes, releasing a Big Bang of dust. There was hardly space to move between the bed, a wing chair belching stuffing, and a liquor cart with chipped golden goddesses at the corners.
“I’m thirsty,” Aaron said, retreating to the bathroom, tiled in a dizzying shade of mustard. Aaron turned the faucet on and leaned down to drink, but brown water pulsed out. “Jesus!” he muttered. “How are we supposed to clean anything if the—”
“Let it run,” Ernest bawled from the other room.
“Here’s your basics,” his dad began in lecture voice after they filled the vacs with water. “Three-and-three system: three kinds of stains, animal, vegetable, mineral…” On Ernest droned. So much talk about vacuuming reminded Aaron what a master of small things his dad was. Ernest could give driving directions for days, or jabber about gas prices at this or that station. Aaron beamed his brain elsewhere, leaving his body behind to show Ernest he could handle the wet vac and not pull down the drapes when he cleaned them. And the moment his dad stopped for two seconds to take a breath, Aaron blurted out the truth.
“I’m ready,” he said. “To try this on my own.”
Ernest cleared his throat hotly. “All right.” He turned his back and put the vacuum on. “Guess we’ll see,” he shouted over his shoulder.
Lone Stars Page 3