Walking Across Egypt

by Clyde Edgerton

  “Yeah, we heard the dogcatcher over here last night.” Alora stepped on over into the kitchen. “I reckon the little thing’s dead by now,” she said. “Gassed, I imagine.”

  “I don’t know. Sit down over here at the table. I got to tend to my food a little bit. Watch out! Not that one. The bottom’s out. Sit on the one there with the board.”

  Alora looked at the chair. “You got your seats out?”

  “Yeah, I wanted some of that oil cloth stuff you can wipe off easy. I don’t even think they make real oil cloth anymore. You know, sort of like you got.”

  “Yeah. It does make it lots easier—you can just wipe them right off.” Alora needed to throw away her apple core. She walked to the trash can where on top of a wadded-up piece of paper she saw the handful of sawdust Mattie had swept up from the kitchen floor the night before. “What you been cutting?”

  “What?”

  “What you been cutting? This sawdust.”

  “Oh that. The sawdust. I just, ah, cut a board.”

  “What kind of board?”

  “Just a board. To ah, to put over my chairs there.”

  The back doorbell rang. It was the dogcatcher.

  “Come on in.” Mattie stepped toward the door as he came in. “This is Alora Swanson, my next-door neighbor. And—you know I don’t believe I got your name.”

  “Lamar. Lamar Benfield. Nice to meet you,” he said to Alora.

  “Here’s your billfold.” Mattie handed it to him. “Lamar was by for the dog yesterday,” Mattie said to Alora, “and his billfold dropped out of his pocket.”

  “While I was down on the floor sawing the chair I guess,” said Lamar.

  “What chair?” said Alora.

  “That one over there. The one Mrs., ah, she got hung in.”

  Alora looked over at the chair. “Hung in? Mattie? You sat in that, without the bottom in it?”

  “I sure did.” Mattie laughed a short burst. “Ain’t that something.”

  “Well, I’ll say it is. You just sat down there and got stuck?”

  “That’s right. I hadn’t planned on telling anybody. It was so silly.”

  Alora laughed. “Well, Mattie, I declare.” She laughed again. “And you’re okay?”

  “I’m okay. Sit down over there, Lamar,” said Mattie, pointing toward the couch. Now the whole neighborhood and everybody at church will know, she thought. It was funny, but Pearl was enough to know about that. She walked over, looked at her beans and cut back the heat. When in the world is Alora going home?

  “So you’re the dogcatcher?” said Alora, walking into the den.

  “That’s right. That’s right.”

  “I don’t think I ever met a dogcatcher.”

  “Well, it’s a job,” said Lamar, swiping at his nose with the back of his index finger.

  I wish he would take his hat off, thought Mattie. Young men, nowadays. Ball hats. Nobody to teach them anything I guess. Why Paul would of no more wore a hat in the house than he would of. . . wore a snake. I wish Alora would go on home.

  Alora looked over her shoulder. “That sure smells good,” she said.

  “Why don’t you stay and eat a bite?”

  “No. I’m trying to get Finner’s socks sewed up. He wears them work shoes, hard as iron in the back or something, and he wears holes in the heels in no time at all. Mainly his left one for some reason.”

  I wish she would go on home so I could feed this young man his dinner. It’s 11:30 and I want him out of here by one. “You know you can get socks with the heel reinforced. At Sears.”

  “That’s what I’ll do, buy some at Sears. Well, listen, I got to get going. Finner’ll be home in a few minutes and I got to put together a little something for us to eat.”

  Well leave then, thought Mattie.

  Alora placed her hand on the screen-door handle. “Are you from around here?” she asked Lamar.

  “Yeah. I’m from between here and Prosser Hills.”

  “Well, you’re ‘hometown,’ ain’t you?”

  “I reckon I am.”

  “Mattie, you take care now. Don’t overdo after your fall.”

  “I won’t.”

  Alora left.

  “This’ll all be ready in just a minute,” said Mattie. Who was that Wesley? Mattie thought. It had slipped her mind, blurred—was Lamar a brother, uncle? Didn’t the letter say uncle. His brother’s boy. Could be his sister’s boy. Well, Lamar was nice enough looking, if he’d fix himself up a little bit. If he’d just take that hat off. If he wore it to the table she’d take it off his head and hang it up. She couldn’t sit through a meal with a man with a hat on his head. Young people nowadays just didn’t—

  Lamar stood, walked to the rocker and inspected it where it was cut through. “I could fix this for you if you want me to. I got a little shop out behind my house. I could glue this thing, brace and bolt it on the inside here, and it’d be like new.”

  “Well, I don’t know. Bill Yeats does most of my furniture work if I ever have any. Covering stuff and things.”

  “I’ll give you a good deal. I’m thinking about getting into the furniture business full time. Mostly repair and stuff.”

  “Maybe so.” Mattie set pots of food on the table, on coasters, little wood coasters that Elaine had made in Bible school thirty years ago. She went back to the stove and stirred the soup. If Elaine would get married, Mattie thought, she could have some children who could make coasters to replace these, and her grandchildren could make some to replace those—on down the line. And then there was Mattie’s button collection in the big jar, the collection her great-grandmother Ella started, the one Mattie had kept and added to; Elaine would probably end up with it and then if she didn’t have any children, there’d come a time when those buttons wouldn’t get a one added, and they’d end up no telling where, in a shop where not a soul had the slightest idea where those buttons came from, what all they’d seen and lived through, starting out before her great-grandmother, that jar of buttons that she’d played with when she was a little girl, the jar that always had a matchup for somebody’s lost button; there’d be nobody to add the first button—nobody who knew what they were dealing with. Those buttons scattered to the four winds and nobody knowing, caring where they came from. “Come on over and have a seat. Everything’s ready.”

  Lamar walked over. He wore heavy construction shoes, blue jeans, a plaid shirt, and his red “Red Man” cap.

  “Sit right there on the board,” said Mattie. “I don’t want to have to cut you out. I just got to fix the tea. Here, let me hang your hat up.” Mattie grabbed the bill of Lamar’s hat. She remembered that he’d had it on the night before—suddenly realized he might be bald. Together they pulled the hat from his head. A full shock of curly brown hair was freed. “Let me hang this up on the hall rack.”

  For lunch Lamar usually had two wrapped grocery-store ham and cheeses and a Mello Yello; or a Big Mac, fries, Coke, apple turnover, or if he had time, a Personal Pan Pizza at Pizza Hut. And at night at home alone he usually had crackers, Vienna sausages or sardines, a small can of peaches, and a six-pack of Miller. When he got low on money he cut back on the beer.

  Lamar looked at the food. What a spread. Hot food. Vegetables all over the place. Soup—thick vegetable soup. Three kinds of pickles, chow-chow. Fresh tomatoes. He tried growing three tomato plants once, but they died in spite of the fact he put fertilizer on them every morning at 7:30.

  “Let’s say the blessing,” said Mattie, bowing her head.

  Lamar looked at her.

  “Dear God, bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies.”

  Lamar bowed his head.

  “In Thy precious name. Amen.”

  The phone rang. Mattie answered.

  It was Alora. “Mattie, I’m watching out over there. Finner and me are worried about that dogcatcher. I’ll call back in thirty minutes or so. You don’t never know with all that’s going on these days. Say ‘yes’ or something so he won’t
suspect.”

  “Ah . . . well, yes.”

  “He’s liable to hit you in the head and take all your money.”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Don’t let on. You just can’t tell these days. We’ll keep a watch out. I might send Finner over to sit by your back door.”

  “That’s okay. I don’t think there’s any need—” she looked at Lamar who was holding and looking at his bitten-into-once piece of cornbread, turning it over in his hand while he chewed—“any need to do that.”

  “Don’t let on it was me. And if anything happens, throw something through your kitchen screen or fall out the back door, or scream. We’re going to eat out in the backyard so it won’t be no trouble for us to watch.”

  “Well, okay. Bye-bye.”

  Mattie hung up. That Alora. Sometimes . . . Lamar was helping himself to the peas. She stood at the table. “That was Alora. About one of her children. No better neighbors in the world. Her and Finner Swanson. Finner was a delivery man for Hostess. He’s retired. You might have run into him sometime on your rounds.”

  “No, not any Hostess,” said Lamar, his mouth full.

  “Let’s see.” Mattie looked to the stove to see what else there was to do. “Oh, the tea. I forgot the tea.” She put ice in two glasses, cut a lemon, squeezed and dropped in lemon slices, poured tea, and set the glasses on the table. “Get all the cornbread you want,” she said, sitting down at the table. Lamar took another piece. “And try some of those pickles.”

  Lamar stuck a pickle with his fork.

  Finner, then Alora, started down their back steps. Holding their glasses of iced tea and plates of Stouffer’s Lasagna which Alora had mixed with extra cheddar cheese and hamburger, they kept their eyes on Mattie’s house while they slowly felt their way down the steps with their feet.

  “You got any kinfolks around?” Mattie asked.

  “Oh yeah, couple of uncles and stuff. And I got a nephew in the YMRC for stealing a car. Except I ain’t but eight years older than him.”

  “Is that right? His mama and daddy must be pretty upset.”

  “Naw, they ain’t upset.”

  “Where do they live?”

  “Can you pass me just a little more of that?”

  Mattie passed the potato salad.

  “They’re in—well, I don’t really know where his mama is. She started out illegitimate. At least that’s what she used to say. Wilma Turner was her name. Wesley’s daddy is my brother, Milton, and he lives in Phoenix.” Lamar took a swallow of tea.

  Mattie waited for him to continue. “Arizona,” she said.

  “Yeah, Arizona.”

  “Did they just leave him?”

  “Well, they got married when they were eighteen—in Dillon, South Carolina, and stayed there. Wilma stole some money from this restuarant where she was a waitress so they could get married and then they changed their names so it turned out they didn’t exist or something.”

  “And so he was born down there?”

  There was a knock at the back door. It was Finner. “Mattie,” he called through the screen.

  Mattie got up.

  “Alora sent me over for a cup of sugar. You doing all right?”

  “I’m doing fine.”

  “Here’s a cup.”

  Mattie poured Finner a cup of sugar and handed it out the back door. She sat back down at the table. “So he got born down there?”

  “It was pretty much a mix-up. This is sure good food.”

  “Thank you. What got mixed up?”

  “Milton came home from South Carolina with this baby, Wesley, and put him in the Berry Hill Orphanage and didn’t tell anybody—gave him his mama’s last name which didn’t exist because of the name mix-up or something, and Wesley didn’t get his real name back until they put him in the YMRC. But see, the problem was Milton put my name on some form, told them he was Wesley’s uncle, then moved to Phoenix. Mama and Daddy wouldn’t ever believe none of it ’cause they never saw Wesley in the first place and I’m the one that would get these official letters and stuff from the orphanage.”

  “Here, let me get you a little more tea. Well, I declare, idn’t that something. Do you ever go see him?”

  “Yeah, I go see him every once in a while. He writes me letters. He left the orphanage and stole this car and they put him in the YMRC.”

  Mattie tried to visualize Wesley in the Young Men’s Rehabilitation Center.

  III

  When Lamar left, he took the rocker with him. He told Mattie he’d bring it back Saturday morning. Late morning, he was thinking, so maybe he could eat lunch with her.

  “That’ll be fine,” said Mattie. “You come about noon and I’ll have you a bite to eat,” she said, following Lamar out into the yard.

  Back inside, she turned on “All My Children,” and walked over to the kitchen sink. It just went to show you—this Wesley business—that we are closer to real crime than we think. It’s in our families nowadays, all around us with the way people are forgetting God. Mattie watched and listened to the program as she cleaned her dishes—she would try both at the same time for a while. Sometimes the program was a little embarrassing, but it was the real world. She remembered how the world used to be so much less complicated. There was your family, there were friends, and there were criminals. They never got mixed together. Now you just never knew. But she wasn’t going to go crazy over it all like Alora, Alora and Finner—Finner sleeping with a gun under his pillow.

  After the program, Mattie decided it was time to call her sister Pearl, and tell her about falling through the chair. Pearl was two years older than Mattie and had stopped going to Listre Baptist the month the church carpeted the backs of the pews, hung microphones over the choir, and started busing. She said it was all a waste of money, and tacky to boot.

  Pearl laughed about the rocking chair, and said it was a wonder Mattie hadn’t broke a bone.

  They talked for twenty minutes. When Mattie was about to hang up, Pearl asked her if she was still planning to go with her up to the funeral home so they could each pick out a casket. With all the excitement Mattie had forgotten.

  “Lord, I forgot. I guess it’s really not such a bad idea, but . . .”

  “I’ll come on by. I told them we’d be there at four. It’ll be good to get it all off your mind.”

  “I ain’t had it on my mind.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t be a bad idea. They’re real good about it. Hanna Brown went, and Mr. Crosley, you know, works up there, was real nice. They serve you coffee and everything. Chocolate cake. You can at least see what they got even if you don’t pick out one right yet.”

  “Well . . . What are you going to wear?”

  “I thought I’d dress up.”

  “Come on by. I’ll see what I can find to wear.” Mattie decided not to take a bath. Instead she’d apply some fresh underarm deodorant. She used baking soda, with just enough water to make a little paste.

  Pearl opened the back screen and came in. She favored Mattie, but was older, shorter, and wider than Mattie. She looked like an old, wise, white-haired Indian chief, solid, shaped like a square with far-apart legs which seemed to start toward each other just above the ankles. She wore a plain print dress, pearls, and held her black pocketbook under her arm. When she walked she swayed far to the right, then far to the left. She wouldn’t use a cane. Mattie hoped she’d start using one before she just toppled over on her side one day.

  Pearl sat down on the couch, sighed, snapped open her purse, pulled out a small tin of snuff. She opened the tin, pinched some snuff between her fingers, and placed it inside her lower lip. She replaced the tin top, put the tin back in her purse, and fished around in there until she found her clean McCormick dill-seed jar and set it on the couch beside her. She snapped her purse back shut. “Well, show me how you fell through the rocking chair.”

  Mattie told Pearl all about what happened; she left out “All My Children.” Pearl knew she watched it and Mattie kne
w Pearl knew, but it was not discussed just as Pearl’s snuff was not discussed.

  In telling the story, Mattie acted out her movements back from the television. Pearl started laughing. Mattie kept telling. Pearl laughed louder. Mattie talked louder and got to laughing herself. They were both laughing—hard. Pearl pulled a Kleenex from her purse.

  Mattie told about how she heard the clock strike one, one-thirty, two, two-thirty, and on and on; how she watched all those programs; how she saw the dogcatcher through the closed storm door, standing there on the front porch waiting for her to come. How he came in the back door, washed her dishes directly, and finally sawed her out of her chair.

  “I don’t think I’ve heard of such a thing,” said Pearl, “since Alfred or some of them tied little Durk’s foot to the fence that time.”

  “I remember that,” said Mattie. She laughed. “Poor little Durk. They picked on him all the time.”

  Pearl capped her dill-seed jar and put it inside her pocketbook. “Well I guess we ought to get started. I told them four. I need to go to the bathroom before we leave.” Pearl stood and walked to the bathroom. When she returned, she asked Mattie, “How come your toilet seat so sticky?”

  “I don’t know unless I . . .”

  “I wiped it off. It was just as sticky as I don’t know what.”

  “Well, I . . . Lord, I guess I washed it with Listerine.”

  “Listerine!”

  “About a month ago I used Listerine instead of alcohol—got them confused—and so I guess I did it again. I declare.”

  They laughed.

  “Wait’ll I tell Alora,” said Pearl.

  “Don’t tell Alora; it’ll get to Myrtle and then everybody in the Sunday school will know; then everybody in the church will know. I know they’ll all find out about the chair. And I hadn’t planned to tell anybody but you.”

  “Well, let’s go. I’ll drive,” said Pearl. “We’ll get up there about ten minutes early. Mr. Crosley’ll meet us. He knows we’re coming.”

  “Don’t get me tickled.”

  “I won’t. Don’t you get me tickled.”

  “I’m plenty sore,” said Mattie as they got into the car.