Lamar unhooked the screen, stepped back.
Wesley came in. “Boy I’m glad to get out of that place. No way they’ll ever catch me, man. Ever.”
“When they find out you’re gone they’ll come here.”
“I’ll be gone. They’ll find out I’m gone at breakfast. I’ll be out of here by then.” Wesley looked around. “Listen, if you’re so damned scared just loan me thirty dollars and take me down to the Landmark Motel.”
“I ain’t got thirty dollars.” Lamar looked through a window. “Don’t they do some kind of midnight check?”
“Hell, no. It ain’t prison, it’s a goddamned correction center.”
“Well, you sure as hell can’t just walk out. How’d you get out?”
“Secret.”
“Good. Listen, I can’t keep you here.”
“Well, I got to sleep somewhere. Goddamn, Lamar, I’m family, man. Shit. Where does that old woman live?”
“What old woman?”
“The one might be my grandma—with the cake and stuff.”
“Oh, Mrs. Rigsbee. She lives in Listre. Why?”
Wesley leaned against the sink, eyed the dirty dishes. “I told Blake I’d have some of the best cake he ever eat—from my grandma. Man, that was the best cake I ever eat.”
“Don’t get any ideas about stealing cake, Wesley.”
“I ain’t. I ain’t.” Wesley sat down in a chair on several newspapers.
Lamar walked over and sat on the couch. “Yeah, she can flat cook, all right. I’m supposed to take her a well-house roof tomorrow.”
“Can you get me a big hunk of that cake?”
“Hell no, I can’t do that. Listen, you got to get out of here.”
“Where does she keep her cake?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Why? Wesley, don’t go steal none of her cake. Listen, ah, it’s warm outside. I’ll pull the truck out behind the shop and you can take my sleeping bag and sleep in the truck bed. If the law comes I’ll turn on the light and them speakers out there and you sneak off or something.”
“Okay. Hell, I can do that. But I could just sleep on the couch it seems like to me,” said Wesley.
Lamar stood. “No way. You sleep in the truck. I’ll get the sleeping bag. If they catch you, you tell them you got it out of the truck and never saw me. Here—bug spray.”
“Where’s my belt and that bracelet and stuff?”
“I’ll get it.” Lamar went to his bedroom and came back with a manila envelope and a paper sack. Inside the envelope was Wesley’s thick leather belt with “Wesley” carved across the back, an Indian-made silver ring and bracelet with light blue settings, and a leather necklace. In the sack were a pair of trousers and two T-shirts.
While Lamar was moving the truck, Wesley picked up the telephone and dialed. “Patricia? This is Wesley . . . Wesley . . . Yeah, I busted out. Me and Blake planned it and he’ll be out tomorrow night . . . I’m sorry, I thought you’d be up. Well listen, why don’t you come over to Lamar’s in the morning? . . . Yeah, the trailer. We’ll go on a picnic or something . . . Okay, good night . . . Moochie moo you, too.”
“Moochie moo?” Lamar stepped inside.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Was that Patricia?”
“Yeah. She might come over tomorrow.”
“Y’all are going somewhere, ain’t you?”
“Picnic or something.”
Wesley slept behind Lamar’s shop in the truck bed. Saturday morning after helping Lamar load the well top into the truck bed he asked if he could see inside Lamar’s shop for a few minutes. Lamar let him in. Wesley stood in the doorway. Across the back wall hung tools—several makes of the same tool were hung side by side in descending sizes. There were five hammers, four wood saws, three hacksaws, six paint brushes, adjustable wrenches, chisels. A long table held a plane, other tools, small jars and cigar boxes of screws, nuts, bolts, and nails. Along one side wall was a table with a lathe, a clamp, electric saw, and electric file.
“Why don’t you keep your trailer this neat?” said Wesley. “Them dishes stunk.”
“Don’t worry about it. Listen, I got to get going.”
“Well,” said Wesley, backing out of the door. “It’s a nice one.”
“Yeah, I got a lot of money in it,” said Lamar.
As Lamar was driving away, Patricia pulled up in her Camaro.
Wesley got in beside her. “Follow Lamar, but stay way back so he don’t see you.”
As Lamar turned into Mattie’s driveway and drove behind the house, Particia pulled over on the roadside and Wesley got out.
“You stay right here,” he said to Patricia. “I’ll be back inside ten minutes with the best pound cake you ever eat in your life.”
Wesley walked along the road toward Mattie’s house. On the side of the house facing him was the porch. The screen door to the side porch was in the front. While they were out back at the well house he could walk from the road straight across the front yard, up to the porch, into the kitchen, find that pound cake, walk out, and back down to the car. Blake would not believe how good it was—he’d talk about it all the way through South Carolina and into Myrtle Beach, where they were going to get a job on a fishing boat or tourist boat or something. Blake had worked down there before. Warm year round. Lots of honeys.
Wesley walked past the house and saw Lamar’s truck in the backyard. Some man was helping Lamar unload the well top. Perfect. Perfect timing. He turned, walked back a ways, then across the yard and up the four steps to the screen door. He looked around, grabbed the door handle and pulled. It was hooked. What the hell? He rattled the door. Loose. He looked for the hook: there. It was a simple hook, without one of those gadgets. Easy. He pulled a book of matches from his pocket, opened the cover, inserted it down low in the crack of the door, and started sliding it upward.
In the backyard, Lamar and Finner had just finished fitting the well-house top in place and Finner had started painting it.
“Let me run in and check my roast,” said Mattie. “You’re going to be able to stay for a bite to eat, ain’t you, Lamar.”
“Yeah, I am.”
I wish he would say, “Yes ma’am,” thought Mattie. “Finner, why don’t you and Alora eat a bite with us? I got plenty.”
“I think Alora’s going shopping.”
“Well, you can eat with us. Let me go check that roast.”
Wesley had worked the open matchbook cover up to about one inch below the hook. He heard footsteps inside. The house door opened. Wesley instinctively knocked.
Mattie squinted. Who was that? “How do you do?” she said. She walked across the porch. Who was that? “Why you’re the young man from the prison: Wesley. I been thinking about you!”
“I been thinking ’bout you too.” Wesley looked down the road toward Patricia’s car. The sun reflected off the front windshield. The matchbook did not move. It was stuck in the crack. He turned it loose. “What you doing?” he said.
“Fixing my well top. Lamar’s in back. You looking for him?”
“Yeah. Looking for Lamar.”
“Let me unhook this.” Mattie unhooked the screen. The matchbook fell to the floor. “What’s that?”
“Looks like a matchbook.” He bent, picked it up, and handed it to Mattie.
“What are you doing out of the RC?”
“They let me out for a few days—on leave. We get leave every once in a while.”
“Well. That’s good. Good. Come on out back. Lamar will be happy to see you.”
They started through the house.
“Ah, listen, Mrs., ah, I forgot your name.”
Mattie stopped and turned around. They were in the kitchen. “Mrs. Rigsbee.”
“Yeah. Let me run tell my girlfriend . . . ah, she was going to, ah, shop downtown some when I came on looking for Lamar. Let me run tell her I found him. I’ll be right back.”
“Okay, we’ll be in the backyard. You and her can stay for a bite to eat if
you want to. I got plenty: a roast beef. We’re going to eat kind of early.”
“That’ll be fine.” Damn, I could use some roast beef.
Patricia sat with her elbow out of the window. She had been counting the dots under the numbers on the speedometer. She saw Wesley walking toward her rapidly. He came up to the window, rested his hand on the outside rearview mirror. “You want to eat?” he said.
“Eat?”
“Yeah, eat.”
“I thought you were going to get some cake?”
“Eat. Eat food. Roast beef. I ain’t eat in two days.”
“What if they announce that you escaped on TV and radio?”
“They won’t. Not for escaping from the YMRC. Let’s go.” Wesley got in the car. “Drive on up there.”
Lamar waited on the side porch. Finner was in the backyard painting the wood of the well top white. Mattie was in the kitchen.
Lamar walked to the screen door, opened it and stood on the steps waiting for Wesley and Patricia, who were walking up across the yard. When they approached he hissed, “Wesley, what the hell are you doing here?”
“I come to eat.”
“You’re going to get us all in trouble—harboring a criminal or something.”
“He ain’t a criminal,” said Patricia.
“You tell that to the highway patrol.”
The three of them walked into the kitchen where Mattie was peeling potatoes. “I thought I better do a few more potatoes,” she said. “You don’t want to run out of potatoes.”
Wesley looked around for a silver chest.
“You all sit down over there if you will,” said Mattie. “Turn on that TV.” She turned around, saw Patricia in the doorway. Her knife stopped on a potato. “Oh, good morning. You must be Wesley’s . . . girlfriend?” All that makeup, thought Mattie.
“Yes, ma’am, I am.” Patricia crossed her arms, leaned against the door frame between the porch and kitchen.
Lamar and Wesley walked over and sat down in the den.
Jesus wouldn’t have a girlfriend, Mattie thought. Or maybe he would. Why wouldn’t he? He was a normal human being at the same time he was God. Mary Magdalene, wadn’t it. Maybe. She’d never got that straight.
“Need some help?” asked Patricia.
“Oh, no. I can get it all . . . Well, you might put ice in those glasses. It’s in the freezer. The lemon’s right over there . . . Put in a lot of ice. I like a lot of ice in my tea.”
Wesley turned on the TV. He and Lamar sat on the couch.
Elaine drove up in the backyard.
Finner was still painting the well top.
Back inside, Wesley picked up a pair of tweezers from the end table. “Lamar,” he said.
Lamar looked.
Wesley pretended to pluck his eyelashes with the tweezers. “’Member when I did that?”
“Yeah, I remember. I remember when you stuffed Cheerios up your nose and sneezed them all over the place, too.”
“Patricia, did you hear that?” said Wesley.
“What?”
Elaine walked in through the back door. First, she saw a teenager with heavy eyeshadow pouring tea, a job always reserved for her when she was home. Then she saw Lamar and Wesley. “Hello,” she said, looking at Wesley.
Wesley, looking at Elaine, said to Patricia: “About how I stuffed Cheerios up my nose and then sneezed them all over the place.”
“I beg your pardon?” said Elaine.
“I was talking to Patricia.”
“Oh, of course.”
Mattie, wiping her hands on her apron, met Elaine at the end of the counter separating the kitchen and dining room. They stood face to face, Elaine trying to move on into the kitchen away from Wesley and Lamar in the den.
“Let me introduce everybody,” said Mattie.
“Could we turn down the TV?” asked Elaine.
Mattie stepped to the TV and turned it down. “This is Lamar, the dogcatcher, and his nephew Wesley, and over here, Patricia. You heard me talk about the dogcatcher.”
“He was here when I was, Saturday.”
“That’s right. He got me out of the chair, you know. Y’all, this is Elaine, my daughter.”
Wesley, picking his nose, looked back at the television. Elaine looked exactly like one of the women that came to the YMRC and asked thousands and thousands of questions which left him feeling like somebody had grabbed his gonads, gently swung them out and looked all around behind them. He wished Elaine would go on into the living room. Or back where she came from.
“I think we might need the leaf in the table,” said Mattie.
“I’m not sure I can stay,” said Elaine.
“Why not?”
“Well, I . . .”
“I got plenty—a whole roast beef; and I just peeled some extra potatoes. And a whole cabbage, plus a whole new pound cake on the back porch.”
“Let me see the pound cake,” said Elaine.
“What?”
“Let me see the pound cake.” Elaine nudged Mattie toward the back porch.
“What is it?” asked Mattie, on the back porch.
“Who are all these people?”
“They’re people.”
“They look like riffraff.”
“Riffraff?”
“They look like riffraff.”
“Lamar is a nice-looking boy—if he’d remember to take off his hat in the house.”
“That hat looks like it went through the Civil War. And what about his friend?”
“Wesley, his nephew.”
“He doesn’t look like a ‘nice boy.’”
“He’s not. He’s one of the least of these my brethren.”
“He’s what?”
“You know, from the Bible, one of the least of these my brethren. Like Jesus said. He’s had a hard life.”
“Mother, are you feeling okay?”
“I’m just feeding him. I ain’t adopting him.”
“Mother, these people—”
“I got to get to the meal.” Mattie went back inside. Elaine stood for a moment, then walked to the screen door of the porch. She looked through the screen, studied how it matted the world outside, how if she got close to it, it blurred. She will never die, she thought. She’ll always have a meal going which will not turn her loose.
Mattie came back to the door. “Come in here and help me with this table leaf. We need it in.”
Around the table sat Elaine, Wesley, Patricia, Lamar, and Finner. Mattie’s chair was empty because she was still tending to the stove and putting food on the table. Elaine was talking to Finner—asking him about Alora, the children and grandchildren. Elaine had always disliked Finner, but here, at this table, with these other people, she suddenly found him quite attractive, likable.
“The biscuits will be just another minute,” said Mattie, closing the stove.
“Why don’t you sit down and eat,” said Elaine. “I can tend to the biscuits.”
“Let’s say the blessing,” said Mattie, “so y’all can go ahead and get started. Wesley, say the blessing, son.”
“Do what?”
“Say the blessing.” Mattie wanted to see if he knew a blessing to say.
Wesley eyed Lamar, who bowed his head and closed his eyes. Wesley had heard blessings in farmer movies, and in real life when the church people served watermelon at the orphanage.
“Thank God for this food and us being free and all the other good things in life. Amen.”
“Amen. Y’all go ahead,” said Mattie, still standing, waiting for the biscuits.
“Mother, I think we have enough bread anyway with this cornbread and these rolls.”
“A few biscuits won’t hurt.”
Elaine said to Wesley: “I’ll have some of that; we generally pass things around, from one person to the other.”
“Oh.” Wesley eyed Lamar. Lamar was busy with the creamed potatoes.
“I’m going to go ahead and take them out,” said Mattie. “If you like them rea
l brown, you’re out of luck. Anybody like them real brown?”
“I do,” said Wesley.
“Well, let’s see, why don’t I just. . .” Mattie pulled the pan from the oven, dropped it onto the counter from about two feet up so the biscuits would break from the bottom. Patricia jumped.
“Why don’t I just break off about three and put them back in for Wesley?” She put three biscuits back in the oven.
“Mother. Why don’t you just bring the biscuits over here and sit down and eat?”
Mattie set biscuits on the table, sat down, took a bowl Finner handed her. “Where are you headed today?” she asked Elaine.
“Chapel Hill,” said Elaine. “There’s a conference on women’s issues—women in prison.”
“You’ve got to be one hell of a mean woman to go to prison,” said Wesley, his mouth full of potatoes.
Elaine watched to see where Wesley placed his roll. Ah, on the table near his plate. He hadn’t put his napkin in his lap. He hadn’t known to pass the food. This would be instructive. “Well, I think—”
“Most of the women in prison killed somebody,” said Wesley.
“Well, they end up there many times because of the kind of life forced on them,” said Elaine.
“Stuff ain’t forced on all of them.”
“I’d say a significant number—many are forced to stay in the home.”
“Not all of them are forced.” Wesley looked at the stove. “I bet my biscuits are about ready.”
“Oh, Lord,” said Mattie. She stood, went to the stove, opened the oven door, got out Wesley’s three biscuits, put them on a small dish which she set in front of his plate. Wesley picked one up, took a bite, and placed it on the table next to his roll.
“It’s hard work at home,” said Patricia. “It’s like life in the hard lane. My mama goes crazy sometimes.”
“Where do you live?” asked Mattie.
“Between here and Bristol Lake,” said Patricia.
I’d like to know where those two spent the night, thought Elaine.
Lamar was beginning to worry about the police finding Wesley—somehow tracing him to this house.
“What’s your last name?” Finner asked Patricia.
“Boles.”
“What does your daddy do?”
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