“He split about six years ago.”
“Split? . . . Split what? Wood?”
“Split. Hauled ass. Left.”
What a foul mouth, thought Mattie. I thought she looked a little washed out.
“Oh, I see,” said Finner. I wish Alora could have heard that, he thought.
“I got four brothers and sisters,” said Patricia, “and they drive mama crazy.”
“That’s what I mean,” said Elaine. “They get put in that position. You don’t see men staying home with kids, going crazy.”
“Men have to work,” said Wesley. “Somebody does. Anyway, it takes a sorry man to do woman’s work.”
“Well,” said Elaine. “Well. Well. This is an old, tiresome argument.” Her therapist had warned her about getting hooked into arguments with immature people. This was a good test. The problem was seeing it before you got involved. She stabbed one, then another butterbean, and with her teeth pulled them off her fork onto her tongue, let them rest there for a few seconds before chewing them lightly. They were good, tasty butterbeans. The older she got, the more she wished she could cook like her mother.
“This is good, Mrs. Rigsbee,” said Lamar.
“She is a good cook,” said Wesley to Patricia. “She brought me that cake and pie I told you about.”
“When?” said Elaine.
“The other day,” said Wesley.
“Where?”
Wesley looked at Mattie who was reaching for the bowl of butterbeans, not answering.
“Who needs some more butterbeans?” said Mattie, standing. “We got plenty.”
“Where did you meet?” asked Elaine.
“Wesley was out at the YMRC until he got out on leave,” said Mattie. “When? Last day or two?” she asked Wesley.
“Yesterday,” said Wesley. He smiled at Lamar. “I’ll take some more of that over there please.”
I wish we could do something about those teeth, thought Mattie.
VIII
Saturday night Patricia drove Wesley to the 7-Eleven at Creek Junction, where he was supposed to meet Blake Bumgartner. Wesley held three pieces of pound cake wrapped separately: one for him, one for Patricia, and one for Blake. But Blake didn’t show up.
They sat in Patricia’s car around back, where they were supposed to meet him. “We’ll wait another fifteen minutes,” said Wesley. “He screwed it all up somehow.”
“What are you going to do if he don’t show up?” asked Patricia.
“Eat the cake.”
“I mean after that. I got to go home.”
“Hell, I don’t know. Go to Lamar’s, I reckon. I don’t know.” Wesley thought about Mattie placing bowls of good hot food on the table in front of him. “Maybe I can go to Mrs. Rigsbee’s.” He envisioned the extra room she probably had—a soft warm room with a soft bed and a big fluffy pillow and big warm chairs he could sit in and watch stuff on a little portable TV that might be in there. “I’ll go to her house. She came to see me first. She might be my grandma.” Wesley looked at Patricia. “Did you know that?”
“No, I didn’t.”
They waited a while longer, but Blake didn’t come.
“Take me to Mrs. Rigsbee’s,” said Wesley. “And we might as well go ahead and eat this piece of cake, too. Hell, I’m glad he didn’t come.”
When Wesley opened the car door and started up the walk to Mattie Rigsbee’s brick ranch he felt relieved to be away from Patricia. She looked all right, but she had begun to get on his nerves. She didn’t talk much and she had to check in at home about every two hours.
It was 9:30. There was a light on in the living room and somebody was playing the piano. What kind of music was that? One of them hymns. When he got to the door he heard Mattie singing.
Yes, we’ll gather at the river,
The beautiful, the beautiful river;
Gather with the saints at the river
That flows by the throne of God.
Mattie heard the knock. Who in the world? At this time of night. Saturday night. Who could it be? She turned on the porch light at the door, and looked out through the glass. Well, my goodness. Wesley. “Come in,” she said, opening the door.
Wesley stepped in and looked around.
“What you got there?” said Mattie, looking at the paper bag.
“Few clothes.”
“Oh? . . . Well, have a seat. You just in the neighborhood?”
“Yeah. Have you got a extra room?” he said, sitting down in Mattie’s swan-neck rocker.
“Well . . .”
Wesley’s hands were on the chair arms. He put them in his lap and then back on the chair arms. “I need a place to sleep for one night before I go see this buddy of mine. Lamar’s got company, and I thought maybe . . .”
“Yes, well, yes. I suppose you can stay in Robert’s room.” Mattie sat down on the couch. “When is your leave over?”
“I got about nine more days.”
“You need to take a bath or anything?”
“You got a bathtub?”
“Shower or bath.”
“I ain’t ever had a bath.”
“Never had a bath?”
“I always had showers.” Wesley thought about the commercial he’d seen on TV where a woman had soap bubbles up to her neck. “You got any of them soap bubbles?”
“No, no soap bubbles. But listen, let me tell you something: I got to get up and go to church tomorrow morning and if you want to stay here then you’re going to have to go to church too. I can’t just leave you here by yourself.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m inviting you to go to church with me and if you’re going to stay here and use my bathtub . . . Have you ever been to church?”
“I been by them, seen them on TV, slept in one one time, but I ain’t never been in one when they were doing the thing.”
Mattie saw before her a dry, dying plant which needed water up through the roots—a pale boy with rotten teeth who needed the cool nourishing water of hymns sung to God, of kind people speaking to him, asking him how things were going, the cool water of clean people, clean children, of old people being held by the arm and helped up a flight of stairs, old people who looked with thanks up into the eyes of their helpers, of young and old people sitting together for one purpose: to worship their Maker, to worship Jesus, to do all that together and to care for each other and to read and sing and talk together about God and Jesus and the Bible. That’s what this young man needed. That would bring color to his cheeks, a robustness to his bearing. That would do it. That could give him some life and spirit. He seemed smart enough. And, since he hadn’t been to church, then he was lost; this could be his first step on the road to salvation.
“Well, I want you to go with me in the morning. We’ll get up and I’ll fix you a little breakfast, get dinner started, then we’ll go to Sunday school. You can go in the Young People’s Department or you can go in with me. Then we’ll go to church. You can sit with me. Then we’ll come on back and have some pork chops and vegetables and so forth and so on.”
Wesley looked around. “Okay. I’ll go.”
“Good. Let me get out a clean washrag and towel for you and you can take a bath. It’s about my bedtime.”
Mattie walked down the hallway and into the bathroom.
Wesley looked around for something to steal.
Mattie came back in a few minutes. “The bathroom’s ready if you want to go ahead. Come on and I’ll show you where you can sleep.”
Wesley followed Mattie into Robert’s room. He looked around—twin beds, a desk, a chest of drawers. He’d check out the drawers to the desk and chest. Might be something in there worth a few bucks. Something she wouldn’t miss. If he found a box of silver somewhere, he’d take about one-third of it. She wouldn’t miss part of it maybe.
“I got a few things to do in the kitchen,” said Mattie. “You go ahead and take a bath. The bathroom’s right back there in the hall. Do you have any pajamas?”
&n
bsp; “No, I don’t wear them.”
“Well, I’ll get you out a pair of Robert’s. Use that bed over there and I’ll wake you up in the morning about seven. How do you like your eggs?”
“I don’t care. Fresh.”
“They’ll be fresh enough. How about scrambled?”
“That’ll be okay.”
“Well, good night. Make yourself at home.”
Mattie left. Wesley opened a cigar box on the dresser. Inside were small medals and pins, papers. He read from the medals: Listre Elementary Declamation 1954-55; RA; State NFSM. He wondered if they could be melted down. Nobody would want them like they were. Why hadn’t that guy, Robert, melted them down? Two pocket-knives, a Kennedy half-dollar key ring: hell, he could use that—when he got some keys. He pocketed the key ring, one of the knives. What was in the little cloth bag? Marbles. The papers—Grade 3, Citizenship Certificate. Math Certificate. Sunday School Attendance. English Certificate, Grade 6. Damn, this guy must have been a genius. Why was he saving all this stuff? Or maybe she was saving it. Maybe it was how she remembered him—came in and looked through it once in a while.
Wesley put his hand in his pocket, held the key ring and the pocketknife there. She would miss them. He ought to be different with her; she was probably his grandma. She even favored him a little bit, around the eyes. He could tell.
He put the knife and key ring back and closed the box. He’d keep the pen and pencil he’d gotten from the living room, though. People were always losing pens and pencils one way or another.
In the kitchen, Mattie got out the pots and pans she would need in the morning. And the big frying pan. Well, wasn’t this a good chance. That boy needed a bath. He smelled a little bit. Which is what you’d expect of one of the least of these my brethren. If he was all cleaned up she wouldn’t need to do anything for him. He needed to go back to the RC after his leave as a better young man inside and outside—better than he was before.
The phone rang. Who in the world could that be? It was ten o’clock.
“Hello?”
“Mother, you gone to bed?” It was Robert.
“No, I’m just getting things ready for in the morning.”
“Well, listen. Would it be all right if I brought somebody by for you to meet tomorrow?”
“A woman?”
“Yes. Somebody I’ve dated a couple of times and I thought maybe—”
“Why yes, of course. Bring her to dinner. What’s her name?”
“Laurie. Laurie Thomas.”
“That’d be fine. Somebody else might be here, too. A visitor. How old is Laurie?”
“How old is she?”
“I just wondered.”
“She’s thirty-five or so. Why do you always have to ask me that?”
“I just wondered.” Three, four, or five years to have children, thought Mattie. Well, that’s good. “Bring her on. Can y’all be here by 12:30?”
“Oh yeah. We’ll see you then.”
“Okay. Bye-bye.”
Well, she’d get another two pork chops out of the freezer. She had plenty. This would be nice. A woman. Robert bringing home a woman. It would be all right for Wesley to be there. She would feed them all. They would all together enjoy her food. She could find out about the young woman. But now, after this long, she figured just about anybody would be okay for Robert, even if she didn’t approve entirely. Wesley would be clean and dressed up a little bit. Maybe if she got him up in time, she could cut his hair, before she took him to church.
Wesley stood nude in the bathroom, his clothes piled on the commode top. The water steamed as it poured into the tub. No bubble stuff. Maybe if he poured in some of that shampoo. He removed the cap from the plastic bottle, squeezed some into the water. It didn’t do much. He squeezed some more. And more. There. That’s the way it was supposed to do. It was making suds. He bent over and put his hand in the water. Just right. Then it wasn’t filling up anymore. The water was going out that little hole. He picked up a small cake of soap, felt until he found the hole, and jammed in the soap. He would fill the tub right up to the brim. God, look at those suds. He wished he had a cold beer. He stepped to the mirror and looked at himself. He opened the medicine cabinet. Nothing much in there. Band-Aids, Vicks VapoRub, and a tube of something. Shit, he could sneak out after she went to bed and walk down to the intersection where those stores were. There was a Pizza Inn and some other stores down there. He closed the medicine cabinet door. He’d buy a couple of beers. Hell, six. And some cigarettes. He needed a cigarette. Now that he was settled in for the night he could do a little celebrating. The water suddenly overflowed and ran across the floor around his feet.
“Shit.” He took a long stride toward the faucet, bent and turned it off, stuck his hand into the water. Just right.
He stepped into the tub. With hands on both sides of the tub, elbows extended, he sat down in the warm water. The tub sloshed over again. Suds and water washed down onto the floor; “Wups,” he said, glancing at the floor; then, “Goddamn, that feels good,” as he looked up to the ceiling, and slid downward—pushing out another wave of water and suds—so that only his head and knees were above water.
Mattie stood just outside the bathroom door on the soaking wet hall rug; she heard the water splash over onto the floor; she heard Wesley talking to himself.
“Young man, there will be no cussing in this house,” she said.
“I ain’t in the house, I’m in the tub.”
“Yes you are too in this house and what in the world have you done? Overflowed the tub?”
“Yeah, a little bit got on the floor. I didn’t mean to.”
Lord have mercy, thought Mattie. I’ve overdone it. I’ll have to clean up and I don’t know what all. But. But it’s for only one night. And this boy is needy. That’s what he is: needy. If anybody is needy it’s this boy. He would benefit. He would be nourished in body and spirit. The floor would dry up. “Listen,” she said to Wesley. “I used to do a little barbering. How ’bout if I give you a haircut in the morning?”
“A haircut? Okay.” Damn. Wesley wanted a diamond, too, to put in his left ear, but he figured he’d better not mention that to Mattie. Maybe she had an old diamond ring in her bedroom somewhere. He’d have to figure out a time to get in there. When she was cooking breakfast. God, this bath felt good. Damn thing made him light as hell, made his body light, lifted him up. He pushed his pelvis upward. There it was—a little wharf-rat head, like a little live being with him in the tub. The suds had about disappeared and the water had turned a light gray.
I won’t worry about the water, thought Mattie, backing off from the door. It’ll dry up. I won’t worry about it. I’ll check his room one more time. She went into the room. I wonder if he has any clean underwear. I’ll check in the paper bag, Food Lion bag. They’re stronger than those Piggly Wigglys, she thought. She slowly unrolled the bag. Yep, there on top was a pair of white jockey shorts just like Robert wore. And there was a pair of right nice khaki pants. And there . . . what was that? Wasn’t that her . . . it was. Her gold pen and pencil set from the living room. He’d stolen them! She reached in and got them. Well, of all things! And she was being so good to him. And he was stealing from her. How could he? That young whippersnapper. She would have to jerk a knot in his neck. She’d have to shake him up. She’d walk in on him in the bathtub. Tell him a thing or two. She wouldn’t embarrass him—his privates would be under water. She’d scare him. By golly, she wasn’t going to roll over and play dead to a young man who was stealing off her under her very nose.
Wesley was slowly pushing his hips upward again.
Mattie marched toward the bathroom door. The wetness in the rug was spreading. Lord, that would be days drying up. She burst into the bathroom.
Wesley bolted upright; his mouth dropped open.” What the hell you want?”
Mattie stopped suddenly. But her feet kept going on the wet floor. Catching the sink with one hand, holding the pen and pencil over her head with t
he other, she slid down onto the floor.
“What the hell?” said Wesley. “You scared the shit out of me! You hurt?”
They stared at each other—Mattie sitting on the floor, Wesley in the tub.
“I don’t think so.” Mattie held up the pen and pencil. “Look at that. You stole my gold pen and pencil from the drawer in the living room. The very idea!”
“I didn’t steal them. I . . . You all right? Damn, you looked like you was sliding into second base.” Wesley threw back his head and laughed. “You ’bout busted your butt is what you did.”
“Well, what did you do, if you didn’t steal them?” Mattie turned over onto her hands and knees, and then holding onto the sink with one hand, pulled up slowly from the wet floor. Standing, she held out the pen and pencil. “These.”
“I just borrowed them to write a letter to my daddy before I left. Tell him where I was going. You all right?”
“Yes, I’m all right. You had the pen and the pencil. You didn’t need the pen and the pencil.”
“I thought one might give out. You shouldn’t be standing there watching me like this.”
“I should be if you stole my gold pen and pencil.”
“No you shouldn’t either. I didn’t steal them.”
Mattie shifted her weight. She wasn’t hurt one bit—didn’t even land hard. Maybe he was telling the truth. He did write letters. She’d seen the one to Lamar. “Listen, you mop up this floor when you get finished. There’s a mop in the kitchen pantry.”
“I can do that. I didn’t know the thing was going to run over. Listen, you shouldn’t be looking at me.”
“Well, when you get through and get your clothes on you mop up the floor.” Mattie slowly backed out of the door and closed it. Well, maybe he was telling the truth. Even if he wasn’t, she still had her obligations toward him. He was one of the least of these my brethren whether he stole or not. In fact, she thought, if he was a thief then he was even more one of the least of these. “It’s about time for you to get out, ain’t it.”
She heard a faucet turn on. “Soon’s I warm it up a little. I’ll be out in a minute. You go ahead to bed. I’ll be out in a minute.”
Walking Across Egypt Page 10