The Beans of Egypt, Maine

by Carolyn Chute

  Buzzy Atkinson stirs his coffee.

  “You must have a wonderful relationship,” Marie says softly, cutting into the pie. The steam explodes from it, fogs her glasses. She wipes them on the sleeve of her white shirt. She says, “You must be very close.”

  Buzzy says, “Ayuh.” He sips his coffee. A quiet flutter of the big lips . . . nothing like Rubie Bean’s evil snorts.

  She lowers a piece of pie onto a large blue-print plate with mincemeat and crust sprawled to the very edges. The steam roils up and is divided into two steams by Buzzy’s horn of gray hair. He wriggles his gloved fingers. Moans.

  She thrusts a tarnished silver fork at him . . . wild-rose pattern . . . He opens his gloved hand for it.

  “Take off your gloves,” she says.

  He looks around. Panicked.

  She brings herself a tiny wedge of pie and sits.

  “Do you know my ex-husband?” she asks, her blue eyes hammering his gloves.

  “Heard of him,” Buzzy Atkinson says. He has a voice as soft as her own, the two soft voices meeting together over the table like the two steams from the two pieces of pie, entwining.

  He paws violently at his ribs. So sweet a face, so nervous a heart.

  “Thought you might,” Marie chuckles. “Well, he’s a no-good bastard.”

  Buzzy puts his gloved hands together to wring them a time or two, lowers his enormous lips to his cup. The lips flutter over the cup like the lips of a gentle cow.

  “He’s livin’ with a young girl now, up off Seavy Road . . . You heard about that?”

  “A little,” he says softly. His green eyes draw the kitchen into them. She can see little kitchens on each of his eyes, green kitchens with dewy refrigerators, mossy stoves.

  “And of course the girl is in the family way already.” Marie sniffs, raises a fork of mincemeat to her open teeth. “This mincemeat is from a deer Rubie caught seven years ago . . . Don’t that man love to kill.”

  The mincemeat in Buzzy’s mouth tosses over his tongue, crashes upon the walls of his enormous cheeks. He moans.

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Atkinson . . . The seal was good. I used all brand-new jars that year.” She isn’t smiling. She almost never smiles. She pats his gloved hand. “Mr. Atkinson! Take them gloves off, heavens to Betsy!”

  He looks at his gloves.

  She says, “Good riddance to bad rubbish, right? Let him go an’ make an ass of hisself. Right?”

  His green eyes show two Maries melting, soft as squash, Marie with her mouth ajar.

  “Ayuh,” says Buzzy.

  Marie says, “I tell you I couldn’t live no longer with his rages. He would get ugly over the teensiest things. You know Bernie Merrill?”

  “I don’t think so,” says Buzzy.

  “Well, tell me what you think of this, if this is something you could live with. This happened when the kids was small. In fact, I don’t think Stephen was born yet. Well . . . Bernie . . . Bernie Merrill . . . I bet you do know him . . . He was comin’ up through the village in an empty trailer rig . . . runnin’ chips for Dunlap . . . You know Jimmy Dunlap, dontcha?”

  “No,” says Buzzy. He moans.

  “Well . . . anyways . . . we’re in Rubie’s old beast . . . the Ford . . . his loggin’ rig . . . You seen it, ain’t you? It’s red . . . the fenders all stove up from Rubie goin’ out each mornin’ and punchin’ it with his fist first thing. You know the truck I mean?”

  Buzzy slumps. “Ayuh.”

  “We were goin’ up ta Pip’s . . . I think Rubie was gonna drop us off at Pip’s that day . . . an’ Bernie comes along an’ passes us on the straight-away, you know. And our mirrors touch.” She squints. “Bernie taps his horn . . . you know? Friendly-ish. And guess what? Rubie rams the gas!! Imagine that! I say, ‘Rubie, he was just bein’ friendly; he didn’t mean to hit your ol’ mirror.’ Rubie’s face ain’t got a sprig of color.”

  Buzzy’s working the fork quite smoothly with his gloves. Marie watches the gloves.

  “After Bernie gets clear of us, he . . . Bernie . . . steps on it. He’s got a newer rig . . . a lot more horsepower, leaves us in the dust. Rubie practically stands on the throttle . . . Both feet. I says, ‘Reuben, the man was just bein’ friendly. He don’t mean for you to act like a baby.’

  “You won’t believe this, Mr. Atkinson, but my husband was so pissed off he was droolin’. Spit springin’ from his mouth like a dog. Spit foamin’ off his mustache. Honest. I swear on ten Bibles. Christopher was cryin’. And I’m screamin’ at Rubie, ‘You’re gonna kill us all!’

  “Well, I couldn’t believe it . . . The old beast catches up with Bernie’s rig . . . Maybe Bernie let him. Bernie’s just as crazy as Rubie, anyways. Are you sure you wouldn’t know Bernie if you saw him? Ol’ Duck Eyes, I always call him . . . and he’s got a nose out ta here.”

  “No,” says Buzzy. “Can’t place him.” Buzzy’s plate is almost clean. He leans down and scratches his shin.

  Marie studies Buzzy: his neck with the puckered arteries. The smell of auto parts, black and thickened by cold, seems to churn out not only from the gloves but from his open collar, his dirty T-shirt.

  “Well,” sighs Marie, hardly touching her pie. “The two trucks are side by side . . . really honkin’ . . . and there’s a hill, a curvy hill . . . Can you believe that? And from my window, I look over at Bernie. He’s lookin’ in at us. So of course, he sees Rubie droolin’. And you know what I felt like, Mr. Atkinson?”

  “No,” says Buzzy, setting down his fork.

  Marie shakes her head. “It weren’t fear. It was shame! I was embarrassed to have that fella see my husband droolin’ like a Christly hound.” She sniffs.

  There’s a thump on the glassed-in porch and Marie howls, “ARTIE! IF YOU ATE THAT WHOLE PIE, YOU’RE GROUNDED FOR A YEAR! AND NO MOTORCYCLE!”

  She narrows her eyes on Buzzy, who’s finishing his coffee. “More coffee?”

  He shakes his head.

  “Well,” she says, “Bernie Merrill . . . he lets up . . . slides back . . . prob’ly took pity on me and the kids. When we get to East Egypt, Rubie pulls over, goes into the store for somethin’ . . . and you know? . . . he walks into that store like nuthin’ happened. His color come back . . . His drool’s wiped up. He’s smilin’. A normal man, you might think.”

  Another thump. Buzzy turns his head toward the door to the porch. “Sure that noise ain’t your dog?” he says.

  “No . . . that’s Artie plannin’ to sneak out here and scoff up this other pie. Have another piece.”

  “No, thanks, Mrs. Bean.” He. looks at the door to the porch, swallows. “You know . . . me an’ dogs . . . we don’t get along.”

  She pats her hair.

  “Well,” says Buzzy. He stands up. “Gotta get the Caddy back to the yard. I’ll be back for the others Monday. It’s too late to do much more.”

  She stares at his gloved hands.

  His eyes go everywhere but to the eel and the languishing legs. He stands behind his chair with his gloved hands on the back. “You wouldn’t mind, Mrs. Bean . . . if I . . . I . . . I used your flush a minute, would you?”

  “No! Of course not . . . Help yourself. There it is.” She points to the door, partly open, revealing a shower curtain with leaping dolphins.

  “I wouldn’t bother you . . . but . . . it’s wicked bad.” He rubs his lower stomach.

  “No problem,” Marie assures him. She goes to the sink with the plates. “Just be sure you jiggle the handle after, or it will trickle all day.”

  He leaves his yellow receipt pad on the table, nods, disappears, his gloved hand pushing the door shut, engaging the hook and eye.

  She rinses the dishes.

  Then from the glassed-in porch, Artie Bean lunges . . . and a piano-sized black dog pushes past him. Otis, terrific nose, traces the junkman’s bootsteps to the bathroom door. Otis flexes his lips. Then he rams his shoulder, gorillalike, to the door.

  “Mrs. Bean?” says the voice in the bathroom.
/>   Otis stands taller than any man with his forepaws on the door. A gurgly growl.

  “Mrs. Bean?”

  Artie’s wearing a brown leather jacket now. It says Harley-Davidson across the back. Artie says, “Is that the fella in there that Dad’s gonna cream? Is that him in there?”

  Otis digs at the bottom of the bathroom door. Linoleum peels up.

  Something goes dark in Marie’s heart . . . a dark peace.

  Otis covers the keyhole with his nose . . . snorts.

  “Mrs. Bean . . . are you out there?”

  The smells of mincemeat, the junkman, and the messy porch suspend her. Her mouth is stuck on the half-syllable of a word. Artie chews his thumbnail. “Yes, Artie, that’s him,” she says softly at last.

  She walks with rubbery legs to the glassed-in porch to clean up the fresh dog messes . . . and to fetch the empty pie plate, pie server, and paper plate from one of the porch chairs.

  2

  WHEN MARIE gets home from work Monday, Rubie Bean’s unloaded logging truck is in the yard and he is sitting on the well cover looking up at Artie, who’s smoking. Artie is wearing his leather jacket, unzipped. When Marie shuts her engine off, Rubie stands up. His black mustache retreats from twisted teeth only when he smiles. She drags a bag of groceries across the seat with trembling hands.

  Otis, who is lying at Rubie’s feet, springs up.

  From the distance Rubie’s eyes look like two lighted candles. His rage.

  Artie throws down his cigarette, walks on it.

  Otis pounds down the driveway toward her and jumps on her camel-color coat. “Down!” she commands. He drops down.

  Rubie’s hands rise from his body. And Artie has the same rigidness come to his limbs and terrible terrible grinning mouth.

  Her camel-color coat flaps against her legs as she hikes up the driveway to the glassed-in porch. The smell of dog mess lands in her face as she enters.

  Rubie runs up behind her, puts both hands on her shoulders . . . feels to Marie like the two squeezing feet of a hawk readying to lift her, Marie, a mouse, away.

  She closes her eyes.

  “Why are you here now, Rubie? I ain’t seen you in three months.”

  He is breathing raggedly from running. Otis pushes between them, tries to sniff in the bag.

  Rubie twists her around, but she keeps her eyes shut.

  His tobacco-smelling voice: “Think you’re smart, dontcha?”

  Artie is somewhere beyond her closed eyes . . . past Rubie’s shoulder . . . Artie, with his muscled arms cocked in the sleeves of his motorcycle jacket . . . pacing.

  Marie says, “I sold them because”—she opens her eyes—“because I had to pay off those loans . . . the taxes . . . and get the furnace cleaned, okav?” He is still grinning.

  She sighs. “Reuben . . . I had to. You did not . . .” She cannot stand looking into his boiling, fox-color eyes. She looks away. “You did not want those cars and trucks until you realized they were gone. Who told you they were gone?”

  Rubie grins bigger. “Artie.”

  Marie won’t look at Artie. She can picture him, but she won’t focus.

  She says to Rubie, “I’ll call the deputy if you touch me . . . This is not the old days . . . Go maul your new sweetie pie.

  Otis hunkers down to scratch. The floor seems to shake out from under them.

  Rubie looks down into Marie’s grocery bag. The haggard mustache closes down as if there were no mouth. “There’s one rig left . . . down in the alders,” he says. “Miss that one?”

  “No . . . I guess the junkman didn’t have time to pick that one up today. But I see while I was at work, he had no trouble with the others.”

  Rubie strokes his mustache with his fingers and stumps of fingers. “So you think he’s comin’ back, huh?”

  She backs away, reaching with her free hand for the kitchen door.

  But he moves with her like they’re dancing. She catches sight of Artie, lighting up another cigarette, the orange glimmer of the match scuttling over his cheeks and the palms of his hands.

  She sees herself reflected on the many glass panes . . . dozens of panes, dozens of gray-templed, curly-haired, blue-eyed Maries . . .

  “Rubie, go home!”

  The hands crush down, gathering up the camel-color coat.

  Her glasses leap, clatter to the floor. Rubie’s plaid wool shirt becomes a black-and-red blur.

  Somewhere Artie is watching, perhaps taking a step forward. His leather jacket squeaks.

  Otis rises taller than a man, sawing the air with his forepaws, rakes Rubie’s sleeve. Rubie elbows him. “Yipe!!” Otis falls away.

  Rubie grabs the plastic gallon of milk from the bag so savagely, it explodes even as under his boot the metal nose-piece and earpieces of Marie’s glasses change shape with a chirp! Loops of milk fly in every direction . . . On Rubie’s wool shirt, there are bluish-white stars. He is screaming with laughter. He twists the empty plastic jug above Marie’s head and it drips into her hair.

  He pinches her cheek, almost lovingly. “You was always fun. No one can say you ain’t a fun woman.” He wheels away.

  After the logging truck clatters down onto the main road, the limbs of trees shaking behind, Artie comes onto the porch and sits on a chair by a giant Christmas cactus, watching Otis lap up milk, lapping around the mangled eyeglasses, and through the cactus he also can see his mother holding her face.

  3

  THE NEXT DAY Marie calls in sick. While brownies are in the oven, she showers, then shakes baby powder on. Most of it splatters her feet. She buttons up a blouse she rarely wears, pink with tiny red dots; close up, the dots are wee hearts. She yanks on a pair of tight jeans, a narrow belt with horses tooled into it. She slashes the brush through her perm.

  Artie’s in school.

  She drinks coffee in the front room, watching As the World Turns through the aching blur of having no glasses, and twirling Otis’s ears. She gets up during commercials to squint down the road.

  When the car hauler grumbles to a stop in the yard, she drags Otis to the glassed-in porch. She sees through the panes of the porch the car hauler backing slowly down into the alders. She can see in a fuzzy way the orange glove, the face in the side mirror. She knows he plans to make it quick. He will never come in her house again.

  She puts on the old pea coat she wears for dirty jobs. She wraps the brownies in aluminum foil, lowers them into a grocery bag, adds a jug of milk, two paper cups, paper plates, napkins, and the yellow receipt pad he left on the table.

  She hurries through the front room and out.

  He is winching up the last car; his back is to her, the sleeve of his green workshirt showing, a glove on the lever.

  When he sees her, his green eyes widen. Her face is grave, gray. He eyes the bag.

  “Hello!” she shouts over the yowl of the winch. He averts his eyes.

  “Would you like a brownie?!!”

  He works his tongue behind his thick lips. “Can I take it with me? I’m in a rush!”

  She frowns.

  His green eyes drop. “Well, I ain’t goin’ in there!” he shouts, thrusting his head toward her house.

  “I know! I know!” she cries. “I’m sorry about that.”

  With his free hand, he straightens his orange hunting hat, a businesslike gesture. “Me and dogs . . . we don’t get along,” he says.

  “I know!” she says. “What if we sit out here under this tree?!” She points at a maple that’s growing out of an old foundation where a barn once stood. The rocks are heaved about like dinosaur eggs in the high, gray grass.

  He frowns.

  When the car is in place, Buzzy Atkinson cuts off the winch and the engine. The silence is spoiled only by a woodpecker giggling in the alders and by Otis’s low, evil growl from the glassed-in porch.

  Marie hurries to the maple, stepping over the rocks. Buzzy ambling, moaning. She kneels, spreads out the paper plates, pours milk.

  He doesn’t sit.
Stands. “Won’t you get cold?” he says softly.

  “No. Please sit down.”

  “I guess,” he says dully. Squats.

  “That ain’t sittin’,” Marie says.

  So he sits. Raises his knees.

  She puts a brownie on his plate. “You like milk?” she asks.

  “Ayuh.”

  He pulls off his orange hunting hat, which has the flaps tied up, and he digs into his outgrown crew cut with his gloved hand. Then slaps the hat back on.

  He swallows all his milk.

  She pours him more.

  The brownie moves inside his mouth like the fibrous cud of a cow.

  “Help yourself!” chirps Marie. “Let’s eat all these brownies right up.”

  “All of them?” he whispers.

  “Mmmmmm.” She chews fast and noisily. “Don’t you just love brownies?”

  “I like ’em okay.”

  “Does your wife make brownies?”

  He looks her in the eye. “We have Jell-O.”

  Marie makes a face. “Nuthin’ like a hot brownie.”

  He chews. Marie sees him glimpse the car hauler as if it were a car full of kids, all ten of his kids, waiting for him, blowing the horn.

  Marie swallows some milk. “Did I tell you my ex-husband used to beat the shit outta me?” Her eyes burn. She misses her glasses.

  “No,” he says. Then he moans. Chews. “You didn’t.” He spreads his gloved right hand over his thigh . . . makes a fist . . . then opens the hand . . . makes a fist . . . like when you give blood.

  He is watching his yellow receipt pad lying among the paper napkins.

  “See this?” She opens her mouth, chewed-up brownie wrinkled on her tongue. “See them two miserable fake teeth? He busted the real ones. And see this tongue? It almost come off! And wow! Don’t the ol’ tongue bleed! By the pails!”

  He sets down his empty paper cup. “Can’t eat no more.”

  “Oh, there’s tons left!” she cries.

  “I know it . . . but . . . I feel sick.”

  “Sick?”

  He pats his stomach with his gloved hand.

  “Oh,” she says softly. She puts her own cup and plate down. Shifts her legs around. Wipes her mouth with a paper napkin. She says, “I had a nervous breakdown, you know . . . had to go to the hospital. Pills, pills, pills, pills. Pills for shakin’. Pills for cryin’. Pills for nightmares. He was always gone. He’d be gone for weeks. Sometimes I’d be in the kitchen . . . even the bathroom! . . . and get this feelin’ like Rubie was there . . . but he weren’t there . . . He was nowheres. The kids would be asleep and I’d be downstairs with a little snack on the table . . . lookin’ at my bills, you know . . . or listenin’ to the radio real low . . . and I’d hear him breathin’. But he weren’t there. That’s when I’d get the shakes. I’d make the kids come in and sleep with me . . . and that helped. One time he come home in the night . . . they was in there with me . . . and when I see them headlights on the walls I get to shakin’ . . .”