by Homer Hickam
“Was it that bad?”
Her expression hardened. “You think I can’t tell it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you shouldn’t. It’s up to you.”
“That’s right. It’s up to me.” She took a breath. “It always was.”
PART IX
How Albert Was Finally Carried Home
43
THEY DIDN’T MAKE IT TO ORLANDO THAT NIGHT. WHEN his eyes couldn’t stay open a minute longer, Homer pulled over beside what turned out to be, at first light, an orange grove. The oranges had been picked during the summer, but the trees were still fragrant and the sweet, citrus smell slightly lifted their spirits.
After taking Albert for a walk between the trees and feeding him some chicken and then feeding themselves some ham sandwiches and miner’s coffee (boil water, add coffee grounds, wait for the grounds to settle, drink), they set out again, the rooster on Homer’s shoulder and Elsie doing her best not to cry at the impending loss of her alligator, and Albert poking his head out and enjoying the scenery as he had done so often on the journey. Soon, the city limits of Orlando slid by.
After he got a look at the place, Homer thought maybe he understood a little why Elsie liked Orlando so much. It was a pretty town with its Spanish architecture and waving palms and peaceful atmosphere, and the people, based on their dress and the smiles on their faces, seemed friendly and prosperous. After meandering through the quiet downtown area, Elsie recalled various buildings and streets and was able to direct Homer to a place where there was a small trailer parked beside a little lake. Behind the trailer were several palm trees. This was the new home of her rich Uncle Aubrey.
“Rich Uncle Aubrey lives in a trailer?” Homer asked.
“It’s a very nice trailer, Homer. When I first came to Orlando, he lived in a big house. Now he lives here.”
Uncle Aubrey soon presented himself, a dapper man wearing a straw hat, a pin-striped shirt, baggy plaid golf shorts, and spats over brown and white oxfords. Homer thought he looked more than a little bit like the comedian W. C. Fields.
Aubrey greeted Elsie effusively, hugged her close, was introduced to Homer, Albert, and the rooster, and then waved them all to a picnic table to wait for refreshments. He climbed inside the trailer, returning with a tray containing a pitcher of lemonade and three glasses. “Now, my favorite niece, what brings you back? And how did you come about this strapping man for a husband, and this grinning alligator, curious rooster, and the rare Buick, hmmm?”
Elsie’s lips trembled and her eyes welled with tears. “What’s this?” Aubrey asked.
Elsie had another swallow of lemonade and said, “I’ve come to bring Albert home, Uncle Aubrey. Do you recall the fellow I once brought to meet you, the boy whose parents owned the dance studio?”
“Why, yes,” Aubrey replied, “the Ebsens. I know them fairly well. He went by the nickname Buddy, as I recall. A fine family and he seemed a decent chap. Did a few dance steps for me when I asked him about the latest craze among the young people.”
Elsie nodded. “Yes, sir, that was him. Well, he gave me Albert for a wedding gift.”
Aubrey arched an eyebrow. “He gave you? Isn’t it customary that a gift goes to the couple? Did he say the alligator was just for you?”
“I assumed it was,” Elsie said. “Anyway, you can see him now, a fine little boy and, well, I’m afraid he would not be happy in Coalwood where, for now, anyways, we . . .” She stopped long enough to sigh. “. . . will make our home.” She looked out at the lake. “Do you think he could live here with you?”
Aubrey shook his head. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. That lake is nothing but a mud flat flooded by the land developers. It isn’t suitable for alligators. You will have to look elsewhere.”
Homer said, “Elsie, I have an idea. What if we drove around and looked for a new lake like the Silver Springs reptile wrangler said?”
Elsie hesitated, not certain all of a sudden she really wanted to find a place for him. Maybe he could live in Coalwood. Maybe . . .
“Go on, Elsie,” Aubrey said. “I’ll look after Albert and the rooster.”
Homer sipped his lemonade and allowed Elsie to sort things out for herself. After a few minutes, she said, “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to have a look.”
“I suppose it wouldn’t,” Homer said and got up and opened the passenger door on the Buick for her.
Elsie got in and Homer drove her back into town. Along a road with large homes and big trees, Elsie’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Homer, stop the car!”
Homer stopped the car. Elsie got out and ran to a man who was walking down the street. He was a young man, and tall, and had very long legs and was dressed in a suit and vest. He was also handsome, with a square jaw and bright blue eyes. Adding him all up, Homer knew who Elsie was hugging: his nemesis. Mr. Buddy Ebsen himself.
Taking a deep, resigned breath, Homer got out of the car and approached the couple, for couple they were, Buddy’s long arms wrapped around Elsie’s trim waist while she pressed her lips to his, then snuggled in close.
Buddy looked up querulously when Homer approached. He released Elsie, who, clearly flustered, took a moment to catch her breath, then said, “Buddy, this is Homer. Homer, this is Buddy.”
The two men shook hands. “Her husband,” Homer added.
Buddy was all grins. “Well, ain’t this a fine howdy-do! How are you both doing? Elsie, why are you back in town?”
“Elsie wanted to bring your wedding gift home,” Homer said in a voice cold as ice.
Buddy seemed confused but then his face brightened. “The alligator! Did it truly get to you? I figured it might die along the way. Well, I just wanted you to have a little bit of Florida. I’m sorry if it caused you any trouble.”
Homer discovered he was angry. “Oh, no trouble at all. Your marvelous gift merely made us abandon our house, get caught up in a bank robbery, run illegal moonshine through North Carolina, get cast adrift in the Atlantic Ocean, act in a jungle movie, and get all but blown away in the Keys! No, sir. No trouble at all.”
Buddy blinked thoughtfully, then said, “Elsie, would you mind if I have a word with Homer?”
Elsie clearly did mind but she acquiesced with a tilt of her head. Buddy, taking Homer’s arm, walked with him a little farther up the street. “What did she tell you about us?” Buddy asked.
“Oh, she didn’t have to tell me much,” Homer said. “It’s all in her eyes and her voice when it comes to the great Buddy Ebsen.”
“That’s what I thought you thought. Listen, Homer, nothing ever happened between Elsie and me. Oh, it could have, I suppose, but I had my eye on New York and Hollywood and when I asked her to go along with me, you know what she said? She said neither of those places was for her, that they weren’t real places, and then she mentioned a boy back in West Virginia. She said before she went anywhere with me, she had to know what you wanted to do and if that included her.”
Homer was astonished. “Well, it did,” he said. “I married her and then you sent her Albert. That’s what she calls the alligator.”
“Albert. Good name.” Buddy chuckled. “But I didn’t send him just to Elsie. I sent him to the both of you. Yes, I wanted Elsie to be reminded of Florida but I also thought an alligator might give you both a good laugh. Most people flush them down the commode after keeping them around for a week or two but Elsie . . .” He shook his head. “So she loves this critter?”
“Yes. And so do I. But we can’t keep him in Coalwood. It’s no place for an alligator. That’s why we’re here. This is his home.”
“Actually, I got him at an alligator farm near Okefenokee,” Buddy confessed, “but I see your dilemma.” He looked over his shoulder and saw Elsie watching them. “Since I caused your problem, the least I can do is provide a solution. Let me think about it.”
Homer had little confidence that the actor-dancer was really going to do anything. Still, he thanked him, then looked past him to his wife, who cocked her head as if
asking, What in the world are you two talking about?
That was, of course, the first thing she asked as Homer drove her back to Aubrey’s trailer. “Just man talk,” Homer said.
“What is man talk?”
“The price of tea in China. Not much.”
“I wish we’d taken Albert with us. I miss him even after a few hours.”
Homer knew what she meant. The car felt lonely without Albert and the rooster. He wished he could go back to the trailer and gather them up and drive with Elsie by his side forever.
But that was impossible. Every journey has an end and this one was no exception. The only question was how.
44
TWO DAYS PASSED. EXCEPT AT NIGHT, WHEN SHE TOSSED fitfully beside Homer on the mattress laid down on the floor of the trailer’s tiny kitchen, all Elsie did was sit in a cane chair in the grass with Albert beside her while she sighed and dabbed at her eyes with an old dish towel and drank strong coffee. She didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything and refused to make much in the way of conversation with either Aubrey or Homer. Although she knew it was crazy, she was afraid if she said anything, it would be the excuse the two men would need to take Albert away from her. Even when she slept, she ferociously gripped his leash.
On the third day, toward evening, Aubrey pulled up the other cane chair and sat down beside her. Homer had taken Albert for a walk to let him cool down in the shallow water of the mud flat. “Now, Elsie . . .” Aubrey began.
Elsie shook her head. “I know I’m acting silly but I don’t know any other way to act.” She looked at Homer standing on the grass watching Albert in the water. “Albert can’t live in Coalwood and we can’t live anywhere else.”
“You know,” Aubrey tried again, “you should have children. If you care this much about an alligator, think what a great mother you’ll be! Maybe, in fact, this entire business with Albert is nature’s way of telling you it’s about time to start a family.”
Elsie glared at her uncle. “If this is nature’s way, I don’t want anything to do with it.”
“Well, some might say it’s God’s way then,” Uncle Aubrey replied. “Though I don’t know much about God beyond the preachers I’ve listened to and reading the Bible some. He seems too big to me, never could get a handle on him with his making the Israelites wander around in the desert and burning bushes and flooding out the earth and sending his only son down to get crucified. The mind boggles at the whole enterprise.” Aubrey waved his hands expansively. “Consider all this. The grass, the sky, the air, the water, even the metal my trailer is made of. Where did it all come from and how does it all fit together and how has it all fit together?” He shook his head. “It’s really impossible when you think about it, everything that had to happen to bring us to this moment. Or maybe it’s predestination, instructions writ down in a book somehow that our lives have to follow.” He sat back, dug a flask out of his coat pocket, took a swig, and said, “Anyway, have some kids, Elsie. That’ll fix you.”
Elsie shook her head. “Nothing’s ever going to fix me, Uncle Aubrey. Nothing.”
Aubrey smiled. “Maybe you’re right, honey,” he said, “but maybe you’re wrong, too. There’s a lot of love just drifting around this old world that could fix you. Could fix all of us.”
Elsie leaned forward and took her uncle’s hand. “I’m sorry. I’m a hopeless case. I’m going to take a nap.”
“You can’t sleep your way through your problems, Elsie.”
“Maybe not, but at least I won’t have to think about this one for a little while.”
When Homer returned with Albert, he sat down with Aubrey. Albert stretched out at his feet. “Aubrey, I have a question for you. Did Elsie ever talk about me when she lived here?”
“All the time, although she never said your name. She described you as this very smart boy with vivid blue eyes she’d met in high school who was now a coal miner, an occupation she hated.”
“What about Buddy Ebsen?”
“Far as I could tell, they were only friends. Oh, likely, they necked some but she had to know she had no future with him.”
“That confirms what Ebsen told me. I wonder why she thought it was more.”
Aubrey gave the question some thought, then said, “The kind of man Buddy is—all bright and cheerful and dancing around—is the kind of man she wanted and then there he was. But there was always you.”
While Homer was absorbing Aubrey’s words, a pickup truck came trundling down the road and stopped in front of the trailer. The driver, a farmer from the looks of him, held out a scrap of paper and said, “Hidy, Aubrey. Fellow called on my phone, asked me to give you a message.”
As it turned out, the scrap of paper with the message was really for Homer.
The next morning, after breakfast, Homer said, “Elsie, how about we take a drive?”
Elsie was suspicious. “And go where?”
“Just for a ride. It’ll be like old times.”
“You’re not trying to fool me, are you?”
“Fool you? In what way?”
“Like carrying me off to Coalwood.”
Homer smiled benevolently. “I promise we’ll come right back.” He bent down and stroked Albert’s back. “Would you like to take a ride with us, too, Albert? It’ll be fun.”
Albert grinned and made his yeah-yeah-yeah sound and, before long, he was loaded up in his washtub and Homer was behind the Buick’s steering wheel with the rooster on his shoulder and Elsie was seated beside him. It was indeed like old times.
After driving through downtown Orlando, Homer steered the Buick to a well-to-do part of town where every house seemed like a mansion. At the gate of what appeared to be a park, he pulled over to the curb. Elsie was surprised to see none other than Buddy Ebsen leaning against the ochre stucco wall that guarded the park. He was dressed in an all-white suit and a spiffy straw hat. “Buddy?” She looked at Homer. “Did you know he’d be here?”
Homer made no reply, just kept looking straight ahead. Buddy walked over to the car and opened the door for Elsie. “Welcome. This”—he made a grand gesture—“is the Country Club of Orlando, of which I am a member. I would love to take you for a tour. What do you say?”
Elsie turned to Homer. “Did you plan this?”
“Of course not,” Homer said, looking at her at last. “Buddy did. He wanted to talk to you.”
“Bring Albert along, too,” Buddy said. “I would love to get to know him.”
“It’s all right, Elsie,” Homer said. “Talk to Buddy. You still have something to say to him, don’t you?”
“I . . . I suppose I do.”
Homer got out and connected Albert’s washtub to its wheels, attached the handle, and handed it to Buddy. He turned to Elsie. “I’ll be here if you need me.” He put his hand on Albert’s head and patted it. “Have fun, little friend.”
“You never called Albert your friend before,” Elsie said.
“I regret that,” Homer replied.
Elsie could tell by his expression he meant it. She smiled at him but something still didn’t feel right.
Buddy swept his hand toward the gate. “This way, Elsie.” He tugged on the washtub handle. “Come along, Albert.”
The brick sidewalk led past a magnificent white building with a portico and along manicured grounds. “It’s beautiful here,” Elsie said, breathing in the sweet perfume of the tropical flora. As they walked farther along, she marveled at the colorful gardens and the other features of the park. “I like all these little sandy beaches. What are they for?”
“What do you think they’re for?” Buddy asked.
“Places to lie in the sun?”
“Yep. Bet Albert would like that. Did you notice all the little ponds, too? They’re deep and full of fish and turtles.”
“Really? I bet Albert would like those, too.” Elsie stopped in her tracks. “No, Buddy.”
“He would love it here, Elsie.”
“Those little sandy beaches, the
se little lakes . . . I’m not stupid. This is a golf course.”
“Yes, with a groundskeeper who is one of my father’s best friends. I have pledged him some considerable funding if he would watch out for a friend of some friends of mine.”
Elsie shook her head. “This is a golf course,” she said again.
“Of course, it is,” Buddy answered. “Come with me.”
They walked on until, at last, Buddy stopped and nodded toward a lake that was larger than the others. “This is the seventh fairway,” he said. “Here is Albert’s home.”
Elsie looked at the lake. It was a beautiful lake, blue and sparkly and surrounded on one side by a shady grove of pin oaks. Perfectly spaced palm trees circled the rest of the lake except for a wide opening that met the green grass of the fairway. Nearby was a large sand trap. She looked down at Albert and then up into Buddy’s face. Her stomach was churning. She thought she might be sick.
“I’ll think about it,” she told Buddy.
“No, Elsie,” Buddy said. “You can’t think about it. You just have to do it.” He dropped the handle of the washtub, walked around it, and picked up Albert’s tail. Albert looked back at him with an expression of curiosity. “Help me. Help me carry Albert home.”
Elsie knelt at Albert’s head and wrapped her arms around his snout. “I can’t do it.”
“Yes, you can,” Buddy said.
“I love you, Albert,” she said, simply, and it was all she could say because of the gorge in her throat.
Albert grinned and made his yeah-yeah-yeah happy sound. Elsie picked him up beneath his front legs and, together, she and Buddy waddled down the slight slope to the water’s edge, where they set Albert down.
Albert turned and looked up at Elsie. He was still smiling, eager for whatever new adventure she had in mind for him. Elsie knelt beside him while Buddy walked back to the washtub and pulled it along, back up toward the building with the portico, which Elsie now realized was the golf course clubhouse.