One Good Mama Bone

by McClain, Bren; Monroe, Mary Alice;

  Luther slapped his hand against the counter again.

  “Very well, then.” The man gave Luther his change and put the bottles in separate sacks.

  “I want you to know I can do my own dirty work,” Luther told him.

  “Oh yeah?” the man said but did not look at him.

  Luther gathered the bottles in his arms, cradled them like he did his boys when they were little and a father could still do that. They would wrap their legs around his waist and lay their heads on his shoulders. They did it like they loved him.

  Luther returned to his truck. A family stood outside Dickson’s Ice Cream, a man, a woman, and a young boy. The woman looked like Mildred, small and fragile and with feet that shuffle when she walked. At times like now, Luther wished he loved her. The man and boy were holding hands. Because they could. There was no blood on them.

  He took out his flask. No longer did the pattern dazzle. Luther now saw antlers, a whole network of them, of deer running and leaping, their white tails stiff and high in danger.

  He knew what he had to do. He would not be killing the hog when he returned home. He would be taking LC hunting. But this time Luther would kill. He would show his boy that he could. And then they would be on level ground like this father and son before him. They could hold hands again. Couldn’t they hold hands? And maybe return home and look for ladybugs.

  …..

  LC slammed off the tractor throttle and killed the belt that ran the hammer mill. Then he spanked his hands against each other, intending to send the yellow dust that clung to him far away.

  But it stayed.

  His steer remained tied to the post that had become his home. The air around the animal was clean.

  LC ran to him and found the steer eating, his head in the grain bin. LC kicked it, hoping to make the animal stop, but he continued to eat. He was gaining more than two pounds a day now and well on his way to three. His father had a man haul in some scales and weighed the animal in at 802 pounds. Charles’s steers were always way over a thousand by show time. The bin contained corn and molasses and would fatten, unlike the apple LC carried in his back pocket. His father had forgotten that he’d already given him the apple lesson. He’d been repeating himself a lot lately. LC had planned to eat the apple himself, but it occurred to him that maybe the steer would stop eating the grain if he ate the apple. LC held it in front of the animal’s face.

  The steer paid it no attention.

  LC bit into it, hoping to release its smell, the animal now lifting his nose and sniffing, his breath hot against the cold and creating a cloud that LC imagined carrying them both far away. But then the steer shifted his gaze to LC, who saw in the animal’s eyes a sadness like he was scared.

  LC reached for the animal’s face. It was solid white, unlike the rest of his body, which sported the Hereford red brown. LC began tracing the outline of the white, running his finger up the animal’s jaw, cupping around his eye and then making a sharp turn towards the back of his head. He looked like an old man balding, like his father, the way his father’s hair covered the sides of his head but left the top exposed and naked.

  LC smelled something strong and sour behind him. It was his father, standing no more than six feet away. LC jumped. “Thought I’d reward him for doing so good following me,” LC said and held the apple at his steer’s mouth and waited for his father to hit him.

  But his father stayed quiet, and LC was so struck by what he saw, he thought he was seeing things. His father was not wearing a hat. He said, “Look, Dad,” and pointed at the animal. “Without your hat, y’all look alike.”

  “I can do my own dirty work.” His father was swaying. “I want you to know that, boy.”

  His father headed out of the lot and waved for LC to follow. LC was thinking he must be talking about the hammer mill, but his father did not lead him there but to his truck.

  The smell inside was so strong, LC thought he might gag. He rolled down his window. Two paper sacks with the tops of bottles sticking from them set between them. His father had been spending a lot of time in the garage since Uncle left. His father now seemed lost.

  They drove through town, the truck jigging and jagging, and headed south on the same road that took them to that bad place, and LC felt his insides tense up as tight as his father’s knuckles wrapped around the steering wheel. He pulled up on the door handle and tried to push the door open.

  “What you doing?” his father hollered, grabbed LC’s arm, yanked him from the rushing wind, and swerved to the right shoulder and stopped.

  “I know where you’re going, and I don’t want to go.” LC tried to wrestle his arm away.

  “You don’t know nothing.”

  “I do, Dad. I know a lot. You’ve made me know a lot.” LC jerked his arm free.

  His father gunned the engine, got back on the road, and soon delivered them to that same field. He reached for the pistol beneath the seat. It was the pearl-handle.

  “Can that do the job, Dad? That little jelly thing?”

  “Don’t you call it that, boy.” His father got out of the truck and slammed the door.

  “What? Jelly?” LC yelled through.

  His father was walking towards the woods. LC got out of the truck, ran after him, and jumped on his father’s back. “I learned a lot from you. I am you.”

  His father knocked him backwards. LC hit the ground but got up and came at him with clenched fists.

  “You ain’t me, you’re your mammie.” Luther spit on the ground. “And I’m going to show you who I am, too.”

  “What? A Dobbins man?” LC screamed. “So you can feel what it’s like to kill and be marked?” He moved his two fingers in the air like he was moving down his father’s face, but his father did not see. He was headed for the woods. He was running.

  LC was breathing hard.

  The bones of the deer on the other side of those trees. He imagined buzzards had feasted on the animal, taken what they wanted and left the rest to rot. He imagined his father had reached the opening now and had seen the bones. He hoped they lay before him. LC stomped his foot and felt tears well up. He didn’t want his father to kill another one. Don’t let one come across, he prayed.

  He ran as hard as he could and found his father standing at the wood’s edge. He had the pearl-handle drawn, both hands holding it, and pointed towards the field that lay open, the grass no longer green but brown.

  “I’m going to count them for you, how many I’ve seen,” his father said. “One, maybe three. I got to decide which one I want. There goes another one, four. Come on and count with me, boy.”

  LC, for the first time, saw his father as a little boy. He was as scared as his steer.

  “You can count to count to ten, can’t you?” his father asked. “Come on and count for me. You do it.”

  LC got in behind him and stretched his arms around to his father’s. They were shaking “Come on, Dad. Let’s go home.”

  He had thought his father would resist, but he lowered his arms and let go of the gun. It fell to the ground. Then his father turned towards him and wrapped around him the way a child might. “No, you ain’t me, LC. You’re better than me.”

  …..

  Sarah and Emerson Bridge arrived at the Gainesville station at 2:50 in the afternoon and stepped out into the cold. The skies were thick with gray. Sarah set their suitcase down and pulled the zipper on her boy’s coat as high at it would go. Her dress was hardly enough to keep her warm, but she was on her way to see her mother. The walk there was almost three miles, straight up Mountain Highway. It would warm her up.

  She’d last seen this town in November of 1936. No longer could she smell the smoke from the fires the April tornado set off. Nor was there rubble piled here and there and buildings reduced to splintered planks. Her old place of employment, Cooper Pants, in the next block up, looked to be thriving. Her town had rebuilt itself.

  And so had she. She took her boy’s hand, and they set off north.

 
But she soon became winded and stopped to rest. Her boy offered to take the suitcase, but he was just a boy.

  It took them close to two hours to arrive at Sarah’s street, “C” Street. “Number 8, up the hill, fourth one on the left.” She could smell already the air full of frying grease in her mother’s house. Sarah wondered if it would be chicken or cubed steak or even salmons. She bet her boy was hungry. They’d not had anything to eat since the grits at breakfast.

  When they reached the fourth house on the left, Sarah pointed across the street to the green-and-white church. “Twenty steps to Jesus, boy,” she said.

  Her boy’s eyes grew large.

  “Tomorrow morning, maybe you can run up and down them. It’ll be church Sunday.”

  She looked for any signs that her mother was home. The curtains on the front window were closed. They never had an automobile, and none was parked out front now. The house was a duplex and not as large as she remembered it. Her family had lived on the right side.

  She rested her hands on his shoulders. Her hands shook but not from the cold.

  A cat ran from under the house.

  Sarah took hold of his hand, and together they climbed the concrete steps, three of them, and all with moss growing and cracks where grass and weeds lived.

  At the door, she set her suitcase down and, with her freed hand, smoothed down Emerson Bridge’s hair. She’d cut it that morning and combed through Harold’s tonic, giving her boy a nice part on his left side. “You’re handsome,” she told him and wondered if her mother heard her and was standing already at the door.

  She placed her boy in front of her. Her mother would see him first.

  Sarah ran her hands down her dress and wondered if her mother would recognize her. The skirt had quite a flair. She brought her gloved hand up to knock. “Mama? It’s your girl.” Her voice sounded like a schoolgirl, high and silly.

  Her boy stood on his tiptoes and bounced. But Sarah heard nothing from behind the door.

  She knocked again. “Mama? It’s your girl. It’s Sarah.” She tried to talk louder.

  Still, nothing came back.

  It couldn’t be more than five or so in the afternoon, the sun having begun to set, but it was too early for bed. Maybe her mother had moved. Maybe that’s why she’d written but had forgotten to say.

  Sarah swallowed. “How about Clementine, Mama,” she called through. “Clementine.”

  “Sarah, Mama,” her boy whispered. “Your name’s Sarah.”

  She patted his shoulders. She loved his innocence.

  A twinge in her belly told her maybe she shouldn’t have brought him here. She moved him behind her.

  “Somebody out there?” she heard. It was her mother.

  “Yes ma’am, Mama. It’s your girl.”

  “Ain’t got no girl.”

  “You do, Mama. You got me.” Sarah could feel her heart racing. “You sent me that letter the first of the week, told me where my Clementine name come from.” Her words were coming fast. “And I brought you a surprise.” She moved her boy back in front of her.

  “Had a girl one time, but she up and left me.”

  Sarah swallowed. “I’ve come to see you, Mama. Come a long way. Let me in.” She didn’t mean to, she wanted to be strong for her boy, but her voice had cracked some.

  “It ain’t locked.”

  Sarah opened the door and saw a room of darkness, except for the light the door brought in. Her mother sat in a wheelchair in that light and held her hand up over her eyes.

  Sarah stepped inside. The smell of urine and rotten food covered her like a coat. She brought Emerson Bridge up alongside her. “This is my boy, Mama.” She tried to talk without breathing. “My boy, Emerson Bridge. That’s his name, Emerson Bridge.” Their shadows ran through her mother and cast large against the back wall.

  “Y’all see my kitty out there?” her mother said. “Here, kitty kitty!”

  Sarah nudged her boy forward. His hand was pressed to his nose. “You got you a grandboy now, Mama. You always wanted a boy. Look here, here’s you a boy.”

  “Kitty kitty! Kitty kitty!” It was as though her mother was singing.

  “Yeah, Mama, my boy here’s got him on some brand new shoes. Show them to her, hon.” He picked up his left foot. “They’re sturdy, Mama, look. The clerk said so they could handle plenty of scuffing. Scuffing, that’s the very word he used.”

  But her mother wasn’t looking at the boy’s foot. She had her eyes closed now and was making a sound like a baby, running a finger over her lips and humming.

  Maybe her mother hadn’t heard her. Older people’s hearing can fade. Sarah would soon turn thirty-four. Her mother was seventeen years older, putting her at fifty-one. Sarah cleared her throat. “Mama, I said my boy here’s got on some new shoes.” She reached down and pulled up his pants leg for better viewing.

  But her mother did not open her eyes.

  Sarah let his pants fall back in place.

  Heaps of empty tin cans and empty loaf bread bags surrounded her mother. Labels showed pork n’ beans and tuna fish. On a table beside her, Sarah saw stacks of unopened cans of the same. She wondered if her boy was hungry. And her mother, too. “Anybody hungry?” she asked.

  “Y’all didn’t see my kitty out there? It’s about time for her supper.” Her mother was craning her neck left and right, trying to see around Sarah and her boy.

  It was a mistake to come. Sarah let herself have that thought. She tapped her boy and motioned with her head towards the door.

  “Say them are new shoes?” her mother said.

  So her mother had seen, and her mother could hear. Her mother wanted her there.

  “Yes ma’am, Mama.” She pulled up his pants legs again.”They’re brand new, look. Came from J. C. Penney’s. That’s a big store. Cash and carry, Mama. I paid cash and carry.”

  Her mother was running her finger and humming again.

  Sarah was holding the suitcase. She thought about asking Emerson Bridge to take it up the stairs to her room, and she could holler up, “That was my room, my room when I was a girl.”

  “Your old man have dimples like he’s got?” her mother asked.

  Sarah felt a jab in her belly.

  “Must have. Because even if you had them, nobody could see them in them fat cheeks of yours.”

  Sarah touched her cheeks. She felt her bones.

  The fat from her mother’s waist draped over the arms of her chair. She looked to have more than doubled in size. She was wearing a nightgown and house coat, both a shade of pink and both threadbare.

  “Yeah, believe my kitty’s found her some babies up under the house.”

  “You letting her do that, Mama?” Sarah’s words coming fast like a fly swatter coming down. “Letting her have babies?”

  “She’s company. It’s lonesome around here. Your papa got blowed off by that bad twister, and you up and left me for a sweet-smelling, sweettalking man.”

  She could feel saliva starting to collect in her mouth. She wanted to gag. She looked back at the door.

  “That’s right,” her mother said. “Go on and leave me. You didn’t want to come no way.”

  Sarah felt a hardness rise up in her that made her clench her fists. “I’d smush them, Mama? Them babies. Is that what you mean? This slittail would smush them?”

  Her mother lurched towards her. “You watch your mouth around that boy.”

  “That’s what you used to say, Mama. Girls were slittails. That’s what you called me, a slittail.”

  “I said watch your mouth.”

  “What’d you send me that letter if all you was going to do was beat me up some more? Why, Mama? Why?”

  Her mother began moving her finger again.

  Sarah put her hand at the top of her boy’s back and felt his little bones like wings. She wanted him to fly. She hoped the whole rest of his life, he would fly.

  “I was foolish enough to think that you wanted me to come see you. Must have been out of my
mind.” She tried to calm herself, but that got her more riled. “We got hard times back where we live. Don’t know how I’m going to keep food on the table and clothes on my boy’s back. My husband’s dead now, and I got a boy to raise, a precious one, too.” She was screaming now. “Don’t know how, Mama, but I’ll die trying to give him what he needs.” She pulled her boy closer.

  Her mother took a can of tuna fish from her pile and stabbed it with the sharp end of a can opener and started working it around. “Here,” she said and held out the can. “Y’all hungry?”

  Sarah said nothing.

  Her mother rolled towards her. “I’ll give y’all the whole can.”

  Sarah shook her head. “It was never food that I needed, Mama.”

  A cat ran past Sarah’s legs and jumped in her mother’s lap and began eating from the can. She was skinny and mostly gray in color. She ate like she was starving. Sarah remembered eating like that when she was a girl. “But I reckon that’s all you could give me, wasn’t it? It made me fat.” Sarah took a step towards her. “But I ain’t fat no more.”

  Her mother ran her hand down the cat’s back as if she loved her. The animal arched to meet her mother’s touch.

  “Why didn’t you never answer my letter back? Huh, Mama? You know, when it rains in the dead of summer, even an asphalt road gives something, gives that steam that rises up. Something, Mama. It would have been like tipping your hat to me that said I was something.”

  The room was losing light.

  “That letter come eight long years after you left me, girl. Why didn’t you send me one after that first baby of yours come, the one you didn’t think I knew about inside of you when you left out of here? And where’s that one anyway, huh?”

  Sarah swallowed. She knew her boy would hear her, but that was going to have to be all right. “Because that first one, Mama, didn’t make it to this world. She died inside of me.” She reached for her boy’s hand and pulled him towards the door.

  She motioned for him to go stand on the porch. Sarah stood in the doorway and faced her mother. “That wasn’t right what you did with that mama dog way back. Or with me. Wasn’t right at all.”