by J P S Brown
it belonged.
EIGHT
GRACE
Horses have made their way in this world for at least forty million years with nothing but their grace and speed. Their grace of movement and form lasts only for a limited time. The good ones are also gracefully innocent and they keep this all their lives. One of the great joys of a husbandman is knowing this and seeing it in his own offspring. One of his great sorrows is to watch it die in his sons.
On a Sunday morning in May, Mikey found himself kneeling on a red velvet prie-dieu at the foot of the altar in Sacred Heart Cathedral. The light was so bright from all sides that nothing on the altar cast a shadow. Mikey was dressed in a white suit, white shoes, red necktie, and his tough feet were in thin, white socks. He held in front of his nose a fat, lighted candle that was half as long as he and adorned with golden flowers. He held a white prayer book with golden letters engraved on the front and white rosary beads. Father Duval was celebrating High Mass for the First Holy Communions of Mikey and three other children.
This was what came from doing right. Mikey always tried to make an effort to do right and this was the way a boy was rewarded when he succeeded. He had risen to a victorious height. The months of lessons with Sister Clara in Sacred Heart School were over and he had been given a place up front in the light, one of four personages for whom hundreds of people had come to celebrate Mass.
Mikey thought, "I am probably not the person who kneels here for everybody to see in the state of grace. I am a much shabbier person than this ceremony and attention make me out to be. I have been ambushed. I was given no idea that such grandeur would be prepared for me, or that I would be shown off with such magnitude."
Mikey's catechism instruction for his First Communion had started when Sister Clara asked him in Spanish, "Who is God?" Then, after he gave her the best answer he knew, she told him who God was. She asked him other questions about his faith and morals every day for a month, told him the answers, then answered his questions. She then asked him to repeat the answers and explain them to her. He also memorized them from his catechism book at home to prepare for the next session.
Learning his catechism was as easy as standing still for a caress on the cheek because his Nina godmothered him through it. She seemed to love him a lot more during the time of his instructions for doing right. She picked him up after his classes at Lincoln School, left him alone with the nun in the classroom at Sacred Heart School, visited the altar in the church until his session was over, and then took him home. On the way home she helped him memorize his prayers from Sister Clara's Spanish into English.
Every time he said the Apostle's Creed for the rest of his life he remembered his Nina's voice as she recited in her Mexican accent, "I behlieb en Goth, theh Fathair Almighty. .." and knew again the deep, calm love with which she said it. Her faith in God and His angels and saints immediately became Mikey's. He absorbed his faith through his Nina in the same way his heart had begun to beat through Maggie. His faith did not ever come with the ceremonies of churchmen, the pulpit preaching, the churchgoing, the dictated prayers, or the wordy dedication to the performance of good deeds.
How could he ever go to hell? He knew his madrina, his Nina, would forgive him no matter what he did, and if she would forgive him, God would too. God would never deny anything to Natalia Shane, and she would never let Him send her godson to hell. Woe be to anybody who tried to do that. Mikey bet that God had long since decided that anyone Nina loved had better be loved by Him, no matter what He thought, and that was all there was to it.
Mikey had gone to his first confession in the dark church Saturday evening to give Father Duval a true account of all his sins. Now, after his First Communion, he would make a clean start to do right. He was now inside the light of complete approval of people and God and would probably hear the songs of angels any minute.
After Mass, Father Duval herded the communicants and their families to his quarters for breakfast. Sister Clara was at work in the kitchen and Mikey grinned and waved to her. She gave back an impersonal smile as though she only knew him as a presence she was there to serve. That was when he found out that Sister Clara would not talk to him when other people were around. Before that morning, he thought he knew her, owned her as the special friend who had showed him how to finally do right. She had given him his entire catechism instruction in Spanish. Now she did not know him. She made it clear to him that nobody owned her but God.
Mikey spilled cocoa on the lapel of his white suit before everyone even sat down for breakfast, and Maggie took him to the kitchen sink to clean him up. Sheriff Brown came in and told him Paul was outside and wanted to congratulate him. Mikey ran outside to the sheriff's car.
Paul laughed when he saw Mikey, and then picked him up in a hug. He was saturated with whiskey. His eyes swam in a glaze of green water, but his hands were gentle and his laugh was happy. He was at the very peak of celebration for being in town, and Mikey knew he was as clean hearted as anybody else in the world even though he never seemed to do right or put himself where he might hear angel music.
Mikey sat with Paul in the back of the sheriff's car. Sheriff Brown sat in the front and watched Mikey's eyes. A shotgun was cradled in a bracket on the back of the front seat. Handcuffs and a blackjack lay in the seat between Mikey and Paul. The car smelled like the bullpen in the sheriff's jail.
Paul handed the blackjack and handcuffs to the sheriff.
"Sheriff Brown wants to talk to us, son," he said.
"Michael Paul, tell me what you saw when Billy Shane got hit by the car," Sheriff Brown said.
Mikey did not feel that he was in much of a state of grace anymore.
"It's okay, son," Paul said. "You're not in trouble. It's just that you were the one closest to Billy when he got hit. You could have been hit, too."
"What side of the road were you on when Billy got hit, Mikey?" the sheriff asked.
"On the left side." Mikey said.
"You were on the safe side, then?" the sheriff said.
"Yes, sir," Mikey said. "Uncle Bill made us promise to ride our bikes on the left so we would see the cars come on our side and so we would be on the other side of the road from the cars that came up behind us."
"Were you side by side?"
"No, sir, Billy was in front of me."
"Where was Billy when the car hit him?"
"In the middle of the highway."
"Was he crossing to the other side?"
"Yes, sir."
"Why would he do that if he'd promised his dad that he would ride on the left?"
"l think it was because of the train."
"The train was going by?"
"Yes, sir."
"That's the first time I heard that a train was there. Why would the train make Billy cross to the other side?"
"It rattled awful loud and whistled for the crossing"
"What else happened?"
"The car came up behind me and went by so close it hit my little finger."
"How was that? I thought you said you were on the left side of the road."
"I was. I waved at the people on the train and my bike turned off the pavement and right then the car came by and nicked my finger."
"You were clear off the road on the left side and it hit you?"
"Yes, but it didn't hit me; it just ticked me."
"But how? You're telling me the same car that hit Billy almost hit you?"
"Almost did."
"If it was on the left side of the road and hit you, how did it hit Billy?"
"After it passed me, Billy was right in front of him."
The sheriff thought a minute, then said, "You know, Paul, that driver must have gone to sleep, veered over to the left, woke up when he almost hit Mikey, then overcompensated for his mistake, and hit the other boy. He didn't see Billy in time."
Mikey was silent about that.
"Did he honk at Billy or anything?" the sheriff asked.
"I didn't hear anything, and
I don't think Billy did because of the train."
The sheriff thought another minute. "Tell me what you remember about the car, son."
"It didn't stop after it hit Billy."
"What color was it?"
"Black."
"Old or new?"
"Brand new."
"How do you know?"
"It was real shiny and smelled new."
"Had you ever seen it before? Do you know who it belongs to?"
"No."
"Try to remember the car. Did it have a license plate?"
"I don't remember. The back was all black, except the bumper."
"What color was the driver's hair?"
"I didn't see a driver."
"How could the car hit your hand and you not see the driver?"
"It went by before I could see who was driving."
"Did you see the back of his head or anything?"
"No. All I could do was yell at Billy when I saw the car was going to hit him."
"What make of car was it? A Ford? A Chevy? A Studebaker? What kind?"
"I don't know."
"Would you know it if you saw it again? What else do you remember?"
"It was a new black car."
"What else?"
"It was going fast and I couldn't hear it," Mikey said.
A lady named Mary Bell came around the corner of the church carrying her Sunday hat and gloves. She was the aunt of one of Mikey's best friends in school. She lived on a ranch near Ruby where Paul had worked for the highway department. Paul had stayed with her family while he was on that job.
Paul and Mikey got out of the sheriff's car and Mary walked right up and smiled into Paul's eyes. "I bet you haven't even been to bed yet," she said.
"Michael Paul made his First Holy Communion this morning," Paul said.
"I was there. Congratulations," Mary Bell sang. She took Mikey's hand in both of hers and smiled sugar all over him. She was a good-looking woman, tall and brunette. She wore her hair in the same style as Maggie's, parted in the middle and wavy to her shoulders.
"You look so handsome, Michael Paul. Can I take you home with me?"
Mikey looked away and saw Maggie come out of Father Duval's residence. She beckoned and he headed back to her. As she waited for him, Maggie narrowed her eyes for a complete study of Paul and Mary, then turned and went into Father Duval's ahead of Mikey. In the vestibule she said under her breath, "My Lord, now he's with Mary Bell."
As soon as Maggie stopped the car back in Mikey's yard, he jumped out and ran to Billy's house. Maggie yelled at him to expect a whipping if he got his suit dirty, but she did not make him come back. She knew he wanted to show off the suit and tell Billy about his first confession and First Communion, if he was awake.
Billy had been taken straight home from the accident, but he was in a coma and had not even moved an arm in the two weeks since he was hit. Mikey ran to Billy's every day but was not allowed in the house. On the Sunday of his First Holy Communion he knocked and waited at the back door. A terrible silence smothered the Shanes'. The birds did not sing there. Uncle Bill's hens did not cluck and his roosters did not crow. Nina's flowers were dead in the sun. Mikey never went to the front door because Billy's bed was in the living room and most of the time the doctor was there. Nurses were stationed by his bed day and night. The cars on the highway even seemed to slip by and make no sound as they passed the Shanes.
Nina was busier than usual with meals, laundry, and housework, but she was kinder than usual to Mikey and she had seen that he did not miss his final catechism instruction. He expected that he would get to see Billy that day because Nina had seen him through his communion ceremony and Father Duval's breakfast and did not seem worried about Billy. Billy seemed to be doing all right for a boy who broke almost every bone in his body.
He had suffered a fractured skull and broken his collarbone, ribs, arm, pelvis, leg, ankle, foot, and toes, all on the right side. He had not moved or made a sound since he was picked up off the pavement. Nina said that one tear formed in the corner of his eye when he was first brought into the house and she called his name and kissed him.
Mikey did not believe that Billy would die. Uncle Bill said that a coma was like a deep sleep. Nothing bad should come from it. The deeper the sleep, the better the waking. Billy would get well. Mikey did not even think to pray that he would come out of the coma, because none of the grown-ups told him the doctors worried that the coma was a sign that Billy's brain was dead.
More visitors than usual were in the house that day, but nobody came to the back door when Mikey knocked. Empty cars filled the driveway, but Mikey could not hear the voices of the people inside the house. He sat on the back step and listened to the ringing in his ears. After a while he felt that he was about to have another earache and went home.
Baxter came across the yard to meet Mikey in his humble little way. Maggie came out and herded Mikey and Baxter into the house. She doctored Mikey's ear with warm olive oil and put him down on her own bed with Maudy Marie for a nap. She sat at her kitchen table with a cup of coffee.
Dr. Gonzales advised Maggie that Mikey needed to be taken to a specialist in Tucson for better treatment on his ear. Maggie decided to ask for a leave of absence from the assessor's office. She would leave Maudy with Bica and Granny, take Mikey to Tucson, enroll in a six-week stenography course, and see that Mikey was cured of the ear trouble once and for all.
Mikey woke up from his nap with a full-fledged earache. Bica gave him peanut butter, melted butter, and honey on a hot flour tortilla and Maggie gave him eggnog with nutmeg on top and put him back to bed. He slept until midmorning on Monday when his little sister Maudy came to his bed, spoke his name softly, and took hold of his hand. He awakened and smiled.
"Hello, sister."
"Maikeh, los angelitos llevaron a Beely," Maudy said. "The angels took Billy."
"No, Maudy, it was probably only the ambulance. Did the ambulance come while I was asleep?" Mikey spoke to her in Spanish. Maudy refused to understand English most of the time.
Maudy pulled Mikey out of bed and led him to the kitchen. Bica was crying so hard at the kitchen table that her nose ran and tears dripped off her chin. Maggie was washing pots and pans in the kitchen sink. She turned to Mikey and the corners of her mouth drooped in a small, quick spasm. She kept her hands in the water.
"Well, Mikey, your best little friend died," she said.
Mikey went to stand at the picture window in the front room. Maudy still held his hand. Baxter lay under the elderberry tree and watched the highway. Bees hummed thickly in the tree and on Maggie's flowers. She had already watered the lawn and flowers and Mikey could smell their perfume. The heavy front door stood open. Maggie opened all the doors and windows every morning so the house would fill with cool air, then closed them before the sun took its grip on the yard and house. Mikey's throat swelled and hurt with sadness.
Car tires hummed quietly by on the highway, slowed, and turned in at the Shanes'. Mikey saw Uncle Bill Robinson and his wife Lydia go by. Uncle Art Robinson, the cowboy who had told Mikey about the tick in his ear, was in the backseat with them. They were Nina's brothers and sister-in-law. Uncle Art cowboyed near Patagonia. Uncle Bill owned a mercantile store in Nogales, Sonora, where a rancher could buy anything he needed. Aunt Lydia was beautiful and kind and could stop Mikey's heart with a look. He would get to see his Robinson uncles and Lydia now. The Carroon Mortuary hearse tooled by and turned into the Shanes' driveway and did not make enough sound to even drown the hum of the bees.
Mikey detached himself from Maudy, jumped into his overalls, and ran to the Shanes'. He stood behind Uncle Bill's hedge and watched a thick crowd of grown-ups mill in the Shanes' house and yard. Uncle Art watered Nina's wilted flowers. Uncle Bill Robinson fixed a piece of hardware that was needed in the house and carried it in. Doctors and nurses loaded cars with the paraphernalia that had been used in Billy's care. Men in suits clumsily bumped a stretcher as they carried it
through the front door. Mikey ran to the back door and went in. The front room was packed with men. Uncle Bill lifted Billy off his bed and laid him on the stretcher.
Mikey could only see the top of Billy's head. Under the covers, he was as small and crumpled as he had been the day he was dashed to the pavement by the black car. His hair stuck out at different angles through a bandage. After he was laid on the stretcher to be taken away, his hand dropped outside the covers as though it had come alive and wanted to stay behind. Nina's soft, clear Aiii was the only sound anyone made. Nobody else seemed to notice that Billy's hand had fallen out from under the covers.
The dead hand seemed smaller than Billy's everyday hand had been. Mikey could not see Billy's freckles on it. Billy's lines were all there in the hand. It made Mikey remember the essence of Billy. Billy's hands had grabbed a lot of boy business when they were alive; they had always been too busy to represent an ordinary boy's loveliness. Now that the hand had retired from Billy's business, it showed all the beauty Mikey remembered of his friend.
Neither boy had thought their boy-time adventures could get them killed. They played at being killed because play was not supposed to really get them killed. The hand belied the exploits of a wild person who took big risks with life and death. Being dead made it as small and hapless as a little kid's again.
A man in a dark suit placed Billy's hand on his chest, spread another blanket over him, and the stretcher men carried him out to the hearse. Some of the people boarded their cars to follow the hearse to Nogales. Mikey watched from Nina's dining room window. Aunt Lydia and Nina's sister Bea came in with Little Bea. Aunt Bea drew a glass of water and began to curl Little Bea's blond hair. Aunt Bea was nineteen, tiny and pretty with curly brown hair. She was another who could stop Mikey's heart with a look, but she did not leave him for dead the way Aunt Lydia did. He understood why Aunt Lydia could not stop for him and give him attention. Her three children were as full of mischief as Mikey. Bea was quick to smile and play with Mikey to keep him from crystallizing with admiration, and because of that they were pals. Bea was engaged to a man named Angel and she would go to live with him in Monterrey, Mexico. Mikey did not like it when Nina reminded him and teased him about that. She teased him because Mikey's hopes and yearnings always showed on his face.