Paradise

  “Ma, just let me in, okay?”

  Birdie Goodroe had barely enough calf liver for two. Mother and daughter ate in the kitchen, Mavis presentable now—washed, combed, aspirined and swimming a little in Birdie’s housedress.

  “Well, let me have it. Not that I need to be told.”

  Mavis wanted some more of the baby peas and tipped the bowl to see if any were left.

  “I could see this coming, you know. Anybody could,” Birdie continued. “Don’t need more’n a mosquito’s brain.”

  There were a few. A couple of tablespoons. Mavis scraped them onto her plate wondering if there was to be any dessert. Quite a bit of the fried potatoes were still in her mother’s plate. “You going to eat those, Ma?”

  Birdie pushed her plate toward Mavis. There was a tiny square of liver, too, and some onions. Mavis scraped it all onto her plate.

  “You still have children. Children need a mother. I know what you’ve been through, honey, but you do have other children.”

  The liver was a miracle. Her mother always got every particle of the tight membrane off.

  “Ma.” Mavis wiped her lips with a paper napkin. “Why couldn’t you make it to the funeral?”

  Birdie straightened. “You didn’t get the money order? And the flowers?”

  “We got them.”

  “Then you know why. I had to choose—help bury them or pay for a trip. I couldn’t afford to do both. I told you all that. I asked you all straight out which thing would be the best, and you both said the money. Both of you said so, both.”

  “They’re going to kill me, Ma.”

  “Are you going to hold that over my head for the rest of my life? All I’ve done for you and those children?”

  “They already tried but I got away.”

  “You’re all I have, now your brothers gone and got themselves shot up like—” Birdie slapped the table.

  “They got no right to kill me.”

  “What?”

  “He’s making the other children do it.”

  “What? Do what? Speak up so I can hear what you saying.”

  “I’m saying they are going to kill me.”

  “They? Who? Frank? What they?”

  “All of them. The kids too.”

  “Kill you? Your children?”

  Mavis nodded. Birdie Goodroe widened her eyes first, then looked into her lap as she held her forehead in the palm of her hand.

  They didn’t talk anymore for a while, but later, at the sink, Birdie asked, “Were the twins trying to kill you too?”

  Mavis stared at her mother. “No! Oh, no, Ma! Are you crazy? They’re babies!”

  “All right. All right. Just asking. It’s unusual, you know, to think little children…”

  “Unusual? It’s—it’s evil! But they’ll do what he says. And now they’ll do anything. They already tried, Ma!”

  “Tried how? What did they do?”

  “Sal had a razor and they was laughing and watching me. Every minute watching me.”

  “What did Sal do with the razor?”

  “She had it next to her plate and she was looking at me. They all was.”

  Neither woman spoke about it again, because Birdie told Mavis she could stay if and only if she never talked that way again. That she wouldn’t tell Frank, if he called back, or anybody else that she was there, but if she said one more word about killing she would call him right away.

  In a week Mavis was on the road, but this time she had a plan. Days before she heard her mother talking low into the mouthpiece of the telephone, saying, “You better get up here fast and I mean pronto,” Mavis had walked around the house, while Birdie was at the Play-Skool, thinking: money, aspirin, paint, underwear; money, aspirin, paint, underwear. She took all she could find of the first two, the checks in two brown government envelopes propped against the photograph of one of her killed-in-action brothers, and both bottles of Bayer. She took a pair of rhinestone clips from Birdie’s jewelry box and stole back the car keys her mother thought she had hidden so well; poured two gallons of lawn mower gasoline into the Cadillac’s tank and drove away for more. In Newark she found an Earl Scheib paint shop and waited two days in the Y dormitory until it was sprayed magenta. The twenty-nine dollars advertised turned out to be for a standard-size car only. Sixty-nine dollars is what they made her pay for the Cadillac. The underwear and thong sandals she bought at Wool-worth’s. At a Goodwill she bought a light-blue pantsuit, drip dry, and a white cotton turtleneck. Just right, she thought, for California. Just right.

  With a crisp new Mobil map beside her on the seat, she sped out of Newark heading for route 70. As more and more of the East was behind her, the happier she became. Only once had she felt this kind of happiness. On the Rocket ride she took as a kid. When the rocket zoomed on the downward swing, the rush made her giddy with pleasure; when it slowed just before turning her upside down through the high arc of its circle, the thrill was intense but calm. She squealed with the other passengers, but inside was the stable excitement of facing danger while safely strapped in strong metal. Sal hated it; so did the boys when, later on, she took them to the amusement park. Now, in flight to California, the memory of the Rocket ride and its rush were with her at will.

  According to the map the way was straight. All she had to do was find 70, stay on it until Utah, make a left on down to Los Angeles. Later she remembered traveling like that—straight. One state, then the next, just as the map promised. When her funds dwindled to coins, she was forced to look for hitchhikers. But other than the first and the last, she could not remember the order of the girls. Picking up girls was easiest. They were safe company, she hoped, and they helped with gas and food and sometimes invited her to a place where they could crash. They graced primary routes, intersections, ramps to bridges, the verges of gas stations and motels, in jeans belted low on the hips and flared at the bottom. Flat hair swinging or hair picked out in Afros. The white ones were the friendliest; the colored girls slow to melt. But all of them told her about the world before California. Underneath the knowing talk, the bell-chime laughter, the pointed silences, the world they described was just like her own pre-California existence—sad, scary, all wrong. High schools were dumps, parents stupid, Johnson a creep, cops pigs, men rats, boys assholes.

  The first girl was outside Zanesville. That’s where sitting in a roadside diner, counting her money, the runaway appeared. Mavis had noticed her going into the ladies’ room, then, quite a bit later, coming out dressed in different clothes: a long skirt this time, and a flowing blouse that touched her thighs. Outside in the parking lot, the girl ran to the Cadillac’s passenger window and asked for a lift. Smiling happily, she jerked open the door when Mavis nodded. The girl said her name—Sandra but call me Dusty—and talked for thirty-two miles. Not interested in anything about Mavis, Dusty ate two Mallomars and chattered, mostly about the owners of the six dog tags that hung from her neck. Boys in her high school class or whom she had known in junior high. She’d got two from when they dated; the rest she begged from their families—souvenirs. All dead or missing.

  Mavis agreed to drive through Columbus and drop Dusty at her girlfriend’s house. They arrived in a soft rain. Someone had done the last mowing of the season. Dusty’s hair matted in brown licks; the glorified scent of newly cut grass in rain, the clink of dog tags, half a Mallo. That was Mavis’ memory of her first detour with a hitchhiker. Except for the last, the others were out of sequence. Was it in Colorado that she saw a man sitting on a bench under pines in a rest area? He ate slowly, very slowly while he read a newspaper. Or before? It was sunny, cold. Anyway somewhere around that place she picked up the girl who stole her rhinestone clips. But earlier—near Saint Louis, was it?—she opened the passenger door to two girls shivering on route 70. Wind beaten, their army jackets closed tight around their chins, leather clogs, thick gray socks—they wiped their noses while their hands were still pocketed.

  Not far, they said. A place just a few miles out, th
ey said. The place, a sparkling green cemetery, was as peopled as a park. Lines of cars necklaced the entrance. Groups of people, solitary strollers, all patient in the wind, mixed with boys from a military school. The girls thanked Mavis and got out, running a little to join a set of graveside mourners. Mavis lingered, amazed by the unnatural brightness of the green. What she thought were military students turned out to be real soldiers—but young, so young, and as fresh-looking as the headstones they stood before.

  It must have been after that when Mavis picked up Bennie—the last one and the one she liked best and who stole her raincoat and Sal’s boots. Bennie was glad to know that, like her, Mavis was going all the way to L.A. She, Bennie, was heading for San Diego. Not a talker, small or big, Bennie sang. Songs of true love, false love, redemption; songs of unreasonable joy. Some drew tears, others were deliberately silly. Mavis sang along once in a while, but mostly she listened and in one hundred and seventy-two miles never got tired of hearing her. Mile after mile rolled by urged and eased by the gorgeous ache in Bennie’s voice.

  She didn’t like to eat at highway stops. If they were there, because Mavis insisted on it, Bennie drank water while Mavis wolfed down cheese melts and fries. Twice Bennie directed them through towns, searching for colored neighborhoods, where they could eat “healthy,” she said. At those places Bennie ate slowly, steadily, with repeat orders, side dishes and always something to go. She was careful with her money but didn’t seem worried about it, and shared the cost at every gas pump.

  Mavis never learned what she planned to do or who meet in L.A. (well, San Diego). “To get it on,” was her single answer to Mavis’ inquiry. Nevertheless, somewhere between Topeka and Lawrence, Kansas, she disappeared along with Mavis’ clear plastic raincoat and Sal’s yellow boots. Odd, because Mavis’ five-dollar bill was still attached to the gearshift with a rubber band. They had finished the barbecue and potato salad in a tacky restaurant named Hickey’s. Bennie’s “to go” order was wrapped and sitting on the table. “I’ll take care of this,” she said, nodding toward the check. “You go on to the toilet before we hit the road.” When Mavis came out, Bennie and her ribs-to-go were gone.

  “How the hell I know?” was what the waitress answered. “She didn’t leave even a penny tip.”

  Mavis fished out a quarter and placed it on the counter. She waited a few minutes in the car before trying to find her way back to sweet 70.

  The quiet Bennie left in the Cadillac was unbearable. Mavis kept the radio on, and if one of Bennie’s songs came on, she sang too, mourning the inferior rendition.

  Panic struck in an Esso station.

  Returning the rest room key, Mavis looked through the window. Beyond, under the fluorescent lights sheltering the pump, Frank was leaning into the Cadillac window. Could he have grown that much hair in two weeks? And his clothes. Black leather jacket, shirt opened almost to his navel, gold chains. Mavis buckled and when the attendant stared at her she tried to make it look as though she’d stumbled. There was nowhere to run. She rummaged the Colorado maps in the rack. She looked again. He was gone. Parked close by, she thought, waiting for her to emerge.

  I’ll scream, she told herself, pretend I don’t know him, fight him, call the police. The car was no longer mint green, but oh God—the license plate was the same. She had the reg. Suppose he brought the title papers. Was there a bulletin out? She could not stand still and there was no retreat. Mavis went forward. Not running. Not tripping. Head down, searching her purse for a twenty-dollar bill.

  Back in the car, waiting for the attendant to collect the money, she examined her surroundings in the rear and side-view windows. Nothing. She paid and turned on the ignition. Right then the black-jacketed, open shirt torso appeared in the right-hand mirror. Gold links catching fluorescent light. Hard as she tried to control it, the Cadillac lurched out of the gas lane. Scared now, she forgot what to look for. Junction what? Turn right to go south. No, west. Enter 70 at what? But this was east. Exit ramp goes where?

  An hour later she was traveling a road already driven twice before. Exiting as soon as possible, she found herself on a narrow bridge and a street lined with warehouses. Secondary routes, she decided, would be better anyway. Fewer police, fewer streetlights. Trembling at every traffic light, she made it out of town. She was on route 18 when night came, and drove on and on until there was nothing but fumes to fuel the engine. The Cadillac neither sighed nor coughed. It simply stopped in a well of darkness, headlights picking out thirty feet of tarmac. Mavis switched off the lights and locked the doors. A little courage, she whispered. Like the girls running from, running toward. If they could roam around, jump in cars, hitchhike to burials, search strange neighborhoods for food, make their own way alone or with only each other for protection, certainly she could wait in darkness for morning to come. She had done it all her adult life, was able to sleep best in daylight. Besides and after all, she was not a teenager; she was a twenty-seven-year-old mother of…

  Early Times didn’t help. The tears wet her chin, crept down her neck anyway. What it did eventually was knock her out.

  Mavis woke felt-mouthed, ugly, unfocused, and knew she was ravenous because the sun, watermelon red, looked edible. The screaming blue horizon that surrounded her was minus invitation or reproach and supported by a billion miles of not one thing.

  There was no choice. She relieved herself as Dusty had taught her, got back in the car to wait for another one to pass by. Bennie was smart; she never left anywhere without a dripping box of food. Mavis felt her stupidity close in on her head like a dry sack. A grown woman who could not cross the country. Could not make a plan that accommodated more than twenty minutes. Had to be taught how to dry herself in the weeds. Too rattle-minded to open a car’s window so babies could breathe. She did not know now why she had run from the gold links coming toward her. Frank was right. From the very beginning he had been absolutely right about her: she was the dumbest bitch on the planet.

  During the wait, in which no car or truck or bus approached, she dozed, woke to awful thoughts, dozed again. Suddenly she sat up, wide awake, and decided not to starve. Would the road girls just sit there? Would Dusty? Bennie? Mavis looked closely at the surroundings. The billion miles of not one thing had trees in the distance. Was this grass or a crop of some kind? Every road went somewhere, didn’t it? Mavis collected her purse, looked for her raincoat and discovered it was gone. “Christ!” she shouted and slammed the door.

  The rest of the morning she stayed on the same road. When the sun was highest, she turned into a narrower one because it offered shade. Still tarmac, but not enough room for two automobiles to pass without using the shoulder. When the road ran out of trees, she saw ahead to the left a house. It looked small but close and it took a while for her to discover it was neither. She had to negotiate acres of corn to arrive. Either the house was backwards or it had no driveway. As she drew closer she saw it was stone—sandstone, maybe, but dark with age. At first there seemed to be no windows, but then she made out the beginning of a porch and saw the reflection of huge windows on the ground floor. Circling to the right, she glimpsed a driveway leading not to the front door but around to the side. Mavis turned left. The grass near the porch was tended. Claws gripped the finials on either side of the stone steps. Mavis climbed the stairs and knocked on the door. No answer. She walked around to the driveway side and saw a woman sitting in a red wooden chair at the edge of a vegetable garden.

  “Excuse me,” Mavis called, her hands funneling around her mouth.

  The woman faced her, but Mavis couldn’t tell where she was looking. She was wearing sunglasses.

  “Excuse me.” Mavis moved closer. No need to shout now. “I broke down a ways back. Can anybody help? Is there someplace I can call?”

  The woman stood up, gathering the hem of her apron in both hands, and came forward. She wore a yellow cotton dress with tiny white flowers and fancy buttons under an apron of what looked like sailcloth. Her low-heeled shoes were unlaced
. On her head a wide-brimmed straw hat. The sun was beating hard; a hot wind kicked up, turning back the brim of her hat.

  “No telephone out here,” she said. “Come inside.”

  Mavis followed her into the kitchen where the woman dumped pecans from her apron into a box by the stove and removed her hat. Two Hiawatha braids trailed down her shoulders. She slid out of her shoes, propped open the door with a brick and took off her sunglasses. The kitchen was big, full of fragrances and a woman’s solitary mess. Her back turned to Mavis, she asked her, “You a drinking woman?”

  Mavis didn’t know if a drink was being offered or solicited.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Lies not allowed in this place. In this place every true thing is okay.”

  Startled, Mavis breathed into her palm. “Oh. I drank some of my husband’s liquor a while back, but I’m not what you’d call a drinking woman. I was just, well, wrung out. Driving so long and then running out of gas.”

  The woman busied herself lighting the stove. Her braids fell forward.

  “I forgot to ask your name. Mine’s Mavis Albright.”

  “People call me Connie.”

  “I’d appreciate some coffee, Connie, if you got any.”

  Connie nodded without turning around.

  “You work here?”

  “I work here.” Connie lifted her braids from her chest and dropped them behind her shoulders.

  “Is any of the family here? Seem like I knocked for the longest time.”

  “No family. Just her upstairs. She couldn’t answer the door if she wanted to and she don’t want to.”

  “I’m headed out by California. You think you can help me get some gas back to my car? Show me the way out of here?”

  The woman sighed at the stove but didn’t reply.

  “Connie?”

  “I’m thinking.”