"Little early today, aren't we?" I asked. It was 7:00 a.m.
He rubbed his hands together like he was starting a fire and said, "Naw, it's never too early for ice cream. Where's that family of yours?"
I liked the sound of that. "They're inside sleeping."
He glanced behind me and pointed. "Not anymore."
Jase slammed the front door, ran down the steps, and repeated his rehearsed performance at the window. Mutt walked in circles, eyeing the truck and looking over the mechanicals. His head was spinning. Calculating is more like it. Katie stood at the top of the steps, nursing a cup of coffee and giving me hand signals to buy a bottle of bubbles for Jase.
I turned to the kid. "How much you take for this whole thing?" I waved my hand from the front bumper to back, getting Mutt's attention in the process.
The kid tried to look surprised, but he had been fishing for this all along. "What? You want to buy my truck? Buy my business? Buy my very means of existence?"
He was laying it on pretty thick. "I want to buy your absence on my driveway." I smiled. "And if I own this truck, I'll want a guarantee that you'll never drive down it again-in anything."
The kid's eyes flitted around the truck like he was adding up all the numbers. I'm no dummy. He knew his number before he ever drove down the drive. "Nothing less than five."
"You're dreaming. I'll give you three and pay you cost plus 20 percent for all your inventory." The kid narrowed his eyes and communicated his disgust. "You think you're going to get a better offer today?"
He leaned through the window, and I could already hear him investing the money. He took off his wig, scratched his head, stuck his hand through the window, and said, "Deal."
I pointed at his outfit. "Suit too?"
"It's yours."
"Move over." To Katie's wide-eyed amazement, Jase, Mutt, and I loaded up and drove across town to the kid's house. I wrote him a check for $3,500, signed the title over to Mutt, and handed him the keys.
"Here, you drive." Mutt's eyes lit up like he had found the Holy Grail. He slipped on the red wig, pinned the red bulb nose onto his, punched the play button for "The Entertainer," and eased off on the clutch. His smile alone was worth $3,500. We drove all morning while Mutt got on the intercom and said, "Under new management! All ice cream today is free!" That really got people's attention, and by ten in the morning, we had given away everything Jase hadn't eaten.
Back in the driveway, Jase hopped down, ran to Katie, and pointed back at the truck. "Look, Mom, it's our own rolling confession stand." Two weeks had passed since the Trevor incident, and I had been spending enough time now with Jase that I could interpret most of his language. This one stumped me, and Katie noticed the quizzical look on my face.
Katie wiped the ice cream off Jase's lips and said, "Put a r in place of the f."
"Ohhhhhh."
Chapter 47
KATIE FILED CHARGES, AND THE COUNTY COURT JUDGE sentenced Trevor to five years in prison, but he wouldn't get to serve them until after he served thirty-five years in New York for fraud, embezzlement, and falsified tax returns.
Since Mutt's return, he had transformed Waverly. The outside glistened like new construction. He had chlorinated and pressure washed the entire outside of the house twice. Even the weeping mortar had come clean. The slate roof glistened, and the copper drainpipes looked handpolished. Much of the exterior trim had been replaced, primed, caulked, and repainted. The front porch had been regrouted, most of the windows had been scraped and caulked, and many of the exterior doors had been replaced because the bottoms had become swollen in the rain. Mutt installed new lights outside, including several spotlights in the trees around the house. He replaced the railing across the entire front porch, refinished the porch furniture, and painted it with an exterior semigloss that glistened in the early morning dew or midnight moonlight. Somehow, he had used the tractor and a few come- alongs to raise the front gate so that it no longer looked like a circus tent. He planted camellias, repaired the sprinkler system that wound down the drive, fed water to the weeping willows and live oaks, and trimmed the Leyland cypress surrounding the front drive. He even polished the brass lion's head door knocker.
And to say the inside of Waverly was clean would have been an understatement. We could have eaten off the bottom of the trash can. Every corner of the house had been washed down, dusted, and if need be, sanded, stained, repainted, or repaired. Lights, fans, door locks, and burners that hadn't worked in a decade now did. I knew Mutt had made real progress when, for the first time in almost a decade, the old grandfather clock shook the house at 7:00 a.m.
Mose couldn't believe it either. He kept walking around the house, shaking his head, murmuring to himself, and smiling. He looked at me and said, "Tuck, my sister wouldn't have believed this."
At daylight, Mutt walked downstairs and shook me. "Tuck, Tuck, wake up." I rubbed my eyes and wondered why my brother was wearing his clown suit at 6:00 a.m.
"Yeah, buddy?"
"I had this dream."
"Can you tell me about it in the morning?"
"It is morning." He sat down, took off his wig, straightened his red nose, and fumbled the wig in both hands. Gibby had mixed a recent cocktail of two medications that seemed to be putting Mutt on a more level playing field. Higher lows and lower highs. The result meant that since the swamp in Jacksonville, Mutt had had no Thorazine. He continued. "I found myself at the door of this huge, enormous cathedral. It's bigger than a hundred churches. I'm banging on the doors for hours with all I'm worth, and finally, they break loose. I stumble through, but it's empty. There are no pews. The inside is a mile long. Maybe more. The floor is a chessboard of polished pearl or ivory and black granite, and all the corners are perfectly straight. The walls are several stories high topped with polished granite bleachers that rise up several hundred feet and out of sight. The bleachers and rafters are filled with angels. Hundreds. Thousands. Maybe millions. And they're singing this chorus. Sometimes it's a low hum; other times it's these roaring songs and words I've never heard. Then at other times it's songs like Miss Ella used to sing-although they sound better than she did.
"At the other end of the hall, maybe a mile or so from me, is this single chair. More like a throne, but it's plain, nothing fancy. In the seat is this guy. I can't see his face, but he's all lit up like the sun, bright as bright gets. It's not like the wizard of Oz; this is the real deal. I step forward, and the rafters and bleachers fall deathly silent. The hush spreads, and the only sound is the occasional whisper of a flapping wing. I don't quite know why I'm here, but I know I wanted to get in here, and more than that, I want to talk to the guy in the chair. Everything in me wants to walk across that floor and just talk with him. To sit at his feet. But my feet won't move. They're concreted to the floor. I turn around and see a thousand ropes tying me to the back wall and spiderwebbing me to the ground.
"He waves at me, wanting me to walk the distance, but I can't. No matter what I do, no matter how many times I try to cut the web, I can't break free. Even worse, I can't speak to tell him because the web covers my mouth too. Tuck, I try but I can't get to him." Mutt was growing more excited and animated with every sentence.
"With every passing second, the web grows further, wrapping around my throat, cutting off the air. I've only got a minute or so. It tightens, and I feel my eyes about to pop out of my head. Just when I think I'll never get there and my last few breaths are getting shorter and more difficult, he stands up, shades his eyes, and waves me on again. When he realizes I can't get there from here, he jumps off his throne and starts trotting to me. Pretty soon, he's in an all-out run, covering the distance like a sprinter. And you ought to see him run. Knees high, long stride, toes barely touching the ground, and his arms are pumping from his hips to his earlobes. As he gets closer, I see who it is."
Mutt paused, eyes wide. "I mean, it's Him. The thorns on the crown are long, maybe two inches, and they're poking into the thin flesh around His skull. Bl
ood's trickling down His face, I can see through the holes in His hands and feet, and the hole in His side is running with blood and water. He stops next to me, but He's not even breathing hard. It's like He's run that distance a lot and He's used to it.
"Then He grabs the web of ropes with one hand, holds out His other, squeezes His fist, and drops of blood run out the bottom of His fist like He's wringing out a sponge. The blood soaks the rope that binds me and eats through it like acid. The web melts, disappears, and I'm cut free. I look up, and the angels are all flapping their wings. It's like ten million bees flying around the top of the Superdome, all lit up like fireflies. And the singing. It's hopeful. Like I finally did something right. I look at my hands, and there are no ropes. No web. No binds. I'm free. The song above me grows, and even though I've never heard it, I already know the words."
Mutt stood up and painted the room with his hands. "I didn't know what to give Him, so I opened my fanny pack, pulled out this peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and offered it to Him. He tore off a corner just like Miss Ella used to, and we sat down right there on the floor of that place and ate my PB&J. He sat on an ivory square and I sat on a granite one. Pretty soon, other people started banging on the door, and they were really banging loud and I didn't want to be rude, so I stood to leave, but He reached out and grabbed my hand. When I looked down, He had clasped a silver bracelet around my wrist. It had no beginning and no end and could never come off. I turned it over, and on the inside, He had written His name." Mutt held his arm up and displayed the seamless silver band that circled his right wrist. "I didn't want to forget the dream, so I made this."
He inched his face closer to mine. "Tuck, do you want to hit some chert rocks?"
"Mutt. . .
He pointed toward the barn. "The lights are on." Mutt's face told me he wasn't about to take no for an answer, so I stepped out of bed and pulled on my jeans. Mutt was waiting on me when I stepped into the barn. I grabbed the bat, and he knelt on the other side of the plate where he could soft-toss the pebbles. "I just want you to hit one." Mutt reached in his pocket and pulled out the rounded, oiled, and hand-polished stone he had carried for so long.
"You sure?" Mutt nodded and tossed the rock over the plate.
I slowed the spin, watching it tumble through the strike zone, Matthew's name turning round and round. I stepped, turned my hips, threw my hands, and swung. It was a good swing. The black granite exploded into a mist and filled the air like a cloud. Mutt and I said nothing for a few seconds while it floated out of the barn. After the air cleared, it struck me that I had not seen Rex's face on the rock.
For breakfast, the four of us loaded into Mutt's mechanically sound dessert truck that no longer smoked and drove to Rolling Hills. Katie's tummy had rounded, so she asked to wear one of my button-up flannel shirts. The sight of her warmed me. Before we left the truck, Mutt filled his arms with a plethora of cold sweets, and then all of us walked the hall to Rex's room while jase led the way. The judge had become accustomed to our almost daily visits and even more accustomed to Mutt's Chocolate Rocket, "with."
I sat next to the Judge, holding his post-ice cream cigar, while Jase curled on my lap and watched two male cardinals fight over the feeder outside the window. Mutt sat in a chair in front of Rex, spooning vanilla ice cream into his mouth with a kiddie-size plastic spoon. We didn't know if Rex liked it or not because he never bothered to tell us. But we figured it was better than nothing, and if he didn't like it, he could always spit it out. For almost two weeks, he's been swallowing.
Chapter 48
LATE ONE AFTERNOON, MOSE'S SINGING PULLED ME OFF the back porch and led me along the fencerow to the cemetery where his pick and shovel were keeping perfect time with his voice. The sweat dripped off his brow, routed around his smile, and covered his chest. The clouds overhead were moving in, blocking out the sun, and a cool breeze ushered in that sweet smell.
"Whose hole?" I asked.
"Mine, if this pick doesn't get any lighter."
"Oh, stop it. You're healthier than me."
Mose stopped swinging and sized me up. "You about ready?"
"Yeah, Katie's made all the arrangements, decorated everything from the narthex to the altar, and tomorrow we're taking Jase on a two-week vacation out West. Thought we'd see some big mountains and small, deserted mining towns."
"Taking your camera?"
"Yeah, Doc's got me looking for a few things. I might squeeze it in."
"And Mutt?"
"Gibby's taking him fly-fishing in Maine for a week, and then they'll be here a week until we return."
"Gibby's a good doctor."
I nodded.
Mose sunk his pick into the hard dirt about three feet below the surface, nodded toward his sister's grave, and spoke again without looking up. "You spoke to everybody about this?"
"No." I ran my fingers through my hair and eyed the church.
"Well, you don't have to be into your tux for another hour and a half, so you've got some time."
I pointed at the hole. "Don't die in there. We need you for the ceremony."
"You keep sassing me and I'm liable to do it just to spite you."
I walked around the church, amazed at the transformation. Mutt had pulled away the vines, replaced all the rotten boards, rebuilt the front door, and replaced the old wooden handles with shiny brass knobs. The doors were open, as was every window in the church, and like me, the church was breathing.
I eyed the altar, and Miss Ella's parallel lines eyed me back. I paced between the pew ends, considered a moment, and then sat next to them, leaning against the railing. Outside, Mose sang softly.
I studied myself and started in. "I'm getting married today. Provided You let us. In an hour, Mutt's picking up both Rex and the Judge and dropping them at your front door here where Mose, along with the judge, is doing the honors. I don't expect Rex to know much, but I figured I'd invite him. And when I asked the Judge to stand in, he started crying, so I think we did good there. This morning, when I woke up, I had to remind myself to say it, I mean, to tell myself that I forgive Rex. I think that's a good sign. Maybe the hurt is moving toward the backseat, and I think that's a starting place. Katie's been dancing around this place for a month, phoning friends, and making arrangements-lit up like Tinkerbell dancing down the zip line. And I can't keep her off the piano. As for Jase, well, he's swinging at every baseball I throw, still calling me `Unca Tuck,' carrying the ring, and wants to know if we're drinking beer at the reception. I said yes. Hope You don't mind."
I fingered the grooves in the wood. "Looking back on it, I guess You had more to do with the Volvo getting stuck than I first gave You credit for. Whatever You did, or are doing, please don't stop. All of us, Mutt included, need a safe place, and it's a lot safer when You're watching over. We had thirty-three years of misery, bitterness, and hell, but You were right. Whipped, battered, and beaten, love broke through the rocks. I don't know how, but it did. I guess that's the mystery of it all."
I looked around, marveling at Mutt's carpentry, and summarized what I could. "I need to ask You something." Wooden Jesus shined like a shellacked bowling ball as the pigeons flapped, cooed, and prepared for takeoff above me. Launched from its nest, a huge, solid purple pigeon flew out of the rafters, dove down over the altar, dropped a sizable white bomb directly in the middle of the butcher's block, and then arced through the rafters and back to its perch. I looked up, into the sunshine. "Here's the rub; I need You to help me be the man that kid thinks I am. He's so filled up with hope, wonder, and brimming over with everything good that I want to feed it. Grow it. Maybe if it grows in him, it'll grow in me too. I want to be for him what Rex never was for me, and given my track record, the thought of that scares me half to death." I pointed toward Waverly. "There's a lot at stake here."
I walked down the aisle and turned, placing my finger in the air. "Oh, and one more thing ... please tell Miss Ella I love her. Tell her I miss her. And ... tell her I cut away my coffin."
I walked outside, and Mose climbed out of his hole. The spade of his shovel was shiny and bent, and his handle black with ten years of wear and rhythmic digging. He handed it to me. "Here."
"What's this for?"
He pointed at the hole. "Fill it in."
"But ... there's nothing in there."
He nodded and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. "There will be when you finish."
Mose threw his pick over his shoulder and looked down at Miss Ella's grave. "Now, sister, I did what you asked, but the next time, he digs it. I'm getting too old to be digging other people's graves."
Mose walked toward the barn, whistling "Here Comes the Bride," and I stepped in the hole. I pulled the dirt down over my shoes, slow and steady. I was in no hurry, and it was easy work. The hard part had been done. Thirty minutes later, I patted the top, rounding the mound, and leaned on my shovel like I'd seen Mose do a dozen times.
The gravedigger's high.
With Miss Ella's grave to my left and mine to the right, a wet breeze ushered in pregnant, low-lying clouds. For several moments, they hung at the treetops, dark and heavy, then as if sprung from a trap door, they opened up and a sweet, springtime deluge gushed forth. A warm rain, with big, heavy drops, typical of March. Maybe God was crying on Alabama. But not all tears speak sorrow. Some scream joy.
My childhood had taught me to know that clouds like that-that opened up so quickly and so heavily-had a staying power of about fifteen minutes. Then, after they had shot their cannon and dumped their guts, the sun would break through, burn off the rain, and turn the air humid and sticky. I looked up, closed my eyes, and let the rain wash my face, shoulders, and soul and felt the crack in my heart begin to close.