This he was not used to. On the big, round clock behind him the hour hand was on the two. I continued on to the door. I opened it. “I need to go out,” I told him. “I just remembered I forgot something at the park today and I have to go get it.”
He looked at me without expression. He was stumped. All prison guards were calibrated to protect me from any threat—except myself. I nudged him over the hump. “Just be a minute, Al. I’ll be careful.”
He fired his last shot. “The park’s more than a minute.”
I opened the door. I laughed. “Right. Two minutes.” And I was gone.
I was halfway to the park when I realized I’d forgotten to bring a shovel. A good stick would have to do.
I rode from pool to pool of streetlight, the only sound the tick and whir of my bike wheels. In all the town only I was moving.
I turned left from the boulevard and into the park. Then another left at the Willow Street bridge and onto the path that paralleled the creek. I parked at the Little League field. The moon, high in a cloudless sky, was a perfect half of a Carl’s pie. Free of trees and buildings, the field seemed bright enough to play on.
I entered the adjacent woods. Fifteen feet away the creek trickled softly. I heard a plop. Crickets were making their noises, but to me it was not the usual benign soundtrack of a summer’s night. Tonight it was summer grinding its teeth.
I found the tool I needed: a two-foot branch, hard, not rotted, one end ragged, sharp enough.
I walked out to shortstop through a winkle of fireflies. I went precisely to the spot where I would have stood, knees bent, hands poised, heels up an inch, ready to go left, ready to go right, eyes on the batter, on the ball, just like Mr. Strong taught me at baseball school, if they’d let me play in Little League. I punched the stick into the glittery sand, which quickly gave way to a darker clay. I dug a good hole maybe two feet deep. I took my glove from the handlebars. I kissed it and dropped it into the hole. I pushed the dug dirt back in with my sneaker and smoothed it over.
Maybe it was finding myself at another burial. I thought of Boo Boo. Of “Spootnik.” I looked up through the fireflies. She said it would look just like a star, except it would move slowly across the sky. I stared till my neck got sore. I lay down on my back and stared some more. There were a lot of stars, but not one of them moved. I got up and walked off in defeat, reminded once again that I had failed Boo Boo.
I rode back to the Willow Street bridge. I dismounted. I grabbed the front tube in one hand, the seat post in the other and heaved my bike over the low stone wall into the creek below. I could hear the wheels ticking as I walked off.
I walked back along the tracks. The rails were silver in the moonlight. Somewhere along the way I screamed.
I came off the tracks at Elm Street. A sound: from the other side of town, by the river. Again. A monster was coughing in the east. I knew at once it was not a diesel. It was a steam locomotive. Maybe the last one ever. I waited.
I saw the beam of light swing around the curve at the old cigar factory, then the monster itself pumping smoke balls into the moonlit sky. I was barely off the tracks but I did not step back. It thundered past, inches from my face. I trembled in my sneakers. As the yellow-eyed snout punched into the park and the freight cars began to click past like a rolling timepiece, I was aware of a tiny pittering all around me. It was the soot, the rain of grit from the coal-fired engine. I could feel the pitter on my forearms. I did not move and the rain of soot did not stop, not when the caboose clattered by, not when the train was a faint mutter in the west. I just stood there and stood there as the soot fell on me and piled around me as if all the nights and all the deaths of the world were raining down on me. The soot was up to my armpits when a dreamy notion rolled by like a second, dawdling caboose: This is not real. I took a step forward, out of the soot, out of my unreal self. I could do this, such was my state. I began walking up Elm. When I looked back, the soot pile was up to the streetlight and still rising.
In time I came to my street, Airy. Passing St. John’s Church, I was dimly aware of the dark, rounded tombstones, which became the hunched shoulders of the dead, risen to follow me home.
“Well!” said Al as I opened the big door. “That sure was a long two minutes.” Despite the mild scolding of the words, his voice was cheery. And relieved.
I may have said “Sorry” or “I know.” He may have asked if I found the thing I’d “forgotten.” He may have asked about my bike. I may have reached into my pocket and thrown a handful of grit at him. I don’t know. I’m picking lint from the sleeve of memory.
And so Al is saying, “That sure was…,” and next thing I know I’m in the empty exercise yard. I stand quietly in the shadow of the massive wall. I do not want to alert the guard in the corner tower. I myself become shadow. For a blessed respite, I feel nothing.
Then, despite the warm, humid night, a chill falls over me. I’m puzzled at first. And then I’m not, for I realize I’m in more than one place. This is a lot bigger, of course, but the shape and lifeless void of the women’s exercise yard perfectly mimics the open grave at the Heaven Help Us cemetery.
I leave the shadows. I move to the glittering center of the yard. I lie down. I fold my hands over my chest. I close my eyes. I’m perfectly aware of what I’m doing. The moon tonight is only half, but the light it casts is plenty enough to show the tower guard that somebody is lying in the middle of the exercise yard. Any moment I expect a second, more brilliant moon—the tower spotlight—to nail me. I expect to hear a commanding voice—“Halt! Who goes there?”—or something like that. Maybe even the distant snap-cock of a rifle. Sirens! Flashing red lights! Running feet!
I don’t care.
But nothing happens, and in time I open my eyes and, behold: the world is gone except for the nighttime sky. Stars! I’ve heard there are as many stars as there are grains of sand at the beach in Wildwood. I try again to detect movement that might reveal Boo Boo’s Spootnik but quickly turn to thoughts of angels. Are they up there? Hiding behind the stars? In the spaces between? Boo Boo’s angel?
Thomas Browne’s?
My mother’s?
I remember my father’s lifeless “Sure.” How it punctured the balloon of my first try at belief. But that was in a cloistered cellblock. Out here…out here a father’s skeptical “Sure” has no chance among the grandeur of the night and the stars. Even so, it comes to me to make certain. Perhaps angelhood does not follow death automatically. Perhaps a mother’s angel needs to be born, needs the breath of her child. And so I whisper her name, then say it aloud—“Anne O’Reilly!”—and blow it up to the stars.
That’s when I hear a metallic clank, and the tower spotlight nails me.
61
No mother is finally buried until her child climbs out of the grave.
Next day, my eyes still closed, I awakened to bright light and wondered if the night before—shouts, hands, commotion—was still going on. Then I heard the brewery hurl its whistle over the town. Lunchtime! My eyes shot open. And snapped shut, blinded by the sun streaming into my face.
Past the wake-up annoyance and confusion, I was left with empty. The world, as always, had not changed for the better overnight. In fact, it was worse than yesterday. My bike and my glove were gone.
All my life I had filled up empty with mad. From my pillow I glanced about for a hook to hang my mad on. I found my father, who had caused the blinding sunlight by neglecting to pull down the shade when he put me to bed. Beyond that I found only myself, on top of the sheets, jeans, shirt still on, everything but sneakers.
As usual, my breakfast things were laid out neatly on the counter: bowl, spoon, juice glass, Cocoa Puffs, napkin. I pushed them aside. Who eats breakfast at noon? I knew she was watching from the dining room. I made a grand show of failing to find something suitable for lunch in the fridge. I snatched an apple from the fruit bowl. I attacked it with noisy, goadful bites. I had found my mad. My gorge was rising.
She spoke
: “Sorry. You…I wasn’t sure.” The words were okay but not the tone. She didn’t sound sorry enough.
A sudden thought: Smoke a cigarette—now! I went to my underwear drawer. I lifted the stack of underpants, all of them basic cotton whites, to retrieve the pack of Salems I had hidden there. It was gone.
The gorge was in my throat.
I planted myself on my breakfast-and-hair-braiding counter stool. She was in the living room now. “Did you take them?” I said.
She stopped, looked up, the face of innocence. “Take what?”
“You know.”
She stared. I stared. “My cigarettes. My Salems. They were under my underwear. You do my wash. You go in my drawer. Where are they?”
“I threw them out,” she said. Just like that. Matter-of-fact. No big deal.
Her casual attitude, her quick confession, knocked me off stride for a moment. I glared at her. She was bent over the coffee table, dusting. “You don’t throw out my stuff,” I told her.
She kept dusting the same spot. She said something, but I couldn’t believe I’d heard right.
“What did you say?” I said.
She stood straight. She faced me. “I said, And you don’t smoke cigarettes in here.”
I was dumbstruck. “Who do you think you are? You don’t tell me what to do. You’re not my father.”
“When he’s not here, I’m in charge.”
The calm and quiet in her voice were infuriating. Where had this sudden entitlement come from? And yet I laughed. “Ha! Yeah—I’ll tell you what you’re in charge of. You’re in charge of dusting, that’s what you’re in charge of.” I was getting loud.
The dustrag fell to the coffee table. She sat down on the sofa. I couldn’t believe it. Except at lunchtimes, I had never seen her sit. She patted the sofa cushion beside her. “Come sit down,” she said.
I almost did. Here she was, acting parental, offering me what I’d been aching for for so long—but I was too full of spite and self-pity. I sneered at her. “Don’t tell me what to do. It’s too late for that. I don’t need you.”
She folded her hands in her lap. “I know you’re going through a bad time, Cammie.”
Bad time.
The echo of Thomas Browne’s words smacked me like a foul ball to the chin.
I lashed out: “You don’t know nothing. And who do you think you are, calling me Cammie. It’s Miss Cammie to you.” I jabbed my finger at her. “You’re the criminal around here. I’m the boss.” I picked up the dustrag. “You’re a duster, for God’s sake!” I shook the rag in her face. “You’re my maid!” I threw the rag at her. “Go dust!” I lunged to the door. I turned. I jabbed at her. “Get off my sofa!”
She never moved. She sat there as calmly as if she were waiting for someone with white gloves to pass her a teacup.
I stormed over to her dry mop, which was leaning at the kitchen entry. With strength from some reserve of fury, I broke the mop stick over my knee. “Sweep!” I screamed. I shook the jagged sticks at her. “Sweep, damn you!”
She was looking at me as she’d never looked at me before, as in my fantasies I’d seen my mother look at me. The sticks fell from my hands. I started to cry.
Through the blur of my tears I saw that she was getting up, coming toward me. I thrust out my hand. “Stop!” She stopped. I blubbered on: “I don’t want you anymore! I’m sorry I ever let you in my house. I’m sorry I gave you a birthday present. I’m sorry I ever…ever…”
She came closer. “No!” I yelled. She stopped again. “Don’t you touch me. I want you out of my house. You’re not my mother! I’m just a cushy job to you!” I was bawling. I stomped my foot. “Get out! I’m gonna go set a fire!”
She did not move. She did not leave the house. She did not come and wrap me in her arms and smother me with love. She did nothing but speak, in a voice as gentle as milk. “It’s time for you to go there, Cammie.”
I tried to focus through the blur. “Huh?” I said.
“You must do it now,” she said. “You should have done it a long time ago. Don’t wait another minute. Please. Do it. Go.”
“Do what?” I said, or whined, or shouted. “Go where?”
She said it in three simple words: “You know where.”
Of course I knew where. I’d known since she began speaking. But I was preoccupied with a question that was scalding my soul: How does she know?
I could not speak. I could not move.
“Miss Cammie.” Her voice was louder. “Cammie, please…trust me. I know you. You must…you need to go….Talk to her…now.”
She was right.
It had been way, way too long.
I bolted for the door. Down the stairs. Voices called as I burst through Reception. The traffic was screaming; the sidewalk was screaming under my feet. By the end of the block I was running. Oh God, she was so right: there was not a moment to lose. I was out of gloves to bury, bikes to heave. I ran down Airy and I ran down Swede and with every step I unwound the days of my life and I ran down Cherry until I came to Oak and finally, finally I found myself at The Corner and I threw myself on the ground, threw myself onto the asphalt, onto the spot—oh, I knew the spot—facedown on the asphalt that was warm and black and finally, finally I cried aloud: “Mommeee!” That’s the only word I recall. What the others were or if they made any sense or how long they went on I couldn’t say. More than twelve years were gushing out, flooding the street, running down the gutters.
How long did I lie there facedown in the street? I don’t know. Did I create a problem for traffic? Neighbors? Probably. I think I remember hands pulling me to my feet, guiding me to the sidewalk. I think I remember walking, walking the sidewalks of town, walking and walking myself to exhaustion until I was on the stairway to my home, staring down at Eloda’s black flats, the hem of her denim skirt. I looked up. She had come halfway down the stairs to meet me. Her face was wet with tears.
Inside, she took my hands in hers. My skin was black with asphalt grit. The upper parts of my fingernails were gone. My fingertips were red with crusted blood. She took me to the sink and ran the water to warm and washed my hands. She patted them dry. She kissed every broken fingertip.
She may have made me something to eat. I may have fallen asleep at the table. I only know for sure that eventually I was in bed, and she was pulling off my sneakers, and I think I was already two winks into sleep when I felt a shift in the mattress. I turned. She was sitting on the bed. She was looking down at me with all the motherly love I had ever wanted. I made a deal with sleep: You can have me, but first give me a minute or two. I am not gonna miss this. She reached down and touched my face. She caressed my braidless hair. She scratched my back. “Do you like that?” she whispered. I moaned. She scratched some more. I reached back. Our fingers intermingled, a braid of their own. I think I heard her whisper, “Sweet dreams, baby girl. Sweet life.” I felt a kiss on my cheek.
62
When I awoke next morning, I was alone in my bed. My fingers went to my cheek. I could still feel the kiss. Sunlight was streaming through the window.
As always, the smell of scrapple was in the air—but something was different. I sat up. I sniffed. The smell was stronger than usual. Much stronger.
I got out of bed. Went to the door. Opened it. Now the smell was overpowering. And something else: sizzle. I could hear it. Griddle sizzle. Coming from our kitchen. She was making me scrapple!
“Eloda!” I cried, and ran to the kitchen. But it wasn’t Eloda turning to me from the stovetop. It was my father.
“Where’s Eloda?” I said.
“Good morning,” he said. “And you’re welcome, pig-snout lover.”
I said it again: “Where’s Eloda?”
“Released,” he said.
I gawked at him. “Released?” I knew what the word meant, but still it made no sense. “You mean, like, free?”
He nodded. “As in time served.”
I screeched. “That’s impossible! She never said.
She would have told me.” I still couldn’t get it through my head. “She’s not in jail anymore?”
He was staring at the griddle. “Free as a bird.”
I hated the matter-of-fact way he said it. The kitchen was warm with summer and sweet with scrapple cloud, but I was cold as January.
I slammed my fork on the table. “She would never do that! She wouldn’t not say goodbye.” By then I might have been crying.
The spatula was still in his hand. He sagged. When he turned to me, his face was sad. “Cammie, I’m sorry…” And then he was saying ridiculous things, things I didn’t want to hear, like “The summer is over.” And “You’re a young lady now.” And “You won’t be needing a trustee to look after you anymore.” Blah blah.
I’d had enough of that bullpoop. I didn’t bother to put shoes on. I burst out the door. I was halfway down the stairs when I remembered: my bike wasn’t here. It was in the creek, where I’d heaved it.
Shoeless, still wearing yesterday’s clothes, I raced down Airy…Hector…Marshall…Swede…428. It looked the same: twin front porch. Except for one thing: the venetian blinds. They were pulled up. The windows stared at me like open, empty eyes. I pounded on the door, punched the bell button. I peered through the front window. Dark. Furniture. I went around back, pounded on the screen door. Rapped on the window. Stood in the side yard and yelled: “Eloda!”
“They went.”
A voice from the sidewalk. A kid—eight or ten, maybe—stood at the black iron fence, half a twin Popsicle in his hand. Orange. He wore a New York Yankees cap, so right away I didn’t like him.
“What?” I said.
He took a long pull on the Popsicle. “They moved.”
It wasn’t registering. “They’re gone?”
“Yeah.” He was smiling.
I stepped toward him. He backed off. “What’s so funny?”
The smile vanished. “Nothin’.”
“Both of them? They went? Moved out of the house?”