There were six Riders, plus the Little Lost Girl. Each of them wanted different things. Daddy had built the cabinet, which Momma called a chifforobe, at Momma’s request. Behind its polished cherry-wood doors were three tiers of two cubbyholes each. In each cubby Momma had put a doll representing one Rider, along with a few gifts or knickknacks. Offerings, you might call them.
The top cubby on the left belonged to the Mockingbird, represented by a hand puppet, a long leather glove with the skins of two mockingbirds sewn to it. Momma’s index finger made the beak; when she opened and closed her hand, the wings flapped.
A mockingbird isn’t much to look at. She’s bigger than a wren and smaller than a crow, with flashing, white-barred wings. Of all God’s creatures she has the loveliest songs. She will sing the calls of other birds more beautifully than they can do it themselves. When she tires of that, she can make a song out of a creaking gate or a door slamming or wash flapping in the wind.
When the Mockingbird was riding Momma, she became many people, changing her song every few minutes. She might be Daddy first, telling road stories he had collected on his last swing through Louisiana or Oklahoma as a traveling rep for American Express. The next minute she might be old Mr. Friesen, talking to one of his brokers over the intercom. Then Momma would be back, laughing and making herself a Bloody Mary and lighting a cigarette. Then it would be her friend Mary Jo, or Greg, the boy who lived across the street, or Mr. MacReady, our neighbor next door who had opened a convenience store in his garage. There were dozens of other voices too, many we girls didn’t recognize.
The Mockingbird was a terrible copycat, and Candy used to strike up conversations with her just for the fun of seeing herself reflected, as if in a living mirror. Even I had done it a few times. The Mockingbird was never dangerous, and it was rather delicious to hear my opinions coming out of Momma’s mouth. Daddy thought this was disrespectful, though, so we never did it if he was around.
The right-hand cubby on the top shelf was for the Preacher. His doll was a cross made from two lengths of sawn broom handle lashed together, a white dog’s skull on top, a child’s black Sunday coat hanging from the cross-brace like a scarecrow’s jacket. On top of the skull sat an old collection plate like they pass around at the Baptist church, turned upside down and worn like a hat. The Preacher was a fearsome Rider, very hard. He smelled like old books. He was a scourge on the vanities of this world, a grim man who spoke only bitter truths. Candy learned to hide her makeups after the day the Preacher came into our bedroom when she was twelve and without a word snapped all her eyebrow pencils, washed her nail polish down the sink, crushed her lipsticks under his foot and then threw the crumpled tubes away.
Momma never put anything in the bottom of the Preacher’s cubby but a black leather Bible.
(By the time I was five I understood that Momma and the Riders were quite different beings, with no overlap between them. When a Rider was in Momma’s head, she was completely gone. Even though the Preacher was in a woman’s body, he was still the Preacher, and a man, cold and hard.)
Beneath the Mockingbird, on the middle shelf, sat Sugar. Sugar loved to be flattered, and would always flirt with the loveliest person in the room (man or woman; she wasn’t fussy). She was my favorite, even though she ignored me whenever pretty Candy was around. She didn’t look scary, and also, when Momma told the Rider stories, Sugar was the kindest to the Little Lost Girl. Sugar’s fetish was like a regular doll, only she had pointed cat’s ears and eyes made from green marbles. She wore a short dress made of black lace and red patent leather shoes, and she smelled of peaches.
Each time after Sugar mounted her, Momma went out and bought one new piece of clothing for the goddess to try on next time she came. I used to think this was just Momma’s way of spending money on filmy underwear, but she was very scrupulous about never messing with the stuff in any of the cubbies herself, nor were we allowed to. Sugar’s cubby was a clutter of lipsticks and perfumes, which even the Preacher wouldn’t touch, though the sight of them always made him sour. Candy tried to stash some of her makeups there once to keep them safe from the Preacher. Momma saw that directly and blacked her eye for it. Neither of us touched anything in the chifforobe after that.
Beneath the Preacher sat Pierrot. He was the only store-bought doll; Momma had found him in the French Quarter in New Orleans. He had white clown cheeks with red circles on them, a sharp pointed nose and sharp pointed chin, and a long pointed cap that leaned down in front of his eyes. He was very funny and very alone. Some days he would leave you breathless with laughter, but he could be cruel, too, like the time Candy’s period left a stain on her pants and he made jokes about it to the boys in the mall we were in. He could juggle and breathe fire and he smelled of lighter fluid.
On the bottom row, beneath Sugar, was the Widow, whose body was a long stoppered test tube filled with dried-up spiders. Her head was a red pincushion, her eyes were glossy black buttons, and her hair was made of needles and pins. The Widow smelled of scorched cloth and silver polish; a dry, burnt, dizzy smell. Of all the Riders, we saw her the least, maybe only three or four times that I could remember, but I hated her the most. She took a particular and immediate interest in our family. She gave orders and we followed them, but I never once felt she loved us. If our family was a farm, she was the farmer, and would mow, seed, or slaughter us as she saw fit. She did not care about me as a person, or Candy, or even Momma. She was the one that twisted money out of Daddy like water from a rag to send me to Rice for my degree, when I could have gone to UT in Austin for far less, and gotten away from home in the bargain.
Last, beside the Widow, came Mr. Copper. Momma had carved him from hickory wood and polished him until he gleamed. His body was narrow and tremendously thin, like a primitive African statue. Around his shoulders hung a cloak made from squares of snakeskin she had sewn together. In his hand he held a long bone spear, its head made from a rattlesnake’s rattle. Mr. Copper came with a smell of dust and gasoline and he was very good with money. He loved calculation, and would demand to play bridge or dominos with anyone good enough to give him a game, although he never lost. Mr. Copper was a user, a creature of pure power. As the old saying goes, he knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. In his cubby Momma always kept a pack of cards, a pair of bone dice, and a set of ivory dominos in a snakeskin case.
There never was a doll for the Little Lost Girl, nor did she have a cubbyhole of her own, though Momma said that if you listened very closely you could hear her walking through our house in the middle of the night.
The day they buried Momma I stood in front of the staring Riders for a long time. Then, fearfully, I reached out for the tall chifforobe doors, and swung them shut. The moment Momma’s gods could no longer see me, a wonderful lightness came into my heart and head, making me giddy. Like a schoolgirl cutting class, I abandoned my chores and snuck out to the garden instead.
As I came through the patio doors the sound of birds assaulted me. Every November I could remember, Houston’s skies had filled with birds, more of them every year. Many settled in for the winter; many more were just passing through, all on the wing from where you live, the dark countries, the cold places where winter comes. The day we buried Momma, the live oaks that lined our street were boiling with birds: bluejays, cardinals, redbirds and mockingbirds, and grackles and grackles and yet more grackles; the females olive-chested and poised, the men raucous, each the shiny blue-black of polished coal: eight of them perched along the neck of each street lamp, leering down like drunken magistrates in their black coats.
Most houses have yards, but Candy and I grew up in a garden, with a cranky white stucco house thrown in as an afterthought. The house had once belonged to Clark Gable’s rich first wife back in the 1920s. It was laid out in the old Spanish style, one room per floor. Candy and I were stuck on the top, to broil in the summer heat. Momma and Daddy slept underneath us. Both upper floors had long balconies with rust-spotted wrought-iron raili
ngs that squeaked and swayed when me and Candy swung on them.
The garden had crowded the house into the very corner of the lot, and was constantly attempting the spill into the ground floor. Momma loved to keep all the French doors open, so inside melted into outside, tile floor giving way to the stone-flagged patio and paths set in the foliage. This put the whole family on an intimate footing with ants, tree roaches, green anoles and mosquitoes, but Momma believed it was worth it.
The afternoon we buried Momma it was 76 degrees out, according to the thermometer hanging from the patio roof. My sister, Candy, was waiting for me at the wrought-iron table under the banana tree. “How’s Daddy?” she asked.
“Watching basketball in their room. Not so good, I guess.”
In her plain black funeral dress Candy looked like a young Mexican widow, with her dark eyes and pale skin and her hair pinned up señora style. She pointed to two shot glasses on the patio table, each with three fingers of some Dr. Pepper-colored liquid, a deep red-brown so dark as to be nearly black. Between the glasses stood one of Momma’s recycled liquor bottles; the paper label on the front had Mockingbird Cordial written in her florid hand. The cap was off. “Momma told me to break this out when she was safely underground.” Candy’s eyes were red and the makeup on her cheeks was smudged with tear tracks.
I picked up the shot glass on my side of the table. The drink had the strangest fragrance, half-floral, half-industrial, like flowers and hot steel. “No thanks.”
“I didn’t make it, honest. I don’t even know what’s in it.”
“There’s a recommendation.”
“For Christ’s sake, Toni.”
“No. Uh-uh. I did my deathbed scene with Momma. She may not reach out from beyond the grave and make me do another one.”
“Why do you have to hate her so much?”
“I do not hate her.”
“Yes you do! You’ve been stomping around in a fury since the moment she died. For Christ’s sake, Toni! She’s gone, our momma is gone, God bless her.” Candy wiped another tear off her cheek with the back of her thumb. “Why can’t you leave her alone?”
I said, “You get what you pay for.”
“God, you’re a vindictive bitch.”
“You swear too much.”
“Fuck off.” Candy’s fabulous breasts rose as she took a deep breath. “Please, Toni. I don’t dare cross her. She can’t get to you like she can get to me.”
This was true enough. Candy is the one who inherited Momma’s touch of magic. In Candy the gift was more direct, but less flexible. None of the Riders had ever mounted her. She could see the future sometimes, in dreams and visions, but with one curious qualifier: all she ever saw were happy things.
I picked up my glass and tipped a little of the Mockingbird Cordial into my mouth. It bit like a copperhead snake: rum, vanilla flowers; the feeling you get on the tip of your tongue when you touch it to a battery. The taste of pennies in your mouth when you were a child. I swallowed and Candy followed suit. “Thanks,” she said.
“How long ago did you know she was going to die?”
“Maybe a year. I just…stopped dreaming about her anymore.”
“How many happy dreams of her did you ever have?” I swirled another few drops of the cordial around my mouth and swallowed. “This stuff surely burns. Candy, are you all right? About Momma, I mean.”
“No—Are you?”
“I’m all right.”
Momma always liked Candy. Right from a baby, Candy was smiley and huggable. A great relief, as I had been colicky and a crosspatch from day one. “When I was having you, you were that set to come out sideways,” Momma told me. “The doctor had to get in there and haul you out with forceps as big as a pair of steel salad forks. And cold! Like to have killed me,” she would say, and laugh. I was horrified.
When she was in a good mood Momma called me ornery but durable. She liked that word: durable. To endure, which she pronounced with no y sound: en-doo-er. When she cried, which was often, I was a “poor baby,” for having to be so tough so little, but it was good I was tough because in this life that’s what you had to be. When she was angry, I was mean, or hateful, or sometimes the hatefulest child that ever was.
“I’m all right,” I said. “You two were always closer.”
Candy choked and laughed. “The funny part is that you actually believe that.”
“It’s true!”
“Uh-huh.”
I raised my glass. “To Momma. May I never be like her.” Birds hopped and flittered among the branches overhead. The liquor ran down into my center and bloomed there, like flowers opening.
Candy stretched her legs out and crossed them at the ankles. “That bastard Carlos should have come to the funeral.”
Carlos was Candy’s current boyfriend, a Tex-Mex car detailer who lived at some strange intersection between Mexican folk magic and low rider gang membership. Carlos himself was small and lean and soft-spoken, a wonderful mechanic and something of a sorcerer who had lost part of one ear in a gang fight years before. Despite his angular face and tattoos and small black goatee no one had ever heard him cross his mother. I once saw him drink a shot glass full of 10W-40 motor oil to win a bet.
Candy had dated a lot of weird guys.
Actually, I thought they made a good couple: Carlos was pretty serious-minded, which she needed, and she was able to take the fact that he would occasionally visit with the spirits of the dead fairly much in stride. The most noticeable thing about Carlos was his car, a reconditioned hearse that he had turned into a rolling shrine. “Can you imagine Carlos bringing the Muertomobile into Glenwood? The security guards would have gunned him down in the driveway. Be reasonable. I’m sure he’ll cruise by this afternoon.”
“Probably La Hag Gonzales didn’t want him seen with me in public.”
“If I had a son, I wouldn’t let him date you either.” I found I could take the cordial down in bigger swallows, now that I was used to it. I emptied my glass. “You know, of all Momma’s potions, I think this is the best she ever made.”
Candy sloshed another shot into my glass. “Do you think Daddy was happy with her?”
“Does it matter?” I was beginning to feel lightheaded; my thoughts, like clouds, pulling softly apart in the gulf breeze. It was not an unpleasant sensation; drifty, but not at all drowsy. Tender autumn sunshine dappled the garden. Not the destroying stare of summer, but a more uncertain light, diffusely golden and unsteady, ruffled by tree limbs creaking in the warm south wind, leaves shifting, the wheeling birds—the sweet, elusive light that comes at the end of days, and seasons.
I blinked, realizing my thoughts had pulled apart again. Empty spaces yawned between them. Something about the emptiness scared me. “Momma wasn’t the sort who made you happy,” I said. “Daddy was not bored, I guarantee you. And he didn’t kill her.” Another empty space began to open between my thoughts, but I fought it back. “He got what he paid for.”
Candy sipped from her glass. “Well I’ve about had it with Carlos and La Hag Gonzales. Cut another notch on the barrel. Time for this chica to move on.”
A concrete-colored Ford Explorer rolled slowly down the street. Birds swirled up like leaves in the wind of its passing, birds doubled by their shadows, swooping and whirling, birds in flight from the cold; passing to some warm, unnamed, blessed country of the South, where winter never comes.
With a little start of terror I realized I had been caught in one of those empty places between my thoughts. There was a whiteness in my head that seemed to keep me from thinking straight; like when you stare at the sun and afterwards there’s a bright circle that dazzles you wherever you look. Only this whiteness was behind my eyes, back in my head, and it was cold.
“Can-Cand—?”
I felt a hand close over my hand. “Toni? Are you okay?” Candy’s voice sounded tiny and distant, as if coming through a telephone receiver in another room. A cloud must have passed overhead, for the light in the garden got
suddenly dimmer. Silence fell over the world. I could see birds with their beaks working, but no songs came. Acorns fell into the pond without splashing.
“Unh!” I stood up clumsily, knocking my chair over backwards. Where was the sound of the iron chair clattering on the stone?
Then I smelled the Widow smells, of silver polish and scorched cloth, and I knew what was happening.
I stepped back to keep my balance. My right foot came down and froze. A line of cold whiteness ran up past my knee. I cried out and pulled the leg up, and the whiteness drained down a bit.
“Toni! Toni, what’s wrong!” I staggered. As soon as my right foot came down on the stone flags it froze again, and I was pinned to the garden path. The whiteness raced up my leg and flowered in me like fire eating through a piece of paper. I tried to scream but no noise came out. I went mad with fear and ran senselessly around in my head but there was too much whiteness everywhere. From a long way off, I heard Candy whisper, “Oh my God. I can smell her, Toni.” Then the whiteness exploded in my head and the Widow came.
TWO
Here’s the first story I remember Momma telling about the Widow. Imagine me lying in my nightie, too hot to be under the sheets, the balcony doors open so the humid East Texas night steals into the room. It’s bedtime. Candy is asleep in her crib at the foot of the bed. I can hear her little baby snores coming through the mosquito netting. Momma is sitting beside me, her face pale and indistinct in the gloom. She has the most marvelous voice, husky and slow.
I don’t know if her stories are true, if the Riders tell them to her or if she just makes them up.
Imagine her leaning over me, her special smell of cigarettes and bourbon and hair spray, me with my eyes closed, the baby’s snores, and the Little Lost Girl steps into the room on my mother’s voice…