Mom closed the door and sat back down. Dad looked her straight in the eyes. Does he?
Mom took off her sheer white gloves and, doubling them, bared a finely chiseled jawbone. She fanned herself. Maybe he does. Maybe he doesn’t.
The heel of Dad’s hand bumped the shifter. He got out and ordered me into his seat and showed me how to shift the transmission from outside his open door. I wiped at the tears streaming down my face and slid over into the driver’s seat. I took the shifter into my hand and carefully slid the neon-orange slit below the speedometer over two notches to second gear, just like he said. I waited for his next instruction, hiccuping as I struggled to compose myself, all the while smearing the tears from my face.
Mom got out. I could see her in the rearview mirror bickering with Dad. I bumped the shifter again by accident and the truck started rolling backward. Jesus Christ. Even I knew it wasn’t supposed to do that. And here I hadn’t wanted to give Dad any more of an excuse to be mad.
I’m going backward, Pop!
Dad hollered out for me to step on the brake. I didn’t know which pedal that was, so I slid down and stomped on both. The truck bucked and stopped at a sharp angle to the road. A cloud of dust hovered all around. Dad came over and told me to please get out.
Mom was leaning against a stretch of rail fencing in her twisted-up flower-print dress, gazing out over the field. She put a hand on my shoulder and said that I probably couldn’t tell, but the sacks slung over the backs of the field hands working in it were very heavy. She’d worked in fields as a kid; she’d once told me with a prideful swagger that she knew how to raise a stack pole and use a posthole digger better than Dad. Her swagger was gone now, though. Mom looked strange to me, dressed up as she was, with those black pumps that I told her to wear all dusty out here in the middle of nowhere. And after all the trouble she’d taken to look nice. She stood like that in the foreground of all those rows of peanuts stretching out as far as I could see.
Her hands were covered in grimy rust from the truck’s tailgate. I wiped them off and hugged her. We stood there in each other’s arms, looking out over the wide-open field. The hundred or so field hands scattered around in it were so distant they appeared to be still. Mom stroked my hair and told me how dreamy it was. It was in a soft whisper that she conceded her admiration of it. I looked up at her beautiful brown eyes, sparkling through tears.
You know what I’d have given to have hair like this when I was your age?
I shook my head no.
You have no idea. It’s so soft and wavy. Doesn’t even need straightener.
Mom seemed to be able to find a silver lining in anything. It didn’t matter how bad it was, she would find a way to claim that it wasn’t. Frankly, it was starting to bug the shit out of me. I wiped my face clean of tears and tried to smile. Running her fingers through my hair seemed to calm her. She smiled through her tears and asked what was on my mind.
Is it true what he said?
Toby?
I nodded.
Never you mind him. He’s just upset, is all. People say the most unimaginable, hurtful things when they get upset. I’ve told you that a million times. And if Toby’s not careful he’s going to turn into a bitter old man one day. And I don’t want that for you.
It was just as I had suspected. Her answer seemed to explain away the childhood picture that Toby had shown me and all that he’d said the day he’d shared it with me.
Mom let go of my hand and picked a flower growing along the rail fence. She held it up to her nose and, twirling it, mused that her big sister had once, when she was about my age, shown her how to sip nectar from a honeysuckle.
Sister?
Mom didn’t have a sister.
Mom looked startled. She dropped the flower, took off her heels, and started off up the road. I had no idea what I’d said. She didn’t answer when I called out after her. She just walked on down the road’s narrow shoulder in stockinged feet and headed off without me.
Mama!
She didn’t look back. I started to run after her, then stopped about halfway. Dad was loading up a duffel bag with stuff from the truck bed.
Never mind her. Dad rolled up the windows and locked the door. You leave your window cracked?
Uh-huh.
How about your door?
Locked it.
Attaboy.
Dad headed after Mom with the duffel bag slung over his shoulder. I stopped in the middle of a dust cloud settling in the wake of a car that had sped past. Dad stopped and shouted out for me to hurry up. We didn’t have all day.
• • •
STARS SPECKLED THE sky. The spring-loaded arm of the storm door felt heavy. Dad had a migraine—said it was from having to deal with Nestor on the phone, but I think it was because Mom walked ahead of us the whole way home with her purse and needlework and shoes clutched in her folded arms. I guess she was upset about not getting her stupid damned tin of bergamot. I couldn’t imagine that anyone had ever gone to greater lengths trying, and I thought she should be at least a little happy for that.
Dad went over to my dresser, set my alarm clock, and ordered me into bed. I got undressed and slid under the covers and asked what the hell was up with Toby. He told me to watch my mouth. I told him that dumb nigger had left us stranded on a barren stretch of road, ten miles from town, and without a sympathetic soul in sight, and that I never wanted to see him again. Dad put a finger over his lips and told me to quiet the hell down. I didn’t want Mom to hear, did I?
It was disturbing, having someone I’d thought of as family turn on me like that. It didn’t sit well with me. In fact, it was eating away at me—how that son-of-a-bitch turncoat had looked at me with those searching eyes of his. Lies. Lies. Lies. It was nothing but a pack of lies. The way he made me feel small and helpless with every little thing that came out of his mouth. The meaning of all the years that we spent together being undone in a single afternoon. And after all I’d done for him. It was disorienting.
This isn’t over, is it, Pop? It’s not the last he’ll hear from us, right? We’re not through with him yet, are we? Why, I bet he couldn’t fix a faucet if he had a full set of socket wrenches, could he? And his leg, you think he was lying about that, too? I do. I don’t think he ever said a truthful word in his life. Lies. Lies. Lies. Just goes to show—you can’t trust them any farther than you can throw them. Can you, Pop?
Dad told me to calm down—said I was just worked up. When I pointed out that Toby could have fixed the truck with his eyes closed if he’d wanted to, like he’d done that one time with nothing but a safety pin and a book of matches, Dad stroked my hair back and explained that Toby was just being a pigfuc—
He took a deep breath and said that it was no big deal, really. Toby must have been stressed about things being harder than he’d envisioned. Who knows? He could have been in a terrific hurry to get somewhere important, for all we knew. Can’t fault the man for being in a hurry.
In a hurry?
That took the cake. When I asked if Benedict Arnold was suddenly a hero, too, because that no-good son of a bitch Toby had probably abandoned us for Fat Cat Mister Orbach, he said for me to watch my mouth, and no. So I asked if the turncoat had quit us for Skinny-as-a-Wafer Mister Schaefer, and he said no.
Pushy Mister Peterson?
No.
Follow-the-Herd Mister Bradford?
No.
Don’t tell me he’s working for Dumb-as-Nails Mister Snales?
Jesus, Huey. No.
Well, who’s he working for, then? Don’t just stand there and take it sitting down, like some goddamned pushover! You know just as well as me that Mister Orbach hired him away from us. Don’t deny it! Because I heard him talking about Toby like he was the goose that laid the golden egg—laughing and joking and saying how our goose was cooked if he ever left us. Saying we were nothing without him. He’s gotta be working for somebody, and I wanna know who! I have a right to know. Because they’re probably paying him
double, for all you know. And Mama told you that was gonna happen—told you over and over again he was gonna get stolen from us if you didn’t watch it. But you didn’t listen! And now he’s gone. Goddamnit, Pop! And after what he said about Mama, and here you didn’t even have what it took to sock him one!
I buried my face in my pillow and sobbed.
All you had to do was hit him. You should have at least hit him. To show him who’s boss. You can’t let him get away with stuff like that. Who does he think he is?
I peeked out from behind my pillow. Dad got up from my bed and stood quietly looking out my bedroom window. Our field was wide-open and moonlit. He drew the curtain and said that Toby wasn’t working for anyone. It was just as he’d said a few days back: Tobias Wetherall Muncie was, in every sense of the word, his own man.
I don’t like it any more than you do. But that’s just the way it is. And the sooner we accept it, the better.
XII
MOM GOT HOME AT TEN o’clock that night. She was supposed to be home much earlier, but the Blumenthals got caught in traffic downtown after some gala event and they needed her to stay late. I was sitting in front of the TV when she walked through the door. She dropped her handbag in the doorway, kicked off her heels, slammed the door shut, and headed straight for the kitchen without acknowledging me. She started snatching soup cans from the cupboards with a slipper in hand, taking out her frustration on the cockroaches scurrying out from behind boxes of macaroni and cheese as if they were the ones who’d let her down.
And maybe I had. But what was I supposed to say to a mother desperate to believe that I wasn’t a little cheat, when it turns out I was? I skulked into the kitchen and sat down and buried my face in my hands. I’d had all the chances that she’d ever dreamed of me having and I still couldn’t make it work.
I told her that it wasn’t all my fault. It had been her idea to come to New York in the first place. I never wanted to come to this crummy city. We belonged back in Akersburg. That was our home, and everything that was going wrong was just more proof that we should never have left.
Mom set a bowl of Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup in front of me. She sat down beside me and asked what more she could possibly do that she hadn’t already done. Life wasn’t exactly a cakewalk for her, either. She looked me in the eye and asked me to think about what kind of hell of a life must she have been trying to escape that working ten hours a day for the Blumenthals was supposed to be a step up.
Do you have any idea what my day looks like? What it’s like having to leave my morning shift at the dry cleaners a few minutes early just to dash across town to be on time for that conference with Mister McGovern? After which I ran off to pick up the twins so that Missus Blumenthal didn’t miss her pedicure appointment. Do you have any idea how upset she’d have been with me if she missed that on my account?
Mom was tired, disillusioned, and frustrated. She’d come to New York City on the vague promise of a better life, but all she’d done was trade in Dad for the Blumenthals. Mom took an egg salad sandwich from her purse and unwrapped it. It was something that she’d picked up for herself in some vending machine but hadn’t had time to eat. She took a joyless bite.
I’ve had enough twelve-hour days, low pay, late pay, no pay, unpaid back pay, bad checks, mismanaged rental deposits, security deposits, two-faced landlords, slumlords, sham electricians, bogus carpenters, bad advice, bunk promises, unsolicited advances, rude comments, crude comments, backhanded compliments, and backstabbing, not to mention a door slammed in my face. So, yes—it was a mistake. There. I said it. Are you happy now? So it’s settled, then. This obviously isn’t working out for either of us.
Mom got up from the table and tossed her sandwich into the trash. She told me to clear my own damned plate; she was sick and tired of always doing things for men. Men, men, men. Didn’t even matter to her anymore if they were white or black.
What in the hell difference does it make to me, anyway? They’re both still men, aren’t they? Either way, I get lied to, taken for granted, mistreated, exploited, and shit on at every turn. Every damned man I’ve ever come across in this town has tried to squeeze me for every cent I’m worth. No matter where I turn there is some baby boy, boy, man-child, or elderly man-child asking me to do something for him. Look here. Mom stuck her left hand in my face. See this? After all those years of dreaming of having one in Akersburg, I had to buy this fake one just to keep them at bay. Men are shameless. I tell them I got a kid, they hear desperate. I tell them I’m separated, they hear easy. What more do I have to do besides wear a ring? Why, just today I was out taking the Blumenthal twins for a walk in the park, and some man came right up to me and asked point-blank if he could buy me a drink. The twins were standing right next to me! Have I got a sign on my head that says, ‘Why not?’ Do I look like a streetwalker? Trust me, you don’t have anything on me in the aggrieved department. So don’t get sassy with me. Lord knows I want out, too. But where in the hell are we going to go?
My soup was cold. The only sound in the house was the thin scrape of my spoon against the bowl and Mom picking clothes up off the floor, cursing men, cold weather, service work, and me. I got up and went into our bedroom. Mom was growing disenchanted with life and was starting to lose faith in everything—especially me. At times like this, it felt like she’d gone from assuming the very best about me to assuming the absolute worst. I took an envelope from atop the dresser and returned to the kitchen table with it. I took out the letter from inside and told myself that everything was going to be okay. Dad was going to show up one day and take me back with him. All I had to do was be patient. I unfolded the year-old letter and read over the passage where he’d proclaimed all the good things he had in store for me. Mom barked out from the bathroom for me to hurry with my dinner—we needed to get to bed; it was late.
I could hear Mom brushing her teeth. I wanted to ask if she’d cooked real food for the twins for dinner but didn’t dare. Instead, I flipped open the Daily News lying beside my bowl to the personals section and left it there. I half wished she’d get a boyfriend just to have someone else to take her grief out on besides me. I put the letter facedown and picked up my spoon. For all Mom’s piety, I couldn’t help but wonder if she wasn’t a parable for something having gone terribly wrong.
XIII
IT WAS SOMETHING HAVING TO do with the radiator. But it could just as well have been that the alternator was bad, having corroded through, old as it was. In any case, the fan belt had worn clean through in two places. So that was the obvious place to start. Nestor told us that he’d do his best to fix it, but couldn’t make any promises.
The next four days were the longest of my life. Having come to believe that Nestor had taken our truck hostage, I marked the fridge calendar for every day that we went without it. Then, on a Thursday unremarkable in every way except for the fact that the truck was finally ready, Dad and I hoofed it into town. We could have taken the tractor, but Dad had convinced himself that he liked to walk—claimed that it felt nostalgic. On the way, he talked about the long treks he used to make into town as a teenager, back when Cordele Road was packed dirt and he spent lazy afternoons sitting atop rail fencing, babysitting field hands hoeing dirt, but mostly watching planes overhead going to and from Turner, with dreams of flying himself someday.
Wait—you wanted to be a pilot?
Who wouldn’t?
Why didn’t you?
Who says I won’t?
I laughed. That was pretty funny. Anyway, his knee locked up by the time we hit the pyramid of pumpkins sitting in a flatbed parked at the top of Mister Buford’s drive. Dad slipped on some loose gravel and fell on his behind. I helped him up and brushed him off, and we continued on. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the old guy. Not Dad—Mister Buford. It wasn’t even September yet, and here he was at it again with his pumpkins.
Dad pulled out Mom’s shopping list.
Let’s see here. A tin of bergamot. Eggs. What else?
<
br /> Off in the distance, a field hand was walking through an expansive allée, smacking at the lower limbs of a pecan tree with a long pole. I tugged on Dad’s hand.
Did you and Mama meet at school?
You know that I’m older than her. She went to a different school anyway.
What was it called?
Dad shrugged and said Eatonton, probably. But he couldn’t be sure. Been so long.
Whaddya wanna know for?
I shrugged. Just curious.
There was a billboard for the Camelot on either end of town. One of them pictured two geese flying toward a setting sun. It was leaning out from Mister Brumeier’s pecan orchard: Y’ALL COME BACK NOW!
I threw a rock at it. Dad smacked the back of my head—asked what in the hell was the matter with me, vandalizing public property like that. Those geese hadn’t done anything to me.
• • •
WE’D BEEN WALKING since late morning and arrived at Nestor’s, sun-battered and sweaty, at the appointed time. Aside from the grocery store, Nestor had a filling station and a full-service garage all in the same one-level sandstone-brick building. He hollered out from his garage for us to come back in an hour. It wasn’t ready yet.
Mom had jotted down her shopping list on the back of a Georgia Power envelope. Dad handed it to me. Remember when you asked what it’s like to be thirty-nine?
That had been a few months back. I’d been grilling him about the process of growing old. You know—what it felt like and when it started exactly and what steps you could take to prevent it. Anyway, there wasn’t a single thing on that list for him. Dad joked that it was a thankless job.
Entire families filled the stores and cluttered the sidewalk with bags chock-full of school supplies and new clothes. Farther up the street, Mister Waters was signing for a delivery. Dad saluted him with two fingers and nodded to Missus Myers as we strolled past, then tapped me on the head with a rolled-up circular, and we turned into the Rexall.
They Come in All Colors Page 10
