Slow Way Home

by Michael Morris

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  Her voice made me jump, but it was the sight of her that surprised me. It was the first time she had gotten out of bed since Tony had left. The outsides of Mama’s eyes were lined with eyeliner and the eyes themselves with red streaks. The front of her hair was teased high, and when she turned I saw a gap that looked as if a small bird had buried eggs deep inside the black nest.

  “Get up from there and stop staring like you’re retarded. Brandon, it came to me. Every day we got a choice to be pitiful or powerful. That’s what they teach in those rehabs. Up in Canada they told me that I needed to make my own destiny. And I got to thinking this morning.” She glanced at the clock on the stove. “It’s eleven twenty-seven in the morning on whatever day and Sophie Willard is fixing to make her own destiny.”

  That afternoon we drove to the grocery store, and while I stood guard at the end of the aisle, Mama made her destiny by stuffing a package of chicken under her coat. Next came the jars of peanut butter and jelly.

  The smell of sugared cereal made me light-headed, and my hands began to sweat. Nana would have had a fit if she’d caught me stealing and would probably have blistered Mama and me both. For once, I was glad that she was locked up and not able to see everything that was taking place at the Piggly Wiggly. Then the image of Jesus standing right in front of our duplex flashed through my mind. Nana may be locked up, but Jesus sure wasn’t. What if He walked up right as Mama was trying to sneak through the checkout line?

  When an older woman with bright red lipstick and a wide nose came walking up, I moved backwards until the cardboard display for a new oatmeal pressed against my back.

  “Excuse me, young man. I need a box of this oatmeal.”

  I moved to the side, and she walked away with her purchase. Her wide hips swayed, and a shiny pocketbook dangled on her arm. Most likely she was a woman like Nana. A church-going woman who wouldn’t put up with sorry excuses or lazy behavior. Even though I still felt like a foreigner in this new land that Mama called her destiny, the woman’s words lingered in my mind. She had called me a young man. Not “darling,” “sugar,” or “sweetheart”—names handed out to babies. But she had called me a young man, and for the first time since Abbeville, I felt that I had an identity again. I was a man in this new land. The only man my mama could count on.

  Sister Delores had once told us that every child of God’s has a gift. I was beginning to think that Mama’s gift was a fast hand and quick feet. When Mama mastered the art of walking away with merchandise from Woolworth’s, we soon had a stream of visitors at the duplex once again. “It’s a business, okay. They make so much money they never will miss any of this stuff no way. Besides, it’s better than being on welfare.” She repeated the lines to me every time she came through the door with a new supply.

  The day she and our neighbor Cheyenne left to take some stock to the pawn shop, I waited five rings before answering the phone. The voice was deep and serious.

  “Hello, Brandon.”

  I could hear the rattle of my breath against the phone mouthpiece.

  “This is Nairobi. How are you?”

  The sound of typing echoed in the background. I was silent until she called out my name for a second time.

  “Hey,” I finally said.

  “Can you talk?” The way Nairobi asked it made me think that maybe she knew about our new destiny.

  “Umm-hmm.”

  “It’s been a while. Your grandparents wanted to know how you’re doing.”

  Her words began to swarm around me like mosquitoes wanting to suck me back to the past.

  “I’m doing good. Real good.”

  “That’s nice to hear. And how’s your mom?”

  “She’s doing good too. She started her own store and everything. So…” My words trailed off at the idea of Mama walking in the door and hearing me tell all of our business.

  “Oh?”

  My eyes were locked on the doorknob of the front door. “She’s trading stuff. You know, like a flea market.”

  The clicking sound of typing returned.

  “I’m just checking in more or less. Letting you know I’m still your friend. Your grandparents keep asking me if you…”

  “You still see them?”

  “I do. Not as much as I’d like but…”

  “They ask about me?”

  “Oh, yes. Every time I see them they ask.”

  “Are they behind glass when you see them?”

  Nairobi cleared her voice the same way Mama did whenever she was fixing to get onto me. “No, they sit right across from me at a table the same way they would if we were in my office. Don’t worry because they are…”

  “I hear somebody knocking. Gotta go.”

  I slammed the phone down faster than she could say good-bye. But try as I might, I could not stop her words from slamming up against my heart.

  The week before Memorial Day, we made the pilgrimage over to Woolworth’s. Red, white, and blue flags, the kind that decorated rodeos, hung from every entrance. A man with a wrinkled face and strands of hair plastered to his forehead glanced at us. He stood right next to the gigantic trampoline that had a “Do Not Sit” sign propped up on it. A miniature American flag hung down from his shirt pocket. The name tag with the Woolworth’s logo read “Mr. Mackingham.” When I ran my hand down the bright red trampoline rails, he looked over and smiled. But the greeting did not last long. When he looked up at Mama, his jaw clinched. Ignoring him, she just slung her big straw purse into the buggy and marched forward. First she browsed a row of new bathing suits and then, before I could make it to the toys, she pulled me closer.

  Her words fought with the “Yankee Doodle” tune that played throughout the store. “That man was watching me. Is he still looking? Don’t make it obvious. Just turn your head a little bit like you’re looking for somebody.”

  A flock of people with short sleeves and sweaty faces were entering. The man was leaning sideways, trying to look past a woman wearing a dress with orange flowers.

  “He’s fixing to look.”

  Mama bit her lip and darted her eyes faster than the people streaming into the air-conditioned store. With a tilt of her chin, she motioned for me to follow. We walked through the crowd of people and past a display for new lounge chairs. Past the rows of TVs that played a soap opera and underneath the air-conditioning vent that blew silver streamers back and forth. Finally we were at the back of the store near the entrance to the snack bar. Mama craned her neck high above the others behind us. “Go on in there and get us a cherry Pepsi while I look everything over.”

  As I sat at the counter sipping my drink, I noticed for the first time a group of older men holding court in the booth behind me. One wore a black hat and chewed the end of a straw. His high-pitched laugh reminded me of Poppy’s. Soon the shame I kept trying to chase away was buzzing around me again.

  “Sweetie, you need something else?”

  Before I could answer the waitress, Mama was standing beside me. She smiled and shooed the woman away with one glance. “Come over here, Brandon, and let’s sit at one of these booths.”

  Mama leaned over the table and whispered like the best secret agent. “You remember how you and those big girls next door used to play James Bond? You know, y’all would act out the scenes. Well, I thought you and me could play it too. I just want you to go in that store and fall down on the floor. Act like your stomach is hurting so bad it’s about to kill you. Then…”

  “No.”

  Mama batted her eyes until I thought the false eyelashes would fall to the table. “What did you say to me?”

  “I’m not doing it.”

  “I’m fixing to tear your ass up. Now listen to me, Mr. High and Mighty, there are bills to pay.”

  I glanced over her shoulder at the old men in the booth behind her. The one chewing the straw looked over and casually nodded.

  “Fine,” Mama said. “Just go on and mess everything up. You don’t ev
en know what I had them put on layaway. If you knew, you’d feel real bad about how you’re acting. I mean, real bad.”

  “What?”

  “No, never mind.”

  “Come on, tell me. What?”

  Mama patted her hair and then brushed scattered salt from the table. “Nobody can give you surprises. You won’t let them.”

  “Come on, what? I promise I’ll still act surprised.”

  “If you won’t help me out this one little bit, I won’t even be able to finish paying it off so it don’t matter no way.”

  The feeling of having to urinate started to make me flinch around inside the booth. “Please…”

  “Just that trampoline is all. That’s what I’ve been paying on. Already talked with Cheyenne about going in on it with me.”

  The vision of the red railings sparkled as bright as diamonds in my mind. I ran over to Mama’s side of the booth and tried to hug her. Her bony shoulders were as limp as the crumpled napkins piled at the end of the table.

  “Yeah, so what. If you’d help out, then maybe I could make another payment. I was figuring on having it paid for by August.” She stared down at the table so long I thought she might start crying. “All I wanted was for you to do this one teeny-weeny thing for me. Just this one little thing.”

  After three more soft drinks, my stomach really did ache. Mama had gone over the details until she made it sound as simple as make-believe. We strolled right up to the jewelry counter, where a woman with soft brown eyes began opening the trays and displaying the goods. Gold necklaces sparkled against the black felt cloth. Mama put one on and glanced at the small mirror on the counter. “This might be too flashy. What do you think, Brandon?” She looked down and smiled as innocent as a Sunday school teacher.

  “You look beautiful.”

  The clerk chuckled and then began pulling out more display cases. Just when she bent down to unlock the bottom counter, Mama nodded. Like a trained dog, I fell to the floor and began screaming so loud that I thought the ceiling might cave in on top of us. All the while, the red trampoline railings glittered even more as I pictured myself jumping on it.

  “Lord have mercy.” The clerk was the first one to come to my aid. A spray of spat hit my face, and I rolled to the side clamping my stomach. “Is it his appendicitis?”

  Mama was kneeling beside me. “Baby, what’s the matter? What, baby?”

  I held my side just as we had rehearsed. When she touched my hand, I screamed as loud as I could.

  A crowd gathered and someone mentioned calling an ambulance. “Oh, my baby,” Mama kept yelling. Her eyes jumped from me to the jewelry counter. When she turned ever so slightly, I noticed one of the gold necklaces dangling over the top of her purse. I tried to get her attention by casting my eyes in that direction, but she was too busy playing her role of upset mother. Mama might have missed the hint, but the employee with the American flag flapping out of his shirt pocket did not. He barreled around the jewelry counter so fast that the flag on his pocket was flopped sideways. The lines on his forehead became deeper as he looked down at me. I kicked my leg up, hoping to direct Mama to the back of the crowd. But she just squatted over me and shouted, “Somebody get the ambulance.”

  Between the legs of the crowd Mama turned to look for help. Her purse swung with each movement of her shoulders. When the man with the American flag looked down at us, I began to scream louder. He never did look at me. He just kept staring at the big purse on Mama’s shoulder.

  “Darlin’, I promise the ambulance is coming,” the jewelry clerk kept repeating. But it was useless. No amount of screaming or reassurance stopped the man with the flag from reaching down. The sleeve of his checkered sport coat seemed as powerful as a crane when he reached for the big purse. At first the crowd looked at him the way they might look at a cat killer.

  Mama fell sideways and used the tips of her fingers to steady herself against the speckled tile floor. Panic gripped her eyes as she tried to hold on to the purse and steady herself at the same time. It was as if we were watching a movie in slow motion. Necklaces scattered to the floor like a nest of gold-encrusted snakes looking for their home.

  “I knew it. I knew it,” the man kept repeating. Before he could scoop up the necklaces, Mama was crawling through the crowd on her knees. By the time the man reached down and grabbed her shirt like she was a misbehaving toddler, it was too late. The policeman had her by one hand, while the man with the flag kept saying “repeat offender.” As the handcuffs clamped her wrists, Mama turned sideways. Pieces of hair formed a web over her eyes. The words might have been broken but the scream was strong.

  “Don’t worry. Don’t worry about nothing. I’m gonna sue these bastards for everything they’re worth.” Her words stomped me deeper into the floor. As she was led past the shiny trampoline and out of the store, the eyes of the crowd drifted back to me. All I could do was lay there and let them stare.

  Turning my head, I saw a cigarette butt that had been squashed. Seeing the tips of the polished police shoes inches from my face, I began to shake.

  “Son, are you all right?”

  All I could do was shake to the beat of Mama’s voice. “We gotta make our own destiny…”

  Twenty

  The clicking of the typewriters filled the small room of the Raleigh police station. A policeman with hair that stood up like porcupine quills kept asking the same questions over and over. My lips were as tight as the springs to the trampoline back at Woolworth’s. I stared at the keys of the typewriter while the man next to me made them sing in a noise of controlled chaos.

  When the woman with curly brown hair sat down in front of me, my mind began to change channels and a beach fog drifted over them.

  “Today has not been such a good day, huh? Now, we all want to help you here. Why don’t you just tell us how old are you.”

  The man sitting at the desk next to me glanced over and then rolled the typewriter platen to the next line on the form. The words “No Response” ran across the paper. A trickle of sweat snaked down my armpit and landed at the top of my underwear. The chill of it all caused me to tuck my hands underneath the chair. Then I saw the final word scroll across the typed page. “Abandoned.”

  Burned coffee and cigarettes clung to their breath. Black vinyl chairs, stacks of files, and a steel desk surrounded us.

  I had no one. The words on the paper told me as much. While I rocked back and forth, various faces drifted through my mind as easy as a changing tide. Sister Delores would come. I could get her to take the bus and come up here and get me.

  When the policeman with the porcupine hair coughed, it sounded like a distant foghorn calling me back to shore. “Son, do you have some kin we could call?”

  The vision of Uncle Cecil stretched out on a hospital bed with bandages wrapped around his body like a mummy made me shake my head. The policeman took it as a no and moved on to the next question. His words tangled with the clicking of the typewriters, and I wondered if this was what Sister Delores had meant when she preached about speaking in tongues.

  Sister Delores’s words filled my mind as fast as the coffee that the policeman poured filled his mug. I could see her standing at the altar at God’s Hospital. Her hair hung in ringlets, but it was the smile that made me want to tell them I had family in Abbeville. Besides, she had told me that she was my sister in the Lord. Her voice wailed in my mind as loud as a ship horn. “God will never leave you or forsake you.” I turned to see if a miracle had taken place and if she had walked into the room. But my heart fell a little lower when all I saw were two policemen in the corner laughing. One had his leg propped up on a chair and was pulling at his trousers as if all he had to do was stand there and laugh. But laughter was not about to drown out Sister Delores’s voice. “I’m telling you straight, Brandon. God will never leave you. No sir, He sure won’t do it now.”

  By the time the second policeman sat in front of me, I had drifted so far back to Abbeville that his words were nonexiste
nt. I could see his mouth moving, but all around him were the people and scenes from another way of life. Just past his shoulder where a gray file cabinet sat I saw Beau and me crabbing in the marsh. Above the policeman’s head the round light fixture became the night-light that Nana kept plugged in at the camper. A light that led me to the bathroom and reminded me that darkness was only temporary. On the black-streaked floor were the grease stains from the kitchen counter at Nap’s Corner, and I watched as Nana scrubbed the counter until it began to sparkle. My mind played out a home movie of Nana setting out a plate of hush puppies on the counter. They were golden brown and steam began to rise where the butt of a cigarette rested on the floor. I reached down to pick it up and smelled it long and hard. The smell of used nicotine was replaced by the sweetness of the hush puppies, and just when I started to stick it in my mouth, the policeman snatched it away. The jerk jolted me away from Nap’s Corner, away from the marsh and the safety of our camper. Darkness was back again, and with it came the crashing wave of fear.

  The twitching at my feet erupted up to my head. It was a soft moan at first, much like the sound of a sow before she gives birth, but then I began to get louder and louder. Soon they were all in front of me, the woman with the curly hair, the policeman with the crew cut, and the man who typed the report. They just stood there looking down at me while the tears ran and my mouth opened but no words came out. Nothing except the sound that caused the reaction I hated more than anything else—pity.

  When we pulled up to the building with the white sign out front, I leaned up from the backseat of the police car. White buildings with iron bars on the windows were scattered across the landscape.

  Like a robot, I followed in between the man with porcupine hair and the woman towards the building with white columns. I guess because they thought I was mute, neither of them said a word. When the man pulled the door open for us, I saw the word “Administration” engraved on the inside wall. The smell of bleach and aged dust greeted us. Lining the wall was a bulletin board with different-colored letters spelling out “Summer Fun.” Photos of different children and two retarded people were scattered across the board. Some held up baskets in the photos while others were standing by a swimming pool. While I sat out in the hall in a wooden chair, the woman walked over to examine the photos and turned to offer a reassuring smile. Words from the office echoed out into the hallway. I heard the policeman with porcupine hair use that word again.