The Beans of Egypt, Maine

by Carolyn Chute

  I see the blackberry bushes clawin’ up the side of the Beans’ metal walls. Pip Bean looks like a sailor left behind . . . feelin’ over the top of a submarine for a way to get in, like on TV . . . He doesn’t lose control of hisself.

  Daddy’s got his face in his hands, like he’s fainted into his hands.

  2

  A COUPLE DAYS have gone. Daddy says he’s got me a Christmas surprise . . . the best thing in all the world.

  I says, “Is it an English bike?”

  “Better than that,” he says.

  I squint. I’m dumpin’ jelly on toast.

  Daddy says that the surprise is a surprise to him, too . . . that he just found out about it. He says, “The Lord is good to us, Earlene.”

  I press the jelly jar cover on, lap my fingers. “What COLOR is it? Is it blue?”

  Daddy shakes his head. “Unh-unh! No guessin’. I’ll just say that on the day you get out of school for Christmas vacation, I’ve gotta drive a hundred miles to get it.”

  I look into his pale eyes. “Is it somethin’ we gotta SHARE?”

  He says, “Yes.”

  There’s a thunder out on the right-of-way, the hiss of brakes, the grunt of gears.

  The jelly and toast, not even chewed, goes down my throat whole. I see the loggin’ truck backin’ into our driveway, the giant tires squatted down from the weight of the logs big around as supper tables, mashin’ down Daddy’s crushed rock. On the door of the truck it says, RUBIE BEAN LOGGING, EGYPT, MAINE, and gives his phone. The loadin’ jaws sway. The mud flaps flutter against the fenders of Daddy’s little tan car. Then the truck slides out onto the right-of-way and idles while Rubie Bean goes in to eat dinnah with his mother.

  Daddy says stiffly, “Earlene . . . where’s your crayons?”

  “Whatchoo want ’em for?”

  “It’s a surprise,” he says.

  When I come back with them, he’s pacin’ the kitchen, circlin’ the table in quick little steps.

  3

  IT’S THE LAST DAY of school. Daddy’s car’s in the yard.

  THE SURPRISE IS HERE, I say to myself, steppin’ down off the bus.

  Comin’ down the right-of-way, I stay on my side. The Bean kids stay on their side. The biggest of them is Beal Bean. He’s got pimples big as plums and I guess he’s retarded. Special Ed. That means you are a dumbo. He watches me with his orange-ish eyes in black lashes. Weird eyes. The others keep their eyes down, carrying their battered dinnah pails. They are big and hunched like bears.

  Beal Bean says, “Earlene.”

  I pretend I don’t hear that.

  He moves to the center of the right-of-way, walkin’ in the wheel ruts. Rain has taken all the snow. There’s just frozen muck everywheres. “Earlene.”

  I say, “Go eat a rat.”

  Daddy’s in the picture window lookin’ out at me, his face weirdly gray, lines around his mouth.

  SOMETHIN’ HAS GONE WRONG WITH THE SURPRISE, I say to myself.

  Daddy’s new sign he made with my crayons is on a good-lookin’ lathed post. It says, NO TURNING IN DRIVEWAY!!!! KEEP OUT!!!!

  The Beans got a sign, too. It’s painted on a metal drum at the edge of their yard. It says, WORMS AND CRAWLERS. It’s always been there. Always.

  Lizzie Bean and Annie Bean and Rosie Bean and Greggie Bean slow up, narrow their fox-color eyes on Daddy’s new sign.

  I say, “Hey, you! Ain’t you never seen no sign ba-FORE?!!!”

  All the fox-color eyes slide onto my face, then scrinch up like the words of the sign are on my forehead.

  Then we part ways, them to their trailer, me to the white ranch house with black trim which Daddy built.

  A woman is in our livin’ room in the rockin’ chair, the springs goin’ woinka woinka . . . ’cause she’s rockin’ so fast and hard. Smoke goes out of her cigarette in a tornado shape up to the ceilin’ where clouds of smoke roll along. She’s got a RED RED mouth.

  I says, “Hi.”

  She says, “Hi.”

  By her foot is her pocketbook.

  I stay in the archway to the kitchen, kneading in my coat pockets. Daddy stays by the picture window.

  She springs up, charges at me, waving her arms. “Look at that towhead!!!” she gasps. Her voice is hoarse, a sore hoarse. She pulls me to her, and she smells like cigarettes. She mashes my face into her white turtleneck sweater. She’s got a cigarette in one hand, Pepsi in the other somewheres behind my head. What a squeeze! Daddy watches.

  There’s a box of little unpainted sea gulls and fishermen near my foot. Auntie Paula will paint them. Auntie Paula always handles Daddy’s whittled-out birds and things with respect, her eyes on fire behind her readin’ glasses. Gram and Auntie Paula say Daddy is a genius.

  The woman kisses me, my face, my hair.

  Now she lets me go, veers back to her chair. Her red mouth is smeared now. I imagine some of it is smeared on me. I finger the inside shape of my coat pockets. Her short reddish hair is messy. She drinks off the Pepsi, smokes off the cigarette. She rocks hard and fast, woinka woinka woinka.

  “Where’s my surprise?” I says to Daddy.

  Daddy points at HER.

  Woinka woinka woinka.

  I look at her . . . the red red mouth sucking, gulping.

  Daddy undoes the top button of his shirt . . . lets out his breath.

  “Are you Daddy’s new girlfriend?” I says.

  She laughs around the spout of her Pepsi.

  Daddy cries, “EARLENE! This is Mumma! Home for a visit . . . for Christmas. She’s with us for Christmas.”

  “Ain’t you sick?” I says.

  She laughs. She smokes. She rocks.

  Daddy says, “Mumma has pills and they make her feel better.”

  “Oh,” I says. I’m startin’ to feel hot in my coat. I don’t leave the archway. Daddy don’t leave the window. He’s jigglin’ his leg.

  “You’re all better?” I says.

  She smiles, draws from the cigarette, drops the ash onto the rug.

  Daddy says, “Mumma feels well enough for a visit.”

  I squint.

  Daddy says, “The Lord is good to us. Praise Him!”

  The smoke squirts outta her nose like two side-by-side exhaust pipes. She sets the Pepsi on the table and stops rockin’. “Lee . . . what girlfriends do you have?”

  Daddy moves away from the picture window. “None,” he says.

  She laughs. Starts rockin’ again. I see her coat on the couch. And Beatle records. Some still got cellophane on ’em.

  “Earlene just said that,” Daddy says.

  “How does she know what a girlfriend is?” she asks. She drinks and smokes and rocks.

  “She don’t,” says Daddy. He goes to the newspapers spread on the rug, kneels, picks up pieces of soft pine, one already showin’ the head and shoulders of a gull.

  “I ain’t STUPID!” I says. “I know what a girlfriend is, Daddy! You think I’m STUPID!”

  “Earlene, does Daddy have any girlfriends?” the woman asks.

  I squint. “Daddy don’t have NO friends.”

  She laughs. She leans forward into her pocketbook. “Is it four o’clock yet, Lee?”

  Daddy nods. With the whiskbroom he swishes some shavings into the dustpan.

  She pops off the caps of four or five plastic bottles and lets some pills out into her hand.

  I move into the room, over the rug. “When we gettin’ the Christmas tree, Daddy?”

  Daddy says, “Soon.” He stands, then looks around like the living room has become a dark closet.

  “When?” I ask.

  “Oh, boy! A Christmas tree!” she cries out. As she speaks, her eyes flutter like words hurt her throat. Maybe her throat is why she stays in the hospital. But Gram always says that what’s wrong with my mother is the works of the DEVIL.

  My mother swallows the pills with her Pepsi and sets her pocketbook back on the floor.

  I take off my coat, throw it on the couch. I sit on
the couch and look at Daddy, slide my eyes over to her. “Can we get the tree now?” I ask Daddy.

  “Soon,” Daddy says. He paces a little, leans on the wall. He’s sweatin’ under the arms, on his ribs, like a hot day.

  I pull off my boots, throw ’em into the corner. I swing my stockin’ feet over the edge of the couch.

  She says, “What a pretty outfit.”

  I says, “Thank you.”

  I look out the picture window, see Beal Bean by hisself on the steps of the mobile home, throwin’ a fan belt for his dog. Beal’s hands are bare. In school in the cafeteria, he spreads his big hands around his Thermos and pours brownish stuff into a cup. His nails are dirty, chewed up. The pimples on his face are like volcanoes gettin’ ready to bust and drown the world. In school under them lights, all Beans are purple. You sit next to a Bean, you can smell their hot black upright hair giving off the smell of a kerosene stove. I think if you tossed a match at a Bean, they’d burst into flame.

  “Want a Pepsi?” The dry sore voice. She’s holdin’ her Pepsi up. “Your daddy got me a whole carton,” she says. Woinka woinka woinka.

  Daddy leaves the room. He goes into the bathroom and stays forever.

  She rocks. I swing my legs.

  A loggin’ truck crashes down onto the right-of-way, the chains on the stakes janglin’ prettyish. Our picture window ripples. The pictures of Auntie Paula’s new baby and all my cousins in their school clothes swing on their nails. The lamp quivers. My mother looks around. “Christ! What’s that? . . . For cryin’ out loud!”

  “Ain’t nuthin’,” I says. I swing my legs.

  Rubie Bean, he’s comin’ so fast he could be a jet rippin’ into the side of this house . . . if you didn’t know. Hissss . . . bearing its shadow down on Daddy’s little car. I get up and look out at him, Rubie Bean. He’s high up on the seat . . . I see him through his gummy side window. She gets up, carries her soda and cigarette to the window. Rubie Bean’s got his hat down on his nose so his mustache comes out of it like a black rag. And the mouth chews on itself.

  “Jesus Christ,” my mother gasps.

  Rubie Bean pushes his hat back so he can squint at Daddy’s new sign. Then he moves them fox-color eyes over to the picture window with me and her standin’ in it. He revs the engine so hard his truck rocks, and the boom in back slices back and forth good as the pendulum of a clock. Then Rubie Bean looks into my mother’s eyes and flattens his mouth on the glass like a plunger.

  “Holy shit!” she chirps.

  I say, “You sure swear a lot, dontcha?”

  Then he pulls the loggin’ truck outta Daddy’s crushed-rock driveway . . . leavin’ behind him a wicked exhaust . . . and parks on the right-of-way facing out. All the little Beans get off the step fast when they see him comin’. They scramble over fan belts, a shovel, plastic toys. When the metal mobile home door slaps behind him, I says to my mother, “He’s goin’ ta eat a rat.”

  4

  COMES NIGHT, it’s windy. Leaves and trash from the Beans’ yard beat against the front of our house. SHE’S there on Daddy’s bed, snorin’. The night-light makes its cheese-color glow on the knotty pine walls. Her pocketbook and white turtleneck sweater are over the chair along with Daddy’s clothes.

  Daddy opens my door. “Earlene?” He snaps the light switch and the hundred-watt bulb up there comes to life. I cover my face.

  He sets on the bed. He’s wearin’ only long-john bottoms. His hair, usually combed with water, is ragged fluff. He rubs his face.

  I says, “What’s goin’ on with HER?”

  He says softly, “Sleepin’.”

  “She sleeps a lot,” I says.

  He raises his knee, cups one heel with his hands.

  I says, “Ain’t we ever goin’ ta get a tree?”

  He closes his eyes.

  “DADDY! Ain’t we gonna celebrate Christmas? First you say no presents. We gonna skip havin’ a tree, too?”

  “I can’t think,” he says softly. Opens his eyes. “I’m goin’ crazy.”

  I sit up. “Me, too,” I says.

  He looks through the open doors at HER on the bed.

  “Ain’t you goin’ in there?” I says.

  “I been in there,” he says.

  “Ain’t you goin’ in there again?”

  He looks at me, drops his foot to the floor with a thump.

  “Well,” I sigh. “You ain’t GOTTA go in there.”

  He slumps. I find his backbone with my fingers, press it and knead it. He stops breathin’, draws back his shoulders.

  I say, “Is it all right with Gram you go in there?”

  “Earlene!” He swings around to look at me.

  I feel my face get hot. “But Daddy . . . what I mean is Gram knows what God wants. You KNOW! You wanna know what’s on God’s mind . . . Gram knows . . . Gram’s smart! I was only thinkin’ about what GOD wants.”

  Daddy shrugs. “Well, it’s all right with God if I go in there with my wife.”

  I say, “Are you scared, Daddy?”

  He don’t talk, just blows his cheeks in and out.

  I say, “I’m scared. She is creepy . . . ain’t she, Daddy? Ain’t she creepy?”

  “Oh, she’s all right,” says Daddy. “It’s not as bad as they all make out.”

  “I’m glad I’m not YOU!” I says. “I’m glad I don’t gotta go in THERE.”

  He closes his eyes, rocks his head and shoulders slowly back and forth.

  Then he leaves . . . and for the rest of the night I hear him out there on the living room rug, sawing and hammering on the colonial bread box he’s making Auntie Paula for Christmas.

  5

  IN THE MORNIN’ Gramp drives Gram over to bring my angel suit for the pageant. Gram says to Daddy, “Where’s Jeanette?” She looks around some but she doesn’t bust into the bedroom like she would if it’s just Daddy or me. But she goes right up to my mother’s closed door and stares at it and she’s folding up a dish towel to make it neat. Daddy tells Gram that my mother’s medication makes her sleep a lot. This makes Gram get a roundish eyes look like an owl.

  When Gramp and Gram leave, I sit on the couch and watch TV, swingin’ my legs . . . wearin’ my angel suit. My mother comes out for the first time, in the same white sweater. “Brrrr! Ain’t it cold!” she snorts.

  Daddy flicks up the thermostat.

  I says, “Daddy! When we goin’ for the tree?”

  He leans against the archway, watching her settle herself in the rocking chair with a Pepsi. “Don’t you want breakfast, Jeanette?” he says softly.

  Woinka woinka woinka woinka. “Naaa. This is all I ever eat. Pepsi freak, you know.” And she laughs.

  “DAAAAAADDY!” I scream.

  “What, Earlene?”

  “Ain’t we GOIN’?”

  “Not right now.”

  She gets up, puts a Beatle record on Daddy’s record player with her left hand, Pepsi in her right, cigarette in her teeth. “Hey!” I narrow my eyes. “How’m I gonna hear this TV?”

  Daddy cuts off the TV.

  I give Daddy a raw look.

  Daddy goes back to the archway.

  The Beatles start singin’ their latest. “Well . . . I guess we can FORGET Christmas,” I snarl. “No tree.” I jiggle my body so my flower-print angel wings flap.

  She looks square at me, but don’t say nuthin’. She don’t seem to notice what I’m wear in’. So I work the wings some more. She slouches back in her rockin’ chair, nods, and sorta sings along with the Beatles. Her eyes are closed and her mouth moves. But no REAL singin’ comes outta her RED RED mouth. Woinka woinka woinka.

  “Is it ten yet, Lee?” she asks.

  Daddy says no.

  I gotta yell to get ’em ta hear me over the Beatles. “DADDY! WHEN WE GET THE TREE, WHERE WE GONNA PUT IT? USUALLY IT GOES WHERE HER CHAIR IS!”

  She don’t open her eyes.

  Daddy says, “Earlene, let’s not worry about it, okay? You’re makin’ an issue.”

 
I make a fart noise with my lips. Everything I look at is through the furry blue lines of her smoke.

  I start walkin’ around on the rug in my angel suit. She don’t open her eyes. “PEACE ON EARTH GOOD WILL TO MEN!!” I scream. I spread my arms. This is durin’ the silence between Beatle songs. Then the Beatles start a new song. A fast one. I walk faster.

  “It’s turned off quite cold, Jeanette,” Daddy says.

  She don’t answer. She makes her lips go to the words of the fast Beatle song.

  “PEACE ON EARTH GOOD WILL TO MEN!!!” I scream again, jumpin’ up and down. My cousins’ pictures sway on their nails.

  Daddy says, “My mother says it’s goin’ to snow. Don’t it seem too cold to snow?”

  I jerk to a stop in front of Daddy, my flower-print wings saggin’. “Snow!”

  But he’s lookin’ hard at my mother.

  Suddenly her eyes open. She says, “Who’s your favorite Beatle, Earlene?”

  “Ringo,” I says.

  She says, “I love Paul.”

  Daddy takes his hand from the archway frame.

  Woinka woinka woinka woinka . . .

  Daddy says, “Get your coat, Earlene.”

  “We gettin’ a TREE?!!”

  “Yep.”

  She says, “Is it ten yet, Lee?”

  He says no.

  I says to her, “Are YOU goin’ with us to get a Christmas tree?”

  “Naaaa. I’m not much of an outdoor girl.” The Beatles are singin’ another slow song. It’s Paul. She looks at the record player, closes her eyes, hugs herself.

  Daddy puts on his parka and goes to the cellar stairs for his axe.

  I throw my angel suit on my bed . . . She turns up the music . . . Her smoke rolls down the hall and follows me into my room.

  6

  DADDY AIN’T WAITIN’ up for me. I say, “Daddy! Daddy!” He passes the mailboxes, holdin’ the axe close to his body. Little Beans huddled on their front steps in their snowsuits laugh at me while I’m runnin’, while I’m callin’ “Slow up, Daddy!!” wavin’ my arms. I scream at the Beans, “NOSE TROUBLE!!”

  They look at each other and giggle wildly.