The Beans of Egypt, Maine

by Carolyn Chute

  3

  LLOYD BEAN’S girlfriend’s baby Bobby is in the highchair they brought for him, and Lloyd Bean’s girlfriend smokes at the table. The yard is full with Beans and Letourneaus, Junior Atkinson, Larry Crosman, and some strangers, all puttin’ away real bad cider from the back of Larry Crosman’s truck, all watchin’ Beal clean fish on a piece of plywood on the well. It’s Sunday, Beal’s only day off. Some of Beal’s cousins look so much like him, I can’t help staring.

  Madeline’s layin’ hens and green-tailed gamecock feed on the fish guts Beal slings into the grass.

  Beal is wearin’ a T-shirt that isn’t long enough, and part of his back shows as he kneels, scraping the pickerel with his jackknife. He ignores me when the men are around. He ignores them, too. I watch the thickness of the fish pass through his hands. He scratches a mosquito bite on his elbow with his knife.

  Lloyd Bean’s girlfriend, Bess, smells like Coppertone. She and Madeline and Rosie Bean Fecteau have had a few coffee brandies. Bess, according to Beal, is Passamaquoddy. She has a high forehead, frosted gypsy cut, and millions of rings on both hands. She says, “When’s the baby due, Earlene?”

  I say, “In four months.”

  She raises her eyebrows. “Really? You’re big.”

  Madeline’s oldest girl, Virginia, sets cross-legged on the floor against the wall. Motionless. Sullen mouth, the Bean nose sprawled on the face. Beal calls her Rubie’s girl. You never see her twisted teeth. She’s rare with words. She hates us all.

  Madeline drinks, swaying around the kitchen in bare feet, jabbin’ a big fork into the bubbling squash, pourin’ a couple cannin’ jars of dark string beans into a pan, her crazy hair in a red bandanna. She shrieks, “Earlene’s gonna have quads! Any fool can see!”

  Rosie smiles. Bess looks hard at my smock.

  Madeline giggles. “Well . . . after all . . . look who the daddy is!”

  My cheeks flush. I get off my stool and pretend to look for somethin’ in a drawer.

  Madeline drinks deeply of her coffee brandy. “Ahhhh!” she says. I turn in time to see Rosie and Madeline and Bess exchange glances. “Good lickerrrr!” Madeline says.

  The baby, Bobby, drops his soggy Saltine on the floor. I pick it up.

  Madeline says, “Yep . . . maybe double quads! Did you hear! They’re bringin’ in America’s top scientists to use their most . . . whaddya call it? . . . so-FISS-ticated scientific equipment to study this phenomenally fertile man . . . YOU KNOW WHO.”

  Bess blows smoke through her nose. “That’s a hell of a thing.” She smiles broadly.

  A huge chickenlike squawk of laughter comes from them all.

  I don’t cry. I just glance around like I’m huntin’ for a face but don’t find one.

  Virginia’s eyes are closed, the lips pressed tight on the twisted teeth.

  Bonny Loo comes into the kitchen dripping, wearing frog feet. “Ma!” she whispers. She wiggles a finger for my attention. “Ma!”

  “What?”

  Her bathing suit drizzles water over her square belly, down her legs. Her hair is flat and wet.

  She whispers close to my ear, “Do chickens and fish go to heaven?”

  “No,” I say.

  She whispers, “Why not?”

  “Only man was made in God’s image.”

  Bonny Loo screws up her face. “You mean NONE of Beal’s fish are goin’ to heaven?” A whisper. Her breath smells like the clean, dark pond.

  “That’s right, Bonny Loo.”

  “What about Kaiser?”

  “Only people.”

  She brushes my face with her fingers as she whispers extra close, “People are best, aren’t they?”

  “That’s right, Bonny Loo.” She’s making the floor wet with pond water. But Madeline doesn’t seem to notice.

  They are all watching Beal come in with the fish on a board, his black beard spread over his T-shirt like some kinda dark and aimless overflow.

  4

  THE NEXT NIGHT Bonny Loo takes my hand. “Ma! I got a secret. Come see!”

  I put on my sweater. The sun going down behind the pines looks like a hundred lighted broom handles.

  She pulls me along by the wrist.

  The baby moves its fingers over the inside walls of me.

  We crunch along on pinecones.

  Then the path veers into walls of rock. Over us, heavy tatters of gray mosses drip, and the path is soggy. I can’t see Bonny Loo’s eyes through her glasses, only greenish shards of light. She flattens her back to one wall. “Ma! Feel this stuff!” She squirms her fingers in it. “Feel this GREEN kind.”

  I reach out and my fingers disappear. “Yipes! It bit me!” I laugh.

  Bonny Loo rolls her body against the rock. The rock seems to ripple affectionately. I narrow my eyes. “It’s kinda creepy here, Bonny Loo,” I say.

  “No, it ain’t!” she gasps, arching her back. “Hey, Ma! What’s that thing you say about the pastures?”

  “What thing?” I look up. Above and beyond the rock walls are softwoods with big bodies gorged on water. You can smell ’em dyin’, crowding each other, spongy and black . . . then beyond them more moss, everywhere in crazy colors . . . turquoise and darker blues . . . like rags of denim . . . wools and cottons.

  “The PASTURES thing!” she screams. Her hands are on her hips.

  I say softly, “Oh.” I clasp my hands.

  Her eyes flicker on me.

  “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want; He makes me lie down in green pastures . . .” The sound of my own voice saying this makes me smile. Out of my smiling mouth, the words roll. “He leads me beside still waters; He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil . . .”

  She looks at me hard, real hard. I stop reciting a minute and look at her looking at me, with the dripping evil noise close to us, the darkness building.

  “. . . For thou art with me . . .” I swallow.

  She swallows.

  I see a kind of silly-lookin’ tear come chargin’ out from under one of her lenses. So there must be a tear in my eye. This is stupid. I put my eye to my sleeve. I am almost gaggin’ with uncried cries.

  “. . . Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies; thou anointest my head with oil, my cup overflows . . .”

  The drippin’ of everything is crazy and awful. And yet, she’s grinnin’.

  “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord FOR EVER.”

  Her eyes have been lost in my movin’ mouth. Now she giggles. “That’s it. You like it here, Ma? It’s my secret place.” She comes to me, puts her tough bare feet on my shoes. “Ma?”

  “What?”

  “Do you ever get so sad any more that you wanna . . . you know what?”

  “Of course not.”

  She scowls, makes her forehead wrinkle. Her hair is such short, stand-up stuff. “I get so CURIOUS . . . Ma . . . very very very curious about heaven. Do you think heaven is like this wonderful place?” She pats the rocks.

  I gasp. “NO!” I say. “It ain’t a thing like this . . . NUTHIN’ like this . . . Certainly not. Bonny Loo, heaven has streets of gold!”

  5

  MADELINE’S GOT her tall boots on, and a swishy skirt like when she goes out. She’s fixin’ up some cupcakes with different-color frostings.

  I say, “You look nice, Madeline.” I’m in my robe tonight. Got that horrible business with my legs from the baby.

  Cookie says, “Warren Olsen’s comin’ tonight!”

  “Who’s Warren Olsen?” I ask. I light a cigarette.

  “Mind your own business!” says Madeline, her yellowish eyes jumping at me. Cookie looks like Madeline, the same yellow eyes in black lashes. Her hair is straight and cut like a Japanese doll. She watches her mother hard.

  Madeline has gobs of ey
e makeup on tonight. She winks at me.

  Virginia watches me from her silent corner.

  Cookie says, “Mumma’s in a bad mood.”

  Cookie and Bonny Loo play with plastic cowboys and Indians under the supper table. Bonny Loo’s Indians have Cookie’s cowboys surrounded.

  At the table, Florence slowly thumbs through a candy box of postcards.

  Madeline takes another batch of cupcakes from the oven.

  I smoke hard and fast. I rock hard and fast.

  Florence says, “Earlene, did you know Daddy can’t read ’n’ write?”

  I rock slower and stare into the kerosene lamp on the table. It’s turned up high and hot. I say, “No, I didn’t.” I drag on the cigarette.

  In the lamplight, Florence’s freckles shift like stars. “But now he’s got a . . . What you call ’em, Virginia?”

  “Therapist.”

  “Yeh, that’s it,” says Florence. “Cousin Rosie says prison’s the best thing that ever happened to Daddy . . . She says nowadays you don’t get bread ’n’ water there . . . You get reformed . . . you know, made nice. The therapist is helpin’ Daddy do some cursive.”

  I says, “That’s really neat.”

  “When’s my daddy gettin’ home?” Bonny Loo asks me.

  “I don’t know,” I murmur.

  “He prob’ly can’t get the truck started, huh?”

  “Prob’ly not,” I says.

  Florence comes over to my chair. “Here’s these postcards Dad sent Mumma.” She puts the candy box in my lap.

  Madeline gives Kaiser a cupcake with pink frosting. He eats it whole.

  I pick a postcard from the box. It’s written in fat tall letters like a little kid: DEAR MADELINE. I LOVE YOU. REUBEN BEAN.

  Madeline’s eyes are on my hand. I drop the card in the box.

  Florence says, “Mumma, what’s that they said Daddy’s got?”

  Madeline puts another batch of cupcakes in the oven and sets the timer. “Dyslexia,” she says breathlessly.

  Cookie and Bonny Loo make a massacre of the cowboys, giggling and scaling cowboys across the floor. A cowboy with a lasso wings Kaiser in the shoulder. Kaiser groans for another cupcake, paws at Madeline’s tall boots.

  “Lookit this one,” says Florence, “a postcard of the Blaine House . . . Ain’t it pretty?” On the back: DEAR MADELINE, WHEN I GET HOME I’LL MARRY YOU REAL. LOVE R.B.

  “That’s the best one,” Florence says, glaring at her mother.

  Cookie giggles. “Florence, read the baseball ones.” She looks at Bonny Loo. “He gets home runs.”

  “I ain’t marryin’ that asshole!” Madeline snarls. And she grabs the candy box, squeals open the woodstove door, and shoves the box into the wall of flame.

  Virginia stands up, bares her twisted teeth. She folds her arms, her wee breasts pushin’ out like arrowheads. “You are the asshole,” she says to Madeline.

  We hear a car in the yard. Kaiser growls, then skids to the door, barkin’.

  Tears bunch up in Florence’s eyes, stream over the freckles. “Mumma . . . I hope . . .” She sobs wildly, covers her face.

  Warren Olsen comes to the door. Kaiser’s voice is like cannon blasts. Madeline holds him back by the collar. Cookie and Bonny Loo are lapping green frosting from their fingers. Madeline says, “Earlene . . . you know Warren . . . from the Country Store? He owns it.”

  Warren puts out his hand. I stand up, tightening my sash.

  Madeline says, “This is Rubie’s cousin’s wife. They’ve been stayin’ here like I was tellin’ you.”

  His hand is steady and cool. He has square Howdy Doody cheeks, freckles, auburn hair. I say, “Good to meet you.”

  He sits at the table with his legs crossed in Band-Aid-color nylon pants. He has a soft, soft voice. I gotta lean almost out of my chair to hear him.

  Turns out he’s only talkin’ about the weather.

  Florence and Virginia are in their room, bangin’ drawers like they’re packin’ to leave. Kaiser lays at Madeline’s feet, watching Warren Olsen. Madeline drops him a cupcake with blue frostin’.

  Madeline pours coffee. Warren says, “Madeline, this kerosene light . . . How charming to live this way!”

  Madeline smiles, looks at me.

  The baby jabs my bladder. I almost cry out.

  Warren Olsen takes a green-frostin’ cupcake with his long clean fingers while on his face is a look of love.

  6

  I FEEL HIM SIT on the bed in the dark. I wake up with a start. “Beal!”

  He chuckles.

  One of his boots drops. He smells of pine. I’m sick of the smell of pine. Sometimes I see him suck on his knuckles in his sleep, the hands black with pitch. I seen him once—just once in his sleep suck on his thumb. I pushed his hand away. I thought it would make me sick, seein’ him like that.

  Now I say, “Did he pay you tonight?”

  “No.” His other boot drops.

  “Beal, why don’t you remind him?”

  Silence.

  “Beal . . . it’s your money, you’re entitled to it. It’s been two weeks. How can he expect a man with a family to live without money for two whole weeks?”

  Silence.

  “It’s your money!” I cry out. “How can you be that shy?”

  “He’ll prob’ly remember tomorrow,” Beal murmurs.

  I sit up. I light the lamp. I reach for my cigarettes. I light one with trembling hands. My hair feels crawly. It moves on the front and back of my gown.

  “I’m saaaaw-sawwww-ry, Earlene,” he stammers.

  I look at him, his back turned to me. He’s pulling his shirt off. There’s welts on every square inch of his back and neck. Deer flies.

  I say, “Where’s the truck?”

  “In the yard,” he says. “Hill helped me time it. He has a light.” Beal looks at me and his eyes are weirdly bright. Tears.

  “You’d think Hill would realize you might need your pay while he’s helpin’ you fool with that old wreck of a truck.”

  The tears don’t run out. They just sparkle in his eyes. He says, “It was late when we was done. I couldn’t ask him for money after he spent all that time.”

  “But”—my face flames—“it’s your money. You got every right, Beal!”

  He pulls off his dungarees and the belt buckle clanks on the floor.

  I says, “Beal, did you know Rubie can’t re———”

  There’s a sound of springs in the next room. A whimper.

  I put out my cigarette. Beal stares unbelievin’ at the wall. I stand up and take my hairbrush from my pile of clothes on the chair.

  A moan. Then the rhythmic beating of Madeline’s bed against the wall.

  I put the brush through my hair.

  Bonny Loo sits up. “What’s that, Ma!” she gasps.

  I look at Beal. He stands slowly, his arms out from his body. His beard heaves over his front in rivulets, parting at the deep navel, twisting a few inches below that. He walks heavily to the wall as the whimpers and cries on the other side grow louder. He wipes his eyes.

  Bonny Loo says, “Beal! What’s that racket?”

  I say softly, “Beal, Warren Olsen . . . from the hardware store . . . He’s spendin’ the night.” I stop brushin’.

  “That’s it, Bonny!” Beal shouts. “It’s Warren Olsen from the hardware store fuckin’ Madeline!” He punches the wall. The lamplight flickers crazily.

  Suddenly, the noises from Madeline’s room stop.

  I say, “Beal, praise Jesus . . . ain’t none of our business . . . Please . . . come lie down!”

  Beal presses his cheek to the wall.

  “Beal!” I croak. “Are you eavesdroppin’!”

  His nakedness is almost earth-color in the kerosene light.

  Bonny Loo springs up, fumbles for her glasses. “Beal!” she says. “Maybe Warren Olsen’s got his ear up listenin’ to you!”

  “Shut up, Bonny Loo!” I hiss.

  Madeline slashes through the swan-pri
nt shower curtain that hangs across our doorway. She’s wearin’ a terry robe. Her hair’s an explosion. Her yellow eyes gleam on Beal.

  Bonny Loo says, “My father’s the one that hit the wall!”

  “Shut up, Bonny Loo!” I scream. I toss my hairbrush onto the bed. I take Beal’s elbow into my fingers. “BEAL . . . cover yourself!”

  Madeline walks big and heavy our way and closes both hands around the bedpost. “What do you think you’re doin’?” she says to Beal.

  Beal snorts. Smiles broadly. “Wanna see it again?” he says. He brings his elbow back, jabbing my side, and his fist disappears wrist-deep into the Sheetrock wall. The stuff crumbles over his feet.

  I say, “Praise Jesus!”

  Bonny Loo says, “Madeline! Where’s the man . . . that Warren feller?”

  I say, “Bonny Loo, go to sleep . . . School tomorrow.”

  Beal turns into the light and it seems his body is the brightest thing in the whole world. I cry out, “Beal! Please cover up!” I try to stand between him and Madeline but there’s no room to get by. I cover my face. “I don’t understand, you guys. I don’t understand none of this.” I open my eyes and tug on Beal’s arm. It seems like the whole universe is wheelin’ noisily around Beal’s earth-color hips and penis . . . and Madeline’s eyes are smilin’.

  I want to beat them eves.

  Bonny Loo moves into the circle of light in her pajamas. “You’re all nuts,” she says.

  Madeline says, “Your daddy thinks he’s head cock around here.”

  We hear a thump beyond the wall, probably Warren Olsen huntin’ up his Band-Aid-color pants in the dark.

  Madeline shakes the bedpost. Our bed lurches, makes a bizarre squeal. Madeline cackles, her huge breasts swinging. Beal watches her.

  The baby turns a somersault, batters my spine.

  Beal reaches as if to grab the sash of Madeline’s terry robe. Madeline looks at the fingers spread out.

  She says, “I’m sorry, Beal.” She lets go the bedpost and takes his hand, tugs on the fingers like milkin’ a cow. She says, “Possessive, they call it. Put that together with fertile and EEE-HA! Ain’t no wonder most women flop right down for you. Give you time, Beal . . . sweet sweet Beal . . . and you’ll be everybody’s daddy.”