In Search of Mockingbird

by Loretta Ellsworth

  My family doesn’t usually go for sentimental slop, as Bruce would call it, but I smile back and do what my social studies teacher says people lack the ability to do today. I accept her thanks and say, “You’re welcome.”

  Then I flatten the piece of paper against my book and use a green pencil because I read in Amy’s teenybopper magazine that green is a healing color and I figure we need all the help we can get.

  I print Dear Boomer at the top of the page and something strange happens to me inside. I look at the words and, for the first time in my life, I feel like a writer.

  Dear Boomer,

  You can’t possibly know how much I’ve missed you. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. No excuses. But you never really know a person until you walk in his shoes.

  I only ask that you talk to me and give me a chance to explain.

  Most sincerely,

  Mom

  Chapter Eight

  Kansas City, Missouri March 14, 1986, 5:00 a.m.

  I’ve been reading my mother’s diary.

  Her uncensored thoughts,

  how she loved the Beatles

  and cried when JFK died.

  But it only covers one year.

  What happened after that?

  Why did she stop writing?

  “Kansas City is warmer,” Sedushia informs me.

  “At least the weather is,” she clarifies as a man bumps into her then hurries off the bus without so much as a “sorry.”

  But it feels cold when we get off the bus. It’s still dark out. The station is bustling with people, most of them boarding another bus farther down. Several people linger in the lighted waiting area, their eyes fixed on a TV above them where the Weather Channel is playing. The number forty-seven flashes above the weatherman’s head. “About average for mid-March.” His voice drifts out the open door. We wait for the driver to take Sedushia’s suitcase off the bus, which is a slow process because he’s taking everyone’s luggage off. The passengers who are traveling on have to transfer to a different bus that hasn’t arrived yet. I make a note of the new bus number.

  Maybe it’s because I’m with Sedushia that I feel safe standing here. A seedy character dressed in a fur coat and wearing dark glasses stands next to the luggage rack. A guy with orange hair smokes a cigarette behind me. There are several Spanish-speaking people huddled in a group. I can’t understand what they’re saying, except for the occasional “sí.” I remember a sign posted in my Spanish classroom that states, “Everyone smiles in the same language.”

  I think of Monroeville, Alabama, advertised as being a friendly place, but protective of their town celebrity, Harper Lee. How will they greet me?

  I’ve read all about Harper Lee. Old interviews. Essays published in McCall’s. Newspaper and magazine articles that can’t decide if Miss Lee has been secretly writing and has half-written manuscripts lying around her house, or if she’s been publishing books under a different name. Rumors abound. They say her childhood friend Truman Capote is the real author of Mockingbird. They say she’s reclusive. They say she died years ago. They all want to know, Where has she been and what has she been doing for the last twenty-five years? Not unlike the questions Boomer will soon be asking Sedushia.

  We hail a cab, and Sedushia gives the driver the address. Two minutes later, we’re headed south in a gray Ford Escort, bouncing along on a ripped vinyl seat. I stare at the numbers spinning by on the meter perched on the dash. It’s the first time I’ve been in a taxi.

  “To the west, three blocks down, is the Tropica Calor,” Sedushia says as she points out the window. “I’ve worked there a lot. And the best Italian restaurant in town is just two blocks over yonder. They have an antipasto dish that would make your mouth water.”

  For the next fifteen minutes she points in every direction and talks a mile a minute. I don’t know if that’s her way of staying calm, but it drives me nuts.

  “There’s a delicious bakery on the way. I wonder if it’s open yet,” she says, then leans forward in her seat. “Do you know if the Pieta Bakery’s open?”

  “No, ma’am.” The driver doesn’t turn around.

  She looks at me. “Maybe we should stop and get something to eat first.”

  I shake my head. “There isn’t enough time.”

  “But you’ll get hungry on the bus.”

  “I’m not hungry, Sedushia.”

  “Maybe not now, but you will be later.”

  “I’m fine.” I know she’s stalling, but we don’t have time to waste. It’s almost six o’clock, and we’re behind schedule. Plus, I have no idea how much time to allow for a reunion, if there is one. I suspect those things take a while. And we’ll be fighting rush-hour traffic on the way back.

  “Don’t you think you should call your dad? He’s probably sick with worry.”

  “I’ll call him later.”

  “Take the next exit,” Sedushia tells the driver, and I open my mouth to object.

  “It’s a shortcut to Boomer’s house,” she explains.

  The driver turns onto a one-way street for several blocks before Sedushia guides him past three more turns into a modest neighborhood of older homes. Stately, tall oaks line the roadway, and there’s a quiet beauty as daybreak lightens the tops of the trees. Sedushia interrupts the peaceful scene with a high-pitched scream.

  “Stop! It’s there.” She points up the street to a white house with black trim and a screened porch that’s two houses away. Her hands are in constant motion out of nervousness. My hands are shaking, too.

  “All right,” I croak as a sudden chill creeps up my spine. After several seconds spent searching for the letter I wrote—it is sitting on my lap—I take Boomer’s picture and tuck it inside the letter.

  “You stay here. And don’t worry. It’ll be fine,” I say with a confidence I don’t feel.

  She nods. “Good luck.”

  I get out of the cab and walk toward the house like a condemned prisoner approaching the guillotine.

  I look back at Sedushia and she waves.

  “I can do this.”

  I repeat that phrase several times in my head, but a different image pops up, the scene from Mockingbird when the kids talk of knocking on the door of Boo Radley’s house, but they’re afraid of getting killed. I shake off the image, but I’m shivering through my heavy jacket.

  The horizon is getting lighter. I’ve been awake for twenty-four hours now. I should be exhausted, but instead my heart races and I have to take even steps to keep from breaking into a run. Are my eyes bloodshot? And my hair! I quickly run my fingers through my ponytail.

  Two large evergreens stand in front of the house. I wait for a few long seconds before going up the steps, pushing open the screen door, and stepping inside a cluttered porch. There are several white plastic chairs covered with dust, two bicycles, a Christmas wreath, and four cardboard boxes piled on top of each other.

  A wooden door separates the porch from the house. I don’t turn the knob, because I figure it’s locked and I shouldn’t have come this far to begin with.

  Now, where to put the letter? I try sliding it in the door, but it doesn’t fit. It doesn’t work underneath the door, either. Besides, Boomer might not look down when he answers the door. I don’t have any tape with me or I’d tape it to the door. I’m still trying to figure out what to do when there’s a loud thud.

  I spin around. A newspaper boy rides past on a bicycle. The folded-up newspaper had hit the screen of the porch and landed on the sidewalk below.

  I step back outside and pick up the newspaper, rolled up and secured with a rubber band. This is my answer. Sticking the letter inside the rubber band next to the newspaper, I set it back on the ground. I tiptoe inside and take a big breath.

  “Here goes nothing.” I pound on the door several times. Then I run out the door, down the steps, and around the side of the house.

  Still nothing. Finally, a large man steps out of the house. He’s wearing boxer shorts and a sweatshirt. His feet a
re bare and he’s tiptoeing back and forth on the cold cement. His unshaven round face moves from side to side. Short, curly black hair is matted on one side of his head and sticking up on the other side.

  This is Boomer? What a loser!

  Boomer bends down with some effort and picks up the newspaper, then takes one more look around before he heads back into the house. Now all I have to do is wait. Once he reads the letter, he’ll surely come back out, hopefully with more clothes on.

  I wait several minutes. Still no Boomer. Has he noticed the letter yet? My dad always reads the newspaper first thing in the morning, but some people just bring it in and stick it on the counter. What if Boomer takes the paper to work to read? What if he takes a shower before he reads the paper? I’m not sure we have time to wait for Boomer to take a shower. We barely have time for him to get dressed.

  I’m just wondering whether the newspaper idea was stupid, when a woman across the street opens the front door and lets her huge black dog outside. The dog sniffs around for a moment, then pees, then sniffs some more. Suddenly, he looks up and eyes me across the street. The dog lets out a monstrous bark as he runs straight toward me. My brothers always say, “Never run away from a dog if you’re scared.” So I scream and run around to the back of the house. When I look back, the dog is right behind me and he doesn’t look friendly. I keep running all the way around to the front of the house and do the only thing I can think of. I run inside the porch and slam the door behind me. The dog stands at the screen and barks loudly.

  “Down, Fido,” I say through the screen.

  The sound of approaching footsteps startles me.

  The door behind me opens and I turn to look. Boomer is there, his head almost touching the top of the doorway. His dark eyes are bulging and his mouth is open. He’s monstrous up close. I look back at Fido, still barking through the screen door. Maybe I should have taken my chances with the dog. Odds are, they both bite.

  Chapter Nine

  Boomer’s House March 14, 1986, 6:00 a.m.

  “That dog is dangerous!” I stammer, shrinking back and pointing at the barking monster on the other side of the screen door.

  Boomer pushes past me and yells at the mutt. “Go home, Duke. Get along now.”

  The dog takes one last hungry look at me and crosses the street, where at the same time his unsuspecting owner opens the front door and scuttles Duke back inside, unaware of his near-miss assault.

  Boomer turns to face me, and his assault is worse.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  I cringe but attempt a soft smile. “I’m Erin.” Boomer is wearing a pair of sweatpants and a faded gray T-shirt with KANSAS CITY ROYALS printed on the front. “I’m a friend of your mother’s,” I add.

  “My mother?” He looks confused and I suspect he hasn’t seen the paper yet.

  “There’s a note. It’s in your newspaper,” I explain. I want to leave, to run out the door and disappear into the bushes until this whole day has passed. But Sedushia is waiting in the cab, hoping for Boomer to say some kind word, even though I can tell that nothing of the sort is ever going to happen. Sedushia said that Boomer sells cars. I wonder if he scares his customers into buying them.

  “Wait here,” he yells, then disappears into the house. I stare at the white plastic chairs covered with dust. What will I say to Sedushia when Boomer kicks me out?

  “Reality Bites” is carved on one of the stalls in the girls’ bathroom at my high school, and right now it seems so true. I don’t have a mother and Boomer doesn’t want his. I realize that today is my birthday, that it’s been my birthday since midnight and I haven’t thought about it much till now. I was born at ten a.m., though, so I’m not officially sixteen yet.

  A folded-up army cot rests near the window, and I’m reminded of my four-poster bed at home.

  Boomer opens the door and comes back out. He’s carrying the note and picture.

  “How do you know my mother?” he barks.

  “I met her on the bus.” I look down at the floor. That sounds so lame.

  He shakes his head. “She sent a kid this time?”

  This time? There were others? My mouth drops open. Boomer nods.

  “About once a year she tries to contact me. Usually gets some poor sucker to call me on the phone and ask if I want to talk to her. Never had anyone come to my house, though. And she never used a kid before.”

  “I offered,” I say defensively. “She’s here. She’s in a cab down the street.”

  Boomer peeks out the screen as if he doesn’t believe me.

  “She didn’t know if you’d want to see her,” I explain, feeling stupid. The whole idea now seems pathetic.

  He quickly scribbles something on the note, then hands the picture and note to me. “Tell her to stop trying. Tell her it’s too late for a reunion.”

  I open the screen door. I’ll have to tell her the latest attempt failed as well. But then I think of Mockingbird, of how Scout didn’t give up when a mob of men surrounded the jail and her father, how she kept talking to them until she’d broken the spell of resistance and made them see reason. I stop and spin back around. “Why is it too late?”

  He waves me away. His lip curls up in the same way as Sedushia’s.

  “You wouldn’t understand, kid.”

  I wouldn’t understand? Like I don’t have issues of my own? I stand up tall and my voice is strong. “Sedushia told me that she made some bad choices. But she’s your mom. You should give her another chance.”

  Boomer’s dark eyes narrow into tiny slits. “Another chance? She’s gone for ten years and then all I get is a few phone calls from strangers wanting to know if I’ll see her. She doesn’t have the guts to call me herself and now she wants to waltz back into my life. I don’t even know her anymore.”

  I dig my heels into the floor and find an even louder voice. “That’s because you pushed her away. She only stopped seeing you because you said you were ashamed of her.”

  “My mother’s a stripper.”

  “My mother is dead.”

  Boomer takes a step back. “Sorry,” he mutters. He looks around for a moment as if reconsidering.

  “She’s waiting in the cab,” I add again.

  Boomer lets out a heavy sigh.

  “I have to get ready for work,” he announces.

  “Did you ever wonder why she uses other people instead of calling you herself? Maybe it’s because she’s afraid of rejection,” I say as I open the screen door on my way out.

  “Do you have her phone number?”

  I close the door and turn around, surprised.

  Boomer puts his hands up and quickly adds, “No guarantees.”

  A true car salesman.

  “Sorry. I don’t have her number, but she’s performing at the Frisco nightclub for six weeks. You can call her there.”

  “Maybe I can catch her act,” Boomer says sarcastically.

  “Maybe you can give her a chance,” I snap at him. “She’s not asking for anything more.”

  He puts his hands up in defeat. “Sorry, kid. You’re right. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to talk to her. Even though she wasn’t much of a mother.”

  He sticks out his palm. “Let me see that note again.”

  I hand him the note, and he flattens it up against the door and scribbles something on it that I can’t read because his head is in the way. Then he folds the note in half and hands it back to me.

  “That picture got to me. Can’t believe she saved it all those years.” He shakes his head in disbelief and his voice sounds almost pleasant.

  I nod in appreciation, thinking that Boomer isn’t quite the son Sedushia expected.

  “Hey, kid,” he says as I leave, “watch out for the Great Dane next door.” I look back, and he has a smirk on his face. I wonder if Boomer is worth the effort.

  Chapter Ten

  The Burbs of Kansas City March 14, 1986, 7:00 a.m.

  Unspoken lies are the worst kind.

  Scout sa
id she was young when her mother died,

  and she never missed her presence.

  I was preoccupied with my mother at an early age,

  like a memory long gone that I yearned for.

  I think Dad missed her, too,

  even though he didn’t say that he did.

  “Was Mommy pretty? Did Mommy have long

  hair?”

  “Yes.” “No.” Short answers masked in sadness.

  Did I say something wrong?

  Finally, I stopped asking.

  “I hope we get back in time,” Sedushia worries out loud, leaning forward as if to make the taxi move faster.

  “It’s not far,” the driver replies, and he gives the car a boost of gas as he rounds a corner. I nearly do a body slam into the side of the car but catch myself on the rip in the seat.

  Sedushia stares at the note, her jaw clenched in tense determination. I’m not sure if it’s the note, which she hasn’t read yet, or the race back to the depot that’s causing her anxiety. Maybe it’s both.

  I know I should be worried, too, but I’m exhausted. If I miss the bus, I plan on sleeping at the terminal. After facing a killer dog and Boomer, nothing at the station could scare me. I rest my head on the back of the seat, waiting for Sedushia to read the note. I hope Boomer was kind.

  “Read it, Sedushia,” I implore her. “There’s no way I’m getting out of this cab until I find out what he wrote.”

  She cradles the paper in her hand like a delicate flower. Her eyes widen and her hands tremble as she opens the note. I’m holding on to my seat as the cab rushes another corner doing almost fifty miles per hour.

  Sedushia mouths the words silently and her expression changes to one of joy. “It’s good!” she shrieks, then grabs my arm and holds on to it as she reads.

  “I will meet you for dinner. Call me at work at the number below to set up a time and place. Boomer.”

  She squeezes my arm. “I’m going to see my baby,” she whispers.

  I almost tell her not to expect Boomer to pay for dinner. Instead I just smile through the pain of her sharp nails.