Beaming Sonny Home (17 page)

“We just came to see how you are,” said Robbie, “and we were wondering if you need anything in Watertown.” Mattie looked at her grandchildren hard and long, Robbie with her sweet little face, a face already talking about sadness and rushed lives. Willard, looking like a leftover from a bad yard sale. Blood of her blood, bone of her bone. She gave Willard the longest look, having not seen him in a few months, not since he'd dyed his hair and begun experimenting with marijuana, if what Rita said was true.

“Hey,” Willard said, shifting his long legs inside their big long shoes. Shoes designed for a circus clown. And twitching his shoulder as his crossed eyes worked overtime. Maybe the boy would grow into something worth looking at a few years down the road. Maybe all his features would straighten themselves out. But right now he was all limbs and shoes and nervousness. He reminded Mattie of something you'd construct from a can of Tinkertoys. Her heart did a little flip-flop. Poor boy, poor Willard, what with Rita poking him daily with a pitchfork of criticism. Mattie looked back to Roberta, to her tie-dye dress and her short hair, cropped like a boy's, and her Black & Decker big-soled shoes. Clunkers. Army boots for little girls. Everyone wanted to act tough these days, even Robbie, with the tiny face of an angel, lips painted almost like a doll's, skin as white as a porcelain dish. Her only granddaughter.

“Whose car are you driving?” Mattie asked.

“Mama's Buick,” Willard answered. Mattie looked out into the yard. Sure enough, there was Rita's big black Buick. The Road Hog, Henry called it.

“Willard ain't got his license yet,” said Robbie, “so Aunt Rita is letting
me
drive the Buick.”

“Where's the For Sale sign?” Mattie asked. She knew Henry had made one for the back window of the Buick.
Good
Condition. Tires Like New. Will Accept Best Offer.
She had heard Rita telling Gracie about it. Mattie assumed that Henry was finally flaunting signs of good salesmanship. How could tires possibly be like new with Rita at the wheel?

“Mama don't put the For Sale sign in the window unless Daddy's around,” said Willard. “She's afraid someone will see it and want to buy her car.”

“Any gas in the Buick?” Mattie wondered. Roberta gave a quick little nod, her angel lips pursing themselves into a smile.

“I know what you're up to, Granny,” she said. “I already been grilled about whether or not you've asked me to take you to Bangor. You know Gracie will kill me if I do.” Mattie looked down into her grandchild's eyes, down to where the good stuff about a person's life is kept, the meat of their soul. That's what makes them stand up to the winds of adversity or fall down. There was all kinds of good stuff about Robbie there in those eyes, the things Mattie knew about her from when she was just a little girl. She loved animals and flowers and was kind to all living things. She loved her grandmother, too, and used to sleep on Mattie's back porch while Mattie weeded the garden, just so that she could be close by. She was a good child, a good pregnant teenager. Lucky Lester hadn't lived to learn the news about Robbie. He liked to take women to bed himself, but he wouldn't look kindly at Peter Laforest doing it to his granddaughter. Mattie turned her attention upon Willard.

“I'll pay you well,” she said. “We can go to the Bangor mall after we talk to Sonny, and shop for us a nice little present, all three of us.” She winked at Willard. What would it take? Some loud record? A movie video? More colored hair dye? She'd dip—no, she'd dive headfirst into her rainy day money. Robbie put a hand on Mattie's shoulder.

“Granny,” she said, “Mama would kill us. And then Aunt Rita would kill whoever is left.” She shook her head sadly. Willard shifted about on the great boats of his feet. His shoulder twitched fiercely. Sunshine filtered in around his head, through the top glass in the door. In its sheen, Willard's hair was suddenly beautiful, like the pot of shamrocks Mattie kept in her bedroom window, green and billowy. It was as if Willard were carrying a small hill upon his head, a virgin meadow, a peaceful place where one could go and lie down and rest.

“I'm sorry, Granny,” Robbie was saying.

Mattie patted her tiny hand. “Will you at least think about it?” she wondered, and Robbie promised that she would.

“Why don't you come to town with us?” she asked. “I need to pick up a prescription and Willard is looking to rent a movie. We'll be back in no time.”

Mattie shook her head. “I got to stay in case there's any new developments,” she said, remembering Gracie's words, remembering the new language she was now learning, thanks to Sonny's latest world dealings.

“Stop in again, Willard,” Mattie said to the long, retreating form of her grandson.

“Hey,” Willard said, and waved back at her. Mattie realized now that
hey
didn't just mean
hello
,
yes
,
thanks
,
maybe
,
okay
, and so on. It also meant
good-bye.

“I've been to see the doctor,” Robbie now whispered to Mattie. “Everything looks just fine.” Mattie smiled. She squeezed Robbie's hand. Everything looked just fine for a pregnant eighteen-year-old, in a crazy-colored dress, wearing shoes fit for a storm trooper, and chauffeuring a twitching, blinking cousin with green hair. This was the new world, but after having lived for almost seventy years in the old world, Mattie was beginning to like this new one better. Things were strange there, but the kids seemed to make a little bit of sense. Robbie and Willard were doing strides better than their own parents. And one thing was certain. Mattie wished she'd have had Robbie's clunkers to wear on the day she actually married Lester Gifford, instead of those tall, pointy-toed things. She wished they'd been shoes she could run in. She wished she'd had a driver's license. Who knows what mountains she might have scaled with those two things on her side. Mattie watched as the car pulled away, Robbie's tiny body hanging on to the big steering wheel, Willard's green head rubbing the top of the car's roof, like the head of some exotic parrot. The new generation.

Mattie went immediately to the telephone. There on the counter was the number she had asked for just that morning, from information, the number of the Bangor Police Department. She had been afraid to punch in the numbers after the operator gave them to her, afraid that once she told the truth, that Sonny wasn't adopted, that his mother was alive but not well because she feared the worst for her son, that all hell would break loose. At least that's what born-again Rita had been prophesying for the past three days. “All hell's gonna break loose when them reporters find out the truth,” Rita had said. “When they find out Sonny's got relatives up here, we may as well head for the hills.”

The phone rang twice, way down in Bangor, at the police department, before Mattie heard a woman's voice answer with a curt, crisp “Police department, can I help you?”

“I want to talk to the chief of police,” Mattie told her.

“And what is this regarding, ma'am?” the voice asked.

“Sonny Gifford,” said Mattie. “It's regarding Sonny Gifford, who's holed up in that house trailer.” The voice on the other end of the line sighed.

“And what message would you like to leave for Chief Melon?” the voice wanted to know, a bored voice, a voice tired of the conversation already. And Mattie hadn't even begun.

“It's personal,” she said.

“Ma'am.” The voice was annoyed now. “You'll need to tell me what this is in regard to. Chief Melon can't take every call that comes in. He's a very busy man right now.” The voice waited, impatiently. Mattie could hear some kind of rhythmic tapping on the other end. A pen against a metal desk, maybe.

“It's personal,” she said again. Now
she
waited. Sunshine was beating its way through the kitchen window and Mattie felt instantly warm. Too warm. Tiny beads of sweat broke out above her upper lip.

“Well, you'll need to tell
me
first,” said the voice. “And if I decide that it's important, I'll see that Chief Melon gets your message.”

“But I'm his mother,” said Mattie. “I'm Sonny Gifford's mother. Ain't that reason enough to talk to the chief of police?” The voice was now more annoyed.

“Ma'am,” the voice said, a city voice to Mattie, a voice of some authority. “John Lennon himself called here about an hour ago. He wanted to talk to Chief Melon, too. And ten minutes after that Hillary Clinton called and said she wanted to make Sonny her running mate in 1998. And just after Mrs. Clinton called, Shirley MacLaine took time out of her busy schedule to phone and say that Sonny is really just a mouthpiece for a four-thousand-year-old Tibetan priest. And yesterday Boris Yeltsin called, offering Sonny political haven in Russia. And in between all those
personal
phone calls were dozens of calls from just plain ordinary folks who wanted to wish Mr. Gifford the best. Now, do you think I can bother Chief Melon with each and every one of those phone calls?” The voice waited. Mattie's mind was reeling. At first, she had taken what the voice said to be the gospel truth. Boris Yeltsin? Hillary Clinton? Shirley MacLaine? After all, with CNN carrying the story, it was more than likely that all kinds of important people now knew about Sonny. But then she remembered the John Lennon call. John Lennon was dead, or so Sonny himself had announced during his first phone conversation with Chief Melon. Now Mattie's mind was able to process what had been said. The woman with the stern voice was getting all kinds of crank calls and she was fed up.

“And as soon as you hang up,” the voice continued, “I'm sure that Steven Spielberg will call for the movie rights, and then Elizabeth Taylor will call for a dinner date. She likes the wild, scruffy type these days. And then, more than likely, the Martians will call.” The voice waited.

“But I'm his mother,” Mattie said softly. She almost doubted herself in this matter. She could hear the voice telling the next caller, “And just after Shirley and John and Boris and Hillary called, his mother called, which is unusual for a woman who is dead and buried in Mattagash, Maine.”

“You're his
mother
?” The voice was entertained by this.

“Yes,” said Mattie. “I'm his mother, from Mattagash, Maine, and I want to talk to Chief Melon.”

The voice sighed again. “Leave me your number, ma'am, and I'll see that Chief Melon gets your message.” As soon as Mattie delivered the last digit, the voice disconnected her without so much as a
thank
you
or a
good-bye
. Not even a
hey.

And then, it all seemed to happen at once, as though the years of Mattie's life had piled up on each other, all sixty-six of them, waiting like logs in a slough for the one major event that would mark her existence on the planet. And when that finally happened, those years came cascading down around her. The years of her life tumbled out onto the floor like marbles that she would never be able to gather up again in one bowl. The years of her life had been a made puzzle that one day gets unmade, the pieces all scattered. It had begun with her not planting a garden for the first time in years, with Sonny turning up on Channel 4, with her best friend, Elmer Fennelson, disappearing like smoke, with her three big girls all back inside the little house trying to live their teenaged lives over again, with Robbie turning up pregnant, with Mattie now sleeping late, with time trolling a second chance before her eyes, another chance to save Sonny. And then the rude, impersonal voice on the phone, a voice that suggested to Mattie that Sonny now belonged to other people, not to her. It all came undone, unmade, in a matter of days. Or was it years? Seconds? Does anyone know the spot in time when something happens that will snowball into a future event? If she had beaten Sonny for his windowpane art, if she had made him wash his own laundry, take down his dirty pictures, could she have prevented the next few hours? Could she have changed his life for the better?

Mattie had hung up the phone and was now in her bedroom, with Lester's old suitcase opened onto the lavender bed, waiting for a few items that she would carry to Bangor. She would get there some way, she knew that.

“All God's children got traveling shoes,” she said aloud as she placed two folded pairs of underwear into the empty suitcase. Funny, but she still couldn't call them
panties
. The girls laughed aloud whenever she said
bloomers
, but until the day Mattie died, she would consider them such. And a
bra
was a
brassiere
. And she would never use a Mr. Coffee, or a microwave oven. She would fry her eggs in bacon grease and be damned, thank you very much. But those thoughts were all lost in the wave of events that happened next.

First, Rita came running into the house. She'd hitchhiked a ride with Rachel Ann Parsons, who was responsible for Rita finding Jesus in the first place. Rita ran in all aflutter, just the way she did three days earlier, on Monday afternoon, when she came bearing the bad news of Sonny. Rita the messenger. But now she had different news.

“Have you seen Willard?” Rita panted. “Where's Robbie? Where's my Buick?” At first Mattie thought there had been more of those blasted
new
developments
on Sonny. But no, this was something nearer and dearer to Rita's heart. Her beloved Buick. Her big black Road Hog.

“They're gone to Watertown,” said Mattie. “Now calm down and tell me what's going on.” But Rita was at the telephone now, frantically licking her thumb and dabbing it at the flimsy pages of the phone book.

“They'll be going to Watertown Video,” said Rita. “I can catch them there.” She threw the phone book onto the counter and began dialing. Through the kitchen window Mattie could see Rachel Ann Parsons, waiting in her little blue car, her white arm resting against the glass of the driver's window.

“What's going on, Rita?” Mattie said again.

“Busy,” said Rita, and hung up the phone.

“Don't make me keep asking,” Mattie warned. Rita turned to Mattie then and grasped her shoulders with both hands. Instant tears turned Rita's eyes all watery.

“Oh, Mama,” she said, “it's just the most wonderful thing. God spoke to me. He talked to me, Mama.” At first, Mattie saw this as a good sign, that maybe God was offering some sound advice about Sonny. Why He chose Rita was another example of those “mysterious ways” in which He was forever operating. Mattie could only hope that this was genuine and not another of Rita's dramatic outbursts.

“What did He say, child?” Mattie asked.
Drive
your
mother
to
Bangor
, that's what Mattie was hoping for.

“He told me to sell the Buick!” Rita said. At first, Mattie simply stared at her daughter, at the tears of heavenly glory that were now spilling out of Rita's eyes, at the profound smile on her face. Mattie supposed that this was what was meant by “a look of bliss.”

“He told you what?” she asked.

“He told me to sell the Buick!” Rita shouted. “I was doing the laundry, in the middle of sorting my coloreds from my whites, when what do I hear but this big booming voice. ‘Rita, honey,' the voice said. ‘Obey thy husband and sell the Buick.' Rachel Ann told me that God only talks to the real pious. Oh, my heart is still beating so fast, Mama, I can hardly talk!” She let go of Mattie then and was on her way back to the door.

“Could it have been Henry?” Mattie asked. “Could you have heard Henry Plunkett? After all,
he's
the one wanting you to sell the Buick.” But Rita was already halfway out the door.

“I gotta put that sign back in the window!” Rita shouted. “Every second it ain't there dishonors His name.” And then Rachel Ann's little blue car pulled out of Mattie's yard and pointed its nose at Watertown. Well, there went any chances of Mattie talking Robbie and Willard into driving her to Bangor in Rita's Road Hog. And she had thought that she might be able to do just that. Robbie seemed almost wavering when Mattie had asked earlier. And Willard, well, who could tell if Willard was wavering or not, what with all that twitching he did. But now it seemed those chances were squelched, now that God had gone into the used-car business. Mattie was sorry to hear this. How could He keep an eye on Sonny if He was concentrating on
Good
condition, Tires like new, Will accept best offer?

Mattie had just gone back to her packing, thinking that maybe, if she asked again, if she promised something big, the house itself maybe, Marlene would crack and drive her down to Marigold Drive Trailer Park. Or maybe Elmer Fennelson would finally appear from his disappearing act. Elmer would take her for sure, and she would be ready, Lester's old suitcase packed with a clean brassiere and two clean pairs of bloomers, two dresses, socks, her toothbrush, her big jar of cold cream. She wouldn't need much. Or if Pauline ever did get off the road with her sacks and boxes of Avon so that she could answer her telephone, maybe Pauline would take her, tired as she was.
Someone
would take her. Mattie had even thought of calling a taxicab, but where would the nearest taxi service be? Caribou, maybe? It would take him almost two hours to get to Mattagash, and then they would have to turn around and drive another five hours south to get to Sonny. What would that cost? Would the four hundred dollars she had in the bank be enough for that? She thought not.

“Not with what things cost these days,” Mattie said. Then she would be broke, no money for a motel room, for food. And her social security check wasn't due for another two weeks. She stood in the middle of the living room and waited, listened to the sounds of the little house, ticking like a bomb, the quiet of things when one stands alone in one's own home and thinks. Water in the pipes. A creak in the walls. The grating of the electric furnace. An outside wind. And then silence. And when that silence comes, there's nothing left to do, no distractions to keep you from facing up to the facts of your situation. There's just the quiet of the truth, floating all around you like a bad perfume, like the smell of those swamp irises.

“I ain't ever gonna get to Bangor, am I?” Mattie asked aloud. Nothing in the house answered. Somewhere in the distance a car door slammed, probably at Pauline's house, and the sound of it reached her through the screen of her back door. She could ask Jesus. It wasn't as if the heavenly ice hadn't already been broken. After all, his father was on speaking terms with Mattie's oldest daughter, Rita. She could slide
Easter
Rising
out from under the sofa and ask the kind face in the picture, the one with the sad blue eye and blondish hairs growing like peach fuzz on the boyish chin. “I ain't ever going to Bangor, am I, Jesus?” she could ask. But she already knew the answer. No need to put one more burden upon the boy's thin shoulders. She heard the grackles in the backyard and imagined their bluish heads, bobbing. She could almost see the towels she'd hung out on the line yesterday, after that light rain, so much did she want to leave her earthly body and go where the truth wouldn't find her. But she couldn't. And then the quiet broke, like a dam, and life rushed down onto her head, wave after wave of helplessness.
She
would
never
get
to
Bangor, Maine. She would never get to Sonny.
And that's when she heard another car in her yard, her peaceful little yard that had been such a nice place before all this trouble. She thought of her tiny square of lawn, where the St. Francis of Assisi birdbath served as a friendly swimming pool for the neighborhood birds. She thought of those sweet bygone days when she and Elmer Fennelson would sit upon her narrow front porch and discuss their lives as though they were books they had once read and then put away on the shelf.

She hoped that it might be Rita again, that God had changed His mind and demanded that Rita drive her mother down to Bangor. “Keep the Road Hog, honey,” Mattie could almost hear God advising in a booming voice that only God or Charlton Heston could have. “Put the pedal to the metal, sweetheart.” But it wasn't Rita. It was Pauline. Mattie opened the door to let her in. She seemed more tired than ever, her big body having a hard time keeping up with her feet.

“I know that bubble bath ain't here yet,” said Mattie. “I just ordered it Monday. And I found my bottle of Skin So Soft this morning. So does this mean you're actually gonna sit down and have a normal visit with me?”

Pauline shook her head. “You got your TV on?” she asked.

“Why?” said Mattie. The truth was, she
didn't
have the television on. She was tired of looking at it and not being able to do anything to help Sonny. She was now intent on seeing Sonny in person, and not on Channel 4. So she had turned the television off and set about packing her suitcase.

“I just stopped off at Lola's to pick up Little Frank,” Pauline said. “Sonny's ex-wife has turned up in Bangor. She even brought the dog.” Mattie said nothing. She just looked at Pauline's face, a nice, round face, tired, filled with a lifetime of honest work, filled with kindness. Would God forgive Mattie for the many times over the years she had wished Pauline was her own daughter? Would God forgive her for coveting Pauline when she had three daughters of her own? Another car roared into the driveway and Mattie suddenly felt weak, her legs turning into rubbery things. Pauline reached out for her, pulled her toward the recliner.

“Sit down, darling,” said Pauline. “It's gonna all be over soon and Sonny'll be just fine.” She kneaded Mattie's shoulders as she said this, and, because of that, because of that tender touch of one human being to another, Mattie believed her. And then Gracie and Marlene flew into the house, excited bats, their purses sailing like Frisbees toward the sofa. Couldn't they just walk over and put them down? Did they have to hurl things?

In no time Marlene had Channel 4 cranked up, and Gracie was telling Pauline all about the newest of the new developments. Mattie looked up at the clock. One thirty. Martha Monihan would be very unhappy that Channel 4 had disrupted her soap opera for Sonny Gifford, Mattie's only boy. Who would have ever dreamed? All those years that Mattie and Martha had watched folks on television get born and have affairs and sometimes die, who would have ever dreamed that one day their favorite soap would be interrupted because of something Sonny Gifford did?

“It'll soon be over, Mama,” Marlene was saying. “He'll come out now and let them two women go.” Mattie tried to reason with herself. They were all saying it would be okay, even Pauline, so why couldn't she believe it? What made her motherly heart so sore? The television screen had now come to life, and it carried a picture of the same trailer, white, with the fine red pinstripe cutting through its middle. The lawn was awash with people. A sign held aloft, over the heads of just regular folks with nothing better to do in their own homes, listed an address for the Sonny Gifford Fan Club. Reporters and policemen were everywhere. Donna's hair was flying in the wind. Mattie tried hard to concentrate.

“Pauline,” she said, and Pauline bent down to listen. “I'm afraid.”

Pauline rubbed Mattie's shoulders. “You want a cup of tea?” she asked. “A glass of soda pop?” Mattie shook her head. Gracie and Marlene were hovering in front of the television like excited hens. And then Donna was back, with her microphone welded to her hand, her eyes awash with the biggest story of her lifetime.

“Dan, it looks as though things will soon be resolved here at Marigold Drive Trailer Park,” she said. “As you know, Sheila Gifford, Sonny Gifford's estranged wife, has contacted Chief Melon and is willing to come forward and speak to her ex-husband. Apparently, Dan, there was a dispute between the couple over the ownership of their dog, Humphrey. This is the dog Sonny Gifford mentioned to the press two days ago. It seems that both parties wanted the dog, so Sheila Gifford took the dog with her to Atlantic City to prevent Mr. Gifford from having him.”

“They're fighting over a
dog
?” asked Pauline. But Mattie knew that Sonny's dogs were his babies.

“There was a couple on
Geraldo
last month,” said Marlene, “who spent over a hundred thousand dollars each on lawyers because they both wanted custody of their miniature collie.”