(2005) Wrapped in Rain (21 page)

"Miss? Are you Ella Rain?" the doctor asked in a gentle voice as if nothing dire was going on in the rooms next door.

"I am," Miss Ella said with a give-it-to-me-straight face.

"These are Matthew's x-rays. No permanent damage. Just a few stitches and a good bump on the noggin. He'll live." The doctor smiled. "Some rest and a little ice cream might do him some good."

Miss Ella breathed easy and looked out the door. "Looks like you all've been busy."

The doctor nodded. "The driver of a tow truck had a stroke, crossed the median, and broadsided a Lincoln Town Car carrying a grandmother and her two grandkids. It's bad all the way around."

Miss Ella grabbed our hands, and the three of us walked back toward the exit. Halfway out, she stopped, nodded, said something to herself, and turned back toward the rooms-specifically, the room with the woman on the table. Miss Ella approached the door and looked inside where the doctors were sewing something above her belly. I said, "Miss Ella, are they sewing up her people place?"

"Yes, child," she said, "they are sewing up her people place." Miss Ella dropped her head and said, "Lord, You're needed in here too. You've got a lot of room at Your footstool, so please do what You do best and heal this woman. Starting with her heart."

Then we walked to the room with the two children. Miss Ella walked up and looked in the window. The kids were lying on the tables, eyes closed, nurses and a doctor between them. Miss Ella put her hand on the door. "This room too, Lord."

Finally, we walked to the door of the big white man who used to wear overalls. I couldn't tell if it was still him on the table or not, because whoever was on the table had a sheet pulled over his head. The man's left hand was partly exposed, and Ave could see a simple gold band on his ring finger. Miss Ella dropped her head and said, "Lord, we need You here too. Maybe more importantly, we need You at home, with whoever is about to learn about this."

In all my life, I had never seen someone so small walk so tall as she did there and then. Miss Ella was just barely five feet tall, but that day, she stood taller than Rex.

We walked out and Miss Ella held our hands across the parking lot and told us to slide across the seat, and we drove home huddled close together. She never said a word about the birds or the wrappers, and the next morning, they all got a proper burial. Prayer and all. We even put out some birdseed for those that might come back.

It was this memory, and more important the picture in my mind of finding Mutt alone and shaking on that table, that occupied my mind as I carried my duffel bag to the truck. I didn't want to find that picture when I got to Jacksonville.

I opened the back door of the truck and found Katie sitting in the backseat with Jase.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Going with you."

"Katie, I don't have time to argue with you, and you don't know half of what is going on here. I think it's best for all of us if you two just rest here a few days. You're welcome to stay, and Mose will check in on you, but this" I pointed to the truck-"is something you don't want any part of."

She pointed to the front seat and said, "Drive!"

I didn't have time to argue. I had five or six good hours on the road staring me in the face, and I still needed to make one stop in Abbeville. If I hurried, I could do what I had to do, get back in the car, on the road, and to Jacksonville before sunup, which would give me the whole day to look. And I might need it. If Mutt was good at one thing, it was hiding. He had had a lot of practice. We both did, but that was why I, more than anyone, needed to go looking. If he didn't want to be found, nobody but me would ever find him.

I looked at Katie and shook my head. I wanted her to come. I just didn't know how to ask.

A BRICK WALL AROUND THE CEMETERY OF ST. JOSEPH'S prohibited horses, or tractors, from entering, so all graves were dug by hand. And although unusual, some of the older crowd still wanted to be buried next to their kin. Wives, husbands, kids, or parents. Such was the case last week when ninety-seven-year-old Franklin Harbor passed after a lifetime of good health. With no way to get a tractor in, short of destroying the wall, there was only one way to get a hole dug-pick and shovel. For the last decade, Mose had dug every single one, averaging about one a month. With the funeral tomorrow, I knew that's where he'd be.

I drove around the back of St. Joseph's and found Mose digging in the graveyard.

"Mose?" I said, standing over the hole.

Mose looked up with the sweat pouring down his face. At eighty-one, he was skinny, but he could still work a pick and shovel. With precision. Getting the hole dug took him about three and a half hours of constant and steady work. He had hung a spotlight above his head, so it looked like he intended to be there awhile. "Mutt's gone." I kicked at the dirt in front of me, loosening a clod of clay. "Well, escaped is more like it. I'm going to see if I can find him. Will you look after things?"

"You know better than to ask me that," he said, digging again, not looking up.

"I know, but. . ." Mose nodded, rested both hands on the pick, and said, "Glue's working tomorrow and all this week. Some fellow in Albany bringing in a few mares."

I pointed to the bottom of the hole. "Don't get too comfortable; I don't want to come back here in a few days and find your cold fingers still wrapped around that shovel."

"Tucker, when I go, I'm making you dig the hole." He waved his hand across the cemetery. "I've dug enough. It's about time you learned how."

"I'll wait my turn."

The Rolling Hills Assisted Living Facility was the bottom of the dregs in Alabama. From front door to back, the smell of urine permeated every square inch. Rolling Hills was an old folks' home that held mostly Parkinson's and Alzheimer's patients. Truth be known, it was basically a hospital run by hospice, and like a roach motel, all doors led in. I parked the truck, left the engine running, and whispered to Katie, "Ten minutes. Got to check on the Judge." I didn't take time to go into the truth.

The judge was scanning the door when I walked in. "Hey, boy! Where you been? I've been having withdrawals and even the shakes for five weeks."

I stood next to the hospital bed and nodded. "I left you a couple in this drawer."

"You know the nurses aren't going to let me have that. And your father, God bless the stodgy old mute, couldn't light the match if his life depended on it. So here I am, three feet from satisfaction and unable to get any."

Rex made no verbal or visual response when I looked at him. He never did. He sat in the corner, looking out the window just as he had been six weeks ago when I last passed through. Rex's shoes were loosely velcroed, his shirt unbuttoned, his fly unzipped, his face unshaven, and his hair uncombed.

"Sounds like a personal problem," I said with a smile.

"Don't you get smart with me, you little squirt. I may be stuck in this bed, but"-the judge nodded his head toward the mouth diaphragm just inches from his lips"this phone isn't."

The judge couldn't move a thing from the neck down. His body was a gnarled mess. His fingers and toes were curled up, his body lay flat and sagging into the sheets, his colostomy bag was a regular mess, and his catheter was constantly infected and therefore his bed a puddle. But the judge just wouldn't die. So for the last six years, Rex and the judge had been roommates. And in that time, Rex had never been able to carry on a conversation. He couldn't remember how to tie his shoes, where to pee, or how to defecate in a toilet. As a result, he spent his days in running shoes with wide Velcro straps and an adult diaper that made a shuffling noise every time he moved.

Air fresheners covered their room. Plug-ins filled every outlet, fresheners hung from every fan blade, and hot oil fresheners framed every lightbulb heating up when the light was turned on. On the floor behind the television sat a surge protector with the television plugged in one outlet and five air fresheners filling the others. Depending on the wind, theirs was both the best-and worst-smelling room in the whole place.

I pulled two cigars from the top drawer, ran one beneath his nose, cut the tip, and lit it. I held the flame a long time, turning the cigar several times, lighting it evenly. Then I took long, deep breaths, letting the sides of my cheeks suck in and almost touch each other. Meanwhile, the judge licked the sides of his mouth, tossed his head back and forth, and almost came unglued. "Come on, boy, don't hog it. For God's sakes, have mercy."

I blew a mouthful of smoke into the judge's face and placed the tip of the cigar between his salivating lips, where he immediately vised it between his front teeth and sucked in a chestful. He drew on it so hard that the insides of his cheeks actually touched. For two minutes, the judge puffed and sucked. Finally, his eyes turned red and he nodded and exhaled in a satisfied whisper, "Thank you." The judge, floating amidst the rush of nicotine, closed his eyes and whispered, "Ahhh, that's almost as good as sex."

I laid the cigar down on the table, opened the window, and pointed the fan out to draw the smoke with it. "How about turning the fan on?" I said, nodding at the Judge. He sucked twice on the diaphragm, blew three times, and sucked once more. His little machine beeped and the fan responded by turning itself on low. Between his mouth and the fifteen-thousand-dollar, diaphragm-controlled computer mounted above his bed, the judge could control every electrical or thermostatic device in the room. Even the fire alarm and telephone.

I propped my legs up on the judge's bed and asked, "How's he doing?" Before the Judge could answer, I lifted the cigar and held it next to his lips.

"Tuck," said the judge while taking another draw, "it ain't good. He can't hold his bowels, his bladder, or his tongue. Every few days he shouts the worst vulgarities at the top of his lungs. Much worse than me. Sick stuff. And then that's all he says. And it's not directed at anybody. It's like he's talking to people who aren't even there. Maybe they were at one time, but I sure can't see them. I'm not sure there's a whole lot going on up there." I looked at Rex, who sat leaning against the window with dribble falling off his quivering bottom lip. The judge drew another chestful and smiled. "I think he's about half a bubble off plumb."

We sat in silence for about ten minutes while the Judge devoured his cigar. At one point an orderly walked by and stuck her head in the door. The judge saw her and said, "What? You think it's gonna kill me?"

"I don't care what it does as long as you make that phone call and take care of my speeding ticket."

"Delores, sweetheart," said the Judge through a plume of white smoke, "it's already taken care of. Along with your expired tag. Now, stop pestering me and leave me to the one pleasure I have left in this world."

She smiled, blew him a kiss, and kept walking.

"She loves me," he said, still eyeing the door. "Always checking on me and ... if I wasn't stuck in this bed, I might make an honest woman of her."

`Judge, I got to get going. I'm headed to Jacksonville."

The judge's eyes changed and his game face replaced the jovial joker. "You got work there, son?"

"No, my brother's gone missing. I've got to try and find him."

"Mutt okay?" The judge stretched his lips toward the diaphragm. "You need me to make some calls?"

"I don't know yet. I'll let you know. Maybe."

"Well, don't wait another six weeks. This'll last me about three days, and then I'll start breaking out in a sweat and shaking all over again."

"What about Delores?"

"Nah." The judge threw his glance out the window. "I don't think she loves me that much. She just uses me to compensate for her heavy foot."

I held the cigar to his mouth while the judge breathed. "See you, judge." I walked to the door, turned around, and looked at Rex, who sat staring out the window. He didn't even blink.

MUTT QUIT HIGH SCHOOL IN HIS JUNIOR YEAR. BORED, detached. I'm not quite sure what prevented him from engaging the world, but he didn't, and I knew by the look on his face that there was a whole lot more going on inside his mind than was coming out his mouth. No matter what I did, I couldn't get it out of him. I tried everything. I got him exhausted, rested, occupied, and drunk, but short of physically beating the sense out of himwhich I never did-I wasn't able to get through to him. Mutt just checked out. He devoted all his time to working at Waverly and building anything imaginable. He converted an unused stall in the barn into his shop and spent most of daylight and half the dark in there creating, tearing down, and rebuilding. If his mind could conceive it, his hands could build it. And although wood was his medium of choice, it didn't matter. If he could find a tool to cut, bend, soften, polish, or manipulate a medium, he'd use it.