(2005) Wrapped in Rain (33 page)

Child?

Yes ma am.

You ought to hear the chorus up here that's warming up for that man. These folks are planning a party in his honor so you best listen to what he has to say.

Father Bob climbed the steps, patted the first priest on the shoulder, and sat down as the organist softly led us into the offertory. While the ushers began passing plates, Jase asked me for a quarter and then watched quietly as the plate made its circuitous route to us. When the plate arrived, he dropped it in and then handed it to Mutt. Mutt emptied his pockets and dropped in a wad of onedollar bills and about two handfuls of change. The ushers collected the plates, and the priests blessed the offering and then prepared the altar for the bread and wine.

When Father Bob had finished praying the blessing over the elements, retold the story of the Last Supper, and prayed a final time, the ushers once again appeared and began leading people forward. The usher signaled our row, and everyone stood up except Katie, Jase, and me. Mutt was focused on the railing and following the leader. His right hand was holding on to the collar of his suit like a parachute cord.

I pulled on the tail of his coat. "Mutt!"

He waved me off and kept his eye on the railing.

I pulled again. "Mutt!"

He turned and I whispered, "You can't go up there."

He shrugged. "Why not?"

"Well"-I looked around-"you have to be Catholic."

"And?"

"Well ... it's disrespectful."

"I know that."

"Oh," I said and let go.

The row in front of Mutt had emptied and they were waiting on him. So he brushed me off, straightened his coat, and jogged down the center aisle.

Katie poked me in the leg and pointed forward. "Don't you think you'd better go with him?"

I looked at the railing and back at her. "It's not right."

"That's not what I asked you."

I shook my head and let my eyes follow Mutt down the aisle.

She raised her eyebrows. "Don't you think he might need some help?"

"No"-I shook my head-"I have a feeling he's done this before."

Child, this is the Lord's House. It wouldn't have hurt you to walk up there with your brother:

I know, Mama Ella, but maybe I need to deal with a few other things first.

Like what?

Your absence.

And?

I thought of Rex. Him.

She paused about five seconds. You finished yet?

Mutt reached the railing, knelt, and extended both hands like a man who'd been in the desert for days with no water. His eyes were trained on Father Bob. The first priest held out the plate of bread, and Mutt, rubber gloves and all, tore off a chunk large enough for fifty people's communion. He stuffed the whole bite in his mouth, using both index fingers to squeeze it between his cheeks. With more bread than he could possibly chew, Mutt waved the priest on to the next person and started chewing quickly, making every attempt to swallow before the cup came around.

Swallowing loudly, he waited for Father Bob, who was methodically making his way down the railing. Father Bob approached Mutt, and rather than bend, he knelt opposite Mutt. "Hello, Matthew," he whispered.

Mutt nodded, and Father Bob offered the cup, which Mutt gently took out of his hands. Mutt locked his fingers about the cup, turned it upright, drank the entire thing in five loud gulps, and wiped his mouth with his coat sleeve. Having emptied the cup, he pulled the spray bottle from his back pocket, sprayed the cup and the railing in front of him, wiped both with four paper towels, polished everything with a fifth, and then, with two hands, gave the cup gently to Father Bob. Father Bob smiled, placed his hand on top of Mutt's head, whispered a blessing, and then returned to the altar for more wine.

The parishioners next to Mutt stood open-mouthed, wide-eyed, and speechless. Mutt nodded, half-knelt, crossed his heart four times, and followed the procession away from the railing. As Mutt returned to his seat, most eyes in the church were trained on him, and the only sound was the spray bottle bouncing up and down on the back of his left leg as he walked.

With communion completed, the organist started the recessional and brought us all to our feet one last time. As the lady in front of us turned to leave, Mutt quietly picked the caterpillar off her back with a paper towel. She never even knew. He then washed down our section of the pew and walked out carrying two used pairs of rubber gloves and eight or ten used paper towels. At the door, Father Bob stopped Mutt, looked him in the eye, and gave him a bear hug that lasted several seconds. He said, "My friend, it's good to see you. I've missed our conversations."

Mutt nodded and tried to say something but couldn't net it out, so he mumbled, "Me too." He threw away his trash, hopped in the back of the truck, and lay down. I shook Father Bob's hand and then followed Katie and Jase out to the truck. By the time I got in the cab, Mutt's eyes were closed and his chest was rising and falling with a measured and deep rhythm.

IT WAS ELEVEN BEFORE KATIE TURNED OUT THEIR lights. Mutt had climbed into the loft after we returned from church, but I doubted he was asleep. I climbed up after him and poked my head above the floor. His sleeping bag was nowhere to be found. Neither was Mutt. I turned around, dangled my feet above Glue's stall, and watched him balance on three legs with his eyes closed. Glue and I sat in silence for several minutes while moonlight spilled through the holy wall and spotlighted the corners of the barn like a disco ball hung from the rafters.

I knew I needed to go looking for Mutt, but I was tired. I grabbed a flashlight out of the truck and shined it atop the water tower. Nothing.

When I got to the quarry, all was quiet. Even under the moonlight, I could see Rex's aluminum boat resting on the bottom beneath forty feet of crystal-clear water. I didn't think he'd be soaking in the scalding pot, but I circled by. The water was cold, as were the coals below. There was only one other place that I might find him, so I backtracked through the pines.

Mutt was lying at the foot of the cross, curled up like a kid inside his sleeping bag with his head on a pillow of pine straw. His shoulder was sticking out of the bag, and I could see he was still wearing his suit. His eyes were wide open, and when he saw me, he pulled his sleeping bag high around his neck.

I turned off the light, lay down in the pine straw opposite him, and looked up through the cathedral of limbs. They were old pines, sixty feet tall and maybe forty years old. I folded my arms behind my head, and for several minutes we sat staring at the beams of the cross, glowing under the moon. The air was cold, and my breath made smoke. Christmas would be cold this year.

Somewhere after midnight, I stood and fingered the ground for my flashlight. Mutt opened his eyes, saw me shivering, and unzipped his bag. Using the pine straw as a mattress, he spread it like a blanket, buried himself and his nose under one half, and closed his eyes. He was still wearing his shoes and rubber gloves, and the cleaning bottle was still hooked through a belt loop.

I thought about the house, the dank basement, and the memory of a little black-haired boy being tugged by his earlobe up the steps and thrown through the front door. "This is Matthew Mason ... Apparently, he's my son." I thought about him playing with my toys, the Lego castle, of building intricate machines out of simple components, of sitting in Miss Ella's lap and smiling while vanilla ice cream dripped off his chin and around the knuckles holding the melting cone. I thought of the funeral, of Mutt's appearance, matted hair, forgone hygiene, and of the few weeks that followed. I thought of my frustration, my anger, and my hasty departure to carry him south to Spiraling Oaks. And most of all, I thought about dropping him at Gibby's doorstep and of never looking back. Of writing him off. Mutt was the purest and most innocent human being I had ever known, and yet for most of my adult life, I had treated him the same way Rex had treated me. And there, beneath that old, handpolished tree, I saw it. And it hurt.

I lay down next to him, back to back, my head nudging the squared base of the tree.

Good night, boys.

I closed my eyes and placed my hand across my tummy. Out of the darkness, I heard Mutt whisper, "Good night, Miss Ella." It was the same whisper I had heard a thousand times coming from the lower bunk every time she kissed us good night. The same whisper I had heard in the supply closet at the hospital. And the same whisper he spoke at her graveside. Salty tears welled up and rolled off my face, and once again, I drifted off, wrapped in the arms of Miss Ella Rain.

LIFE AT WAVERLY WAS NEVER BEAUTIFUL. REX SAW TO that. We lived under a cloud that never disappeared, but although they are difficult to remember, there were days when a few rays broke through and shined on us. And on those days, I think Miss Ella had more to do with it than we gave her credit for at the time. I don't think she could stop the sun, but I think she redirected it a few times.

With the first rays of daylight, I woke and Mutt was gone. A light mist had settled in the trees and begun to generate rain.

When Mutt was about ten, he decided he would dig to China. He read in a science magazine that if you dug long enough and deep enough, you'd eventually hit the feet of people in China. Mutt cut out the article and hung it on the wall, and since Rex had already given him a good start with the quarry, Mutt opted to piggyback on that. He bought a wheelbarrow full of tools and spent about three weeks during the summer digging a sideways tunnel midway down into the quarry. His plan was to dig around the rock and then sink a shaft straight to China. With every linear foot, he'd drill in support trusses, and he even ran a string of lights and a few fans to bring in air. Miss Ella sent me to check on him every night at dinnertime, and I grew more amazed every day.

I secretly hoped he'd hit gold so we could retire Miss Ella and tell Rex to take a hike. He didn't and we never had the pleasure, but Mutt did keep digging and drilling, making it about thirty feet sideways before he got waylaid by school. He promised to come back to it, but by the time next summer rolled around, Mutt had read another article that disputed the claims of the first, stating that, in fact, he'd end up in some place like Australia or Spain but not before the core of the earth incinerated him. Mutt had his heart set on China, so with that no longer possible, he gravitated toward other pursuits.

I rolled up his sleeping bag and followed Mutt's footprints to the quarry. I stood on the ledge and saw that he had already repaired the zip lines. New cable, new handles, the things were slicker than wet ice on wet ice and looked inviting. Below me, coming from his miner's tunnel, I heard what sounded like a pick and shovel, though there was no rhythm. It sounded more like tinkering than digging.

I climbed down to the tunnel, stepped sideways along the side wall, and ducked my head into the tunnel. Via a series of mirrors, light from a single bulb lit the entire shaft. The shaft was warm; Mutt had a heater plugged in somewhere and a fan drew air inside the tunnel. Mutt had his shirt off and was sweating pretty good, ridding himself of both toxins and drugs. It looked like he was starting to get his strength back.

"Good morning," I said.

Mutt looked up, said nothing, and kept picking at the ground with his pick.

"You okay?"

Mutt looked around as if I had spoken to someone else.

I made eye contact and said it again. "You okay?"

He nodded and dug the pick into some soft earth. I walked around the light, not casting a shadow on his work. "What're you doing?"

Mutt looked around, behind me, underneath the tip of his pick, and then fumbled with his hands, which were dirty. "Looking for me." Mutt sunk his pick, hit something hard, dropped to his knees, and dug around it with a rounded and rusty shovel. Unearthing a fist-size piece of quartz, he threw it aside and squatted on his heels. "This was just about the last place I remember being me, so I'm looking for him." He handed me the shovel. "You want to help?"

"No ... no.,, I pointed out the tunnel toward Waverly. "I need to check on Glue and Katie and Jase. You know." Mutt nodded. He was agreeable either way. "You be up for lunch?" Mutt nodded and used his forearm to wipe the sweat off his brow.

I walked out of the tunnel and thought, despite Mutt's mental capacity at the moment, his physical condition looked pretty good. Almost as good as I remember. If we got into a wrestling match, chances were good that he'd win.

I climbed out of the quarry, pulled my collar up to shed the rain off my neck, and wove a path through the pines, up to the pasture. Mose had connected the disc and plowed several acres late yesterday, turning up the soil and sending the fresh, pungent scent of manure mixed with hay, black organic dirt, and diesel wafting on the air currents. I walked out beneath the pines, and the rain began to fall again-a light rain. It was perfect.

I shoved my hands in my pockets to guard against the cold and walked out into the soft, plowed field. If the rain kept up, I'd be sure to find a few.

I walked over the soft dirt, neck bent, eyes focused on the dirt, like I was combing the beach during a rising tide. Thirty minutes later, I had a handful. Some good pieces too. Katie saw me walking circles in the field and came running with an umbrella. "What're you doing? Searching for sharks' teeth?"

"In a way, I suppose." I held out my hand and showed her the dozen or so arrowheads and pottery shards I had discovered.

"You found that out here?"

"Yeah." I waved my hand across the pasture. "After you left, we discovered that most of this property had grown over what once was an Indian village of some sort. Most farmers for miles have their own collection."

Katie rocked back on her heels, eyes lighting with understanding. "So all those plastic jugs tip on her top shelf in the pantry that look like they're full of rocks are actually filled with arrowheads and pieces of Indian pottery?"

"yup

Once she realized I wasn't pulling her leg, Katie began looking with interest. The shiny pieces of jagged flint or smoke-charred pottery reflected more with each raindrop. Katie held the umbrella over our heads and tucked her arm beneath mine. We walked side by side, huddled close, heads down, stumbling through the soft dirt, like two lovers on the beach, or two kids looking for shiny rocks, history, and peace. Before long, she dropped the umbrella and just let the rain wash over us.