Rubyfruit Jungle (23 page)

The cameras were booked for the next decade but that always happened whenever I asked to use one out of the studio. So that afternoon I casually dumped the Arriflex into a tubby wicker tote bag with Jamaica sewn across its side in multicolored thread and waltzed out. I had also ripped off as much film as I could carry in the bag and the special inside pockets I had sewn in my pea coat. I went home and asked my neighbor to water my plants for the next week, gave her the extra key, and went up to Port Authority—home of the nation’s tearoom queens—where I caught a bus for Ft. Lauderdale. Thirty-four hours and five grilling conversations later I was behind the Howard Johnson’s on Route One. The sun was so bright after New York that everything seemed
harsh to me and my eyes hurt. The equipment was too heavy for me to carry the four miles home so I hired a taxi.

Ten minutes later we were zipping up Flagler Drive by the Florida East Coast Railway, next to the house. The pink had faded from flaming ugly to mild grotesque. The queen palm in the front lawn had grown at least fifteen feet and all the shrubs around the house were busy with flowers and chameleons. I hadn’t been home in six years. I wrote Carrie once or twice to tell her I was still alive but that was about it. I didn’t tell her I was coming home to see her.

I knocked on the door and heard a slow shuffle behind the half-opened jalousies. The jalousies were turned open and a scratchy voice said, “Who is it?”

“It’s me, Mom. It’s Molly.”

“Molly!” The door flew open and I saw Carrie. She looked like a yellow prune and her hair was stark white. Her hands shook as she reached out to bring me closer and give me a hug. She started to cry and she couldn’t talk very well, her tongue seemed heavy in her mouth. She swayed from side to side as she tried to walk back into the living room. I put my hand under her elbow and guided her to her old rocker with the swan’s heads for armrests. She sat down and looked at me.

“I guess you’re surprised to see your old mother after all these years. My sickness caught up with me. I’m drying up like grass in the drought.”

“I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t know anything about it.”

“No, and I didn’t want you to know nothin’ about it neither. After you left, I decided to keep
things to myself. You didn’t care, anyway. I told Florence never to write and tell you about my condition. I can hardly write anymore ’cause it’s got my fingers too. What are you doing here? You’re not living under this roof and laying back there in that bedroom with naked women. I hope you know that.”

“I know that. I came back to ask you to help me with my senior project.”

“Not if it costs money, I ain’t.”

“It doesn’t cost anything.”

“And what are you doing in school? You should have graduated in 1967. You’re two years behind time. What, those Yankee kids too smart for you?”

“No, I had to work full time most of the last three years and it slowed me down in school.”

“Ha, good. I’m glad to hear those snotty-nosed, Jew-brats up there ain’t smarter than you.”

“Well, will you help me with my project?”

“No, I don’t know what it is yet. What do I hafta do?”

“All you have to do is sit in that rocker and talk to me while I film you.”

“Film me!”

“Sure.”

“You mean I’m gonna be in a movie?”

“Right.”

“But I got no clothes, no make up. You got to be decked out for something like that. I’m too old to be in a movie.”

“Just sit in your chair and wear your housedress with the black poodles on it. That’s all you have to do.”

“What am I going to say? You writ some play for me to make a fool outa myself in? You used
to write things like that when you was little. I ain’t doing no play, you put that in your pipe and smoke it.”

“No play, Mom. All I want you to do is to talk to me while I film you. Like we’re doing now.”

“Well now, I think I can do that.”

“Good, then you’ll do it?”

“No, not until I know what you’re gonna do with it.”

“It’s my senior project. I need it to graduate. I’ll show it to my professors.”

“Oh no. I ain’t talking for no professors so’s they can laugh at my English. Nothing doing.”

“No one will laugh unless you say something funny. Come on, please. It’s not such a big thing to sit there and talk.”

“If you promise not to make a fool outa me, then I’ll do it. And you have to buy your food while you’re here because I ain’t got the money to feed you.”

“That’s okay. I brought along enough money for a week.”

“All right then. Go put your stuff in the back room but mind, no women are coming to this house while you’re in it—not even the Avon lady. You hear me?”

“I hear you. Hey, where’s ole Florence?”

“Florence died a year ago last May. High blood pressure’s what did it. Doctor gave it a fancy name but it was high blood pressure just the same. Her being so nervous, all the time worrying about other people’s business. Poking her nose where it don’t belong. That kind of carrying on will kill you. But she was a good sister and I miss her.”

The Mouth dead. It seemed impossible. Even
dead she must be babbling in her grave. Carrie continued, “We buried her in the same lot as Carl. You remember, over there by the drive-in theater? Oh, it was a lovely ceremony. Only thing that spoiled it was the advertisement for the movie—some sex film, something like
Hot Flesh Pots
. Well, it was a good thing Florence was dead because if she had seen that it would have killed her. She must have been turning over in her casket. You shoulda seen the casket. Shiny black, next to the most expensive kind. You know how she hated suggestive things. They could have taken that nasty sign down when they saw her shiny casket coming down the road. This time I rode in a black Cadillac. Wasn’t as nice as the car we rode in for Carl’s funeral. What kind of car was that?”

“A Continental.”

“Let me tell you that Cadillac got nothin’ on those Continentals. If I’m ever a rich woman I’m getting a Continental. Who makes them?”

“Ford.”

“Ford. Your father told me never to buy a Ford motor car. Said they were made outa cardboard and he knew what he was talking about. But I still think a Continental has a smooth ride.”

“Daddy probably never rode in one so use your own judgment when you make your millions.”

Carrie cackled and flicked her wrist at me. “Go on, put that junk back in your room before I trip over it and break my neck.”

I picked up the equipment and carried it down the terrazzo halls to the back room that used to be mine. Carrie had taken all my ribbons and trophies off the walls and put up a picture facing the double bed. It was Christ kneeling at Gethsemane
with a ray of heavenly light coming out of the night to hit him full in the bearded face. Over the head of the brown-painted, iron bedstead she had an enormous dayglo cross. On the sagging dresser stood a ceramic chipmunk wearing a University of Florida freshman beanie. I deposited the stuff in the closet and went into the front room.

Carrie was pushing herself in the rocker with one of her feet and getting very animated. “You want a cup of tea, honey? How about a coke? I always keep coke in the refrigerator. Leroy’s little boys like it so much. You should see them. Ep the second is five and a half years old. Leroy got the girl pregnant, that’s why he’s so old, if you know what I mean. Leroy married her in the nick of time. But they seem happy. Accidents will happen. Look at you. Ha! Maybe they’ll come by sometime this week and you can see them. I don’t get out much any more other than what they take me. Lost the car. Had to sell it when the city put main sewage pipes in. Didn’t have money so I sold the car to pay for the price of having the yard dug up so I could connect. Damn crooks. City, state, president, they’re all damn crooks. Terrible to be without a car but I’m too old to drive I guess. My illness, you know. Can’t get my hands and feets to do right together. Leroy said it was the best thing that I sold the old Plymouth. Said he was afraid I’d get myself killed on the highway. So now I go out in the backyard but I miss driving up by the beach. Leroy takes me up with the kids now and then. Kids make too much noise. I don’t remember you making all that noise. You were a quiet child. Did you tell me how long you’re gonna be here?”

“Around a week, if it’s okay.”

“That’s fine so long as you buy your own food. Meat prices are fierce these days. I only eat meat once or twice a week now. Not like when we lived in Shiloh and got fresh meat whenever we wanted it. For the killing. I don’t see how people with big families live.”

“How are you living? You don’t look like you can work.”

“Oh yes I can. I certainly can. I take in ironing and I sit down so it don’t tax me so much. I ain’t on handouts. I get forty-five dollars from social security and since I’m over sixty-five I get Medicare but that’s no handout. I earned that. I paid years of taxes so those things belong to me. When I get too old or too sick to work I’m walking over to the ocean to let the fishes eat me. You don’t have to worry about taking care of me, girl.”

“I’m not worried.”

“See, you don’t care. You don’t even write me when you’re away. I could die down here and you wouldn’t even know it. You don’t care.”

“Mom, when I left I understood that you didn’t want any more to do with me. Besides, I did write once in awhile.”

“Angry words, angry words. You should know a mother don’t mean angry words to her child.”

“You said I wasn’t your child and you were glad of it.”

“Oh no, I didn’t. I never said such a thing.”

“Mom, you did.”

“Don’t go telling me what I did. You misunderstood me. You’re a little hothead. You flew outa here before I could talk to you. I never said no such thing and don’t you try to tell me I did.
You’re my baby. Why in 1944, when I was worrying over whether to adopt you, Pastor Needle, you remember, our old pastor up north, he told me you were born to be my baby and that all children come into this world the same way and I wasn’t to worry about you being a bastard. No sir, all children are the same in the eyes of the Lord. I don’t know where you get such ideas in your head. You know I’d never say a thing like that. Why I love you. You’re all I got left in this world.”

“Yeah, okay, Mom.”

I went out in the kitchen and got a soda and some big, hard pretzels out of the breadbox. Carrie wanted some but she had to soak them in her coffee because her teeth were going bad. We sat in the living room with the t.v. turned on full blast and talked during commercials in the Lawrence Welk show. She told me how she thought Lawrence Welk was a wonderful man and his show was wholesome. She wanted to dance to all that beautiful music, but she’d fall over because her inside ear was out of whack.

I filmed Carrie through the week. Once over her initial fright she relaxed in her rocker and talked a blue streak. Whenever she’d get excited about anything she’d start pushing the rocker harder and harder until she’d be whizzing away and running her mouth as fast as the chair. Then when she’d finished her story she’d let the rocker coast back to idle and she’d answer questions with a
yes
or a
no
. She thoroughly enjoyed the attention and she was thrilled that I could work a camera. It didn’t take her long to figure things out because when I took a shot of her revving up her rocker she snapped, “What are you doing taking pictures
of my feet? People wanna see my face not my feet.”

When I wasn’t filming I did household chores for her—cut the grass and ran errands since she couldn’t walk anywhere. And Leroy did come over with his wife and kids. He and Mom talked about little things while the kids ran through the house and Leroy’s wife, Joyce, eyed me uncomfortably. She had her hair in a teased beehive and her makeup preceded her in the room by three inches. She was afraid Leroy would find me attractive. Nervously she told me, “Why you look like one of those models in
Mademoiselle
magazine with your hair and wearing pants and love beads. You must be a real hippie.”

“No, I looked like this before it became fashionable. Poverty’s a great trend setter these days.”

“Yeah, my tomboy, Molly, she looks real good now. I knew you’d turn out all right,” Carrie boasted. My looks were still more important to Carrie than anything I would ever achieve. “You’d look like a real lady if you’d get outa them jeans,” she fussed.

“Oh but that’s the rage now,” Joyce fumbled.

Leroy added in his butchest voice, “Yeah, the women want to wear the pants nowadays so I tell my wife to go on out and support me, I’ll take care of the kids.”

Carrie laughed and Leroy’s wife snapped at his elbow, “Leroy, shut up.”

Carrie dragged Joyce loaded with hair spray back into her bedroom to look at a housedress she had sewn on her old White Rose machine with the treadle. Leroy turned to me, “We sure grew up, didn’t we?”

“It happens to the best of us.”

“And you’re making movies. I never thought you’d make movies. I thought you was gonna be a lawyer with that mouth of yours. You always were smarter than forty crickets. I guess I’m dumb. After the Marine Corps I came on back here and got a job working for a lawn care operation. I like being outside. Always did.”

“I remember that.”

“Yeah, I got four men working under me too. Coloreds. They’re just like us. I mean I wouldn’t socialize with ’em but the guys on the work gang, they’re just like me. Got wives and kids and car payments. We get on fine. I learned that in the service. Had to learn there. It was good for me. Ep filled me with all kinds of crap and the service kicked it outa me for sure. I went to Nam. Did you know that?”

“No, I didn’t even know you were in the service.”

“Marines, not just the service. Yeah, yeah I went over there and got a good look at the gooks. I started out as a diesel mechanic. Always was good with machines, you remember.”

“I remember the time you took the Bonneville apart and lost your clutch cable.”

“That was a beautiful bike. I’d like to get another one but Joyce is scared to death of them. Still like tooling with machines. I went into diesels because I didn’t want to get shot at. Got shot at anyway. God, I was glad to get back from there.”