Walking Across Egypt (13 page)

"I think we might need the leaf in the table," said Mattie.

"I'm not sure I can stay," said Elaine.

"Why not?"

"Well, I..."

"I got plenty—a whole roast beef; and I just peeled some extra potatoes. And a whole cabbage, plus a whole new pound cake on the back porch."

"Let me see the pound cake," said Elaine.

"What?"

"Let me see the pound cake." Elaine nudged Mattie toward the back porch.

"What is it?" asked Mattie, on the back porch.

"Who are all these people?"

"They're people."

"They look like riffraff."

"Riffraff?"

"They look like riffraff."

"Lamar is a nice-looking boy—if he'd remember to take off his hat in the house."

"That hat looks like it went through the Civil War. And what about his friend?"

"Wesley, his nephew."

"He doesn't look like a 'nice boy.'"

"He's not. He's one of the least of these my brethren."

"He's what?"

"You know, from the Bible, one of the least of these my brethren. Like Jesus said. He's had a hard life."

"Mother, are you feeling okay?"

"I'm just feeding him. I ain't adopting him."

"Mother, these people—"

"I got to get to the meal." Mattie went back inside. Elaine stood for a moment, then walked to the screen door of the porch. She looked through the screen, studied how it matted the world outside, how if she got close to it, it blurred. She will never die, she thought. Shell always have a meal going which will not turn her loose.

Mattie came back to the door. "Come in here and help me with this table leaf. We need it in."

Around the table sat Elaine, Wesley, Patricia, Lamar, and Finner. Mattie's chair was empty because she was still tending to the stove and putting food on the table. Elaine was talking to Finner—asking him about Alora, the children and grandchildren. Elaine had always disliked Finner, but here, at this table, with these other people, she suddenly found him quite attractive, likable.

"The biscuits will be just another minute," said Mattie, closing the stove.

"Why don't you sit down and eat," said Elaine. "I can tend to the biscuits."

"Let's say the blessing," said Mattie, "so y'all can go ahead and get started. Wesley, say the blessing, son."

"Do what?"

"Say the blessing." Mattie wanted to see if he knew a blessing to say.

Wesley eyed Lamar, who bowed his head and closed his eyes. Wesley had heard blessings in farmer movies, and in real life when the church people served watermelon at the orphanage.

"Thank God for this food and us being free and all the other good things in life. Amen."

"Amen. Y'all go ahead," said Mattie, still standing, waiting for the biscuits.

"Mother, I think we have enough bread anyway with this cornbread and these rolls."

"A few biscuits won't hurt."

Elaine said to Wesley: "I'll have some of that; we generally pass things around, from one person to the other."

"Oh." Wesley eyed Lamar. Lamar was busy with the creamed potatoes.

"I'm going to go ahead and take them out," said Mattie. "If you like them real brown, you're out of luck. Anybody like them real brown?"

"I do," said Wesley.

"Well, let's see, why don't I just..." Mattie pulled the pan from the oven, dropped it onto the counter from about two feet up so the biscuits would break from the bottom. Patricia jumped.

"Why don't I just break off about three and put them back in for Wesley?" She put three biscuits back in the oven.

"Mother. Why don't you just bring the biscuits over here and sit down and eat?"

Mattie set biscuits on the table, sat down, took a bowl Finner handed her. "Where are you headed today?" she asked Elaine.

"Chapel Hill," said Elaine. "There's a conference on women's issues—women in prison."

"You've got to be one hell of a mean woman to go to prison," said Wesley, his mouth full of potatoes.

Elaine watched to see where Wesley placed his roll. Ah, on the table near his plate. He hadn't put his napkin in his lap. He hadn't known to pass the food. This would be instructive. "Well, I think—"

"Most of the women in prison killed somebody," said Wesley.

"Well, they end up there many times because of the kind of life forced on them," said Elaine.

"Stuff ain't forced on all of them."

"I'd say a significant number—many are forced to stay in the home."

"Not all of them are forced." Wesley looked at the stove. "I bet my biscuits are about ready."

"Oh, Lord," said Mattie. She stood, went to the stove, opened the oven door, got out Wesley's three biscuits, put them on a small dish which she set in front of his plate. Wesley picked one up, took a bite, and placed it on the table next to his roll.

"It's hard work at home," said Patricia. "It's like life in the hard lane. My mama goes crazy sometimes."

"Where do you live?" asked Mattie.

"Between here and Bristol Lake," said Patricia.

I'd like to know where those two spent the night, thought Elaine.

Lamar was beginning to worry about the police finding Wesley—somehow tracing him to this house.

"What's your last name?" Finner asked Patricia.

"Boles."

"What does your daddy do?"

"He split about six years ago."

"Split? ... Split what? Wood?"

"Split. Hauled ass. Left."

What a foul mouth, thought Mattie. I thought she looked a little washed out.

"Oh, I see," said Finner. I wish Alora could have heard that, he thought.

"I got four brothers and sisters," said Patricia, "and they drive mama crazy."

"That's what I mean," said Elaine. "They get put in that position. You don't see men staying home with kids, going crazy."

"Men have to work," said Wesley. "Somebody does. Anyway, it takes a sorry man to do woman's work."

"Well," said Elaine. "Well. Well. This is an old, tiresome argument." Her therapist had warned her about getting hooked into arguments with immature people. This was a good test. The problem was seeing it before you got involved. She stabbed one, then another butter-bean, and with her teeth pulled them off her fork onto her tongue, let them rest there for a few seconds before chewing them lightly. They were good, tasty butter-beans. The older she got, the more she wished she could cook like her mother.

"This is good, Mrs. Rigsbee," said Lamar.

"She is a good cook," said Wesley to Patricia. "She brought me that cake and pie I told you about."

"When?" said Elaine.

"The other day," said Wesley.

"Where?"

Wesley looked at Mattie who was reaching for the bowl of butterbeans, not answering.

"Who needs some more butterbeans?" said Mattie, standing. "We got plenty."

"Where did you meet?" asked Elaine.

"Wesley was out at the YMRC until he got out on leave," said Mattie. "When? Last day or two?" she asked Wesley.

"Yesterday," said Wesley. He smiled at Lamar. "I'll take some more of that over there please."

I wish we could do something about those teeth, thought Mattie.

Saturday night Patricia drove Wesley to the 7-Eleven at Creek Junction, where he was supposed to meet Blake Bumgartner. Wesley held three pieces of pound cake wrapped separately: one for him, one for Patricia, and one for Blake. But Blake didn't show up.

They sat in Patricia's car around back, where they were supposed to meet him. "We'll wait another fifteen minutes," said Wesley. "He screwed it all up somehow."

"What are you going to do if he don't show up?" asked Patricia.

"Eat the cake."

"I mean after that. I got to go home."

"Hell, I don't know. Go to Lamar's, I reckon. I don't know." Wesley thought about Mattie placing bowls of good hot food on the table in front of him. "Maybe I can go to Mrs. Rigsbee's." He envisioned the extra room she probably had—a soft warm room with a soft bed and a big fluffy pillow and big warm chairs he could sit in and watch stuff on a little portable TV that might be in there. "I'll go to her house. She came to see me first. She might be my grandma." Wesley looked at Patricia. "Did you know that?"

"No, I didn't."

They waited a while longer, but Blake didn't come.

"Take me to Mrs. Rigsbee's," said Wesley. "And we might as well go ahead and eat this piece of cake, too. Hell, I'm glad he didn't come."

When Wesley opened the car door and started up the walk to Mattie Rigsbee's brick ranch he felt relieved to be away from Patricia. She looked all right, but she had begun to get on his nerves. She didn't talk much and she had to check in at home about every two hours.

It was 9:30. There was a light on in the living room and somebody was playing the piano. What kind of music was that? One of them hymns. When he got to the door he heard Mattie singing.

Yes, we'll gather at the river,

The beautiful, the beautiful river;

Gather with the saints at the river,

That flows by the throne of God.

Mattie heard the knock. Who in the world? At this time of night. Saturday night. Who could it be? She turned on the porch light at the door, and looked out through the glass. Well, my goodness. Wesley. "Come in," she said, opening the door.

Wesley stepped in and looked around.

"What you got there?" said Mattie, looking at the paper bag.

"Few clothes."

"Oh? ... Well, have a seat. You just in the neighborhood?"

"Yeah. Have you got a extra room?" he said, sitting down in Mattie's swan-neck rocker.

"Well..."

Wesley's hands were on the chair arms. He put them in his lap and then back on the chair arms. "I need a place to sleep for one night before I go see this buddy of mine. Lamar's got company, and I thought maybe..."

"Yes, well, yes. I suppose you can stay in Robert's room." Mattie sat down on the couch. "When is your leave over?"

"I got about nine more days."

"You need to take a bath or anything?"

"You got a bathtub?"

"Shower or bath."

"I ain't ever had a bath."

"Never had a bath?"

"I always had showers." Wesley thought about the commercial he'd seen on TV where a woman had soap bubbles up to her neck. "You got any of them soap bubbles?"

"No, no soap bubbles. But listen, let me tell you something: I got to get up and go to church tomorrow morning and if you want to stay here then you're going to have to go to church too. I can't just leave you here by yourself."

"Why?"

"Because I'm inviting you to go to church with me and if you're going to stay here and use my bathtub... Have you ever been to church?"

"I been by them, seen them on TV, slept in one one time, but I ain't never been in one when they were doing the thing."

Mattie saw before her a dry, dying plant which needed water up through the roots—a pale boy with rotten teeth who needed the cool nourishing water of hymns sung to God, of kind people speaking to him, asking him how things were going, the cool water of clean people, clean children, of old people being held by the arm and helped up a flight of stairs, old people who looked with thanks up into the eyes of their helpers, of young and old people sitting together for one purpose: to worship their Maker, to worship Jesus, to do all that together and to care for each other and to read and sing and talk together about God and Jesus and the Bible. That's what this young man needed. That would bring color to his cheeks, a robustness to his bearing. That would do it. That could give him some life and spirit. He seemed smart enough. And, since he hadn't been to church, then he was lost; this could be his first step on the road to salvation.

"Well, I want you to go with me in the morning. We'll get up and I'll fix you a little breakfast, get dinner started, then we'll go to Sunday school. You can go in the Young People's Department or you can go in with me. Then we'll go to church. You can sit with me. Then we'll come on back and have some pork chops and vegetables and so forth and so on."

Wesley looked around. "Okay. I'll go."

"Good. Let me get out a clean washrag and towel for you and you can take a bath. It's about my bedtime."

Mattie walked down the hallway and into the bathroom.

Wesley looked around for something to steal.

Mattie came back in a few minutes. "The bathroom's ready if you want to go ahead. Come on and I'll show you where you can sleep."