Walking Across Egypt (2 page)

"Well, it's not much. Alora brought me some corn last Friday and it was too much for one fixing, so I had some left and these potatoes are from Sunday. I picked the tomatoes this morning. I got eight plants. 'Lucky Boys.' But Finner and Alora are mighty good about keeping me stocked with other stuff. No better neighbors in the world. They let me pick all the string beans I want. Alora even helps me; but she ain't careful. She'll pick them too young or too old or with black spots. I took Pearl some. My sister. Told her I was sorry about their condition—but that I'd had help picking them."

"Yeah, Finner and Alora are fine people. That your little dog out there?"

"Lord have mercy, I'm going to have to call the dog-catcher. He just took up. I can't keep a dog." She stirred the potatoes. "This is going to have to warm just a little more."

"He's a right nice little dog."

"He's got possibilities, but I just can't keep up this place and a dog to boot. You want him?"

"Oh no. I got two bird dogs."

Mattie put bowls of food on the table. "Now I want you to eat all you want."

"Good gracious, Mrs. Rigsbee."

"Bow your head and let's say the blessing."

Bill left with the chair bottoms at 12:35. Mattie stacked the dishes beside the sink. She had gotten into the habit of not washing her dishes right away after lunch. She waited until "All My Children" was over at two. Nobody knew.

If anybody ever found out that she both watched that program and didn't clean up right after she ate, she didn't know what she would do.

But after all, things did happen in the real world just like they happened on that program. It was all fiction, but anybody who read the paper nowadays knew things like that were happening all the time. And that woman who played the old lady was such a good actress, and Erica, Erica was good, too—such a good character, good actress. People almost exactly like her actually existed all over the place nowadays.

And why shouldn't she sit down for an hour a day after dinner and do something for herself. Why, Alora sat around the house all day watching soap operas and then went so far as to talk to people about them. Alora's watching so much television was one reason that when she went on her daily walk she carried that pistol in her hand under a Kleenex.

Mattie poured gravy over the dog's food and took it out to him. He was standing, waiting. Why, he's already learned to tell time, she thought. I'm going to call the dogcatcher right now.

She put the bowl on the steps and watched him. She had only a few minutes before "All My Children." The dog ate all the food and licked the bowl.

"You're getting a little more frisky, ain't you?" she said. "Well, I ain't able to keep a dog. I'm going in and call the dogcatcher right now." She picked up the bowl, went back inside, looked at the clock on the mantel. It was exactly four minutes until one. "My goodness," she said. She would have time to get through to the dogcatcher—and make it brief. She called from the phone on the counter between the kitchen and den.

A woman answered. Mattie explained about the dog and gave her street address. The woman said the dogcatcher might be by that afternoon, or it could be tomorrow. Mattie hung up and glanced at the clock. It was one o'clock on the dot. She walked into the den, bent over and clicked the TV on. She slowly walked backward, still bending over, toward the rocker. Her left hand reached behind her to find the chair arm. Ah, the commercial—New Blue Cheer—was still on. She had started sitting down when a mental picture flashed into her head: the chair without a bottom. But her leg muscles had already gone lax. She was on the way down. Gravity was doing its job. She continued on past the customary stopping place, her eyes fastened to the New Blue Cheer box on the TV screen, her mind screaming no, wondering what bones she might break, wondering how long she was going to keep on going down, down, down.

When she jolted to a stop the backs of her thighs and a spot just below her shoulders were pinched together tightly. Her arms were over her head. Her bottom was one inch from the floor. Nothing hurt except the backs of her legs, and that seemed to be only from the pressure. How could she have forgotten? she thought.

She was amazed that her right arm which she normally couldn't lift very high was so high over her head. And not hurting much. She tried to get her arms down but couldn't. She was wedged tightly. What was she going to do? She looked at Erica on the TV screen.

In a straight line were Mattie's eyes, her knees, and Erica's face.

Nothing seemed broken. But her arms were going to go dead to sleep if she didn't hurry and get them down. She needed to pull herself up somehow. What in the world? What a ridiculous fix. That dog. If I hadn't been feeding him, she thought, and calling the dogcatcher, this wouldn't have happened. Lord have mercy—what if Alora comes in the back door and sees me watching this program? What in the world will I say? Well, I'll just say I was sitting down to watch the news when I fell through, and so of course I couldn't get up to turn off that silly soap opera. That's what I'll tell her.

Then she will see my dishes stacked over there.

I've got to get up. She will know I came over here to sit down before I did my dishes. I've got to...

Mattie's predicament suddenly seemed serious. What if... Alora might not come. Robert might not come. For sure he wouldn't come before Saturday.

Mattie had known all along there was some reason Robert ought to come more than once a week. Well, this proved it. Maybe now he would start coming once in a while to see if she was all right, hadn't had a heart attack, or a stroke, or hadn't ... for heaven's sake, fallen through a chair. Well, this was the ... the most ridiculous fix she had ever heard of. If there were some way to get that dog to bark or somehow go get somebody. How in the world could she get that dog to do something?

She needed to get out before that program was over so that, for one thing, if the doorbell rang she could turn the TV off. And if somebody saw her dirty dishes she didn't know how in the world she could explain that.

What if she died one day during the hour her dishes were dirty.

She would have to change her routine.

She was looking at the TV. There was that boy who got that girl pregnant. He did it as sure as day and was lying like nobody's business.

Who might come? It was Monday. Bill said he'd bring the chair bottoms back by Thursday. No later than Thursday, he said. Alora or Finner would come over before then, wouldn't they? But what if for some reason they didn't?

She tried to move. Her right arm moved forward and then back. The chair rocked slightly. Well, she was going to have to turn the chair over—or something—to get out, that's all there was to it. Her arm moved back and forth. Then her head, in time with her arm. The chair rocked. Erica was having a conversation with somebody in somebody's foyer. Phillip's. Wasn't his name Phillip?

The phone rang. She couldn't quite see it—over on the kitchen bar. It rang again. She strained to get up somehow; then she gave up. It rang again. Who could it be? Probably Alora. Or Pearl, her sister. It rang again ... and again. Her rocking stopped. Then the only noise she could hear was the television and the clock ticking on the mantel above her head.

Lamar Benfield had been a dogcatcher for four days. He usually held a job for three, four months, then got tired of it and stopped. But he always saved enough money to keep going until he found another job. And he had a nice shop behind his mobile home—did odd jobs, didn't need an awful lot of money since he was still single.

Lamar liked his new job. He fancied himself as good with animals and had been looking for a job which called for travel and working outside. It was almost dark as he turned into the driveway of a brick ranch house. He had four dogs in back and had decided to get this last one so that his load for tomorrow would be light enough for him to take the afternoon off and change the points and plugs on his pickup.

He rang the front doorbell, adjusted his ball cap, shifted his weight, and looked around for a dog. So far he hadn't been bitten. This he attributed to his way with dogs. He heard something inside. Sounded like a child.

Well, at least somebody was home. Was somebody saying come in? He tried the door. It was locked.

He walked around to the backyard, looked for a dog. There: a fice on the back steps. He wondered if that was the dog he was supposed to pick up. The back door was open. He looked in through the screen, glanced down at the dog. Dog's a little tired or something, he thought. He looked back inside. "Anybody home?"

"Come in. Please come in."

He opened the door and stepped into the den. The room was dark except for the TV and someone sitting ... Damn, she didn't have no neck at all. That was the littlest person he'd ever... Wait a minute. What in the world was...?

It spoke: "I'm stuck in this chair."

His eyes adjusted. She was stuck way down in the frame of a rocking chair. "God Almighty. How long you been like that?" he asked.

"Since the news came on—after lunch. Can you help me get out of here?"

"Well, yes ma'am. I can maybe pull you out."

"Turn on that light. And turn off that television."

The light was bright.

"My Lord," said Mattie, looking up at the dogcatcher. "I'm glad you're here. I was thinking I might have to stay like this all night. Please excuse the mess."

Lamar glanced around. "What mess?"

"Well, I fell through here before I had a chance to do the dishes."

"All right with me. Let's see. Give me your hands and let's see if I can pull you up."

"I don't know."

"Great day, your hands are cold."

Lamar held Mattie's hands and pulled upward. The chair rolled forward on the rockers and then lifted into the air with her still in it. "That ain't going to work," he said, and set her back down.

"Maybe if you can..." Mattie couldn't think of a thing to say.

"Let me just look for a minute." Lamar pulled the chair out a little ways and got down on his hands and knees and crawled around the chair. "Hummm," he said, "looks like you're pretty stuck."

"I know it."

"Might have to cut you out."

"Oh no, not this chair. We'll have to figure something else out."

"Well, let's see, as long as, ah..."

"Maybe you could turn me over on the side and just push me on through like I was started. Think that would work? I don't want to have to cut this chair."

"Well, I could try. Let's see." Lamar tilted the chair and gently started it to the floor.

"I don't weigh but one ten," said Mattie. "I used to weigh between one thirty and one forty. That's what I weighed all my life until I started falling off."

"You ain't fell off too much."

Mattie lay on the floor, on her side, in the chair.

"You mean," said Lamar, "you want me to just kinda push you on through?"

"Have you got any better ideas?"

"No, I don't guess so. Except cutting you out. Let me see if I can pull your legs up straight. I'll have to pull your legs up straight before I can push you on through."

The dogs in the truck started barking. The fice barked back.

"You are the dogcatcher, aren't you?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Is that the little fice barking?"

"I think so."

"I never heard him bark."

"Is he the one I come after?"

"He's the one." Mattie gasped, "Oh, that hurt."

"I don't think this is going to work."

"Listen, with all that noise I'm afraid Alora might—Alora's my neighbor—I'm afraid she might come over; I want to ask you if you'd do something for me."

"Okay. Here, let me set you back up." Lamar set Mat-tie back up.

"Would you wash my dishes?"

"Wash your dishes?"

"It's just a few. If you don't mind. I'll pay you something. I'm just afraid that... Would you do it?"

"Now?"

"Yes—if you would."

"Okay." Lamar started to the sink. He stopped and looked back at Mattie. "Would you feel better if I sort of started you rocking or something?"

"No, that's all right. The soap and stuff is all under the sink. Just run some warm water in that far sink and wash them and rinse them and put them in the other sink. The wash rag and drying towel are behind the cabinet door there under the sink."

"I let my dishes sit," said Lamar. "Change the water every three or four days."

Lamar washed the dishes. The dogs were still harking. It was dark outside.

The back floodlights came on at Finner and Alora's. The back of their house faced the back of Mattie's. Finner opened the door and looked out. "What the hell is all that?" he said.

Alora spoke from the kitchen. "Where's all them dogs?"

"In a truck it looks like."

Alora came up behind him. "What in the world? What's going on out there?"

"I reckon it's the dogcatcher. Mattie said she was going to call him, you know."