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Jim Nelson | Gently, As Loud As You CanClara didn't say hello, just launched into a backhanded apology, a form of contrition she'd honed over a lifetime to a sharp edge.
"Your daddy's the reason we're late," she said. "You won't believe what he put me through, Bobby. Lord, his right foot's a boat anchor! Give me some sugar around the neck."
She hugged Robert, pulsing love into his ribcage with her thick arms. Then, taking him by the shoulders, she pressed a waxy kiss into his sideburn. Robert wiped it away and examined the red smear on his fingers. His mother reserved lipstick for life-changing events, like weddings and funerals. Now he could add failed marriages to that list.
Robert had not asked them to fly out for the non-event. Indeed, it was their first trip on an airliner. Down at the curb sat their first rented car, engine still pinging as it cooled from the long trip from San Francisco International. If Robert had had his druthers, they would've remained in Arkansas and he would've endured the separation — and the inevitable divorce — in the quiet retreat he'd made of his home. Clara made a house loud, as though the banging about and shouting warded off a bestiary of minor demons hell-bent on infesting their domestic lives.
"Bobby," she said, "I kept telling your daddy, 'Owen, now, California highway policemen don't take money on the side of the road like they do at home,' but he'd have none of it. I thought for certain we were sure to get ticketed, and then —"
"Lady, hush." Owen yanked off his Sam Snead hat and squeegeed sweat from his bald head with his palm. Milhous, their brown and white terrier, stood resolutely at Owen's feet wagging his stubby tail. "I need something to drink," Owen muttered. Canine and master left the foyer in search of a refrigerator.
Clara started before they were out of earshot. "Your daddy flew — flew, I tell you — past the off-ramp. I kept saying Viejo was spelled with a J and not an H, but would he believe me?"
Bottles clinked in the kitchen.
"Owen!" She gingerly touched the rolls of her bouffant. "Owen, don't you go dipping into trouble!"
"Lady, hush!"
Clara's voice dropped back to its usual amplification. "Finally your daddy realized he'd driven too far and turned around. Lord, you never seen him so upset! Our side of the interstate was thick with cars, but coming back — hmmm-mmm!" She peered up into the corners of the foyer ceiling, her half-grin fading. "At least she left the house clean," she murmured.
Pincushion buttons ran up the front of Clara's aquamarine long coat. Beneath it she wore a matching dress and ivory pumps. She never wore anything so fancy, Robert thought, even to church. She'd easily blown a Social Security check on the outfit, simply to present a ladylike air for her first plane ride. It was the proper thing to do — way back in 1955.
"Mama," Robert said, "you just got here. Why don't we sit down and you can tell me about the flight."
"Never mind that," she said. "I want to see this big house of yours."
Her perfume streaked in the air as she hurried to the foot of the stairs. Its bite reminded Robert of the athletic rub he slathered on his joints after an afternoon of racquetball.
Owen slipped in the foyer. Milhous stood beside him licking his chops. "Lady, please. Bobby's got enough on his mind without your talk."
"I just want to see what little Bobby's made of himself out here."
"We got a whole week for that."
Clara made a long low oooh and dismissed Owen with a wave of her hand. "I'll make some supper." She took Robert's hand and patted it. "Because I'm your mama."
"Oh, no, please," he said. "You just flew in. Let's eat out." He wanted nothing more than to leave the house and all its reminders behind.
"Naw, we ate already," Owen said. "Your mama heard all about airline food, so she packed PB and Js and coconut popcorn balls and her hush puppies, enough for the whole trip." He glared at her. "There was some fuss because the stewardess wouldn't reheat the hush puppies."
"Now, daddy, that flight cost us some money! After those stewardesses poured us our little soda cups, running that big old cart up and down the aisle like a Sherman tank, I caught them in the back just sitting there with their glamour magazines. We paid good money for those tickets! Why wouldn't they reheat those hush puppies for us?"
"Lady —" Owen swiped off his hat and fanned his face, shaking his head.
Clara strolled away with a pleased air about her. Her pumps clacked as she crossed the foyer's terra cotta tile, then sank quietly into the living room's buff pile.
"I'm going to see my son's home," she announced. "See what he's made of himself out here in California."
She circled the living room, drawing a finger across the overstuffed furniture and down the luster of the sideboard to search for dust, with no attempt at subtlety. Robert had removed all the coffee table art books — nudes stretched out across their covers — but he'd not thought to remove the unframed oil painting hanging over the fireplace. On it a spectrum of swirling lines traveled around and into the center, a smeary rainbow being sucked into a black hole. Clara stood so close, her nose nearly touched its surface.
"Your little wife's quite the decorator, isn't she?" she said.
"Actually, Beverly painted that," Robert said. "That one's called ..."
He'd forgotten the title. He couldn't even recall her painting it. He was sure he'd witnessed all stages of her experiment in oil colors, from the first amateurish mess in their old studio apartment to the last few respectable pieces in their backyard cabana, before she dropped the hobby entirely. He'd walked past the draining rainbow on the living room wall so often, it'd become as much a fixture as the sink and the dishwasher.
"Pish," Clara said, turning around. "Anyone could mussy that. Just a lot of hey-diddle-diddle."
"Lady, hush."
She waved Owen off again, then balled and stretched her hands as though testing her new white gloves. They crackled with each flex. Robert had never seen her in such nice apparel. He'd only seen her in gloves when Old Man Winter unleashed his fury across Arkansas, but those gloves were brown and scratchy wool and purchased from a discount mart, buy two, get one free.
Clara peered up and around the living room. "At least she left the house clean," she said.
Robert's eyes remained on the gloves. A little padding and they'd have the girth of a catcher's mitt. How many cows were sacrificed for their leather? The image of cattle raising their hooves and volunteering for slaughter made him grin.
"Bobby," she said, "what's gotten into you?"
He ducked to hide his mouth. "Nothing, mama."
"Something funny?" Her varicose-veined legs stamped back. The carpet whuffed with each step. "You're staring in the face of sin, young man. Nothing funny about that!" Her white gloves arced in the air as she hurried back to him. "God's looking down on you today, Bobby. If you give in to divorce —" One glove shot up as a bright exclamation point.
Laughter poured out of Robert. It was all he could do. For three days he'd sat in the backyard doing not much, mostly watching the imported koi bump around the hourglass pond. He quit smoking in college, but the habit had snapped back and leapt on his jugular. With koi weaving lazy patterns beyond his crossed feet, he burned cigarettes down to a nub and lit fresh ones with the dying cherry of the last. Anxiety attacked and ebbed, leaving him starved but never hungry. The only untapped part of his body was his funny bone, swollen from disuse, and not it erupted in spurts.
"Bobby." The volume of his laughter rivaled Clara's voice. "Bobby, hush. Listen. I'm talking to you. If you divorce —"
"Oh, please." Still chuckling, he wiped his eyes. "Not that again, mama. Not that." He looked to his father with a grin for support, but Owen was busy studying the sheen on his black brogues.
"Mama," Robert said, "first you said I was being headstrong when I went and married Beverly, now you say I shouldn't divorce. What do you want?"
"I want you living in a God-fearing household, young man. I want an open Bible in every room. I want you to live the morals I taught you since you were in the crib."
"Mama ..." Drained from the laughing, he felt his lungs cinch up. "This is beyond saying I'm sorry. Beverly's gone. It's over."
He waited for another lashing from his mother, or another sermon, but instead Clara, eyes narrowed, smiled mysteriously.
"I'll fix you a glass of milk and some supper," she said. "It'll be better now as mama's home."
He watched the back of her head as she hurried down the hall and disappeared around the bend. In the kitchen, pans clanged and cabinet doors creaked open and slammed shut. She hummed a hymn with a name Robert had forgotten.
Owen was still leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets. "You know how she is. When she's got her mind to something."
"To something." Robert, almost without thinking, said, "I can't stay here," and then pulled the front door open.
Owen stepped in his way before Robert made it outside. "Whoa, there. No you don't."
"Dad — there's just no way I can do this."
"You need to cool off some is all."
"That's exactly why I'm leaving. If I stick around —" He turned up one hand toward the accelerating locomotive of noise in the kitchen. "I'm afraid I'll say something I can't take back."
Robert escaped through the door and hurried down the stairs to the driveway. Before he reached his car, Milhous' claws scrabbled up behind him.
"Son," Owen called out. "At least let me drive. Just so I know you don't try something stupid."
"Let's just ... go."
Owen hitched a thumb back up to the house. "Let me go tell mama we're going out."
"Dad — if you go in there, I'll be gone before you get back."
After a moment of consideration, a chance to study his son's obstinacy, Owen stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets. With his head bowed, he led the three of them down to the rental car.
"We're gonna catch heck for this," he grumbled.
*
Owen nixed Robert's suggestion to find a bar. "Your mama will kill us if we come home smelling of beer and floozies," he said, steering the car. "She's the Dalai Swami in these matters. Knows all, sees all."
Robert wondered how much practice Clara could have in these matters, smelling floozies and beer and all. His business-oriented mind, so used to ferreting out alternatives rather than pondering anything of depth, released the issue after a moment's time. He recalled a place he'd not visited in years. When he and Beverly first married, they rented a studio apartment in a complex overlooking a block of low-end retail shops. On one corner stood a Persian restaurant named Fatima, inexpensive but not so much they could afford it regularly on his earliest salary. For their first few years of marriage, Fatima was their paycheck-Friday reward.
Robert directed Owen to the shopping center. When they parked the Chrysler, Owen whistled Milhous to the front seat. He charged Milhous with holding down the fort until they returned. The terrier spun in a circle and curled into a ball for a nap.
"I dunno about this." Owen, scrubbing his five o'clock shadow, studied the Arabic painted on the windows. "This place Iranian?"
"Oh, no. Persia's on our side."
He pondered Robert's answer, then acquiesced.
Inside, the scent of spicy grilled meat welcomed them as their eyes adjusted to the dim lighting. Nothing had changed: murals of Arab cityscapes, tasseled gold tablecloths, the chill of the air-conditioning drawing goosebumps up Robert's bare arms. At least Owen could appreciate the cold — Robert's Southern love affair with air-conditioning ended soon after moving from Arkansas. Beverly, a California native, never acclimated to Fatima's temperature. She had always brought a ski jacket to wear. Sometimes at the table she donned it backwards, two stuffed day-glo arms scissoring a knife and fork across her meal. Robert had never deciphered what factors went into normal wear versus backwards wear. The decision seemed as random as every decision in her life, from the scent she chose to spritz on in the mornings to her infatuation with oil and canvas. His wife, a daily puzzle, a crossword with no answer key arriving the next day. He was sure he'd once found it all quite charming, but at the moment he honestly couldn't remember why.
After following the waiter to their table, they skimmed the menu without a word. Robert recognized the sweet orange honey chicken he and Beverly devoured every Friday, the cheapest entree listed. Starved, they would bulldoze the meal into their mouths, then catch each other's eyes and burst out laughing, the long grain rice falling from their lips into their laps. A day's worth of frugal hunger had turned them into automatons. Automatons, a Robert word. Whenever he said it, Beverly had to ask what it meant. Quite a few times, he realized now. How could a college graduate not know?
"Son," Owen said over the menu. "You hungry or not?"
She had been massaging his pride, he realized, rubbing out any stress knots that had built up in the course of his work day. He searched for other instances of mock ignorance and a number of candidates surfaced, all while renting the studio apartment. It was her daily gift to him, something to ease the pressure of his first job.
"Bobby? What you eating?"
Robert checked his eyes with the flat of his thumb. He hoped his father and the waiter mistook it as rubbing away a headache.
"Something to drink," he said.
"Sounds like the thing." Owen handed back the menu. "Gimme a Coors."
"Do you still make that sweet wine?" Robert asked the waiter.
"Yes sir. Special family wine, made here."
"Bring that and some ice. No beer."
When the waiter was gone, Owen leaned over the tablecloth and whispered, "These yahoos brew their own wine?"
*
It was a family recipe, cold from the bottle and syrupy on the tongue. It tipped the corners of their mouths with burgundy triangles. It had no bouquet or the tannic aftertaste Robert learned to appreciate in California, just a cherry-like tartness. Ten years earlier, Robert thought it quite exotic. Now it tasted like children's cough syrup, one that left your vision tilted askew at a thirty-five degree angle.
Robert's mind and body languished after the first glassful, and from his father's relaxed posture and faint grin, he assumed the experience was being shared. The restaurant's background noise — sizzling grease, clacking plates, the quick foreign lingo passed between the staff — seemed like nothing at all. Owen instructed the waiter to leave the empty pitchers on the table. He called them trophies.
When the men had finally amassed a mantle's worth of these trophies, Robert surveyed the empty restaurant with fog-headed interest. Chairs rested upside-down on all the other tables. The waiter rolled a whining vacuum cleaner through the forest of pine legs. Others mopped the kitchen floor. When Robert returned his gaze to the table, Owen had a sour expression.
"Shouldn't of," Owen said. "Stupid idea."
Robert leaned forward for an explanation.
"We shouldn't of done this," Owen said.
"I feel perfect."
"What do you know of her daddy? Your mama's daddy?"
Robert tested his rubbery lips with his finger and thumb. "You told me he fixed farm equipment before he died."
"Your mama told you that. I was never allowed to say. Before the cirrhosis took him, that man go out drinking all night. All weekend. Then go home and tear up the place and shoot his hunting rifle until out of rounds and passed out. Only reason they didn't lose that house was your grandma. As hard-nosed as they come. I tell you. She kept that family afloat through some meager times."
Robert needed time to absorb this. "Why the big secret?"
"Scandal don't suit your mama well." He used the table for balance as he rose from the booth. "The way she is."
The waiter told them to come again, but it was lost in the drone of the vacuum cleaner.
*
As they walked to the car, Owen announced he had to take a squirt. Robert's bladder was complaining as well. They relieved Milhous of guard duty and the three of them scoured the shopping center's exterior in the dark. A pair of Dumpsters shielded them from exposure in the parking lot. As casual as spitting, Owen unzipped and peed. Milhous joined him, mistaking a drainpipe for a tree trunk.
Robert undid his slacks. He had one unfettered admiration for his father: the guy was an old pro at outdoor urination. Even in a rowboat, Owen planted both feet apart and steadied the boat rather than let it unsteady him. His stream hit the water in a deep plunk and wouldn't yield until there was no more to deliver.
Back then, a day on the lake began with Owen rowing across the silky green water to his favorite spot, a shaded patch of cattails on the far shore. Owen believed a treasure trove of mud cats wallowed on the lake floor there, all just dying to swallow one of his hooks. When anchored, he smacked his hands together and unrolled a damp paper bag of compost and night crawlers. He speared a fleshy pink one on Bobby's hook, another on his own, and down they went. Then came his father's cherished silence, occasionally punctured by Owen admonishing Bobby to keep still and stay quiet. Owen produced a cigarillo from his shirt pocket and, acting as though someone had mislaid it there, declared it better than to go to waste. The same mystery person might misplace a can of beer in his tackle box too, and again, the Good Lord frowns on prodigality.
"Your mama frowns on things too," he said with a finger over his lips, "so let's just keep this between us men."
Some days the catfish seemed to jump from the water into the boat. Other times, Owen swore it'd take a stick of TNT to get them to the surface.
"Bah," Owen spat one day, flicking the last of his cigarillo into the water. He reeled in his poles and crashed them to the floor of the boat. "Useless. Guess we're eating taters tonight, Bobby." He slipped the oars into the eyehooks and pulled. "Just remember," he said, cheering up, "fishing's not like baseball. Statistics got no meaning out here. Today's empty stringer is tomorrow's bucket of fish for mama to fry up."
"What's wrong son?" Owen asked in the dark. "Stage fright?" His stream trailed off. He shook and zipped up. "Just clear your mind and let it fly."
The silence embarrassed Robert. His bladder was vapor-locked.
"Don't hold your Johnson forever," Owen said. "It starts becoming improper."
"Do you think marrying Beverly was a mistake?"
Owen muttered something. He snorted and hawked into his pool of urine. "Not something I feel I should say either way."
"What about moving out to California?"
"Look, you gonna piss or not?"
Robert zipped up. It would have to wait for the security and privacy of home.
*
Milhous sat upright on Robert's lap, the terrier's snout in the blast of ice cold air jetting from the dashboard vents, perfectly steady and eyes closed. The thickness of the dog's body odor began to lull Robert to sleep. He cracked the window for an injection of oxygen.
Robert found Owen's proficiency at drunk driving impressive. How and when he'd practiced, Robert could not fathom, but his spotty brain found linkage between Owen's driving and Clara's nose for beer and floosies. Owen's masterstroke came when they finally turned the corner into the dim cul-de-sac acting as a moat before Robert's home. Owen fiddled with the headlight control so they could run undetected. He slowed to a crawl and gently eased to the curb.
"Nice and quiet now," he whispered.
The front door was locked. Robert searched his pockets, then realized he'd left his keys on the dresser. When he'd stormed out of the house before, he never could've driven off without going back in and facing his mother. In one sense, Owen had saved him. Maybe in many senses, he began to think.
"I forgot the key," he said, reaching for the doorbell.
"Crazy?" Owen struck his hand away. "We wake her up —" Staggering back, he peered up at the second floor windows. "Some way to break in or something?"
"Let's try the backyard."
They passed through a side gate and stumbled along a gravel path in the dark, Milhous leading the way. Robert hands out as feelers, missed the knee-high concrete bench Beverly had installed beside the bamboo patch. He tripped and fell with a soft "Shit!"
"Watch the language," Owen hissed, helping Robert to his feet. "We're in it deep as it is. No reason to anger her up with a foul mouth."
After more groping around, the reached the patio. A soft orange glow shone out the sliding glass door. They approached with some apprehension to see what awaited inside.
Clara lay on the couch watching television. Her bouffant had melted to strings. The lipstick and white gloves were gone. On the floor, an empty Kleenex box sat among a blossom field of wadded tissue. She was oblivious to the men's presence. The interior lights reflected off the glass, creating a duck blind for them.
"We left her alone." Owen raked his fingers down his face. "Never should've left her alone."
Clara was reclined, but in Robert's mind, she was a leopard pretending to nap. Once they went inside, she'd corner them and lecture them with gale force. He was liable to say something he'd regret, and once he'd aired it, it could never be taken back. He was in the mood to air many choice topics, and even in his stupor, he knew it was wrong.
"I'm not going in," he whispered.
"What? And freeze out here?" Then Owen understood. "Son, listen to me. You can run to California. You can run all the way to Shanghai, you're still stuck with her. I'm stuck too, I tell you. But, don't you forget, she's stuck with us too. She's stuck with us both through some trying times. No, wait, damn you, you listen. I'm serious here."
Robert had done or said nothing.
"The Good Word never got in the way of that woman when she's got her own interests in mind," Owen whispered. "You think other men didn't get hot under the collar for her when she was in her prime? You think you were the first in this family to think of hightailing it out of Dogpatch? Leaving us behind to find something better? Hell, your mama's citified compared to the hillbillies outside of town." He pshawed. "The hell I bother with you. We're all hillbilly to you."
With that, Owen rapped the glass and waved at Clara. She clicked off the TV with the remote control and peered outside, shifting her head to see through the reflection. She climbed up from the couch, stretched her back, and yawned, all before approaching the door. As soon as she slid it open, Milhous raced past her. She sniffed at Owen as he trudged inside.
"Daddy," she said softly. "How could you."
Owen pecked Clara's turned cheek and whispered, "Love you."
"And you?" she said to Robert, his body away from the door and half-shadowed. Head down, he followed his father inside.
The faint sound of Milhous lapping from a toilet bowl entered the room. Robert stumbled past his mother and fell into an easy chair. Clara removed Owen's hat and handed it to him. With a tipsy grin on his face, he gripped it like a Frisbee and rocked his arm, targeting a decorative coat tree across the room. The hat went wide but his arm continued its wild arc. His hand smashed into the television screen with the crunch of raw carrots.
"God damn!" Owen reddened and his eyes goggled. He stuffed his hands between his thighs. "Good God damn almighty!"
"Daddy!" Clara screeched. "Not in front of Bobby!"
Owen's balled face gradually relaxed. He fell against the wall, hand still locked between his knees. "God damn." His moist eyes danced. "God damn-damn-damn."
"God dammit all!" Robert shook a finger sermon-style and went baritone. "Verily, I God damn thee!"
Clara blanked. Liquor and blasphemy, married. All of her superstitions, confirmed.
"Crap!" Owen spoke the word with a certain crispness.
Bobby nearly countered with the F word, loud and ripe, but he wasn't that far gone.
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