This Side of Brightness (16 page)

“Don't cry, hon.”

“And O'Leary says to me, ‘This here boy says that he wants to see his momma.'”

“Oh, no.”

“I don't know what happened to me. All of a sudden I let go of the trousers and the hem zigzagged across. You wouldn't believe how quiet that place was. Everyone was looking at me, all the other seamstresses, silent as could be. I just said, ‘Pardon me?' And the boss he says, ‘This here boy says that he wants to see his mother.' Real insistent, the boss, he's real insistent. And I just let out this nervous giggle, Nathan, I'm just sitting there giving a nervous giggle. And I said, ‘Oh, that's just a term of speech, I know his momma very well.'”

“Oh, El. You didn't? You couldn't have.”

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

“Oh, Eleanor.”

“And O'Leary was staring at me and his eyes all wide. And Clarence he's just staring too. Clarence has got this report card in his hand. I looked at the boss and I said it again, ‘It's just a term of speech, you know how people talk.' And Clarence, he's got this look on his face like the whole world has just tumbled in on him. Like something went in and just collapsed his face right down. He says to me, ‘Momma.' I think I'm gonna hear that word forever, the way he said it. Momma. Momma. Momma. Like it's just the most important thing he ever said. But I just looked around the warehouse and everybody was staring at me. ‘His momma is a friend of mine, his momma lives local to me'—that's what I said. And O'Leary, he takes Clarence by the scruff of the neck. ‘What're you wasting this lady's time for?' he says. And Clarence says, ‘I just wanted to tell her that I got an A in science.' And O'Leary he swells up real big like and he coughs and he looks around the warehouse. ‘An A in science!' he shouts. ‘It musta been in evolution!'”

“The sonofabitch.”

“And Clarence was there and he was crying.”

“I can't believe it, El.”

“He's got these big tears coming down his face. And he says to me again, ‘Momma.' And I didn't say a word to him. I just didn't say a word. I didn't even say well done. Well done for the A in science. I was just dumbstruck and I didn't mean it, I didn't mean to be that way; it just happened to me, Nathan, I swear I didn't mean it; oh, God in heaven, believe me that I never meant to ignore him like that. I just sat there and watched O'Leary drag Clarence out of the warehouse, and I've never felt a sorrier thing ever in my life. I turned and looked at the other seamstresses and—oh, God, Nathan, I just got up and I pushed my way past O'Leary and grabbed my coat and ran and went to look for Clarence. But he was nowhere around. I looked and looked but he was gone. I know I've lost my job, but I don't care. I just ran and ran but I couldn't find him.”

“Where is he now?”

“I don't know.”

“Enough crying, woman.”

“Can you go find him for me, Nathan? Please? Can you explain it to him? For me?”

“I don't reckon, El, I can explain a thing like that.”

“I never meant to ignore him.”

“I'll say this one thing and I'll say it one time—it's the ugliest goddamn thing I ever heard in my life.”

“Oh, please.”

“It's ugly, El. Pure goddamn ugly.”

“I swear to God I'll never ever ever do a thing like that again in my life. It's just sometimes, sometimes, sometimes things happen to us and we don't know why. Just say that to him. Please. Say I don't know what happened to me. Say that I could never be sorrier than what I am. Tell him I love him. Tell him it's the truth. It's the truth, I swear it.”

“Well, I'd say that's your job, El.”

“Nathan.”

“No.”

“Please. Just explain it to him for me.”

“No! When you quit crying you can explain it to him your own self. I'll go find him and you can explain it. That's your cross to carry. It's mine too, I suppose, but you're the one gotta do the mending.”

*   *   *

Clarence says nothing as Eleanor puts her arms around him. The young man leaves his head on his mother's shoulder, all the time staring beyond her into some unfathomable distance.

And, that evening, Walker too turns his face away from her as they lie in bed. She isolates her grief by shoving it in a pillow. But as the weeks go by, she moves toward him and puts her knees into the crook of his, her chest against his spine, breathes warm and frightened on his neck. She remains—spooned against him—until Walker gathers the courage to turn and awkwardly touch her hair.

*   *   *

In the weeks before Clarence leaves for army training camp in Virginia, his godfather, Rhubarb Vannucci, teaches him about dynamite, how and where to strap it, how deep to go with bore holes, where to put the charges if you want to get rid of evidence: a body, a horse, a tree trunk. The classes are held on Vannucci's rooftop. The old Italian is meticulous in his instruction, kneeling down on a piece of cardboard, using his finger to carve out imaginary maps on the ground.

Vannucci keeps having to take Clarence's face in his hands to stop the young man's eyes from straying to the colored pigeons and the feathers arrayed on the ground.

“Ascoltami!”
he says.

“Sir?”

“Listen me!”

All the important words are given in his own language:
carica, explosivo, spoletta detonante, una valvola.
He traces out diagrams—how to dig a proper tunnel, defuse a booby trap, deal with the spoons that hold the springs back in a grenade. He tells Clarence to always carry an extra boot lace, that they come in handy. Look carefully for the dummy fuse. Teach your brow not to ooze sweat. Never let your fingers tremble, even when you're not working. Learn to hum a single tune while defusing, it'll keep your mind from wandering.

At the end of one lesson he says, “And tell your father I gotta the custard.”

Clarence comes home and relays the message. “Rhubarb said he got the custard, whatever the hell that means.”

Walker, by the stove, slaps his thigh in delight. He goes across the room and whispers to his wife, and she berates him with a gentle slap on the wrist.

Clarence rolls his eyes to heaven. Embarrassed by his parents being in the same room, Clarence sleeps huddled outside on the fire escape. At night he hears them move toward each other, tentatively, when they think everyone else is sleeping, a movement in the bedsheets, curious muffles, a rustling together of their bodies, and there is nothing Clarence hates more than that sound.

*   *   *

He wants to be part of a bomb disposal unit, but they sign him up as a cook instead. He is seventeen. A photograph is taken of him; the hair, no longer tinged with red, doesn't clash with his military uniform. The freckles have faded from his cheeks. He is white-toothed and grinning, but despite the grin, the eyes are deep and brown and serious, like two very carefully blown-out holes in his head.

*   *   *

Eleanor takes the photograph to the store and tells Ration Rollins that if he doesn't put it up she'll give her custom to another store down the street. Ration tapes the photograph up on his cash register, along with the pictures of all the other local men who have gone to Korea to fight. Their faces obscure the numbers that rise up on the glass window of the register. One dollar fifty-six cents. Five dollars thirty-four. Sixteen cents. The edge of Clarence's face covers the square where the pennies roll.

Each night Walker and his wife make their way down to the grocery store to watch the television news. Eleanor remains silent at the back, by a freezer full of ice cream, fidgeting with a special prayer card encased in plastic. Walker stands beside her, but they still don't touch in public. From the television set, Eisenhower looks down at them sternly. They search for their son's face in the rows of tired men walking along hot dusty roads. They imagine helicopters flapping in over the paddy fields of the dead, row upon row of men and rice.

Back in their apartment, Eleanor writes long letters. The writing is neat and minuscule:

How are you over there? We hope you are well and keeping your handsome head down. We are all doing fine. We miss you sorely. I especially miss you sorely. Your father is making plenty of furniture. The girls are growing up you wouldn't believe how much. Deirdre met a musician and he tuned our piano. It sounds good. Maxine sang a Mary Lou Williams song. One night we went to the Metropole and heard Henry Red Allen blowing his brass in his suit and tie.
Whamp! Whamp!
He's the funniest thing. Everybody is asking for you especially some pretty girls who saw your photo down in Ration Rollins's place. You wouldn't believe it, but Ration has been very nice to us these days. He asks about you every day, and he even gave us some free tea. Imagine that. We were in the store and heard someone say they eat dogs over there in Korea. That's not true is it? Your sister Maxine says
Woof Woof!
And your father says stay away from the hind end. Just use some barbecue sauce he says!

She uses a sharpener to keep the lead tip of the pencil alert. The shavings fall down around Walker's outstretched feet.

The sad news from these parts is that your father's old friend Sean Power passed away. At least he had a good number of years to him. Cirrhosis of the liver is what took him. Rhubarb put a bottle of bourbon in his coffin for the journey. We all of us got to go sometime, but it was sad. Your father said a prayer at the service. Everyone got drunk and singing at the wake. Someone asked your father if he was a waiter. They said go get a glass of whiskey for me, boy. And then they was all saying things about him. Boy this. Boy that. There was nearly a fight, but there wasn't. Rhubarb told them all to shut up. I told your father he has got to keep his mouth zipped, but you know him. At the end of the evening your father and Rhubarb sat around in the corner and talked about old times.

I can't tell you how much I think of old times, Clarence. Old times are on my mind ever since you left.

One thing I got to say, Clarence, and I have to say this again—it has been on my heart and it is so heavy I can hardly bear it—I never meant it that day when you got the A in science. I just don't know what happened. I'll carry it to my own grave I suppose. I've never felt more ashamed and I want you to know that. I carry it in me like the world's heaviest thing. I'm not asking for forgiveness. I just want you to understand. I think understanding is more important than forgiveness. So please understand. Sometimes it just weighs the whole of me to the ground so much I feel like I'm bending over when I walk.

Eleanor always uses the same line at the end of each letter:

Like we said, you keep your handsome head down, Clarence, and come back to us in one piece and don't go making us spill the river with tears.

On the evening that the war officially ends in stalemate, they receive a letter from Clarence to say that he will remain on in the demilitarized zone. He should be home shortly. He hints that he has met a girl at the army base: she is a nurse's aide and she has painted a bowl of grits on the front of his cook's helmet. The letters arrive monthly—one of them even comes when Clarence is on R&R in Japan. Eleanor keeps the stamps in a special envelope.

And then one afternoon, in the late summer, they receive another letter. They open it with their heads hung penitently. They already know from a two-week-old telegram that Clarence has been injured. A knife rolls slowly through the top lip of the envelope. Walker feels a bead of sweat roll down his spine. He uncurls the sheet of paper very slowly and hands it to Eleanor to read.

She throws her arms around him in simultaneous relief and grief when she reads the letter. The letter has been dictated by Clarence to the nurse's aide. It takes a moment for Eleanor's eyes to adjust to the handwriting.

Dear Mom and Pa,

I am alive and well. I was hit by a mine when I went out walking. We had just clocked off from the canteen, a buddy and me. We were south of Pusan, just going for a walk in the forest at the bottom of the mountain. It must have been a trip wire. I should have listened more carefully to Rhubarb. My buddy, he lost both his legs. Some of the shrapnel hit me in the eyeball and I lost my eye. I'm sitting here trying to be brave about it, but hell. Anyway, the nurses here have been looking after me good, especially that girl Louisa I told you about. She's right here, scribbling down every word I say. Well, almost every word! She's from Chippewa country out West. She's been treating me special. She even went found me a gramophone and some 45s of old Rex Stewart so I can listen to him blow that horn. The radio stations here aren't so good—all you get is Nat King Cole and all. But I get to listen to old Rex. Just lie here in bed and let him play. My injury doesn't hurt much. Sometimes it's hard looking only through one eye, but I reckon I'll get used to it. Don't let that river spill over because I'm as good as can be expected. You know that bowl of grits that I told you about—Louisa painted it for me—well, I think that's about the funniest thing in the world. I'm looking forward to you-all meeting Louisa. We are good friends. Well, more than good friends to tell you the truth. And you know what? I understand that day, now, I understand that day, Mom, in the warehouse when you said you didn't know me. In the Army you learn not to know yourself at all. And I got to thinking. And I know what you're saying. So I understand and I forgive you, Mom. Well now, I don't want you to get getting weepy, so I'm going to sign off. One thing is, though, we been thinking about getting a discharge, going back to New York, Louisa and me, start a little business, I don't know what. Maybe even get married, how about that! Something so we can all go get a big apartment and live together and be happy and no more spilling of rivers for any of us.