Walking Across Egypt (21 page)

"It could slip out though. And he might want a gun and break in and try to steal it. No, I don't want any coffee. I got to get on back. Don't tell Finner either."

"Tell him what?"

"That I got a gun under my pillow."

"He don't know?"

"He thinks one is enough, but I don't feel safe with one under just his pillow. Mr. Lowry gave a talk Wednesday night at prayer meeting about secular humanists. He said they were all over the place."

"What are they, anyway? I keep reading about them."

"Well, they do all these secular things for one thing and you just don't know when one's liable to break in your bedroom and start doing some of it."

"I just read something about one the other day somewhere," said Mattie. "I'm not going to worry about them. You sure you don't want a cup of coffee?" Mattie needed to start getting things ready for the yard sale on Saturday. She wished Alora would go on back. A little bit each day, putting stuff in piles, and she'd be all ready by Saturday.

"No, I got to get on back and do some cleaning."

"I got to get stuff ready for the yard sale Saturday. Pearl is going to have it, and me and whoever else. I'm going to try to clear out all the stuff I don't need. You got anything you want to sell, you can join us."

"Where's it going to be?"

"In Pearl's yard—more traffic by there."

"Let's see, I got a floor lamp I want to get rid of—that Mexican rifle with a lightbulb in the end of the barrel, and a great big shade. I'm so tired of it I don't know what to do. Finner has had it for forty years. Bought it in Mexico. The thing is, with all those little bolts and stuff it collects dust and I'm tired of dusting it. You dust a rifle lamp for forty years, you get tired of it."

I'll have to worry over it and bring her back the money, thought Mattie. "Why don't you get up a bunch of things and go with us? I'm going to call Lamar, the dogcatcher, to pick up my stuff in his pickup; he could swing by and get you and your stuff, too."

"I don't know. I'll think about it. I'll bring the lamp over anyway. You might be able to sell it."

"Don't you want a bite to eat?" I declare, she's going to sit right here through my dinner, thought Mattie.

"Oh, no, I got to get on back. I got a lot to do this morning. I'm sorry about the sheriff having to come and all that," said Alora, leaving. "I'll give you a call if I decide to do the yard sale."

"Okay, just let me know." Mattie walked over and looked in the refrigerator. Maybe she'd just fix a sandwich. She had that pimiento cheese. She could eat by 12:30 and have thirty minutes to do a little survey, decide what she wanted to take to the yard sale. She could do that before her program came on.

She warmed string beans and made a cucumber sandwich instead of pimiento cheese.

At 12:30 she went into Robert's room. Those encyclopedias could go. Somebody might want them. But they were so old. Late forties, and Elaine carried the W to school and lost it. But coming right before XYZ, maybe nobody would notice. If they did, she'd give them a dollar off.

The desk. The little desk she and Paul gave Robert for his seventh birthday. She knew what was in each drawer: bottom left, arrowheads; middle left, Instamatic camera which didn't work, one of two he owned—she'd been after him for a least twenty years to fix one of them. Top left, pictures of Robert and Bobby Larkin and all the Larkin dogs; top middle, binoculars, marionette head, a ruler, pencils; top right, three baseballs and a leather wallet with a tractor-trailer truck carved into it, made by a prisoner; middle right, his Boy Scout hunting knife, three compasses and the other broken Instamatic camera; bottom right, a baseball signed by all the Durham Bulls, two Indian headbands, and a sailor cap.

She wouldn't take the desk. It would be so nice for a grandson or granddaughter who would be happy to have all those things in the drawers to look at, to get Robert to remember and tell about. She wished she had things from her childhood to talk about, but of course she hadn't had anything much, and went to work when she was thirteen. She'd never had toys except what her daddy made. And several dolls, except once after a revival her mother had made her and Pearl throw away all their dolls and books.

She would take one of those Instamatic cameras and sell it for a dollar.

And there were those other books. Those Spanish books she'd bought Robert after he made a D. A grandson or granddaughter could certainly use those. They were nice little books, but Robert had never used them. And in the cigar box: medals and certificates of achievement. If Robert had a son or daughter they'd appreciate all of that. If she gave the cigar box to Robert he'd lose it or throw it away and then if he ever had a child he'd wish he'd kept it. He could easily have a child—as long as he married somebody younger than himself.

But he'd better hurry; she'd just read somewhere that sperm from a man over forty-four started losing its freshness. She'd been reading so much about sperm lately. Used to be you didn't read the first thing about sperm, but it had got so you read about it in Reader's Digest even. It used to be you could count on them to keep out that kind of thing.

She'd better go see what time it was. It was almost time for her program.

While Mattie was cleaning her dishes after "All My Children," she heard a truck drive up. It was Lamar. Good. They could talk about what all happened yesterday. She watched him take a windowpane out to Finner and Alora's garage and put it in, walk back to the truck and get some papers from his front seat. He came in, said he had only a minute, that he was just passing by and had all these legal guardian papers that some caseworker had sent him a few months ago and that there was no way he could take on Wesley, he didn't have room, but he was just wondering... the thought struck him that maybe Mattie could take on Wesley—legal guardian. She had right much room; all she'd have to do is sign the papers and if that Mr. Odum didn't press charges, they'd probably let him out early. Wesley could get a job, rent a room from her, and it would be a little extra income for her. "You want to look the papers over?"

"Lord have mercy. I can't keep somebody here. No sir. It does get lonesome, you know, but you get used to living by yourself. And I'm slowing down. I couldn't keep somebody here."

"I don't blame you, but this caseworker keeps sending stuff, and I didn't know. You can just keep it and look at it."

"Well, I ain't even able to keep a dog with all there is to do around here. Let me ask you something before you go. We're going to have a yard sale Saturday, me and Pearl and one or two more, and if you're going to be running around in your truck—it's going to be over at Pearl's, and do you reckon you might pick up a few things from here? I probably won't be able to get it all in my car. I'm aiming to get rid of a lot of stuff and if there are some things you want—I'm getting rid of some of Paul's things—you can have them."

"Paul?"

"My husband. He died four, no five years ago. Four? No, I guess it was five, and I still got some of his things."

"Yeah, I'll do it." Lamar thought of shoes, wing tips; he needed wing tips. "What size shoes did he wear?"

"Shoes? Ten, I think. Let's go see."

Later that afternoon, Mattie was cutting the grass in her backyard on the bank which descended down to a woods path. The bank was steep. She used to do the whole yard in one day, but had given up on that. She was thinking about how if Wesley lived with her, he could do the grass and she wouldn't have to worry about it; but he wouldn't trim, for sure. You couldn't get anybody who would trim. She'd tried several boys, but they all did an awful job. It took her half a day to go around behind them trimming. She might as well do it all herself. She enjoyed the exercise. She ought to do her own grass.

As she made her turn at the bottom of the bank she saw Beatrice standing near the back door, watching. She stopped, cut off the lawnmower, and started up the bank. "Well, how you doing, Beatrice?" she called.

"Fine. I didn't want to scare you. Just thought I'd stop by for a little visit. I was in the neighborhood."

"Let's go over here and sit." About four more strips and I'd been through, thought Mattie. What in the world? Beatrice has never visited me in her life.

They walked to the metal lawn chairs.

Mattie went on inside, and poured two glasses of iced tea, tore off a paper towel for Beatrice, picked up a used one for herself, came back outside, handed Beatrice her tea, and sat down.

"That's a lot of work, cutting the grass," said Beatrice.

"Well, it is, but I give myself two days to do it now. I used to do it in one." I bet she's never cut a blade of grass in her life, thought Mattie. Beatrice had attended college in Virginia and saw to it that everybody knew, over and over.

"What I came for is to say I'm sorry about all that in Sunday school. I couldn't imagine you knew that boy was escaped."

"Well, no, I didn't. I... it was just all a big mix-up."

"And another thing—I wanted to ask you about our new member from Maryland. To ask you if you'd do something for us."

"What's that?"

"Well, she was the president of her Sunday school class where she's from and what I was wondering is, since the vice-president doesn't do all that much anyway, what I was wondering is if maybe we could let her have that office so she would, you know, feel included. She's been coming for about a month and hasn't joined yet, and we can use everybody we can get in the membership drive and I just believe that if she had an office in the Sunday school department then she'd join the church, transfer her membership, and we'd have a new member for the membership drive and then too she wouldn't have to feel left out, you know, in our department. Just think about it. It was just a little something I thought about that we might could do."

"Oh ... well, it's okay with me, I guess, but since it's an office, we'd have to have somebody nominate her and vote her in and all. What's her name—Elizabeth?"

"Elizabeth Fisher. I think we could work that out."

"I see what you mean. Help her feel at home and all. Well, I suppose it's okay with me."

"Okay," said Beatrice, "I'll see what the others say and bring it up on Sunday if that's all right with you."

"It's fine with me. I'll be working on the Lottie Moon, anyway. Let me get you some more tea."

"I don't think I want any more, thank you. I don't have but a minute. And like I say, I am sorry about all your trouble Sunday."

"Well, it was a kind of funny thing. That boy is right pitiful in a way. He's never had much of a chance at anything. Lived at Berry Hill Orphanage all his life, got in trouble and ended up at the YMRC. I didn't have no idea at all when he come by here on Saturday that he'd escaped."

"It's just awful, what goes on nowadays," said Beatrice. "Everybody's getting divorced and you never know what's going to happen, or where it's going to happen, or who it's going to happen to, do you?"

"No. No, you don't."

"I wonder about how strong the church is in the middle of it all. It seems like the state has just about taken over everything." Beatrice stood. "I pray about it, but I declare, sometimes I don't even know what to pray."

"I know. Me either." He would have to learn to put things back where he got them, thought Mattie. I wouldn't go around picking up after him like I did with Robert and Elaine.

"Well, it was good to see you, Mattie," said Beatrice as she left. "Just think about this little vice-presidency thing. We'll talk about it Sunday."

"Okay." I could teach him how to trim. The importance of trimming so that it looks good—not so shaggy around the trees and up against the house.

Elaine came by to see Mattie late Tuesday afternoon. No, Mattie said, she wasn't feeling funny. She felt good. Yes, everything was fine about Sunday. It had just been a misunderstanding. Would she please go in her room and put out everything she wanted sold at the yard sale Saturday.

Elaine spent two hours sifting, looking at old scrap-books and pictures, reading a diary, then letters from an old boyfriend.

Thursday night Mattie called Lamar to be sure he remembered about Saturday morning. He said he would be there with the truck by 7:30. If he ate breakfast with her, that would put them in Pearl's yard at eight, eight-fifteen or so. Alora had decided to come at nine, bring Finner's Mexican rifle lamp and a few other things.

On Friday night Clarence Vernon, the head deacon, ate the chicken and dumplings, string beans, and potatoes his wife had fixed. He ate quietly. His wife wouldn't understand if he tried to explain what he had to do on Sunday. He was going to have to straighten out the Mat-tie Rigsbee business. For the sake of the church. He knew exactly how to handle it. He would tell Mattie how much he appreciated what she had done for the church and also for this unfortunate young man. The thief. Degenerate, evil boy. But he would have to point out that it seemed to him as head deacon that the line had been crossed. You cannot take in, support, protect, hide, conspire with a known criminal. You can treat him well in prison, the Scriptures even speak of that, but anything beyond that is wrong; beyond that is where the Devil comes in. It's clear. He would say he thought it would be best for her to give up the Lottie Moon until the whole business blew over—until all charges of wrongdoing had settled down appropriately.