In a bathroom, I wash my face with cold water. In the mirror I see the same dragged-down look I noticed on Dale Licht’s face the last few days of Mama’s life, despite his constant smile, his pretense that everything was going to be fine. The man really did love her, I think. Does he miss me now?
On my way to find a couch, I pass a row of pay phones. Still thinking of Dale, I hesitate, then dig through my purse for his number. I find Rufus’s business card, make a mental note to call him again in the next few days.
Five rings, six. Then a windy voice.
Words catch in my throat, as awkward as the tubes in Bitter’s mouth.
“Hello?” Dale repeats. The voice of the ‘burbs, the law firm, the plush white living room carpet — a world I luxuriated in while disdaining it. A world I never belonged to — but which shaped me profoundly, just the same.
“Hello?”
A young mother drags a boy and a girl past me on her way to the bathroom. The kids wail. They smell of bubble gum and poop.
“Hello?”
A world I don’t know how to reenter.
A world that ends with a click.
I dream of snuggling into Mama’s lap, reading a book. She points at a colorful picture: a kitten in a ballet dress. “Listen,” she says, “and the book will talk to you.” She begins to read, and though the words emerge in her voice, they aren’t her words, they’re the words of the page. It’s sounding through her to me.
A talking book.
Mama pulls a quilt up over my legs. Wagon wheels. Flying geese.
The whole world is speaking to you. Listen.
Did Mama say that or did I? Or was it the book? The quilt? I burrow into her lap, close my eyes. When I open them, I’m scrunched into a hospital chair, and the overhead light is bright.
Bitter has been moved to a yellow room overlooking spindly elms. They stand in high grass, among patches of partridge peas and marigolds, and look like rolled-up maps. I sit by the double-paned window, reading a paper. It’s a week old, so nothing on Elias — but there is a list of last suppers requested by Texas’s death row inmates:
Ronald O’Brien (executed 3/3/84): T-bone steak
(medium to well-done), French fries and catsup,
Boston cream pie, and rolls.
Ruben Cantu (executed 8/24/93): Barbecued chicken,
refried beans, brown rice, sweet tea, and
bubble gum (gum prohibited by Texas
Department of Criminal Justice policy).
David Allen Castillo (executed 9/23/98):
Twenty-four soft tacos, six enchiladas, one
chocolate shake, and one quart of milk.
Jonathan Nobles (executed 10/7/98):
Eucharist, sacrament.
Well. When you get there, say hello to my daddy, Elias. And to the laughing old Axeman.
Bitter stirs but doesn’t wake. I watch the gentle pumping of the breathing machine. Above the bed, a steady green pulse zigs across a monitor.
Ariyeh slips into the room carrying two Styrofoam cups of coffee. She hands me one, tells me Reggie had to return to the Row Houses to help Kwako install his new sculpture. It’s a six-foot pair of hands, carved in black oak, she says, pressed together as if praying or applauding. Faith and Celebration, Kwako calls it.
We sip our coffee, listening to the hungry-bird cheep of the heart machine. Exhaustion pools in Ariyeh’s eyes.
“I kind of miss Mussolini,” I say.
She laughs.
“Maybe you should take a nap.”
“I’m fine. Beat, but I don’t think I can sleep.” She taps her cup. “Last night?”
“Yeah?”
“Reggie asked me to marry him.”
“Ariyeh!” I try to keep my voice down.
She smiles. “I think Daddy’s ordeal prompted him some. What’s important. You know.”
“I’m thrilled for you.” Really, I think. Really I am. “He’s a good man.”
“We haven’t set a date. But when we do … I’d like you to be my maid of honor.”
I cross the room and kiss her cheek. She smells of sugar and cream. “Of course.”
“How’s that going to work with your job? I mean, what are your plans?”
“I’m not sure.”
“E-Future?”
I scan her face. “What do you know?”
“Bowen’s been asking Reggie about you. Thought you might be looking for options.”
“Maybe. I was wary of him at first, you know. But after talking to him … he seems okay.” My cheeks burn.
“And the other night? You looked like yesterday’s leftovers.”
I pluck at Bitter’s sheet, start to say something, then shake my head. I’ll need a drink or two before I can dish on Rufus and Rue. “I’ll talk to you about it sometime. No, I will. Promise. Anyway, before I decide anything for sure, I’ll have to go back, take care of my business — ”
“I’ve missed you, T. It’s been lovely having you home.”
“For me, too. But — ”
She anticipates me. “The old neighborhood … it’s changing for everyone, Telisha. We’re all just making things up as we go.” She leans close. “You belong here.”
A car backfires in the parking lot below. Bitter’s eyes flutter. Ariyeh and I move to either side of his bed. She holds one of his hands; I squeeze the other. He looks at us, eyes steady and firm, as if we were kids again and he’s the adult in charge, urging us to settle down, now, settle down here in my lap — are you comfy, girls? — let me spin you out a hoo-raw, a tale of Old and New.
Early evening. Ariyeh has gone to meet Reggie at the Ragin’ Cajun. I’ve just finished some cold macaroni from the cafeteria downstairs, and I’m sitting by Uncle’s bed. Buhler has finally removed the tubes from Bitter’s mouth. He’s breathing on his own now. Pill vials clutter the room like bottles in the Flower Man’s tree, warding off ghosts — or the soda containers buried with Cletus and the others, filled with their names.
I’m flipping through television channels with the sound off. I’m shocked to see my boss on a local community affairs show. He looks tired, obviously at the end of a junket. I inch the volume up. He appears to be debating an activist here in Houston, a black man I don’t recognize. “The breakdown in our society relates to morality,” the mayor says — an old saw of his. “Kids stealing possessional sorts of things. Now, in recent polls in my city, only four percent said race is a real concern — ”
“Be that as it may, Mr. Mayor, when you have thirty percent dropping out of yout schools — ”
“It’s not thirty percent. That’s absurd. It’s twenty-three percent.”
“Facts are facts.”
“Your facts are incorrect. It’s twenty-three percent.”
“Well, I mean, I think, listen — ”
“And among those twenty-three percent, Latinos make up eighteen percent of that twenty-three percent — ”
“—make a point here — ”
“—and if you count as not dropping out those students who stay in school at least six years, then the dropout rate is only twenty-one percent.
Hasn’t lost a step. I wish Reggie could have a go at him. Ariyeh’s Reggie. He’d put the mayor in his place. Breaking ranks? Abandoning ship? That’s war, Mr. Mayor.
“All I’m saying is, life is not lived behind a closed door. All right? That’s all I’m saying.”
“The point is, we’re missing the point — ”
Bitter stirs. “Seam?”
“Uncle.” I click the remote and pick up his hand. “Uncle, you made it,” I say.
He coughs. “Spared for now, but next time and tomorrow — ”
“Easy. Easy.”