Beaming Sonny Home Read online

  “And I just want to add this one thing, Mr. Melon,” said Sonny’s voice. “If you get the chance to track down Sheila Bumphrey Gifford, my future ex-wife, will you tell her that I ain’t ever loved another woman in my whole life like I love her? And I wish her lots of luck with her new beau. Now all I want is my dog, which she’s gone ahead and hidden somewhere. You tell her that if you can find her. But I doubt you will, Mr. Melon, because the”—beep beep—“has gone to Atlantic City with some”—beep beep beep—“who don’t give a”—beep—“about her and the kids.” Mattie let out her breath. She knew it. She had known it from the start. Sonny was hurting over a woman, maybe for the first time ever, and now, not knowing what to do, he’d gone and gotten himself into a mess bigger and deeper than any plate of fudge could ever get him out of.

  “I don’t blame her one little bit for leaving him,” said Gracie. “Look at how I had to go ahead and kick Charlie out. If men can’t learn to talk to women, to just sit quiet and listen to what they have to say without—”

  “Shut up, Gracie,” said Mattie.

  “—interrupting,” said Gracie, “then how are men and women—”

  “So she run off to Atlantic City with another man,” Marlene said dramatically. “I can’t say I blame her.”

  “—gonna learn to communicate?” Gracie was finally done.

  “Who said men and women have to communicate?” Rita wanted to know. “Who started that rubbish, anyway? The only communicating I do with Henry is when I put his lunch pail in his hands in the morning, and when I take it out of his hands at night. At least when he had a job, we communicated real well.”

  “I said shut up,” Mattie insisted. Donna’s face was again filling up the screen.

  “Chief Melon is hopeful that his department will be able to locate Mrs. Gifford,” Donna was saying, “and that perhaps this terrifying situation can be peacefully resolved.” After promising to be back with the six o’clock news, Donna disappeared and One Life to Live returned. Mattie watched the actors bouncing about on the screen and said nothing. Her girls, however, had a lot to say. Now they were involved in an argument as to whether or not it would be wise to drive their mother to Bangor.

  “She is his mother,” Marlene was saying. “How would you feel if it was Willard? What would you do if that was your kid?”

  “I’d pretend it wasn’t,” said Rita. Mattie thought about this. It wasn’t very likely that Rita could pretend Willard wasn’t hers, what with him being the only kid at Mattagash High School who was almost six foot three. A good portion of Henry’s family had been long on length and short on brains. And, as if there had to be some architectural support for all that body length, all of Henry’s family—and it seemed this was true of Willard in particular—had the biggest kneecaps you’d ever lay your eyes on. There were times when Mattie saw Willard lumbering about in cutoff jeans at some family picnic and it always looked at first as though some prankster had superglued two softballs to her grandson’s knee joints. And then there was that vicious case of his crossed eyes. Gracie once commented that both of Willard’s eyes looked out of the same hole, but they were eyes passed down to him from Lester’s mother’s side. Everyone always said that the Harts were so cross-eyed that it was a wonder they didn’t burn the house down, considering they still heated it with that old wood furnace. At least, everybody said that until the Harts burned their house down. And then Willard had that lisp, and that bad habit of twitching his left eye and his right shoulder when he got nervous. And there was that front tooth that got knocked out in a basketball game last season, which Henry and Rita couldn’t afford to fix just yet, what with Henry being laid off at the mill. Still, this all could’ve been chalked up to bad luck on the part of nature, until Willard witnessed that crazy rock group down at the Bangor Auditorium, the one with all the different colored hair, and went ahead without Rita’s permission and dyed his hair bright orange. When Rita tried to dye it back to its natural shit-brown color, Willard had emerged with the most peculiar shade of green hair this side of Hollywood and Vine. Not even considering the fact that Willard spit at the end of almost every sentence, just as if those little balls of foam were periods he was carefully placing there, not even considering that, Mattie felt quite sure that Rita could not pretend that Willard wasn’t hers. Not in Mattagash, Maine, anyway. Maybe in Hong Kong, or right smack dab in the heart of New York City’s craziest street. But Rita would definitely have to own up to Willard in Mattagash, Maine.

  “Just what good do you think driving Mama down to Bangor is gonna do?” Rita asked Marlene.

  “Think about it, Marlene,” said Gracie. “Can you see Mama in front of a television camera? And you know that’s what will happen if we take her down there to talk to Sonny.” Mattie ignored this insult. How did Gracie know what would happen if someone decided to put her mother’s face on television? Maybe some big Hollywood producer would give Mattie her own show. Distressed mothers from all over the country could call in and share their parental horror stories. Jeffrey Dahmer’s mother. Son of Sam’s mother. Mothers whose children are involved in drugs and gangs. Madonna’s stepmother.

  The phone rang. Gracie beat Marlene to it, just as she had always done in the old high school days.

  “I swear you were born with roller skates instead of feet,” Marlene told Gracie.

  “It’s for you, Mama,” Gracie shouted. “It’s Milly, calling from the store.” Mattie gave up the antics of the actors and actresses on television, all that foolish kissing and conniving, and came to the phone.

  “Don’t tell her anything,” Gracie whispered. “You know what a gossip bag she is.”

  Mattie was confused. “Don’t tell her what?” she asked. “It’s all over the television, for crying out loud. At least he ain’t robbed a bank. And robbing a bank is a lot worse.” She took the receiver from Gracie and covered the speaker part with her hand.

  “Oh, I beg to differ,” said Rita. “Taking human beings against their will into a house trailer is a lot worse than robbing a bank.”

  “Taking human beings into a house trailer of their own free will is a lot worse than robbing a bank,” said Marlene. Mattie had uncovered the phone in order to speak, but now she covered it up again with the meaty part of her palm. It was obvious that Winken, Blinken, and Nod had no intentions of coming ashore yet.

  “You know, Marlene, I ain’t stupid,” Rita said. “You’re making remarks like that about house trailers only because me and Henry and the boys live in one.”

  Marlene patiently considered this. “No, I ain’t,” she said, and Mattie knew darn well she was lying. “It’s just that you never know when a house trailer might decide to go wheels up.”

  “Be quiet,” Mattie warned them. It was bad enough that her only boy was being watched on the news by all of Mattagash. But did they have to hear her three daughters warring it out in her living room?

  “By the way,” Gracie asked. “How do Henry and Willard and Josh manage to fit into them low-ceiling little rooms? Don’t they bump their heads?” Marlene tittered, an irritating sound even if you liked her. Rita’s face was becoming nearly transparent. Mattie could see anger rising to the surface of the skin, like something in a pond that has sunk below the water and is just beginning to emerge again.

  “Henry and Willard and Josh fit wherever I tell them to,” Rita said. “Which is a talent you obviously never learned at college, Gracie. I don’t suppose Charlie has to worry about bumping his head on Sally Fennelson’s trailer ceiling, considering how much time he spends all curled up in her bed.” It was Gracie’s turn to fill up with anger, her eyes going all gauzy and her left eyebrow beginning to twitch above her eye like a thin brown fish.

  “Just for the record,” Gracie screamed, “I was the one who left Charlie! I threw his ass out!”

  “Who said anything about who left who?” Rita asked.

  “I think house traile
rs can shape your personality,” Marlene said thoughtfully. “They can make you think small for your whole life. I don’t think many successful people grew up in house trailers. Someone should do a study on that.”

  Now Rita was furious. “Then your precious husband, Wesley Stubbs, must have been conceived in one. Everybody in Mattagash knows that Wesley spends more time in front of the television than a turtle spends in its shell.”

  “Hang on a minute, will you, Milly?” Mattie said into the receiver. “I’ll be right with you.” Then she tucked the receiver under the pit of her arm, where nothing could seep through to Milly’s anxious ears, not even the stench of body sweat. “I said to shut up, and I mean it,” Mattie told the girls. “If you intend to stay here in my house, you’ll keep your big mouths closed. I’m within an inch of tossing all three of you out into the front yard, along with them big chunky pocketbooks. It’s bad enough I had to listen to this bedlam while you were all in high school and I was still legally responsible for you. But I ain’t anymore. And I’m telling you to park your lips.”

  Marlene grabbed her half pack of cigarettes from off the kitchen table and went out the back door, letting the screen slam with a thud. Gracie picked up the crossword page from the Bangor Daily News and disappeared into her old bedroom. Mattie heard the springs of the sofa bed squeak. With the other two women gone, Rita became instantly confidential. But Mattie was ready for it, knew just what to expect. At a pit stop somewhere along the years of her growing up, Rita had gotten it into her head that being the oldest child meant something.

  “If you ask me,” Rita whispered, “them two could stand a lesson in manners.”

  “I said shut up,” Mattie repeated. “And I meant shut up.”

  “Oh, good Lord, Mama,” said Rita, waving a hand. Mattie met Rita’s eyes, poured herself deep into them, a constant stare, until Rita was reasonably sure that her mother was furious.

  “Now I intend to take this call,” Mattie said softly, “from another bigmouthed Mattagash female, and I intend to do it in peace. So how’s about you go out to the front yard, Rita, and talk to St. Francis of Assisi?”

  “I will say this,” said Rita, gathering up her own crumply pack of cigarettes. “I agree with Gracie and Marlene about one thing. You’re gonna go off your rocker over this if you ain’t careful, Mama. You’re gonna go to you know where in a handbasket.”

  The front door slammed with such force that Mattie feared a window might shatter. But then, Rita had always had lots in common with jets breaking the sound barrier. Mattie waited for a few seconds, breathed in the sweet notes of silence, and then she unburied the receiver from her armpit. She had no doubt that Milly was still in there, down in the coils and wires, waiting for her own breath of clean air. Gossips could hold their breath forever. Gossips would one day inherit the entire earth, just like those hard-shelled insects Mattie had seen on Nova, insects immune to everything.

  “Now then, Milly,” Mattie said nicely into the phone. “What’s on your mind?” Milly acted as if being kept waiting for five minutes on the end of a receiver, kept dangling like a fish on a line, was second nature to her.

  “I just wanted to let you know that a reporter from the Bangor Daily has been nosing around the store,” said Milly. “He’s been asking all kinds of questions about Sonny. But everyone down here has been filling him full of lies. You should’ve heard the story Donnie Henderson told him, that Sonny was adopted by older folks who found him floating in the Mattagash River in a potato basket. And they raised him up until they died. Donnie even sent them out to the Catholic graveyard to find Ronald and Louise Gifford’s graves. Now, you know as well as I do that Ronald and Louise never had a single child between them. I don’t think the state of Maine would’ve let them two have a cat. But that reporter even took photographs. Rosemary Craft saw him down there in the pines, among the tombstones, snapping away on one knee.”

  Mattie had let this stream of words come and go, had been swept along in the images of what was being said: a nosy reporter from Bangor, a potato basket, sweet old simpleminded Ronald Gifford with his slow walk, Louise Gifford’s big garden of colored flowers, Donnie Henderson’s mischievous face. It was Donnie Henderson who had told some journalist at Downeast magazine that all of Mattagash was descended from three sisters from Watertown who had canoed up to Mattagash looking for husbands. And that poor journalist had gone ahead and written it down, without ever once checking it out. It was true, as Donnie often noted, that once you cross the Aroostook County line, heading south in Maine, the fewer mountains and the less gray matter you were likely to encounter. Folks farther south tended to believe almost anything you told them. Not like Mattagashers. You could tell a Mattagasher that blue was blue and he still wouldn’t believe you. Right away he’d suspect you were up to something. And maybe Sonny didn’t have a glut of friends in Bangor, hanging out at the house trailer to show their support, but there were plenty of folks willing to go to bat for him in Mattagash.

  “What else did he want to know?” Mattie asked.

  “Well, mostly, he was looking for Sonny’s relations,” said Milly, “until he met up with Donnie. I suspect you’ll read about Sonny’s adoption in the papers tomorrow.” Mattie felt fatigue slipping in, claiming her mind, and fatigue was a bad thing this early in the game. If only those big, loud girls would go home, she might be able to get a logical thought to float into her head, a suggestion pertaining to Sonny’s newest adventure.

  She had just hung up the phone when it rang again. It was probably Milly, phoning back to say that little green aliens were now asking questions about Sonny, wanting to know which planet he’d been born on. Mattie heard the sofa bed squeak in Gracie’s room.

  “I’ll get it,” Mattie called out. “It’s only Milly phoning back.” No answer came from behind Gracie’s door, which was just fine with Mattie. She imagined Gracie’s lip hanging like a flap down from her mouth. Gracie had been the best pouter of all three girls. Mattie picked up the phone and, suddenly, the receiver pressed against her face, she knew. She knew and she could say nothing.

  “Mama?” Sonny’s sweet voice asked. “Are you there? How’s my favorite girlfriend doing?” Mattie reeled an inch or so backward, as though a hand had come out of the phone and pushed her, the push of birth, the same little push you’d probably feel in death.

  “Son, what have you gone and done?” Mattie asked, her voice a low whisper, so afraid one of her daughters might hear. “Sonny, what’s gonna happen to you now?”

  “I’m gonna be just fine, Mama,” said Sonny. “Vera and Steph have been taking real good care of me. I’m sorry this got on the news. I never thought of that.” No, of course, he never thought of that.

  “Let them women go, Sonny,” said Mattie. “Let them go right this minute. Open that trailer door while I’m still on this phone and turn them loose. It’s your only chance. This is serious business, son.” She had canted her head toward the front door, where she could see Rita pacing back and forth on the porch, smoking a cigarette.

  “Don’t you worry none, Mama,” said Sonny. “I’ll get this straightened out. Me and the girls here were just discussing how to go about it.” The line cracked and Mattie could hear what sounded like mice feet running about.

  “Is this line being tapped, Sonny? Is that what I hear?” Mattie waited, her breath curled and silent in her throat, afraid she might miss the reply.

  “I know they tapped my line,” said Sonny, “but this is Sheila’s business line, for her Avon customers, and it’s under her former married name. I don’t think they know about it. I ain’t dealing with Sherlock Holmes here, Mama. The chief of police thinks John Lennon is still alive. I don’t believe they looked to see if there was more than one line. But just in case, I probably won’t be calling you again. And, Mama?”

  “Yes, Sonny?”

  “I don’t want you to come driving down here thinking you can help me
. I want you to promise me that. You can’t do a single thing down here. You stay right where you are, with a nice big puzzle and a hot cup of tea. Will you promise me, Mama?”

  “I promise,” Mattie said. The line crackled and she felt as if lightning might come out in a ball of fire. She looked toward the window and saw Rita flick her cigarette butt out into the flowers around the St. Francis birdbath.

  “Baby,” said Mattie to her only boy. “Sweetie pie, you gotta straighten this out while there’s still time.” She knew Rita would fill up the front door at any minute. Rita would roll into the scene like an unwanted snowball. Then what would those big awful daughters have to say? That Sonny had called his mama for help? That Sonny was nothing but a no-good mama’s boy? But he wasn’t calling for any help at all. He was calling to tell Mattie that he was all right, that he was in the middle of the pond but he was swimming like hell for shore. Sonny Gifford seemed prepared to get out of this one by himself. Sonny and the girls. They’d be on his side by now, no doubt about that. That scrawny little poodle was probably fetching Sonny his slippers and a rolled-up newspaper.

  “Mama?” said Sonny. Mattie saw Rita’s shape move past the front windows on the porch, headed directly for the door.