Cloud Nine (18 page)

“I’m sick of it!” she burst out, in my office one day. “Of her, of her land, of Burl—especially of him! Gramie, he’s been calling up, since Mort wrote him about it, about this new will that she’s drawn, so he’d know the old one was void, the one that she drew in his favor—he’s been ringing me late at night, saying horrible things. I wouldn’t put anything past him!
Anything!”

And then something happened that pretty well proved she wasn’t imagining things. Jane had put her car in storage, after what Sonya had said, had it towed to Clint Jervis’s lot, intending to have it checked, but putting it off for some reason. So Clint’s boy Rod began borrowing it, to ride his girl around, and one night the steering went haywire and dumped them in the ditch. Rod and the girl weren’t hurt, but the car was a total wreck, as Jane learned next morning, when the insurance office called. Mother called me and I went over, and I’m telling you, we all looked at each other, and knew what the answer was. My birthday, as a rule, hasn’t meant much to me, though of course, people make it pleasant, and you get a bit of a bang. But this year, for some reason, I kept thinking about it, the contrast it would be with the one I had last year, my thirtieth. That day had been wonderfully pleasant—a quickie visit from Lynn, a necktie from Jane, a party at my mother’s later in the evening. Even the weather had helped. My birthday’s September 12, Old Defender’s Day, as it’s called here in Maryland, when Fort McHenry held out, and
The Star-Spangled Banner
was born. It’s the end of summer, the beginning of fall, with the smell of Concord grapes, like winy perfume, hanging in the air. You could smell them all over that day, and if I wasn’t perfectly happy, at least I was enjoying life, which until Sonya came along, was all I really asked.

But now it was all different. There was no winy smell, as the day was overcast, and the air felt raw. Helen Musick had remembered, and given me a bottle of lotion, and Mother of course had called—but she said nothing about coming over, and no wonder, with Jane in the house all the time. I got home around six, feeling utterly depressed, because all I could think of was Sonya, and how I wished she was there. I parked in the drive, slipped the lotion in my pocket, went up to the door, put my key in and unlocked, feeling as glum as I’d ever felt in my life.

But as soon as I opened the door a terrific surprise was there, a big birthday cake on the telephone table, with a flock of candles burning, thirty-one as I knew without counting. And then at once, from the living room, came the chords on the piano,
Happy Birthday to You.
It played almost to the end, and then a small thready girl’s voice sang:
Happy Birthday, Dear Gramie, Happy Birthday to You!
For a few terrible seconds I wasn’t quite sure, as I’d never heard her sing. But then in the arch there she was, flinging herself into my arms, burrowing her nose into my shirt, drawing deep, trembly breaths. Then our mouths came together in a long, beautiful kiss. I lifted her, so her feet swung clear of the floor, and carried her into the living room. I sat down in one of the chairs, pulled her onto my lap, and kept right on kissing her, holding her close, and patting her. After a long time our mouths pulled apart, and little by little, though still trembling, we were able to talk. I said: “So—so—and so. You came.”

“I had to, I couldn’t help it.”

“Well? I told you, didn’t I? If you had to be Little Miss Fixit, okay—but everything’s fixed. So what were you waiting for?”

“How do you mean, everything’s fixed?”

“Well I told you, last time you called!”

“Yes, but I didn’t get it straight.”

“Well, first off, Jane moved in with Mother.”

“When was this?”

“That same night. When you scared her to death.”

“Then she didn’t stay with you?”

“You think I’d let her?”

“Well after all she had the land.”

“Yeah, but now she’s left it to Mother. She’s not mad at her any more. She realizes. Or whatever the hell she does. If you ask me she’s somewhat balmy.”

“About you, she is.”

“Was. She came to her senses, I think.”

“More’n I did. I’m still balmy about you.”

“Mutual. Likewise. Vice versa. Kiss me.”

She kissed me, and some little time went by. “Gramie, don’t you know why I came?”

“I’ll bite. Why?”

“That beautiful wire you sent me.”

Now if I could say I reacted to that in a way that made some sense, or that showed I had some brains, or that did me credit in any way, I certainly would—but I can’t. All I felt was put out, or bored, or annoyed, that something apart from us was edging in between, to louse up our moment, and my only clear idea was to give it some kind of brush, so we could go on as we had been going, with kisses, pats, and talk about being balmy. I said: “Uh-huh.”

“Didn’t you hear what I said, Gramie?”

“Somebody sent you a wire.”

“You
sent me a wire!”

Then, and then only, at last, not caring much, or wanting to talk about it: “I’m sorry, I didn’t send any wire.”

“Well you certainly did!”

She jumped up, went to the side table, opened her bag, took out a yellow telegram, and brought it over to me. It was a night letter, a long one, leading off about my birthday, quoting
The Star-Spangled Banner,
and saying all I wanted to see by the dawn’s early light was her head on the pillow beside me—and more of the same, quite poetic. It begged her to come home and help me celebrate, and wound up:
“Love Love Love, Gramie.”

I said: “I know nothing about it.”

She took it, crossed to a sofa and collapsed into tears. I went over, folded her in, and asked, “Is it all that important? So somebody sent you a wire, but all it said was what I’ve been trying to say over the phone a hundred times, whenever you called, that you should come back to me, back to your home.”

“But that wire is why I came.”

“I thought
I
was why you came.”

“I thought you sent it is why. It’s why I got shook.”

“If I’d known where you were, I’d have sent you a hundred wires, but I didn’t, you didn’t tell me. You told your mother, and she told the Hyattsville Post Office—but she wouldn’t tell me, you forbade her.”

“I was so thrilled, you finding out where I was.”

“Well you can knock it off with those shakes, as I didn’t lift a finger to find out where you were, and wouldn’t. I have some pride left, I hope.”

“Now we’ll have to start over.”

“How, start over?”

“I’ve just said. It’s why I came. But now—!”

“Yes, I think you’re right—a completely fresh start is what’s called for. I’ll mumble under your ear—work around to your mouth—then carry you up—and we’ll see if our cloud is still there.”

I started off, and just then the chimes in the hall sounded. I said: “I’ve never known it to fail that when we get in sight of our cloud, the goddam doorbell rings.”

I got up and started for the hall. Then:
“Gramie!”
she burst out, in a voice like a whipcrack.
“I’ve just waked up! Don’t answer! Don’t do it! Don’t open that door!”

By then she was beside me, her eyes big and almost black. I said, “At least we can see who it is.”

I opened the pigeonhole and a man was there, in red jacket and Afro hairdo. I opened the door, asked: “Yes? What is it?”

He didn’t answer me, but cocked a gun in my stomach, a big, shiny, stainless steel thing, almost a submachine gun, and motioned to my hands. I put them up and he stepped inside, closing the door behind him. I said: “Okay, take it easy, just say what it is, and that’s how it’s going to be. I have money, and I’ll hand it over, but first lower that gun—this girl is my wife and I don’t want her hurt. And, to get out my wallet, I have to lower my hands, so—”

But he motioned again and I had to keep my hands up. Suddenly she said, “Gramie, it’s Burl—in that mask he brought home from Japan and the Afro wig that goes with it.”

“We can’t fool little Bright Eyes.”

He took off the wig, dropped it in the chair beside the phone table, then pulled off the mask, which was of some sort of thin rubber, with eye, nose, and mouth holes, and went on like scuba gear, and suddenly was my brother, with his same little twitchy grin that was more like a sneer.

“That feels better,” he remarked, very breezy, dropping the mask on top of the wig. “Stuff like that can be hot, this time of year.”

“Did you send me that wire?”

“Come to think of it, Sonya, I may have.”

“You had a nerve.”

“Well? I heard Gramie was pining for you, and of course I was. So, two birds with one stone, and after all it was you.”

“What do you mean, you were pining for me?”

“Well what do you think?”

“What do you want?”

“Two or three things, all at the same time, but I’ll be very glad to explain—in fact, I want to explain, I want you to get very clear, what I’m doing here. Shall we go in and sit down?”

“Who wants to know?”

For some reason, it infuriated me, on top of everything else, that this jerk should be inviting us into the sitting room, as though he owned the joint. I said, “This is our house, and we do the inviting around here!”

“Not when I hold the gun.”

H
E STEPPED BEHIND ME,
slapped my pockets, and then repeated that we should “go in and sit down.” Sonya and I, walking beside each other, led the way to the living room, with him behind us, holding the gun. He said, “Okay, Gramie, I’ll take this sofa, and you and Sonya can sit on the other, but”—pointing to the cocktail table between the two sofas—“will you move this table out, so there’s nothing in between? So I can look up Sonya’s legs and see what she’s got?” I told him to watch his language, and he told me do as he said, but with a sudden, half hysterical note in his voice that betrayed the state he was in. I moved the table a few feet, and he said: “That’s good. Now sit down.” I sat and he turned to Sonya. “Okay,” he said, “take ’em off.”

“...Take what off?”

“Drawers. Panty hose. Whatever they are.”

“And suppose I don’t?”

“Then I will. But I might do it kind of rough.”

He lifted her skirt as though to show her, but she slapped his hand away. “Keep your hands off me!” she snapped. “How many times do I have to tell you? You stink. You smell like feet that haven’t been washed—or more like a dead rat, maybe.”

“I never smelled feet that haven’t been washed—my friends all wash their feet, and I’ve never even
seen
a dead rat, let alone smelled one—I hope you tell me some day where you were raised, Sonya, that you know so much about it, how feet and dead rats smell. But just right now, skip it! Quit stalling! Take ’em off, I said!”

She stepped out of her shoes, and with him still pawing at her, slipped off her panty hose. She dropped them on the table, stooped, and put her shoes on again. He said: “Sit down!”

She sat.

He sat, and slouched over to peep.

“Open your legs.”

She opened her legs.

He stared, his lips slimy wet. Then, though it cost him an effort, taking his eyes off her, he started to talk. “So what do I want? Like I said, two or three things, but let’s take them one at a time. But before I get to them, there’s something I want you to know: I heard what you said to Gramie, that he shouldn’t open that door—but don’t hold it against him, that he did what you told him not to. It wouldn’t have been any different—I have a key, and would have come in, irregardless. That’s the first thing I want to make clear: I’m playing it back just as you played it at me, key and all—I got mine from your cleaning woman, with the same song-and-dance, pretending I wanted a date, like you pretended to me, that day when you staked me out, broke up my marriage, and cut me out of my land, that I was due to inherit—”

“After you knocked her off.”

“Knocked who off?”

“Your wife, who do you think?”

“My, my, my, the way you talk! Well, speaking of knocking off, that brings up the subject of Gramie.”

“In what way, the subject of Gramie?”

“I’m playing it back at him, just as he played it to me, that day when he hit me, sneaked a punch when I wasn’t looking—and kicked me, when I was down. I’ll do the same, except perhaps harder.”

“And then what?”

“Hey, not so fast. Other stuff comes first!”

“Come on, spit it out! What are you up to?”

“Before I attend to him, there’s what I do to you—with him looking on. Last time we had two, this time only one—but he’s your husband, and so it equalizes.”

“And then what?”

“I attend to
him,
with
you
looking on.”

“And then what?”

“Well Sonya, that would be up to you.”

“Come on, jerk, say what you mean!”

“I did say it,
it would be up to you!
My mother’s hellbent for history, says I’m a cut-rate Casanova, or something, so I’ll spout some history too. You can be Mary, Queen of Scots—who held still for her husband’s murder, and lived happily ever afterward.”

“Until they chopped off her head.”

“Well anyway, she lived, at least for a while.”

“You think I’d hold still for Gramie’s murder?”

“Well if you don’t, dead wives tell no tales.”

“And you think your mother’ll hold still?”

To that he made no answer, being caught by surprise. She jumped up and tore in, half screaming: “You think she won’t guess who killed her favorite child, her first-born, the apple of her eye? You think she won’t know who the black man was, that she won’t see inny connection between him and that Japanese mask, or the Afro wig that you had? You think she’s not going to use it, the clout she has in this county? The political stuff she can pull? Burl, she hates your guts, and you’re looking hell in the face right now, if you have the sense to know it! You...”

“Shut up! Take off your clothes!”

“Let’s see you take ’em off me!”

He began answering what she’d said, about Mother, by reciting his alibi, the one he had fixed up, down at the Bijou Theatre, where he’d dated up the cashier, after the early show, where “I’m inside at this very minute, as nobody saw me go out, through the fire door at the side, or will see me go back in—” and more of the same, all the while facing her, as they stood almost belly to belly, there in front of me, in between the sofas. But there was something he forgot, which was what she really was, a teenage brat who kicked, as she often did me. So she kicked him right now, so fast you could hardly see it, but not in the stomach, her usual place, but in a much tenderer spot, so he jackknifed. I jacked-in-the-boxed, jumping up as though on springs, grabbing the gun, twisting it out of his hand. Suddenly it was a whole new ballgame.