Carry Me Home (74 page)

“Yeah?” Tony.

“Yeah. We built that sucker ... in sixty-six. Or ... Fuck! I don’t remember.”

“Yeah.” Pisano, quiet, helpless, resigned. “Hey Ty?”

“Huh.”

“Wapinski says we should go up there for Christmas. House-sit while he en his old lady go to Pennsy.”

“Fuck the Captain, Man. He jus gonna throw our shit out when he come back.”

“Roof’s gettin old, Man. He said he’d come pick us up.”

“Shee-it, Man. Then what? What if somebody take our squat, Man? Roof aint so bad. You stop playin Superman to every who-ah runnin from her pimp, you live easier.”

“T-n-T, Man. I thought you was wasted.”

“T-n-T, Bro.” They tapped knuckles, catchers in the rye.

December 18, on the road from San Jose to San Martin—“Hey!” Bobby said. He was at a loss for words. The distance between him and Ty and Tony had grown to a chasm. “It’s good to see you guys.”

“Long as you know it ain’t me,” Ty said.

“Um.” Bobby said.

“An nobody know I’m there.”

“Yeah. I understand. I didn’t know about the fraud charges until Tony told me.”

“They fucked me, Man. They saw a black livin in their neighborhood, they set him up. I didn’t fraud nobody. Not one sucka woulda lost one dime if they hadn’t set me up.”

“Um.” Bobby pursed his lips. Then he said, “So, it’s Tyler Mohammed now. No more Dorsey. No more Blackwell.”

“No more whitey names,” Ty answered.

They fell silent. Bobby didn’t know how to deal with him, and he was concerned with what Sara would think. Ty and Tony did not look dirty, but they were shabby. And they smelled. They had showered in a men’s shelter the night before but months on the roof or in the shelter had left a residue. Still, it was not the visual or the olfactory but the anger that disturbed Bobby. Tony seemed happy, almost manic. He’d had a string of questions about Grandpa Wapinski’s health, was disturbed when Bobby told him that Pewel had been readmitted to St. Luke’s for constipation, dehydration and alkalosis; and relieved that it had only been a five-day stay in which the doctors had changed Pewel’s diuretic.

“My true name”—Ty began unsolicited—“is Tyrone Dorsey Blackwell. My true name is Tyrone Blackwell Wallace. My brothers are Phillip and Randall Dorsey Simpson, and James Dorsey Wallace, and my sister is Shreva Wallace.”

“Wow!” Tony said. “You got a sister, huh?”

“I got a baby, too. Jessica.”

“You shittin me, Man,” Tony said.

“You stay in touch?” Bobby asked.

“No Sir. When you got no name, no address, you don’t stay in touch with no one.” There was a lag. Then Ty said, “They call us T-n-T in San Jose, cause Tony always blowin up and I’m always coverin his ass.”

“Ha!” Tony slapped Ty’s hand.

“But I ...” Ty was hesitant. “I shouldn’t be comin back here. They see Blackwell, they see Dorsey ...”

“It’ll be cool, Man,” Tony said. “They’re only going to see Ty Mohammed.”

“Shit! They ain’t gonna see nobody. I ... I don’t even know who I am.”

Bobby slowed for the tollgate before the Golden Gate Bridge. “So”—he snapped out—“who the fuck do you think you are?”

“I don’t
fuckin
know, Man.”

“Maybe you’re all of em,” Bobby said. Ty did not respond. Bobby continued. “Ty, you remember when you stayed with me on Deepwoods?”

“I remember, Cap’n. I remember thinkin I was goina get me a piece a the pie. Just like you.”

“Man, I’ve wanted to tell you this ever since then.”

“What?”

“When you drove away that last time. You remember, I’d come home from an appointment or something. You’d been watching TV the night before. And drinking and you’d left your boots in the middle of the room. That morning I stuck em in the garbage and went to work. When I came back you’d packed and were clearing out. I was angry. I don’t remember why. Maybe at Red. But I didn’t open my mouth. What I should have said then, about the boots, was not that it meant clear out but it meant pick em up and put em away. That’s what my mother used to do. Stick our stuff in the trash if she found something lying around. Damn it, Man. I didn’t mean for you to split. That’s been bothering me for three years.”

“Yeah?!” Ty stared at Wapinski.

“Yeah.”

“No shit?”

“I shit you not, my main man.”

“Thanks, Captain. Thanks, Bob.”

R
ETURNING WAS SCARY. FOR
Ty to San Martin, for Bobby to Mill Creek Falls. He had not told his grandfather or anyone else back East about being fired, about going it on his own. And he had not told Sara that the County of San Martin had challenged his unemployment claim, that the checks they’d been counting on would not arrive. To save money Bobby had reverted to eating nothing but raw rice bits during the day while Sara was at school. He’d been losing weight again, worrying over every dime, hiding his worry from Sara who was frugal anyway, afraid if she knew their true financial picture she too might skimp, and pregnant, he did not want her to skimp, or to worry.

As they drove in from Williamsport, Bobby said, “I hope you like it. It’s not much. The house is pretty ratty and the farm’s been deteriorating for years.”

“Tony made it sound like the Garden of Eden,” Sara said. “And you know how I like hills. If you’d been a flatlander I don’t think I would have fallen for you.”

“Well, you’re lucky you did, lady.” Bobby chuckled, kept his eyes on the road, tried to keep it light.

“And why’s that?” Sara baited him.

“Cause you’re knocked up and you wouldn’ta wanted ta be seein Granpa lookin like that and not bein married.”

Then their first morning together at High Meadow and Sara’s introduction to the farm. It was cold, windy. The leaves were down, the trees gangly gray stalks in a gray sky. The ground was brown, dead, hard. Ice skimmed the pond except above the subterranean fracture where water from an artesian spring stirred the surface. “It was a great place to grow up,” Bobby said. They had descended to the pond, were slowly climbing to the apple orchard. Bobby held Sara’s arm, trying to steady her. “A great place to be a little boy.”

“I can do it.” Sara shook her arm free. “It’d be a great place for a little girl, too,” she added. They climbed on, entered the open-roofed orchard. Sara’s breath smoked before her face in small puffs. She blew a stream into a puff and watched the puff and stream dissolve into the dryness.

“Sometimes,” Bobby said, “in San Martin, I get the feeling God’s bored with what’s happening on earth and pretty soon he’s going to say, ‘That’s all folks,’ and that’s going to be it.”

“Maybe He said that a long time ago,” Sara said. She started walking again, climbing the south knoll toward its rounded peak. “What are those funny little birds? See them?”

“Oh. Ah, that’s either a nuthatch or a tufted titmouse. Or a junco.”

“Don’t ... you lived here all that time and you don’t know their names?”

“Oh”—Bobby turned to the birds—“I know their names. That’s Chuck. And that’s Diana.”

Over the next few days Bobby showed Sara the barn and Grandpa’s office and several of the old farmer’s designs; he brought her to the family cemetery where Grandma Wapinski and Aunt Krystyna were buried; together they explored the new fields and strawberry beds Tony had begun and the Sugar Shack with its new-fangled dumping and filter system. They climbed the back trail, pregnant as Sara was, cold as it was, past the old cabin and up the high ridge to the resplendent sugarbush and finally to the edge of the gap where Bobby told Sara about the far side, the Indian trail, the cathedral of virgin eastern hemlocks.

“Someday,” she whispered.

He smiled and they held each other and watched a male and a female cardinal rise from the gap and flit into the maple crowns from where their repeated shrills shook the entire sugarbush. Bobby engaged them with his own whistle—three beats, then four, then five—and the birds answered him in kind, then went back to their tiff. “Clarence and Anita,” he whispered to Sara.

On the twenty-second of December Sara met Linda Pisano. They hit it off immediately. Yet there was a distance between them Sara could not understand until Linda began to talk about Tony: “When he’s here, now, it’s like living with a total stranger.” The next day Sara met John Pisano, Sr. and Jo, who had come to High Meadow to bring Pewel a present: wool socks and insulated deerskin mittens because his feet and hands were now always cold. They were elated to meet Sara and to see that Bobby had “settled down.” And then the tension again: “Tony’s house-sitting for us right now,” Sara said.

“If he wasn’t my son ...” John Sr. began, the zest gone from his voice. “What he’s done to Linda. You’ve met her. She’s a beautiful girl. And our granddaughters ...”

Bobby interrupted. “He passed through the gates of hell, Mr. Pisano,” Bobby said. He did not know from where within him these words came. “He defeated death, but it—”

“Then,” Jo said sadly, “he should rejoice in life.”

“Him!” John Sr. scoffed. “He’s a death maker. Going to make the death of me.” He stood, turned away. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

“I’m very fond of him,” Sara said simply.

That startled John Sr.; and Jo answered, “So are we.”

They had Christmas Eve dinner at High Meadow. Miriam and Doug were there; and Brian and Cheryl (who was pregnant again) with their son Anton, almost three and a half. Joanne came alone. And there was Linda, Gina and Michelle, and Linda’s sister Cindy, now 19, and Tony’s brother Mark, 20, and with them the youngest Balliett, Henry Jr., just shy of 13. And, of course, Grandpa.

In the kitchen, before dinner was served, Linda and Sara were putting the final touches on the meal while Joanne puttered and Miriam sipped a glass of wine.

Bobby entered. “What can I do?” he asked.

“Are all the chairs in?” Linda asked.

“Yep. And the table’s all set.”

“Did you get the serving spoons and forks?” Sara asked.

“Yes. Everything’s set.”

“Then would you take the turkey out and carve it. You know how to do it where you open it up like petals?”

“Yep,” Bobby said. “Okay. I’m off.”

“Well,” Linda laughed. “Looks like you’ve got him pretty well trained.”

Sara laughed too, but Joanne sneered, said, “You wait. Wait until after the baby comes.”

“I can hardly wait,” Sara said. “With Bobby ... I mean, there’s never been a question about what we want from our marriage. We ... ah, we’re two of a kind.”

“Yeah, right.” Joanne stirred the soup.

Bobby reentered. He stood behind his sister, looked over her shoulder. “That’s ready for the tureen, isn’t it?”

Joanne nudged him back. Bobby startled. Joanne quipped something about control and he wanting to keep Sara barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.

“Hey in there,” Brian called. “Let’s eat. I’m starving.”

The room was dark except for a single candle that Linda held in the hall to the kitchen. “Dear Lord,” Grandpa began, “please bless us and watch over us. On that first Christmas Eve the angels said, ‘Peace on earth to men of goodwill.’” At that Linda entered and with her candle, lit the three candles on the table and inserted the one she held into the fourth holder. Grandpa smiled. He and Linda had planned the meal and he’d so liked Sara and Bobby’s wedding rite that he asked Linda to get the candles. “Did you all hear that?” He said gruffly. “Peace to men
of
goodwill.”

Joanne spoke up. “They probably said ‘to people of goodwill.’”

Grandpa chuckled. “I’m certain they did. I’m certain they used a word that meant all people, and all creatures too, but the monsignors and prelates couldn’t translate it exactly and they skimped here and there.”

“On purpose, Grandpa,” Joanne said. “They were all men. They translated it that way to preserve their power base.”

“Oh, come on, Joanne,” Brian said. “This is grace. Let Grandpa finish so we can eat.”

“It’s okay,” Pewel said. “She’s absolutely right. ‘Peace to beings of goodwill.’ I want to ask you, each of you, to say something nice, to everyone here. That peace will be your present to me.”

“Now?!” Miriam said from the opposite end.

“Yes.” Pewel smiled. “Even you, Miriam, who looks prettier every year.” She was speechless. “But I want to start with my darling, Gina.”

Gina was prepared. Her eyes glittered impishly. “You make me happy,” she said.

And Michelle squeaked, “Me too. For no reason any all.”

Pewel leaned forward. “Why, thank you,” he said.

Around the table the “grace” was said with Doug saying to Bobby, “You oughtta come over to the new KC plant. I’ll show er to ya. She’s a real beaut”; and Bobby saying to everyone (and holding Michelle’s small hand in his), “I feel happy for no reason any all, too. When I’m here, even in winter, I see the muskrats swimming across the pond and the moths with their intricate wing camouflage and the wildflowers of June and the bats of August nights catching insects up against the windows. I feel euphoric. I want you to feel that way too.”

Some of the good cheer would last forever. Some was transient. And amid the chatter of Christmas Eve dinner, 1974, the first formal wording of The Code was begun. “And now,” Pewel said, “I want to give you my gift. Before I am human,” he said, “I am an element of the earth, a particle of the universe, and to this I owe integrity. I am a living being and to all life, next, goes my allegiance. I am a human before I am an American. To the brotherhood of man I owe my energy and my spirit.”

“You’re getting sexist again, Grandpa.”

“Thank you, Joanne. If I didn’t have you here to guide me, I’d err.”

“How about,” Sara said, “I am a human before I am a man or a woman, before I am an American. To humanity, as part of the earth and universe, I next devote my energy and spirit.”

“Boys”—Pewel chuckled—“the girls are refining me. Aren’t you going to help?”

Sara, leaning back, around Pewel, said happily to Bobby, “I see where you get it from.”

Around and around. Pewel went on, “When your self needs minimum maintenance, you can expand beyond your self and take care of others. Expanding beyond the self is also less wearing on the self and thus requires less maintenance of the self. In this way one is opened to teach or to cure; to create, to explore, to investigate; to love, to rear children, and to defend those who cannot defend themselves.”