The Same Stuff as Stars (20 page)

“All she's got is her Social Security, Daddy. You can't take that.”

“Hell, she owes me a lot more than that for all the crap I took off her.”

Angel couldn't move. He wanted her to steal from Grandma.

“Go on, baby, we ain't got much time.”

She left, pulling the door shut behind her, but instead of going into the kitchen door, she turned, making a wide circle toward the back fence, and then ran like the devil was at her heels to the trailer. The star man's car was still missing, but maybe—yes, the door wasn't locked. People didn't seem to bother locking doors out here in the country, though they ought to—you didn't know who might turn up. She flopped down on a couch under the window and sat there panting until she got her breath under control. Then she waited.

Finally, she heard the sound of a car coughing up the dirt road and saw the lights as they swept left into Grandma's driveway. Wayne came out of the sugar shack. She couldn't hear what he was saying to the driver, but by the moon's light she could see him beside the driver-side window, his head bobbing up and down in agitation and then swiveling toward the house as if looking for someone. At one point he picked up some gravel out of the driveway and flung it at one of the upstairs windows.
That's the wrong window, Daddy. That's Verna's room.
At last he walked around and got into the passenger seat and slammed the door and the car drove off. He never even looked in the direction of the trailer. As the car backed down to the road, she could just make out the shape of her suitcase standing by itself in the middle of the driveway, where Wayne had left it.

When the sound of the motor died away, she sat, like somebody frozen. He had come to get her, and she'd run away from him. Little Miss Obey All the Rules. That's what happened to people who always obeyed. Life went whizzing by, and they just sat there cold and lonely like the ice in the South Pole. She didn't have any tears. A real daughter would have cried for her daddy, who was leaving her and running away to Florida and probably ruining his life.

It was almost morning before she made herself get up from the couch to go to her own bed. The star man's things were all around her—his books, his telescope, even the smell of him. Where had he run to? She would have gone with him if he had asked her to. No, how could she have thought that she could leave Grandma? Someone had to be her Polaris.

***

She crept back into the house, but she couldn't sleep. Her brain was like a little car on a giant amusement park ride, going up and down and round and round, upside down and flinging her from one side to the other, making her want to vomit. She would have screeched out loud if she hadn't been afraid that Grandma would hear.

The next day she got through school, grateful that the numbness was back in charge of her brain. She spoke to no one at school. She didn't even stop to see Miss Liza when she went to the store. She hardly spoke to Grandma that evening. They ate a silent supper, and when the phone shrilled, they both jumped in their seats. They sat transfixed, listening to the phone scream, watching it vibrating on the wall.

“Well,” Grandma said after the seventh ring, “you'd better get it. It might be Bernie.”

Angel forced herself up from the chair, walked to the phone, and lifted the receiver, not daring to hope it was Bernie, and praying it wasn't the police or social services. It was a stranger, asking for Mrs. Morgan. Female strangers meant social services.

“They want you.” Angel turned to Grandma, breathing hard.

“If they're selling, I ain't buying.”

“Mrs. Morgan can't come to the phone right now,” Angel said in her Verna voice. “Can I take a message?”

“This is the Central Vermont Hospital,” the voice said. Oh,
God, not Bernie.
“We have a Ray Morgan here as a patient. He wanted Mrs. Morgan to be informed of his impending operation.”

“Who'd you say was having an operation?”

“What'd she say?” Grandma was on her feet. “Lemme talk.” She came and took the phone out of Angel's hand. “This is Miz Morgan,” she said. “What's going on?”

There was nothing for Angel to do but wait. At first, she could only feel relief that the call was neither about Bernie nor the police asking after Wayne. It wasn't even Welfare on her tail. It took several minutes before dread like icy fingers began to claw at her. Who was in the hospital? Ray Morgan was dead. Grandma had said so.

Grandma wasn't saying much, mostly nodding, as though to show the caller she understood. She was obviously getting a lengthy explanation, at the end of which, she said, “How 'bout doing that once more in English?” Another explanation. “Oh. Oh. Yeah. Okay. No, I guess not. Okay. Yeah.” After which she hung up. When she turned away from the phone, her eyes were wide, like an animal caught in the headlights of an onrushing car.

“He's gonna die,” she said. “I just know it.”

“Who? Who's going to die?” Angel could hardly breathe.

Grandma made her way back to the rocker like a person in great pain. “Santy Claus,” she said and began to rock, her eyes and face still paralyzed.

 

 

NINETEEN

Grandma, there's no such thing as Santa Claus.” She could feel a chill spreading to her stomach as she said it.

The old woman looked up at her with eyes as sad as a little child's. “Well, I guess you ought to know.”

“Still, someone has been helping you out all these years. Was that Ray—your son Ray?”
The star man?

“I ain't got no sons nor grandsons nor great-grandsons neither.”

“The woman from the hospital said Ray Morgan.”

“And just what does she know about anything?”

“The man who's in the hospital told her he was your son Ray. She was just passing his message along.”

“My Ray died a long time ago. He went to the army and died in that there Vietnam. He never come back to me.” She closed her eyes and began to rock. “The government took away my baby boy, and he never come back.”

She didn't want to ask, didn't even want to know, but she had to. “Then who—who's living in your trailer?”

“What do you know about somebody living in the trailer?”

“Me and Bernie were looking around the property, and we peeked in the window. Somebody lives in there.”

“You got no right to go poking your nose in places that ain't none of your beeswax.”

“I know. But I did it anyhow.”

“You ain't seen nobody around, have you?”

“Well, the first night we were here, Bernie thought he saw a man down in the yard with a gun.”

“You
ain't seen nobody then?”

She wanted to lie. She didn't want the star man to be Grandma's strange, not quite alive, son.

“I asked you, Did you see anybody around?”

“Well, somebody kept bringing us groceries. And I knew it couldn't be Santa Claus like you said.”

“I'm a crazy old woman, Angel.”

“No, you're not! And I'm not going to let you use that for an excuse. You don't want me lying to you. Well, I'm sick and tired of you lying to me.” Her voice was high pitched and much louder than she meant for it to be.

“You tell me something first.” The old woman leaned forward, suddenly cagey.

“What?” asked Angel.

“You tell me how come you're all interested in stars?” There was no use lying, but she didn't know how to begin on the truth. So she just stood there, trying to think.

“You seen Ray. I know. There is two people around here who is star-crazy. One is Liza Irwin and the other is Ray Morgan. I know you seen Liza, but I'm thinking you been sneaking out at night to see Ray.”

“How could I see Ray? Ray is dead. You said so yourself.”

“I said
my
Ray was dead. They killed him over there, and the thing that come back was this—this zombie. You know what a zombie is?”

“Like a ghost?”

“Exactly. He wouldn't talk. He couldn't work. He just spooked the hell out of me. He weren't my little boy. I kept throwing him out of the house. He'd come back, promising to get off the drugs. Next thing I knew he was stealing my TV or my Social Security check. I throwed him out again.”

“But you let him live in the trailer.”

“That was later. After he was in jail. He come out, he's sick, and he don't have no place to go. I ain't letting him in
my
house again. Not on your stuffed cabbage. He's not my boy. He's some stranger wearing my boy's face for a Halloween mask. He's over there in the trailer, he ain't on the streets, but I don't have to see him. I don't have to pretend he's somebody I use to care about.”

She wiped her face on her dress skirt, glancing up to see Angel staring down at her. “I'm not crying over Ray. I finished crying over him years ago. I'm crying over all the waste of lives this house has seen. I been here all this time, watching the waste of manhood, but I can't make it stop. I lost my boys, so I thought when that tramp left Wayne to me, I could do it right this time. Well, nobody knows better'n you how I failed there, Lord save us.” She tore at the side of her dress like she wanted to rip it. “Then I thought maybe with Bernie—You was so good with the boy. I thought maybe you and me together could put a stop to all these generations of losers, but your mama took care of that, didn't she?” She sighed deeply. “I just pray to God I don't live long enough to see that boy go to jail. That's all I ask. To die before that happens. I can't stand no more failure, Angel. I just can't.”

“You didn't fail with Ray, Grandma.”

“The hell I didn't.”

“No, you didn't. You're right. I
have
seen him. I've seen him lots of times. On clear nights I go out, and he teaches me about the stars. At first I was so dumb, I couldn't see anything, but he's so patient, he just tells me over and over. His heart is almost big as the sky, Grandma. Anybody would be proud to have him for a son. Really.” Grandma lifted her face from her apron and stared at Angel as though she was trying to suck the light out of Angel's eyes. “You ain't lying to me. You think he's a good man, don't you?”

“I know he is, Grandma. I ought to know. Where I've had to live there are plenty of bad ones. He's a really good man, and he wants to see you.” Angel went over to the old woman's chair and knelt beside her. “Children need their mamas, Grandma. Doesn't matter how old they are.”

“Hmmph.”

Angel stood up. “Well, I'm going to call Miss Liza in the morning and see if she can find somebody to give me a ride to the hospital. I'm going to visit him even if you won't.”

“You and your danged Miss Liza! She was always so smart and good. Everybody loved Liza Irwin, even when we was kids. Then Ray—who did he go running to ever time he was hurting? Not to me, his own mama. No. It was his precious Miss Liza, who comes telling me I got to let him live in the trailer. Well, I let him, didn't I?”

“Grandma, it's okay. Really. He called you. He wants to see you. I know he loves you.”

“Go to bed. You got no business being up so late.”

“Okay. But you think about what I said, all right?”

In reply, Grandma just sniffed.

Angel went on to bed. She lay there reviewing the last crazy days. The star man missing. Wayne showing up. Her almost going missing, too. The star man...No, she wouldn't think of him dying. He was just going to have an operation. Nor would she think of Wayne being tracked down and heading back to jail.

***

Miss Liza called her great-nephew Eric, and the two of them appeared at about eleven the next morning. Angel had been ready since she called the librarian at nine. Grandma was still in her bathrobe.

“You coming, Grandma?” Angel asked when she heard the car drive up.

“I don't like Liza Irwin. Never have.”

“This doesn't have anything to do with you and Miss Liza. This is about you and Ray.”

“I don't feel so good.”

There was no use begging or arguing. Angel grabbed her jacket and went out to where the old Buick waited. Miss Liza, her head almost on her lap, was in the passenger seat, so Angel got in the back. Miss Liza twisted her head to speak to her. “Is Erma coming?”

“She says she doesn't feel well.”

“Oh.”

The ride into Barre was mostly a silent one. Occasionally, Miss Liza's great-nephew—he looked to be about twenty-five, though Angel had no real way of judging the age of a grownup—said something quietly to Miss Liza, who answered in a few also quiet words. She was thinking, Angel could tell, but what she was thinking Angel had no way of knowing.

She stared out the window at the bleak late-autumn landscape....Today was Halloween. It fit somehow with all the craziness of her life—all the ghosts, all the goblins. The trees had long since dropped their leaves, which lay brown and soggy in the ditches and across the road. The same bored cows grazed the fields. Angel wondered if they remembered her—how she and Bernie had stuck out their tongues and laughed. Probably not. Cows wouldn't care as long as they had grass to eat. They weren't like people, with feelings of lonesomeness and worrying about what might happen next. That was just people, wasn't it? Sure, you could scare a cow, but wouldn't they get over it as soon as you let them be? They didn't stand around fretting about the next scare and the next and the next.

She wondered for the millionth time where Bernie was and if he was scared. Was Verna taking good care of him, feeding him right, and making sure he was safe and happy? If only she could count on Verna to do it right....And Wayne. Had she done the right thing, letting him go? Would she ever know what the right thing was? Well, Grandma wasn't doing the right thing, either, but at least Grandma knew she was messing up.