Two-Thousand-Pound Goldfish (9 page)

“Warren.” Aunt Pepper was pulling at his pants now. “Sit down.”

He reached out, and clutched Aunt Pepper’s hand. He squeezed it hard. He said, “It’s her,” beneath his breath.

“Who?”

“It’s—”

He did not finish because the figure turned around then, and it was not his mother. It was a man with a red beard. He was holding a shovel. Warren realized it was a workman who was waiting in the trees for the funeral to end so he could come over and shovel the earth back into the hole.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

He sank back into his chair. He bowed his head, not knowing if the others were still praying or not. Tears filled his eyes, and he began to bite the insides of his cheeks so he wouldn’t cry. Just once, he thought as he bit harder, just once he would like to cry for the right reasons.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” the minister was saying.

The sounds of his own sobs surprised Warren. He had burst out crying the way volcanoes erupt. He could feel people looking at him in quick sympathy. He tried to close his mouth, to choke back the sobs, but they only burst forth louder. He could barely hear the words of the minister now.

“—watch over you and keep you and bring you peace. Amen.”

“It’s over, hon.”

Warren was the first person to get to his feet. He rose so quickly that his folding chair tipped over backward and snapped shut over the artificial grass that covered the mound of dirt. He bent to pick it up.

“Honey, everything’s going to be all right,” Aunt Pepper took him by the shoulders and turned him around to face her. “You’ve got me. I’m going to move in with you and Weezie, and we’re going to fix up the apartment. This isn’t the end of the world. Don’t cry. Please.”

“I can’t help it.” He swallowed, straightened and then bowed his head as one final burst of sobs came out. “I’m sorry. I can’t help it. It’s just that …” He did not finish. He could not tell. He wept into his hands.

The minister put one arm around his shoulder. “Come and see me if you want to talk, son.”

“I will.”

Warren was the center of attention now. Everyone was stepping forward to comfort him. Ginger and Pepper had their arms around him. The old fingers of his grandmother’s gin rummy club tapped him on the head.

He tried to twist away. It was like a scene in one of those old monster movies, he thought, and the monster is trying to get away from the peasants, to get back to his hiding place. The monster twists, turns, struggles and finally is caught and carried to a laboratory cage. The scientists peer at him through the bars.

“It looks human, Professor, but underneath that human exterior, there is something not quite …”

“Not quite what? Human, perhaps?”

“Exactly.”

Yes, exactly, Warren thought. And with his head bowed he followed his aunts and sister down the path to the waiting cars.

“There’s nothing that can stop the monster now. His growth cells have gone wild!”

T
HE NEIGHBORHOOD DOG PACK
of two was making its way down the sidewalk. The yellow dog had a bread wrapper in his mouth, and the spotted one was rubbing against him, trying to dislodge the package and get one of the pieces of green bread inside.

The only person in sight at the moment was Weezie. Warren was hiding in a doorway. He was following his sister, slipping after her like a spy, hiding in shadows, dodging behind buildings.

After supper Weezie had said, “I’m going out,” and when the door closed behind her, Warren was on his feet instantly, pulling on his own jacket.

“Me too,” he called to Aunt Pepper. She was in his grandmother’s room, painting the walls white. The room seemed large without his grandmother’s clutter. Her combs and brushes, her collection of perfume bottles, her china señorita doll with the lace mantilla, her pillows, her plastic-flower arrangements were all packed away. Only her coat hangers clicked together in the empty closet.

It was the first Monday of the month, and all of them knew Weezie was going to the pay telephone in front of the library to wait for a call from their mother.

“Good luck,” Pepper called as the door closed.

“Right.”

Now Warren peered around the doorway of the dry cleaner’s. When he saw that Weezie had turned the corner, he ran to the store on the corner and stopped. He peered around the dingy window.

Weezie was standing there, hands on her hips, waiting for him. “Why are you playing this ridiculous game?”

His mouth dropped open. “What?”

“Why are you pretending that I don’t know you’re back there? You’re about as subtle as a freight train, you know that? I can hear you running and then stopping. When you were hiding behind the mailbox I could hear you breathing.”

“I didn’t want you to try to make me go home. I’ve got as much right to talk to Mom as you have.”

“I wasn’t going to make you go home. I should have brought you a long time ago. You’ve built up too many dreams around Mom.”

He felt the urge to protest rising inside him the way it always did when Weezie accused him of idolizing their mother. This time he swallowed it down and said, “I know.”

“So come on. We’ll miss the call if we’re not there right at seven.
If
there is a call. Sometimes it doesn’t happen, you know. I stood in that phone booth in a snowstorm for two hours last January.”

“Why didn’t you just leave after fifteen minutes? That’s what I’d do.”

“Because I thought, well, maybe she is on the coast, in another time zone, and she’s forgotten, so she’ll call at seven
her
time and that will be—oh, never mind. Anyway, phone booths are colder than refrigerators; believe me. I know.”

Warren walked along beside his sister, feeling a strong bond with her. For the first time he found he was matching her long strides, keeping up with her. This was probably why soldiers kept in step—so they would feel unified.

“You better plan what you’re going to say, though,” Weezie said, interrupting his thoughts. “Sometimes Mom only has enough money for three minutes.”

“Oh.” Warren had not thought of this. He stumbled over a crack in the sidewalk. “What are you planning to say?”

“Well, first I’m going to tell her about Grandma.”

“Good.” Warren did not want “Grandma’s dead,” to be the first words he spoke to his mother in three years. “I’ll go last.”

“All right.”

As he walked, he imagined Weezie saying, “Mom, Warren’s here. He wants to talk now.” He imagined taking the cold receiver in his warm hand—his palms were already getting sweaty—and leaning close. “Mom?”

That was as far as his imagination took him. What would he say then? he wondered. What could he say that would be interesting?

His thoughts raced through the last three years of his life: a broken tooth—he ran his tongue over it—almost getting run over by a school bus, his friend Larry moving to Chicago—she didn’t even know he had had a friend named Larry—getting that miraculous A+ on an English test.

He shook his head. These were things you told your mother every day when you got home from school, things you told at the kitchen table while you were having cookies and milk. Tonight he had to tell his mother something so interesting, so fascinating she would not want to hang up even when the call was over.

His main interest, of course, was his movies, but that would not do. He would need at least a half hour to do justice to one of those.

And then, right in the best part—something like “There’s nothing that can stop the monster now. His growth cells have gone wild!”—right in the middle of something like that, she would say, “Well, I have to hang up now. Bye-bye.” Click.

“What sort of things do you usually say?” he asked carefully, looking up at his sister.

“Oh, I tell things about me, about the family. Sometimes she asks questions. Sometimes I do. There’s never enough time, though.”

“Oh.”

They rounded the corner and there was the library. In front, the phone booth was lit up. It was the only thing Warren saw. It dominated all the important buildings. Indeed, the buildings did not even seem real, a painted backdrop.

Suddenly Warren cried, “Weezie there’s somebody inside.” He ran forward a few steps. “Look, somebody’s in the booth talking!” His voice broke with disappointment and frustration. He turned to his sister.

“We’ve still got”—she looked at her watch calmly—“three minutes. If he’s not out by then, I’ll declare an emergency.”

Warren had begun to wring his hands. They were so slick with sweat that it was as if he were washing them with soap.

“Weezie!”

“Look, don’t worry about it. It’s not the first time I’ve had to evict somebody. One time I stopped a lady in the middle of giving a recipe.”

“But what if he won’t—what if you can’t—”

“I’ll get him out.”

Suddenly it seemed to him that Weezie was the strong one, the Wonder Woman, the person who could save the world. At any rate, he knew she would save this moment, and that was all that really mattered.

He looked up at his sister. He was dazzled by the glowing picture of her yanking the man out of the booth as the library clock struck seven, tossing him across the street, stepping in just as the phone began to ring, saying coolly, “Hello.”

Warren had always thought a person had to do big, overblown things to be great. And yet this—Weezie getting a man out of a phone booth so they could talk to their mother—this was the most heroic feat he could imagine.

They walked together to the phone booth and stood outside the door. Inside, the man was saying, “Let me explain, Marsha, I can explain it if you’ll just give me a chance.”

“What time is it now?” Warren asked, shifting nervously from one foot to the other.

Weezie looked down at her watch and held up two fingers. Warren waited without speaking. With her eyes on her wristwatch Weezie waited, then she held up one finger.

“Get him out,” Warren said.

She nodded and knocked on the door of the booth. The door rattled loudly, and the man glanced over his shoulder in irritation.

“We have to use the phone. I’m sorry. It’s an emergency,” Weezie said. She sounded like a policewoman, Warren thought proudly.

“What? This is a public phone. I’m in the middle of a conversation.”

“I’m sorry. Are you aware of the penalty for refusing to give up the phone in case of an emergency call?” She paused, added, “Two hundred dollars or thirty days in jail.”

“What?”

Weezie did not answer. The man glanced at the phone in his hand, up at Weezie’s stern face—she was taller than he. “All right, lady!” He said quickly, “I’ll call you right back,” just as Weezie took the phone from him and hung it up.

“We won’t be long,” she said.

“Well, how long? I’ve got other calls to make. I’ve got to—”

“Three minutes.”

The man moved outside and sat on the library steps, watching them. He glanced down at his own watch.

Weezie let out her breath in a long sigh of relief and stepped into the phone booth. She waited with her head lifted, her hands resting on the ledge just below the phone. In the open door Warren watched her, knowing she had stood like this so often it was a ritual, like something a person does in church.

“I thought this was an emergency,” the man called from the steps. “Aren’t you going to make your call? There’s probably a penalty for pretending to have an emergency when you—”

Weezie lifted one hand to shut him up.

It was then that the phone rang. Warren reached out and gripped the sides of the booth for support. Weezie waited for the second ring. Then she lifted the receiver.

“This is Weezie.”

Warren watched. He saw Weezie’s face relax. “Hello, Mom.” She turned to Warren and included him in the moment. “It’s her,” she said.

“Folks, I’ve called you together because our town has a little problem.”

“I wouldn’t call being buried under a thousand feet of leaves a little problem.”

W
ARREN WAS BREATHING THROUGH
his open mouth, and his throat was getting so dry he didn’t think he would be able to speak when his turn came.

He shifted uneasily. His brow wrinkled with a troubling thought.
If
his turn came.

“Well, Grandma had a stroke,” Weezie was saying, “and she was in the hospital about ten days … no, she was conscious, she asked for us, for you.” Weezie had not paused once since she began talking. She was going on as if she had all evening to talk. “No, Ginger didn’t get here while Grandma was in the hospital, but she came for the funeral. She’s still here … no, Pepper’s moving into our apartment. She’s painting Grandma’s room tonight. It feels so funny to see it empty.”

Warren pulled at Weezie’s coat sleeve. She moved her arm away. Her expression was intent. Warren pulled at her sleeve again. Weezie shrugged him off. It was as if she were trying to rid herself of a fly or a mosquito.

“In a minute,” she said irritably. Into the phone she added quickly, “No, nothing’s wrong, Mom. It’s just Warren. He wants to talk when I’m through. Only let me finish about Grandma. She—”

The man on the library steps called, “Three minutes are up,” in a nasty voice.

Warren was gripped by panic. “Weezie!” he cried. His knees had begun to tremble. “Let me have a turn.” He tried to get into the booth with her, but she turned her back and blocked his way.

“Weezie!” He felt Weezie had gone crazy, like one of those hysterical people who really intends to give up the gun or the telephone and then loses control and can’t. She needed to have cold water thrown in her face or be slapped, neither of which he could manage.

He reached for the phone. She pulled it out of reach, but not before he got his finger in the cord. “Gimme!” He yanked.

“Warrrrennnnnnn.”

As she turned he dived in, and then they were in the phone booth together. Warren’s head was crammed between the side of the booth and Weezie’s shoulder. “Let me—” he began.

Then he heard a faint voice say, “Weezie, are you there? What’s happening?”

Warren gasped. It was his mother, the first time he had heard her voice in three years. He stopped struggling.