If Morning Ever Comes Page 19

  (How had that got in? That was from another time; that was from years later.)

  A man said, “Feel the calluses on my hand.”

  Ben Joe sat on an unfamiliar porch beside his mother. His mother was very angry. He looked down at the old man, way below him on the ground, reaching his hand to Ben Joe.

  “Feel the calluses,” the old man said. “I’ve worked and worked.”

  “Don’t do it,” his mother said.

  He looked at his mother and then at the old man. He bent down toward the man’s upturned, lined face and then he touched the man’s hand, and quick as a wink the hand gripped his, vice-like, and hauled him off the porch and down to blackness.

  “Mother!” he screamed.

  But his mother’s hand, reaching for him, gripped him harder, yanked him until his shoulder snapped. He was torn from the blackness back toward the porch but too far, and too hard, and now he was in greenness and falling even faster.

  “Wake up,” a voice said.

  He awoke and he was on the glider, only it was the wrong color. In front of him stood his mother, looking out thoughtfully across the lawn with her arms folded. When he opened his eyes the eyelids creaked and groaned and scraped like the heavy tops of old attic trunks, and at the sound his mother turned and glanced down at him.

  “You’ve been dreaming about your father,” she said.

  “I haven’t,” said Ben Joe.

  “Ben Joe, please. Wake up.”

  He opened his eyes for the second time; this time he knew without a doubt that he was really awake. At the foot of his bed stood his mother, with a faded corduroy bathrobe tossed hastily around her. She was bent over a little the way Jenny had been earlier, and she was watching him with kind, worried eyes.

  “What?” he said.

  “You had a bad dream, I guess,” she said. “You screamed ‘Mother!’ I thought—Where’s your pillow?”

  “Oh … on the floor,” said Ben Joe. He watched dazedly as she reached down to pick it up for him.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked. She had stepped closer now, and he could see the deep lines around her mouth and the anxious twisting motion of her hands upon the cord of her bathrobe.

  “I’m all right,” he said. “You go back to bed now. I’ll be fine.”

  “If you’d like for me to sit with you awhile—”

  “No, no. You go back to bed. Please.

  She stayed another minute, looking down at him anxiously, but he made his face smooth and cheerful and eventually she sighed and straightened up again.

  “Well, all right,” she said. “But if there’s anything I can get you, now—”

  “Good night, Mom.”

  “Good night.”

  He thought she would never leave. Finally she turned and went absently to the door, and after looking back at him one more time she was gone. He tried to unstiffen his muscles. His legs were rigid and cold, and he couldn’t relax them for more than a second before they stiffened again. But gradually, as the dream faded piece by piece and image by image from his memory, his body relaxed again. All that was left was a faintly sad feeling because he was afraid he had been rude to his mother. In this house there was only one recognized cure for nightmares; you rushed to the dreamer’s room and offered him Postum and pleasant conversation. Only with Ben Joe that always seemed to make it worse. Probably that was what his mother was telling the others now. He could hear her voice in the hall, murmuring along against a background of other voices, low and questioning. When was night going to end?

  He lay back tensely, and with great determination he began naming all the places he had ever been. Even one-night stays in hotels. He pictured every single place (though the hotels tended to merge into a single dreary prototype) in his mind’s eye, exactly as it would look at this very hour. His New York apartment, with Jeremy curled up like a bear in the pale light from the dirty window. The camp cabin he had slept in when he was ten, with half-finished lanyards dangling from all the nails on the wall. The boat he had stayed on one summer in Maine with his uncle, where the sunlight came to pick up the colors in the Hudson Bay blankets at something like five o’clock in the morning. Only no, it was winter now. He’d forgotten. Maine would be icy and gray with only the bleak Nova Scotia lobster boats moored in the tiny harbor. Maybe not even they would be there; he’d never seen it in the winter.

  He reached back, turned his pillow over to the other side, and let his head fall back into the coolness of it. At the back of his mind the little voice began prodding him, pushing him into the next subject. Shelley. He frowned at the ceiling, turning the idea of Shelley every possible way and trying to think how all this had come about. He pictured himself walking to the train station and meeting Shelley, taking her to New York and surprising the daylights out of Jeremy and the few other friends he had. Writing home and announcing he was married. It sounded to him like one of those wild little what-if thoughts that was always wandering through his head—nothing logical or concrete but only a little tale to pass the time. But when he forced himself to believe it, when he went over all the plain facts of it like actually buying Shelley’s ticket, he began to believe it. He sat up straighter now, tenser than ever. He caught himself in the act of sitting up and tried to lie back down, but his eyes were doing their springing-open act again; it was no use.

  The clock said 6:45. He stood up and stumbled toward the closet, not caring now how much racket he made. From the hangers he pulled down a white shirt and an old pair of slacks and piled himself into them hurriedly. He didn’t want to stay in this room another minute.

  Again the door opened. He heard the creak.

  “What now?” he said, with his back to the door. He threaded his belt through the loops.

  “Ben Joe?” Tessie said.

  “Yes.”

  She padded over in her bare feet to stand beside him. In her too-long bathrobe and rumpled hair, she looked no older than Carol, and so cross and sleepy that Ben Joe felt sorry for her.

  “Ben Joe,” she said, “is it time to get up yet?”

  “I think we could say so.”

  “I’m so glad,” she said.

  She turned around and walked out again. Out in the hallway Gram started singing, just a little more softly than usual, as she came down the stairs from her attic room:

  “If you don’t love me, love whom you please.

  Throw your arms round me, give my heart ease …”

  The shower in the bathroom was turned on. One of the twins opened the door of their bedroom and shouted out, “Susannah, does milk chocolate remind you of Chicago?”

  “Of what?” Susannah said. It sounded as if she were in her closet.

  “ ‘Chicago,’ I said.”

  “I’ve never been to Chicago.”

  “I’ve been thinking about it all night,” said the twin. “Milk chocolate reminds me of Chicago.”

  “You’ve never been to Chicago either.”

  “Well.”

  Someone downstairs started playing the piano. Ben Joe got down on his hands and knees beside his bed and began fishing under it for his shoes with an unstrung tennis racket.

  15

  “Gary,” Ben Joe said. “Hey, Gary. Wake up, will you?”

  He hated to wake people up. His grandmother had told him after breakfast that it wasn’t good for people to sleep late and especially not in the middle of the living room, and that it was his job to see that Gary got up, but Ben Joe had put it off all morning. Now it was almost eleven; he had spent the last half-hour whistling very loudly in other parts of the house and kicking the furniture in the hallway, but Gary was still peacefully asleep with his mouth open.

  “You’re worse than Joanne,” Ben Joe said to the freckled face. “Gary?”

  Gary opened his eyes, opaquely blue, and stared up at Ben Joe. “Hmm?” he said.

  Ben Joe was instantly embarrassed, caugh
t peering at the privacy of a man’s face asleep.

  “Uh, would you like some breakfast?”

  “That wouldn’t be half bad,” Gary said. It was amazing how quickly he came alive. He sat straight up and swung his incredibly long, pajamaed legs off the couch and scratched his head.

  “What time is it?” he asked.

  “About eleven.”

  “Oh, Lord.”

  He reached for the faded blue bathrobe at the foot of the couch and stood up to put it on. “It’s a disgrace,” he said, grinning happily. “I should’ve been up hours ago. What goes on in this house at night? All night long it sounded like mice above my head, just scurrying around as busy as you please. They went to bed so early and I thought it was a peace-loving family. And then I find out they didn’t go to bed at all, seems like, just adjourned upstairs to carry on where they’d left off before, slamming doors and visiting back and forth. Me, I’ve always thought sleep was a wonderful invention. Not that being awake isn’t nice too, of course. But when I get up in the morning I think, boy, only fourteen more hours and I can be back to sleep again. I like to see the covers turned down and waiting and the pillows puffed up so I can hop right in. And I never dream, because it distracts my mind from pure sleeping, so to speak …”

  He was dipping his arms into his robe and tying it and then folding up the bed clothes as he talked, stopping every now and then to gesture widely with one arm. There was something fascinating about that constant flow of speech. He was the way he had been the night before—big and graceful and always in the center of the room, chattering happily away in a steady stream that left his listeners virtually speechless. Even Ben Joe, who had been an incurable talker as a small boy and had once lost a family bet that he could keep totally silent for fifteen minutes straight, could find no place to break in.

  “Not that I’m complaining,” Gary was saying. “I just think it’s worth commenting on it, is all. For years now I’ve been wondering at Joanne, wondering where she got her habits. You’ll have to admit they’re kind of odd. She’s the only mother I know of that used to keep waking the baby all the time, instead of the baby waking her. And making milk shakes in the Waring blender at two a.m. Now, where, I’d think, as I’d wake up and hear her whistling and the blender going and the dishes clattering, where did she learn to live like that? Well, I’m mighty glad to meet your family, Ben Joe. It’s good to see you.”

  He stuck out one long, bony hand and Ben Joe, taken off guard, stared at it a minute and then shook it.

  “Uh, how about that breakfast?” he asked.

  “Sure thing.”

  “I’ll get it.”

  Ben Joe fled. He was glad to get out to the kitchen; Gary was much better than he had pictured him, but at the same time he felt inadequate around him. He couldn’t welcome him or say he was glad to see him or make one small response to all that puppy-dog friendliness because Gary was too busy talking to hear. Where had Joanne ever met him? He dropped an egg in the frying pan and stared out the window, trying to remember, but it seemed to him that Joanne had never said. She had simply announced that she was married. Well, Joanne never was one to tell much of her personal life. Her letters were full of things like how much wool cost in Kansas nowadays and what movies they had seen and how crabby Carol’s pediatrician was. Everyone in the family wrote like that when they were away; it was probably because of Jenny’s being the official letter writer. What else could you answer to a letter of Jenny’s except the price of wool in Kansas? Still, he wondered where Joanne had met Gary. He cracked the second egg into the frying pan and went to the refrigerator for orange juice.

  Gary appeared the instant his breakfast was ready, rubbing his hands together. He was dressed in a plaid shirt that clashed with his hair and a pair of corduroy slacks and he looked exuberant.

  “Boy oh boy,” he said, “I just love a big breakfast. They tell you what we had before bed last night? Pizza. A great big pizza with all kinds of stuff on—You seen Joanne?”

  “She went out,” Ben Joe said. “Downtown, I think.” He cleared his throat. “I was just wondering where you and Joanne ever met up with each other.”

  “Oh, she was dating a buddy of mine. This was when I was in the Marines, back east. She was one of those gals that flits around a lot. Danced with practically everyone at this dance and I was one of them. Keeping her with me, now, that was harder than just dancing one dance with her. And she didn’t like it that in civilian life I’m a salesman. Said salesmen always smiled even when they didn’t want to, so how could she trust me. That’s what she kept harping on, how could she trust me. And, besides, she thought I had no manners. You ever seen Joanne’s feet?”

  “What?”

  “Her feet. You ever seen them?”

  “Well, of course,” Ben Joe said. “She’s always bare-foot.”

  Gary nodded and shoveled half a fried egg in his mouth. “That’s why,” he said with his mouth full. “Why they look like they do, I mean. The rest of her is kind of slim, but her feet are wide and smooth and brown like a gypsy’s maybe, or a peasant’s. You see her barefoot and you’ll know what I mean. I always liked her feet. First time she ever met my mother she had little bare sandals on and her hair piled high and I was so proud of her I said, ‘Mama, this is Joanne Hawkes. See her peasant feet? ‘

  “And after we were alone again, you should have seen the row. She kept saying, ‘I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life before; see my peasant feet, see my peasant feet?’ and kicked me in the shin with one of them peasant feet so hard I can still feel it if I think on it awhile. That’s why she said I was bad-mannered. That and this door-opening business. I believe in opening a car door for a girl when she gets in, mind you. But when she gets out, well, she just sits and sits useless in the car while you get out and plod all the way around to the other side …”

  He held his hand out toward the cream pitcher and Ben Joe, mesmerized, placed it in his hand while he kept staring at Gary’s face.

  “So, “ Gary said, “I went off on a fishing boat named the Sagacity one weekend with a fellow from Norfolk. Figured there wasn’t any use staying around right then. Joanne said she didn’t trust me far as she could throw a tractor and then went and accepted five dates for that weekend. Five, mind you. There was this about Joanne back then: seems she liked drawing people to her. Once she got them, she sort of forgot what she was planning to do with them, like. But if you drew away, she’d be out to draw you to her again. So when she heard I had left she got them to radio the Sagacity to come in again. Saturday, it was. They kept calling the Sagacity but the catch was this: it was a borrowed boat and me and my buddy, who was the captain, thought its name was the Saga City. We didn’t connect them, you see. Makes a difference. So the man told Joanne there wasn’t an answer and he didn’t know what could be the trouble, and she started crying and all; and by the time the mess was straightened out we were on dry land again and Joanne had her arms around my neck and said she’d marry me. That was quite some day,” he said.

  Ben Joe nodded, with his mouth open. Gary laid his fork down and rocked back easily on the kitchen chair.

  “So we got married and all, and of course Carol came along. You get to see that first picture we took of her?”

  “It’s somewhere around the house right now,” Ben Joe said.

  “Well, I’m glad. It’s a real good picture, I think. I was hoping you all thought so too. I always wondered why your mama didn’t come when Carol was born, or one of your sisters maybe. Almost a custom, you might say. But no one came.”

  “Well, anyway, we were glad to hear about it,” Ben Joe said.

  “That so?” Gary looked happy.

  “Um …” said Ben Joe. He bent forward to lean his elbows on the table. There was a long string of questions he wanted to ask, like why was Joanne here now and why was Gary himself here, but he would hate to see that happy face of Gary’s get a closed, offended look
. In the tiny silence he heard the front door open and a pair of high heels walk in, with little, soft baby steps beside them. He looked up at Gary to see if he had heard too, but Gary was musing along on some path of his own. The high heels climbed the stairs, and Ben Joe in his mind followed their journey to Joanne’s bedroom.

  “I’d like to have a lot more children,” Gary said unexpectedly. “Dozens. I like kids. Joanne takes too good care of just the one. She needs a whole group of them. She’s always saying how Carol’s got to be secure-feeling, got to have no wonders about being loved or not. But this way she just makes Carol nervous—follows her around reading psychology books. Wants to know what her nightmares are about. I say let her alone—kids grow up all right. But that’s just like Joanne. She got in this Little Theater play once back in Kansas and had a whole bunch of lines to learn and got all worried about it. So did she just take a deep breath and start learning them? No sir. The night before the play opened I asked her did she know her lines and she said no not yet but she had got almost all the way through this book called How to Develop a Super-Power Memory. If that isn’t just like her …”

  He smiled into his plate and then clasped both hands behind his neck and stared at the ceiling.

  “She was like that about me once,” he said. “Followed me around reading books about marriage. But when Carol came along she got sidetracked, sort of. It happens. So if she was too busy with Carol I’d just go bowling with the boys or watch TV maybe. And Joanne’d start feeling bad—say it was her fault and she was making the house cold for me. First time she said that was in a heat wave. You couldn’t hardly see for the little squiggly lines of heat in the air. ‘Cold?’ I says. ‘Cold? Honey, you make this house cold and I’ll love you forever for it,’ but Joanne, she didn’t think it was funny. Carol was crawling across the table in rubber pants and Joanne picked her up and spanked her for no reason and then started crying and saying history was repeating itself. Huh. You believe in history repeating itself, Ben Joe?”