Commune of Women (14 page)

She drops him off because they were very specific when Betty called: no parents allowed. She watches him shamble up the walk toward the hall and says a prayer to the Virgin:
Mother, take care of my boy. Don’t let them crucify him, like they did yours
.

Well, to make a long story short, Bernie comes out of the place at 10:30 with a bounce in his step and grinning like she hasn’t seen him do since he was twelve. He throws himself into the car, slams the door and turns to her with a face lighted-up as the full moon. “Met a girl, Mom. Myrna. She’s gonna get me a job, Mom! A job, Mom! Good, huh, Mom?!”

Well, Angela is close to a complete wreck. She doesn’t know whether to jump up and down for joy to see her boy so happy, or to burst into tears and sob.

Bernie, sounding like an accordion, hums polka music all the way home.

The upshot of it all is, Myrna really does get him a job at a local hamburger place, a drive-in where she’s the assistant manager. Bernie is thrilled because now he’s making money wiping down stainless steel and bagging Styrofoam for the garbage cans.

Five days a week, Angela drives him down there, but he won’t let her come in and he won’t let her meet Myrna. Eight hours later, she drives back and picks him up. He smells of rancid grease, he’s grinning from ear to ear and all he can talk about is Myrna. What mother could ask for more?

Of course, Angela and Betty are both dying to meet this Myrna, but Bud says to mind their own business. “Bernie
is
my business,” Angela tells him. But Bud can be very dictatorial at times and this is one of them.

“Give the kid some room to breathe, for Crissakes, Angela. He’s been in your back pocket for twenty-six years. Aren’t you ready for a break? Why don’t you join a bowling league or somethin’?”

So Angela gets her feelings hurt and goes back in the bedroom and watches Oprah on the little black and white set and pouts, she’s so mad at Bud. But in her heart, she knows he’s right. It’s just that...well, she’s feeling left out, you know? Like for 26 years, she’s been there every minute for this kid. And now, when the biggest thing in his life is happening, he shuts her out. So, really, she was mad at Bernie, not at Bud.

This goes on for weeks and then, one day, Betty is watching the noon news and the reporter says he’s just been given a note that says there’s a robbery in progress at Hazel and 12th, at a drive-in. It takes a second to sink in and then Betty screams, “Oh my
GOD!
” She runs to the kitchen and calls Angela. Then, she grabs the car keys from the peg by the chalkboard and runs out and jumps in the car without even her purse she’s so panicked, because,
ohmygod,
that’s the place where their Bernie works!

Betty stops and gets Angela and they can’t even breathe they’re so scared. When they get to the light at the corner, it’s red and Betty’s sitting there for 20 seconds before she realizes she’s honking the horn over and over at the poor guy in the car in front of her – like he can read her mind and get out of her way, so they can go and save Bernie.

When the light changes, Betty guns it and almost smacks into his bumper. He must of thought she was nuts and, if she’s really honest about it, she was. They’ve both been through a lot of things with Bernie, but never, ever did she ever think that she and Angela would get him all the way through his life-threatening childhood only to lose him at twenty-six to some cranked-up robber.

Betty takes the next few corners on two wheels and then there they are. The drive-in is dead ahead and there are cop cars all around. Traffic is backed up and people are in a group, gawking. Betty just leaves the car in the middle of the street and they both start running. Betty’s sure they’re going to find Bernie lying in the middle of that group, on the pavement in a pool of blood, and an ambulance nowhere in sight.

She lopes up to the people standing there in a little gaggle and, all out of breath, she gasps, “What’s happening?”

Some woman with her hair shaved off and a hoop through her nose turns to her and says, “It’s all over.”

“
What’s
all over?” Angela screams and Betty knows she’s thinking its Bernie’s life that the woman’s talking about.

“The robbery. It’s all over. The cops have the guy in their car over there.” She points a finger that has an inch-long black nail and a ring like a snake at one of the cop cars. Sure enough, all the officers are gathered around it, talking to one another.

Betty turns to the woman. “What about Bernie?” she asks.

The woman snaps her gum and gives Betty this look out of the corner of her eye. “Bernie who?” she asks.

“Oh never mind,” Betty says and she grabs Angela. They take off running again toward the drive-in. Now, she’s sure that Bernie is dead – only instead of out in the street, he’s lying inside on the floor. They make it almost to the front door when an officer steps out of the group around the patrol car and blocks their way with an outstretched arm.

“Hey! Where’re you two going? Stop right there!” he orders.

But all his authority is lost on Betty. “We’re going in,” she says, very firm.

“You can’t be
that
hungry,” he says, trying to make a joke.

Betty turns on him with some kind of fury, like she doesn’t even know where it comes from, and she screams, “Our
Bernie’s
in there! You get the fuck out of our way!” Even she is amazed by her use of the “f” word – probably more than the cop is because he’s heard it all before.

“Bernie?” he asks. “Your son is
Bernie?
”

And then her heart sinks and she’s thinking,
Oh God
, and her knees are starting to shake and get weak. She thinks she’s going to have to sit down, and fast. She looks him full in the eyes and tries to read them like the headlines of the
L.A. Times
. “Yes,” she whispers. “I mean, no. Bernie is
her
son.” She drags Angela close to her. “Is he dead?”

The cop reaches out and takes Betty’s elbow and sort of slides her onto a wooden bench under one of the patio tables. Then he lowers Angela down, too. The shadow from the umbrella cuts out the sun all of a sudden, and Betty feels like she’s sinking into some kind of hell filled with bleeding, rusted swords.

“Hang on, ladies,” she hears the cop say from a big distance. He sort of molds her into position, so she’s leaning on the table and doesn’t fall off onto the concrete.

Then, he sits down across from them and puts his hand on Angela’s arm. It’s a good gesture, a kind thing, and Betty can feel his sympathy is right there with Angela.

“Lady,” he starts, and Betty tenses up waiting for the worst. “Lady, your son Bernie is a hero.”

So now, Betty’s mind is really dizzy and she’s trying to think –
did he throw himself in front of the gunman to save Myrna, or what?
Her mind is making up stories about how Bernie got shot and was a hero faster than you would even believe – she’s always had this tendency to make up stories, you know. To fantasize. So, she sees him throwing himself across the counter and falling dead on the dining room floor; then she sees him out back, trying to club the fleeing bandit with a sack of used Styrofoam and getting shot. Betty doesn’t know – the images are coming so fast that she can’t really sort them out.

The cop pats Angela’s arm and says, “You wait here.” He slides off the bench and goes into the drive-in. Betty and Angela just sit there. They hardly see him go.

Angela whispers, “I feel like I did after I miscarried Bernie’s baby sister...empty.” Betty looks at her friend. In her face, there is just a huge emptiness filled with a grief that doesn’t even have a form yet – just molecules of grief whirling around in emptiness. Angela puts her head down on her arms and begins to cry.

Then, there’s the hand on her arm again. “Lady,” Betty hears the cop say. “Lady, look.”

And then Betty hears this familiar voice saying, “Mom! Hey Mom! What’s wrong, Mom?” And she never heard a sweeter sound in all her life!

And there he is – their boy. He throws himself at Angela and gives her a hug that takes Jeff, her chiropractor, three visits to undo. And when Bernie’s done with that, he starts dancing from foot to foot and that’s how they know he has a big story to tell.

“I stopped ‘em, Mom!” he warbles. “I stopped ‘em good.” He’s dancing with delight.

Angela looks up, dazed, at the officer, who’s still standing there. “That’s right, M’am,” he says. “Your son’s a hero.”

They both look at Bernie in disbelief. Not only is Angela’s son not dead, but he’s a hero, too. Betty’s having some trouble taking it all in.

Just then, another officer comes up and the first one introduces him as Captain Somethingorother and says that Angela is Bernie’s mother. The Captain reaches out to shake her hand and Angela reaches back, but Betty can see that her hand is as limp as a fish. She’s not quite in her body, even.

“Congratulations!” he says, beaming at her. “Your son Bernie saved the day today. He probably saved someone from getting killed.”

And then he tells them how Bernie is back in the back, pouring oil in the fryer, when he hears the robber come in and yell at everyone to get down on the floor.

Of course, the robber is talking to the people in the dining room and he doesn’t even see Bernie, back by the fryer. So Bernie, being very quick-witted, steps out the back door and comes around the outside of the building to where he’s sure the robber can hear him. And then he starts making a noise like a police siren. He starts out like the sound is way off in the distance and then makes it louder and louder, like its bearing directly down on the drive-in.

Of course, the robber panics and runs out the door, jumps in his car and drives away. Only he’s going so fast that he skids as he swings out of the driveway and his rear end hits a cop car that’s just turning in to the drive-in for lunch. And when the robber jumps out and tries to run away from the scene of the crime, the officer apprehends him.

That’s it. That’s the whole story. It was over before Betty ever even heard it on the news. And there is Angela’s boy, just dancing with delight because he’s saved the day. Betty feels like she’s going to faint again, but this time from pride.

Angela’s beaming at her boy, when all of a sudden this strange person comes up and throws her arms around him. Angela and Betty are staring now because Bernie throws his arms around her, too, and they’re hugging very intimately. Only, this young woman comes about to his waist. Betty knows instantly – this is Myrna.

Why Bernie never mentioned he was in love with a dwarf Betty can’t say. She doesn’t think he was afraid to tell them. More likely, she thinks it never occurred to him that there was anything different about Myrna. That’s their Bernie; he just takes people as he finds them and loves them, one and all.

So Angela was really worried about the wedding. Because as soon as this thing happened, they were so aware of how either one of them could have died without ever getting to be married, that they decided to do it right away. So Angela was worried about finding a dress. How many floor-length wedding dresses are there, after all, that are only three feet long, shoulder to hem?

But it turns out that Myrna has been making her own clothes since she was a teenager and is an excellent seamstress. She made herself a beautiful wedding dress all in taffeta and lace and little pearl buttons. And Bernie looked so handsome up there at the altar in a tuxedo! Bud and Angela just sat there amazed by their beautiful kids standing up there, taking their lives into their own hands. At the end, Bernie did a perfect imitation of an organ playing the recessional.

So two years pass and the kids are doing fine. Then one day, Bernie and Myrna come over to Bud and Angela’s so full of themselves, so proud, to tell them the news: they’re pregnant! Bernie is practicing Lamaze breathing, while Myrna tells about the tests at the hospital and how she’s already started a college fund for the baby.

After the kids leave to go back to their apartment, Angela can’t find Bud. She goes into the back of the house to the spare bedroom that used to be Bernie’s room. And there is Bud lying on the bed, crying. Not crying, really – sobbing.

“Bud!” she says in alarm. She rushes over to him and kneels beside him. She’s thinking he’s had a heart attack or something. “Buddy! Sweetie! What’s wrong? What is it?”

And he turns these big, swimming, blue eyes up at her and tears are running down all the creases in his face that he has from so many years working outside on a forklift.

“Angela...” he starts, and then can’t finish and sobs some more.

“Angela...” He wipes his nose on the corner of the chenille spread. “For twenty-eight years, I’ve loved that kid. Twenty-eight years!” He hiccups. “I thought he would break my heart. All I ever wanted was a son I could go fishing with, you know? Someone to go to the ballpark with. Maybe even the drag races, once in a while. And what I got was Bernie.”

Buddy kind of slithers around, so he’s sitting on the floor leaning back against the side of the bed, and Angela’s still kneeling next to him holding his arm like she’s going to keep him from shattering into a million pieces.

“How many times I’d hear guys at work saying,
My son this
and
My son that.
And I’d get a knot in the pit of my stomach and I’d cry out to God,
Why did He give this kind of kid to me
? when all I ever wanted was a normal son who wanted to tear down lawn mower engines in the garage? Angie, I’ve been an enraged man for twenty-eight years, that’s the God’s truth.”

He grabs the corner of the spread and scrubs his nose and then his cheeks, which must have been itching with salt by then.

“And now...now...” he begins to sob again, so Angela can barely make out his words. “Now, I swear to
Christ
, if He gives those two kids...those beautiful kids who love each other so much...a weird kid...I’ll...I’ll...I’ll never speak to God
again!
”

So now, Angela is crying, too, and her and Buddy sit on the bedroom floor, holding each other and crying and rocking and crying some more. Because, let’s be honest, they love Bernie with all their hearts but, as Angela told Betty, “I wouldn’t wish another Bernie on anyone, especially my own son and daughter-in-law. It’s too hard. I can’t begin to tell you. It is just too hard a thing to ask of anyone.”