Getting Mother's Body (7 page)

“You up anyhow,” Uncle Teddy says and the two of them laugh. Mr. Atchity, he got eight children and Mrs. Atchity is still nice-looking.

When the bus pulls up, the Driver, a gangly white man with red-rimmed eyes, gets out. He stands at attention like he's in the army or something.

“Link-on!” the Driver barks. Where his shirt is open at the collar there's a sunburn. I give Aunt June a hug, surprising us both.

“Don't forget to eat,” she says.

The Driver opens up the underside of the bus, like the belly of a big cow. Uncle Teddy takes my grip and slides it neatly underneath. I hold on to my dress box and food, letting Teddy give the Driver my ticket and help me get on. When I get up the bus steps and turn to wave goodbye Uncle Teddy's right behind me.

“Here go yr candy,” he says, handing me the Baby Ruth he got.

He's standing on the steps and I'm standing at the Driver's seat. The Driver slams the belly-door and comes to get on but can't. Uncle Teddy's in his way.

I hold on tight to the dress box and the candy and the chicken.

Uncle Teddy turns toward the Driver, looking down on him from his steps-perch. He holds his pointer finger in the air like he's testing the wind direction or the Driver's worth.

“I don't want no Freedom Riders, now,” the Driver says, looking past Uncle Teddy to get a better look at me.

“My niece is going to meet her husband up in Texhoma,” Teddy says, establishing me.

The Driver's face relaxes. “All aboard!” he yells from his place in the dirt.

“Tomorrow me and my wife June'll be riding with you,” Teddy says.

“Tomorrow ain't today,” the Driver says, “I got a schedule to keep.”

“You best sit towards the back,” Uncle Teddy whispers to me.

“Yes, sir,” I says.

He gives me a kiss on the forehead. Something he ain't never done. The kiss is wet. Not practiced. He gets out the bus, walking down the steps backwards. The Driver moves in quick, taking his seat. Outside, Uncle and Aunt stand together. She leans against him a little.

“Take your seat,” the Driver says.

I walk back, past the empty seats up front, toward the back. Three other folks back there. All men. All sleeping.

There's an empty seat on the side of the bus that looks out over to the other side of the Main Bully, over at Miz Montgomery's side. I sit there, close to the window, looking across the double rows of seats, across the body of a sleeping man, his long legs unfolding out into the aisle, his head back and mouth open, but not snoring. Through his window I watch June and Teddy searching the windows for my face. The Driver cuts the engine on.

“This is a Mid-land-bound bus, now!” the Driver yells. No one wakes up. “Midland!” he yells again.

Uncle Teddy runs around the back of the bus, just reaching my side before we take off. He squints up his eyes, finding me through the window, and waves hard, hard enough for both him and June. I wave back at him, and as I look out across the aisle I see June, still looking for me on the other side, squinching up her eyes and leaning harder on her crutch, not seeing me but waving anyway.

We go.

East to Monahans then Odessa then Midland. In Midland the north-bound bus is waiting for us. It's silver like a icebox, with the running dog painted on the side. I could try sitting in the front, where the view's better, but Uncle Teddy's right, that could cause trouble. Sitting in the back's easier and I don't mind. The driver says we gonna be in Texhoma by three. I got my dress in my lap, right where I can see it. The box is pretty and white with a red long-stemmed rose sculptured on the cover, such a nice-looking box someone might try to steal it. We head north. Stanton, Tarzan, Sparenberg, Patricia. Grandview, New Home, Lubbock, Slide. The bus fills with people. We cross the Brazos River. New Deal, Becton, Happy Union, Plainview. Mostly folks are quiet. There's a man two seats ahead, listening to country music from a yellow plastic transistor radio.
Yr cheating heart,
he sings. He's got a pretty good voice. I'm hungry. Mother tolt me that carrying a baby makes you sick all the time, but I ain't been sick yet. I think if I eat with the bus moving I might get sick so I wait until I'm too hungry to wait. Just before we hit Deaf Smith County I open the sack to just look at the chicken and end up gobbling both the wings and the Baby Ruth too, stuffing the bones and the candy wrapper in the paper sack and toeing it all under the seat in front of me. There's a little spot of grease from the sack on the top of the box and I wipe at it but it don't wipe off. Snipes ain't gonna be looking at the box. I feel underneath the lid. My dress is laying there quiet and soft. I'm lucky, cause inside, the grease didn't go through. When Snipes sees this dress he won't believe it. I bet lovemaking feels like lovemaking once yr married.

I got a seatmate, a church lady about my color, with a salt and pepper Betty Boop wig on that's pushed back on her scalp a little. She's sleeping and when we get near Wildarado she wakes up, opening her big patent leather pocketbook and looking inside.

“This yr first time on a bus?” she says to me, still looking into her pocketbook.

“No, ma'am,” I says. “I rid the bus quite a few times.”

“This is my first bus ride, old as I am,” she says. She takes out some screaming-red lipstick and runs it across her mouth.

She sneaks a glance at my belly then tries to get a look at my left hand, to see if I got a ring or not, but I'm quick. I had my hand hiding underneath my leg from the second she woke up.

“Wildarado!” the Driver yells.

The church lady sits up straight, pulls her wig down hard on her head like it's a hat, snaps her pocketbook shut and gets off the bus without another word. Wildarado.

I got a seat to myself. I put my box onto it. It was in my lap all this time making me sweat. I fan my dress, no one sees nothing. No one's looking.

A man comes by. Looks at my empty seat. I cough, pretending I'm sick, and he moves on down a row or two.

We stop at Gomez. Not a town at all but just a small building of whitewashed cement with small windows and nothing around it but dirt and sky and sun. The sign hanging from the building has a cross on it. Must be a church. A lady gets on, big and white, coming down the aisle sideways. She's got a matching red flowered top and pants both made outa that stretch fabric, running tight acrosst her chest and behind. She's carrying a paper sack and a round red suitcase held to her wrist by a red loop. Her high-heeled gold slippers got red feathery pompoms on them and the toes out. When she comes down the aisle the sleeping men wake up and look.

She eyes my seat and I cough. She coughs back, thinking she's funny.

“These yr things, right?” Miss Big and Flashy wants to know.

“Why would they be sitting on the seat next to me if they ain't mines?” I says.

The other people on the bus are done staring but the Driver is watching her in the rearview.

“Yr personals should be under yr seat or over yr head or in yr lap,” she goes, reciting the bus rules. Mother used to say that the only thing worse than having to share a seat with someone is when you hate your seatmate before they sit down.

“Take your seats,” the Driver says.

The Flashy Gal puts her hand on her hip and bigs her eyes at me. I big my eyes right back. She hands me her paper sack. The cans inside it cluddle together. She grabs up my dress box. “How bout you let Myrna put this up for you,” she says.

“You already half done it,” I says. My voice cuts the smile off her face but she disappears the box anyway, in the rack up top on the other side of the aisle where I can see it.

“You must have something nice in there,” she says.

“A party dress,” I says. “Me and my husband's going to a party.”

“Myrna Carter,” she says telling me her name and sticking her hand in my face. She got a row of gold bracelets halfway up to her elbows on each arm. Rings on each finger. I shake her hand but don't say nothing. She sits down. The bus takes off and we go down the road.

“Yr feet started swelling up yet?” she asks.

All anybody ever asked about in Lincoln was who's the daddy and when was I getting married. “They're a little swole,” I says.

“When I was carrying Dale Junior my feet was so big I couldn't wear no kind of shoes,” Myrna says, “And my chest got as big as—well it got pretty big, and it was pretty big already.”

Snipes says my chest's growd some, but my brassieres still fit.

I hold my left hand out in front of me. She's looking at her chest but I wiggle my finger to get her attention. “I lost my wedding ring,” I says.

“Wish I could lose mines,” she says.

Billboards go by. Myrna calls out what they say as we pass.

“Stuckey's five miles! They got world-famous pecan rolls.”

“I can read,” I says.

“It's more fun to say it out loud, don't you think?” she asks.

I don't answer.

“Look! A place called the Double R Ranch where you can pick out yr own meat and and they'll cook it up for you.”

She's like one of them tour books except she's talking. Mother used to do the same thing. I learned to read by her talking out billboards.

“Two miles off that road there's the only place in the state of Texas where you will get a fair deal on a used Cadillac,” Myrna goes.

We pass more signs. She says them out loud but low under her breath. Then she nudges me hard. “Look,” she says.

There's a billboard with a cowboy on it.

“I met my Dale at the rodeo,” she says. Her voice goes lower, more private. “It was love but not true love. You know what I'm talking bout, dontcha?”

“Me and my husband, Clifton, we got true love,” I says.

“Yr lucky,” she says, “All me and Dale got is five kids.”

“Five is luckier than none,” I says, thinking of Teddy and June.

“Five is luckier than six,” Myrna says. There's a meaning to what she's saying but I don't catch it. I'm looking out the window staring hard at the land going by and trying not to look at her big face in the reflection. She's talking to the back of my head.

“Want one?” she says. Something warm and metally touches my arm. She's pressing a beer at me. A freshly opened can of Pabst. “It's warm, but it tastes better warm,” she says.

“No thanks,” I says.

“If yr thinking it'll hurt yr baby, it won't,” she says.

I shake my head no and she drinks it herself in long slow swigs. When she's through, half her lipstick's left on the rim.

“You gonna tell Myrna yr name?”

“Depends on whatchu gonna use it for,” I says and she throws her head back and hoots.

“Keep yr voice down,” a man riding towards the front says.

“Keep yr shirt on, honey,” Myrna calls back. We giggle together.

“Billy Beede,” I says.

“Got a nice ring to it. BB. Like a gun. Fast.” She glances at my belly. “I didn't mean nothing by that,” she murmurs.

“I got a husband,” I says.

“Course you do. Pretty gal like you. Course you got a husband.”

When we stop at Frankel City two little boys run down the street to meet the bus then stand there with they hands behind they backs just looking and grinning. When the bus takes off they throw rocks that ping ping against the sides and tires.

“If they break a window I'ma jump off this bus and whip them,” Myrna says. They keep throwing rocks but they don't break nothing.

After Frankel City comes Truscott then Flagg. There ain't nothing out there but flat reddish-brown dirt and scrubby bushes and sky. And heat. There ain't no people. Some cows. No clouds. I wonder if my stomach's gonna get any bigger before tomorrow. Even if it do I'ma fit my dress. By hook or crook. I've decided but I gotta get the baby to decide too.
Don't grow no more today,
I says to it, making the words in my head then swallowing them and sending them down straight into the baby's head.
Don't grow no more today. Hold off yr growing until after the honeymoon then you can grow all you want
. The baby hears me. I can feel it hearing and listening to me, the mother, and saying yes. It's a good baby already.

“I wonder if this land round here was ever crowded,” Myrna goes. “You know, if like, millions and millions of years ago this part of the world was a busy place. Sorta like Dallas, or New York City, you know. Bustling with Stone Age activities, Stone Age skyscrapers, cave people, you know, in they animal skins, hurrying hither and yon, shoulder to shoulder. You know there's a place in Mexico where they got evidence of the visits of spacemen.”

“How about that,” I says. Myrna's eyes are set wide apart. They're bright blue colored and she's got pasted-on lashes and lots of green eye shadow. The start of a sunburn on her cheeks. Lines from too much worrying around her mouth.

She finishes her beer, stands the empty out in the aisle and, easing off her slipper, brings the heel of her foot down on the can, making a little tin pancake. She puts the pancake in her department store shopping bag. Lots of other pancakes, red, white, and blue, in there.

She fiddles with the lever on her armrest, cocking her seat back once. Twice. A little boy in the seat behind her begins to cry.

“I'll tell you about me,” she says. “It makes me feel good talking and the story's interesting so it won't hurt none.” Myrna Carter's Hole is her mouth. She can talk to you or to herself. It don't matter. Some of her talking is nice, though, and she did ask about the baby.

“I can tell you the minute to the day my Dale quit loving me,” she says. “I'd just had Daleen. Dale Junior, Dale-two, Dale-three, Dale-four, and Daleen. I'd just had her. And sure, I was big. I'd put on weight with each kid, so I was five times as big as I was when me and Dale locked eyes that first time. Dale ain't no Charles Atlas though, I mean, he ain't the boy who gets the sand kicked in his face, but he got a gut three times the size of mine. And there he was laughing.”