The Imaginary Lives of Mechanical Men (11 page)

Which is when the far flagman starts sniffing and the site supervisor starts bellowing, “S’going on down there?” and the fellas wave their arms and yell back but don’t come far out of the bushes. And the supervisor goes purple in the face howling at the flagman and the others, “You bastids wanna get fired? You think this is communis’ Russia, you can take a corporate rest period?” Staggerwalking down the embankment at about the same time that the flagman clambers over the side of the half-built bridge that’s sticking out into nowhere, figuring he needs to get his cigar going again in order to establish his full transportation department authority, and lights up.

It’s like he lived a charmed life.

I told her I really did I said you think I don’t know you’re probably faking just to get attention. God knows you’ve got Daddy and Aunt Lib wrapped around your little finger and now you want to be my mamma too well you can forget it. I’m hanging around with whoever I want to hang around with okay because it’s maybe all right to smile every once in a while and enjoy life instead of being you. We’re not twins, not really, I mean is there a boy in the entire school who’s ever touched you? I don’t see how you can stand yourself I really don’t you’re such a faker. You think I don’t know what you’re doing in there, your own sister doesn’t know, running to the bathroom every time so they won’t think you’re such a cow with that fake cough oh please. It’s like you’re being so pure you can’t defile yourself with food or whatever, like you’re the virgin bride or something, and then you think you can just preach to me like that? Let me tell you something pretty baby you ought to look in a mirror
sometime. You are a cow. And if you want to starve yourself to death that’s fine with me.

Every once in a while we’d pass a blur on the side of the road, and he might say tomato can or dead dog or chain gang, like they were all parts of the same puzzle, which if he twisted and turned just right would all at once fit together. A week might go by and then he’d say, “Remember that tomato can?” Like it didn’t make any difference as to who was hearing him.

And one of the yahoos down at Bub’s would say, “Damaters?”

“Yeah. Del Monte or Heinz?”

Guy would shrug, wink at the others, say, “Del Monte. Del Montier’n hell.”

And this would be enough to send him into a trance, cleaning his ear with a toothpick, thinking, until maybe the one piece of information would fit with another piece that he’d saved for months. Squinting this time at me, “That a fig tree or a ’simmon tree we hit over to the War Memorial?”

I’d say, “Fig.”

Then he’d narrow his eyes some more—“That’s what I thought.”

Of course the lady designers who worked in the back of the flower shop never understood. The atmosphere was too dense. Back there a sort of chemical fog hung over everything. I hated the time we had to work inside. Inside the shop he was just another man, a drudge like those who worked the denim plant, breathing the same poisons, scurrying back and forth to do as he was told. Preservatives, dyes, glues, fungicides, spray paints, disinfectants floating everywhere. It was like a flower factory. I remember this clearly.

There were rules. Chrysanthemums got a shot of hair spray to keep them from shattering, or sometimes you dripped candle wax on the backs of the petals. Carnations got dipped in vinegar dye. Leaf-Cote made the greenery shine on Tuesdays and Saturdays; it smelled like varnish and alcohol. And long-stemmed roses—you already know
this—are bred purely for color and tight buds. They take their scent from chloral benzoate and artificial perfumes. Even today. And snapdragons have got no scent at all. Gladiolus get sliced on the diagonal, the stems soaked in a solution of soda ash to keep the blossoms from wilting. While orchids get snipped and inserted into little syringes of water, taped down into their boxes like they’re on life support. So that after a while nobody has to teach you the one thing that stays with you through the years—that all these flowers are dead.

So what is it that you smell? I mean that musky sweet summer greenhouse scent wafting out into the showroom that makes you wish you could take it home in a spray can, that smell? I’ll tell you what it is. It’s stripped leaves. Wilted baby’s breath. Browned petals. Stem ends, brittle galax, dried lycopodium, dead ferns. Tons of Spanish moss that they use as packing material. Garbage. You can sweep and empty four times a day and there’s still a residue, a green, mosslike stain in the linoleum. It’s pollen and crushed stems. Dried rosebuds that have fallen beneath the tables. Old water. It smells sweet, the whole of it, like the perfume of some lost Eden. And it stays sweet in your memory, the way flowers ought to be, until you know.

That’s what you smell.

They moved to Morton oh I don’t know
’
bout ten, twelve years ago that’s when Ed joined the Rotary and all but, no, it’s not like I knew ’em real well. Had the one daughter a course and she lived at home and I mean boy she was a knockout you know what I mean? I mean a real knockout. Came there one time to pick up Ed when he was still attending and I’m in the living room waiting you know looking at all these pictures they got on the piano in the shelves and everywhere like they got stock in Kodak or something. And she comes through, Patsy does, and you couldn’t help but make the connection. I mean hell I was just talking that’s what I do for a living I sell things. Cars. And she said no that’s my sister Clare she was killed in an accident. Just like that like she’d done give all the sorrow and tears she had to give and just didn’t have any energy anymore. I
mean Jesus like she was making conversation or something and you got to figure a car accident right so what could I say? Hell, mister, I wouldn’t hurt anybody for love nor money I mean just standing there like that, what could I say? I never counted on twins.

Once in the autumn I saw leaves falling from a sugar maple close to our house. Some spiraling down, some blown by the first breath of winter; and every one, as soon as it released its hold, would burst into flames and hang in red-orange glory for a moment, like the sails of pirate ships set ablaze. Anyhow—what I thought. Every single leaf, a flame. A conflagration in every gust of wind. This really happened.

And there, standing in the street, waiting for El to pick me up, hoping for a whirlwind, I watched them fly. Flicker and flame. Catching one and feeling the momentary sting before it turned to ash in my hand. I still have the mark of it. And then he was there, the mirror on the right side of the truck almost bumping my shoulder, and him reaching across the seat and throwing open the door and saying, “You better crawl in, boy. You better crawl in before they set your hair on fire.”

I’m not saying it was right and I’m not trying to make excuses or anything I don’t want you to think I’m a hypocrite. It was wrong okay? I made peace with that a long time ago. It just wasn’t as simple as you think. I mean good God she dated a damn criminal for a year and then turned around and married an ape what does that sound like to you? It was like she wanted life to punish her or something, which you can’t even imagine with somebody that beautiful you know what I mean? There were days at the bank she came in with cuts, bruises on her arms or face when you just wanted to put your arm around her. She was so sad. Look I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore I just know I would have done anything to make her smile for a second. I won’t say I loved her but I did in a way and I would have done anything…. And I’ll tell you something else I would have killed the son of a bitch if I’d thought he
was doing it to her. But maybe she was hurting herself, you know what I’m saying? There’s just no way to tell if you ask me.

He was terrified of dead people. He hated funeral homes even though they were the first places in the South to be air-conditioned, and we always made the cemetery run around noon just to be sure that we weren’t overtaken by nightfall, but here’s the funny thing. He knew the location of every grave in maybe two dozen cemeteries. Like he had a personal relationship with every corpse in Bladen County.

El never touched a casket. Never looked upon a body if it was in an open coffin. Never spoke in a room where there was a corpse, I don’t know, maybe because he was holding his breath, I just don’t know. And always he washed his hands after handling funeral flowers. Always. Used a big yellow bottle of Joy back there at the utility sink.

We had to go to Payne & Pinkerton one time, the colored funeral home there in Morton that took up three floors of a colossal white house on Houston Street, looked like a plantation. And the guest of honor was this fat lady, member of the Eastern Star or something, who just barely fit into her casket, which looked like a double-wide to me. They must have tucked her in with a crowbar and a shoehorn. Anyway, she’s laying there sweet and serene as can be in a pink chiffon dress, white gloves, your pearl earrings, pearl necklace, and all your Eastern Star secret paraphernalia—except for one thing—the pink and white corsage that we’ve got to pin on her just before the service.

So what do you think, I’m going to do it? I’m fourteen years old and this involved touching a dead lady’s breast in a colored funeral home that looked like Tara on an oiled-up dirt road where no sane white person would go after six o’clock on a Saturday night knowing that Roosevelt was no longer a favored name among Negro parents. What am I trying to say? I’m saying the times they were a changing, and you didn’t want to handicap your future by maybe getting killed over some
aspect of the new social order that you hadn’t figured out yet. So I said, “Just leave the box on the front pew or give it to the oldest daughter, man, but let’s hit the road before they bring in the forklift and she tips it over on one of us.”

But no.

He had to do it. Take away everything else, and that’s what was left. A gentleman. I can see his hands shaking to this day. See him swallowing hard. Taking that corsage up in one hand, the pin in the other, working his way up to the casket with slow shuffling steps. Till it gradually occurred to me what he was going to do as he took the pin. Eased it through the center of the bottom carnation until it stuck out the other side about an inch and a half. Then—whap—straight into her like a thumbtack.

Except I’m the one who squealed. “Oh God, no! What’d you do that for, man?! Jeezus Christ, El, you think they don’t shoot to kill down here?”

“We got to go,” is all he said. “It’s after four.”

“You got that right! Grab your hat, we gotta haul ass before the Fruit of Islam comes pouring through that door. Head for the border, you moron!” Just as she came in—all dressed in white—this younger version of the poor lady in the coffin, weeping.

She said El you think we could have stewed tomatoes tonight? I thought I saw a can of stewed tomatoes in the cabinet.

And now there is only one thing left, so I will tell it.

Patsy Burdette had long auburn hair and epilepsy. By the time she was thirty, I guess, she was working in the Morton Federal Savings and Loan, and I worshiped her. So did El. She painted her toenails, which you could see in the summer whenever she wore sandals, and never a piece of jewelry anywhere except the rings that El bought her when they were married, long before I started to work at Weiss Florist. And he was faithful as a dog. Never mind the rumors, he drove home for
lunch every day so they could see each other for a few extra minutes. Sometimes there’d be guests, sometimes not.

He’d call Patsy every day to be sure she’d taken her medicine. We could be out delivering on the other side of the moon, and he’d pull in to some little country store and ask to use the phone, holding it out away from his ear like this because he had hearing like a bat, sort of talk into the mouthpiece like it was a microphone. You could hear her tiny voice on the other end saying, “What? Who is this? El, is that you? Who is this?”

And every Saturday I’d go with him, you know, to lunch at their house, an unpainted bungalow on Doster Street with a gravel driveway sounded like you were driving over crackers until you pulled up in the carport, and there she’d be, so happy to see us. And maybe one of her friends from the bank inside having lunch too, also happy to see us. El did almost all the housework; the place looked like a dollhouse, fussy clean, I guess on account of where she lived before they were married.

Then she died in December the year before I went away to college. He just cruised in one evening, maybe later than usual, maybe after drinking a little, nobody knows for sure; I just remember people talking. Anyway he went home for supper to the house with the dark shutters and low-hanging pines and found her in the bathtub. She’d had a seizure, the long auburn hair floating in arabesques upon the surface of the water, perfectly serene and beautiful. He loved her so. Laid her out in the bed before the ambulance got there, in a satin nightgown, covers up to her neck, the thick silky hair brushed and dried, arranged in waves down to her shoulders. No one knows how he did it.

So now I’m one of them I guess I don’t know what happened I just turned around took my eyes off him for a second changed my clothes and there you were my own son. But I can tell you this much no matter what they say this is a love story for your mother yes but also for you. Because when
he finally slammed that battered door of the old panel truck and the looming echo faded and we had made the last hospital run of the day it was no longer the spring of 1965 and now I have to strain to get him back. He was Elrod Weiss. The funniest man I ever knew.

THE TICKING AND TOCKING OF THEIR HEARTS

Cutters

EMILY

Thinks this might be the cover shot. Straight down the path with a very wide-angle lens. Which, of course, will yield some distortion near the edges. But she doesn’t care. In fact she hopes that the overhanging branches will print like a blurry hand thrown up in front of a face. It’s the flat white facade of their church that she really wants to show—a picture-postcard set on the edge of their world. Like you could step around that clapboard corner and fall straight into hell. That’s what Sam can’t understand.