wouldn’t get him the sewing stuff any quicker, if at all. So he just took her by the wrist, and squeezed a little, family style. “I don’t want you to sew. I’ll sew. Just get me the basket.”
“But what’s torn, Donald? I knew you were hurt, just knew it.”
“No one’s hurt. A little fender bender is all.”
“A fender bender? Cross your heart?”
“Every time.”
She disappeared in her bedroom, returned with the sewing basket. “What’s there to drink?” said Whitey, taking it.
“Tea, of course,” she said, “and some Pepsi.”
“I mean a drink.”
“Like alcohol?”
“Yeah. Alcohol.”
“But you always liked Pepsi.”
“I want a fucking drink, for Christ sake.”
“None of that here, Donald, not since I joined up with the Redeemer Church. Have I mentioned them? And I really wish you could see fit not to take the Lord’s name in vain.”
He was already in the bathroom at the end of the hall, closing and locking the door. A stinking little bathroom. He turned on the light, looked at himself in the mirror. Blood, and plenty of it. Someone was going to pay.
Whitey found gauze and a roll of tape in the cabinet, also a bottle labeled Vicodin. Wasn’t that one of Rey’s favorites? He swallowed the three or four remaining tablets, took off his jacket and shirt, began to bandage himself. A long slash across his gut, a puncture in his chest that he picked a sliver of long green glass from-and that reddened the bandages almost right away-others. But they’d heal, no problem. The worst was under his chin, where a big flap hung down like a goddamn bullfrog tongue, dripping red in fat round plops: no bandaging that.
As Whitey opened the sewing basket, he remembered the bullfrog he’d speared through the head down on the I-95 median. Now, what the hell was that supposed to mean? Like God was watching from up in the clouds or something? He’d done nothing wrong on the median-thought it was a snake, remember? He’d killed the wrong thing, was all. And out on the river just now, he’d been put in an impossible situation, done what he’d had to. When the going gets tough, the tough get going “What’s that, Donald?”
“Get the fuck away.” He listened for her retreating footsteps, heard them.
— and he was as tough as they come. He found a satin thing, cushion or whatever it was, full of needles, selected the thinnest, threaded it with beige thread, to blend with his skin, tied a knot in the end, got to work. Whitey had seen it done before, between periods in his last season. A skate blade had sliced his forearm, right above the glove, and the beery-breathed doc who came to all the games had sewn him up in the dressing room. Whitey stitched the chin flap back into place, hissing from time to time, but getting it done, making himself whole again; he was no fucking bullfrog.
He put his shirt and jacket back on, went into the kitchen. She was standing in the middle of the room, squeezing her hands together.
“Where’s that Pepsi?” he said.
“In the fridge, Donald. Are you all right?”
Whitey popped the can open, sat at the rickety table, drank. It hit the spot. He liked Pepsi.
She came closer, hovered. “A bit to eat, maybe?”
He wouldn’t have minded, except for the smell. “What stinks in here?” he said.
She sniffed. “I don’t smell anything.”
“What’s the matter with you? It’s like a goddamn shithouse.”
She sniffed again. “Maybe it’s the Kitty Litter. I’m not strong enough to carry it out anymore. And Donald? You know the awful part? Harry’s gone.”
“Who’s he?”
“The cat.”
Gone as far as the barn. Maybe he’d tell her, maybe not.
“I must have mentioned our marvelous cat,” she was saying. “On the phone, wasn’t it, at that New Horizons place? And now you won’t be meeting him. Isn’t that the way? He disappeared the day that man came to visit. Vanished.”
“What man?”
“A sort of preacher man, but not with the Redeemers. He said a prayer for you.”
“Huh?”
“A beautiful prayer- please hear this prayer for our beloved Donald — I made him change it from Whitey, such a silly nickname- and help guide him in useful ways.”
“Are you making this up?”
“No, Donald, that’s what he said. The most beautiful prayer I’ve heard in my entire life. How could I forget?”
“Guide him in useful ways-is that what he said?”
“Don’t shout, Donald. My hearing’s perfectly fine. It’s the vision that-”
“When did this happen?”
“Oh, some time ago.”
Smack, smack, smack, but only in his mind, even though he was feeling a little better now, what with Vicodin and Pepsi. No smacking Ma. “Where was I?” he said.
“Where were you?”
“Yeah. When this visit happened.”
“Why, down there at the New Horizons establishment, naturally. And I wanted so much for you to meet Harry. He was the smartest little-”
“What did he look like?”
“Gingerbread, I guess you’d say, although-”
“The man, asshole-what did he look like?”
Her forehead got all cross, the way it used to: kind of funny now, with her eyes like that, and no belt buckles possible. “Look like?” she said.“I’m afflicted with vision problems, or can’t you get it through your thick skull?”
Not that funny. Smack. He did it then, but who wouldn’t have? And it felt good; why hadn’t he done it long ago? He picked her up off the floor, sat her at the table. “What I’m trying to find out, Ma-I know you like when I call you Ma-is would you know him if you heard him again?”
Ma repositioned her dentures, gave him one of her hateful looks, but not so hateful now with no eye power behind it, and said, “Honor thy father and mother.”
“Accidents happen. Would you know him if you heard him again, yes or no?”
“You could try saying please.”
“If I do you won’t like it.”
One of the best things he ever said. It silenced her. At last she hung her head-oh, why hadn’t he done it long, long ago? — and said, “I’d know him.”
“’Cause why?”
“He talked fancy.” She sniffled.
“Fancy?”
“You know.”
“I don’t.”
“Fancy. Like with Harry. Harry has these long claws. The gentlest possible cat, but long claws. And this preacher man said they gave him an inadvertent scratch. Inadvertent, Donald. Now, who on God’s earth talks like that?”
Whitey knew the answer to that; he didn’t know what or why, but he knew who. He was nobody’s fucking bullfrog, nobody’s… puppet. Did Roger really think of himself as the master? Whitey would see about that.
First things first. It took him no time to find his mother’s purse, pocket what was in it, walk out the door without another word, a six-pack of Pepsi in his hand.
Lawton Ferry, 97 Carp Road. No pickup: an unpromising deficiency, but not definitive, and because not
