Cry of Angels

18

18 BY NOON THE NEXT DAY THE MOVING VAN HAD LEFT, THE STATION wagon was loaded, and the hired ambulance had arrived for Miss Esther. Vance had howled in protest over the extravagance until a hurried call to the insurance agent reassured him that it was covered by her major medical. But when the men arrived with a stretcher she shooed them out of her room and came down carrying her bag. She further flabbergasted her son by ordering one of the attendants into the back and crawling in beside the driver. "But, Mama," spluttered Vance, "what's the good of having an ambulance if you're going to ride up front?" 'Til lay down if I get tired," she said. "First I want to see how this gentleman drives. You all up there"—she adjusted her hat and looked along the line of boarders at the porch balustrade—"you better write to me, now." There were to be no hand-wringing goodbyes , she had made sure of that. She was up before daylight,visiting each of them in their rooms. Now she just looked at them, her old soldiers lined stiffly at the rail, and they at her, etching in, I supposed, 170 B O O K T W O those last details of face and feature, the turn of a mouth, the slope of a shoulder, as I had painted in my trees, my bend in the river. When at last she was done, Miss Esther nodded, cranked up her window and ordered her driver on. The boarders turned and filed past me into the house, still dryeyed , though Mrs. Metcalf was straining hard, and as they passed, each one touched me in a brief goodbye, a squeeze of the arm, a clap on the head, and walked on, none of us trying to speak in a moment too tight, too full for the rattle of empty words. Vance worked my suitcase under the straps of the luggage carrier, and I crawled into the station wagon between the twins, each of whom had claimed family rights to a window seat. Vance and Lucille were making a last check of the house when suddenly Victor rolled down the window and yelled: "You get out of this yard, nigger!" Tio leaned his bike against the steps and came over to the car. Victor shook his fist in Tio's face. "You want to fight, nigger?" "Be still," I said, "he's a friend of mine." Tio handed me a sack through the window. "Mr. Teague sent you some apples." "Don't you touch this car," warned Victor. Vanessa giggled. "Tell him thank you for me." Tio nodded. He tried to say something else but kept getting interrupted by Victor, who had devised a new game. Watching Tio closely , he carefully managed to keep his head in our line of sight. Tio moved around to the back window and lifted his voice. "You seen Em?" "No, I was about to ask you . . ." Tio shook his head. He looked at me and shrugged. "Well, when you see him, tell him . . ." Tio had to cup his ear, Victor and Vanessa were rapping their knuckles on the glass, making faces at him. "Tell him what . . . ?" Tio was straining to hear. "Nothing," I said. "Never mind." Tio adjusted his hat. The nervous tic was starting under his eye. The twins had their faces pressed against the back window, their tongues madly licking the glass. "Well, if I don't see you again"—he looked down at the noses pressed flat, the pink tongues lapping large 171 A C R Y O F A N G E L S wet circles—"take care." And, snatching a brick out of the flower bed, he slammed it against the window with such a bone-jarring smack that both twins' foreheads bounced off the glass. They thrashed about in the seat with such howls that eventually Vance ran waddling out of the house, but by that time Tio was pedaling far down the street. Finally we got under way. The car rolled north through the scrub pine and rabbit country, swaying heavily in the dips and turns, the U-Haul tugging on the bumper. Vance cursed under his breath as his push-button settings failed to turn up any country music stations. He fiddled with the dial. Lucille sat tense and silent, one hand covering her eyes...