Not many hurricanes hit shoreline Connecticut, but when they do, all hell breaks loose. When Ray was a young teen, a huge storm they called the Hurricane of ’38 strayed from the usual hurricane path from the Caribbean to the Gulf to wander up the Atlantic seaboard and make a Yankee landfall. It left in its wake terrible floods, downed trees, spilled bird’s nests, and a bitter estrangement between Ray and his mother. The Reflective Eclectic is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. The hurricane tore trees out of the ground, blew shingles off, and even, as Ray witnessed, scooped a beach cottage off its piers and flipped it upside down. He wished the storm had flipped his house, but that would have been quite a feat, for he lived in the biggest house in town, a fussy old Victorian mansion, owned by a fussy old Victorian lady, Old Lady Wightman. Ma had been the Old Lady’s maid since his Pa left them before he could remember. He and Ma shared a room on the third floor. Ma was a turtle-like woman whose back was rounded by bearing the Old Lady’s linens and humiliation. She justified it all by reminding Ray at every opportunity that Pa left them without one red cent. He’d never seen a red cent, so, for all he knew, it was true. He’d been scraping the house that summer before the hurricane struck, getting it ready for paint. He spent days standing on ladders in canvas shoes, his arches hurting and the Old Lady coming out in the yard to peer at her walls and complain that he was dropping paint scrapings on the grass. But what would you expect from his kind? She was always going on about his kind, but Ray wanted to know, just what was his kind? That was a hard thought to get under and scrape up. He suspected he was the kind whose Pa had abandoned and whose Ma was an Old Lady’s maid, living on the third floor. Since there was nothing he could do about what kind he was, he went on dropping paint scrapings on the grass. Even though the hurricane didn’t flip the fussy old Victorian house with the fussy old Victorian lady in it, Ray was thankful that they knocked down the trees and the Old Lady announced that she would not have him ruining her home and grounds with his scraping any more. Since there were trees down all over the yard, Ray would be the one to take the bucksaw out of the shed and cut them up. Some of the money that the Old Lady paid Ray for scraping he used to buy his first cigarettes. He lit one up in the shed as he took the bucksaw down from the wall and almost sawed his leg off from the coughing. He found a loose floorboard in the shed to hide the cigarettes under. When he pried it up, he noticed a packet of letters addressed to Ma, tied in a blue ribbon. The letters were from Pa, and some were not more than a year old. The latest one read:
When Ray read the letter, he had all the fury of a hurricane. He might’ve flipped the Victorian house upside down all by himself. As it was, he was able to put a lot of vigor into his sawing that day. Ma and Pa’s words kept binding his brain. “We have to stay with Mrs. Wightman because your Pa left us without one red cent,” she had said. “Enclosed is some more money,” said the letter. “Your Pa’s gone, so times are hard. You should be grateful that Mrs. Wightman lets us stay in her place,” said his Ma. “Send him out here for the summer,” said the letter. He sawed hard and kept taking breaks to go back in the shed and read more letters and smoked. They were all the same. Pa sending more money and pleading with her to come up to North Dakota. That night, like every night, the Old Lady made them eat in the kitchen after she dined alone. Ray’s throat hurt as Ma ladled out the pot roast, boiled potatoes, and carrots. “Is something wrong?” said Ma. He felt the blood rush to his head as he poked at the soggy vegetables. “Oh, don’t mind Mrs. Wightman, Honey. I know she’s difficult, but she’s been good to us in other ways.” “Why do you put up with her, Ma?” “I have to, Son. Ever since your Pa left us, I’ve had to work to support us.” “You’re lying,” said Ray. The words coming up his throat scalded as much as hot food going down ever would. “I found his letters in the shed. He didn’t leave us; you left him. He’s in North Dakota and he’s been sending money, Ma. He’s been sending money for me to go out there.” Now it was her turn to have her throat hurt and pick at her soggy vegetables. Ray didn’t wait for her answer; it would just be more falsehoods. That night he stayed in the shed and raided the kitchen at night after Ma went up to the third floor. He must’ve read the letters a hundred times that night, trying to conjure up a picture of Pa. It was no use; there was nothing there. He couldn’t remember him and Ma had kept no photos and told nothing but lies. He couldn’t trust her; he couldn’t trust her. If you can’t trust your own mother, whom can you trust? No one. By the first light, he was out and sawing the downed trees into firewood lengths, taking some small satisfaction in how directly he could reduce the carnage of the storm into a pile of cord wood by the kitchen door. While working his way through the trees, Ray came upon a robin’s nest with one abandoned egg. The mother bird wouldn’t be back by this point, so he took it and placed it on the porch table. While he was on the porch, Ray noticed so much commotion on the road that he had to go see what it was all about. The milkman had been driving down the road and, avoiding something that had darted across his path, swerved sharply and tipped his truck over. As it tipped, he fell out the open door and was pinned underneath. The neighbors all came and, together, they lifted the truck back on its wheels. The milkman remained motionless, kneeling, with his arms outstretched in an Allah-be-praised supplication, his neck broken. Many of us can point to the moments when we lost our innocence. When our parents dismounted their pedestals and revealed themselves to be clay. When lies that we’ve been told and were happy to believe, proved to be illusions we might just as well do without. When we discover that life itself, thought to last an eternity, is only ours for a sort term. Ray was a boy once who loved his mother, but for him, these moments when he lost his innocence came all at once, when a hurricane blew in and everything changed forever. That night, Ma came in while he was smoking in the shed. He hid the cigarette behind his back, the smoke curling out to peek. She said, “I love your Pa,” she blubbered, for she’d been drinking and crying. ”That’s why I couldn’t bear to throw out his letters. But I can’t live in North Dakota. He paints a pretty picture of it out there, but the farm’s just too far out and too lonely. The wind’s always blowing, and it’s brutal hot in the summer and brutal cold in the winter. He went to find work, but I already got work right here with Old Lady Wightman. I kept you from him, because he lies about North Dakota. I couldn’t let you believe his lies.” She stepped forward and embraced him with a one armed hug, the other hand holding a tumbler of rum. He hugged her back with one arm, the other holding a cigarette. Her tears fell hot on his neck as she cried what might’ve been tears of guilt. He added a few hot tears of his own, and they might’ve been tears of forgiveness. They were tears of loss, actually. Ma’s tears weren’t tears of guilt because she never said she was wrong, she was crying because she‘d been caught and knew she was losing her boy. His tears were for the loss of his Ma and the loss of his childhood. When the two of them realized what they were crying about, they pulled away. Seeing the cigarette, she said, “You think you’re grown now and you’re smoking? You ain’t grown yet. Not till you have kids of your own and you have to do hard things to protect them. Do that and then tell me you’re grown.” He took a defiant drag from his cigarette and blew the acrid smoke in her face. It mixed with the syrupy rum fumes she was exhaling. She slapped him with her free hand. In the other, the rum jostled and spilled. “Damn you all to hell, you defiant brat. Go ahead and go to North Dakota, if that’s what you want. Go ahead and find out for yourself what it’s like. You’ll see. Then you’ll come back and say you’re sorry.” The next day, Ray returned to his sawing left. he had a lot to do before he would be done and got paid again. Then he would go to North Dakota. Old Lady Wightman kept eyeballing Ray’s work from the porch and telling him how to stack wood. When she spied the robin’s nest, you would have thought she was the mother bird, herself, for all the cooing she did. The house painting was coming along, even though she must have hired and fired half a dozen painters that week. She had last hired Leo, an itinerant French-Canadian, who had come down to the States to find work. “I want the porch painted this exact color,” she said, giving him the robin’s egg. “Mix the paints and show me the shade you have before you start painting.” “Bien, oui,” he said. “I show you right away.” Old Lady Wightman went in the house to sit in her parlor. Leo stared at the cans of paint for a minute before saying to Ray, “Bring me the blue, s’il vous plait.” Leo pried open the can of paint and brushed some on a sample hunk of wood. “Excusez, Madam Wightman, I have your color.” She took a quick look at the sample. “That is not robin’s egg blue; that is just ordinary blue. Look at the egg I got you and compare it. You need more white.” She went back in the parlor and Ray got Leo the can of white paint. Leo pulled a flask out of his hip pocket, took a sip, and offered some to Ray. “What am I going to do, eh? I am, how you say — daltonien — I cannot see the colors.” Ray gasped as the blistering hot whiskey went down his throat. Leo laughed, “C’est bon, m’ oui? You help me mix; I teach you how to drink.” Ray helped him mix, but he knew that Old Lady Wightman was never going to be pleased with her colorblind painter, even with help from a non-colorblind teenager. The next sample was far too light. The sample after that was too dark again. “Mon Dieu, Madam, this is a beautiful color. Do you like I paint your porch this color?” “Yes, it is a beautiful color for the porch, but it is not robin’s egg blue. I must have robin’s egg blue.” “But, Madam, why does it matter, as long as you like the color?” “I will have no more of your impertinence. Get the color right next time or I will have someone else paint my porch.” “Oui, Madam, I will have it right.” When the Old Lady left, Leo gave Ray a wink, took the paint they’d already mixed and dipped the egg in it. He called the Old Lady out. “Madam, I have been working hard to get your color, the robin’s egg blue. See the egg, it is the exact shade.” Old Lady Wightman studied the sample and the egg together. “All right, that is good enough; I will let you paint it this color. Be sure to clean up thoroughly when you are done.” Ray laughed as he had never laughed before. He felt free. Free of Old Lady Wightman, the shame of lacking a father, free of the lies he’d been told, and all the rules he had to follow. He took a longer drought from Leo’s flask and felt free inside, as well, as if the whiskey had unlocked something he had caged within. Invite your friends and earn rewardsIf you enjoy The Reflective Eclectic, share it with your friends and earn rewards when they subscribe.
|
Monday, 26 August 2024
The Robin’s Egg
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Protect your peace like it's worth something.
Because, well...it is. ...
No comments:
Post a Comment