Lucky Turtle, page 36
On a quiet street of tall houses, we stopped again and Ricky got out, and soon the kid was back, no medium roller like Mom and Dad, but two enormous old-school suitcases and behind him a tall roommate, blond as the sun, lugging three stuffed garment bags, four hats on his head, numerous scarves.
“Mom, Dad,” Ricky said. “This is Gene-Gene, the Dancing Machine, from Iowa.” We all grinned at that, just Gene’s expression, like he’d never heard that one before, Iowa somehow funny, too, extremely buff and rugged boy in bare legs and T-shirt.
“See you three weeks,” he said to Ricky. And pulled down his mask to reveal a lush mouth, kissed my boy, so deeply, Ricky pulling him in, a long, thoroughly romantic hug and then what could only be called mashing, this new generation, then sudden tears. Ricky climbed in the car then and, with Gene trotting alongside tragicomically waving, we drove off.
“My boyfriend,” Ricky called back. “Isn’t he the best?”
I pushed the intercom button. “You didn’t mention,” I said.
“It’s new,” he said cheerfully. One day you’re roommates, the next you’re in love. But he’s so needy!”
It was an adjustment for Lucky, you could see it on his face. But he laughed, called, “Then we are glad he didn’t come along.”
Miles went by, all the industrial everything.
“I’m growing,” Lucky said.
I liked that, said, “We’re throwing so much at you.”
He said, “I’m good at ducking.”
I laughed. “You’d better be good at catching, too.” Then, after a few stop-and-go-traffic miles, I said, “How about me, does it seem like I’m growing or have grown at all? What do I even offer you? I’m not so good at ducking.”
“Oh, Cindrawww. You brought me out of the dark. You were the garden girl. You fed us.”
“Well, we all did. I mean, what do I offer now?”
“You taught me to think, think in words.”
“You always thought in words, maybe just different ones.”
“And you raised this boy up tall.”
“I did, it’s true. But now, Lucky. Like right now?”
His hand settled on my thigh.
Good answer. A creamy feeling settled in my gut. The city miles gave way to marching suburbs, the marching suburbs gave way to dry countryside. Lucky and I couldn’t look at each other for smiling.
Our route took us through Nevada, and there, the mountains rolling into view, you could feel your heart expanding. Some part of Lucky seemed to leave the car to join the vasty landscape. We hardly talked, but drifted on our own thoughts, this family in a car. Lucky couldn’t abide Ricky’s tunes, which had gotten louder and thumped harder and harder, the car’s fancy stereo.
I said, “Just tell him.”
Hard for the new dad, but he did it, pressed the intercom button so he wouldn’t seem to be yelling. “The music, son. I can’t hear my own.” Thoughts, he meant, thoughts as music.
Ricky didn’t mind, pushed the necessary buttons, closed the glass divider between us, two worlds.
“He’s a good boy,” Lucky said after many miles.
“He is.”
And after many more: “You know what Mountain Turtle told me? He thinks you and I should have a wedding.”
“Oh, Ricky and his weddings. He would love that.”
“Would you?”
“Would I love it? I don’t know. Would you love it?
“I would love it.”
I said, “In that case, yes. I would love it a lot.”
“He’s already planning it. A surprise. Just some easygoing kind of thing for us. I can put it to a stop.”
“A surprise wedding? How can you have a surprise wedding?”
“Well, it won’t be a surprise now. But, see, I wanted to check. This is how I’ve grown. I ask you. You answer. But I like Ricky and me being in on it together. If it’s yes, just say yes, and then forget it.”
“Okay, yes. Yes, yes, yes.”
“Got some other surprises, too, that boy.”
“I won’t ask.”
Lucky pressed the intercom. “Come in, Mountain Turtle,” he said.
Ricky popped the music out of his ears. “Yes, Poppa.”
“Momma and I are going to get bicycles.”
“Well, there you have it,” Ricky said.
“Have what?” Lucky said.
“Exact,” Ricky said.
More endless miles, my private beaming, my boys getting along behind my back. Ricky stopped at a grocery, came out with a dozen stuffed bags and a large red cooler. He filled it with ice, loaded his perishable items into it. We stopped for lunch another hour up the road and ate thereafter beautiful meals we created at roadside stops as I had done with my own Daddy, that long pregnant ride, that other going home, the hard one, ate beside lakes and rivers, ate at the tops of dams, swung our feet out over the various abysses.
Lucky liked Target because of the logo, same as one he’d seen in a dream, but that one grown in grasses and pressed into the land, lasting imprint of a pole house. We stopped there—clean bathroom for me, Lucky lingering in the candy aisle, skinny fucker with those perfect teeth. Ricky filled a shopping cart—I wasn’t allowed to look. But he trotted up to me with a dress from far across the store, pressed it to my shoulders.
“Dreamy,” he said, walking off with it.
I drove a while, Lucky’s head in my lap. Then he took the wheel. Then Ricky again, then just the two of them up front all night, trading off. Did they sleep? Maybe not. There was a lot of conversation, vurry serious. I slept, long and hard, no problem, Lucky’s garden girl, Ricky’s mom, peaceful to the core, the back seat of that limo as big as a Hollywood casting couch, sorry Dora.
Well, not entirely peaceful—I woke ashamed of how Lucky and I had treated the diplomat’s belongings, how we’d been booted, remorse having settled in. I’d seen myself in that house for a year or more to come. I’d seen Lucky and me in that house. I found the daughter’s sweet emails, started a new thread: “Apologies, and an explanation.” And exactly that, told her about finding Lucky, how I’d thought him dead, told her the whole story, how we’d reunited in their house, how the bathtub reminded us of our hot-spring baths, all of it. I proofread, revised, proofread some more, pressed Send. And though I knew I’d never hear from her, I felt better in my heart.
We stopped for gas often—that car drank the stuff, eight miles to a gallon, Ricky calculated, two twenty-gallon tanks, grotesque. Lucky’s inwardness eased further; he even started getting out of the car at pit stops. Ricky’s excitement eased, too, my boys meeting at a figurative Halfway Spring. Together, they strode into men’s rooms, farm stands, tourist traps. Of course they drew stares.
“Go back home,” an unshaven man said that midnight, corner of Idaho, maybe hoping we wouldn’t hear, maybe just for the ears of his drunken friends, whatever bile draining from them all under Ricky’s oblivious moon, under the sun of Lucky’s unexpected smile, that gentle benevolence, gas station fluorescents:
“We are,” he told them. “We’re going home.”
Chapter Sixty-Eight
I must have looked like a creature in a sci-fi film climbing out of that bronzy starship, pink preliminary sunlight coloring distant peaks west, the rear wing doors of Dora’s limo slowly opening. We were three dazed time travelers taking it all in, Maria’s place, that paint-garish mobile home perched on its outcropping, gardens lush, Turtle Butte looming in the near distance, all cliff and slide, the air between smoky with morning.
I was perplexed, as Ricky said he’d made arrangements at the resort where we’d stayed years before. Lucky had been driving, Ricky shotgun, the sleepless duo. We’d developed a kind of patter during the long ride, a family style emerging from Ricky’s jokes between my naps:
“Lucky, my dear,” I said. “This ain’t the Big West Resort.”
But Lucky was serious. He said, “This is where I know.”
Ricky was matter of fact. “Maria said to come here.”
I said, “You’ve been in touch with her?”
“I’ve been in touch with Born on Bison. Remember Born on Bison?”
“Of course I do. And you didn’t tell your mom?”
“I did not.”
Lucky said, “I dreamed it. We were standing right here by this car, only it was maybe more like an ocean barge.”
“And you didn’t tell Mom?” Ricky said, his sort of teasing.
“I told you,” Lucky said. “After Target. And you said—”
Ricky grinned. “I said, Don’t tell Mom.”
I said, “The little family reunited not a week and already triangulating!”
Ricky laughed: the last time we would ever quote Walter, the last we would ever mention him.
“This is so great,” Ricky said. “I have parents.”
And so we all had to hug.
The old Aermotor spun as always, the constant wind, the musical creaking, the olden wood trough full as ever, dripping as ever, mud beneath, dust all around. And still the chickens pecking everywhere and always the mountains at far horizon north and west, sharp peaks, the yellow rangeland between.
Suddenly the sun broke the long ridge east and rose time-lapse above the plains. Clay’s immense collection of junk went radiant all around us, stainless steel and chrome and gold leaf sparkling, mirrors and window glass throwing beams like lasers, the endless rust flamingly orange, a number of fresh wrecks since even those few years before, even without Clay—more than just dumping but a kind of homage: this is where metal came to rest. Some kindly soul with a giant backhoe or even a boom crane must’ve stopped by from time to time, I thought, sorting things like-with-like, keeping the alps not wide but high the way Clay had: tractor frames and baling machines, airplane cowlings and whole restaurant kitchens. At a kind of low pinnacle atop other vehicles, a pickup truck had been perched three stories up as if by helicopter, proud on its unbowed springs. I’d have known that blue door anywhere, the rest all rusty yellow, and I knew that homemade wooden bed: Clay’s truck.
Lucky recognized it, too. “Hoppo,” he said quietly, a benediction.
Ricky took it all in, the engineer’s eye. “Isn’t entropy magnificent,” he said.
“I imagine so,” Lucky said. “What is it?”
“One of the laws of the universe: all things seek randomness.”
“Like, things fall apart,” I said.
“But you can put them back together,” Lucky said.
“Just not the same,” Ricky said.
“Two turtles talking,” I said.
The way they were grinning. Something was up.
Lucky lit the bath fire, pumped water into Clay’s boiler-bottom cauldron, let it heat way too hot, filled the farm tub. I went first, used Ricky’s bathing kit, all sorts of fancy emollients and soaps, a good razor, then the boy, fresh hot water, no rushing him, then Lucky, who preferred it cold, seldom shaved in any case. We weren’t too terribly private—but Ricky had brought towels suspiciously reminiscent of the diplomat’s pool towels, thick and colorful. I’d have to write another note. I combed out both men’s hair forever and braided them both double and forward for power. Ricky did my hair, insisted on a tight French braid and bun.
“Lucky, look how beautiful she is,” he said.
And I saw in Lucky’s eyes it was true.
We dressed fresh for the first time in days, chef’s pants for Lucky, peasant blouse for me, vintage-store jacket and tie for Ricky, big padded shoulders. The sun climbed higher to elicit the creaking of sun-warmed metal, oily scents in the breeze along with the scent of sage and ponderosa-pine smoke. Lucky and I linked arms like an old couple, took in the boy much the way we took in the landscape, an impressive figure, our son.
Turtle Butte, too, looming close.
Ricky grinned, and that set Lucky in motion, those conspirators. They led me to the patch of yard below the trailer. Lucky kneeled in front of me, checked in with Ricky. “Like this?” he said.
And Ricky said, “Yes, Daddy, go.”
And from the breast pocket of his shirt Lucky produced a plain blue ring, presented it to me on his palm. “Will you marry me?” he said.
“We’re married,” I said.
“So marry me even more?”
“Yes,” I said, playing a little bugged. “Yes, I will.”
Ricky clapped his hands.
Lucky got up, slipped the ring on my finger—no time to admire it, he wanted a formal kiss and we shared it, Ricky looking on.
“We thought we could do it here,” Ricky said.
“Oh, you thought.”
“Because you never had a wedding.”
“When did you blockheads cook this up?”
“We’re not blockheads,” Lucky said.
Well, try as I might to pretend to be cross about it, I was delighted, especially with the ring, some kind of stone, blue as water, thread of gold all the way around.
“Tell her where you got it,” Ricky said.
“Gas station,” Lucky said. “That guy with the table. It’s lapis lazuli. It cost same as the tanks of gas.”
“See how it fits,” Ricky said.
“It fits,” I said.
Ricky clapped again. “Mom, now you know why I was trying on all your rings!”
“You clowns,” I said.
“We’re not clowns,” Lucky said.
Immediately we heard a car coming. Ricky took no notice. Lucky did, stiffened, turned his head to hear, to check in with me. But I already knew that particular wee-car wheeze: Born on Bison. The little Fiesta pulled up shortly, Bob waving out his window, beeping. Arms, in fact, were waving from all his windows. He parked, popped out.
“A wedding!” he cried.
“Oh, no,” I said. “Right now?”
“Surprise again,” Ricky said.
“Only if you want,” Lucky said.
Three young women climbed out of the Fiesta after Bob, Maria’s three attendants, three different shapes, college age, smiles like shy lightning, but not so shy they didn’t race toward me, waving wooden spoons.
“Wedding spoons!” Born on Bison announced. “We were carving all night.”
“And singing,” the shortest of the girls said, also the most confident, bangs and short-shorts, bracelets up her arm.
“Tradition,” the tall girl said, built like a boy. She claimed Bob with a hand on his back.
“Well, maybe tradition in Norway,” the third kid said. She was dark skinned like Lucky, sun burnished, a little hard. She said, “Bob, give her the thing.”
And Bob pulled it out of his pocket, a little animal skin, maybe marmot, sleek and a little gross. The girls touched me with their spoons as Bob presented the skin, and they did begin to sing, not some rare old song of the plains but a Beyoncé song I knew a little, great harmonies, talented girls. Bob, not so much, crooning and handing over his fur.
The girls tied their spoons together as they sang and tied Bob’s fur in there, and it all went around my neck. “We’re making it up as we go along,” Bob’s girlfriend said. “Maria said it didn’t have to be Christian, but it couldn’t be straight Crow. So it’s kind of all the things we like?”
“This is Sinopa,” Bob said. “She lived in Norway junior year.”
“Dear girl,” I said, sounding like Dora.
“The spoons are good,” Lucky said. “The skin is good.”
They all looked at me expectantly. “The spoons are really good,” I said. “The skin, not so much.”
Everyone laughed.
I said, “Where is Maria?”
The kids didn’t answer, just sang their song. I mean, really talented. The girl with the bangs was called Kate—she kept touching me. Alsoomse, the hard girl, inspected me closely. Sinopa pushed Bob at me. Bob was supposed to kiss my hands, hilarious how he could not but instead kissed the air near them.
Lucky looked so guilty—he and our son had been plotting the whole ride, Crafty Turtles!
And now here came a pickup truck, huge and brand new, pulling a first-class horse trailer, not a sound till it was upon us, that’s how new, cloud of dust I’d not noticed, some tracker I’d turned out to be, reckless four-wheel drift. To belie the speed, an ancient gentleman unfolded himself and got out so slowly—you could almost hear the creaks and pops. “Sorry to be late!” he cried.
“You’re not late,” Bob called.
“I thought noon,” the old man said.
Suddenly I recognized him, too: Reverend Bridgewater, the Camp Challenge pastor. Hadn’t he been old even back in the day?
“It’s far from noon,” Bob said.
The reverend hurried around the vehicle to his passenger’s door, opened it, helped down a tall, striking figure: Maria. Ricky squeezed my hand. The spoons clattered around my neck. The fur was silky. It smelled, not badly, nostalgically in fact, but smelled. Maria approached upon the reverend’s arm, came straight to me.
“I’ve been in to see the doctor,” she said. “The reverend here came and got me. Nothing to do with you.” She touched my hands first, clutched my spoons formally, put her forehead to mine. Everyone else just stopped. She seemed to know the old way. We fell into each other’s eyes a long time, then she kissed my mouth, my ears, backed away, biggest smile I’d ever seen on her, maybe the only.
“Our bride,” she said.
“Our aunt,” I said.
“Blessings,” Reverend Bridgewater said.
“I remember you,” I said.
“I hear I remember you, too,” he said wryly.
Now Maria went to Ricky, took his hands as she had mine, touched her forehead to his so fondly. “Mountain Turtle,” she said. And only then did she turn to Lucky, take his hands. “We dreamed this,” she said. “We always did.” They touched their foreheads a long, long time in our silence. You saw how old she was, sister of Walks Far. They’d been born at the deep, far end of the twentieth century, when you thought about it, same planet, different world.
Maria put my hand with Lucky’s, squeezed. I could feel the ring new to my finger. I could feel that I’d wanted it. I could feel that I’d get Lucky one, some gas station flea market somewhere unknown. I could feel that the ring mattered, that it made a difference. I could feel that all the things had come out just as they had come out, the only way they could, and this ring blue as water said okay to that, amen.
