Mad Boys (23 page)

The Autodidact found himself a girlfriend on a church picnic. She was almost as old as he was; she had three adult children who had married and moved on. Her husband had been an alcoholic, and after her kids were grown she had divorced him. Her name was Mary Jane. She reminded me a little of Nurse Wilder, except that she was a lot prettier than Nurse Wilder. She had dark skin, and her parents had been born in Mexico. Mary Jane’s real name had been something else, but she’d changed it because her people had been illegal aliens and they wanted her to have a North American name.

She and the Autodidact had two things in common: they were ex-Catholics, and they were touched in the head when it came to books. She was a county librarian, who drove a bookmobile from town to town. She lived alone in a tiny mobile home in Carrizozo on a small lot. She grew flowers everywhere, in gardens, in pots, in tubs, on window sills, even in the crooks of a live oak tree, the only one on the property. The Autodidact would visit her two or three times a week. Pretty soon he started spending the night. I found the whole business irritating.

It didn’t take long before I was calling Mrs. Clements Grandma. She liked to be read to aloud, and I was happy to oblige. I read books that were assigned by the Autodidact or later by my teachers in school. Speaking the words out loud to my grandma felt pleasant and helped me understand better what was being said. Grandma Clements would lie down on the couch, close her sightless eyes, and listen. Sometimes she’d burst into laughter. Other times tears came to her eyes. Now and then there’d be something she wouldn’t understand. If she didn’t get it, I didn’t usually get it either and we’d have to ask the Autodidact. Sometimes even he didn’t get it.

Because she was blind, she knew her little house by touch and smell. She cooked by touch and smell, too. I used to help her with chores. I fetched the eggs from the hens, watered the garden, and pulled weeds. The goat fed herself by browsing off the land, but she and the chickens had to be brought in the shed at night, lest the coyotes get them. The goat wouldn’t allow anybody but Grandma Clements to milk her, so I didn’t have to trouble myself over that job. I liked the goat’s milk; it went smoothly down my throat.

My favorite chore was helping Grandma Clements murder a chicken for a meal. The Autodidact could get himself into a work frenzy over a big project, but he always seemed to have something to do when routine work had to be done. He’d rather read about hens and plan a new coop than fetch the eggs. Killing a chicken wasn’t hard, but it took some strength and determination. You grabbed the victim by its long neck and did a snap-the-whip with it. The result: dead chicken. Then you cut the heads off and let the blood drain from the body. Remembering Siena and her Souvien heritage, I once drank the blood from the neck. It was warm and rich tasting, but rank. I don’t recommend drinking chicken blood unless you’re desperate. Plucking the chicken was no fun. I would do the main part, tearing out feathers in a mad frenzy by pretending I was tearing out the pages in the Alien’s diary about me. Grandma Clements finished the work, plucking the remaining feathers with pliers.

There were times when Grandma Clements made me nervous. The big lie that held us together as a family, her belief that we were kin, kept bothering me. I’d get these impulses to blurt out terrible truths: “Your boy was a nobody. . . . This Jim is a great man. . . . I’m not your grandson, I’m an alien. . . . You’re old, you’re going to die soon.” But I didn’t say anything. I would just sigh and ask for something to eat. She loved to feed me red beans and rice.

Once she called me over and passed her hands over my face. “I can see you’re upset. I think I know why,” she said. I could feel her love for me in those hands. “It’s your natural mother, isn’t it? You’ve been thinking about her.” She must have felt the emotion in my face, because I could feel it myself in her fingertips.

I started eighth grade in the fall. School kept me busy. I was way ahead of my classmates in some subjects, thanks to the learning I’d received from Father (tool use), Royal (business and mischief), and the Autodidact (reading, writing), but in other subjects, such as math and science, I was behind. I caught up pretty fast. I just sucked up the knowledge.

The social life at the school was more interesting than the learning life. We had ranch kids and town kids, Anglo kids and Mexican-American kids. They used to bad-mouth each other, and sometimes there was a fight, but not very often. Sometimes it was hard to tell who disliked who. For example, ranch Anglo kids were more apt to get along with ranch Mexican-American kids than with town Anglo kids, except when it came to dating. Also, some local families of long standing might belong to the same groups, but they hated each other because of ancient feuds. I never did figure it all out, and I never did fit into any crowd. The Autodidact said I’d either be more or less accepted by all or condemned by all. As John LeFauve, raised French-Canadian in Yankee New England, he’d been in the same situation. Because of his bad personality, he’d been condemned. Because of my good personality, I was accepted. More or less. It didn’t hurt that I was Ike’s best friend. He was popular with everybody.

As the months passed, I grew taller, stronger, and hairier; I also found myself more and more interested in “the opposite sex,” which was what the Autodidact called females. At first, girls were sort of, I don’t know, in the way. I talked to them, but we didn’t have much in common. Then I made a friend named Sara. She didn’t get me all hot and bothered, because she was like a boy in her friendship to me. I didn’t have the feelings about girls that other boys my own age had. All they talked about was a girl they called C, which was not her real name, but the cup size of her bra, which one boy claimed to have glimpsed by peeking through the air grate in the girls’ gym. Every guy in my class was in love with C. Not that it mattered. She had a boyfriend who was a junior in high school. I used to try to think about C, because I wanted to be normal. But I couldn’t. Instead, Xiphi appeared in my dreams. He did it with other demons, muddied fiery creatures like himself, some of them like boys, others like girls, but none of them human. They’d poke each other, crying out in pain and ecstasy. I would wake up wet.

I finished eighth grade with A’s and B’s. I was looking forward to the summer. Mr. T. & Mrs. L. Leah had hired Ike and me to give tours of the mine to tourists. The T. & L. Leahs planned to teach us all about how to talk to people about rocks. That got me to thinking about my future. Maybe I’d go to college and become a geologist, which Mister T. Leah described as “a rock hound with an attitude.” I was also slated to help the Autodidact on another building project during the summer. We were going to install a new septic system and leaching field along with another bathroom. I couldn’t understand why we needed two bathrooms in our house, and I told the Autodidact so. His answer explained everything: “Mary Jane and I are getting married.”

They planned to “tie the knot” (the Autodidact’s phrase) the last Saturday in June at the Baptist church in Carrizozo. I have to admit I felt a little weird about “this Blessed Event” (which was what Grandma Clements called it). All the old feelings of wanting to run away came flooding back to me. I knew that Grandma Clements and the Autodidact loved me, and that Mary Jane was a good person, but something about them “tieing the knot” left me at loose ends. I told my blood brother Ike about my feelings, and asked him what he would do. He said, “I’d be brave.” I thought that was about the most noble thing I’d ever heard, so I decided to be brave and keep my anxiousness to myself.

Before the wedding, the Autodidact had a long talk with Grandma Clements. She gave her blessing to the Blessed Event. Besides the Blessed Event, they discussed the homestead. It had never had a name, because Grandma Clements’ father wasn’t interested in such things. The Autodidact thought the place should be called Buffalo Soldier Ranch, with the name on a new gate, to be installed at the entrance of the property. That was fine with Grandma Clements, and from that day on the Clements homestead was known as Buffalo Soldier Ranch.

Just before we left for church, I stood in the doorway of the bathroom and watched the Autodidact put on a tie. He had a collection of strange ties, but he didn’t actually wear one very often. He looked handsome and squared away in a striped business suit he’d bought just for the Blessed Event. The tie was mainly blue with foamy designs that upon closer examination you could see were of surf breakers.

“Nice tie,” I said.

“Thank you.” The Autodidact smiled and looked wistful.

“Why do you own so many ties? You almost never wear one.”

“Back in prison, John LeFauve used to fantasize that he and his beloved would get all dressed up for dinner at a fancy restaurant. One aspect of this mental game was imagining tie designs—gaudy ties, grotesque ties, stately ties. Ties celebrating ocean waves, dolphins, hurricane eyes, not to mention African totems. Later, in Grand Isle, when I was going through Jim Clements’ things, I found half a dozen ties. The man had been homeless. He’d only owned one change of underwear, and yet he lugged around neckties. In this way he hung onto a little dignity.”

I asked the Autodidact to teach me to make the knot. It was pretty obvious the Autodidact wanted to get going, but he didn’t complain and he spent a few minutes showing me how to make a Windsor knot and a half-Windsor knot.

The wedding was a grander affair than I would have predicted. Grandma Clements knew a lot of people in the county; Mary Jane had family galore and friends up the yin-yang; the Autodidact had some friends that he’d met through his research on the Buffalo Soldiers. Ike and his parents came, too. All those people, dressed up, happy, together, celebrating. And me? Alone in himself. After the ceremony, there was a reception at Buffalo Soldier Ranch under a rented tent awning. The wedding party (that’s what they called themselves) poured wine and other drinks down their throats, danced to country and western music, and then ate like pigs. They called it fun.

I became more and more morose. I didn’t even want to play with Ike. It wasn’t until 2
A.M
. the next morning that the whole crew packed it in and went home.

The Autodidact and Mary Jane were up first thing in the morning, getting ready to take off on a week-long honeymoon. They were driving to Santa Fe to go to a couple of art shows, and the Autodidact was going to stop at the library at the university in Albuquerque. I put up a little bit of a stink at the breakfast table.

“Why bother with this farce?” I said. “You’ve been honeymooning for months.”

“It’s only going to be for a week, and we’ll be coming back,” the Autodidact said, patiently. “Quit your complaining.”

“Why can’t I go? I’d like to see Santa Fe and Albuquerque and get away from this stinking desert valley.”

That sent Grandma Clements into gales of laughter. She wasn’t usually sarcastic, but she knew I was putting on a show.

“Web,” the Autodidact said, “I’ll take you to Santa Fe, but not now. This next week belongs to Mary Jane and me.”

“I’ll run away.” I don’t know why I said that. I knew it would upset everybody, and I was sorry. I didn’t back down though. I set my jaw and screwed up my face to look stubborn.

“Jim?” Mary Jane said. “Maybe we better postpone the honeymoon.”

“You aren’t postponing anything,” Grandma Clements said. “Web’s just a little scared. But even he knows better, don’t you, boy?” She didn’t wait for my sassy answer. “You folks need some time to yourself. And I need somebody here to take care of things. That’s you, Web Clements.” She aimed her finger at me. Of course, because she was blind she missed by a couple of feet, but it didn’t matter. Everybody knew she’d hit the mark.

I was willing to let bygones be bygones, and when the Autodidact and Mary Jane left in the pickup truck I gave them big hugs and kisses and wished them a happy honeymoon. I’m afraid, though, that my good intentions were interrupted by a thought from Xiphi: there’s an accident, the Autodidact’s okay, but Mary Jane’s killed. Luckily, she’s taken out a huge insurance policy, and we’re left filthy rich.

After they left, Mrs. Clements called me, “Come over here.” She gave me a hug in her ancient arms. “I love you because you’re my own flesh and blood.” I suddenly felt a flood of love for Grandma Clements, and I hugged her fiercely.

That night before going to bed I put the collar around my neck. I was sending signals again. It was like I wasn’t here anymore. Part of me, maybe the best part, was someplace else, in somebody else’s mind. I thought about Father and his last words to me, “Far out.” Those two words, words to live by, were all he ever gave me. Maybe they were all I could expect of a father.

The next day, late in the afternoon, driving my ATV, on our private road, in the middle of a lava field of black rock formations, almost near the highway, I was surprised by the sight of a parked vehicle, half blocking the road, a green van. Where had I seen that van before? I couldn’t remember.

I got off my vehicle and walked over to the van. The driver was wearing a tight-fitting silvery uniform just like my guardian angel’s. But it wasn’t Langdon behind the wheel; it was Siena.

“I don’t know if I want to go. I’ve been happy here,” I said.

“My orders are to take you to your mother, if you so choose,” Siena said.

XI

What English-speaking peoples have in common is isolation. The original speakers shaped their language on an island. Their successful colonists in North America, Australia, and New Zealand were all, in their own way, islanders, peoples cut off from the rest of the world by ocean.

—From the Journal of Henri Scratch.

My mother! I couldn’t think; I couldn’t speak; I couldn’t even feel exactly—I was a zombie. I left Pinto with the key in the ignition, running on idle, and slipped into the passenger side of the van. Before I’d even shut the door, Siena stomped the accelerator to the floorboards, and we tore through the twisting dirt road in reverse. I watched Buffalo Soldier Ranch through the windshield disappear in a dust cloud kicked up by the spinning tires. Maybe I’d never again see the ranch or the Autodidact or Grandma Clements. I didn’t care—I was going to be delivered to the person I loved!