The Sound of Many Waters (16 page)

“What the hell are we going to do here?”

“First,” said Francisco, kneeling at the altar, “we will pray.”

“No. I do not pray anymore.”

“Then how do you intend to live?”

“I live just fine.”

“You are alive, yes, but you do not have
life
. Listen to me closely. The next chapter of your existence will require an ongoing conversation with the one who created what is perhaps the most dangerous and miraculous thing in the world.”

Dominic sneered. “I thought I was the most dangerous and miraculous thing in the world.”

“Do not take this so lightly. Dark forces will conspire against you. You must be prepared. You must put on your armor.”

“Old man, my armor—along with my faith—is at the bottom of the sea. I can take care of myself without the help of some vengeful deity. I do not know what it is you speak of, but you cannot make me do something against my will. I answer to no one.”

“What if I tell you that if you do everything I ask, you will be rewarded with a treasure more valuable than all the gold and silver in the known world?”

“Of course I would agree, but no such treasure exists.”

“On the contrary, commander, it does, and I can show you where it is.”

Francisco made the sign of the cross over his body and stood. Dominic could see why the old man’s back was so hunched—the ceiling in the makeshift church was not high enough for anyone to stand up straight.

“I suppose,” said Francisco, “you think it was mere coincidence that I found you on the beach. That just by chance you were the lone survivor.”

“What else could it have been? Do not tell me fate or some nonsense.”

“I have lived a long life, commander, and one thing I can tell you for certain is that there are no coincidences. The future unfolds according to a plan. Bizarre happenstances and convergences are supposed to happen. Life is a cosmic drama in which every being plays a part. Especially you.”

“If you think you are so wise, then tell me, old man, without all the pious drivel, what the hell is the purpose?”

“It is simple. To learn how to love.”

Dominic’s eyes became fiery. His voice sharpened. “So what are you saying? That God wanted to teach me to
love
when he took my son?”

Francisco looked at him with tender, knowing eyes. “No, commander. He wanted to teach you to love when he gave him to you.”

Chapter Sixteen

“Who the hell you think you is?” said a deep but distinctly feminine voice.

Zane opened his eyes and tried to discern his whereabouts. Concrete. Graffiti. Filth.

“Why you in my bed? I
know
you ain’t been usin’ my junk!” said the voice, its pitch and volume increasing with every word.

Zane pulled a deep breath through his nose. Urine. Rotten fish. Stale beer. He threw the blanket off and sat up. The shadowy gloom of dusk had painted the bridge embankment in soft grays and its gaps an impenetrable black, likewise mas
k
ing the finer features of the African American woman towe
r
ing over him. Her brow furrowed in distrust and she gripped an aluminum baseball bat with both hands.

“I’m sorry,” said Zane. “I was tired. And cold.”

“Dint yo momma teach you no manners? You ain’t supposed to touch other peoples’ stuff, or sleep in other peoples’ beds, unless acourse they invite you in,” and she let out a booming laugh that did not seem to gel with her defensive stance.

“Sorry. I’ll get up.”

“Naw, don’t do that.” She sat down beside him and put the bat on the ground. “You’s little nuff I could kick yo ass, anyway.” She laughed again.

Even now, Zane had to look up at her. The woman’s cocoa skin was mottled with tiny black flecks, most noticeable on her cadaverous cheeks. Black ringlets of hair hung down the sides of her face from beneath a
Miami Dolphins
beanie cap, and the rest of her clothes gave the impression that she had acquired them by scooping up a random pile from the back steps of a thrift shop. She wore men’s
Nike Air
sneakers that had opened up at each toe, purple sweatpants a few sizes too large, a neon-pink
Cancun Spring Break 1997
T-shirt, and a stonewashed jean jacket with a
Bon Jovi New Jersey
button on the front poc
k
et. On anyone else the ensemble would have looked ridic
u
lous. Considering her personality, however, it seemed perfect.

“I’m Mama Ethel,” she said, and then she looked up at the underside of the causeway. “Welcome to my wata-front home. Solid concrete construction and close to the highway for them long commutes.” She smiled.

“You’re homeless?” asked Zane, but then he bit his lip. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“It don’t bother me none. A dog don’t get mad when you say he’s a dog, do he? What’s your name?”

“I’m Zane.” He immediately regretted not using an alias. But who would this lady talk to, anyway? And who would listen to her?

“Pleasure,” said Mama Ethel, taking his hand in hers so fully that Zane could no longer see it. “You know, Mista Zany, when I saw you in my bed, the first thought I had was to growl at you.”

Zane smiled. “Growl at me?”

She leaned toward him with wild eyes and stooped on all fours. “
Grrrr,
” she growled, and then she sat back down. “Like a big ol bear. Dint yer momma never read you
Goldilocks
?”

“I doubt it,” said Zane.

Mama Ethel’s voice took on the whine of a child. “Summun’s been sleepin in
my
bed! Summun’s been eatin
my
po
r
ridge! Summun’s been shootin up
my
junk! Ring a bell?”

Zane laughed. This woman was wonderful, if not absolutely nuts. She laughed, too, but then she stopped and the co
n
tours of her face drooped into a look of intense sadness.

“Mikaela sho did love that story,” she said.

Zane had not even known Mama Ethel for a minute, but he wanted to cheer her up. “With someone telling it like you just did, I can see why,” he said.

“Ain’t you gonna ask me who Mikaela is?”

“I think I can guess. Your daughter?”

Mama Ethel nodded with slow, broad motions of her head and neck. “It was her birt-day last munf. Fifteen years ode. Prolly be learnin to drive a car soon. Where’s the time go?”

“Do you ever see her?”

“Naw. I been on the streets since she was eight. I try to call her sometimes but she don’t want nuthin to do with a nappy old homeless woman. I keep on saying that one a these days I’m gonna get my life together and get her back, but like my auntie always said, talkin bout fire don’t boil the pot. Mikaela lives with her daddy’s momma now—her grandmomma.”

“Where’s her father?”

“Heaven, I hope, but I doubt it. He killed hisself.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Life is short and full a thorns. The mo you cry the less you piss. You hungry?”

“Starving.”

“Most people under bridges is. Let’s see what Mama Ethel can rustle up.”

She reached into one of the crevices of the bridge and pulled out a can. It had no label and was dented in at the middle like an anorexic. She shook the can by her ear. “You like beans?” she asked.

“I could eat a rock right now.”

“They’s lots of them round here, too, but I recommend the beans.” She laughed, and then used a can opener to open the can. “Sweet blessin a God!” she exclaimed. “She ain’t just beans, Mista Zany, she’s pork’n beans. Hal-le-lu-jah! Auntie always said, count yo blessins, not yo problems. Hope you don’t mind em cold.”

“Not at all.”

She handed him a
Krispy Kreme
coffee mug filled with beans and a plastic spoon. “Thank you, ma’am,” said Zane.

“Call me Mama.”

Zane smiled. He took a bite of the beans and looked out at the river. The sun had set and the sky and water looked like identical cobalt mirrors reflecting each other. The police boat was gone and the only movement he could see was from a cormorant making a v-shaped wake as it prowled below the surface. He wondered if the cops had given up, or if they would resume their search in the morning. He resolved to find a newspaper as soon as it came out.

“So what you runnin from?” said Mama Ethel.

Zane felt suddenly nervous. “Who said I was running?”

“I dint say you did nothin wrong. Plenty a good cotton plants get chopped down from associatin with weeds. I can see you ain’t trouble. You just
in
trouble.”

Zane looked out at the river and watched the ghostly streaks of fish cruising through phosphorescence. Mama Ethel hummed a tune he guessed to be from a gospel hymn. When she finished, she picked up a hypodermic needle, but after looking at it for some time, she wrapped it in a napkin and set it aside.

Zane blurted, “Last time I talked to my mother, I told her I hated her.”

Mama Ethel leaned back and looked at Zane down the bridge of her nose. Then she nodded her head. “I sho know how it feels to be on the other end a that. But you don’t really hate her, do you?”

“No. I could never hate her. I just wish she was different. I wish she was… more like you.”

Mama Ethel’s booming laugh echoed off the bridge rafters, driving out a few pigeons. “Why in the world would you wish that on yo momma?”

“Because you don’t blame your daughter for your situation.”

Mama Ethel looked at Zane for a moment, and then she stood and said, “I know zactly what you need.” Zane watched her go up the embankment. He hoped that she would not offer him drugs because he doubted he had enough strength to resist, dirty needle or not. But she simply grabbed two blankets and a sweater from one of the crevices. She laid the blankets out on a piece of cardboard and gently smoothed them down with her large hands, and then she rolled up the sweater and placed it as a pillow. “Come on, child, let me tuck you in.”

Zane felt uncomfortable about her offer but the unwavering smile on her face made it impossible to decline. He carried the duffel bag up the embankment and set it down beside the bed, and then he lay down. Mama Ethel pulled the top blanket up to his chin and folded it in under his sides until he looked like a pastry. Then she lay next to him and ran her fingers through his hair.

“Now I lay me down to sleep,” she whispered, “I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”

Zane closed his eyes and savored the feeling of Mama Ethel’s warm, calloused hand caressing his scalp. To the world she may have been a homeless drug addict who lived under a bridge, but at that moment to Zane she was nothing less than an angel.

“If I die before I wake,” she continued, her whisper waning, “I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

Her hand stopped moving. It sat motionless on Zane’s head for a long time before the tips of her fingers started trembling. She sniveled, and then in a low murmur she said, “Goodnight, Mikaela.”

“Goodnight, Mama,” whispered Zane.

Zane slept a hard, dreamless sleep and woke to the sound of singing. “
I once was lost but now am found...
”

It was Mama Ethel, belting out
Amazing Grace
as she prepared their breakfast: two coffee cups full of stale
Cheerios
with water instead of milk.

“
When we’ve been here ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we’ve first begun.”

The morning sun, floating low in the east, had not yet been obstructed by the bridge and in the gleam Mama Ethel seemed almost ethereal. When she noticed him awake, she brought him his cereal.

“You know what, Mista Zany?” she said. “Last night I dint need no dope to sleep. First time in years. I think you brought me some hope, or sumpin like it.”

Zane smiled. “You’re a good mama, Mama.”

She sat beside him and put her cereal down. “You know,
Goldilocks
wasn’t Mikaela’s favorite book.”

“No? What was?”

“
Billy Goats Gruff
.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Well, these three goats start to cross a bridge one by one, but a big ugly troll lives under it. ‘Who’s that trampin over my bridge?’ the troll says. ‘Now I’m comin to gobble you up!’ But when that troll finally goes up, the biggest a them billy goats knocks him right smack in the water.” Mama Ethel’s chestnut eyes flushed with tears and she gazed down. “Sometimes I wonder if Mikaela thinks a me as some nasty ol troll, hidin in the darkness while life just passes over me like a long line a billy goats.”

Zane put his hand on her back. He suddenly realized that he had the ability to help her. He unzipped the duffel bag and pulled out one of the stacks of coins.