Walking Across Egypt

  Clyde Edgerton

  WALKING ACROSS EGYPT

  A Novel

  ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL

  In memory of Lex Mathews

  CONTENTS

  I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | XIII | XIV

  I

  The dog was a tan fice—cowlicked, thin pointed sticks for legs, a pointed little face with powerful whiskers, one ear flopped and one straight.

  He was lying on the back steps of Mattie Rigsbee’s brick ranch one summer Saturday morning when she opened the door to throw out a pan of table scraps for the birds. She placed her foot on the step beside him. She was wearing the leather shoes she’d cut slits in for her corns. The dog didn’t move. Holding the bowl, Mattie stepped on out into the yard and tried to see if it was a him or her so she could decide whether or not it would have been possible to keep it if she were younger and more able. If it insisted on staying she’d have to call the dogcatcher because she was too old to look after a dog—with everything else she had to do to keep up the house and yard. She was, after all, seventy-eight, lived alone, and was—as she kept having to explain—slowing down. Yet her neighbor, Alora Swanson, was fond of saying, “Yeah, she cuts her own grass, and keeps that place looking better than I would, or could.” Alora liked to tell about how Mattie fell in the kitchen and fractured her hip when she was seventy-six and then worked around the house for two weeks before finally, after a sleepless night, consenting to go to the doctor—who had to put a pin in. And during those two weeks Mattie picked butterbeans at least four or five times. After the pin was in, Alora would say: “Mattie, I told you it was broke. I told her it was broke,” she would say, looking around. “I said, ‘Mattie, it could be broke. You better go to the doctor.’ But she wouldn’t go. You know Mattie.”

  The dog, lying on the steps with Mattie bending over trying to see if it was a male, looked sick. It had no spunk—wouldn’t even get up so she could see if it was a male or not.

  “Well, bless your little heart,” said Mattie. “Where in the world did you come from?” The tip of the dog’s tail moved once. “Are you hungry, Punkie? You look kind of skinny.” The dog snapped at a fly. “I guess I’ll have to fix you up a little something to eat.”

  The dog sat up slowly.

  “Well, I’ll declare,” said Mattie, “you are a male.”

  Back inside, Mattie put the bird bowl in its place by the sink, bent over and pulled out the cast-iron frying pan which she declared was getting too heavy for her. She then warmed some beef stew and water, poured it into a small bowl over two opened biscuits cooked that morning, and started outside with it. Maybe he’s gone, she thought. She wanted him to be gone so she wouldn’t have to put up with him until she called the dogcatcher. She would have run him off if he hadn’t been so skinny and lacking in spunk.

  The dog had not left. Mattie put the bowl down a few feet away so he would have to walk and she could tell if he’d been hit by a car. He stood, walked over to the bowl and with large gulps ate all the food. He looked up at Mattie when he finished.

  “You ain’t been hit,” said Mattie.

  When Robert, Mattie’s forty-three-year-old unmarried son who ran the Convenient Food Mart in Bethel, fifteen miles away, came that afternoon—he usually dropped by on Saturdays—he said, “Mama, what in the world do you think? Of course he ain’t going nowhere after you feed him.” Robert and Mattie were in the kitchen.

  “Well, he was so skinny.”

  “He’s skinny because he’s got worms. Look at his eyes.” Robert, thirty pounds overweight and graying at his temples, ate from a bowl holding a big piece of apple pie and three scoops of vanilla ice cream.

  “I know how to tell worms,” said Mattie.

  “He’s got worms.” His mother was going to stand right there and not believe the dog had worms when anybody could look at the dog’s eyes and tell he had worms. Why couldn’t she just relax and say, “Okay, he’s got worms”?

  She was standing at the counter, dipping a scoop of ice cream for herself, wearing the brown button-up sweater, unbuttoned, with the hole in the elbow, that she’d been wearing every day, summer or winter, until at least mid-morning for . . . Robert knew for ten years at least. “I don’t know if he has or not,” she said.

  “Okay, Mama.” Robert had recently read an article in Parade magazine which explained how grown children could avoid misunderstandings with their parents. It said to give up trying to change them. So he decided to give up on the worm argument even though he knew he was right.

  “I couldn’t just chase him off,” said Mattie, “as skinny as he is.”

  Robert, holding pie and ice cream in his spoon over the bowl, looked at her. “But now you’re going to call the dogcatcher?”

  “You know I can’t keep a dog.”

  “Why not?” Robert wished she could get a little company, companionship of some sort. Something to care for. An animal maybe, a parakeet. He spooned the pie and ice cream into his mouth.

  Mattie turned to look at her son. “With all I got to do around this place? Besides, I’m slowing down.”

  “All you’d have to do is feed him,” said Robert, pie crust on his lower lip.

  “Use your napkin. You know it takes more than feeding to keep a dog. I got as much business keeping a dog as I got walking across Egypt. I don’t even know why I’m talking about it.”

  Monday morning, Mattie called Bill Yeats and asked him to come get her chair bottoms. She wanted the bottoms of her four kitchen-table chairs and her den-rocker bottom re-covered with some kind of oil cloth. They were looking so dingy and she needed something she could just wipe off without worrying about it.

  Bill said he’d come after lunch. Mattie told him to come around eleven-thirty and she’d have a little bite for him to eat. There was that chicken in the refrigerator. He said he’d be there.

  She decided she needed a couple of short boards—so she could place them across the open bottoms of the two chairs she used most often—her kitchen chair and the den rocker. If she put it off she might forget and fall through a chair. She had some boards in the garage. She walked out the back door. She limped slightly from the hip fracture, but, as usual, walked with purpose, her brown sweater hiked up in the rear.

  The dog was in the back of the garage. Mattie had refused to name him because of her plans to call the dog-catcher. He got up and walked toward her. Looked like he had gained a little weight over the last day or two, but still he didn’t have much spunk. He’d been eating regular for two days now and he did not have worms. Robert jumped to conclusions.

  Mattie found two short boards in the back of the garage, started back to the house, stopped and said to the dog, “Listen, I’m going to have to call the dogcatcher. I don’t have time for a dog. Shouldn’t have kept you this long.”

  She brought the two boards into the house, then decided she might as well go ahead and take the chair bottoms out and put the boards across two kitchen chairs. Bill would be there before long. She could have everything ready when he came. They would have a little more time to sit and talk. It was just four screws per chair. Bill would be impressed. She’d put on the chicken and then do it. After it cooked, she could give the neck meat to the dog—with some gravy and a biscuit or two. She ought’n to spoil him though, she thought.

  She spooned grease into the frying pan, cut up and washed the chicken, salted and peppered it, rolled it in flour, and placed it in the frying pan, piece by piece. Then she got her screwdriver, carried each of the kitchen-table chairs past the kitchen counter over to the couch in the den, dragged over the rocker from in front of the TV, sat down on the couch, turned each of the kitchen chairs upside down, unscrewed the screws, and took t
he bottoms out. The rocker was a little more difficult. It was heavy for one thing. She turned it onto its side and unscrewed the screws, which were larger than the others, and tighter.

  When Bill came, she had the bottoms leaning against the wall by the back door. The chairs were in their places and the boards from the garage were across two kitchen chairs.

  “Sit down at the end of the table there; dinner’s about ready,” said Mattie.

  “This is mighty nice of you, Mrs. Rigsbee.” Bill pulled out his chair. “You took the bottoms out already?”

  “Oh yes. They’re over there by the door.”

  Bill looked. “I declare Mrs. Rigsbee. You beat all.”

  “Well, I try to do what I can.”

  “Something sure smells good. You didn’t have to go to all this trouble.”

  “No trouble. I cook three meals a day. Except for once in a while I’ll warm up leftovers—just can’t go like I used to. It slips up on you. You’ll find out.”

  “I’m already finding out—I’ll tell you.” Bill adjusted the board he was sitting on, looked down at it.

  “Well,” said Mattie, standing at the stove, fork in hand, turning to look at Bill, “I’m lucky to have been able to keep going so long. I thank the Good Lord every day.”

  “Yeah, well, you sure keep going. That’s for sure. Mmmmmm, that smells mighty good.”

  “Well, it’s not much. Alora brought me some corn last Friday and it was too much for one fixing, so I had some left and these potatoes are from Sunday. I picked the tomatoes this morning. I got eight plants. ‘Lucky Boys.’ But Finner and Alora are mighty good about keeping me stocked with other stuff. No better neighbors in the world. They let me pick all the string beans I want. Alora even helps me; but she ain’t careful. She’ll pick them too young or too old or with black spots. I took Pearl some. My sister. Told her I was sorry about their condition—but that I’d had help picking them.”

  “Yeah, Finner and Alora are fine people. That your little dog out there?”

  “Lord have mercy, I’m going to have to call the dog-catcher. He just took up. I can’t keep a dog.” She stirred the potatoes. “This is going to have to warm just a little more.”

  “He’s a right nice little dog.”

  “He’s got possibilities, but I just can’t keep up this place and a dog to boot. You want him?”

  “Oh no. I got two bird dogs.”

  Mattie put bowls of food on the table. “Now I want you to eat all you want.”

  “Good gracious, Mrs. Rigsbee.”

  “Bow your head and let’s say the blessing.”

  Bill left with the chair bottoms at 12:35. Mattie stacked the dishes beside the sink. She had gotten into the habit of not washing her dishes right away after lunch. She waited until “All My Children” was over at two. Nobody knew.

  If anybody ever found out that she both watched that program and didn’t clean up right after she ate, she didn’t know what she would do.

  But after all, things did happen in the real world just like they happened on that program. It was all fiction, but anybody who read the paper nowadays knew things like that were happening all the time. And that woman who played the old lady was such a good actress, and Erica, Erica was good, too—such a good character, good actress. People almost exactly like her actually existed all over the place nowadays.

  And why shouldn’t she sit down for an hour a day after dinner and do something for herself. Why, Alora sat around the house all day watching soap operas and then went so far as to talk to people about them. Alora’s watching so much television was one reason that when she went on her daily walk she carried that pistol in her hand under a Kleenex.

  Mattie poured gravy over the dog’s food and took it out to him. He was standing, waiting. Why, he’s already learned to tell time, she thought. I’m going to call the dogcatcher right now.

  She put the bowl on the steps and watched him. She had only a few minutes before “All My Children.” The dog ate all the food and licked the bowl.

  “You’re getting a little more frisky, ain’t you?” she said. “Well, I ain’t able to keep a dog. I’m going in and call the dogcatcher right now.” She picked up the bowl, went back inside, looked at the clock on the mantel. It was exactly four minutes until one. “My goodness,” she said. She would have time to get through to the dogcatcher—and make it brief. She called from the phone on the counter between the kitchen and den.

  A woman answered. Mattie explained about the dog and gave her street address. The woman said the dogcatcher might be by that afternoon, or it could be tomorrow. Mattie hung up and glanced at the clock. It was one o’clock on the dot. She walked into the den, bent over and clicked the TV on. She slowly walked backward, still bending over, toward the rocker. Her left hand reached behind her to find the chair arm. Ah, the commercial—New Blue Cheer—was still on. She had started sitting down when a mental picture flashed into her head: the chair without a bottom. But her leg muscles had already gone lax. She was on the way down. Gravity was doing its job. She continued on past the customary stopping place, her eyes fastened to the New Blue Cheer box on the TV screen, her mind screaming no, wondering what bones she might break, wondering how long she was going to keep on going down, down, down.

  When she jolted to a stop the backs of her thighs and a spot just below her shoulders were pinched together tightly. Her arms were over her head. Her bottom was one inch from the floor. Nothing hurt except the backs of her legs, and that seemed to be only from the pressure. How could she have forgotten? she thought.

  She was amazed that her right arm which she normally couldn’t lift very high was so high over her head. And not hurting much. She tried to get her arms down but couldn’t. She was wedged tightly. What was she going to do? She looked at Erica on the TV screen.

  In a straight line were Mattie’s eyes, her knees, and Erica’s face.

  Nothing seemed broken. But her arms were going to go dead to sleep if she didn’t hurry and get them down. She needed to pull herself up somehow. What in the world? What a ridiculous fix. That dog. If I hadn’t been feeding him, she thought, and calling the dogcatcher, this wouldn’t have happened. Lord have mercy—what if Alora comes in the back door and sees me watching this program? What in the world will I say? Well, I’ll just say I was sitting down to watch the news when I fell through, and so of course I couldn’t get up to turn off that silly soap opera. That’s what I’ll tell her.

  Then she will see my dishes stacked over there.

  I’ve got to get up. She will know I came over here to sit down before I did my dishes. I’ve got to . . .

  Mattie’s predicament suddenly seemed serious. What if . . . Alora might not come. Robert might not come. For sure he wouldn’t come before Saturday.

  Mattie had known all along there was some reason Robert ought to come more than once a week. Well, this proved it. Maybe now he would start coming once in a while to see if she was all right, hadn’t had a heart attack, or a stroke, or hadn’t . . . for heaven’s sake, fallen through a chair. Well, this was the . . . the most ridiculous fix she had ever heard of. If there were some way to get that dog to bark or somehow go get somebody. How in the world could she get that dog to do something?

  She needed to get out before that program was over so that, for one thing, if the doorbell rang she could turn the TV off. And if somebody saw her dirty dishes she didn’t know how in the world she could explain that.

  What if she died one day during the hour her dishes were dirty.

  She would have to change her routine.

  She was looking at the TV. There was that boy who got that girl pregnant. He did it as sure as day and was lying like nobody’s business.

  Who might come? It was Monday. Bill said he’d bring the chair bottoms back by Thursday. No later than Thursday, he said. Alora or Finner would come over before then, wouldn’t they? But what if for some reason they didn’t?

  She tried to move. Her right arm moved forward and th
en back. The chair rocked slightly. Well, she was going to have to turn the chair over—or something—to get out, that’s all there was to it. Her arm moved back and forth. Then her head, in time with her arm. The chair rocked. Erica was having a conversation with somebody in somebody’s foyer. Phillip’s. Wasn’t his name Phillip?

  The phone rang. She couldn’t quite see it—over on the kitchen bar. It rang again. She strained to get up somehow; then she gave up. It rang again. Who could it be? Probably Alora. Or Pearl, her sister. It rang again . . . and again. Her rocking stopped. Then the only noise she could hear was the television and the clock ticking on the mantel above her head.

  Lamar Benfield had been a dogcatcher for four days. He usually held a job for three, four months, then got tired of it and stopped. But he always saved enough money to keep going until he found another job. And he had a nice shop behind his mobile home—did odd jobs, didn’t need an awful lot of money since he was still single.

  Lamar liked his new job. He fancied himself as good with animals and had been looking for a job which called for travel and working outside. It was almost dark as he turned into the driveway of a brick ranch house. He had four dogs in back and had decided to get this last one so that his load for tomorrow would be light enough for him to take the afternoon off and change the points and plugs on his pickup.

  He rang the front doorbell, adjusted his ball cap, shifted his weight, and looked around for a dog. So far he hadn’t been bitten. This he attributed to his way with dogs. He heard something inside. Sounded like a child. Well, at least somebody was home. Was somebody saying come in? He tried the door. It was locked.

  He walked around to the backyard, looked for a dog. There: a fice on the back steps. He wondered if that was the dog he was supposed to pick up. The back door was open. He looked in through the screen, glanced down at the dog. Dog’s a little tired or something, he thought. He looked back inside. “Anybody home?”