The Bean Trees

I decided that after work I would go down to one of Sandi's New To You toy stores and find a book for Turtle. New To You was just like Mama's people, only you had more choice about what you got.

After I had marked all the tires I rolled them across the lot and stacked them into leaky and good piles. I congratulated myself on my steady hand, but later in the day Mattie saw me jump when some hotdog Chevy backfired out in the street. She was with a customer, but later she came over and said she'd been meaning to ask what I was always so jumpy about. I thought of that column in Reader's Digest where you write in and tell your most embarrassing moment. Those were all cute: "The Day My Retriever Puppy Retrieved the Neighbor's Lingerie Off the Clothes Line." In real life, your most embarrassing moment is the last thing in the world you would want printed in Reader's Digest.

"Nothing," I said.

We stood for a minute with our hands folded into our armpits. Matties gray bangs were more salt than they were pepper, cut high and straight across, and her skin always looked a little sunburned. The wrinkles around her eyes reminded me of her Tony Lama boots.

Mattie was like a rock in the road. You could stare at her till the cows came home, but it wouldn't budge the fact of her one inch.

"Just don't tell me you're running from the law," she said finally. "I've got enough of that on my hands."

"No." I wondered what exactly she meant by that. Out on the street a boy coasted by on a bicycle, his elbow clamped over a large framed picture of a sportscar. "I have a fear of exploding tires," I said.

"Well, of all things," she said.

"I know. I didn't ever tell you because it sounds chickenshit." I stopped to consider if you ought to say "chickenshit" in a place called Jesus Is Lord's, but then the damage was done. "Really it's not like it sounds. I don't think there's a thing you could name that I'm afraid of, other than that."

"Of all things," she said again. I imagined that she was looking at me the way you do when you first notice someone is deformed. In sixth grade we had a new teacher for three weeks before we realized his left hand was missing. He always kept his hanky over it. We'd just thought it was allergies.

"Come over here a minute," Mattie said. "I'll show you something." I followed her across the lot. She took a five-gallon jerry can, the type that Jeeps have strapped on their backs, and filled it a little better than halfway up with water.

"Whoa!" I said. While I wasn't paying attention she'd thrown the heavy can at me. I caught it, though it came near to bowling me over.

"Knocked the wind out of you, but it didn't kill you, right?"

"Right," I said.

"That's twenty-eight pounds of water. Twenty-eight pounds of air is about what you put in a tire. When it hits you, that's what it feels like."

"If you say so," I said. "But I saw a guy get blown up in the air once by a tire. All the way over the Standard Oil sign. It was a tractor tire."

"Well that's another whole can of beans," Mattie said. "If we get a tractor tire in here, I'll handle it."

I had never thought of tire explosions in relative terms, though it stood to reason that some would be worse than others. By no means did this put my fears to rest, but still I felt better somehow. What the hell. Live free or bust.

"Okay," I said. "We'll handle it together, how's that?"

"That's a deal, hon."

"Can I put this down now?"

"Sure, put it down." She said it in a serious way, as if the can of water were some important damaged auto part we'd been discussing. I blessed Matties soul for never laughing at any point in this conversation. "Better yet," she said, "pour it out on those sweet peas."

There was a whole set of things I didn't understand about plants, such as why hadn't the sweet peas been killed by the frost? The same boy sped by again on his bike, or possibly a different boy. This time he had a bunch of roses in a white paper funnel tucked under his arm. While the water glugged out over the sweet peas I noticed Mattie looking at me with her arms crossed. Just watching. I missed Mama so much my chest hurt.

Turtle had managed to get through her whole life without a book, I suppose, and then had two of them bought for her in one day. I got her one called Old MacDonald Had an Apartment House, which showed pictures of Old MacDonald growing celery in windowboxes and broccoli in the bathtub and carrots under the living-room rug. Old MacDonald's downstairs neighbors could see the carrots popping down through the ceiling. I bought it because it reminded me of Mattie, and because it had stiff pages that I hoped might stand up to Turtle's blood-out-of-turnips grip.