Page 52

Farewell

.

If Beni could see the way Mama reacted to her

death, she would never have had any doubts about Mama's deep love for her. I had only to look into Mama's eyes to start crying hysterically again and again. At first Mama looked like someone so confused she thought she was still trapped in a nightmare. She listened when people spoke to her, but I didn't think she heard a word. Her eyes were more like tiny mirrors reflecting back the images, preventing them from entering her mind. From the moment she realized that Beni was gone, her brain shut down, slammed a heavy iron door closed and refused to accept another devastating message.

Whenever she did look at me, it was with an expression filled with pleading. I could hear her even though she didn't speak. "Rain, tell me this isn't happening. Tell me this isn't true. Tell me you never took Beni to that warehouse. Not you, Rain. Not my reliable, precious Rain. Please. Please wake me up. Shake me hard. Throw off the sorrow and the tragedy from my shoulders. Sweep it up and dump it back into the gutter where it belongs. Rain?"

My own heart felt shredded. I cried so hard, my ribs ached. The police brought Mama, Ken and Roy to the morgue to identify Beni. The sight of her was so horrendous that Roy was reduced to a waxen image of himself. He looked bloodless, hollow, so crushed his shoulders sunk and his neck weakened until his head could barely be held up.

Even Ken was stunned into silence. He didn't speak until we were all home again and he could fit the events into his particular twisted view of the world. Somehow, he managed to turn it around so it was a blow against his own personal future.

"Just when a man raises his kids to the age where they can kick in and help him in his time of need, something like this happens. Where's the police when you need them? No one cares about us folks."

He began to drink heavily and spew out his dark rot about society and how he was part of the deprived and persecuted class of people. It took only seconds after we walked in for him to get on his soapbox. Mama, near collapse, went to bed. Roy helped her. I trailed along in a daze, afraid to touch anyone or say a word. Mama, Ken and Roy had been told bits and pieces by the police, but no one had confronted me directly yet to hear the grisly details.

Mama didn't have the luxury of sleeping pills or a doctor to prescribe them. She asked Roy for some whiskey. I stood in the doorway, waiting to speak to her, unsure as to how I should begin, terrified of what I would sound like. Ken ranted to his imagined audience in the kitchen as Roy hurried to pour Mama a half a glass of hard liquor. She always said she was a cheap date because it took only one drink to put her to sleep. For her sake, I hoped it was true.

Roy brushed past me on the return and handed it to her. She took a long gulp, coughed, dropped her head to the pillow and looked up with eyes of shattered glass.

"Where's Rain?" she asked Roy. He turned to me. He had yet to say anything to me, even to ask how I was.

"I'm right here, Mama."

"Tell me all of it," she commanded and I approached the bed. Roy continued to glare at me with two dark pools of pain and confusion.

I began, first describing the terrible things that had happened to Beni at the party and how she was so devastated and embarrassed, she didn't want anyone to know.

"She wasn't trying to hide her own failure, Mama. She was afraid of upsetting you and making you sick. She made me promise to keep it as secret as possible. She hoped nothing more had happened and she promised to behave."

I swallowed hard before going on to describe the blackmail and how once again, Beni and I tried to protect Mama from bad news.

"You really thought you could deal with scum like that?" Roy asked me. Anger rattled his words. "You really thought you'd get what you wanted from them?"

"I thought all they wanted was money and once we showed them we had it, they would give Beni the pictures and we could put it behind us."

"Oh Lord," Mama moaned. "My little baby. Oh Lord, what they did to her."

"I told you they were dangerous," Roy said. "Why didn't you come to me?"

"We were afraid you would get yourself in trouble or get hurt," I said.

"Afraid I'd get hurt? Look what happened to Beni," he cried, his arms out. "I thought you were the smart one' I started to cry again and Mama reached up for me. "She had only good intentions in her heart," she said. Roy looked away and then left when I took Mama's hand and let her draw me down to hold and hug her. We both cried hard and then I rose and went to my own room to let Mama get some sleep.

Ken was still babbling like a man who had been struck in the head. He had started on the bottle of gin and I knew that he would grow worse because of the hard liquor. Roy came out and told him to be quiet.

"Mama needs rest," he said.

"Mama? What about me?"

"You need to go to hell," Roy told him.

"What did you say, boy?"

Oh no, I thought. They're going to fight. Not now, please, not now.

"You came riding along on your horse and swept her off her feet with promises," Roy began. "You had a family and you just didn't care what that meant. Why are we here, Daddy?" Roy asked, calling him Daddy for the first time in a long, long time. "Why are we living in this...this project, huh? Why are we living where we're surrounded by gangs and crime and dirt, huh? Why is Mama working in a supermarket like some kid? Why do we have all those bills in the drawer? Why did Beni end up dead in some deserted, rat infested warehouse, huh?"