Raising a Little Chap

(After John Cheever's "Reunion")

The last time I saw my mother was in Hell's Kitchen in 1996.  She met me for a meal between her shows at Madison Square Garden.  The circus was in town for three days and the equestrian act she had re-married into was performing in the center ring.  I hadn't seen her since she'd run away to join the circus, leaving Wyatt, Little Jesse, Dad and me to run the dude ranch by ourselves.  We'd received regular postcards from every state and a couple of countries but not one phone call or visit for four years.

We met in a sushi place with small tables crammed into an old storefront.  She appeared in the doorway like I'd dreamed of her, dressed in full cowboy attire: ten-gallon hat, fringed vest, snake skin boots and wide leather chaps.  A lasso was looped into the side of her holster.  My mother always had been larger than life, but that day with her broad smile, fresh red lipstick, freckled nose and blue, blue eyes she also seemed larger than the restaurant.

She yelled, "Howdy!" and waved a gloved hand in a wide arc before beginning her bow-legged saunter down the aisle to my table.  She proved to be, at the very least, larger than the aisle by clearing table after table of California rolls and sake.  Halfway down the aisle, I called her to a halt, rushed to meet her and ushered her back to the door.

"Let's grab a hot dog on the street instead," I shouted as we exited to a tirade of Japanese swear words. 

I hugged her and felt the hard edge of her holster on my hip.

"How are ya, dahlin'?'" she asked and planted what I knew was a perfect red lipstick ring on my cheek.  She admired her handiwork for a moment, smiling a smile that made me tingle with memory, before pulling out a small mirror, flicking it open, and uncapping some lipstick.   "Just freshening up my face," she said and wrinkled her nose.

"I'm good and bad," I said as she pressed her lips together and examined them in the mirror.

"What, hon?" she asked as she closed the mirror with a sharp clack.

"I'm leaving the ranch," I blurted.  "I need to see the world."

"Well, dahlin'."  She laughed softly.  "I'm not surprised."  She patted her hair and adjusted her hat to the perfect angle.  "You've got a little bit of your momma in you after all."

She tilted her head and looked off into space.  "I remember the day I left."

I remembered it too.  Or at least I remembered waking to find her gone.  Wyatt, Little Jess and I searched the house before running into wake up Pa.  We found the note on the bed.  "Sorry, boys, had to go," was all it said.

I waited for her now to say something more, to explain or describe.  But she just stared a moment more before turning her eyes back to me.  "Well," she said.  "Where y'all goin'?"

"I-" I hesitated, suddenly conscious of the blaring horns and screeching brakes of traffic, the crowd jostling by us on the sidewalk, even the steamy scent of the hotdog cart.  This was it.  The moment I had practiced for all these months.  A cloud blew in front of the sun and all the shadows disappeared.  "I was hoping to join the circus," I said.

"Aw, honey," Ma said and put a calloused hand to my cheek.  "That's so sweet."  For a moment the sun appeared again, the song of traffic quieted and she looked right at me.  "You know, I always meant to come back…  "  Her voice trailed off and she blinked.  "You were so young.  It…  It wasn't you, you know…" 

She shook her head, closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.  "I'm sorry darlin'," she said finally, "I wish we had an opening." 

"I-" I began, but all my practice failed me.  I watched her smile fade, her hand pull back from my cheek and her face turn downward.  "Oh my goodness," she said, pointing to a sake stain on one of her leather chaps.  She grabbed a wad of napkins off the hotdog cart and bent to rub the stain that had flattened the rough leather.

People of every imaginable size and color jostled by.  I stood and stared as she rubbed and scratched the stain with her hands.  Little Chinese grandmothers, enormous black women hand in hand with their skinny daughters, young Indian men in turbans, slick-dressed Italian gangsters, thin black-suited women on cell phones – all flowed by like a spring river circling around the island of my mother.  She mumbled, "Goodness Gracious" and "It's ruined," to herself.

"I have to go, Momma," I said at last.

"I'm sorry," she said, startled from her labors.  "The sake flattened the rawhide," she explained pointing to the stained wet leather.  "I just want to get the rise back out of this chap."

"I've got to go," I said again.  "Poppa's gonna to wonder where I am."  I turned and ran back into the sushi restaurant before she saw the tears in my eyes.  I hid in the bathroom for an hour and when I came back out, the tables were empty, the sake stains were cleaned off the floor, and she was gone.