Beaming Sonny Home Read Free

found it only because Steven, who was Marlene’s younger and more heathenish child, had tattled. Elmer Fennelson had been kind enough to come with his rickety ladder and retrieve the remote, along with an assortment of odds and ends that Mattie had been missing over the past year, including one blue, fluffy slipper.
    â€œIs it the president?” Mattie heard herself ask. “Is it poor President Clinton?” He was such a nice, polite boy, one who had made his mother proud. Rita shook her head, and the loose hair still waiting to be permed bounced dramatically. Mattie was reminded of Gracie’s childhood doll that Sonny had given a haircut, only to be interrupted before he finished the job.
    â€œYou’re not going to believe what he’s done now,” Rita said as she frantically punched at the channel numbers. This took Mattie by surprise. She didn’t have to ask who he was. She knew. She knew by the tone of Rita’s voice, by that same old jealous anger mixed with excitement, that Sonny was in the middle of some kind of limelight. Mattie had heard that tone many times, all through those blasted school-age years, when Sonny was interacting far too much with the teachers, the principal, the superintendent. Mattie had come to know a parcel of people very well through Sonny’s misadventures. Now she wished she had planted a garden. It would offer her something to do. A little weeding could be good for the soul. Dear Lord, but what could the boy have done to get himself on TV?
    â€œSit down,” Rita was now saying, “because what Sonny done this time takes the cake.” Mattie found herself dropping down onto the sofa, her hand clasping her throat, as it always did in times of heavy stress. Over the years, Sonny Gifford had caused a great deal of that throat-clasping, Mattie hated to admit.
    Rita was now on the phone.
    â€œGracie? Get over to Mama’s place, and I mean pronto . You ain’t gonna believe what your brother’s done this time. This time , he’s outdone himself. Don’t ask. Just pick up Marlene and get to hell over here.” Mattie tried to focus on the television screen before her. She hadn’t heard Rita swear since she’d found Jesus at the Pentecostal church a few months earlier. All Rita had planned to do was drop by quickly and pick up a sweater she was borrowing from her friend Rachel Ann, a long-suffering Holy Roller, and before Rita left she’d been saved. She didn’t need Rachel Ann’s sweater after all. She had found the warmth of Jesus Christ, or so she told everyone who did and didn’t care. She was wrapped up snug in the wool of the Lamb. But now here she was, swearing again. Mattie tried to listen to what the newsman on Channel 4 in Bangor was saying. The scene flicked to a trailer park as the camera focused on a single trailer, a white one with a nice red stripe running down its middle. Rita flung down the phone and then cranked up the volume on the television set.
    â€œSonny Gifford, of 15 Trenton Street, Bangor,” the voice was announcing. “Mr. Gifford is a white male, estimated to be in his midthirties.” Mattie looked up at Rita for an explanation.
    â€œHas Sonny shot the president?” Mattie asked, her heart drumming fiercely. “Has Sonny shot that nice Mr. Clinton?” This would be one little fracas she wouldn’t be able to get him out of, she knew that for certain. Not when Channel 4 had their nose in it.
    â€œSonny ain’t smart enough to shoot a president,” Rita said. She dug into her enormous purse for a cigarette, which she lit in a hurry. Mattie had been under the impression that Jesus had told Rita to quit smoking, but then Jesus hadn’t known about all of Rita’s bad habits when he saved her. If he had, he might have let her go downstream instead.
    â€œAccording to witnesses at the bank, Gifford led the two women to a waiting 1985 blue Ford pickup