My Name Is Lucy Barton

25

“Elvis,” my mother said. It was nighttime; the room was dark except for the lights of the city through the window.

“Elvis Presley?”

“Is there another Elvis you know of?” my mother asked.

“No. You said ‘Elvis.’ ” I waited. I said, “Why did you say ‘Elvis,’ Mom?”

“He was famous.”

“He was. He was so famous, he died from it.”

“He died from drugs, Lucy.”

“But that would be the loneliness thing, Mom. From being so famous. Think about it: He couldn’t go anywhere.”

For a long time my mother said nothing. I had the feeling she was really thinking about this. She said, “I liked his early stuff. Your father thought he was the Devil himself, the foolish things he wore in the end, but if you just heard his voice, Lucy—”

“Mom. I’ve heard his voice. I didn’t know you knew anything about Elvis. Mom, when did you listen to Elvis?”

Again there was a long silence, and then my mother said, “Eh — he was just a Tupelo boy. A poor boy from Tupelo, Mississippi, who loved his mama. He appeals to cheap people. That’s who likes him, cheapies.” She waited, and then she said, her voice for the first time, really, becoming the voice from my childhood, “Your father was right. He’s just a big old piece of trash.”

Trash.

“He’s a dead piece of trash,” I said.

“Well, sure. Drugs.”

I said, finally, “We were trash. That’s exactly what we were.”

In the voice from my childhood, my mother said, “Lucy Damn-dog Barton. I didn’t fly across the country to have you tell me that we are trash. My ancestors and your father’s ancestors, we were some of the first people in this country, Lucy Barton. I did not fly across the country to have you tell me that we’re trash. They were good decent people. They came ashore at Provincetown, Massachusetts, and they were fishermen and they were settlers. We settled this country, and the good brave ones later moved to the Midwest, and that’s who we are, that’s who you are. And don’t you ever forget it.”

It took me a few moments before I said, “I won’t.” And then I said, “No, I’m sorry, Mom. I am.”

She was silent. I felt I could feel her fury, and I sort of felt, too, that her having said this would keep me in the hospital longer; I mean, I felt it in my body. I wanted to say, Go home. Go home and tell people how we weren’t trash, tell people how your ancestors came here and murdered all the Indians, Mom! Go home and tell them all.

Maybe I didn’t want to tell her that. Maybe that’s just what I think now as I write this.

A poor boy from Tupelo who loved his mama. A poor girl from Amgash who loved her mama too.