In Memory of Junior Page 14

  “I was thinking that maybe I could go with you,” she said. “I know Ansie is going to stay home. And Faison.”

  “Well, I don’t know right now.”

  “But listen.” She stopped, held on to my sleeve, forcing me to stop. “I ain’t going to sit with the family. You can sit with the family, but I ain’t. You’re welcome to sit with me if you want to. But I ain’t going to sit with their family.”

  “I’ll let you know,” I said.

  Morgan spent that night with me. Uncle Grove was at Faison’s. They needed to be apart for a little while. Marilyn insisted on that. She’d caught wind of Uncle Grove’s mess, and was all “alarmed” about that. I insisted I could guarantee that Morgan would not die and go to hell in the next two weeks. She knows that for the next two weeks he’s mine—and I don’t butt in on her time. He played Tetris on his computer most of the late afternoon and night before bedtime. On the way to bed he stopped by the living room where I was unwinding—watching Fat City.

  “What you watching?” he said.

  “Fat City.” It was the part when Jeff Bridges was trying to keep Stacy Keach from seeing him on the street, right before that ending scene.

  “When is Uncle Grove leaving?”

  “Sunday.”

  “I just wish he wasn’t such a racist.”

  “Sit down a minute.”

  He sat down across from me, sprawled a leg up over the chair arm.

  “I want to show you something,” I said. I pulled a whittled stick out of my shirt pocket and dropped it onto the coffee table. “There’s a story behind that stick. It happened when you were about three, maybe a little younger.” And I told him about the time I let him go sailing with a baby-sitter and her cousins, and a storm came up—this was at the coast, in Beaufort. They were supposed to be back at six in the evening. At six-thirty they weren’t back, and I’d heard that a boat had capsized in the storm—and that it was a bad storm. I didn’t even know if they had life jackets or not. I didn’t even know who they were—the baby-sitter’s cousins. Marilyn was antiquing and didn’t know where Morgan and I were.

  While I was sitting there at the dock crazy with worry I picked the stick up off the ground and started whittling. I whittled for half an hour, sitting at the dock in a picnic shelter, waiting in the rain and lightning. I prayed to God that Morgan was alive, safe. I called the Coast Guard. They had no information. While I whittled, I memorized the grain on the stick.

  When the boat with Morgan sailed into port, I put the stick in my pocket and saved it. I’d kept it on top of my bookcase all this time.

  Morgan sat for a minute after I’d told him all this, then said, “Why did you tell me that?” Typical question.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s just a little story. Got me thinking.”

  “About the stick?”

  “Yeah, the stick, and how I’ve been feeling since my own daddy died. It’s been hard. I didn’t realize it would make me so tired. And in the middle of that I’ve been thinking about how I felt that day I thought you were maybe lost in the storm.”

  “Which was?”

  “I was afraid, for one thing.”

  Morgan reached for and got a peanut from the bowl on the table, popped it into his mouth, and started chewing. “Is that it?” he said.

  “Yep. I guess.” I was wondering how to get the conversation going again.

  “What about the story you told Mother about the medal and all that?”

  “Your mother had been in the peace movement. I told her stuff about losing a friend, you know; I told you some about it.”

  “Why did she say it broke her heart?”

  I told him about my daddy not wanting me to go into the war, wanting me to stay home, but I was all for going, all for keeping the world safe for democracy, all for keeping the Vietcong off the shores of California, all that. I called my daddy a coward, as a matter of fact, to his face. I told Morgan about how Uncle Grove had written to Faison and me and said he would go if he could and I wrote him back and said I’d go for all three of us. He sent me a white scarf. And so when I had a choice between Japan, the U.S., and Southeast Asia, I picked Southeast Asia and wrote him and told him so. I was very proud. A fighter pilot going to Vietnam. Too young to have any sense.

  That scarf went with me on every mission until the one when my friend got shot down. I was scared, and what I ended up doing was all automatic. It was like I was watching myself go through these automatic mechanical actions. I was in a trance. What I got out of it was a dead buddy and a medal. My old man had been right, in a way. And sometimes, I wish I’d gone to Canada. I’d feel better about some things. Of course that wouldn’t have settled with my old man either, but that’s what I wish I’d done—sometimes when I think about it all.

  After all this, Morgan says, “That’s what broke her heart?”

  “There was some other stuff. I don’t know exactly what it was, but for her I think the story was somehow the basis of a marriage, and looking back, not a really good basis.”

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  I told him I wasn’t sure I did either.

  Gloria

  Nobody said nothing about me going to either one of the funerals, except Faye, she call me up and invite me to Miss Laura’s, so I decided I’d go. In fact, I wore one of Miss Laura’s dresses. Faye give me about six, and two of them are very nice, a pink one and a dark blue one. The dark blue one is the one I wore to the funeral, because it was dark.

  I been to one other white funeral and I wondered if this one would have any more life to it than the other one did.

  It didn’t. It didn’t have no singing at all. There was just organ music and two preachers said a few words. It didn’t seem like one of them knew Miss Laura at all. The other one, Preacher Gordon, came to visit Miss Laura and Mr. Glenn every once in a while. Always spoke to me.

  At my church at a funeral of course we get roused up. Because we’re in the house of the Lord. The Lord speak to us. Get us moving, after we finish crying. We cry because we feel bad. We sing and shout and praise the Lord because we working up to feel good, and if we don’t get to feeling good right after we feel bad then we liable to get stuck feeling bad. These people try to keep from showing anything, so since they don’t show they feel bad, they don’t have much reason to show they feel good, so you get a quiet service like that one. I can’t bring myself to understand it, but they do, and she is one of them so I guess it all works out for the best. They can’t just all of a sudden be like they ain’t.

  Tate and one of his aunts was there. I always get them mix up, but I think this one was Miss Bette. Tate walked over and spoke to me. Fact, several people did. They were real nice. I ask Tate, I say, “What in the world did that uncle of yours do?” and he said he got a little disorient. I say, “It sure sound like it.” Then he say he and Faison going fishing in a couple of days and take the uncle, his Uncle Grove.

  The man—this Grove—dug a grave out in the big white cemetery. Some say he dug it for Mr. Glenn. Some say he dug it for hisself. Sound like he could use a little fishing trip. Bury hisself in the sand like white people do at the beach. I don’t understand why they do that.

  9

  Jimmy

  This fishing trip.

  I didn’t know Faison was gone bring his whole family. I knew Tate, his brother, was flying his airplane down to meet us in Beaufort, because he was going to fly on down to Wilmington on the way back home after the trip and pick up four snakes for me. But I thought that was it, just his brother. Their daddy died, see, and this would be a little get-away trip. It ended up that me and Faison drove the truck down with all the fishing equipment and groceries, and flying along with Tate was Tate’s boy, the hippy, named Morgan, and this four-hundred-year-old uncle from Arkansas, the one that got in the news when he dug that grave and tried to kill hisself or whatever. Best I could tell he had some kind of breakdown. I was worried about him at first, but then pretty quick after all of us
got together it looked like he could take care of hisself. And it looked like the boy was going to keep his mouth shut. He’s the one that was on the airplane that time they landed on the back field of that farm, which Faison and Tate, by the way, ended up with one-third of apiece, it looks like. The other third is going to this woman lawyer from Charlotte, their stepsister, I guess it is. Win some, lose some, tie some, and some you just go home. Huh?

  So we all met down in Beaufort and drove to Kelly Ford—about forty minutes—crowded in my King Cab. Then once we get there I have to back the truck over this little drop ramp and onto the ferry so our duffel bags, coolers, groceries, beer, fishing gear, and all that can be unloaded onto the ferry for the trip across the sound to the island, McGarren Island. Beautiful stretches of land down there. You just don’t know till you see it.

  After we unload onto the ferry the old man wants to know why we ain’t taking the truck over.

  “Nothing but four-wheel drives allowed over,” I say.

  “Well, why ain’t you got four-wheel drive?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Why ain’t you got one?” I’d done found out I could kid around with him. You know. Seemed like he’d seen a lot of action in his time.

  “Did anybody bring any hard stuff?” he wants to know.

  “Oh yeah. I brought some Jack Daniel’s,” said Faison. “Just for you. I bought a gallon.”

  “A gallon?” said Tate.

  “We might run into somebody,” said Faison.

  “We might run over somebody,” said the old man.

  Tate’s a tad reserved, you know what I mean. College type. Kept saying he was going bird hunting with us. Never could find the time.

  I asked Faison about him once we got rolling. You stand around on the boat, have to talk about something. Faison said he was a psychology teacher. Besides teaching classes, he does experiments, writes about them, stuff like that. “He gets paid, too,” he said. “Doing projects for industry companies. Tests for hiring people and stuff like that. Tests to tell if they’re crazy. Good money. He’s doing a thing on how the deaf and dumb see movies. Strange stuff.”

  “Drug tests?” I said.

  “I don’t know if he does that or not. I don’t think he does. He actually saw some pretty tough action in Vietnam. He did rescues and recon and directing air strikes. Won a medal. Silver Star or something like that. He got right down there with them and fought it out. Killed a whole bunch of Vietcong. But he won’t, you know, talk about it a whole lot.” He’d done told me this once.

  “It alters a man’s life,” I said. “At’s a fact. It alters a man’s life. I saw stuff over there I’ll never see again. It’s like something settles down on you, makes you different. While we was over there we was different, and I sure as hell don’t think anybody ought to get the blame. You can’t help what you have to do. You get sent somewhere to do a job, you do the job. I’ll tell you one thing,” I said. “I by and large loved it. Most of it.”

  The ferry holds four vehicles and a load of fishermen. The guys with the four-wheels just leave their stuff in the truck. But since we don’t have a four-wheel, we have to pile our stuff on deck and then when we get across in about a hour, Fox will load it—and us—up on his World War II ambulance and take us to our cabin. Fox is this guy works over there for the Captain—Captain Baucom—who leases the land from the government. It’s all National Seashore. This little fishing village is something the government lets him do. Fox stays over there all the time because he’s wanted for bigamy in three or four states.

  The water was rough on the way over. I followed the old man up into the Captain’s cabin and sat on this padded bench. The kid wanted to come in, but I closed the door on him and shook my head through the glass. Damn hippy. He follows the old man around.

  The old man goes into this story about fishing through holes in the ice. Said he went with a bunch of guys one time and it was so cold that this crazy guy wouldn’t pull off his snowsuit to take a crap. It was so cold, and he had to go so bad, he just shit in his snowsuit and figured he’d worry about it later.

  Captain eyes us over his shoulder. Ain’t nobody else up there but us three.

  What happened was, on the snowsuit thing, that night they were all riding back to somewhere in this car and it starts getting hot, and the guy starts unzipping his snowsuit but they don’t let him, see. So it gets hotter and hotter and this guy gets to sweating a little and then sweating more and more and the old man is just a-laughing telling all this.

  The Captain thinks it’s pretty funny, so he starts in and tells six or eight jokes, one after the other, kind of on a roll. Let’s see . . . well damn, I can’t remember a one. And the Captain is the quiet type. I been over on that ferry quite a few times. He and the old man hit it off.

  In a little while, Faison and Tate—and the boy—came on up there and sat for the rest of the trip. I’d step out every once in a while and try to check the wind direction. You ain’t gone catch no fish if the wind is from the northeast.

  From where we were, the island—less than a mile away—started seeming like it was moving toward us real slow. I always like that part of the trip. I used to come over here six, eight times a year. Lost my first wife that way.

  “That wind ain’t from the northeast,” I said. “It’s mostly from the south, southwest.” That’s the only thing that’s important. You ain’t gone catch jack shit if the wind is from the northeast. “You ever done any surf fishing?” I asked Tate.

  “Nope. Mostly pond fishing.”

  “I used to fly down here,” said the old man, “all up and down this coast before there was much down here. We’d land on the beach and fish out of the surf. Land right on the beach. I don’t remember us catching much, but we had a good time landing, usually with a stiff crosswind.”

  “I just hope we get in the blues,” I said. “The big ones. Nothing more fun. Course I ain’t gone throw back no trout. You, Faison?”

  “No sah.” Faison turned up his Red, White & Blue. I like old Faison.

  I talked to Tate a little while about the snake arrangements—which was for him to meet the snake man in Wilmington at three in the afternoon on Sunday, then fly home with the snakes. The uncle and the boy would be with him.

  “You be flying for hire down the line? Anything like that?” I asked him. I sure as hell hoped he wadn’t going to come up with a charge for this little snake transport. He hadn’t said anything about no charges.

  “Nothing serious,” he said.

  “What I need,” I said, “is somebody to do a snake run fairly regularly, you know, once, twice a year. Think you might be able to do that? Sort of fit it in with your regular flying?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Maybe so.” He sort of looked at his brother and uncle and I got the feeling he didn’t want to be no chicken. Or look that way. You know what I mean.

  He asked me what happened to the old snakes, why I had to keep getting new ones.

  I told him he’d be surprised how many people will buy them off you when you’re doing shows. You talk about snakes in the right way, people will understand they ain’t going to necessarily kill you, and they’ll be interested in owning one for theirselves, and hell, you can make a little money that way. We talked a little more. You can tell he’s a college man. These college people.

  I tell you, the stuff I read going on at Duke University. Stuff, people getting eliminated.

  I don’t usually read about the colleges. I, you know, usually hit the front page, the docket, the sports, the funnies. But I was thumbing through and saw this thing about “dead white males.” And what it said was there was this group of feminists and abstractionists or some such at Duke University who are trying to cut out everything that dead white males have ever done. I said to myself, Wait a minute! Wait a minute!

  Think about that. That takes up everything that’s ever been done, more or less. Know what I mean? Think about it. These professors are trying to actually destroy all of civilization—or
at least the history of civilization.

  Now, dead white males are actually when you think about it the very ones that’s done everthing that’s ever been done that’s important. You got Columbus, you got George Washington, you got, hell, I don’t know, George Jones. And these bunch of women and fuzzy-headed asshole men want to just wipe them off the map of history because they’re number one dead, number two white, and number three men, the very ones who have killed Indians, fought wars, died in wars, been heroes, while, you know, hell, women were at home having babies and cleaning up baby doo-doo and dusting pianos, and men were, hell, out cutting down trees and stuff like that. It goes against all common sense what they’re trying to do.

  And all this time the yellow people were all eating with chopsticks and plowing rice with these oxes, and the black people—I’m talking over history—were all whooping it up around some campfire in Africa, and you know, the white males were bringing the world up to where it is today.

  Now tell me one thing: why don’t the colleges work on something like the hunger of little children instead of killing off dead white males?

  If they kill off the dead white men, where is that going to leave the live ones—with, I mean, you know, what kind of power base? Answer me that.

  I wrote Jesse Helms a letter. And I guarantee you he’ll answer it. That is one politician that will give you the time of day. I’ve wrote him before.

  And I don’t mean that the problem is, you know, the colleges theirselves. It’s the people in them. If somebody would drop the big one in the middle of every kind of college except the agriculture ones, we’d be one hell of a lot better off as far as I’m concerned. Because in the colleges is where things get written down. And I want my race and I want my sex to have some kind of record in the history books of tomorrow. You know what I mean?

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” I said to Tate. “There is some people would kill off dead white men, then go out and feed a sea turtle—some people had rather do that than feed a hungry child. You look at some of these research projects put up by the government and the colleges.”