Edisto - Padgett Powell Read online

  Maybe that’s why he gave me the assignment to check out the Diane Parkers of this world, so I would be occupied, but I doubt he knew how fast I’d get to something like the mayonnaise. God, I feel like you could hear one too many mayonnaise revelations too early and go back to thinking people should be like dolls between their legs if it was going to be so damned complicated, which I thought once in my childhood mode.

  But anyway, the Doctor has Taurus, or whomever if I hadn’t named him, in Theenie’s shack; Theenie’s probably weaving baskets again, on the q.t. for TV crews; Daddy’s trying these radically new-toned custody junkets on me; and I’m about lidding-out over several things that aren’t even things—like mayonnaise, secretary’s bazongas, motos, funny-parked cars.

  But the center of the storm, calm as it was, was Taurus.

  Chemistry Never Changes

  So, it foundly occurred to me plenty was happening. That’s a childhood thing I said, "foundly" for "finally." The best language is then. I knew a kid that called noses "noogs" and knives "niges" and a term like "big deal" he shorthanded "bih-deel boing!"—very fast with a blow of his fist on something like your head at the terminal sound.

  Anyway, my little run of non-events suddenly was a veritable domino-phenomeno. What waked me up? Another crooked-parked car. There it was again, Friday, parked close up. I imagine six-inch angry skid marks just behind the tires. Daddy was early and inside again.

  A little bud told me not to try the trick of listening at the door and then stomping in on an innocent note. He said stick my head up into the intake duct. When we got the place from Eisenhower the Developer, it had a $5,500 Carrier cool-heat unit on a concrete pad under the house. The first season, the first hint of a hurricane, the first trickle of a high tide, that was it for Carrier. Gihhhffff POW—magnesium flares, house trying to hop up and run away on its stilts, transformer blown off the pole by the hard road (you could hear it), and no power for three days anywhere out here. Candlelight at the Grand! That was most pleasant. Jake said he’d never seen rowdy niggers so serene.

  So they yanked it—looked like a burned-out army tank. They gave the Doctor a replacement price and she gave them a drink of ice water and me a Girlhood speech: "Honey, when I was little, we didn’t have all this. Just consider we’re going back through Margaret Mitchell’s wind."

  To get some of that wind, we spent half a day bruising our hands trying to crack windows loose from their paint, and the sliding doors had these miniature locks down in the runners that Theenie said to prize out. "Prize ’em out with a crowbar or call the lock man, because you ain’ gone get nare one out with this hammer." She had a hammer with one claw left, like a kid with a front tooth knocked out. She held it in an attitude that looked like one of those Walker Evans photographs of sharecroppers. Theenie’s got the sharecropper patience that seems so sure of the world even in its humility that the Doctor, who I thought would take out glass and all before calling anybody, stopped and called Vergil at the Texaco station and told him to get a locksmith who didn’t have to have an arm and a leg and who might like a drink after a long day and bring him on out and to look at the Cadillac himself (Vergil), and she got them so well lubed there was no bill at all and we had those drapes standing out in the breeze in no time, like the capes of flying super-heroes. And the roaring crowd of the surf was brought in—we had only heard the muffled rumble of it before.

  Well, they pulled the burned hull of the heat pump and left all the ductwork, thinking the Doctor would change her mind about ordering a new unit. They didn’t know she was one of these readers of Southern literature who talk about progressive light changes at dusk and how the air in the country is different than in the city, and how country crickets sing a different, more authentic tune than city crickets, who just get in your woodwork and keep you awake. It was many things like this that earned her the Duchess status.

  So there was this square vent with silver insulation that came down to within four feet of the slab and I could stand on a block and go up in it to my shoulders. It was like putting your head in a speaker cabinet. You could hear the Doctor move on the wicker. It sounded like when a bad folksinger changes chords and the squeak on the frets is louder than the picking. You could hear the whole house, a giant conch shell and its internal sea. You could hear, believe me, voices.

  So this Friday in question I get on the block and go shoulder-high into the Voice of the Theater. . . cannot be h-wealthy forum," Daddy was saying.

  ". . . cannot buttabean h-wealthy forum," the Doctor said. I think I was too far up in the speaker. . . whoever evah hearded of a dearded child uvah twelvild runnnwellve vilding inilda nigger road nigoadhouse rrrouse !"

  "I havehv."

  "You’re unfit tittit . .

  I stepped down and moved the block and just stood under the vent, maybe only my hair up in it. "Everson, frankly the place worried me too, before. But he has to have some life other than . . . "

  A small wicker squeak.

  "Than what?"

  "Than this." A big wicker squeak. This was much clearer.

  "Well, what pray tell doesn’t worry you now? Before when?"

  "Before he had his new companion to—escort him."

  "Companion. And not the first—"

  "Don’t start that tape—"

  "I’ll start it—"

  "You’re a boor."

  A giant scraping and tinkling and gushing, pouring noise came down.

  "Here. The ice is gone," Daddy said.

  "Thanks."

  It was quiet for so long I got scared they might be sneaking down. I could see the stairs where their shoes would show up long before they could see me, but I went over to the stairs just in case. Then they started talking again. I tiptoed back over, missed a few words.

  . . think either one of us," she said, and a pause like for a lecture notetaker, "has been chaste, has we, Iv?"

  "ln my book discretion still beats valor."

  "Quite," she said. A scream of wicker. “So what sets us so far apart in this spectrum of morals, my lovely?" (Sounds weird, but that’s what I heard.) "That I don’t with every coroner, convict, drifter, and what’s more entrust a boy to—"

  "Who fucking left, Everson?" The volume nearly scalped me. I was weak. I can only think of one noise like that—a gun went off in a pawnshop on King Street and it was like the air itself was black for a moment, and we weren’t even inside the shop. I eased back up into the tube.

  ". . . if there’s a difference. One leaves, one doesn’t. You couldn’t, I could. Don’t make me out . . ."

  "I know." An easy whine of wicker.

  "Same?" Another chinking and wash sound.

  "It’s none of your business, but I’ll tell you anyway. He came out here and found Theenie in her gin and she decided he’s her long-lost grandchild by her crazy daughter." Still another punctuation of glass and liquid noise. "And I asked him to stay here. For Simons."

  "You don’t know him from—"

  "Everson, did I know you? Did you know—"

  "That was just for marriage. This, you’ve got, he’s raising—"

  "Necessity of invention." Then, quickly; "Okay, look. I liked the kid. At school the gossip mill has done about as hysterical a thing as you want to. God, this is strong. Look, Iv, we’re all coming down a bit, but I’m not addled yet. And the thing on Simons, the book thing . .

  "The book thing," he said.

  "It’s no good without the baseball thing." Then she adds: "That’s why the man’s here, known or not. He’s duty-free, cuts a figure, keeps him straight. That’s all there is."

  I’d had enough. All I had to do was figure out how to model my face for going in the house. This was some of the strangest verbiage I ever heard. I don’t know why I thought so at the time. It looks reasonable now.

  But I was hypered out, so I walked all the way back up to the Grand. When I was almost an hour late I called them.

  "Where are you?"

  "I’m up at Jake’s. I t
hought Daddy could pick me up here."

  "It’s your weekend," she said. "When he gets here I’ll tell him."

  "Okay. Thanks." Thanks for mendacity, I should have said—mendacity and lies.

  Well, I got a cold one. For the first time I needed one, I thought. I rolled it on my forehead. It felt like a new kind of ironing, heavy cold metal to smooth things out.

  Jake came up and shook the can and put another one up without asking, like I was a real regular customer. "Drink dis slow. Your momma called, said sit tight."

  I sat tight. After that one I didn’t need to iron my head anymore.

  I thought of a joke, for some reason, that Margaret Pinckney told during the last party. Bill and Jim interfered with her but she got it out, talking like a harelip. The hero’s a harelip. Selling peaches, he knocks on a 1ady’s door. She answers in "something comfortable—very," Margaret said.

  "Yes?"

  "Ma’am, want thum peacheth?"

  "It would depend."

  "Depend on what?" said the harelip.

  “Are they firm?”

  "Oh yeth, ma’am, they’re firm."

  "Do they have a very light fuzz on them?”

  "Oh yeth, ma’am, they have a very light futh on them."

  "Come in," the lady said, and he did.

  “Are they as firm as these?" she asked, showing him her titties. Margaret said boobs.

  "I couldn’t thay."

  She made him feel them. "Oh yeth, ma’am, they’re ath firm ath theeth."

  "Well, is the fuzz on them as light as this fuzz?"

  Margaret said: "She revealed herself totally to the harelip door-to-door peach salesman."

  "I—I—I couldn’t th-thay that either," he said. "Give me your hand and we’ll find out," she said, and then, jumping, said, "Quick, I hear someone coming! Under the sofa!"

  The salesman rolled under the sofa and the lady dressed. It was a false alarm. When the heat blew off she got the salesman out.

  "Whew."

  "I’ll thay.” They settled down.

  Then the lady said: "I’ll buy all your fruit if you’ll tell me what part of my body you think is the sharpest."

  "The tharpetht?"

  "Yes. And I’ll take it all.”

  "Well, ma’am, I believe it’th your eerth."

  "My ears?”

  "Yeth, ma’am."

  "But why my ears?"

  "Well, you know when you thaid you thought you heard thomeone coming?"

  "Yes."

  "Well"—he hesitated——"it wath me."

  It wath a houthe rocker that night. Even Bill and Jim were giggling. Why did I remember that, sitting in the Grand working on my second cold one? My first true second beer in my life.

  Daddy came in.

  "Mist’Iv," people said. "Mist’Iv!" I guess they knew him from their troubles. Daddy took their cases on time, I thought. Or they just knew he was the Duchess’s old man. But anyway, he came in and had Jake’s attention before he got to the bar and handed Jake a bottle in a sack.

  "Do you have soda?"

  "Got Coke soda," Jake said.

  "Water then, Jacob."

  Jacob. I had the feeling he’d been there before, or knew him somehow, which was a hard sensation to accept, like believing that sexy things are not your own private province of knowledge, that your parents must know too. Here I thought Jake and the Grand were all mine, and Daddy’s calling Jake Jacob, like they go back years into a formal history together.

  "Hi. Sorry if I’m in trouble," I said to cut him off, in case I was. "You know Jake?"

  Jake handed up a jigger of whiskey and a jelly glass with tap water in it. Daddy nodded down. Jake nodded up.

  "His father." Daddy was about titrated out. His lips were under control except they sort of looked like he’d been to the dentist. His eyes were mullety."This place is just a juke joint now, son. In my day, it was the biggest whorehouse-casino-bootleg operation we knew of. Do you know what a whorehouse is?"

  "Wel1, I know what one is. I don’t know what you do, though."

  He chased the jigger.

  "Me either." He laughed.

  We sat there a while.

  I had a bunch of questions about the joint before, under Jake’s daddy, but they seemed like too much effort. I could just put it together myself, with a hint or two.

  "Daddy, was it what they call a class operation?"

  "What?"

  "Jake’s joint in the good old days."

  "Class operation is right!" He got excited. "That’s exactly what it was. Everything was clear. They had the fun and we had the money. Buyers, sellers."

  "Refined vice?" I said.

  "What?"

  "Like Chicago and things. Was it refined vice with a code of manners—"

  “Son, do you believe in God?"

  "What?"

  "Do you believe in God?"

  "Yeah, I guess."

  "Well, okay. I guess it was refined vice."

  I motioned to Jake and got my first true third cold one in my life. Daddy had said something I couldn’t figure out. Today I sort of know. And I sort of don’t.

  Anyway, we left together and drove home to the Cabana. And he stayed there that night. I didn’t need any air ducts to know that.

  "God, Iv," I heard come from their room.

  "God what?"

  "Chemistry."

  "Chemistry what?"

  "Chemistry never changes?

  And then a set of rock groans no oracle ever bettered. And I’m drunk, which probably made it worse. And if chemistry never changes, why’d they split up? I guess somebody could wonder that, but it’s probably only me, drunk. Everyone who knows them says they split up because the Doctor’s a bitch, if they are on his side, and because the Progenitor’s an asshole, if they’re on hers, and some people say both. That leaves me to wonder. I don’t. I know. The Doctor is a Democrat and the Progenitor is a Republican. I don’t mean registered voters now, I mean their whole attitude. They both voted for Nixon, so it’s not that simple. They both vote for Nixon but she thinks it’s a land where you decide your boy is a novelist and feed him books and he is one, and he thinks in these supply-demand curves and says book reading’s fine but there will have to be baseball for balance and law school in order that I be a producer and not a ward of the state, and bam—they are in it, fighting in a corner.

  "He’s bright enough. Let him read if he wants to."

  "He has to work on it, Iv."

  "He’s a boy, for God’s sake."

  "Not any boy. My boy."

  Crack!

  "If you hit me again, it’ll be the last time."

  I wondered about that one for years. How did he do it? A short, deft blow that broke her nose? A high—handed Cagney slap? Or a schooled punch, like a hook? We boxed, twice. He got me these gloves the size of plums and put them on me and placed my guard and said keep your guard up and come on. I did, with whirring weightless arms, concentrating on his T-shirt near his armpits, enveloping him in a storm of bad ideas until he reached out and thumped my mouth and I quit.

  So what he did to her I don’t know. I did not see any mark the next day. But I knew that in a universe alleged to contain only men who beat their wives and men who don’t, he was a doer. At least he was in principle, because I’m not sure one shot is a true beating. It wouldn’t be if she had cracked him one, which for all I know she was trying to do, like me, swinging away, when he produced the audible whap. They could have this same kind of talk about business or money or careers or jobs, which is why I say their differences fall under the loose heading

  of political.

  "I sold the Market Street property," he’d say.

  "You what?"

  "I sold it."

  "Without consulting me?"

  Silence. Then she orates: "If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t—we wou1dn’t—have two quarters to rub together. I’m through with you." A sweeping noise of drink and napkin, a cabinet door slams, she heads for
the bedroom, door locks. He must sit there with a solid look on his face. He mixes another drink.

  Once, though, they worked up to the ignition point, and she said, "It’s over. Get out."

  "Hell, it’s my house. You get out." And beat her to the bedroom. That one tickled me.

  But it’s still kind of hard to lie there hearing all this, even though some of it’s funny. Too much of it’s about you, in the third person, when they could just get you in there for your opinion instead of relegating you to misfit. Hell, I would have told them all they needed to know. They’d have both been jaked up if they had asked me. I don’t know how they ever managed to dream that they had an object, like a commodity on a market they had to invest this way or that. And finally, there was a feeling I had that they had quit being themselves in favor of my becoming themselves, as if they were sacrificed to me. They assumed this sacrifice willingly together and only later discovered there were two lives being gambled on one.