Edisto - Padgett Powell (11 page)

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 thought 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."