It's difficult to explain how and why I loved Catfish so much. He was gentle, kind, and wise, and had I never known him I would not have understood what a father and grandfather should be; all I had to go on was my dad. I had no grandparents. Through Catfish I learned that the way my dad treated me was not normal or acceptable. It took years for me to understand and it was only through the gentle relationship Catfish offered me and the stories he told me that I came to that realization.
I wished Catfish were here, with his wisdom and subtle, provocative probing that made me think and feel things deep within. I missed him. I missed Tootsie and Marianne and felt disconnected from the people who truly loved me.
I thought about my times with Tootsie on Catfish's porch, especially after the funeral when I ran there for respite after my dad beat me and cut my face open. I'd confronted Tootsie about having an affair with my dad for some twenty- odd years. It struck me how powerless she felt against my dad and all white men.
I felt bad for her; bad for all people who were made to feel powerless because of their race or gender or economic station. I had felt powerless against my dad from the time I was a little girl. He was a bully and his emotional and physical abuse had made me cower and feel afraid all the time.
I told Tootsie she needed to stop seeing my dad.
"I know." Tootsie didn’t look at me when we talked about my dad. "I tole him so many times to stop coming around, but he wait a month or so, and start up again. I'm afraid of him. I see what he do to you."
Tootsie had been my family's housekeeper since I'd been about three or four months old. My mother called her the help, which seemed demeaning and certainly didn't describe what she was to our family. She had raised me, loved me, and nurtured me more than my own mother, and I adored her even though Tootsie and my dad had been having an affair for years.
My dad, Bob Burton—former mayor, former state senator! And the help! And Marianne was a product of that clandestine relationship, only my dad ignored her completely.
Rodney had explained to me that colored women had been taken advantage of by white men for centuries and that these women were powerless to turn them down. I felt both anger and pity for Tootsie. I felt only anger for my dad.
*
We sat and rocked for a while. Tootsie's brothers, Tom and Sam, and her sister's husband, Bo were sitting on the same chairs where the men who roasted the pig at Catfish's funeral had sat that day. Now that everyone was gone and darkness set in, the men watched a barbecue grill made from a big barrel that someone had welded iron legs onto. Many of the younger children ran and played in the yard while some were in the cane fields and a few watched TV inside Tootsie's cabin.
"Sitting here with the family all around makes me miss my daddy," Tootsie said, as if talking to herself.
"I miss Catfish, too." I was staring at the pipe on the side of the bar-b-que barrel. No smoke was coming out, but the men were gathered around it as though they had a full meal over the coals inside. They seemed to be reminiscing about Catfish, too.
"He was something, Catfish was. A good daddy. You know he never lifted a hand to any of us. Now Mama, she would switch us with those stinging branches off the pecan trees, but Daddy, no, he never raised his voice or his hand." Tootsie was rocking slowly and I could tell she was thinking about something. I waited until she was ready to talk.
"Did he ever tell you how he got his name, 'Catfish'? It's kinda funny." Tootsie chuckled and rocked, her eyes almost closed as if dreaming.
Catfish: by Tootsie
Told in 1974
First time his daddy take him fishing he was about two, and Sam was maybe five. They went to the coulée, over by that little airstrip, but the airport wasn't there then. Catfish's daddy put a worm on a hook and handed Daddy the pole while he baited his own hook and one for Sam. Catfish's cork went under before the other two had they lines in the water and he took to screaming. Daddy dropped the pole and started to run. My granddaddy grabbed the pole just as it was about to get pulled in the water while Sam run after Catfish.
Granddaddy fought with that fish for a while and finally pulled him on the bank and, don't you know, it was a big ole mudfish—one of those bottom feeders that look like a catfish but no white person would eat one of those. They taste like mud and no telling what those fish eat at the bottom of the river.
Granddaddy wanted to throw that fish back in the water but my daddy took to crying and begging his daddy not to throw it back.
"We only keep what we can eat," his daddy say.
"I'll eat it," Catfish say. He was crying and carrying on. So his daddy say okay and put that ole mudfish in the bucket. While Sam and they daddy fished, my daddy tended that mudfish. He went dug up some worms and put them in that water. He put some leaves in there. He added fresh water ever now and then. Later that day when they walked home they had a string of perch in one bucket and that ole mudfish in the other. By then the mudfish was Catfish's pet fish and he named him "Cat." My granddaddy and Sam thought that was so funny, but it weren't funny when Granddaddy took a hammer to the head of that ole fish and kilt it so he could skin it, because my daddy had promised he would eat it.
Catfish cried and cried when his daddy kilt that ole mudfish, and Sam laughed and laughed and started teasing my daddy and saying, "Daddy killed Cat. Daddy killed Cat." And my daddy just kept on crying. Then his daddy say, "Look, son, it was nothing but an ole mudfish."
"No it weren't," my daddy say. "It was a catfish, and his name was Cat." Well Sam thought that was so funny and he took to teasing my daddy and calling him "Catfish." That nickname didn't really set in at first, but what happened was, after that day, my daddy was determined to catch another mudfish like the one he named Cat; so he'd beg his daddy to take him fishing ever day.
Every time they went fishing he'd say, "I'm gonna catch me a catfish." By the time he was six or seven, his daddy would let him go fishing with Sam and the two of them would compete for who could catch a catfish. And my daddy, he always caught one or two of them ole mudfish, but Sam, he'd catch perches and breams, and the kind of fish good to eat. But all my daddy wanted to catch was a catfish.
When they'd come back from fishing Sam would tease him and call him, Catfish; and soon, everyone started calling him that. To the day he died my daddy love to eat him some fried catfish; and he don't care, mudfish or catfish, he would eat it all the same, dipped in batter and fried golden. And you couldn't tell the difference when my daddy cooked them fish. They all delicious.
Tootsie took a deep breath and stopped rocking. She looked out at the pecan grove as if she could see Catfish picking pecans with his grandchildren. Tears ran down her face, unchecked. I thought about Catfish, too and gave us both quiet space to grieve in silence. Finally, she started to talk again
On Sundays after church, my daddy would go fishing while the others was in Sunday school, 'cause he didn't have to go since he went to school during the week. One day he set his bucket upside down on the bank of the river and flung his line in the water and, fore you knew it, he was tangled up. He look around the big oak tree where he was sitting and there was a girl holding a cane pole and she was just a'cussing because she was tangled up with something. When they started to pull on they lines, they realized they was tangled with each other.
They put they poles on the bank and pulled on the lines 'til they came up entwined together and there was a little catfish on one of the hooks. Because they were so tangled, it was hard to say whose hook the fish was caught on so my daddy, being the gentleman he was, say that it was hers, and he would take it off the hook for her if she'd tell him her name.
"Alabama," she say. Well, Catfish thought she was pulling his leg.
"No, I said your name."
"Alabama."
"That's the name of a state, not a person."
"Well, it's the name of this person." Now she was mad and she say she would have stormed off except her fishing line was tangled with his
and she wasn't going home without her fishing pole. By the time they got untangled they was almost friends.
"What's your name," Alabama asked my daddy.
"Catfish," he say.
"That ain't no name. That's a fish. What's your real name?"
"Name is Catfish. That's what everybody call me."
"I ain't calling no growed man 'Catfish' so if you want me to talk to you again, you need to tell me your given name."
"Given name, Peter. Peter Massey. But no one calls me that, and I don't answer to it because it reminds me of a rabbit and I'd rather be a fish." My daddy was serious, but Alabama, she took to laughing and couldn't stop. At first that made Catfish mad, but then he saw the fun in it and he start laughing, too. Soon the two of them is laughing and joking and carrying on and it wasn't three weeks later they was shacking up in the spare cabin at the end of the row and talking about getting married.
The way I hear tell, they got married when mama was expecting Sam. Then it went from there. And they was always just perfect together. Mama had a big mouth and would gossip and tell stories and she talked real loud. Daddy, he was quiet and he never tole nothing on no one. And he was so gentle, where Mama, she could be fierce.
Yeah, I was blessed with a good mama and daddy and I wish they was still here.
I watched Tootsie rock and stare at the sun setting in fingers of gold and pink over the top of the cane fields, and knew she didn't realize she had just told me that story.
*
I sat at my desk and reread the story Tootsie had told me and tried not to think about losing Rodney.
The stress got the best of me. I went days without eating. I couldn't sleep but a couple of hours without waking up in a sweat, having nightmares, screaming in my dreams.
I'd been back in New York for three weeks and had to be out of the graduate students' apartment before the first of July, ten days. I felt pressure pulling me both ways—out of the life I'd been in, but afraid to go into my new life without Rodney.
After not hearing from him for more than two weeks, the phone rang one evening just as I walked in the door. I dropped everything—my purse, groceries, apartment pamphlets—and ran to the phone without closing the door. The outside heat followed me in as I bolted for the receiver on the wall just inside the kitchen.
"Hello," I breathed heavily into the phone. "Rod, is that you?"
"Susanna? Is this Susanna Burton?" It was a familiar male voice, but not Rodney's. I couldn't breathe. I slid down to the floor with my back against the wall, legs flayed out in front of me.
"Yes. This is Susie Burton."
"This is Ray Thibault, Rod…"
"Yes, sir. I know who you are. Is Rodney okay?"
"Well, that's why I'm calling you. I thought maybe you could answer that question. He told me he would be calling you regularly and that I could check with you to find out…"
"I got a short letter. It was written last week. Do you want me to read it to you?"
"Please." Ray Thibault was breathing a stressful sort of breath. I read the letter to him, every word.
Dead silence. Neither of us could talk. It seemed he knew something I didn't, but wouldn't tell me.
I heard a dial tone. I don't know how long I sat there unable to move. Later, after I had picked up the broken eggs and shattered mayonnaise off the floor and hung up the receiver, I thought about calling Mr. Thibault back. But I couldn't bring myself to do it because if I found out Rodney was gone, I'd have to stop hoping—and hope was all I had left, all I'd ever had when it came to Rodney Thibault.
Another week passed, a month since we'd parted at the Baton Rouge airport. I had to move out of my apartment.
I found a place on 179th Street near Utopia Park. It was shady, had lots of sidewalks for walking, and I knew the area. The apartment itself was a one bedroom, but twice the size of the one I'd lived in for three years at the university.
I finished packing and arranged for a couple of friends with pickup trucks to help transport my things to the new place. I went to the university post office and filled out a form to transfer my mail to my new post office address near Utopia Parkway. I couldn't give my physical address to anyone. I was afraid.
I shopped for a bed and a sofa, and scheduled delivery.
I lost weight and my skin broke out in hives. I itched all over and had an insatiable thirst. I was not well.
Chapter Four
***
The Job
Once I was settled in my new place and had a new phone number, I called Marianne. I couldn't stand to wait any longer for news about Rodney. Mari told me that Jeffrey was still in a coma and that the doctors didn't know whether he'd ever come out of it. She said they had no news about Rodney.
I hung up and paced my new apartment, boxes everywhere that needed unpacking. I'd slept on my new mattress for two nights without putting sheets on it.
Meanwhile, I needed a job. My savings wouldn't hold out forever. I had no choice but to talk to Merrick Harper and enlist his help. We met for coffee the morning after I moved.
"There's a lot you don't know about me, Merrick," I started. He didn't say anything, just looked at me with longing. "And there's lots I don't know about you. And we can keep it that way. But I need your help."
"Susie. You know I'll do anything for you."
"I have to be honest with you. This is not about us seeing each other again. It's about you helping me get a job. And it's about you helping me keep my whereabouts secret."
"You talk like you're in trouble." There was fatherly concern in his voice.
"I'm okay, I think. I've moved out of my apartment and have a new place, but no one knows where I live, and no one can find out, except for, well…"
"Okay. So how can I help?"
"Rodney, that's his name. The man I'm going to marry. Anyway, he knows your name. I've told him about you, that you were my department head and friend. When he gets to New York and he can't find me, I think he'll find you."
"So you trust me? You're going to give me your address and trust me?"
"I have to trust you, Merrick. I don't have anyone else." I started to cry. "When I say no one else can know my address, I mean, no one. That includes my parents, siblings, friends. No one. Can you do that for me?" I was desperate or I wouldn't have gone to him.
I tried to explain to Merrick that my dad was against my relationship with Rodney and might come looking for me. Merrick was—well, he was surprised, to say the least. He kept staring at me, blinking every now and then as if he could change the picture. But he was kind and, in the end, although he didn't truly understand, he agreed to help me.
"I love you, Susie. You know that."
"You can't love two people."
"Yes you can. You'll understand when you have children, that you don't stop loving one of them when another one comes along." I thought about that, and I thought about the little girl I had given birth to—whose name I didn't know. And I thought about how much I loved Rodney.
"But that doesn't pertain to loving two women, or two men."
"You can't understand," he said. He looked sad, but accepting.
I went back to my apartment, aware that I needed to be careful. All the years I'd lived in New York I'd felt hidden among the masses. Suddenly I no longer felt safe.
Merrick called to set up a meeting for me with the president of Shilling House Publishing, the company that had published the two textbooks he'd written. It wasn't my dream job—I wanted to work with a company that published novels and memoirs—but I needed a job.
The company was on Manton Street in the Jamaica area, just south of St. John's University, and, on a nice day I could walk there from my new place or take the subway. They hired me right away.
I wanted to be a writer and I dreamed of having a publisher fall in love with the Catfish stories. As bereft as I was, I continued to work on them because I think those stories and my connection to Catfish were my
sanity during insane times.
Catfish had been particularly interested in the Vans—white folks who owned Shadowland Plantation. His dad felt beholden to Mr. Gordon Van who had been kind and generous to the Masseys.
I could still picture Catfish, the last time I sat on his porch and he rocked back and forth in that old rocking chair, his eyes half-closed against the bright sunlight, with several of his grandchildren jumping rope and chasing chickens in the dusty yard. In my mind, his voice was as fresh as if I were still sitting next to him in the straight-backed chair with the torn green Naugahyde seat.
The stories about Mr. Gordon resonated with me because, although he owned slaves, he was kind to them and treated them like human beings, not like chattel. One of the stories I couldn't get off my mind was one Catfish told me about how white men on the plantation abused the slaves until the Mr. Gordon took over after his father, Mr. Shelton Van, died. I wondered how much had really changed. As recently as a few weeks ago, more than one hundred years since the end of slavery, white men tried to kill Jeffrey and chase Rodney like hunted animals, simply because they were colored and Rodney loved a white girl.
Catfish had rocked back and forth and told the story as though he had a small audience sitting around him, animated but serious.
New Plantation Owner
1855
It was about 1855 and Mr. Gordon Van was, maybe 35, and he'd been living the life of a wealthy bachelor. He'd finished college in some highfalutin place called Harvard and gone on to a school called Oxford, in England, to study poetry and such. He didn't want to come back to South Louisiana to run a plantation, but he didn't have no choice after his daddy died suddenly—seeing as how he just had one sister and she was married and living in North Louisiana on her husband's plantation. So, Mr. Gordon Van, he made the best of it.
Mr. Gordon Van was a tall man with long legs and arms, dignified and masculine, handsome with blonde hair, blue eyes, and high cheekbones with indentions below them. A cleft chin jutted from under wide, thin lips that were quick to smile and show straight, white teeth. His stature demanded respect and spoke volumes about his status, yet he was thoughtful and gentle, a man who seemed different than most plantation owners in South Louisiana. His time up North and in Europe taught him a great deal about tolerance and humanity. He had difficulty understanding slavery in the Deep South. It went against his nature.
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