Clarice had always been too grown up and glowing to be real to me, so pretty and assured and tall. At Christmases past I had been the tagalong, smaller and younger and sometimes unnoticed, trailing in the boiling wake Clarice and Wayne left behind them as they galloped about the house. But now this same Clarice flopped down beside me and said, “I always wanted a sister,” even though it meant she had to give up having her own room. We fell asleep listening to Uncle Bruster cuss out my mama’s china cabinet as he wrestled it down the hall.
The next day my aunt drove us into Fruiton to register me at Mosely Elementary. Florence bullied the school principal into skipping me ahead and putting me in Clarice’s third-grade class. The principal voiced some concerns about my age and size, but Aunt Florence talked over him, winning by sheer volume, while my mother drooped uncaring in his office and I picked the ends of my fingers off.
“The child is reading books I don’t understand, and you’re worried about her ‘social adjustment’?” said Aunt Florence. “Arlene here might know what that means, with all her fancy reading, but I don’t know any social adjustment. All I know is she’s smart as a whip, and in the third-grade classroom my girl will be there to look out for her.”
The principal was right in theory. I was incapable of social adjustment to a third-grade classroom. But I would have been just as incapable in the second, where I belonged.
In the third-grade room, it didn’t matter. Clarice calmly adjusted everyone else to fit me. It soon became apparent that if anyone wanted Clarice to come to their sleepover or birthday party, or to play on their kick-ball team—and they all did—then they had to invite me, too.
I’d been in school about two weeks when Mama had one of her fits in the middle of the night. She was banging the wall so loudly that she woke up everyone in the house. Clarice and I sat up, and Clarice said, “That’s in Wayne’s room.”
I said, “Mama,” and leaped up and went running down the hall, with Clarice a beat behind me.
The banging stopped as I reached the doorway. I looked in and saw Aunt Flo sitting on Mama. Mama must have been banging Wayne’s wall with her face, because bright blood was jetting out of her nose. Florence had Mama’s shoulders pinned with her knees. Mama was flopping like a trout under her. Florence was grimly silent, riding her, and the only noise from Mama was little grunting puffs that made the blood streaming from her nostrils bubble and pop. Uncle Bruster loomed up behind us, and Florence saw us all there. She snapped, “Call an ambulance, Bruster, and you girls better get. Back to bed. Now.”
Clarice took my shoulder and pulled me away. We went back to our room and lay in the dark, listening to the EMTs take Mama away for her first stay at the nervous hospital over in Deer Park.
I rolled over on my side and looked at Clarice. She was awake, looking back at me.
“What’s wrong with her?” Clarice said. “Is she sick?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “She’s just weird that way sometimes.” I felt cold and small and scared in my bed. “I wish y’all’s dog was still here,” I said. “What happened to Buddy?”
There was a long silence from the other bed, and then Clarice said, “You know how Wayne died?”
“Sort of,” I said. I thought of my mama sobbing out the story to Daddy. Something about yellow jackets. Something about Wayne’s dog.
After another long pause, Clarice began talking. Her voice was flat and colorless in the darkness. It was like she was reciting something she had memorized a long time ago.
“Buddy was on a clothesline, tied up to that big pine in the backyard, and Wayne was out playing with him. And I guess they stirred up some yellow jackets. They nest down in holes in the ground. Daddy always pours gasoline in, but he missed this one. It was a big nest, and they all came out pretty mad.
“A few stung Buddy, but for some reason they mostly headed for Wayne. When Wayne went to run for the house, Buddy was running, too, but Buddy was scared and he didn’t run right. He was going crazy around in circles. And he got Wayne all tangled up in the clothesline, and Buddy ran around the tree and he kept running around it and winding up Wayne. He tethered Wayne to the tree.
“The yellow jackets, they kept on stinging Wayne. They aren’t like bees. They can sting and sting.”
Clarice took a shuddery gulping breath. I slipped out of bed and got in beside her, held her hand in the dark.
“So then anyway, me and Mama went outside because we were going to work in the garden. She was carrying a shovel she’d bought new at the Wal-Mart, taking it to put down in the shed.
“We walked out and we saw Wayne. I looked at him, and I couldn’t even see that it was Wayne, you know? I couldn’t make out his face. It looked to me like his eyes were gone, but I think it was because he was so swollen, they had puffed shut. I think he was already dead. But Buddy was fine. The yellow jackets were gone, mostly.
“But Mama, she took in the whole thing in one breath. She looked there at Wayne lying so still, all tangled in that leash and tied up to the tree, and Buddy sitting by him, and one or two of the yellow jackets whipping around mad, and she understood everything.
“Mama made this awful noise. You never heard a noise like that. No one ever did. Mama went towards Wayne. And Buddy was trying to come forward and meet her, wagging his tail. He was still tied to Wayne, and he was pulling, and it made Wayne’s foot move a little. As Mama got up to where Buddy was pulling at Wayne, she swung the shovel off her shoulder and down, right onto Buddy’s head. It made this noise, like a crunching-thud noise. It didn’t even slow her down. It was so smooth, like swinging a shovel down was a normal part of running for her. Buddy flopped down onto the ground as she passed, and his head was mashed in. But she wasn’t looking at Buddy. She dropped the shovel by him and got the clothesline, and she untied Wayne and picked him up in her arms.”
I squeezed Clarice’s hand in the dark, and we were quiet together.
“So that’s what happened,” Clarice said at last. “It’s weird how time goes sometimes. All that seemed to happen so fast, like in four heartbeats, but it took a really long time.”
I said, “When Daddy died, time got very slow. Every day took so long, and it was like Mama and me sat waiting around for the day to be over, but then the next day kept happening, and we had to wait through that one, too. It’s better now that we’re here.”
“It’s better for me, too. It’s better with you here.”
I don’t remember falling asleep, but I stayed in her bed with her, and from that night on, she and I were like sisters. I wasn’t even afraid, left alone with the Lukeys while Mama was under observation over in Deer Park, because Clarice was with me. We were close all the way up until the night things went bad on us, when we were freshmen in high school.
No, that’s not right. We didn’t fall apart until after, sophomore year, when I got so secretive and crazy and started “running around.” Running around was as close as Clarice would ever come to saying “fucking any boy who would hold still for long enough.” I couldn’t explain it to her, because in a twisted way, I did what I did with those boys for her. Or at least because of her. Even then she never said one word in public that indicated she was anything less than delighted with me.
The truth is, even when she was barely speaking to me, I never stopped loving her. I can say that with no uncertainty, no matter what else is true. I would have killed for her. And of course, eventually I did.
CHAPTER 5
BURR AND I left for Possett early Monday morning. We were planning to drive the whole fifteen hours in one day, so I had told Aunt Florence we would arrive late Monday night. I wanted to be sure I got there ahead of Rose Mae.
Florence had crowed in triumph when I called to tell her I was coming. I had been so irritated with her that I rang off too fast. I told her I was bringing my boyfriend but neglected to mention that he was black. I also didn’t exactly make it clear that we might leave town before Uncle Bruster’s party on Friday. Once she met Burr,
I thought, the invitation might be revoked anyway.
I’d spent my early childhood years living on military bases with friends of all colors, but at Aunt Florence and Uncle Bruster’s house, Burr was not going to go over very well. It wasn’t like they had a closetful of giant oil-soaked crosses and pointy white hats, and I had never heard any of my relatives use the word “nigger.” But they didn’t use it for the same reason that they didn’t say “Pass those shitty-ass peas.” It wasn’t nice.
The idea that black folks were not like us was such obvious and fundamental truth to the Lukeys, and Aunt Flo’s relatives, the Bents, that they did not have to use ugly words to point it out. Their prejudice was so ingrained, it was as much a part of them as the Lukey blue eyes and the Bent women’s propensity to take to secret drink.
My plan was to get in there, introduce Burr, get disowned, and then check in at the Fruiton Holiday Inn before Rose Mae Lolley arrived. I would intercept her before she descended on Clarice, defuse her, and send her packing with a yet to be determined lie, then get the hell out while the getting was good. With any luck, Aunt Flo would get on the phone with the extended family, and all the Lukeys and the Bents (except Clarice, I hoped) would wash their hands of me. I would never have to worry about going down to Possett, Alabama, again as long as I lived. On the downside, they might lay siege to the Holiday Inn and light us on fire.
We took Burr’s Blazer, as it was bigger, and I didn’t think my Honda could take the trip. Burr drove the first shift, negotiating the city streets while I read. Once we were on the highway, he got bored and made me put my book away and play car games. Burr and I were not car-game traditionalists. We looked down on plebeian fare like Name That Tune and Road Sign Alphabet, preferring to make up our own games.
We tuned the radio to one of Chicago’s few country-music stations and played a game I had made up called My Heart Is a Fart. We’d listen to the first line of a country ballad, then take turns thinking of the dirtiest line possible to follow it. It had to rhyme, and we had to sing it loud enough to drown out the actual lyrics.
Eventually we were drowning out each other, laughing like lunatics until we were hoarse. We played the game all the way to the Indiana state line, where we started to lose the signal.
Burr turned off the radio and pointed to the WELCOME TO INDIANA sign looming up ahead of us. “Here it comes. Are you ready?” he asked.
The Burroughses had a family tradition on road trips. Burr and I had gone to Wisconsin together quite a few times, and once down to Detroit for a mutual friend’s wedding, so I was familiar with it. As we approached the sign, Burr lifted one hand off the wheel and glanced at me. I said, “You know this is a little weird, right?” But I lifted my hand, too.
I turned around in my seat, and Burr sneaked glances over his shoulder. “Goodbye, Illinois,” we yelled in singsong, waving our lifted hands as we crossed the state line. Then we faced forward, still waving, and yelled, “Hello, Indiana.”
“Don’t we trade off driving at each state line?” Burr asked.
“Come on, it isn’t even an hour to Indiana, you wuss.”
“All right. Let’s play the Pants on Fire game,” said Burr. He shot me a sideways glance, just a bit smug. I smelled a trap. “I’ll go first. Your cousin tries on a dress at a store. She comes out of the changing room, looking like a truck, and says, ‘Does this dress make me look fat?’ What do you say?”
“Is it my cousin Clarice or my cousin Fat Agnes?” I asked.
“Why do you call your cousin Fat Agnes?” Burr asked.
“That’s her name. She’s my uncle Luke-John’s daughter, and her given name is Fat Agnes Lukey. I keep telling you, Burr, these people you are so hot to meet are moderately dangerous loons.”
“All right, fine,” said Burr. “Play the game. In this hypothetical, it’s your cousin Agnes.”
“Then I say no,” I said and shrugged.
“Aha!” said Burr.
“No, not ‘Aha!’ I haven’t told a lie,” I said. “The dress may make her look bad, but it can’t be blamed for making her look fat. Fat Agnes is heavy no matter what she wears.”
“Okay, then. What if it’s Clarice and the dress makes her look heavier?”
“No way, cheater,” I said. “You don’t get to change it in the middle. It’s my turn.”
We played back and forth for a while, making up hypothetical situations and watching the other try to avoid revealing unpleasant truths without being caught in a falsehood. Burr had made up Pants on Fire on the trip to Detroit. He invented it partly to try and figure out how my system of not lying worked, but it was also fun. Anyway, as I had pointed out, the game was probably teaching him invaluable skills he would use every day as a tax attorney. We played for over an hour, exiting once to load up at a drive-through before they stopped serving breakfast at eleven. I liked to eat a lot in the car.
Once we were back on the road and had plowed our way through a huge bag of hot food, I got the pillow and blanket out of the backseat. I pulled on one of Burr’s baseball caps and settled in for a nap. I said, “Okay, last one. Your girlfriend—”
“My cute girlfriend,” interrupted Burr.
“Yes,” I said. “Your adorable girlfriend says to you, ‘Honey, will you do me a favor?’”
“Uh-oh,” said Burr.
“Uh-oh, indeed. So you say, ‘Sure, baby.’”
“Why would I do that without asking what the favor is?”
“Because two reasons,” I said, wrapping the blanket around my legs. “One, she’s adorable. As we have established.”
“I said cute,” said Burr.
“Ah, the perfect segue into reason two, which is that this is my hypothetical. So she’s adorable, and she asks you for a favor, and you say, ‘Sure, baby, I’ll do you any favor you need.’ Then she says, ‘I know you have been hiding a deep and terrible secret from me, and I want you to tell me what it is.’”
“I assume I have been hiding one?” said Burr. “Since this is your hypothetical.”
“Of course,” I said.
“Fine. I say, ‘I won’t tell you.’”
“Aha!” I said. I closed my eyes and pulled Burr’s cap down low to block out the light.
“Telling her I won’t tell her is not a lie.”
“But you said you would do her the favor, so if you refuse to tell her, then that was the lie.”
“Tricky,” said Burr. “So I tell her the secret. If she stops loving me over a single dark secret, she was a bad girlfriend. Unless the secret is something Jerry Springer, like I’m really a woman, or I’m having sex with her mother.”
“Then I still get a point, because you didn’t not tell a lie.”
“Wait, what? I didn’t lie.”
“Right,” I said. “Exactly. You told the truth, which is not the same thing as not lying. You have to not lie to win.”
“Let me think about it.”
Burr turned the radio on softly. I closed my eyes, but my brain was going ninety miles an hour. As tired as I was, I couldn’t stop trying to invent a good enough lie to divert Rose Mae Lolley. Best-case scenario, my lie would make her give up her quest and leave Fruiton, but at the very least, it had to make her stay away from Clarice. My only other option was making up a lie that would keep Clarice and Bud from talking to Rose, but I would much rather lie to Rose Mae than to the nicest relative I had.
“I got it,” Burr said. “The only way out is to begin an argument about semantics. I can posit that a favor is something you do, and refuse to answer on the grounds that answering a question is not a favor. In fact, I can say I’m still willing to do the promised favor, but I’m not willing to answer a question. I can tell her if she wanted information instead of action, she should have said, ‘Will you answer a question for me.’”
“Brilliant, counselor,” I said. I snuggled deeper in the blanket.
“Lena?” said Burr softly. “If I asked you for a favor, would you answer a question for me?”
I peeked out at him from under the ball cap. His eyes were steady on the road, but he was serious. I should have known my hypothetical would take us into dangerous territory. I sat up and pulled off the cap. “There goes any chance at sleeping,” I said. “This is the moment you choose to ask me if I have any deep, dark secrets I want to discuss? Right now, on the road trip from hell, when I’m under so much stress my heart could burst at any second?”
Burr grinned and held up one hand. “Truce! Withdrawn! The witness may step down. Feel like driving the next leg? If you can’t sleep, I can.”
Burr caught a nap, and I drove and listened to the radio. I woke him up in time to say goodbye to Indiana and hello to Kentucky. He was superstitious about that, and I knew if I changed states without waking him up to wave, his head would explode. He sat up blearily, and we did the geographical salutations. I pulled off to get gas and more food. Then I drove us all the way to the point where we bade Kentucky adieu and greeted Tennessee.
“This is now the farthest south I have ever been,” Burr said. He took the wheel, but I still couldn’t sleep. I sat staring blankly out the side window.
When it became obvious I wasn’t going to nap, Burr began a game of What Have I Got in My Pocketses that lasted us all the way to Nashville. This was a game we’d invented, and we played it in the car and sometimes on slow winter afternoons in front of the fireplace at his bachelor pad. We would each make up a long, complicated story. Burr usually finished his first. When he had the plot points down, he would tell me half the story and give me some background on the characters so I knew who was who. The catch was, the stories were always told backwards. So Burr would start at the end and trace events back through time until he got to the middle. Then he would stop telling it and say, “What have I got in my pocketses?”
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