The Myth of Perpetual Summer

by Susan Crandall

  I was shocked by this discovery. After all, the past three generations of James men have been historians. Although, now that I think of it, Dad never talks of his heritage. That was always Granny James.

  I looked to see what else I could find in the library about the James family. I focused on the things Gran always steps sideways about. Granddad’s accident and Uncle George. There are no microfiche files going back to the twenties, which would have been before George left. And the librarian wouldn’t allow a “nonprofessional” to put destructive, oily hands on the actual newspapers because they’re too delicate. She was quite cranky about the whole subject, like the library and all of the books and documents in it were her personal property she was being forced to share.

  The newspapers for the year 1934 had been put on microfiche. So I spent half a day straining my eyes on that machine looking for something about Granddad James’s accident. Since he was hunting, I assumed it happened in the fall. But week after week there were no reports of an accident, no obituary for Elliot James. It had to be 1934 because Daddy was ten. He was a New Year’s baby—first one born in Lamoyne City Hospital in ’24, I’ve heard that story a thousand times.

  So I went back and started at January first. I was smarter this go-around and read the obituaries first. Once I found it, I could look for an article about the accident.

  Old-fashioned obituaries were shocking and creepily addictive, filled with gruesome details and too much private family business. For instance, Sherman Boyd was a fourteen-year-old kid who died “hours after a fire burned off all the skin on his face, chest, and arms . . . Flames burst forth and engulfed the room, including Sherman and his younger brother, Walter.” Walter ran from the home, “his clothes ablaze, and was doused by an alert neighbor.” He was “not expected to survive.” Good golly, they’d written poor Walter off in an obituary before he was even dead.

  I finally found Granddad’s on June 7, 1934.

  James, Elliot Forrest Lamoyne resident, history professor at Wickham College, and landowner, aged 34 years, died in a freak accident sometime on June 5. Missing for nearly a full day, Mr. James was discovered in the woods approximately a mile from his home at Pearl River Plantation by his wife, Lavada (Neely) James. Full particulars as to his death are lacking.

  The widowed Mrs. James is the daughter of the prominent and respected Mr. and Mrs. Rudell Neely. The pioneering Neely family founded Hawthorn House in 1827, First Planters Bank in 1850, and have been pillars of charity and public service. Many condolences and much sympathy comes from this paper and the Lamoyne community.

  A beloved father and husband, Mr. James will be mourned by his wife and his son, Drayton Neely James, aged 10 years. Mr. James was preceded in death by an infant sister, Elizabeth Jocelyn James, and his parents, Frederick and Cecelia James. Mr. James served his country during the Great War, working in the War Department in Washington, DC.

  Mr. James’s body was returned home to Pearl River Plantation and laid to rest in the James family cemetery next to his sister, beloved parents, and grandparents.

  There wasn’t a single article or report of the accident in the newspaper between June fifth and July first. The Lamoyne Ledger reported on everything: Rotary Club minutes, Bridge Club scores, Clyde Pickrell’s flat tire on Eudora Avenue, even a stray dog stealing long johns off a clothesline. I suppose, considering how private Gran is about family business, it’s not surprising that there weren’t any gory details regarding Granddad.

  So I asked Maisie to ask her momma about it, hoping she’d be more interested in gossiping than Mr. Stokes is. If Granddad died in June, the blackberry harvest would have been in full swing. Mr. Stokes would have been there, and probably Maisie’s momma, too.

  Maisie says, “Momma remembers that day all right, ’cause Pappy Stokes had to help cart Mr. James home and lay him out.”

  The image her words bring to mind makes me glad we have McClure’s Funeral Home and don’t have our dead lying around in the parlor waiting to be buried anymore.

  “And?” I prod. The more Maisie knows, the harder she makes you work for it.

  “She and Pappy Stokes were there working the harvest that day.”

  “I surmised that. What was Granddad hunting?”

  “How would my momma know?” She sounds almost perturbed.

  “What did your momma remember?”

  “She say your granny came straight to get Pappy Stokes about two hours after the work begun. Pappy dropped his pail, grabbed a couple of strong boys, and told everyone to keep to work. He hurried off with Mrs. James. When they come carryin’ your granddad out of the woods, Momma say it look like Pappy Stokes was workin’ to hold Mr. James’s brains inside his head.”

  My stomach pitches. Poor Gran, finding her husband like that. Margo said that if anything happens to Daddy she’ll kill herself and be done. Griff says she’s being dramatic, which is true enough. But I think there might be something deeper than show. It’s hard to describe. Despite all the fights and Margo’s running off, she and Daddy are as interdependent as lightning and thunder. And if anything—or anyone—gets between them, it’s going to get shocked out of the sky.

  “And then?” I say.

  Maisie lifts a shoulder. “He was boxed up right quick and buried the next day. That’s it.”

  “What about Daddy? Where was he?”

  Maisie shrugged. “Dunno. Momma didn’t say.”

  “The obituary said Granddad went out the day before. He was missing.”

  “I told you what she said. You want more, maybe you oughta ask your daddy. He was same age as Momma.”

  I’ve never asked Dad about his father’s death. When I was little I never thought much about it. And then when I was old enough to be curious, I was also old enough to know to avoid bringing up painful subjects for fear of pushing him into shadow time.

  We walk in silence for a little while, the only noise the sound of our shoes on the gravel alley and the swish of Maisie’s purse against the side of her starched uniform dress. I can’t stop thinking about Gran finding her husband bloody and dead in the woods. There’s no way I can ask her to tell that story. Besides, Gran only talks about the things people did while they walked this earth, never, never, never about how they left it.

  “What about Uncle George? Did she know anything about him? The obituary didn’t even mention him.”

  Maisie says, “Told me to hush, like she does when she’s tired of questions.”

  I’m beginning to think I’ll never figure out anything about Uncle George.

  “I got two dimes burning a hole in my pocket,” I say. “How about I buy you a Co’Cola?” The Sinclair station, where Griff works, isn’t exactly on Maisie’s way home, but close enough. Sometimes we swing by there for a cold drink. I pull them right out of the ice bath in the big red cooler sitting in front of the station office and we drink them while we walk. Then I drop the empties in their squares in the wood crate on my way back. No deposit needed.

  The good thing about getting Cokes at the Sinclair is that I can talk to Griff and he can’t find a way to run off. Like I said, he’s never home, and at school he might as well be made of moonbeams he’s so intangible.

  “Never turn down a free Co’Cola,” Maisie says with a smile.

  * * *

  Turns out Maisie and I aren’t the only thirsty girls at the Sinclair. There’s a black-haired girl in a tight, pink short-sleeved sweater holding a bottle and leaning against the big red cooler. She reminds me of Elizabeth Taylor in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (a movie that had Granny and Margo at odds for months: Granny angry over the unfair depiction of old Southern families as shallow, greedy, and manipulative; Margo, of course, was a big fan of the “truths” it told).

  Elizabeth Taylor is talking to Griff while he cleans the windshield of a robin’s-egg-blue convertible parked in front of the green pumps. No driver, so it’s likely hers. She’s looking at Griff in that hungry way I see lots of girls look at him. And I’m struck with the
same strange mix of incredulity and possessiveness that I always am when I witness it.

  Maisie hangs back while I go up and lift the hatch on the cooler and pull out a couple of bottles. I slide my two dimes into the coin collector, then finally have to ask the girl to move so I can use the opener on the front. I snap off the caps and they fall into the catcher with a little clink. The girl doesn’t stop talking, or bother to look at me, until Griff turns and notices me.

  “Lulie. What are you doing here?” He barely looks at me as he tucks the dark-red oil rag into his back pocket. It hangs there like a lopsided tail.

  “Hello to you, too.”

  I hand one of the bottles to Maisie.

  Griff nods. “Maisie.” Then he looks at Elizabeth Taylor. “You’re all set, miss.”

  She sends a peeved look my way before she walks to her car. She puts a hand on his shoulder as she passes Griff. “Don’t forget.” Her hand trails off his body in a way that suggests she’s a fast girl.

  The guys at school stopped looking at Griff like he could move mountains when he quit baseball and football, but girls are all still cow-eyed over him—and apparently not just those in high school.

  Elizabeth Taylor gets in the convertible and puts on a pair of white-framed cat-eye sunglasses, taking a moment to pull them down and give me a look over their green lenses, which reminds me of that girl in Jackson looking at Ross—all sophistication and confidence.

  Maybe I need to get a pair of sunglasses.

  “Don’t forget what?” I ask.

  “Nothing.”

  “Sooo . . . Someone special?” I say, looking after the car as it drives away.

  “Nope. Just another college girl with a fancy car and no common sense about how to take care of it.”

  I hear his words, but I also notice the way his eyes stay on that car as it pulls away.

  16

  I walk Maisie farther than I should, well past the little section of colored businesses that stay open late for folks coming home from work. The man who owns the drugstore gives me a respectful nod through the window, but his eyes tell me I have no business in this part of town.

  It’s dusk when I head back, the streetlights would be coming on if they had any on this side of Lamoyne. I’m almost to the railroad tracks when I hear a car rolling slowly up behind me. My entire body snaps to alert.

  I glance over my shoulder, better to sacrifice a little dignity than have the likes of Grayson Collie and his goons sneak up behind you.

  It isn’t Grayson. But it might as well be.

  The black-and-white car paces alongside me. Chief Collie leans across the seat and calls through the open passenger window. “Tallulah James, you know better than to be down here, girl.”

  Maybe it’s the disdainful way he’s looking at me. Or maybe it’s the memory of the police chief’s own kid chasing me down on a street in the part of town I am supposed to be in. In any case, I keep my steady pace and use a haughty tone when I say, “No law against walking along the street minding my own business.”

  He slams on his brakes, his tires grinding on the dirt street. I stop, too, my heart suddenly beating hard and fast.

  Moving so quickly that he leaves the car door standing open, he comes and stands so close I can feel the heat coming off him. He looks down his nose at me, gritting the same horrible, overlapped teeth he gave to his kid. His breath is fast and angry through his hairy nostrils.

  “I didn’t hear you correct, girl,” he says. “Care to answer me again?”

  I swallow hard. “I’m just heading home, sir.”

  “Ah, there’s a little respect. Why are you down here in Coontown? And what happened to your eye?” He glances around, as if looking for a place to lay blame.

  “I’m not doing anything wrong.” I keep my chin high and make to step around him, but he grabs my upper arm, squeezing until I can feel his nails digging into my skin.

  I try to pull away. “You can’t just—”

  He jerks me around, slamming my back against the door of his cruiser. His body presses against mine, pinning me tight. One hand grips my chin, his fingers and thumb holding so tightly my mouth puckers. “There’s where you’re wrong, missy. I can. And nobody here will stop me.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see a man skitter off his porch and close the front door behind him. Chief Collie can do whatever he wants. Just like Grayson can.

  I hold my breath. But this trouble isn’t going to pass.

  “You look scared,” he says, a lilt of joy in his voice. “If only your Granddaddy Neely was here to see how far his family’s fallen. Him always thinkin’ he was better than everyone else. You know he foreclosed on my daddy’s farm? Threw us all out in the cold. Just. Like. That.” He emphasizes each word with a squeeze. I feel my teeth cutting into the inside of my mouth. “Not a care that my momma was ailing, or that it was the middle of the Depression. No matter to a rich man like him. No, sir!” He leans his nose close to mine. “But now see who has the power in this town.”

  He hovers there, a breath away. Waiting for me to say something.

  “I . . . I’m sorry.” The words are slurred because he’s pinching my face.

  “Oh, I bet you are.”

  “Are you arresting me?” At this point, I’m hoping so. Arrest me and take me to the jail where there are other people around.

  “Oh, gettin’ arrested’s least of your worries. Who knows what could happen to a sweet young thing like you down here, stirring up these boys’ wild blood.” He turns my chin, glaring at my bruised eye. I taste blood in my mouth. “Looks like maybe somebody already had a try.”

  My rushing blood turns into a cold river. “I walked into a door. It was a stupid accident.”

  “That’s not the way I see it. I found you, beat up and scared, too afraid to point out the colored who attacked you.” He shoves my chin upward, snapping my teeth together. His jaw flexes as he stares at me. “There,” he says. “There it is. True fear.”

  Suddenly, he barks out a cruel laugh and shoves me to the side. I hit the ground, rocks digging into my elbow. Looking down at me, he practically growls the words, “This is my town!” He shakes a finger at me, his face purple with anger. “Your family’s no more than a canker on its ass.” As he stomps around to the driver’s side of his cruiser I hear him muttering. “Lavada Neely ain’t so high and mighty. . . .”

  I’m still on the ground when he spins the tires, covering me with dust as he pulls away.

  I reach over to my dropped copy of Wuthering Heights. I clutch the book against my wildly beating heart. Heathcliff’s hate and festering anger have nothing over that roiling inside Chief Collie.

  * * *

  I’ve finally stopped trembling and can once again feel my feet as they hit the pavement as I near Wickham College. The cuts inside my mouth are swelling, and the skin on my right elbow and forearm screams like a rug burn. I rub my thumb across the reassuring solidness of Griff’s arrowhead, thinking how much I’d like to slash Chief Collie’s face with it. Now I know how Griff must feel with the chief dogging him at every turn.

  I can’t believe the man’s holding a grudge over something that happened thirty years ago. Granddad Neely died before I was even born. Besides, Gran said her daddy always gave folks every chance before his bank foreclosed, which is why the bank went under in the Depression. I doubt the chief’s parents bothered to tell him that part.

  A shudder comes over me. After Griff and I are gone, will Collie turn his nastiness toward Walden and Dharma? Poor Walden won’t be able to stand it. He felt so guilty when he left the milk out of the refrigerator that he took money from his piggy bank to pay to replace it.

  I have to tell Dad what happened.

  As I cross the quad, heading toward James Hall, I smell the bonfire and see a flickering yellow glow over the football field. Everyone is headed in that direction for the kickoff for homecoming. Only one office has lights showing behind the textured half-glass door on the second floor of
James Hall. Dad’s. I try to turn the knob. It won’t budge, but I can hear him rustling around in there.

  I gently peck on the glass and say in a low voice, “Dad, it’s me. I can’t get the door to open.”

  There’s a flurry of movement, but no response.

  I peck again, and the noise echoes down the hall. “Dad? I really need to talk to you.”

  Agitated footsteps move toward the door. I wait for the knob to turn. It doesn’t.

  The footsteps retreat.

  I look down at my feet. There’s a torn corner of paper. It reads, Go away. The handwriting is sharp and frantic.

  His hurried footsteps don’t stop. Occasionally, I hear a thud and curse.

  “Dad. Something’s happened.”

  Feet hurry back to the door. It opens a crack. One wild blue eye looks out. “Margo? Did something happen to Margo?”

  I’m standing here bruised and disheveled, and he’s asking about Margo? “No. She’s fine.”

  The tension leaves the visible sliver of his face.

  He closes the door.

  I grab the knob and turn it before he can lock it again. There’s resistance when I try to push it open. “Dad! Let me in.” I shove. The resistance is gone, and the door swings wide.

  I barely recognize his office. I can’t see him—only stacks and stacks of books, taller than me, some teetering on the brink of tumbling, some carefully constructed pyramids. I see a book disappear from the top of one pile, then reappear on another.

  I close the door quickly behind me. “Dad?”

  Near the baseboard behind the door is a stack of cube-shaped boxes marked Rawlings, Official League. There must be two hundred baseballs.