Novel

by George Singleton

  Now, y’all of the most rational mind might say to me, “Novel, why didn’t you just fucking leave? Why didn’t you get out of Gruel? It’s not like you wore magnetic shoes in a land covered in cast iron.”

  Oh I could say that I wanted to get to the bottom of things, especially if I resorted to clichés. Or I could say that I had nowhere else to relocate, what with no family in the continental United States, a few ex-lieutenant governors who would never write positive letters of recommendation, et cetera.

  Or, like an idiot, I could say that I wanted Rebekah Cathcart back in my life as she was during our normal marriage, where we sat in our Charlotte backyard, telling stories to each other about how our workdays went: me lying about how I only dealt with vipers, she lying about how she only went down to Gruel to see her mother and brother.

  In my converted silo I shoved Gruel’s history aside, off to the far arc. I set my desk up, and opened one of the many unused composition books I’d bought anticipating an autobiography longer than rhymed couplets. In my mind—to save both Gruel economically and my own self medically—it seemed right and logical to devise reinventions and renovations that would work better than inviting yogis, gurus, and double-jointed show-offs to a town that—I felt certain—couldn’t sustain a dog pound.

  I thought and wrote down, “BBQ Festival—there aren’t any of those going on around here.” There was the Catfish Feastival up in Ware Shoals, which thrived mainly because the fish got definned and thrown in the town fountain so kids could jump in and gather bellied-up nonswimming lake-bottom scavengers to win biggest catfish and most catfish prizes withdrawn from their croker sacks. Adults participated in a bobbing-for-catfish competition out of fifty-five-gallon drums supplied by one of the local heating and fuel companies. Emergency room doctors readied themselves on these days with enough catgut—of course—to suture up the sliced victims. Or there could be an art car fair: enough insane people covered their Pintos, Mavericks, Darts, Yugos, Malibus, Monte Carlos, Volkswagens, Fair-lanes, Galaxies, Coupe de Villes, Audis, Peugeots, Opal Mantas, Bonnevilles, and Le Sabres with Jesus statues, Virgin Marys, macaroni, peace signs, sod, gargoyles, gum balls, Easter eggs, Hershey’s Kisses, jelly beans, oyster shells, Barbie dolls, postcards, bottle caps, Matchbox cars, plastic googly-eyes, razor blades, phone books, transistor radios, paisley fabric, license plates, inoperable black-and-white TVs, miniature plastic army men, wine corks, miniature plastic Native American warriors, eating utensils, miniature plastic dinosaurs, fake jewels, bowling trophies, Marilyn Monroe figurines, baseball girls, Hawaiian women in hula skirts, Ping-Pong balls, cacti, copper pennies, beads, buttons, fake fruit, 45 singles, fast-food giveaways that feature Ronald McDonald, Cracker Jack prizes, and parking tickets in order to register their masterpieces at a number of art car fairs, most of which took place in Taos, Santa Fe, Albuquerque Phoenix, Flagstaff, Tucson, and the entire state of California. My theory went that the South didn’t hold art car aficionados only because we entered our automobiles in stock car races, and drove them too fast to apply knickknacks on the hood, trunk, roof, and/or side panels.

  Or we could invite anthropologists and historians to come interview our Vicksburg residents.

  Or Gruel might want to hold a live-action poker tournament for people who would never want to be seen playing poker; a weekly tough-man competition; a nudist colony for the shy.

  I wrote down more, too, all within an hour, but got my concentration broken when, without even a knock on this historian in residence’s silo door, in walked Nora Ouzts, biological mother of James and Joyce. She said, “I know that you’re involved in important work, Mr. Akers. I am sorry to disturb you.” She wore her gym instructor’s outfit of black rubber shoes, dark blue stretch-band shorts, and a gray T-shirt. I’d brought along my dice and made a pact with myself to actually work on Gruel’s family tree once I rolled a straight. Not that I believe in superstitious signs, but I looked down to see two fours, two deuces, and a one, which, of course, added up to thirteen. Nora Ouzts said, “I know you know what only I know. I can tell. So to be more truthful, I know you know what, at one time, only my first husband, your parents, and I knew. Now it’s you and me. And it shall remain so, I hope. There are things we know, and things we know that others know we don’t know.”

  Had she been reading Leo Strauss? I thought. What kind of political philosopher had Nora Haughey become?

  Her feet didn’t appear to touch the cement floor as she, always the ballerina, floated inside the silo. I said, “How’re the PE classes going? I bet the students really love you. How long have you been at Gruel Normal? Have any of your students gone on to study PE in college? It’s too bad we’re not big enough to have sports teams. When I first got approached about my position here I thought it might be cool to start a lacrosse team, but I guess that might take some time, seeing as we’d need a larger enrollment. I like track anyway. As a matter of fact my brother and sister became such great distance runners . . .”—my inner voice said Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, but I kept going, of course—“. . . that they ran back to Ireland, their original birthplaces. Is it ‘birthplaces’ or ‘birthsplace’? I have these writing books back where I live that have some commonly misused words, like mothers-in-law, sergeants at arms, and secretaries of state. Anyway, I’m doing pretty good here. Pretty well. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Now go watch the movie Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? starring Bette Davis, and come back to this scene.

  Nora Ouzts said, “I know that you’ve seen birth certificates, Novel. It’s not like I don’t stay in touch with anyone still living in Black Mountain. Milson Willets at the old Black Mountain College Research Archives, for example. It’s not like he never called me and said I needed to come up there to retrieve my papers. According to Milson I showed up right after you did. I knew that your good mother kept the real and original birth certificates of Joyce and James. I only hoped that I’d be dead before anyone found out.”

  Here’s what I thought, no lie: In real life, people do not speak to each other in long, long soliloquies. They don’t banter monologues. It’s in more than one of those writing books. Now, it’s okay in the world of drama. A character on stage can speak for five fucking minutes to another character, then the second character may respond for five full minutes. As opposed to real life, or in novels, soapboxes might actually be encouraged and rewarded in a play. Go read Happy Days by Mr. Samuel Beckett, then come back.

  NOVEL

  How old are you, Ms. Ouzts? Those papers I retrieved from Milson Willets came from about fifty years ago. You don’t look older than fifty now. Fifty-five at the most. Fifty-nine.

  NORA

  Call me Nora. That’s quite a compliment. Call me Nora. The great thing about teaching in a private school is that there’s no age discrimination. Call me Nora.

  NOVEL

  Nora.

  NORA

  I came here today to tell you that you’re not crazy. I got home the other night with Derrick and thought about how you must think all of this is some kind of cosmic joke being played on you. I mean, you’ve come back to a town where your ex-wife may or may not have killed off some of her loved ones, where her loved ones may or may not’ve killed off some people, where your stepbrother and -sister may or may not’ve ended up being your half brother and sister, and so on. What would it be like, I thought the other night, to wonder why one got put on this planet?

  NOVEL

  That’s another one. It’s not two steps-sibling. It’s two stepsiblings. I think. I’m almost sure. (Coughs. Coughs uncontrollably. Clears throat and runs fingers through hair.) Derrick? How old is Derrick? If you’re as old as you say you are, then—and I’m not being an ageist—I imagine Derrick’s at least that old. Two years one way or the other. But he looks young! He looks, also, to be fifty. Like you. Well, anyway, how did you ever meet good old Derrick Ouzts? You know, when I say his name in my head it comes out “Dairy Coots.” I think about all these littl
e bugs on a cow.

  NORA

  At Black Mountain College. I know it’s hard to believe now, but back then he could’ve become one of the most recognizable abstract expressionists in the twentieth century. At the time, though, he carried around his own easel and copied from the masters—charcoaled boring still lifes, and so on.

  NOVEL

  I don’t want to hear any of this. I must ask you to leave. I have too much work to do if I want to finish this biographical sketch.

  NORA

  I didn’t mean to upset you. You appear upset!

  NOVEL

  Tell Mr. Ouzts that I’m not not unhappy. That I’m not not not not not disunsatisfied.

  After Nora Ouzts left me to “do research” I took out my notebook filled with possible activities Gruel could attract. The Annual Disabled Persons Festival, I thought, but it appeared that it would only bring in the cave-living phantoms. I wrote down, “DNA Fair—bring in a bunch of scientists and let’s see who shouldn’t ever couple, seeing as they’re related.” I wrote, “I’m afraid that Gruel, South Carolina, cannot properly be labeled a town. It’s not a city, of course, but it’s not a suburb, village, hamlet, or crossroads, either. It’s not best described as a community, in strict sociological terms. No, the area known as Gruel should be viewed as one thing only: family.”

  There. That would be the opening to Gruel: A Biography. It could be photographs from there on out, as far as I cared. Anyone in a bookstore could match beady eyes and high foreheads to connect the dots, fill in the blanks, put two and two together, make their own conclusions, fit the puzzle pieces together, and every other cliché performed by logicians.

  My job, at this point it seemed, was to find a suave and relentless escape plan.

  30

  IN OR ABOUT 1973 my father put his index finger to his lips for me to shush. This might’ve been February. Ice-crushed snow stood on the ground. Walking in the front yard required a high step known mostly to predominantly black southern college halftime marching band members—clarinetists, trombonists, saxophone players who not only had to play their notes but to stamp in geometric patterns so that, as a family, they could spell out something meaningful. My father jerked his head once for me to follow him out of our Black Mountain house where we lived with my two adopted Irish orphans and my mom. Right out of the front door Dad said, “I got something to show you. This is between you and me. Or you and I—I forget correct English. This might be something you need to know.”

  He spoke in a whisper, and of course I couldn’t wait to do something James and Joyce and my mother would not be in on. My father wore boots, a plaid Pendleton shirt, one of those flap-eared hats. As I recall, I wore footie pajamas, but looking back this couldn’t be truthful. More than likely I wore jeans and a flannel shirt, a watch cap, rainsuit, galoshes. I probably looked like the Morton Salt Girl’s crazy brother.

  We trudged out of the yard, walked past our frozen Oldsmo-bile stuck in the driveway, and turned left toward downtown Black Mountain. We walked down the middle of the rough-paved road outside our home, up one hill and down the next. Please understand that—May through October—I had investigated this entire region. We walked by at least two creeks where I unrocked salamanders, picked them up, held them long enough to make my skin crawly, then put them back. We passed a place where, later, I’d take a pellet gun, shoot and kill a blue jay, and feel so bad that I would never pick up a gun again.

  “Are you going to kill me?” I asked my father. We slid and slid on the blacktop.

  “What? Now why would you think that, son? Good god, no, I’m not going to kill you. Where’d you get a dumb idea like that?” We walked and slid and fell uncontrollably. I had recently read an article in one of my mother’s magazines concerning the Bataan Death March.

  I said, “I don’t know.”

  My father put his arm around my shoulder in a way that would make Norman Rockwell wonder why he even tried. Dad said, “Goddamn it to hell, sometimes I can’t figure you out, Novel. I’m doing the very goddamn best I can, considering. What are you—ten, twelve?—go back and ask your buddies how often their fathers take them out on bad, miserable, frozen days for walks where they learn something. Son of a bitch.” My father, ex-pianist, patted his pant pockets, his two-pocket Pendleton shirt, the bottom sides of his polarized coat.

  I said, “Last week I was the only one in school to understand a trick. My math teacher asked how we could do three coins to add up to a quarter, one of which wasn’t a nickel. Three coins. Everybody said, ‘You got to have two dimes and a nickel.’”

  My dad walked like a penguin, or how I’d seen penguins walk on one of those National Geographic specials. He said, “The other’s a dime. The other one’s a dime. Easy. It’s still two dimes and a nickel. One of them’s not a nickel means that one of the dimes isn’t a nickel.”

  I said, “Yeah. That’s what I said. I got an A. I got a gold star. No one would talk to me afterwards. There’s a problem with being smart in Black Mountain, isn’t there.”

  My dad pulled out his left arm and said, “I think this is the right path.”

  We took a slight slim trail through spruce, pine, and rhododendron. My dad and I stepped sideways. We must’ve gone a hundred yards until we approached a twelve-by-twelve shanty, surrounded by hutches.

  I said, “My feet feel froze.”

  “Here we are. You want a rabbit for a pet? I wanted to get you a pet rabbit for Christmas, but I never got around to it. I thought you might want a bunny. Instead of a dog or cat.”

  A man walked out on his porch. At first I didn’t notice that he didn’t own a right arm. No, I only saw him in coveralls, his beard hanging down past his sternum.

  My father said, “Shake hands with Mr. Payne, Novel. Shake his hand. Go ahead and shake his hand.”

  I stuck out my right arm proud as any fourth grader asked to meet the mayor’s wife. The one-armed rabbit salesman offered his left arm, and we performed that awkward sideways shake—hands sideways, hands upside down—until my father slapped me upside the head. “When you see a left-handed man, boy, you shake with your left hand. There’s no other choice. There’s no other proper way. You stick out your left arm immediately and pretend like there’s nothing better or different in the world. That’s what you do.”

  Mr. Payne said, “It doesn’t mean a fuck to me. It ain’t like this ain’t happened before. Y’all want a white rabbit? They make good pets. Y’all want a Angora?—you want one these floppy ears? Make good pets and y’all can spin they yarn.”

  Make good pets and y’all can spin they yarn, I thought.

  My father asked Mr. Payne, “How much do you want for your merchandise?”

  Your merchandise! If I’d’ve known that my father would’ve died in the Everglades I might’ve said something at this point, something like, “Be careful or you might end up having your rib cage act as merchandise for an alligator at one point in life.”

  My father held me by the neck, pretty much. The one-armed man said, “I get two. Two dollars each.”

  “I got me a Havahart trap, put peanut butter in, catch rabbits every night.”

  Rightly, the one-armed man said, “Then do.”

  My father said, “I might.”

  And then he drug me away. I think I said, “I want one of those calicos, I want one of those calico rabbits.” My feet drug through the crushed frozen path leading back from Mr. Payne’s house. I said, “You promised me a rabbit you didn’t get me for Christmas.”

  My father stopped at the comer of Mr. Payne’s path and our road home. “There are many lessons to be learned here, son First off, don’t believe everything your old man tells you.” My father reached down in the snow, picked up a piece of gravel, handed it to me, and said, “Don’t say I never gave you anything, boy.”

  We walked back home rabbitless. I didn’t pout at all, I promise, as far as I remember. Halfway home I said, “Is it hard for a pianist to play when his fingers get cold?”

&n
bsp; My father said, “I imagine.”

  We walked in the center of the macadam. I said, “Playing a piano with frozen fingers would be hard. I couldn’t do it. A great pianist should keep a rabbit with him at all times in order to keep his hands warm.”

  My father stopped and looked at me. He sidestepped into the bough-draped woods, ice-heavy limbs pointing south. My father snapped off one limb and shook it, snapped the ice off on his thigh. Right away I knew that he didn’t want to walk with a cane, that he wanted something nearby to pop me on the hamstrings whenever possible.

  I ran onward. I wished that I had followed my brother and sister in regards to distance running. My father chased me. He yelled, “I’m not going to hit you, I’m not going to hit you,” over and over, but I turned around and saw him brandishing that rough bark-covered limb.

  I ran on. After I passed our house I yelled back to him, “I bet that old one-armed Mr. Payne can play piano better than you.”

  That night, his head filled with mucus, he said, “I don’t know who came by here selling me a fifty-five-gallon drum of snot, but here I am with it.”