Southern Discomfort

by Tena Clark

  I watched her walk down the steps to her car, her purse slung over her arm and held against her waist, her head held higher than I’d ever remembered seeing it. As she walked away, I could have sworn I heard her humming.

  She was free.

  * * *

  I wasn’t so lucky.

  A week later it was my turn to say goodbye. I approached the foot of Daddy’s bed. The cancer had all but swallowed him whole. He was skeletal, just flesh over brittle bones. My sisters were all sitting around the bed.

  “Daddy, it’s me. Tena.”

  He slowly opened his eyes. Then, in a scene worthy of a horror movie, he rose from the sheets and tried to sit up. His expression stopped my heart. It was crazed and mean and wild, and I felt myself bracing against him.

  “Tena?” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper.

  “Yes, Daddy?”

  “You know what I have that you’ll n-n-never have?” he asked me, the air escaping his ruined lungs in a soft, foul hiss.

  My sisters all exchanged nervous glances, each of them worried about what was coming.

  “What’s that, Daddy?” I asked.

  “A dick. You’ll never have a dick.” He closed his eyes and fell back onto the bed.

  It took me a minute before I trusted my voice enough to speak. The last thing in the world I wanted was to crack or cry in front of that man, my father, at that moment.

  “Well, Daddy, I’ve never needed one.”

  Then I ran. I ran as fast as I could. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew I had to get out of there. Out of the room, out the back door, and down the red dirt road. When Daddy had married Shirley, he’d built them a new house right next to our old farm out on the Chickasawhay River, so the road was familiar under my feet. I ran like I was possessed, toward a memory and a time when things were simpler, and Daddy wasn’t dying, and Mama was still my happy mama, fishing in the pond with me and Penny and Aunt Clifford on a summer afternoon.

  Behind me, I heard my sisters yelling for me to stop. They were huffing and puffing in a half walk/half trot, struggling to catch up to me. I stopped and turned around, and when they reached me they all started making excuses at once.

  “Daddy didn’t mean it.”

  “The drugs have made him crazy in the head.”

  “You know he loves you, Tena, he does!”

  Georgia was wiping at my tears and Elizabeth and Penny were all but patting me to death. They tried to reassure me, but I was inconsolable.

  “I am done,” I said. “I am gettin’ the hell out of here.”

  And I did. I was on the next flight out of Mobile.

  A couple of days later I was at my desk in LA and the phone rang.

  “Hi, T-T-Tena Rix. It’s me.” Daddy sounded forty years old again, and happy, as if his last words to me had been Talk to ya soon, Tena Rix.

  I was so shocked to hear his voice that it took me a few seconds to respond. My hand clutched the phone so hard my fingers hurt.

  “Hi, Daddy, how’re you doin’ today?” I stammered, perplexed. Had a miracle happened? Was he actually going to be okay?

  I heard him push aside his oxygen mask to take a long drag off his cigarette. In the last few weeks he had been coughing up thick black knots of mucus from his lungs, so I guess he figured, What the hell. No use quittin’ now.

  “Doin’ just fine. Just f-f-fine. Tell you what, though. I can m-m-make more money flat on my back in bed than most men can m-m-make in a lifetime. Just signed a new three-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar oil d-d-deal!”

  I silently shook my head. It was just so sad. Money and women had been the only things that ever really mattered to Daddy, and here, even on his deathbed, they still were.

  He chuckled, happy with himself, which triggered a violent coughing jag. When he finally caught his breath, he continued.

  “Listen, Tena, there’s something I n-n-need to t-t-t-tell you.” He stopped, and for a moment I thought maybe the cough had killed him before he could speak.

  An image floated through my mind. I saw myself as a little girl. Daddy and I were seated at the kitchen counter at the farm, and he was feeding me an apple, scraping the pulp spoonful by spoonful, until it was just an empty peel in his hand. The memory of that gentle father, a father I knew only in rare pieces, was painful.

  “Well, ah-ah-ah-I just called to tell ya you’ve always been my b-b-baby. And, ah-ah-ah . . . I loves you.”

  It wasn’t the more straightforward “I love you” I’d been waiting for my whole life, but it was close. Damn close.

  I closed my eyes, and said, “I loves you too, Daddy.”

  And just like he had a million times before, he hung up without another word. Conversation over. Lamar Clark was still in charge.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  * * *

  Daddy died on a Friday in June of 1996. His funeral, less than a week later, was overrun with politicians, businessmen, and every living governor of Mississippi. Senator Trent Lott and Daddy’s bookie both sent wreaths large enough to adorn a Triple Crown winner. But, to my shock and bewilderment, those who actually filled the church that sweltering afternoon were members of the poor and black communities. Every size and shape, age and agility, walked, shuffled, and wheeled in to pay their respects to a man who had left his lifelong church rather than see pictures of “colored” children in its Sunday school pages. The man who had never allowed Virgie to sit in the front seat of his car or at the family dinner table. The man who had filled in his motel swimming pool with cement so that he’d never have to see another black family swim in it. But here they were, saying goodbye.

  None of Daddy’s daughters were asked to speak at the funeral, which allowed the Holy Roller Pentecostal preacher who performed the service to go on and on about Daddy’s Christlike qualities, praising him as “a religious man who never took the Good Lord’s name in vain,” and “a pious man who valued family and religion highest among the virtues,” and “a loyal husband who honored the sanctity of marriage.” When I heard that one I nearly choked.

  While the rest of the congregation politely nodded, all I could think was: Obviously, this moron never knew my daddy. To this day I regret that I didn’t stand up, storm the podium, and give Daddy the eulogy he deserved.

  * * *

  Outside the funeral home, I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned.

  “Miss Tena, I’m so sorry for yo’ loss. Yo’ daddy was a great man.”

  It was a parishioner from a black church outside Waynesboro.

  “Yo’ daddy told me not to speak of this while he was alive, but he not only built our church, he gave it to us. Handed us the key and walked away. Never asked for one dime in return.”

  Suddenly, I remembered this person from the line of faces that had stood outside my father’s office that morning many years before.

  Then an elderly black woman approached me. She was so small and frail she looked like a ten-year-old girl.

  “When my husband was in the hospital and we couldn’t pay the rent, yo’ daddy took care of it. He the only reason we got a roof over our head today.”

  “When I got my back broken and lost my job at the mill, Lamar Clark was the only man in town who would give me a loan to keep the payments up on the house,” said an old man, so badly hunched over he was nearly bent to the waist. “The only one,” he said, removing his glasses to wipe a tear.

  “When my wife got the cancer, I went and asked for a loan and he paid for her medicine. Never asked for a dime back. Jus’ gave me the money right out. She’s alive because of yo’ daddy,” said another man.

  “Yo’ daddy did somethin’ fo’ me and my family no other man, white or colored, ever did. I asked him for help . . .”

  And on and on it continued, as people of every age and color approached me, tears in their eyes and glistening on their cheeks, to pay respects and give thanks.

  “I’ll always be grateful to Mister Lamar . . .”

  “I tell you what, Miss Tena,
I don’t know where I’d be today if it hadn’t been for yo’ daddy.”

  “He told me never to speak of it, but . . .”

  As I received their blessings, their prayers, for the memory of a man I never knew existed, but who had raised me, protected me, and yes, loved me the only way he knew how, I struggled to make sense of it all. A man who had proudly paraded around the state of Mississippi as a God-fearing racist, and yet always made sure Virgie arrived home safely. A man who counted among his friends Strom Thurmond and a long list of segregationist governors, senators, and congressmen, but a man who also had paid a fair wage, employed half the town of Waynesboro, built churches, helped with medical bills, and saved strangers’ lives. I couldn’t reconcile these two very different men. They seemed to occupy two very different worlds.

  But then I remembered what Mama always said. “Your daddy is a complicated man.” Her words never made more sense than they did the day we lowered Daddy into his grave.

  That night, my sisters and I gathered on Georgia’s bed, Daddy’s Last Will and Testament spread before us on the chenille spread. We sat cross-legged, Indian-style, our arms around each other, like girls at a pallet party. We all agreed that no matter who may have been out of favor when he wrote the damn thing, we would split the estate evenly, four ways, no arguments, no regrets. Each of us, at one time or another, had heard his threat of “I’m not leavin’ you one GODdamn dime!” So we really didn’t know what to expect. As we all knew, Daddy was unpredictable.

  In the end, he did the right thing. No one was left out.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  * * *

  You reach a certain age when you dread the ringing of the telephone.

  “Tena, Mama’s cancer’s back. You better come on home as soon as you can.”

  Once again, it was Georgia calling with the news.

  It had been ten years, those ten years I had prayed for, since the lung cancer had almost killed her, but we all knew it was just a matter of time until Mama’s “something” would get her. We all have a something that is going to take away the people we love, and we all knew cancer was probably Mama’s. I will admit that there was an odd comfort in knowing what Mama’s something was, and yet it would never be the right time. I still wasn’t ready to let her go, and I never would be.

  This time the cancer attacked her esophagus, which was not only a devastating diagnosis, but a very painful one. Not that lung or breast or bone cancers aren’t horrific, but esophageal takes your ability to fully swallow anything, including your own mucus.

  It seemed God had granted me my ten years with Mama, but at what cost?

  * * *

  Mama’s treatment this time consisted of intense levels of radiation and, like Virgie before her, it burned her from the inside out. After a few rounds, she was unable to live on her own, so my sisters and I moved her into Waynesboro’s Southern Living Specialty Care nursing facility, where she would have 24/7 care and monitoring. She didn’t like leaving her little white cinder block house with the carport she was so proud of, but she knew it had to be. Always the pragmatist, she packed her bags quietly and with dignity, and boarded her beloved poodle, Bubba, in a kennel. Moving her out of her house and into her drab room at the nursing home reminded me of her leaving the farm back on my tenth birthday, only this time there were no armloads of mink coats and negligees in the backseat. There were only a couple of suitcases holding her housecoats and slippers and her cosmetics bag. Her life had become very simple.

  Once settled in her ground-floor room in the nursing home, she spent most days sitting by her window watching for a visit from one of my sisters, usually Georgia, who lived closest and went to sit with our mother every day. When she wasn’t watching for Georgia, she sat and looked at her white Lincoln parked out front. She loved that car, with its THNK U PA-3 vanity plates, and dreamed that one day she would be well enough to drive it to the kennel, pick up Bubba, take him to the groomer to have his toenails painted blue and ribbons tied into his hair just like she liked it, and then head on home for supper.

  On one of my visits in early November, I took her for a ride out to Hiwannee, past her parents’ old shotgun house where she had pirouetted through its narrow rooms, singing her songs. It was a perfect fall day and we drove through the countryside, its summer green faded to an autumn russet.

  “Honey, tell me what I can get you for your birthday,” she said.

  It was a common refrain between the two of us. Every year she saved her few extra dollars and always gave me something special but inexpensive—a pair of Sears and Roebuck’s earrings or a family picture in a frame or moccasin slippers she claimed to have bought straight from an Indian reservation—but time and again felt she had failed because “your Daddy can always buy you anything you want.”

  Through the years I had tried to convince her that her little trinkets and mementoes meant more to me than Daddy’s latest diamond necklace or fur coat or gold bracelet, but she never quite believed me.

  As in so many previous years, I couldn’t think of a single thing I wanted, or wanted her to spend money on.

  “I want to buy you something big this year,” she said. “I want to give you something special, something that will make you think of me every time you use it.”

  “Mama, no,” I said. “I don’t want you spending a lot of money.”

  “Honey, what am I going to do with the money?” she asked, her voice breaking a bit.

  I suddenly understood. It wasn’t about outdoing Daddy. It was about her rewriting my tenth birthday, vanquishing the ghosts of 1963 that had haunted every birthday since and replacing them with something that would only speak of happiness and a mother’s love. A mother who probably wouldn’t live to see many more birthdays, hers or mine. I kept my eyes on the road.

  “Well, Mama, I sure do love watching those old Super 8 movies you shot of the family parties and reunions. It would be fun to start filming again so Cody can watch them when—” I felt my throat close up on the words.

  In the end, she bought the latest and the best video camera, insisting on getting the most expensive one in the store, and when she gave it to me, she was smiling the biggest smile I had seen on her face since she began the radiation treatments. And she was right. Long after its analog technology became outdated and its worn-out parts impossible to replace or repair, that camera sits on my shelf like a talisman, and every time I look at it, I am filled with my mother’s love and kindness all over again.

  * * *

  Day by day the radiation burned what was left of Mama’s insides, taking with it any remaining strength she had. Finally, we realized it was no use. She was only getting worse. There were days when she was too weak to even use the toilet by herself, so one of us would go in to help her, an indignity she suffered with tremendous grace. Then she started vomiting everything she ate or drank, and the doctors realized the radiation had burned a hole through her esophagus. They inserted a feeding tube and she never swallowed another mouthful of food or drink. We held crushed ice to her mouth and it was the closest she got to anything passing her lips. She longed for a good cup of coffee, but we could only dab a few drops of it on her lips.

  As her last months became her last weeks, I traveled back and forth between LA and Waynesboro like a very-long-distance commuter, running my business over the phone and taking Cody with me for long weekends whenever I could for “just one more” time with her memaw. But by the end of March I knew the end was near, so Cody and I went back for the duration. I needed her to be part of Mama’s last days. Death is one of the only things we Southerners don’t sugarcoat.

  For nearly two weeks, my sisters, Cody, and I stayed by Mama’s bedside, taking turns to go home and shower and change our clothes. She had an attendant with her a lot of the time, a lovely black woman who treated her just like Virgie would have and tenderly wiped her mouth and rubbed lotion onto her swollen feet while Mama read from the Bible.

  I too massaged Mama’s feet, but it just
about killed me every time I did. She’d lie back, eyes closed, a little smile on her lips, as calm, relaxed, and happy as perhaps I’d ever seen her. Looking down at my sweet mama, I realized I had never, in my entire life, given her any kind of massage, until now. Why? Why had I waited until she was almost gone to give her this simple gift? She had always been the best back scratcher—all of us girls loved the feeling of her long, hard nails going up and down our backs, giving just the right amount of pressure. As I sat on her bed, guilt and sorrow flooded through me, and I rubbed her feet until my hands were numb.

  “Baby, can you ever forgive me?” Mama asked one afternoon as I sat in an easy chair nearby, calling out crossword clues and then filling in the answers for her. She was too weak to hold the paper and pen.

  “Mama, please don’t start that again. Please,” I said, looking at her over my reading glasses. She lay on the bed, her eyes closed, her hands folded on her chest above the covers. She looked disturbingly still, like she was already at rest in the casket. I shook my head to clear the image.

  “Fictional wood-carver. Seven letters,” I prompted.

  “Alibaba,” she said, not opening her eyes.

  “How do you know this shit?” I asked, laughing, and filled in the answer.

  “Language,” she said, her eyes still closed. Then, “Answer me, Tena, please. Can you ever forgive me?”

  I looked up from the puzzle and saw she had opened her eyes and was looking at me, unblinking and earnest. I clenched my jaw against the tears and nodded.

  “Of course I do, Mama. I did a very long time ago. You’re the bravest woman I know, and I know that you had to leave. But you always came back.”

  We looked at each other, and I reached out and took her hand. She nodded and closed her eyes. Once again peaceful.

  Lying there in her last bed, her breath in shallow little gasps from the esophageal cancer, she still hoped to find and to feel redemption. And try as I did to give it to her, I fear she took the guilt to her grave.