by Janis Owens
“A what?”
“An alcoholic.”
“Well, who the hell cares?” he finally breathed, exasperated. “I don’t need you to save their souls, just be there for them. Quit drinking, throw it out—”
“It’s not as easy as that—”
“Sure it is. Throw it out.”
“Michael, listen. I’ve thrown it out before. And been hospitalized and counseled and everything else in the world and none of it worked. I’m drinking now, right now. I was sober four years.”
He was quiet a moment, then sighed hugely, and when he spoke again, his voice was quiet. “Gabe, listen to me. Throw the liquor away. Never touch it again, or I swear to God I’ll leave Clayton to Miz Odom and Missy to Ira. Good-bye—”
I was shouting into the phone that he couldn’t, that Mrs. Odom was dead and Ira was in prison, but he’d hung up, and I slammed the receiver down and paced the room, saying, “Damn damn damn damn.”
Damn Michael. What was he playing at? Trying to fix us up into some kind of Brady Bunch to ease his conscience on his death bed? Didn’t he realize that years, years and years had passed, and while Myra was still an enigma to me, she was nothing as firm as flesh and blood. Just a childhood memory and a summer of what? Love? Or was it just blood in the water? I still didn’t know. And hell, these children were strangers to me. He’d been the one who’d made sure of that. He was the one with the shotgun and the one clean shot. Who did he think he was, picking up the phone and calling me like a dog? Well, he could go to hell; it was easy for a Baptist teetotaler to say throw it out—
I got his number from information and dialed his home phone direct, tapping my fingers on the table as the line cleared Florida, then rang, one monotonous drill after another. I was about to hang up when a small, unfamiliar voice answered, “Hello?”
“Is Michael there?” I said in a rush. “This is his brother. I need to speak to him.”
“He ain’t here.”
“Well, shit. Can I leave a message?”
“He’s at the hospital,” he offered. “I don’t know when he’ll be back. They won’t,” he paused, “they won’t let me see him.”
The sadness, the blank loss in the voice was so palpable that I forgot my anger for a moment, and said, “Well, he probably doesn’t want you to see him like this. He’s got ascites.” A condition I was familiar with from Bill’s illness.
The voice was sullen. “What’s that?”
“Ah, fluid in the peritoneal cavity. It can be pretty nasty—”
“I ain’t going up there to ask him to the prom,” he whined. “I just wanna see him. Simon got to.”
My heart began its slow pound when I realized to whom I was speaking with such nonchalance, and I paused a moment, then said lightly, “I’ll mention it when I call the hospital.”
His voice was suddenly excited, “Yeah, and tellem—tellem I’m fine, that I won’t cry, I swear to God.”
Then we said good-bye, and I sat with the phone on my lap a few minutes before I dialed information, then the hospital switchboard, who transferred my call directly to Michael’s room.
Here, the phone only rang once before it was snatched up and answered sharply. “Yes?”
Well, I recognized her, at least. The deep country voice, all inflection submerged beneath the weight of Michael’s illness, but coping, drong, as Michael had said.
“Myra?”
“Yes?” she repeated, and I felt the pound in my chest again, that old relentless gallop.
“This is Gabe.”
She made no reply at all, and I pressed forward nervously. “Is Michael there? I need to speak to him.”
“No, he’s not,” she said, and it was the first time she’d addressed me in a normal, direct voice, the first time in a long time. “He’s in surgery.”
“Surgery? But he just talked to me, not ten minutes ago.”
“He must have called from pre-op,” she said in a low, tired voice. “They’re in there now, draining the abdominal fluid. The doctor says if it’s clear, he’s got till Christmas, but if it’s cloudy,” she paused, “it could be tomorrow. Or tonight.” Her voice dropped even lower. “Or while he’s on the table.”
I rubbed my eyes and felt that raw, blank unbelief in my chest. How could this be happening?
“I’m sorry, Myra. I don’t know what to say. Tell him I love him, that I said yes. He’ll know what I mean.”
She said she would, and another silence ensued till I remembered Clayton.
“And listen, tell Michael to let Clayton come up there and see him. I called your house and talked to him and he’s hurting, Myra. Don’t leave him out of this.”
There was a blank silence for a moment. Then she asked slowly, “You did what?”
I began to innocently repeat myself, and she burst through the line, her voice shaking with anger. “And who the hell do you think you are, calling down here, talking to my son, trying to tell me what to do?”
Her first words stunned me, and I only stared at the receiver, but suddenly, with no warning, the feeling was back, and I was mad. I was worse than mad, I was outraged, standing with the telephone in hand, shouting, “Your son? Your son? My son, too, woman!”
“He’s no son a yours! Don’tchu ever say that again. Don’tchu even think it—”
“Oh cut the shit, Myra. I can’t believe you’re still playing the injured virgin. Listen, you can pull that shit with Michael, but I know, I was there—”
“Well, I’m glad somebody was. I sure as hell wasn’t—”
“Oh bullshit. Don’t even try that with me. Listen, I know crazy when I see it and I know guilty as hell and you were the latter. You can save your lines for the WMUs—”
“It’s not a line. You know it ain’t. You used me. You never cared for nobody but yourself, not me nor Michael either one—”
“Used you? Used you? I am sick of this babygirl bullshit. Sick of it, d’you hear me? I haven’t seen my brother in ten years because of you. It was the worst night’s work in her life when Mama hid you in that closet and didn’t let your daddy take you—”
“—got that right—” she was screaming, “—Locking me in a closet with a horny little snot like you—”
I guess we could have raged on all night, screaming our accusations that were really not pointed at each other at all, but at betrayals worse than adultery—inadvertant betrayals, like sickness and pain and the merciless winnowing of death, but the doctor must have come in the room, for Myra dropped the phone, and I could hear voices, then finally, Myra, crying as she came back on the line.
“What?” I was shouting. “For God’s sake, Myra, was it—”
“Clear.” She cried and I sat down suddenly, the phone still in my hand.
“Thank God,” I whispered. Then after a few moments: “Tell him I love him, Myra.”
“Yes, Gabriel,” she said, her voice even and normal and again, only tired.
“He won’t let me come. I wanted to see him—”
“No,” she said, blowing her nose. “Not like this. He’s right. Listen, I gotta go, I gotta call Cissie—”
“Oh, yeah. Well, call me. Promise you’ll call if you need anything.”
“Yes. Of course. I love you, Gabriel.”
“I love you too.”
Then she hung up, and I felt curiously spent, not remembering, much less regretting, our hard, vicious words, only relieved Michael would be with us Christmas. Probably in the hospital, probably in extremis , but still listening to my excuses with no trace of doubt, triumphing over death as he had racism and adultery and insanity Standing above it, refusing to succumb.
Then Mrs. Weeks came to my podium with her little yellow phone message the week before Christmas, and it was so cruel, as if something had been robbed from us all, and I went straight to the airport in tears. But not before I’d bought a bottle.
Chapter
14
So I was drunk at his funeral, standing there at his casket, leanin
g on Mama, trying not to show myself, but having a hard time of it, for in death, Michael was waxy-looking, thin, awful. Why, he wasn’t Michael at all, and I felt like turning on the congregation and screaming at these people, asking them where my brother was, that I needed to speak to him right now, this instant. But a small measure of control was with me, and I only watched his still, sallow face for a long, interminable moment, then turned and escorted Mama out the side exit into the quiet chill of a white winter sun, tucking her into the family limousine, and pretending to line up with the processional to the graveyard, but turning east at the highway, once again fleeing with nothing but the shirt on my back, for it was too much. Michael was gone, gone forever; I’d never talk to him again. Myra was blank, and Sim and Missy and Clayton were looking at me, but I wasn’t there for myself, how could I be there for them?
The flight to New York was suffocating, endless, with three layovers and all the holiday crowds making me deplane at every gate with a mob of crying passengers, running into the arms of loved ones, and by the time I had made my apartment, I was nearly insane. But once I was able to sleep (pass out, you might say), I felt better, and returned to work on Monday with no comment to anyone other than a thank-you to Mrs. Weeks for her remarkable efficiency in the time of crisis.
The winter quarter began early that year, on January third or fourth, and I was easily consumed by my old schedule: alarm at seven, office hours Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, lectures at nine and twelve and two-fifteen. The routine. I even went to a few parties, probably even bragged on my lobster consumption, I don’t remember, because I was drinking at first, then I was sweating it, then I was back on Antabuse, scared as hell I couldn’t maintain and dreading the puking if I messed up.
But I didn’t, not for a while. Three months, then six, then summer came, dry and light, and I knew I’d turned the corner; not left the building, but turned the corner, and when autumn crept by and the holidays rolled around with all their gaiety and assorted temptations, I hoped to God Bill was recommending me daily to every saint on the calendar, for if I could maintain Steps One through Four in New York, I’d promised myself I would return to Florida for Five and Six, lean and mean and clean.
He must have been praying for me—someone must have—on the last day of the quarter, when a well-meaning freshman with a working knowledge of Gone with the Wind brought in Southern Comfort and crushed mint for juleps, which I have never liked, but after nine months (and three of those in snow) could have handled. Indeed, I was to that point of exquisite pain where my aftershave was beginning to look pretty good, but something, Bill’s prayers or Michael’s faith, sustained me, and I held out firmly but politely, even refusing the ice.
But it wore me down, drained me dry, and as I fought the traffic home that afternoon, I knew in my heart that I was not only about to lose it, but that I was, in fact, a Loser, and was about to prove it, as soon as I could find a parking place.
That’s when the miraculous intervention took place.
On the George Washington Bridge, of all places, jammed tight between a bus and a rail, while I chewed my nails and scanned the radio, I came quite accidentally upon Dylan’s “Lay, Lady Lay.”
It was the song of the summer in ‘68 or 9, getting about eighty-nine percent airplay, but a source of torment to me at the time, making me want Myra too much, back when I was still fighting it, still trying to make Daddy proud.
But now, the low, static-jabbed words came to me sweetly:
His clothes are dirty but his hands are clean
And you ‘re the best thing that he’s ever seen.
The ice still pelted my windshield, the barge-studded river smoked below, but I was taken back to Magnolia Hill, coming home from Tallahassee late on a Friday afternoon, the smell of butter beans and damp pine filling the living room where Myra waited, her face light-eyed and excited, throwing open the door, calling, “Did you get it? Did you get it?”
I’d pull it out of my backpack and hold it over my head, teasing her like the younger brother I was supposed to be, To Kill a Mockingbird or The Hobbit, or some other easy-to-read novel, and she’d wrestle it away and kiss me in thanks, quickly, thoughtlessly, and later I’d think about telling her to go easy on the touching, that it was killing me, but I never did, of course. It was too sweet, not just the smell of her hair or her breath in my face, but the wave of love and expectation that would come before her as she recognized my step on the porch and flung wide the door, creating a memory so strong it brought tears to my eyes, and suddenly, I realized how free I was. No bonds, no betrayals, no long nights spent tossing and turning on the razor edge between heaven and hell.
It was as if Dylan were sending me a personal message:
Why wait any longer for the world to begin
You can have your cake and eat it too
Why wait any longer for the one you love
When he’s standing in front of you.
And in one of those day and night reversals I am famous for, my focus was no longer on whiskey at all, but on Myra, dear Myra, who lived alone, who was growing old while I screwed around in this idiotic Yankee traffic. I began beeping my horn, pounding on the side of the bus, getting as crazy as everyone else, till I was finally able to break free, and with the twin prospects of downtown traffic and Myra before me, I said to hell with it and took the next exit to Jersey.
About ten hours into the trip, I began to have serious second thoughts, but on sudden inspiration, I pulled off the interstate in North Carolina and found a copy of Dylan’s Greatest Hits in a used record store, and whenever my nerve began to fail, I’d pop in the tape and feel my resolve rise.
Stay with your man awhile.
Until the break of day, let me see you make him smile.
I made town sixteen hours later, just after sunrise on a clear, cold Saturday morning, too tired to remember my name, much less why I’d come. It was for Myra, of course, but I just didn’t feel ready for anything, and the town seemed hollow, honestly empty without Michael there to hug me, to believe in me, to tell me I cried more than anybody he’d ever seen in his life. I drove around aimlessly, finding everything pretty much the same—a new Wal-Mart on the highway, the old bowling alley closed, but that was all, and as my gas gauge began to dip, I remembered I’d never seen his grave.
So I headed out to the river where Daddy was buried, knowing instinctively that’s where he would have bought his plot, and sure enough, there he was, way up on top of the hill, surrounded by ancient, black-trunked cedars and a whole city of tombstones.
Simon Michael Catts, June 5, 1943 – December 19, 1987 his marker read, and below, almost obsured by the winter rye, someone—Myra, surely—had inscribed: He Walks With God.
It was so simple, so plain, with no other grand words of praise. No mention of Sanger, or the money or the house, just: He Walks With God, and there was no question I wouldn’t cry, because it was true. He walked with God if anyone did, and I sat down on Daddy’s marker and cried and cried in that cold, wet dawn, and it was such a relief to do it there in private, with no one to see, no one to comment on the hypocrisy of it all.
Just me and Michael (and Daddy, if you wanted to get technical), and when I finished with the tears, I began talking, telling him all the things I wanted to say when he wouldn’t let me come: how if I’d never believed in him, it was all my shortcoming and none of his; that I was proud of his house, his cars, his money; I knew it wasn’t a fluke, but hard work and determination and drive, things I didn’t have so much of, that’s why I hated them sometimes. Then I told him that Myra and I, we had nothing to do with him, that I’d never touched her in his own house, never, not a hand (well, maybe a hand), but nothing more. And how I wished to God I hadn’t even done that, because if I’d only have waited, it’d all be perfect, but now, now I wasn’t so sure.
I discussed it with him the better part of an hour, not bothered by his inability to reply, pretty much predicting his laconic reasonableness, though a smal
l cynical voice occasionally reminded me how stupid I must look, how gothic, sitting there talking to a grave. Why, it was the sort of thing I might have included in my own college repertoire (“—this guy, he screwed his brother’s wife, oh, years ago, then his brother died and he’s got such a guilt trip he goes up to the cemetery and talks to him. Apologizes. No, I swear to God, he really does—”)
But I was truly past all that and didn’t care if they featured me in a Smithsonian study—Hick Grieving Patterns in the American South, or the like. It felt too good; it set things right. As a matter of fact, even when I’d finished with the grief and the guilt and my chances with Myra, I still talked, mulling over recruiting prospects for the Braves, and how Florida State was really eating them alive again, for it was the kind of thing we’d discussed at every other homecoming of my life, the kind of thing I thought he’d like to hear.
The sun was fully above the horizion when I finally ran out of conversation, and I had paused to appreciate the fine Florida day, the sky Caribbean blue, the grass green enough that somewhere below a groundskeeper was pulling the crank of a mower, when I saw a car turn in the front gate and begin circling the hill—a dark blue Mercedes sedan, the diamond flecks in its rich metallic paint shimmering in the morning sun. As soon as I saw it, I knew it was Myra, not instinctively, but rather from a knowledge of the nature of local economics that bestowed fifty-thousand dollar cars on but a chosen few. I was parked on the other side of the hill and was able to watch, quite anonymously, as she got out, dressed the way native Floridians do in forty-six-degree weather, in a coat and boots and scarf, so that her whole personality was submerged beneath the weight of her clothes.
Clayton got out of the passenger side, stretching, calling something to her over the hood, and suddenly unsure of my welcome, I stood and with a quick glance left and right, ducked under the trees, thinking I’d better go to Mama’s and check out the lay of the land before I made any moves. I backtracked quietly through the shaded tombstones, taking and holding a long breath as they passed me on the path, Myra talking, saying something about Curtis being there at ten, then a young voice, the same one I’d spoken with on the phone, answered he’d only be a few minutes.
