by Kia Corthron
Now the young mother glances up, startled to see her family has an audience. Eliot takes his hand out of his pocket and waves with his closed-mouth smile. And as if this gesture excuses his voyeurism, the whole clan returns the wave and smile. Perhaps people are more tolerant over the holidays. Still, to continue his watch at this point would seem awkward, so he turns and goes back into his parents’ kitchen.
His mother is prepping the turkey for the oven. Without looking up she remarks, “You need to be buttonin up your coat you gonna stand out there that long.” Apparently she had been observing him observing them.
“How long they been living there?”
“More than a year. You didn’t see em when you were here in August?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Maybe they were off visitin their relatives. Nice family. You wanna go in the icebox an get me some butter?” He hands her the stick, then walks into the living room. Aunt Beck speaking to his father.
“It’s gotta be the same people.”
“It’s not the same people. For one thing, that one lass month, those Clutters, that was Kansas. This recent one Florida.”
“Whole family tied up, throats slashed. And this Florida one, little teeny babies murdered. Six days before Christmas. Monsters!”
“Monsters,” her brother agrees, shaking his head.
“So how that not be the same killers? Different states, you sayin the murderers don’t know how to drive?”
“There’s this thing. The crime happens, then some copycat gets the idea an does the same crime.”
“Now who gonna copycat killin a whole family?”
“It’s a thing. It happens.”
“That such a thing? Mr. Attorney-at-Law?”
“I’ve heard of it.”
“Aw, you jus stickin up for your ole daddy.”
After the war, with the new prosperity in the country, several manufacturing industries popped up in Humble, most of them hiring Negroes, and the traditional discriminatory practices in the established factories were also eased. So when Lon’s defense job ended in Baltimore, he was able to get on at Humble Glass. His sons were in the eleventh and sixth grades by then, and for the first time he worked at home, seeing them every day, even if shift work meant that it was only briefly at breakfast when he was just coming off.
“So how’s the law business goin, nephew?”
“Fine.”
“Fine, fine. Don’t matter if they five or twenty-five, that’s all you get out of em.”
He thinks but does not say, You know marriage counselors, the ones trying to keep a husband and wife together? My job is pretty much the opposite.
Claris walks in. “Anybody want some coffee?”
“Hear, hear!” says her sister-in-law.
After nine hours’ driving, Eliot had quietly slipped into the dark house with the porch light left on at three this morning. His parents and aunt were briskly moving around by seven and he had risen to wish everyone a merry Christmas, but suddenly the sleeplessness is weighing heavy on him and he ascends the stairs for a nap.
He lies supine on his old twin, not bothering to get under the blankets. Dwight said he’d arrive today around eleven, and would probably stay till ten or eleven tonight before driving home. He had moved to Lewis, West Virginia, about forty miles away, and had been working as a postman there these last seven years. Dwight had elected to be neither too close nor too far from their parents.
When Eliot was still very little, he had decided he was ready for his brother and himself to have separate rooms. Despite Dwight’s earlier yearnings for the guestroom, it was Eliot who had moved into it. So for many years it had been transformed into a boy’s room, boys’ sheets and boys’ curtains. Two years after Eliot had gone to college and their mother had finally somewhat come to terms with her empty nest, the space had been converted back into a guestroom. Their childhood room however was untouched, forever a shrine to young boys. As men, in the rare instances that their paths had crossed at their parents’ and Dwight had stayed too late to make the same-day drive back, Eliot had taken the guestroom as if it were still his, and Dwight slept on the same twin his parents bought from Ryan’s Used Furniture when he was thirteen and Eliot seven. Sleeping arrangements for tonight were unclear, however, since with relatives coming, it would be a houseful.
Eliot wakes and turns to the clock. Twelve twenty-five. Two hours: he’d hoped to have slept only half that long. He sighs, then hears Dwight’s laughter from downstairs.
In the kitchen he stands, telling some elaborate story about being chased by chickens while delivering mail. Lon, Claris, and Beck sit at the table in hysterics. Dwight is big, a good six feet and well filled out. His laughter is easy and hearty, which has endeared him to much of the extended family. On the other hand, slight Eliot, who had stopped growing at five eight and a half, had seemed to become more aloof as his years of education went on, until finally he echoed his social distance from the family with a geographic remove to the Midwest.
Despite his captive audience, Dwight spies his brother as soon as he walks into the room, has clearly been waiting for this moment since his own arrival. A year since they’ve seen each other.
“Brother!”
Dwight grabs Eliot and gives him a warm bear hug. Eliot is considerably more reserved. As is often the case with siblings, he and Dwight have grown up to be very different people, except Dwight doesn’t seem to have noticed. Still, what the younger brother does not want is any kind of scene in front of the family, and he thus returns the embrace, albeit in a markedly shallower fashion.
“Finally,” says Claris, scuttling into the living room. All morning she had been holding off giving her sons their presents until they were both here to open them together. She returns now with the two wrapped mysteries. They are men’s pajamas, such as neither Dwight nor Eliot would ever wear. The style is identical, Dwight’s blue plaid, Eliot’s green plaid. With their age difference, Claris could never dress them alike as children, so it is as if now in their adulthood she is making up for lost time.
“Thank you, Mom.” They each smile and kiss her cheek, and she basks in the glory of having picked out just the right thing.
Within a half-hour, Claris’s sister Peg-Peg shows up with her gang, setting the house in a state of confusion. Peg-Peg’s daughter Liddie, now twenty-four and a bit round with motherhood, carries her newborn. Her four-year-old twin girls happily run throughout the house. In the afternoon Lon, Aunt Peg-Peg’s husband Rick, their son Mitch, and Eliot sit in the TV room while Dwight stays in the kitchen entertaining the women with anecdotes. Uncle Rick sighs.
“It worry me.” He looks at Mitch. “He’s draftable now. Eighteen.”
Mitch laughs. “Them two American advisors ambushed in Indochina lass summer, now he’s convinced there’s gonna be a war. American war. It ain’t Korea, Pop.”
“Never know where them things lead.”
“It ain’t Korea, Pop.”
Eliot goes to the bathroom. When he comes out he is surprised to see his mother sitting alone in his parents’ bedroom, on the edge of the bed, away from her cooking tasks and the extended family hullabaloo. In her hands she holds Annie Allen, the book of Gwendolyn Brooks poems Eliot had sent her at Thanksgiving. Having stolen a moment of peace to glance at a passage, she puts the book on her lap to consider what she has just absorbed, taking off her glasses and caressing them, nodding as she is wont to do whenever stirred by her reading. Eliot gazes at her, his mother always seeking truth and therefore finding it. He quietly walks past and down the stairs.
At dinner, the topic of war comes up again, and Claris is not interested in having the holiday meal ruined by a heated discussion, so she says, “I have a joke.” She tells the story of a man named Big John. When she finishes, laughing at the outrageous humor of it all, she is confused to see everyone staring at her blank.
Then she realizes she screwed up the punch line. Family common knowledge: Claris can’t get a joke right. But everyone is always tolerant, either forever hopeful that this time she might surprise them or just enjoying the fun of how badly she gets it wrong. Eliot smiles.
“Feels like it might snow today,” remarks Aunt Peg-Peg. “You been gettin a lotta snow out there in Indianapolis?”
“You can have the city,” says Aunt Beck, before Eliot can answer.
“You practically gotta live in the city you wanna professional job,” says Lon.
“You sayin there’s no lawyers in Humble? That’s funny cuz I remember us goin to one when Mama died.”
“How’s Lewis treatin ya?” Uncle Rick asks Dwight.
“I like it. But the winters. Whoo!”
“Yeah, yaw way up in the mountains. Mus be snowin by Labor Day.”
“Practically.”
“Dwight, you ever do your drawins anymore?” asks Aunt Peg-Peg.
“Aw, naw. Well not so much.”
“I like to draw!” says one of the little girls.
“I like to fingerpaint!” says the other.
“Better stay away from that.” Aunt Beck lowering her eyes at the child. “Give ya cancer.”
“Beck!”
“Didn’t Amy die of it?” Aunt Beck challenges her brother. “Our baby sister, paintin missiles for the damn war effort turn her skin orange, nex thing she gone.”
“Wa’n’t nex thing. Fourteen years. We don’t know for sure was the missile paintin done it.”
“That’s how it works! Chronic. Makes it harder to prove.”
“That’s true, Dad,” says Dwight.
“Radium! In the paint they used on the missiles so they glow in the dark in the cockpit.”
“I thought that was World War I,” says Aunt Peg-Peg. “I thought that was them paintin the soldier watches and lickin the paintbrushes.”
“This time they was breathin in the gas, don’t tell me she didn’t die of it.” Aunt Beck’s eyes hard slits on her brother for the latter phrase.
“Okay, you got all your facts, Beck, don’t mean you have to tell the baby about it. She’s finger paintin, it ain’t the same chemicals like in those missile paints.”
“How you know?”
“Lotta secrets from them days,” inserts Uncle Rick. “Read this story bout a soldier just after the war, put into atomic bomb testin. The military brass wearin all this protected clothin, the rank an file sent out in shorts an sneakers. No one never told em they were bein exposed to radiation nor what exposure to radiation meant. Today both this soldier’s legs amputated, his one hand five times bigger n the other. Five times! Jus waitin to die.” The little girls stare at their hands.
“Damn shame,” says Lon.
“Well,” Dwight says, his eyes on the frightened twins, “I use to love finger paintin myself. What’s your favorite color?”
“Blue!” says one.
“Purple!” says the other.
“You really shoulda gone into that, Dwight,” says Aunt Peg-Peg. “You was so good at drawin! Like in the paper, the funnies.”
“Hard to get those jobs,” he replies. “Newspapers.” He shrugs. “Anyhow my comics weren’t so funny.”
“Now how in the hell funnies not be funny?” Aunt Beck twirling around her mashed sweet potatoes with marshmallows.
“I like the funnies!”
“You do?” Claris asks the twin. “Which ones?”
The little girl stares agape at her great-aunt.
“They’re still too little to read em theirself,” says Liddie, “so I read to em. Dagwood an Snuffy Smith an Snoopy.”
“Snoopy!” the girls cheer.
“I don’t know how in the hell you can tell em apart,” Aunt Beck remarks. “Freda an Fido?”
“Fiona and Felicia!” the girls yell.
“Well that don’t help me with which is which, so guess I jus have to call each one a yaw Fiona-an-Felicia.” The children turn to their mother, confused. Liddie smiles and winks at her daughters.
“I hear you like campin, Dwight,” says Uncle Rick.
“I have come to like it. An there in Lewis the woods come right to your backyard. Me an my friends, we jus pack up an go.”
“We use to enjoy fishin. Remember, Peg-Peg?” Uncle Rick asks his wife.
“Mm hm. I like fishin, an hikin. I stop short a overnight though. Bears I don’t like.”
“We live in Bear, West Virginia!” Mitch reminds his mother. “Why you think they call it that?”
“Bears don’t usually come into town.”
“An whatta ya mean ‘stop short a overnight.’ Bears are in the woods in the daytime too.”
“Yeah but in the daytime I can see em comin!”
“Stop with all that salt, Lon.” Lon grunts. “Claris, I hope you keepin tabs on my brother.”
“He’s been much better with it lately, Beck.”
“Much better. Use to serve him a pork chop an he practically turn it white with the sprinklin, man ack like he ain’t got high blood pressure.”
“You don’t do the drawins at all no more?” Aunt Peg-Peg back to less volatile subjects. “You were so good!”
Dwight chews on a piece of gristle. “I do them. Occasionally.” He doesn’t look at Peg-Peg. There is a pause, all waiting for him to continue. He doesn’t.
“I like Dennis too!” says Fiona or Felicia.
“Dennis the Menace.” Liddie smiling at her child.
“They call em undergroun comics,” says Dwight. “Jus mean I do it for fun, kinda for my friends, an their friends. Jus to keep my hand in it.”
“I didn’t know you did that,” says Claris.
“See? Our kids never tell us anything,” says Lon.
“I’d like to see those undergroun comics sometime,” says Claris.
“Sure,” says Dwight, his eyes on the hunk of turkey he slips into his mouth.
“This is what I wanna know,” says Aunt Beck. “How come Peg-Peg’s settin here with three grankids an you an Claris all empty-handed.”
“Aw, Beck!”
“It’s a legitimate question.”
“Beck,” says Claris, “Dwight’s very busy with the post office. He’s had his girlfriends there, they just ain’t none of em worked out yet. An Eliot’s busy with his law firm. An he’s only twenty-five, plenty a time.”
Beck turns to Liddie. “How many kids you got, Twenty-four?”
“Sister, you’re not married!”
“Exackly. You want your sons to turn into bitter ole me?”
“You seem to be doin fine for yourself,” her brother tells her.
“Eliot’s a lawyer, Aunt Beck! That is somethin we are all proud of!” Dwight’s big smile big personality to the rescue. “Finished college in three years, then straight to law school.”
“Three years, spendin his summers at school when he coulda been home.” Claris referencing an old quarrel.
“He’s gonna be the nex Thurgood Marshall, count on it!” Dwight goes on. “An you don’t got to worry about me. I have my girlfriends, one of em’ll work out one a these days.”
“Well I jus think—”
“An I got friends! I feel like a wife is easy to come by, every one a them women let me know they’re ready when I’m ready, I’m jus waitin for the right one to come along. Friends, though. I think they a much rarer commodity.”
Most of the oldest generation nod vague, a somewhat confused assent.
“What’s the difference anyway?” says Mitch. “I got a new girlfriend every week. I ain’t plannin on settlin down anytime soon.”
“Unless one a them gal’s papas come after you with a shotgun, you don’t watch it,” says his father.
“Eliot!” says Dwight. “I like that Ford Falcon yo
u drivin. Them new compact cars, real good gas mileage, right?”
“Those things are fine for the single person, but once you boys start your families gonna have to trade it in,” Uncle Rick says.
“Oh they got more room than you think,” says Liddie. “I got a girlfriend drives one, three kids an a baby.”
“I wanna take a ride! An I want you to see my truck. You ain’t never seen the inside a my Dodge.”
“Yes I did.” It is the first time Eliot has spoken. “Last Christmas. Remember, you and Dad went someplace, and Mom had that big box of your old stuff and asked me to take it out to your truck.”
“Oh, I don’t know if I knew that. The truck was new then! Well, new used. We need to drive in it sometime, I need some one-on-one time with my brother! You should come out to Lewis, see my place.”
“And while I was taking the stuff out to your truck, I found one of your underground comics that you draw for your friends lying open on the seat.”
The Campbells are dark-complexioned, but insofar as it’s possible for Dwight to go chalk white, it is happening now. Eliot holds Dwight’s horrified gape for only a moment: too quickly for the other adults to quite register but long enough for the brothers to understand each other. Having made his point, Eliot reaches for a biscuit and begins buttering it. “You know what, Aunt Beck? I have been thinking about marriage. But kids? Uh-uh.”
