Sissy

by Madelyn Bennett Edwards

  Susie adored Catfish. He died just before she completed her master’s program in writing at St. John's University in New York. She was devastated and used her grief to write a book, The Catfish Chronicles—a compilation of the tales he'd shared with her over a period of more than ten years. It was published after Josh died.

  "I know you have lots of questions, but you can't talk yet." Marianne took Susie's hand and held it in both of hers. "That's normal, for now. Once the swelling in your head subsides, your speech and motor skills will return. Be patient. Meanwhile, let me try to answer some of the questions I know are plaguing you most." Mari sat in a chair she'd pulled up close to Susie's bed and spoke softly, as though trying not to awaken a sleeping baby.

  "Today is Monday. You've been here since Saturday afternoon. It's been a long weekend for everyone. Lilly and Sissy will be leaving in a little while to go home and get some rest. I'll stay with you tonight. Right here. In your room. If you need anything, just move your arm, and I'll be here. Do you understand?"

  Susie blinked.

  "Good." Marianne took a deep breath. "You want to know about Rodney?"

  Susie blinked twice, and tears began to pour from her eyes.

  "Rodney's still alive. He was shot. Twice. One bullet in the side of his head above his right ear, the other went through his right arm, came out, and reentered his back under the shoulder blade. It missed his lung, thank God." Susie's eyes looked like Frisbees, wide-opened, unblinking. "They've removed both bullets. He's in ICU in a coma, but he's still alive. Doctors say that every day he holds on is a good sign."

  She closed her eyes as though trying to absorb the information.

  I stood there and, for the first time, wondered: Who shot him. Were they aiming for Susie too? Why would someone want to shoot Rodney and Susie?

  *

  I took Lilly to the Shadowland Quarters to stay with Tootsie so I could do some recognizance.

  First stop, my dad's house. I was in a stew and hollered for him as soon as I entered the back door.

  "Daddy! Where are you?" My steps on the tiled kitchen floor sounded louder than usual. I was on a mission and stomped through his bedroom to the office he'd built when he enclosed the side porch. We called it the Lion's Den, because we were all afraid to enter it; and if we were summoned, we knew it meant trouble.

  Daddy wasn't in his bedroom or his office. I went back into the hall that ran from the front door to the back door in the antebellum house. My shoes slapped against the hardwood floor, announcing my presence as I paraded towards the huge, wooden door that led to the long porch across the entire front of the house.

  I let the screen door slam behind me and stood staring at my dad, who sat, nonchalantly, in one of the rocking chairs, staring at Dr. David Switzer's house across South Jefferson Street.

  "Here you are." I stood with my hands on my hips, unaware that my anger was reflected in my tone of voice.

  "What's the matter with you?" He glanced at me then back at the street.

  "Are the police looking for the people who shot Rodney?" I spoke softer, calmer, trying to entice Daddy into a conversation that I was sure he didn't want to have.

  "I don't know." He scowled at me then looked back at the street.

  "Daddy. He's Susie's husband. He might not make it. They flew him to New Orleans."

  "I heard."

  "He was shot twice. Once in the head, once in the arm, and that bullet lodged in his back. They aren't sure whether he'll survive, and if he does, he might have brain damage. Don't you care?"

  "Of course I care, but I can't be involved." He rocked harder and gripped the arms of the chair so tightly, his knuckles were white.

  "Will you call Sheriff Desiré and ask him if he has any leads?"

  "Why would I do that?"

  I stared at the side of his face for a while. I'm not sure whether I was shocked, disgusted, angry, or frustrated. Maybe all of the above. Finally, I walked down the steps from the porch to the front yard and traipsed across the thick St. Augustine grass towards my car that I'd parked around back.

  That night I called my brother, James. He's the oldest of the six of us, a prominent attorney in Jean Ville. I asked him if he would help me find out who shot Rodney, and he told me he would ask around.

  "Do you know whether a police report was filed?" I gripped the receiver in my hand and stared out my kitchen window at the shadows of the pecan trees that crisscrossed the backyard.

  "I'm not sure. Do you want me to look into it?"

  "Yes, please find out and let me know." I took a deep breath and felt relieved that James would help me. "We have to find out who shot Rodney and make sure they are charged with a crime."

  "Of course, Sissy." James hung up without elaborating, but I felt as though I had a partner in my quest.

  *

  By Wednesday, the fourth of July, Susie could speak a little and was moved to a regular hospital room where she could have visitors. Tootsie came, as did Jeffrey and Sarah Thibault. Tootsie's sister, Jesse and her husband, Bo, who was Ray Thibault's brother, also came along with Marianne's uncles Tom and Sam, and their wives Gloria and Josie. Mari's younger sisters and some of her cousins streamed in and out of Susie's room during visiting hours when only two people could visit at a time. They had all known Susie since she was twelve years old, and I guess Susie was more like family to the Massey clan than to us Burtons.

  For days there was a constant flow of visitors. Lilly sat in the chair beside Susie's bed and slept there at night. She took it upon herself to make sure every visitor stayed for short periods and didn't create excitement.

  On Friday afternoon, Marianne and I were in the cafeteria having a cup of tea. I was pensive and stirred my tea over and over without thinking.

  "Have you noticed that, like, other than my mother and my dad, I'm the only white visitor Susie has had all week?" I didn't look up from my tea.

  "Hmm. I hadn't really noticed, but I'm not surprised." Mari took a sip and put her cup back on the table. "Susie hasn't lived here for more than fifteen years, and has lost touch with all her white friends. As for my family, Susie's been close to all of us for twenty years."

  Marianne looked over my head as though in a trance. "I remembered the first time I met Susie. She was sitting on my grandfather's porch one afternoon when I walked out of my house next door with a book I was going to read to him. There was this beautiful, redheaded white girl in the extra chair on his porch, and they were talking as though they had been friends forever. Come to find out, they had been, since she was six or seven. He would walk down South Jefferson Street every afternoon and stop to visit with her if she was in y'all's front yard. After he retired and no longer saw her every day, she started to come to the Quarters to see him.

  "I was put off by her at first, but she was so genuine and looked at me as though I was just like her—no difference." Marianne's eyes were wet, but no tears flowed out of them. "That was Susie. She never saw color or race or gender or any deviation as different from her. She accepts and loves everyone, which makes it easy to love her.

  "I remember how she listened and squeezed my hand when I talked about tragic things that had happened to me. I always knew we were half-sisters because I had figured out long ago that your dad was my biological. I never say biological father because the word father sticks in my throat; so in my mind, he's simply my biological.

  "Susie was in her twenties before she realized your dad had been screwing my mother all those years… decades, in fact. Since before Susie was born, for sure, because I'm a few months older than Susie." Marianne paused as though remembering something she didn't want to talk about. I took the opportunity to ask the question on my mind.

  "On another subject, is there any talk about who did this?" I looked up from my cup of tea. "I mean, are the police looking for the shooter or shooters?"

  "I haven't heard." Marianne looked at me with a questioning brow. "I don't know if there's a
case."

  "A crime was committed." I was surprised that this was the first time we'd discussed who shot Rodney. "I mean, someone shot an innocent person. Rodney could die, in which case it's murder."

  "Sissy, this is Jean Ville, Louisiana. Do you think these people care that a black man was shot?" Marianne's eyebrows lifted, and she stared at me as though I could answer such a nebulous question.

  "I would hope so. This is 1984, not 1964 for God's sake. A black woman became Miss America last year."

  "Yeah. And there's talk they want to oust Vanessa Williams. Something about posing nude for a magazine." Marianne seemed agitated, and I wondered, for the first time, what it must feel like to be black in this whitewashed world.

  "Well, you have to admit, it's against the Miss America rules to pose nude."

  "If she had been white, they'd have given her a slap on the wrist."

  I glared at my tea, then at Mari. "Well, all that aside, someone needs to talk to Sheriff Desiré. Maybe my dad?"

  "Has he mentioned it?"

  "No, in fact, I talked to him about it, and he said he couldn’t be involved." I watched Marianne's expression, which was one of disgust. "He says he cares, but he doesn’t act like he does.”

  "Since he was never a dad to me, I suppose I don't expect him to be one to Susie, either." She got up from the table and headed towards ICU. I watched her and thought about what she said, then my mind automatically returned to finding out who shot Rodney.

  Chapter Two

  ***

  Sleuthing

  I'D KNOWN THE district attorney, Reggie Borders, since I was little. His daughter Bonnie and I had been best friends from kindergarten through high school, and we were still friends. She’d married Danny Goudeaux, a guy who was a year ahead of us in school, and they had two boys, about two and three years old.

  I drove to the Borders' home after Mass on Sunday. I knew the entire family would be gathered there for dinner and an afternoon around the pool. That's how they'd spent every summer Sunday since I was a child. I'd often been there for sleepovers on Saturday nights, then I'd attend Mass with the family the next morning. All of their kids and lots of friends would gather for a big noon meal and a leisurely afternoon of croquet, tetherball, badminton, and swimming.

  I felt like one of the Borders kids, especially after Mama left Daddy and moved to Houston when I was fifteen. I think Mrs. Phyllis Borders felt sorry for me and pulled me in like a mother hen.

  No one was surprised to see me when I walked through the back gate with my swim bag over my shoulder.

  "Hey, Sissy!" Each one yelled "Hi" at me, and Bonnie came running over to hug me. Her older brothers Jules and Frank were there with their wives and children, although I didn't know which kids belonged to which parents. Bonnie's younger sister, Emily, and a couple of girls she'd brought home from college were sunbathing on lounge chairs near the pool. The youngest brother, Stephen, who was still in high school, sulked on a stool at the far side of the pool. I felt a heart-tug for him because I knew he'd rather be anywhere else, and I could remember feeling that way when I was his age and had been forced to be with my family.

  Now I wished I had a family.

  I changed into my swimsuit and accepted a beer from Mr. Reggie. Bonnie and Danny got into the pool and were trying to teach the little boys to float. The bigger kids were in the deep end, jumping off the diving board, competing to create the largest splash.

  I sat at the oval table with an umbrella stuck through the center hole. Mrs. Phyllis and Mr. Reggie sat in two of the chairs, with Jules and his wife, Lisa across from them. I was on one end, and no one sat in the sixth chair.

  "How's Susie?" Mrs. Phyllis patted my hand and looked directly at me. She was the type who made you feel as though the whole world stopped when you talked because she listened so intently. She nodded and squeezed my hand, and tilted her head sideways as though I were the only person at the table.

  "She's better. It's been touch-and-go. Dr. Switzer moved her out of ICU Wednesday, and she's starting to say a few words." I spoke loud enough for everyone at the table to hear.

  "I'm glad, honey. We've been so worried." Mrs. Phyllis patted my hand and ran her other hand through her short, brown hair, cut like Dorothy Hamill. I wanted to ask her why she hadn't visited Susie, if she was so worried, but I held my tongue. I had a more important mission to accomplish.

  "We're still worried about brain damage." I looked around the table and everyone had concerned expressions. "We are very worried about Rodney. He might not make it." I stared directly at Mr. Reggie. He nodded but didn't respond. We were all quiet for a while and sipped our beer. Mrs. Phyllis was drinking wine, as usual.

  "Do you know who did it?" I stared at Reggie Borders, Toussaint Parish district attorney. Everyone looked at him. He couldn't hold my stare and lowered his eyes, but didn't answer my question. "Is anyone interested in finding out?" Still no response. Jules began to shift in his seat, and his wife got up to dig around in the ice chest for a beer. Mrs. Phyllis called to one of her granddaughters who was walking towards the diving board. The girl, about eight years old, came running over and sat on her grandmother's lap. Mrs. Phyllis jumped up because now her shorts and shirt were wet and she needed a towel. Jules got up to help his wife.

  That left only Mr. Reggie and me at the table.

  "Are you going to pursue it, Mr. Reggie?" I stared at him while he looked at the tabletop.

  "That's up to the sheriff, Sissy." He pushed his chair away from the table and walked off.

  I got in the pool and played with Bonnie and her kids for a while, then I changed back into my jeans and blouse, told everyone goodbye and went home to my apartment on Gravier Road.

  *

  I loved my little place above Susie's detached garage. It had one bedroom, a study that could serve as a small spare bedroom, a living room and kitchen combination, a fairly nice-sized master bedroom with an en suite bathroom and, my favorite room, a deck off the kitchen that faced the huge park-like backyard. I had a swing and two rocking chairs on the porch, which was about fifteen feet above the ground.

  I sat on the swing with a glass of lemonade and thought about how to find out who shot Rodney in a town that was run by privileged white men who would prefer if all the black and brown people moved away. There was still a faction of the Ku Klux Klan in town, although I had no idea who the members were.

  The next morning I went to the Toussaint Parish Sheriff's Department. I tapped on the glass window where a woman with large glasses and hair teased like a rat's nest was turned sideways to the window typing on a manual typewriter. She told me I needed to file a complaint and gave me a clipboard with six pages of forms to fill out.

  "But someone was shot. That's a crime, not a complaint." I stood at the window and thumped my fingernails on the counter.

  "If it was a crime inside the city limits, there should be a police report. Check with the city police department." She closed the sliding glass across the window and returned to the typewriter.

  I went to the police department, and a woman who could have been the twin of the one at the sheriff's office sat with her back to the same type of sliding window and gave me the same runaround.

  "Why isn't there a police report? There were three city police units at the scene." I glared at her as though she could manufacture a piece of paper that didn't exist. She got up and walked to the copy machine, and all I saw was the back of her gaudy red blouse with frilly sleeves that got caught with the paper on the machine when she closed the top.

  I went to the hospital. Susie looked better and was able to say a few words that I understood, although she was frustrated that she couldn't get an actual sentence to come out of her mouth.

  "I talked to Mama last night. I think she's coming to see you tomorrow." I stood on the side of Susie's bed, holding her hand.

  She smiled and tried to move her head, then winced.

  "Are you in pain?" I fluff
ed her pillow and fitted it around her neck to keep her head wound from touching the bed.

  "Nooooo, I'm. Ohhh. Kay." Susie never complained. I could remember her with black eyes, stitches across her cheek or under her chin, a sprained wrist or ankle, and other injuries my dad had inflicted on her. She would act as though nothing was wrong.

  "I don't guess you'd tell me if you were hurting, would you?" I smiled at her, and she giggled and shook her head a little, then winced again. "I'll leave you alone. I think I'm making you hurt."

  She winked at me when I left. I walked down the hall towards the cafeteria and ran into Marianne.

  "I was going to check on Susie." Marianne stopped to hug me.

  "I just left her. I think she needs some rest." I hugged Mari and took a step back. "Hey, do you have a minute to chat?"

  "Sure." Marianne led the way to the cafeteria where we got cups of coffee and sat at a table in the far corner. I told her about my attempts with Reggie Borders, the sheriff's department, and the city police. She wasn't surprised that I'd hit dead ends everywhere.

  "What else can I do? Surely there's a police report." I stirred my coffee and added some cream.

  "They've buried it. Maybe you should give up."

  "There has to be someone who can help." I thumped my fingers on the table as though I were playing the piano.

  *

  I drove to James's office and walked past his secretary into his inner sanctum. There was a client in the chair facing James, who sat behind his desk.

  "I need to talk to you." I had my hands on my hips and stood with my legs spread.

  "Sissy, I'm busy. Can you come back later?" He lifted his eyes to look at me, his chin still pointing towards his desk.

  "No. I have to talk to you now."

  James apologized to his client, got out of this chair, and took me by the elbow. He practically pushed me out the door, down the hall, and into the library. "What can be so important that you interrupt me when I'm with a client?"

  "You said you'd help me find out who shot Rodney. I've been to the sheriff's office and the city police department, and neither has a report. They aren't even looking for the shooter." I stared at my brother who was at least a foot taller than me. "I need your help."