Catfish

by Madelyn Bennett Edwards

  It was easy to avoid Tootsie most of the summer. I was at work when she was at our house, and when I went to the Quarters, if she was home, she stayed in her cabin. I wasn’t ready to face her. It was hard enough to look at Daddy at the supper table every night.

  I didn’t see Rodney all summer, a sign that he understood it was over, I thought. Of course I didn’t know he was dealing with his own issues. Marianne was closed up about Rodney and, I felt sure, she didn’t tell him things about me, either.

  At home in the evenings when it was so quiet the only sounds were the hum of the fan and Sissy’s slow, sleep breaths, I wrote letters and filled out applications for every graduate program in the Northeast and appealed for scholarships. My preference was an MFA in writing, but I’d accept anything in the liberal arts field if the college gave me a full ride.

  Two weeks before the fall semester was scheduled to begin, I went to the mailbox and pulled out a large brown envelope from St. John’s University in Queens. Someone withdrew their name from the fellowship program and they offered me a full scholarship in the Masters of Fine Arts program. I was elated.

  With the money I’d saved working at the hospital I bought a one-way airline ticket from Baton Rouge to New York City and a bus ticket to Baton Rouge from Jean Ville, and had plenty left to help me get moved into an apartment in Queens. I didn’t tell my parents about the scholarship or my travel plans. I hoped they didn’t know about my last day at work. They had no say in my life anymore. That thought made me feel free.

  *

  I got up early and walked to the bus station on Prescott Street in the pre-dawn darkness on a Monday morning, the end of August. The world was just waking up and I watched lights begin to appear in some of the windows along Gravier Road. I had a suitcase in each hand and my purse over my shoulder. I inhaled deeply, a last whiff of the moss-draped oaks and hot asphalt, my final reminder of a childhood of love and hate, friendships and deceptions, first love and final good-byes. I would miss Catfish. I loved him like a grandfather, and he loved me. I would miss Marianne, my first and only friend, a sister in more ways than I ever expected. I would miss Tootsie, my surrogate mother, protector, and confidant ... traitor?

  Catfish’s family had become mine, but I was disturbed and confused by their deception. It hurt. It caught me blindsided—I’d trusted them totally, innocently. I felt a knot form in my throat that begin to tighten, like a rope used for lynching, a choke hold that renders it’s victim helpless.

  The murmurs of waking, the soft whispers of bird calls, the hum of a bus engine, air brakes on the concrete and the beating of my dying heart were what I heard as I waited at the Greyhound station for my final escape. I wondered whether my family would be upset when they realized I was gone, but I knew they wouldn’t be, only that they would be upset because I’d sneaked away and tricked them. My dad didn’t like to lose and today he’d feel like he’d lost—to me. I knew his elephant’s memory would come back to grab me, body, soul and heart one day.

  But for now, I was free.

  Marianne told me that Rodney had a job in the Clerk of Court’s Office in the Baton Rouge courthouse for the summer and that he hoped they would let him work part-time after he started law school in the fall. He told her he liked the work and made decent money, plus he had time to study. He got to sit in the courtrooms and listen to interesting cases, which he thought would give him an edge in law school.

  I’m not sure who answered the phone when I called. Maybe one of the clerks.

  “You have a phone call, Rodney.”

  Rodney said no one ever called him at work. His parents called him at his dorm in the evenings or on weekends. He told me he was worried that something was wrong at home, another Klan visit, his mother was sick, maybe Catfish, as he hurried to the desk phone on one of the clerk’s desks.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Can you tell them you have a family emergency?”

  “What? Susie? Where are you?”

  “At the Greyhound station.”

  “Where?”

  “Here. Baton Rouge. A few blocks from the courthouse.”

  “I’ll be there soon. Don’t move!” I heard him take a deep breath and swallow hard. He told me later that it was like happiness wrapped in Christmas paper. He pulled up in front of the bus station in a cab thirty-minutes later. I was sitting on a bench in the 100-degree heat, fanning myself with a cardboard square glued to a popsicle stick. I tried to hide my misery and the perspiration that made my dress stick to me at ten o’clock in the morning. I certainly wouldn’t miss the oppressive heat and humidity when I got back to New York, but I would miss the gorgeous man who jumped from the cab before it came to a full stop.

  He grabbed my bags, threw them in the trunk, opened the back door and ushered me in. He slipped through the back door on the other side. Before his door was completely shut, he reached for me. I fell into him.

  Oh, so familiar, so safe, so wonderful. The almost three years felt like three days as the familiar, gentle comfort of his arms wrapped around me and I inhaled ink, sweat, after shave, laundry soap and the familiar scent that came from Rodney Thibault’s pores. How had I lived without this?

  We didn’t speak, didn’t kiss, didn’t grope —we just sat in the backseat with our arms wrapped around each other, my head on his chest. Every few seconds, he would stroke my back and heave.

  It was hot in the cab, especially against the radiant heat from Rodney’s body. The cabbie took us to a motel on Airline Highway and pulled in front of room number 12. Rodney had a key and let me into the air-conditioned room, a welcomed relief. He followed me inside with my bags, dropped them on the floor, slammed the door and pulled me to him. We had not said a word since the phone call. We kissed hungrily, then he let go and held me away from him.

  “I just want to look at you,” he said. I stood there, my damp dress clinging to my every curve, my ponytail askew from hugging him in the backseat, my lipstick gone from kissing, but he looked at me as if I was the most beautiful creature in the world.

  “God, you’re beautiful. You get more beautiful with age.”

  “You act like I’m an old woman.” I laughed. He put an index finger in one of my dimples.

  “I’ve always wanted to do that,” he said. “Ever since the first time I saw you at my dad’s Esso station. You were thirteen. I fell in love with you that day and I’ve been in love with you ever since.”

  “You look good, Rod. You are more handsome than ever. It looks like you grew another inch or two. I didn’t think that was possible. How tall are you?”

  “Not sure. About 6’5” or 6’6” I think.”

  “Wow. You make me feel so small.”

  “You are small, and perfect. You fit perfectly. See.” He pulled my five-foot, eight-inch body to him and folded his long arms around my shoulders. The top of my head fit under his chin and tucked comfortably into the crook of his neck. He wore a white dress shirt and I inhaled starch and laundry soap plus a distinct musky scent. He looked gorgeous, as ever, and older, more confident.

  “You fit, perfectly. We fit,” he said.

  “Yes. We fit.”

  My head rested over his heart, a familiar position where I could hear the fierce magic of the organ that pumped blood throughout his body—and feelings, too. When I lifted my head, he bent to kiss me. I had forgotten what his lips felt like—full, wet, sweet. The urgency of our kiss was gentle, thoughtful, regretful. I wonder if he tasted my anguish because he opened his eyes as soon as tears begin to roll down the sides of my nose. He licked my closed eyes.

  I was glad and sad. I’d tortured myself on the bus about whether to call him. I felt guilty, like I was messing up his life by dropping in it, knowing I’d be leaving for good the next day.

  Our kisses became more intense and he sucked on my bottom lip, softly, at first, while I moved my lips and teeth around so he could get to every square millimeter. He tasted like honeysuckle. He hel
d me gently, yet passionately. How’d he do that?

  “If you continue that, you are going to cause trouble,” I muttered.

  “What kind of trouble?” He continued to tease me with his tongue.

  “Hmmm. Not sure.”

  He was tolerant, pretending to enjoy my antics when I got my hands under his shirt and began to stroke his chest. He let out a deep sigh, picked me up and lay me on the bed on my back. I wanted him more than I’d ever wanted anyone or anything in my life, but I was afraid that it was because I was lonely, afraid and, mostly, because I felt so rejected by Tootsie and the people I’d come to believe loved me. Was that why I called him? Did I need something from him, something to negate the deception and disloyalty I felt from my best friend and her family? Some reassurance he wasn’t in on the ploy?

  Rodney knelt on the floor beside the bed and bent his head to mine.

  “I forgot how blue your eyes are, and that, when you look at me I can see my reflection.” I saw my own reflection in his amber, gold, green eyes. There were rainbows of blues and pinks in there.

  “Tell me about yourself,” he whispered. “I’ve missed you, missed knowing what you are doing, where you are. I tried to call you and your phone was disconnected. I panicked.”

  “I’m sorry, Rod,” I rolled onto my side so I could face him as he knelt on the floor beside the bed. “I’ve really tried to make a clean break of things with you. I feel guilty calling you today, but I had to see you before I go back to New York.”

  “When do you leave?”

  “In the morning.”

  “Oh, so soon?” Neither of us spoke for a moment. “Do you want to talk about things?”

  “No. There’s nothing to talk about. Nothing’s changed. I just wanted to see you one more time. I wanted to remember, to see for myself that you weren’t a dream I made up.”

  “It sounds so final.”

  “This is my last trip to Louisiana, unless it’s to return for a funeral.”

  “Oh, I see.” He looked rejected, sad.

  We kissed softly and he slowly unbuttoned the top of my dress. I gasped.

  “Hold on, Baby. We have all night,” I whispered.

  “I’m holding. I’m holding.”

  Our lovemaking was selfless. We were all about each other. He wanted to please me and I wanted to please him. It was gentle and loving, without urgency. We pressed ourselves into each other and became one. I was happy. I had forgotten what real love was. For the moment I let myself live in a dream, unreal, a small blip of hope in a hopeless world.

  After we made love I told Rodney about my daddy and Tootsie. I could tell by his face that it was a surprise. It made me feel better that he wasn’t in on the cover-up. At least one of the people I trusted was who I thought he was. I told him how hurt I was that I’d been betrayed by Tootsie and Marianne.

  “And Catfish,” I said. “He’s known all along and he never told me. I trusted him like a grandfather.”

  “Try not to look at it like that, Baby. Catfish has divided loyalties. Tootsie’s his daughter. Marianne’s his granddaughter. You can’t expect him to go behind them.”

  “Hmmm. I never thought about it that way. I’m just so hurt. I thought they were the family I didn’t have.”

  “They still are, Sweetheart. They are the same people they’ve always been. What’s happened between your dad and Tootsie started long before any of them knew you and grew to love you. Trust me, they love you. This is a horrible discovery for you, but it doesn’t change who they are and how they feel about you.”

  “Rod, have you thought about how the Klan kept getting information about you and me?”

  “For a while that’s all I thought of, but not living in Jean Ville... I don’t know ... Out of sight, I guess.”

  “Yeah, me too, until I saw my Daddy and Tootsie together.”

  “You saw them together? With your own eyes?”

  “Yes. I don’t think I’d have believed it otherwise. I’m not sure if I am more shocked at my daddy’s behavior or at Tootsie’s.” Rodney reached over and took both my hands in his.

  “There are things you’ll never understand about colored people and the patterns they’ve lived for two-hundred years.”

  “What?”

  “Well, not all coloreds ... and not all whites ... let me see how to say this. Ever since slavery, white men have owned Negro women, like cattle, and could do whatever they wanted with them. They took them as concubines, fathered children with them, sometimes had a string of colored women waiting for them to show up, be rough and cruel, and leave. It’s been a way of life, Susie. No one thinks anything about it.”

  “You mean you think it’s normal, it’s okay, for my daddy and Tootsie to have an affair for twenty years while he’s married to my mother and Tootsie is in a relationship with Joe Edgars?”

  “I’m not saying it’s okay, or normal. I’m just saying old habits die slowly. Tootsie doesn’t think she’s betraying you. She’d doing what your dad wants her to do because he’s white and powerful and she’s scared to tell him, No. And Marianne. Well, if it was you, would you want people to know?”

  “Uhmmm. I guess not, when you put it that way.”

  “I don’t want you to feel like this changes anything between you and Tootsie, Marianne and Catfish. They live in survival mode. You shouldn’t judge people until you’ve lived their life.” I got up and walked to the window. The sun was going down over the Mississippi River and I watched a tugboat push a big barge towards the bridge and thought about what Rodney was saying. It made me feel better, not completely abandoned by those I depended on to be there for me. Still, I couldn’t rid myself of the notion that Tootsie and my daddy had something to do with the Klan’s tactics and the beatings I got. Their timing seemed to coincide with each other and with times Rodney and I were together. I tried to shake it off.

  “Are you hungry?” Rodney asked.

  “What time is it?”

  “I’m not sure, but it’s dark outside.”

  “Oh. Are you? Hungry?”

  “I could eat something.”

  “What’s on the menu?” I asked.

  “Funny you should ask. There’s a Kentucky Fried and a McDonald’s across the street.”

  “I’ve been in Jean Ville all summer. I forgot about civilized city food joints.” We laughed at the irony of it, that McDonalds seemed civilized!

  We didn’t sleep all night. We were both reluctant to waste our precious time together. We talked and talked, ate Big Macs, and caught up on school and career plans. When Rodney mentioned he might go back to Jean Ville to practice after law school, I frowned.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  “We’ve never talked about it, and we probably shouldn’t. It’s just that, I’ll never live in that town again. Things are so different up north. So much more tolerant.”

  “Tell me about it, Baby. How do they treat couples like us now. I was there for a week, but that was three years ago, almost. I don’t remember it being a problem for us, but of course, we were in Harlem most of the time.”

  “I see them sometimes, couples like us, together on the streets, in cafes, at school—black and white, white and yellow, red and brown, men and men. They walk on sidewalks holding hands and no one stops them. Some people stare and some of the old biddies whisper, but it’s nothing like the South.”

  “It would kill my dad if I moved that far away.”

  “You probably shouldn’t.” I found my robe in my suitcase and went to the bathroom. When I came out he was in his boxers, sitting on the side of the bed with his head in his hands, elbows on his knees. He looked up when he felt me come close.

  “You should go home and marry a nice colored girl and have a family.”

  “What about you? Will you marry a white boy?”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever marry, Rod. I’d be afraid of what a husband might do to our daughter. The girls at Sarah
Lawrence were older, so I have friends who are married now. They wed guys they thought they knew, but after the honeymoon, the husbands turned into controlling monsters. That frightens me. I don’t want my child to live through what I’ve lived through.”

  That was the most I’d ever said about the abuse of my childhood. I didn’t tell him about the times during and after college. I didn’t tell him why I had to leave LSU after my dad talked to him on the phone in the lobby of my dorm. I didn’t tell him about Gavin or Josh and I didn’t ask him about girls at his school. I was sure he’d dated during the past three years. He was a normal, hot-blooded guy and I imagined every girl at Southern University wanted to go out with Rodney Thibault. I didn’t blame them, he was quite a catch. But I didn’t want to know.

  I didn’t tell him about my pregnancy. I couldn’t. I never wanted him to think he owed me anything. It would kill me to think he’d give up his dreams for me, then come to regret it and resent me for it later. No, I couldn’t tell him. That had to remain a secret.

  I didn’t tell him I loved him, either, that I would always love him, that I couldn’t marry anyone else because I’d never love anyone else.

  I knelt on the floor in front of Rodney, who sat on the side of the bed with his head in his hands. I wrapped my arms around his waist. I just wanted to hold him and feel him and touch him and breath in his scent of sweat and mint and manhood. I wanted to subject it all to memory—everything about him and this night, because I knew I’d never see him again. I thought he probably felt the same way because once we finally put our heads on the pillows, he held me all night and every time I opened my eyes he was awake, staring at me.

  In the morning Rodney kissed me with bird kisses all over my face and ears, my nose and hair, my fingertips. His weight began to feel heavy so he rolled on his side and pulled me close. I loved the taste of him, the sweaty, sticky, sweet, sensuous flavors that seeped from his pores and rested on my palate and wrapped me in comfort and safety.

  I could hear the sounds of morning outside. Car doors slammed, footsteps on the concrete sidewalk, someone whistled a tune and I lay there and wished for this moment to go on forever. I didn’t want to move, to disturb the magic.