Catfish

by Madelyn Bennett Edwards

  Catfish was laid to rest in the family cemetery in a pecan grove beside the cane field, near his garden. I couldn’t control the tears that ran down my cheeks when they put him in the ground. I watched Rodney and the others remove their carnations and place them on top of the pine box that held Catfish’s remains and I stood planted in the St. Augustine grass, tears streaming down my face. The crowd moved towards the houses in the Quarters but I held back to speak to Tootsie and Marianne. Marianne helped her mother out of the chair that sat a few feet from the coffin, and when they approached me I took Tootsie’s other hand and the three of us followed the crowd in silence.

  I watched Daddy’s back move through the people, shaking hands and introducing my brothers. Politicking, I thought. He’s running for the State Legislature and needs the Negro vote. That’s when I realized why he agreed to come to Catfish’s funeral—votes.

  Everyone gathered around picnic tables laden with enough food to feed a small army. Chitlins, gumbo, fried chicken, jambalaya and rice-dressing filled the center of the tables. Salads and desserts were stacked on side tables. People gathered in the back yard and sat in chairs and on the steps of the five back porches that formed a line in front of a large fire. A pig stretched out like Jesus on the cross, was the main event. The cochon de lait was almost done. Men and children gathered to admire the crucified hog that burned at the stake.

  Daddy waited for me to catch up with him and the boys, but I was with Marianne and Tootsie. We watched the men turn the pig, drink beer and tell stories. I thought about how many times Catfish sat in one of those iron chairs with torn, green Naugahyde seats and poked a pig with a cane pole while he held the attention of everyone around him with his “yarns.” I felt sad, like a piece of me was missing. I had loved Catfish since I was seven, almost sixteen years.

  Daddy and the boys watched me as I walked away from them with Marianne and Tootsie.

  I knew all of Tootsie’s family —her sister, Jesse and Jesse’s husband, Bo, and their children; Tootsie’s brothers, Tom and Sam, and their wives and children. All of Catfish’s other grandchildren were younger than Marianne, and I knew all of their names and ages and what grades they were in. I’d had more interaction with Marianne’s sisters and cousins than with my own siblings over the years and I felt more at home in the Quarters than in the big antebellum home on the corner of South Jefferson and Marble Avenue. I wished I could stay in the Quarters and never go back to that empty-feeling house with the blue drapes and carpets and walls that closed in on me.

  Tootsie sat at one of the rough-hewn picnic tables. Marianne and I stood behind her, talking, catching up. She looked more mature and even more beautiful than ever, if that was possible. Getting out of Jean Ville and living in Baton Rouge while she was in nursing school for two years had agreed with her. She was self-confident and happy. She even mentioned she was dating someone, although I didn’t have a chance to get the particulars.

  The chatter of people, mixed with outbursts of laughter and sobs, overrode the crackle of the fire and the whishing sound when fat from the pig dripped into the fire.

  My eyes followed Rodney as he milled around with his cousins and I watched him out of the corner of my eye when he walked away from a group of men and strolled to a pecan tree several yards away from the tables. He was alone. He chewed on a long piece of straw and had one knee bent, the sole of his foot against the tree. His suit coat was flung over his shoulder as he leaned into the shade provided by the fullness of greenery that softly filtered a few rays of sunshine that smiled on Catfish this day. Rodney looked pensive. He had been alone at the church—no date, no girlfriend. If he had a fiancée or a wife, wouldn’t she have been with him?

  I told Marianne I’d be back and strolled towards him, talking to people casually as I made my way to the pecan tree. I knew my dad was watching so I tried to seem natural.

  Rodney saw my slow, casual approach long before I reached him and we locked eyes for a second over his aunt’s shoulder as I stood listening to a group of women talk. I winked to let him know I wanted him to stay there. He winked back.

  By the time I got to him everyone had started moving towards the tables to watch the men spread the roast pig out so they could begin to lift off the quoin and cut the pork in to pieces. The focus on the pig created a diversion for me as I made my way to the pecan tree.

  We didn’t touch. I stood in front of him, my back to the crowd, and tried to make small talk. I asked how things were going, when he’d complete finals and what he planned to do after graduation. He told me he hadn’t made a final decision but that his dad had been pressuring him to come home.

  “The Toussaint Parish District Attorney offered me a job where I can work my way up to Assistant DA one day,” he told me. If he took the job, it began in August. We started to walk towards the cabins, close enough to hear each other but not touching. Both of us watched the ground as we walked to keep from looking at each other.

  “Is that what you want to do? Work as a prosecutor?”

  “I’m not sure. I always thought I wanted to practice family law, to help people, especially Negroes who can’t afford an attorney, but I can’t work for free.”

  “Do you want to live in Jean Ville?”

  “I don’t know. It’s home, and I don’t have offers anywhere else.”

  “How are things here?”

  “Better, I think. The federal laws are in place to give us equality, but the South is slow to get on board. There are still active Klan activities and local law enforcement turns a blind eye.”

  “Oh, how could I ever forget how awful colored people are treated down here. It’s so different up north. You’d think that by 1973 people would have learned to live together and accept one another.”

  “It’s better than it was, but it still has a long way to go.”

  When I remember that conversation that took place forty-plus years ago, I realize that, even now, we still have a ways to go.

  “When do you finish law school?”

  “I took my last final Wednesday, the day before I came home for the funeral.”

  “Oh, I still have to take finals and complete my thesis. I’m going back Sunday.”

  “What then? What will you do after you finish?”

  “I have several job offers. I’m also thinking about going to Europe. I’ve saved some money.”

  “Oh.”

  I wanted to ask him about his personal life, attachments, girlfriends but I knew we couldn’t talk about personal things, not with so many people, and my daddy, around. We split up and milled around with different people. Rodney went to sit with his uncle and cousins at one of the tables. I stopped to talk to Tootsie and Marianne again then went to stand near Daddy and my brothers. I knew Daddy wouldn’t stay to eat with colored people. He talked a good game.

  “I’m going to stay a while,” I told him.

  “No, you’re coming home with me and the boys.”

  “Daddy, please. I feel like I need to be with Tootsie for a little while. I’ll walk home.”

  “I don’t like to leave you here with these people.”

  “I’ll be fine. It’s the right thing to do.” Daddy looked at me with an expression I knew spelled danger if I didn’t do what he said, but I’d been away too long and I was no longer a child. I refused to let him control me any longer, or maybe I’d forgotten how his temper could flare and what he could do to me when it did.

  Before I left the Quarters that afternoon I told Rodney that my flight to New York was on Sunday, the day after tomorrow. He asked if I was flying out of Baton Rouge and I said, yes.

  “Can I take you to the airport?” he asked. He still had his 1966 Mustang Fastback, he said and he’d fixed it up, whatever that meant. He said he wanted me to see it.

  “Oh, Rod, that would be too risky.”

  “How will you get there?”

  “I’ll take the bus.” I looked off in the distance. There were still a
few people milling around in the Quarters. I could see Marianne hovering, waiting to have some time with me. “I’m going to leave for Baton Rouge in the morning. I’ve overstayed my welcome at home.”

  “Can I see you in Baton Rouge?”

  “I’ll call you when I get there, okay?” I didn’t intend to call him. I think he knew that.

  I walked towards Marianne and she and I strolled past the cornfields to the barn. She had lots to tell me.

  First she told me about her girlfriend.

  “I might be in love,” she said. I wanted to be happy for her, but I knew her life would be hard taking that route.

  “Why don’t you move up north. You can stay with me.” I watched her think about my offer, then she shook her head side-to-side.

  “I could never leave Mama. That’s why I moved back from Baton Rouge after I finished school.” I left it at that. We were quiet for a while, sitting with our backs against the outside of the old barn. I took her hand and she smiled at me and squeezed.

  “Rodney told me he’d left his summer open,” she said softly, almost as if she was considering whether to tell me or not. “He said that in the back of his mind, he planned to go to New York to put things to rest between the two of you so he could move on with his life.” I didn’t say anything. I let the words find a place inside me.

  “He’s been dating someone,” she whispered. I knew she didn’t want to tell me, but she was being honest and I appreciated it, especially after what I considered the deceit I felt three years before when I discovered the truth about my dad and Tootsie. Then she told me about Annette, and my heart sank. Although I felt Rodney had someone else, hearing it made it real and I was crushed. Marianne told me about how Annette faked a pregnancy to get him to marry her and how he didn’t date her for a year because he said he couldn’t trust her. It made me think about my own pregnancy and how I didn’t tell him.

  “His parents were insistent that he get back with Annette, and Jerry is engaged to her best friend—so somehow they got back together about a year ago,” Marianne said. “He told me he’s never had sex with her because he still doesn’t trust her.” I didn’t know what to say or whether to believe her, about not having sex.

  “Do you think he’s in love with her?” I asked, then I realized what I said and I wanted to take it back.

  “No, I don’t think he loves her, but I think he feels pressured to marry her because of his folks and Jerry and—well, I don’t know, because he feels like it’s time.”

  “I don’t want to mess up his life.”

  “Today he told me to tell you he’s single. He’s going back to Baton Rouge tomorrow to break it off with Annette. He said everything changed when he saw you at the funeral today. He even told his dad he couldn’t pretend any longer.”

  “He told his dad that?”

  “Yep. Today at the funeral. He said his dad noticed how the two of you looked at each other. Rodney said he had to be honest with himself and with his dad. He wants to see you, Susie. He asked me to give you his phone number in Baton Rouge in case you don’t have it with you.”

  When I left the Quarters I was torn. I wanted to see Rodney, to be with him. I wanted to finally tell him the truth about everything. But it was still dangerous. And he had a chance at a decent life with someone who was more right for him, who would be accepted by his family and friends, who would support him as an up-and-coming lawyer in Jean Ville, the first colored attorney in Toussaint Parish. I didn’t want to take all that from him.

  *

  “Where is that girl? She should be home by now,” I could hear Daddy yelling when I walked in the front door. They were standing in the hall. Mama shrugged her shoulders and walked to the kitchen. He didn’t see me come in and he went into the master bedroom across the hall from the kitchen, talking at the top of his voice.

  The window air conditioners hummed but the house was stifling.

  “I knew I shouldn’t have left her with those colored people. There’s no telling what Tootsie and her half-breed girl will tell her. Then there’s the Thibault boy. I don’t like the way he looks at Susie, like he’s not colored and she’s not white. It’s downright disrespectful.

  “I have a mind to go find her and drag her home by her hair,” he screamed. I couldn’t hear what Mama said, but I knew she responded.

  “Who does she think she is, anyway? She just waltzes into our house like she belongs here—all high fah-luting because she has all those college degrees. Educated women are dangerous. Does she have any idea how badly she can hurt my political chances? She’s too damn selfish to care about me.”

  “Who are you talking to Bob?” Mama called out to him.

  “Just because I don’t give her money doesn’t mean she can do anything she wants.”

  He ranted and raved that I was probably living up there in the north with no morals, screwing every boy I found, making a tramp out of myself, and if that wasn’t enough, he had to witness me come to his town and flirt with a colored boy, right in front of him, in front of the town. He’d be a laughingstock once word spread.

  “Those Northerners might be open to mixed relations but Susie doesn’t need to come to my town and humiliate me this way. Not now when I’m in a tight political race! I’ll teach her to stick with her own.”

  “Are you talking to yourself, Bob?” Mama called from the kitchen.

  “Come here, Honey. We need to talk.” Mama went into the bedroom with little Al following.

  “Fix me another drink, would you Honey?”

  I sneaked into the front bedroom and shut the door quietly. I gathered my things and stacked my suitcase, overnight bag and purse near the door in case I needed to make a fast getaway.

  Sissy was happy to have me home. She was twelve and didn’t mind sharing her space. She and I lay across the bed talking and laughing. Sissy had all the things a twelve-year-old could want in a room, a French Provincial tester bed, a desk and vanity, cork boards where she hung her pictures and ribbons, a trophy case for her awards, a closet full of the latest fashions. I remembered growing up in that room. There were no mementos, no pictures, no ribbons or certificates or trophies when I was there. Oh, I won lots of stuff, but I never showed my awards or displayed them. I kept them in cardboard boxes in the attic. All I had in that big blue bedroom as an adolescent and a teenager was a desk with a stack of books and lots of paper and pens.

  Daddy stormed in the room from the short hall that connected it to the master.

  “Get out, Sissy. I need to talk to your sister.”

  “Oh, Daddy, please. Susie’s leaving tomorrow. Please let me have some time with her.”

  “Get out, Honey. Now.” Sissy backed out of the room with a scared look on her face. I stood up and faced him.

  “Who do you think you are?” He yelled.

  “I’m not sure why you’re angry with me. What have I done?”

  “You humiliated me in front of a hundred voters, that’s what you did!”

  “Daddy, you can think what you want, but I didn’t do anything of the sort. If you need an excuse to berate me, try something else. I’m innocent here.”

  “Don’t you tell me what to do.”

  “If you hit me, I’ll go to the police this time. I won’t take your abuse any longer. I’m an adult. I’m on my own now.”

  “You are in my house, you impudent little bitch.” He slapped me so hard I fell against the footboard of the bed and slid to a seated position on the floor. He was on top of me before I knew what happened. He started to kick and slap me.

  Then, on impulse, I caught one of his feet with both my hands and threw his leg in the air with all my might. He staggered backwards, lost his balance and almost fell on his back but managed to remain upright. By the time he got his bearings, I was on my feet with my hand on the doorknob. He got there just in time to slam it shut with his size twelve foot as I tried to pull it open. Then he hit me with his fist. I staggered backward
s and my hand automatically covered my cheekbone. I felt a strange darkness come over me and all the fear and anger and hate I’d felt for years bubbled to the top of my brain.

  My leg flew up and I sucker-kicked him in the balls, hard.

  “You little bitch!” He bent over in agony. I moved in closer and, like a runner taking off from a starting block, I pushed off my back foot and aimed my knee at his face before he lifted it, and hit him, hard. There was a loud crunch when it connected with his forehead and he toppled backwards onto the thick blue carpet. Blood spurted from above his eye.

  “It’s your turn to bleed on this disgusting carpet,” I said. I grabbed my purse and overnight bag and ran out the room, through the front door and down the sidewalk while he yelled after me.

  “You have no place to go in this town, you tramp. Everyone will believe me, not you.”

  The feeling of triumph didn’t hit me until I was on the street between our house and Dr. David’s. I smiled and felt a glow inside. Those self-defense classes came in handy. Wow! That felt good. I turned to look at the house from the pavement.

  Daddy stumbled onto the front porch, bent over, holding his crotch, blood from his forehead dripping into his already swelling right eye.

  He called to me as I ran barefoot on the black top road. There were no cars going either way, no one in their yards, no witnesses anywhere.

  “I’ll get you, you little tramp. You can’t hide from me,” he yelled. ‘Come back here you ungrateful slut. Take your medicine.”

  Dr. David Switzer opened his front door and walked briskly towards the road. He stopped at the edge of his yard and glared across South Jefferson Street at Daddy, who stood on his porch, holding his crotch, his head bleeding. I turned to look at the two men in the face off, then started to run towards the Quarters. I heard them yelling.

  “What the hell, Bob?”

  “It’s Susie. That little bitch ran away from me.”

  “Maybe you should be grateful. At her age, she doesn’t have to take it anymore. She should call the sheriff.”