White People

by Allan Gurganus

  THE NEXT THURSDAY, just after dawn, seeing a Packard parked sideways at the far edge of our oldest mall’s huge lot, Sheriff Wilks found Bobby Grafton in the backseat, dead. My grandfather was wearing—my parents explained later by phone—his best gray suit, one they’d forced him into for Ruth’s funeral. He’d parted his hair in the very exact middle. He had on a white shirt and blue tie, and his shoes weren’t bedroom slippers and were shined, and they matched.

  It was just what Ruth once loved her Bobby to wear, and now he’d picked the outfit by himself and—as planned—on a site adjoining hers—was buried in it.

  The old mall is a fairly good mall as malls go. But I really wish he hadn’t died there. I wish Little Bobby had made it out to some countryside he’d owned before selling cheap on the brink of its prospering. But then Dad reminded us how Grand’s boyhood farm—the twenty acres that his folks could not afford for long, a truck farm with its early-blooming hollyhocks—how that rested right beneath where Big Elk Browse ’n’ Buy Mall got built in ’62. Grand’s Packard found the spot, but not the place.

  3. SOON …

  THE DAY I learned the meaning of Lancaster’s mule, I overheard a local woman use the term downtown. Odd how that happens. You wonder what else you’ve steadily missed. I had long since left home and settled elsewhere—first Cambridge, then here in New York. I now plan to hurry toward our story’s end. I rush, compensating for an inherited tendency toward storytelling longwindedness. This is the part where you find out what Time did to everybody left alive. This is the part where you see how Stories maybe offer us a little deal-making revenge on Time.

  My parents and aunts unloaded Bobby’s house four weeks after his well-attended funeral. A major selling point was the fine porch on three sides. Suddenly it’d become “the old Grafton place.” It sold for under fifteen thou. North Carolina real estate always seems a bargain compared to Manhattan’s, but twelve-five for such a roomy, boxy home is—even by local standards—a deal and a half.

  Bobby’d let the place slide at the end, and it did look fairly bad and needed paint. But, as we grumpy grandkids pointed out, it had stayed structurally sound. Why sell, and so cheap? Ruth’s good furniture was divided up. Her Aubusson carpet caused the only ugly feud. (In-laws behaved much worse than did blood relations. “I want none of it,” my mother said.) Nobody claimed a hideous orange chair and footstool, but everybody said somebody really should. “Though, of course, where would you put it?”

  A young couple expecting twins bought the place. He’s chief DJ at Falls’s Easy-Listening Rock station. This made us grandkids moan the louder: Little Bobby’s heirs feel that rock should be hard, money is to enjoy, children should be seen and heard. Even a hog is wise enough to love its local life. The new owners had every right to paint our holy shrine that overly tart Williamsburgy blue—a gift-shoppe color. Driving past, I feel literally nauseated. On the front porch, near where Ruth frisked an incoming Grand for rent checks or criticized his outgoing outfits, one tastefully white plaster burro now stands, mopey, almost life-sized. Why a burro in Falls? It supports saddlebags sprouting geraniums that might or might not be real geraniums. I’ve never walked far enough into these perfect strangers’ yard to check.

  For twelve-five, maybe I should’ve bought the place. But why? To do what with?

  When Dad retired, my parents got rid of their own suburban house. They chose Bermuda, of all places, but soon admitted feeling half homesick among the hibiscus. They returned to Falls and bought a little cabin down by Indian Creek. Now they spend three months a year in our hometown, nine in Bermuda. This pleases me very much. I visit them, but only in Falls; I never set foot in dull gorgeous Bermuda. None of my New York friends can understand this.

  My spoiled girl cousins have prospered and scattered; they enjoy serious careers and have kids who’re nearly done with college. Hard to believe. My spirited girl cousins all turned out fairly great-looking. They’ve withstood the usual serial marriages. For some reason, as a group, they’re just unbelievably foul-mouthed. They remain the blond family members who look the way I think I should, but don’t … yet. They keep their hair long, professionally full around the ear area. (Our family joke and family shame.) These cousins phone me when they’re passing through New York. We meet for drinks at overpriced places, where we talk about our adored low-rent grandfather and prudish grandmother, and get positively shitfaced and cry sometimes. Round by round, our Southern accents grow humid as bad actors’, till we reel onto the sidewalk, are hit in the face by Yankee winter, then holler for taxis, our tones gone suddenly harsh as any Bronx truck drivers’. Gentility will not snag you that cab during a snowstorm at 3 a.m.

  Sir, your brood is finally sophisticated enough just to enjoy you to pieces. Where are you, now we’re ready, “Ears”?

  I suppose that every county in our nation once enjoyed its own terms based on famous-for-around-here characters. These phrases are like most of us in being well-known and useful but within fairly strict local limits. Language is like love. Whatever phrase shows the rawest life, that finds its way into our speech. Whatever terms grow ossified and fussy get chipped away. If something means enough to enough people, if it really clarifies, feels accurate, then it catches on, spreads. If our poisoned world still matters enough to enough people, then I guess they’ll keep it continuing. If not … well, not.

  When I return to Falls for summer visits or Christmas, I begin to see exactly who Bobby Grafton was and wasn’t. A very homely hick kid, he longed to own nice town things; and he got some, too. He let his renters slide if they talked as well as he did. His funeral was attended by 110 black people. The guy was loved. But a crusader? Moral beacon? Ha! Quite early, I’d started seeing him whole. I drove up and down one weedy street where no soul cared to live but many did. Roofs leaked, missing windowpanes sealed shut with tinfoil and Scotch tape. The landlord of all? My ex-tenant-farmer Grand was at home on his porch rereading True Detective. At age fourteen or so, I and my girl cousins secretly mailed part of our allowance money to Dr. King’s civil-rights campaign. In plain brown envelopes (at the donor’s request) we got back leaflets asking “Where Are the South’s White Leaders? To Whom Shall We Speak?” In Falls, I sometimes still hear the phrase Grand taught me at age ten. Experts claim the National Nightly News might homogenize regional quirks out of our national language. I’m glad that’s not true quite yet. I’ve heard Falls citizens apply “crazy as Lancaster’s mule” to myself as a part-time radical graduate student, to myself during a brief intense early partnership with a woman who wanted my heirloom ears “cosmetically pinned”; I’ve heard it describe my second marriage to a person “rich enough to start a foundation, old enough to be your mother.” I’m comforted, knowing that a term coined mid-hog auction in 1890 still pertains.

  Lately, the phrase grows more and more appropriate. Maybe, like me, you read the papers. I sometimes look up from a particularly rancid front page; I scan the air packed before my face. Say I’ve read about some group blowing up a plane with passengers and the terrorists themselves inside it. I shake my head the way Little Bobby would. I go, “People now … the world now—I swear to God, crazy as Lancaster’s mule.”

  I know my tone might seem that of someone fairly provincial, somebody well over thirty-nine. But here in the city, many nights I feel like a perpetual outlander. To Bobby, this city—its onyx towers, crystal towers—might look as alien as Mars. My apartment is on the fortieth floor. I sit watching skyscraper lights come on. I sometimes feel very old here. Especially at the end of an office day, with tonight’s news smudging my hands.

  I’m not the first to notice: it’s dangerous, what’s happening. I mean, something’s wrong, so off. We must all be very very careful.

  What can a person do? Well, you stuff the offending newspaper into the trash, you get a night’s sleep and, come morning, decide to make an excellent omelet. You do what you can. (An omelet for one. Between marriages, childless, I sometimes wish I’d got custody of som
ething, somebody. In this, I am like many of my friends: I seem to manage the career thing pretty much okay, but I’ve never ever really got the hang of the love part. Not yet, anyway.)

  During breakfast I can’t help noticing—this milk carton is coated with Wanted posters. Posters no longer seek the hurters. The hurt ones are now shown. Missing kids. Lost to what? To maniacs, or black holes, or a new child-slave trade? Where’ve they all gone?

  People do get used to this, right? Tell me people get used to this.

  I think about Falls in 1962. I know I’m being an escapist. Thanks to Little Bobby, I remember a hometown of ladies’ bustles, genius crooks, gold watches big as three-egg omelets. Falls 1962 might’ve been Falls 18 and 62. I picture mules, not Packards. Boy, would I love to have that Packard now.

  IN PRESENT-DAY New York, my first name is mostly only “Bryan.” Sometimes, with certain attractive young strangers, I do try changing. “You know,” one told me recently, “even from across this bar, you somehow looked like a Willy.” “I thank you, ma’am,” said Bryan.

  OH, TO RESURRECT Little Bobby Grafton. Even for one night. Willy here would surely throw around the plastic. Maybe it’s a sign of our times, my wanting to spend big on my honored guest. I’d wine and dine him all over high-tech Manhattan, squiring Grand everywhere—to hear café singers, to see punk clubs downtown. Once back from rabble-rousing, I’d keep him awake for the 6 a.m. news. Imagine what he’d say about this place, this moment.

  Home, I’d settle Little Bobby near my choicest window in my favorite chair. It’s upholstered in pigskin. I won’t turn on any lamps; the city’s commercial glare is trapped (an oxblood color) under low clouds. In here, there’s light enough to read by. I imagine Grand staring out at the skyscrapers opposite; I imagine him wondering aloud if the renters on top pay less than those more grounded. Bobby asks where city people wash their cars. He wants to know if, all along, I planned to live alone like this. My answer: “Well, sir, yes and no.”

  Tired, he’ll hunker deep into my Scandinavian easy chair, his ankle-high black shoes propped on the matching footstool. I’ll go and warm a little low-fat milk for him. From the kitchen, I can ask things. I mostly see his chair back, one hand curled on the armrest. I want to hear Grand say: Oh, it’s really not so bad—the world now—and it’s not too late. Maybe things just need to go back some, get fortified, a bit more local. Meaning what? I doubt that Grand will say this. But look, I can hope, can’t I?

  What realm did those moral tales prepare us for? Once, I had a childish silvery idea: the Future.

  I stand stirring the saucepan, trying to keep his milk from scorching. I see Bobby by the window, a dark silhouette against the crossword puzzle of bright windows, neon names of Japanese computer firms. He appears so small and wizened in the high-backed glove-leather chaise. (For some reason, it cost me two thousand dollars, plus tax.) Grand manages to tilt the whole thing back a notch, he praises the apartment buildings opposite. They’re tall enough to wear blinking red lights, warning away low planes. He calls how I sure do have boo-coo neighbors, don’t I? Are they mostly nice? He’s already loosening his tie, fumbling through pockets, preparing for bed.

  His chair’s beside a Formica cube, one sold not as a “table” but as a “freestanding modular unit.” Onto this, Bobby empties each linty pocket. I see the busy knotted hand; calluses have quilted it into a catcher’s mitt. Out he fishes the gold watch, its chain dangles the little brass horseshoes once considered lucky. Stub fingers wind the watch, a fringe of white hair tips into view, one substantial ear presses against gold casing. His head half nods—the watch is put to one side. Pocket change gets piled into neat columns by denominations. A small pocketknife emerges, shy in the city (but no self-respecting county man would leave home without one). The stained driver’s license, then half a pound of landlordly keys: access to rental homes, livestock barns, red Allis-Chalmers tractors.

  Finally, on top, thumb and forefinger place the keepsake ring, some rubies left (if just in chips). Done, the hand slides back toward its counterpart; they join over the lap, and before I can pour Grand’s milk into my best mug, slow snoring unfolds. I shake my head and grin some, muttering. I step into the room, I lean against one wall, studying the back of his chair, my chair. So much to ask and him asleep. Is the world blind or does it just not give a damn?

  Between my own smooth hands, this hot cup feels so good. Automatically both eyes close. I hold on for dear life—I live here now.

  Stuck in the present on the fortieth story, Willy is still interested, but waiting. I keep listening. I stay primed for something extra.

  Yeah, it’s just me here—me, all ears.

  1986

  Reassurance

  For David Holding Eil (1981–)

  and for Robert Langland Eil (1983–)

  1.*

  Death Of A Pennsylvania Soldier. Frank H. Irwin, company E, 93rd Pennsylvania—died May 1, ’65—My letter to his mother.

  Dear madam: No doubt you and Frank’s friends have heard the sad fact of his death in hospital here, through his uncle, or the lady from Baltimore, who took his things. (I have not seen them, only heard of them visiting Frank.) I will write you a few lines—as a casual friend that sat by his death-bed. Your son, corporal Frank H. Irwin, was wounded near fort Fisher, Virginia, March 25, 1865—the wound was in the left knee, pretty bad. He was sent up to Washington, was receiv’d in ward C, Armory-square hospital, March 28th—the wound became worse, and on the 4th of April the leg was amputated a little above the knee—the operation was perform’d by Dr. Bliss, one of the best surgeons in the army—he did the whole operation himself—there was a good deal of bad matter gather’d—the bullet was found in the knee. For a couple of weeks afterwards he was doing pretty well. I visited and sat by him frequently, as he was fond of having me. The last ten or twelve days of April, I saw that his case was critical. He previously had some fever, with cold spells. The last week in April he was much of the time flighty—but always mild and gentle. He died first of May. The actual cause of death was pyaemia, (the absorption of the matter in the system instead of its discharge). Frank, as far as I saw, had everything requisite in surgical treatment, nursing &c. He had watches much of the time. He was so good and well-behaved and affectionate, I myself liked him very much. I was in the habit of coming in afternoons and sitting by him, and soothing him, and he liked to have me—liked to put his arm out and lay his hand on my knee—would keep it so a long while. Toward the last he was more restless and flighty at night—often fancied himself with his regiment—by his talk sometimes seem’d as if his feelings were hurt by being blamed by his officers for something he was entirely innocent of—said, “I never in my life was thought capable of such a thing, and never was.” At other times he would fancy himself talking as it seem’d to children or such like, his relatives I suppose, and giving them good advice; would talk to them a long while. All the time he was out of his head not one single bad word or idea escaped him. It was remark’d that many a man’s conversation in his senses was not half as good as Frank’s delirium. He seem’d quite willing to die—he had become very weak and had suffer’d a good deal, and was perfectly resign’d, poor boy. I do not know his past life, but I feel as if it must have been good. At any rate what I saw of him here, under the most trying of circumstances, with a painful wound, and among strangers, I can say that he behaved so brave, so composed, and so sweet and affectionate, it could not be surpass’d. And now like many other noble and good men, after serving his country as a soldier, he has yielded up his young life at the very outset in her service. Such things are gloomy—yet there is a text, “God doeth all things well”—the meaning of which, after due time, appears to the soul.

  I thought perhaps a few words, though from a stranger, about your son, from one who was with him at the last, might be worth while—for I loved the young man, though I but saw him immediately to lose him. I am merely a friend visiting the hospitals occasionally to cheer the wounded and
sick.

  W.W.

  2.

  Dear Mother, It’s Frank here, hoping a last time to reach you, and doubting I can but still I’m really going to try, ma’am. I want you to put your mind at rest about it all, Momma. That is why I am working hard to slip this through. You must really listen if this gets by the censors and everything, because I have limited time and fewer words than I’d like. I would dearly love to be there soon for breakfast and see that cussed little Wilkie come downstairs grumping like he always does till he’s got a touch of coffee in him. I would even like to hear the Claxtons’ roosters sounding off again. I remember Poppa, God rest him, saying as how other men kept hens for eggs but the Claxtons kept roosters for their noise and it was our ill luck to draw such fools as neighbors! The old man that wrote you of my end had the finest gray-white beard and finest-speaking voice I ever met with, finer even than parson Brookes we set such store by. The man who wrote you was here most days after lunch, even ones I now recall but parts of. He brought ward C our first lilacs in late April, great purple ones he stuck into a bedpan near my pillow. Their smell worked better on me than the laudanum that our Army chemists were so sadly out of. He read to us from Scripture and once, my hand resting on his safe-feeling leg, I asked him for a ditty and he said one out that sounded fine like Ecclesiastes but concerned our present war, my war. I told him it was good and asked him who had wrote it and he shrugged and smiled, he nodded along the double row of cots set in our tent here, like showing me that every wounded fellow’d had a hand in setting down the poem. He was so pleasing-looking and kind-spoken and affectionate, I myself liked him very much. Ice cream he brought us more than once—a bigger vat of it I’ve never seen, not even at the Bucks County Fair. Him and our lady nurses kept making funny jokes, bringing around the great melting buckets of it and the spoons and he himself shoveled a good bit of it into my gullet, grateful it felt all the way down. “Now for some brown.” He gave me samples. “Now pink, but best for you is this, Frank. You’ve heard Mrs. Howe’s line ‘in the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea’? This vanilla’s that white, white as your arm here. Makes vanilla cool the deepest, my brave Pennsylvania youth.” How I ate it. Cold can be good. If you hurt enough, cold can be so good. Momma? I do not love Lavinia like I forever said. I do not know how I got into being so mistruthful. Maybe it was how her poppa was Mayor and I liked the idea of pleasing you with our family’s possible new station or how everybody spoke of Miss Lavinia’s attainments and her skills at hostessing. It is my second cousin Emily I loved and love. She knew and knows, and it was just like Em to bide that. Em met whatever gaze I sent her with a quiet wisdom that shamed and flattered me, the both. Once at that Fourth of July picnic where the Claxtons’ rowboat exploded from carrying more firecrackers than the Merrimac safely could, I noticed Emily near Doanes’ Mill Creek gathering French lilacs for to decorate our picnic quilt later. You were bandaging Wilkie’s foot where he stepped on a nail after you told him he must wear shoes among that level of fireworks but he didn’t. I wandered down where Emily stood. She had a little silver pair of scissors in her skirt’s pocket and I recall remarking how like our Em that was, how homely and prepared and how like you she was that way, Momma. She was clipping flowers when I drew up. I commenced shivering, that fearful of my feelings for her after everybody on earth seemed to think Lavinia had decided on me long-since. “Frank,” Emily said. I spoke her name and when she heard how I said hers out, she stopped in trimming a heavy branch of white blooms (for, you know that place by the waterwheel where there are two bushes, one white, one purple, grown up side by side together and all mixed?). Emily’s hands were still among the flowers when she looked back over her shoulder at me. Tears were in her eyes but not falling, just held in place and yet I saw the light on their water tremble with each pulse from her. It was then, Momma, I understood she knew my truest feelings, all.