Cavedweller

by Dorothy Allison

  “The first question to ask anyone climbing down into those holes is always ‘Why?’ ” Aunt Maudy said. “But I swear, don’t ever believe the first reply.”

  Chapter 14

  Nolan Reitower had two obsessions. He played clarinet and he pined for Dede Windsor. The first was new and he was extraordinarily gifted at it; the second went back years, and at that he was a dismal failure. From the beginning, Dede never looked in his direction.

  “He won’t never make a man,” Dede said of Nolan. She had a way of saying what other people hesitated to say, but once they heard her, they knew they had been thinking the same thing. About Nolan she was deadly accurate. He remained baby-faced and boyish even as he grew to a man’s height. But what bothered Dede was not only that he was more than a year younger than her, but that his idea of courting was to make moon eyes and gape at her in public. There was also the fact that Nolan was a fairly pudgy boy when he started following Dede around, and for all that he grew to be wide-shouldered, he stayed soft. The only nice thing anyone ever said about Nolan was that he was a good boy to his mama and daddy. Not much of a recommendation to the very particular Dede—good boys were not what caught her eye.

  “He’s too good,” Dede said. “An’t he got any wild in him?” No, Cissy thought. He did not. What was wild in Nolan was his passion for Dede Windsor. From that first run-in on the steps, when Dede called him “mama’s little precious,” Nolan was captured. Another boy would have taken offense. Nolan took fire, and never got over it. For him, there was simply no other female but Dede Windsor.

  A few months after the birthday trip to Paula’s Lost, Nolan started working with his daddy at Biscuit World after Mr. Reitower had what everyone described as “a little-bitty heart attack.” “Nothing but a warning,” Nadine pronounced it. “A warning to put your house in order, honey. Eat a little better. Get more rest. God’s way of saying slow down.” For reasons that Nolan could not understand, Nadine seemed not to worry. It was. as if she could not picture any serious threat to what had always been, life going on as smooth as the surface of a china plate.

  Nolan looked carefully into his daddy’s pale face and immediately developed his own notions about putting their house in order. Like the good son he was, he quietly reorganized his days so that he could spend three hours every morning helping his daddy out before making the second bell for school. He’d come into homeroom smelling of baking powder, butter, and salt, steam rising off a little bag of sausage biscuits clutched in his hand. Before long, Nolan’s eyes—his best feature, everyone agreed—had sunk into his biscuit-swollen cheeks, and he had to turn sideways to get through the door. From Cissy’s viewpoint, the worst of it was that Nolan could no longer climb down the entrance to Paula’s Lost.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t have time,” Nolan kept telling Cissy, and it was true. Between Biscuit World and practicing the clarinet, the boy did not have a minute to spare.

  The clarinet was Nadine’s idea. She had pushed Nolan to join the school band, hoping it would draw him out of his bookish ways, and she had suggested the clarinet because she imagined it to be a proper instrument, not so heavy and ponderous as a tuba or as sexually suspect as a piccolo. And while she liked the sound of the euphonium, she was not sure how Nolan would look holding it close to his chest. He had his daddy’s build and was going to be big and awkward. No, she decided, her boy could manage the clarinet and look good playing it.

  Nadine had been sure that the clarinet would be a temporary hobby. Nolan lost interest in everything eventually. Music would be a useful but transient distraction from adolescent self-consciousness. She bought an inexpensive Vito Leblanc, a decent beginner’s model made of plastic, with nickel-plated keys. “Resonite, Nolan, Resonite. That’s what the dealer said,” she kept repeating. What Nadine could not guess was that her shy boy would find his life’s design writ in sixteenth notes, for once Nolan got his chops working, he discovered he could breathe through that clarinet. He could soar through and out of it into a world no one knew, a world suffused with the drunken glory his talent stirred within him.

  Nolan practiced whenever he could, mostly after school, when his daddy was home. Biscuit World closed at one every afternoon, earlier on the busiest days. “Once they’re gone, they’re gone,” Mr. Reitower would laugh, already thinking about climbing into his bed as he wiped down the counter. Nolan’s daddy slept every afternoon from the time he got home until dinner. He worried about Nolan getting up so early to help out, never managing a nap until after school and band practice. “Growing boys need food, sure, but they need sleep too,” he would tell the oblivious Nolan every few days. “Dream time,” he complained to Nadine. “The boy is getting no dream time, no easy, unbooked, lay-around-and-think time. That’s what a boy needs to make a man. Time to imagine himself what he is going to be.”

  Most days Nolan got no nap at all, just went drowsy through the hours until the moment when he could put a reed in his mouth and come fully awake and full of joy. What his father did not understand was that his music was dream time for Nolan. He did not take up the clarinet to pretend he was Benny Goodman, or even to hide behind black plastic and shiny keys. Nolan had always liked music well enough. Nadine set the radio dial dutifully on the classical channel in the early evening, and every morning his daddy would put on the jazz station from Atlanta while they cut biscuits. But that bland appreciation had nothing to do with what Nolan felt after the first six months with the clarinet.

  Nolan’s music teacher, Mr. Clausen, worried about him as much as his daddy did. Nadine had found the man after the school-band director told her to “get somebody knows what he’s doing.” Mr. Clausen taught at the community college and directed a little wind ensemble that practiced a lot but rarely played for the public. Cayro was not a place where people would turn out to hear a wind ensemble. He had been almost rude to Nadine when she first called him, but became remarkably polite after a few sessions with her son.

  “It’s a miracle. That boy, the way he plays, no one knows what he can do. I listen to him and I think I’ve gone crazy. I listen to him and I start to believe there is a God.”

  “Mr. Clausen!” Nadine was horrified. “Do not tell me you do not believe in God.” Nadine was willing to ignore a lot for the sake of getting her boy a good teacher, but not blasphemy. She knew musicians were dangerous that way. Freethinkers, hippies, atheists, queers, intellectuals—all were of a type, and not a type she wanted Nolan to know too much about. She loved him and knew how much he loved his music, but she also knew how easily boys could be led astray. She had already lost one son, after all. If Clausen was a danger to Nolan, she would make sure he never got near him again.

  “Yes. Oh, yes, I believe in God. Absolutely.” A vision of losing his prize pupil lent sincerity to Mr. Clausen’s profession of faith. “Who else would have sent me this prodigy right when I was ready to give up? You have no idea how many youngsters are sent to me as punishment. Mostly mine. But your boy could be a virtuoso if he got a little more sleep.” Mr. Clausen hesitated, not wanting to offend Nolan’s mother. “I just think we have to make sure he gets the kind of encouragement he needs.” His words prompted a deeper frown from Nadine. She too worried about her child. She had erred with his older brother, Stephen, and she didn’t want Nolan leaving home in a huff, only calling once or twice a year.

  Nolan was the only one who did not worry. Except for his continual despair over Dede, he was a boy full of patient confidence. He slept when he could, daydreamed when he could not, and came alive to play the clarinet, first in the high school band, then in the orchestra, and eventually in Mr. Clausen’s wind groups. Nolan saw no need for dream time because he lived in a dream. He had only two waking states, the one in which he drew pure and astonishing music out of the clarinet, and the other when he was watching Dede Windsor with his dark puppy eyes. Nolan had no ambition but to play his instrument in such a way that other people could feel the exhilaration it produced in him, and to win Dede’s love.


  Mr. Reitower died of a massive heart attack two weeks before Nolan’s high school graduation, not sweating over his biscuit trays but lying in his own bed in a deep and easy sleep. His death ended any chance Nolan had to go off and study music. A scholarship might pay all of Nolan’s expenses, but it would not take care of his mother. And what people had always said about Nolan was true. He was a good son. With Mr. Reitower gone, Nadine needed a good son.

  From the moment of her husband’s death, Nolan’s mama fell into a stunned and furious silence. Like a sunstruck puppy, she could not seem to understand what had happened to her or what had to be done now. Her good husband, that reliable man, had the smallest insurance policy ever issued. They were not destitute, but damn close, and Nadine could not accept that.

  “How could he?” she snapped, glaring at Nolan and the neighbors who came in to help. She might have meant his dying, or perhaps his buying that pitiful policy that did not cover the cost of the cheapest burial she could arrange. She might have been speaking of Stephen, who called but did not come, and sent a check so small as to be no help at all. Or she might have been accusing God. Nolan thought she was close to it, an outright complaint to a divinity she had never questioned before. But what he really believed was that she was accusing him. It was his fault, his failure.

  Within a few weeks of the funeral, Nadine stormed out the front door, angrily shoving the screen door, which snapped back and whacked her on the forehead. She staggered once and fell down the steps, breaking her left arm and, worse, her left hip.

  “The weak link in old women,” the doctor said. That hip was the evidence that finally proved just how fragile Nadine had become. The doctor also suggested there might have been a mild stroke, but there was no evidence of that except for the rage, towering and unpredictable, that now burned in Nadine. Nolan did not hesitate. He had already taken over full-time at Biscuit World. He knew how, and no one was going to refuse him the job or that high school diploma everyone knew he deserved. He was determined and uncompromising. He would manage. He would support Nadine, take his time deciding what to do, and meanwhile play his clarinet all afternoon out on the porch, where he could look down Terrill Road to the convenience store. Dede was working there now, and if he got up the nerve, he could savor a cold drink that she would have to put in his hand.

  When Nolan started to feel like he was going crazy, there were afternoon classes out at the junior college, and clarinet auditions for visiting band directors, who would stare at him in awe. None could believe that he could play like that and then ignore their advice about his professional future.

  “My God, boy, you could do something.”

  “I’m doing something.” He would smile then, pack up his case, and walk away. That tight smile told Cissy everything. Several times she had gone over to Atlanta with Nolan. Mostly she would hang out south of Peachtree and haunt the record stores looking for bootleg tapes of Mud Dog, but once or twice she sat in the back of some darkened hall and watched Nolan perform what seemed to be his only sin. It had to be sin, the awful satisfaction he took in those auditions, smiling that way throughout, playing like a wicked angel until the rest of the clarinet section turned sour and pale. It was as if he harbored a rage bigger than the one buffeting his mama and it came out in runs of staccato-tongued sixteenth notes alternated with pure, piercing tones. Maybe that was the way music really worked, Cissy thought. Maybe talent was a blade cutting hard through those who had less. Watching Nolan, Cissy saw him as a deeply hurt boy, made rich through an accident of fate and hoarding his wealth. It made her slightly dizzy, the way. he smiled through the despair of everyone else at his auditions.

  Afterward, though, Nolan would be himself again, shy and eager to hear what Cissy thought. He would take her out for a big rich meal and laugh gently at the frustration of the orchestra leader. This Nolan was her friend, and a genuinely kind soul. It was hard then for Cissy to remember how he was in the audition. Only when he talked about the other musicians did the nature of his resentment become apparent.

  “Oh, they always think they’re something until I show them what I can do. Humility, that’s what these boys lack. It’s what I give them.” He smiled wide, and chewed with a satisfaction that scared Cissy, startled her into speaking.

  “You should get out,” she said, her expression stern.

  Nolan took a sip of water and looked at her inquisitively. Cissy truly cared about him, he knew, had from the first time Dede snubbed him. But Cissy was no musician. She did not know what he felt when he sat down with those little groups of overly ambitious horn players. Nor could he tell her. He tried to smile and wave her words away, but she caught his hand and spoke fiercely.

  “I’m telling you right now. You should go to Atlanta or New York City or Boston or anywhere you can. Go somewhere. Do something. Audition for an orchestra for real. Take a position or get a music degree. You got to stop this and get out of here.”

  When Nolan just smiled again and shrugged, the weight of her own resentment almost crushed Cissy. Anytime Nolan decided to leave Cayro, there would be people waiting to welcome him. Anytime he could face what was happening to him and walk away from his mother, he could have a career that would vindicate every bad choice he had ever made. But no one anywhere was waiting for Cissy. Sometimes Nolan’s smile would make her feel more debased than those sweating clarinet players he had just skunked so completely.

  Who was she? Delia Byrd’s daughter. No talent, not special. She was like those bugs caught in amber, stuck in time. She’d never been in love, never dated. No boyfriend, no friends except Nolan and Dede, and Dede didn’t count. What did Cissy have? Nothing. Nothing but the caves.

  Cissy had been out to Paula’s Lost half a dozen times with Nolan before he stopped going, and a couple of times with Charlie, though she gave that up when Charlie got drunk and tried to wrestle her down in the first passage past the entrance. Cissy could not explain how she felt about the caves. Nolan was too busy, Charlie wanted to get her naked, and Dede thought the whole idea was silly. Cissy had managed to talk three members of the swim team into going caving with her that spring. They went out to Little Mouth with a park ranger as a guide, and he was impressed with Cissy. What she told no one, because people would have thought her frankly crazy if they knew, was that she seized every chance that came her way for a ride out to one of the caves and went down on her own. Mostly she hitchhiked out to the Lost and climbed just far enough down into the first passage to sit in the welcome dark, sometimes humming to herself happily, more often falling asleep. There was no sleep like the one she surrendered to while wrapped in an old blanket in the sand bed of the first chamber at Brewster’s old party site. But sleeping wasn’t a career, a future, a purpose, any more than caving was.

  Faced with Nolan’s bland smile, Cissy would find herself picking on him, being mean just to spite him. “Eat something doesn’t come with gravy,” she would say. Or, “Dede’s going to marry that Tucker boy, just you wait.” Nolan’s smile would evaporate, and he would look at Cissy as if he could see down to where she hid her sins.

  Cissy was stilled then, overwhelmed by the power she had to hurt Nolan. It was awful, knowing each other’s weaknesses so precisely. Nolan was unfailingly gentle with her, no matter how frustrated and resentful she became. Maybe he had grown calluses dealing with his mama’s rages, or maybe the dark angel she had seen in the rehearsal hall was not so sinful as she had imagined.

  “At least you’re good at something,” Cissy told Nolan.

  “I’m not that good,” he would tell her carefully, waiting for the cruelty to turn to embarrassment, waiting for his friend to come back. “Not yet. I’m not near as good as I’m going to be.” Then he would laugh, a deprecating little laugh, and shake his head. “When I’m good enough to pull your sister up Terrill Road to my porch, then we’ll see. We’ll see.”

  The music in which Nolan found so much grace was a mystery to Cissy, the clarinet an instrument as imperial and s
trange as the concept of a wind ensemble or a jazz combo. The daughter of Delia Byrd and Randall Pritchard understood guitars and drums and rock and roll. Lyrics. Words and music. Mr. Clausen had found a Buffet at an estate sale and bought it for Nolan with the help of the other members of the wind ensemble, a gesture Nolan had almost, but not quite, refused. What he played on that gleaming ebony and silver creation was of another order, a language Cissy had never learned to speak and did not even know if she heard accurately. When Nolan played for her, Cissy felt like a Baptist child at a Catholic mass—intimidated, awed, and suspicious. It was gorgeous and scary. The melodies, almost recognizable or fully familiar but extraordinary at the same time, sometimes sent shocks through her nervous system. More extraordinary was the fact that this music was coming out of Nolan, with his flushed full cheeks and puffy eyes. Baking-powder memories rose with the cascading trills of notes. Cissy’s mouth would fall open, and she would feel suddenly small and stupid and completely Cayro, Georgia, while Nolan would enlarge and assume the guise of Bacchus or Orpheus, some mystical god of high, far places as remote from Cayro as Paris or New York. If she closed her eyes when Nolan played, Cissy imagined the lithe figures of ballet dancers against a diamond and velvet sky. With each trill they leaped and Cissy’s heart sank within her.

  Maybe Delia knew what that was like—the great, dark power of a melody that could catch your pulse, speed it or slow it, lift you right out of your natural state. She had lived in that outer world. There was magic there, magic that only musicians knew, magic that remade everything and might have remade Cissy. But it was a magic denied to her. Like Dede, she had a pleasant voice, pedestrian, ordinary. Sitting next to Nolan, knowing she had neither her mother’s gift nor his, was torture of a high order. When Cissy got that small, only one thing pulled her out of it: the knowledge that Nolan too had something in life that he wanted desperately and could not have. It should have been the subject they avoided, but it was not. Dede was the one subject Nolan would invariably turn to, the one reference point for both of them.