Ralph Berrier
Page 29
Clovie blew her stack. “I’m his wife!” she bellowed, as clearly as she could communicate. Saford apparently had set up housekeeping with the same woman he’d been running around with in Mount Airy. That little party finally ended with the landfall of Hurricane Clovie.
Saford, Clovie, and Larry lived in a rented house on Unity Street—an ironic address for this household. The family was hardly the picture of domestic tranquillity. All Saford had done was relocate his troubles from Virginia to North Carolina. The single bright spot in his life had not changed—music.
Shortly after he arrived in Thomasville, Saford formed a bluegrass band. He invited musicians to jam sessions every week on Unity Street. One night, a neighbor attended—a fortyish fellow with swept-back hair and sideburns—and lamented that he had never learned to play music like that. Saford told the fellow if he would get himself a cheap guitar, Saford could teach him to play it in thirty days.
So the guy did as Saford instructed and sure enough, a month later, Benjamin “Buster” Brown could strum through simple bluegrass patterns. Buster’s wife, Madge, was so shocked by her husband’s sudden musical prowess that she asked Saford if he could teach her how to play the big bass fiddle. Within a few months, Saford had even taught the Browns’ sons to play guitar and banjo. Pretty soon, they had a family band.
They called themselves Buster Brown and the Thomasville Playboys, even though Saford was the most accomplished musician of the bunch and the guy who did all the talking. They played local dances and fiddlers conventions all over North Carolina. Saford’s fiddling was better than ever. He had nearly fifty years of fiddle playing under his belt and knew as many tunes as there were birds in the trees. He played the fast numbers clean and briskly and could gear it down into beautiful slow tunes such as “Roxanna Waltz” and “Faded Love.” He was a consummate showman.
Soon he had a protégé.
John Hofmann was a tall, strapping teenager with blond hair and an inquisitive, chatty personality. Saford met the boy during a Christmas square dance, when the young man walked up to him after a set and told Saford that he was the best fiddle player he had ever heard. Nothing endeared a person to Saford more quickly than flattery.
John asked about Saford’s fiddle, an old Stainer model with a fearsome lion’s head carved out of the headstock. The instrument looked older than it was, and was spotted with cigarette burns from the Salems Saford smoked as he played. John told Saford he was learning fiddle and asked Saford for his phone number so that he might call on him for a lesson. Saford told John that he didn’t have a phone—that his wife was deaf and couldn’t hear one ring—so he invited the teenager to his house for a lesson.
The next day, on a Sunday afternoon, John took his cheap fiddle to Saford’s new house on Cox Avenue, which he rented from Buster Brown’s father-in-law. Saford welcomed John inside, pulled up two chairs in the front room, and set a smoking stand with an ash tray between them. He asked John if he smoked, and the boy admitted that he did.
“Most good musicians do,” Saford said, as he offered John a smoke and an ice-cold bottle of Dr Pepper.
He asked John to show him what he knew. John fiddled rough-hewn versions of “Boil Them Cabbage Down” and “Old Joe Clark,” two fiddle standards if ever there were any. Saford complimented John on his playing—take it from me, Saford Hall encouraged and instilled confidence into every young fiddle player he ever met, whether he could play a lick or not—and he showed John how to play “Walking in My Sleep.” John was amazed. This man could play a tune using all four strings!
“That’s in G chord,” Saford said.
The hour got late as John sat enraptured, listening to Saford play and tell stories. This man had made records. This man had played on the radio. This man made out like he had been famous at one time. See that Dr Pepper bottle you’re drinking, Saford told him, that was my sponsor. That was all before the war, you see, which ruined everything.
John Hofmann returned, again and again. Saford showed him how to play “Sally Goodin” and “Dusty Miller.” He taught him “Fisher’s Hornpipe” and “Soldier’s Joy.” John drank in fiddle tunes like they were Dr Pepper, and he inhaled Saford’s stories like cigarette smoke. This old dude was the real deal.
• • •
The only music Clayton played was in church. He sang in a gospel trio with two other church members, Brenda Ayers and Rebecca Hiatt, as part of the Crooked Oak Singers, an outfit that made a joyful noise at churches, revivals, homecomings, and all grade of worship service for several years in the 1970s. Papa Clayton’s signature song was an old gospel standard called “Thank You, Lord, for Your Blessings on Me,” which neatly summed up his autumn years.
I’ve a roof up above me, I’ve a good place to sleep
There’s food on my table, and shoes on my feet
You gave me your love, Lord, and a fine family
Thank you, Lord, for your blessings on me
One year, the church gave him a guitar as a present, but he never played it very much. It wasn’t nearly as good as the 1940s Martins the Blue Ridge Entertainers favored. Besides, his duty now wasn’t to play hillbilly music, it was to serve the Lord.
Clayton never became an ordained Moravian minister. Achieving that rank would have required attending a seminary. Crooked Oak Moravian Church, which struggled with membership throughout the 1970s and ’80s, survived only because the main church’s Southern Province deemed it a “mission,” almost an outpost in the wilds of southern Virginia. That meant a poor, self-educated country preacher could lead the congregation. Clayton was eventually appointed an acolyte, a lay pastor who could administer the sacraments—which, in our church, meant serving tiny glasses of grape juice for communion.
The passage of years has diminished many specific memories of Crooked Oak, but a few survive. I can still see my baby brother Billy, a toddler of two, crawling up into the pulpit while Papa Clayton preached, spouting a baby-talk sermon of his own. I remember the way Papa Clayton signaled the end of a sermon: “As Mozelle comes to the piano,” which was Mozelle Allen’s cue to approach the piano bench and play the introduction to the benedictory hymn, “Just as I Am.” I can still hear the benediction Papa Clayton prayed at the doorway at the end of every service: “May the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ be with and abide with you both now and evermore. Amen. Thank you for coming. God bless you.” I can still smell the church’s musty odor in summer, long before we installed air conditioning, and I can still hear the groans and creaks of the old wooden pews, which had been donated by another church. I remember the smell of beeswax candles from the Christmas candlelight service. But I don’t remember much about Papa Clayton’s sermons, except for this: He packed them with war references.
Sometimes they came in the form of a joke, like the Sunday morning he mentioned at the beginning of a sermon that the power had been out at his house, forcing him to “dry shave … like I used to do in the army!”
For his next birthday, the congregation gave him a rechargeable razor, so he wouldn’t have to “dry shave” again.
Other times, the war references cropped up from nowhere, like sniper’s bullets fired from the trees. Why did Papa Clayton preach about how he ordered men to lay down crossfire on enemy soldiers? Was he advising Joshua how best to attack Jericho? Did the Hebrews lay down a crossfire against the attacking Roman army?
He praised the “angels of mercy,” the army nurses who took care of him after he was wounded and sick with malaria. Angels would seem like appropriate sermon fodder, but I don’t remember what the context was.
I realize now that more was going on with Papa Clayton than just the spirit working his tongue. Yes, he practiced the mountain-style, free-association approach to sermons, where you never wrote out anything, you just started spouting off, but all those tales of crossfires and battles and army nurses seeped into his sermons not because he enjoyed talking about the war, but the opposite. He couldn’t talk about it. The pulpit was an outle
t for what was eating away at him. He had no one to confide in, not even his twin.
• • •
I discovered the metal lockbox while searching for an old letter Clayton had written from the army. Grandma kept it inside an old rolltop desk, stuffed with papers and letters saved over decades. I never found the letter I was looking for, but I uncovered something even more meaningful: numerous pieces of correspondence from various government agencies and political power brokers, which included the Veterans Administration, the Disabled American Veterans, accountants, and even U.S. congressmen, most written in the 1970s and early ’80s, some older. They were answers to Papa Clayton’s pleas for help, and they were not the answers he wanted.
The earliest letter was dated March 9, 1949, the day the VA informed him he would draw a monthly award of $13.80 for, according to the letter, “Malaria, neck wound and nervousness.”
He suffered recurrences of malaria for more than ten years after he returned from the war. The first time Elinor saw him sick with fever scared her to death. They were still living in Roanoke, still in her mother’s house, when Clayton passed out in a feverish pile. He didn’t respond when she tried to wake him. He was unconscious for hours, and when he finally awoke, he instructed her that if she ever saw him like that she should pour water onto his tongue.
My mother remembered seeing him sick when she was a child. She remembered that he burned like a woodstove, and that she could feel the heat from his body across the small living room. He suffered his last malaria attack just shy of his fortieth birthday.
But the “nervousness” was chronic. He had difficulty sleeping. Pressures at work mounted. His $13,000-a-year job as quality control supervisor at the furniture factory made him responsible for every piece of furniture that left the premises. But as he sent back cracked tabletops and wobbly table legs for repair, Papa Clayton had no one to watch over him as he slowly fell apart.
He recognized that he was not a well man. He tried to call out for help, but his pride prevented him from announcing to the world that he was sick. As he approached his sixtieth birthday, he desperately wanted to retire from the furniture factory. He could not focus on his work. He suffered from anxiety and knew his mental condition was deteriorating, even as he tried to hide his impending meltdown from the rest of his family, friends, and coworkers. He wrote to the VA to see if he could get an increase in that tiny monthly payment he received for his old wounds, which would allow him to retire early. The VA responded:
March 28, 1977
Dear Mr. Hall:
After carefully reviewing the report of your 1-18-77 examination and all other evidence of record, it has been determined that your service connected nervous condition should be evaluated at 10% disabling rather than 0% disabling. However, this increased evaluation does not affect your previously assigned 10% combined evaluation. Your reward will remain unchanged.
He wrote to veterans’ advocacy groups, including the American Legion and the Military Order of the Purple Heart, who asked him to fill out more forms and send them to other offices. He wrote to his congressman, who contacted the commonwealth’s War Veterans Claims Division, who instructed Clayton that he file a “Notice of Disagreement” with the VA’s decision, which would result in him receiving a “statement of the case,” whereupon he would have sixty days to file his appeal. Should he have any more questions, he could contact them.
He had lots of questions, but he wasn’t getting any answers. All he wanted was for the government to understand that he needed just a tiny bit of help, just a few dollars more per month so he could quit work and escape the pressures that were burning away his insides. He even underwent a psychiatric evaluation. He dutifully filled out the paperwork, made his appeal, and waited. Five months later, his congressman replied:
April 26, 1978
Dear Mr. Hall:
Enclosed is the copy of a decision we have received from the Board of Veterans Appeals on your claim.
This appears to be self-explanatory and we regret that it is not more encouraging.
Attached was a four-page summary of the board’s findings. In January 1977, Clayton had undergone a psychiatric examination at the VA in Salem, Virginia. The appeals board summarized the particulars under the heading “Evidence”:
A psychiatric report noted that the appellant had complained of his nerves and an inability to sleep. He reported that he had to ‘go to the bathroom’ frequently. He was worried some about his problem in starting a stream. He was reported to be alert, in good contact, well oriented and agreeable and friendly. He was calm and appeared comfortable. He indicated some elements of depression; his memory was adequate. He represented a rather ‘give up attitude,’ developing multiple somatic complaints, and losing interest in his work. He was apprehensive and concerned that he would have to give up his job. A psychosis was not indicated. He denied [being a] danger to himself or others. A diagnosis of anxiety neurosis was made.
Now, put yourself in the appeals board’s shoes. A fifty-eight-year-old man experiencing difficulty “starting a stream” was probably not grounds for 100 percent disability, otherwise every fifty-something man in America would be drawing disability. Unhappiness with work was probably not a red flag to the board, either. Call it a “Civilian Catch-22”: any fellow who wants to quit his job can’t be crazy. The psychiatrist’s original notes remarked that Clayton appeared “calm,” “friendly,” and “agreeable.” In other words, he was too proud to show how he really felt, too stoic to tell them his insides were tied together with spaghetti noodles. He shot himself in the combat boot with his calm demeanor and brave front. But that’s all it was, a front.
The appeals board decided “Anxiety neurosis is productive of no more than moderate social and industrial impairment.” It concluded “The scheduled criteria for a rating in excess of ten per cent (10%) for anxiety neurosis have not been met.… Entitlement to an increased rating for anxiety neurosis is not established. The benefit sought on appeal is denied.”
It was an appropriate decision, given the evidence. But did the board really have all the evidence? Did the psychiatrist ever ask him what it was like to fight on Okinawa? Did the members of the appeals board ask what it felt like to crouch in a foxhole and watch a platoon of screaming Japanese soldiers charging you? Did anyone ask if watching his captain die from a bullet to the forehead shook him up a little? Clayton gave the right answers to all the wrong questions. He looked fine on the outside, which was all that mattered.
Besides, this was in the mid-1970s. The VA must have been processing thousands of claims and appeals from damaged World War II vets. What’s one more? What’s one man out of a million?
If Clayton was angered or frustrated by this decision, he kept it to himself. He continued to work, and in the summer of 1980 he was honored for twenty-five years of service at National Furniture. He still smoked Winston cigarettes, drank coffee by the potful, and ate good ol’ fatty country cooking. He preached every Sunday at Crooked Oak Moravian Church and he sang gospel music with his friends. He seemed to be holding up well.
But what no one knew was that when he went to bed on the night of December 20, 1980, my strong, proud Papa Clayton was a broken man.
• • •
My mom, Grandma, and I went Christmas shopping in Winston-Salem the Saturday before Christmas, leaving Papa Clayton at home. He had just received his Christmas bonus from the furniture factory and was planning to do a little shopping of his own on Sunday, just before the candlelight service at Crooked Oak.
But Papa Clayton did not make it to church the next day. Early on the morning of Sunday, December 21, 1980, Grandma called Mom to tell her Papa Clayton was horribly sick. His malaria had recurred.
The recurrence seemed odd to Mom. He hadn’t suffered a relapse in more than twenty years. But he woke up sick in the middle of the night and talking gobbledygook, babbling like a feverish madman. He vomited up thick, milky bile, which had not happened before.
Mom and Da
d took my brothers and me to Papa and Grandma’s that afternoon. My parents recognized immediately that this was more than just malaria. Papa’s left arm and leg had gone numb. “They’re gone,” he kept saying. Dad called the rescue squad, which carried Papa Clayton to the hospital in Mount Airy—where he was examined and sent home.
The next day, Grandma took Papa to their family doctor, Eric Jarrell, who looked at Papa for two minutes and immediately sent him to the VA hospital in Salem. Papa Clayton stayed at the VA for the next thirty-three days and underwent surgery to remove an arterial blockage.
He had suffered a stroke.
• • •
I was fourteen when Papa Clayton had his stroke. I barely remember him when he was still strong and active, playing golf, pitching horseshoes, working every day. My memories of him were forged when I was in high school, when he was old and weak and moved slowly around with a cane.
He never worked again. He surrendered his position at Crooked Oak, although he attended semi-regularly when he was able. The paralysis in his left arm and leg was mild, more like constant numbness, but it was debilitating. Grandma stayed home to care for him. He drew $532 a month from Social Security and about $50 a month in veteran’s benefits. They were damn near broke.
About a year after Clayton’s stroke, Crooked Oak sponsored an auction to help pay his medical bills. The organizers held it on the grounds of Mount Bethel Elementary School on a clear spring day in 1982, following one of his many lengthy hospital stays at the VA. Even though the temperature was mild, Papa Clayton sat in a lounge chair, wearing a big, heavy coat. He looked extremely tired, old, and beaten.
But he continued to fight. He petitioned the VA for more benefits but was denied almost every time. The VA insisted that Papa Clayton’s health problems were not service connected. His congressman intervened, but the VA held firm:
Feb. 13, 1981
Mr. Hall is service connected for a nervous condition, malaria, and residuals of a gunshot wound to the neck. He has submitted evidence claiming an increase in his service-connected disabilities, but the evidence did not show that he was treated for any of his service-connected conditions. Therefore, no change in the evaluations is in order.