by Janis Owens
“Obsession,” he murmured. “How appropriate.”
He didn’t elaborate, just carefully returned it to the vanity top, then wandered over to the bed and sat down with a little poof on the feather mattress and gave it a little jiggle. “What is this?” he asked. “A feather mattress?”
“Feather on top,” I told him, inching closer to the bed. “A regular mattress underneath, for Daddy’s back. It cost a lot, like a thousand dollars,” I added, though Uncle Gabe didn’t look too disgusted with my unashamed bragging. He just gave another of his little Daddy-grunts of interest, then fell back on the bed, not saying anything else, just lying there rubbing his eyes, quiet so long I finally asked: “Are you all right?” making him blink back to life.
“Oh. Sorry,” he answered, sitting up a little and sending me a wan smile. “I’m fine. Kind of bowled over here. It’s been so long, I’d forgotten—”
But he let the sentence hang, didn’t say what he’d forgotten, just tucked his hands under his head and began in a brisker, more conversational voice: “This house is incredible. Who did the yard?”
“Mama,” I answered shyly, taking a seat on the foot of the bed. “She did it all. She works on it all the time. It’s like her kingdom.”
He glanced up at the word with a look I would come to know well over the next few months, his old teacher’s look of approbation, of hearing an answer he liked. “That’s a very astute observation, Clayton,” he told me. “That’s exactly what this place is: Myra’s kingdom. Huh. Thirty-seven years and she’s finally got to be queen of something.”
He shook his head at that, then announced in another conversation leap: “Well, it’s stunning, I must say. Kind of hard to take in, that it’s my new home. I mean, it’s not like I’ve earned it or anything—though I haven’t lived a totally morally bankrupt life, you know. I mean, I’ve given to United Way, four dollars a paycheck, rain or shine. And I’ve gone to church, every Easter and Ash Wednesdays, too, and Christmas, even if it was just Mass. And given money and never a voice of criticism have I raised, even in Indiana, where the priest was queer as a three-dollar bill.”
I was a little shocked at the casual way he said queer, wondered if we were on the brink of a little confession here, though he just rolled right along in that same level voice: “But I never raised a stink, never—you know—refused to shake a hand. Had many friends, never a racist joke have I spoken, quit saying nigger the moment I stepped off the Hill. And never took a job just for the money and never ducked a bar tab or dodged a bet—which is, you know, saying a lot these days.”
Indeed, he was looking more pleased by the moment, no longer so intimidated by Mama’s feathers and drapes, his face amused and a tiny bit mocking, not at them or me, but at his own conceit as he concluded in that same self-congratulatory voice: “All and all, I’ve been a good boy. The Lord has been pleased. I mean, obviously pleased. I mean, face it, Clay: I’ve been His favorite all along—who knew?”
I just nodded politely, not really getting Gabe back then, but still captivated enough to pretend I did, having no inkling that this was just the first of a hundred such conversations—or not conversations, really. More like one-sided streams of consciousness, with him doing the pondering, me acting as the concrete wall he bounced his thoughts off.
“So, what would you call this style your mother has so skillfully adapted to her little kingdom?” he asked in another of his abrupt conversational leaps, lifting a hand to indicate the draped tulle and tassels, the drooping peacock feathers, the low hum of the old ceiling fan. I just shrugged, for I had no earthly idea what he was talking about, though he didn’t seem to mind my silence, just rolled along with that same easy pitch: “What? Florida Gothic? Plantation Gothic? Or, no—I know: Storyville Gothic.”
He intoned the phrase with deep satisfaction, repeated, “That’s it exactly: Storyville Gothic Splendor. That’s what the feather bed and tulle and the bisque is all about.”
The potency of this bizarre revelation seemed to just stun him, for he didn’t say anything else for a long time, just lay there in silence till Mama called us down to a Christmas Eve supper that was relatively simple, just the bisque and little cheese biscuits she makes by adding cheddar cheese and cayenne pepper to Grannie’s old buttermilk-and-Crisco recipe. The beauty of them is that they are so small that you can eat two dozen without anyone counting or raising an eyebrow (at least not at Mama’s table). Sim got there before I could work my way up to an even dozen, and ate his fair share, and once supper was done, we all went to the living room to pick out our early present, a family tradition around the Catts house: on Christmas Eve you can only unwrap one present, leave the rest for the morning.
This was always a tricky business, as you would sometimes pick one that would turn out to be a disappointment, like shoes or underwear, and then you’d have to whine and cry and beg to open more and more till the tree was almost empty. Daddy was usually the holdout who made us save a few for Christmas morning, though Gabe didn’t seem to mind, just sat there on the couch eating divinity, urging us on, telling Mama, “Oh, Myra, who cares, let’s get the stuff from the car. We all may die in our sleep tonight. Eat, drink, and be merry, I always say.”
Mama didn’t need any more prodding than that, as she is the world’s worst about keeping presents, and before long, the living room was strewn with makeup and a new CD player and a mountain of clothes for Missy, and Legos and a skateboard and a real .22 for me, plus a lot of boring grown-up stuff for Sim, like clothes and cologne and new mats for his truck. The only real toy he got was a shared present for all of us, a Nintendo set and the original Mario Brothers game that we played till midnight, me and Missy and Sim and Gabe, while Mama retired to the kitchen to work on her share of the food for the family feast at Grannie’s the next day.
Back then, Nintendo was just the coolest thing around, positively addicting, and me and Sim and Missy laughed our butts off when Gabe had the controls because he kept making Mario fall through the same little crack, time after time, to bursts of just awful profanity that finally brought Mama from the kitchen to stand in the door and ask: “Gabriel? Did I hear you say what I think I heard you say?”
It was so funny because that doofus Gabe just didn’t get it. I mean, he didn’t apologize or anything, just jumped up and pointed at the TV, said, “Myra, this game is f—ed. I was pushing the button and he didn’t jump. He jumps for Missy—”
Which doesn’t sound as hilarious as it was at the time; we were just so relieved to find that Gabe wasn’t some sly impostor who’d sneaked in and married Mama for her money, but a real Catts, who hated to lose. And anyway, it wasn’t like we’d never heard profanity before, though Daddy just used the old hick standards, and there at first, Gabe didn’t use anything but the f-word, and that casually and continually. He’d positively shout it when Mario would leap into the abyss, at least till Mama marched him off to the kitchen and gave him his little spanking, when he returned, chastised and sad, and apologized for using that word.
But aside from that, the only other hint of the great Catts Wars to come was a little later upstairs after Missy and Sim went to bed, when I’d gone in to try and talk my way into Mama’s bed (being twelve at the time, and not such a bright twelve at that). They still had the light on and didn’t shoo me out immediately, but let me lie there on the edge of the bed and talk about Christmas and how Gabe was going to finally get to see Ryan the next day at Grannie’s.
At some point, lying there talking, I remember Gabe complimenting Mama on the house and its remarkable style, though he couldn’t seem to recall the name he’d come up with earlier in the evening that I fortunately remembered.
“Storyville Gothic,” I told him, though as soon as I said it, I wished I hadn’t. For he immediately tensed, glancing aside at Mama, who just lay there between us, staring thoughtfully at the ceiling.
“Storyville Gothic,” she murmured. “What is Storyville? I’ve heard that name somewhere, I can’t remember
where—”
“Not Storyville,” he corrected in a quick, casual little jump. “Storytime. Storytime Gothic—you know—like Hansel and Gretel or Flannery O’Connor. Depraved, but—innocent.”
I didn’t say a word, though I knew he was lying and he knew it, too, casting me this guilty little glance over Mama, who didn’t catch it, just yawned, “Why Gothic? I’ve never understood the term Southern Gothic.”
Well, that’s all the opening Gabe ever needed to launch into an involved treatise about God-knows-what—repression and moral decay and William Faulkner, and God knows what else, for I was getting mighty sleepy before it was over, full of all those biscuits, finally just fell dead asleep.
When I came to, I was lying in my own bed, awakened by Gabe, who had apparently just laid me down, and was tiptoeing toward the door.
“Gabe?” I whispered, making him turn in the half-light, dressed in some shiny, familiar pajamas that I recognized with a little jolt were Daddy’s hospital pajamas.
“Those are Daddy’s,” I said without thinking, though he just glanced down at them, gave one of his Daddy-grunts.
“So I figured. The only ones your mother could find and God forbid that I should walk around unclothed in my own house—or my brother’s house—” he corrected, though he didn’t pursue it. He just came a little closer to the bed, close enough I could make out his face in the half-light. “Listen, Clay,” he said, “I want to apologize for that little lie I slid past your mother in there.”
“That’s all right.” I yawned, as we in the Catts household intimately understood the truth of the saying What Mama don’t know won’t hurt her.
My eyes had adjusted to the light by then, and I could see him clearly now, standing a few feet away, his hair upended as usual, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of the robe. “Well, I just wanted to—you know—assure you, that I’m not a pathological liar or anything. I won’t make a habit of it. ’Kay?”
“Sure,” I said, kind of amazed at all this explaining, though it did give me the opportunity to apologize for Mama in a sly way; to let him know I was on his side.
“I hope, this, marriage and all, works out,” I told him, and he seemed amazed in his own turn by my sincerity, standing there in the half-light like he was very moved by it.
“Well, that’s very kind of you, Clay,” he said in this level, honest voice. “You have your mother’s kindness, you know that? You remind me of her, when she was a little girl.”
It was funny how he said it, talking about Mama being little in a way that no one ever did, the same way he’d talked about Daddy the week before. It woke me up a little, made me seem kind of close to him, close enough to ask: “What was she like?”
“Your mother?” he asked, and at the quick nod of my head, he stood there a moment with his hands in his pockets, rocking lightly on his feet as if thinking of the right answer. “Well, she was quiet, and kind, and loyal to a fault—and very, very beautiful, just stunning. All of us little snots on the Hill were stone in love with her, to a man.”
“Was Daddy?” I grinned, and the question seemed to break his reverie, bring him back to the present with a little jolt.
“No,” he murmured, “no, Michael—he was older. Six years older than me. He was already working at the mill by then. He was already gone.”
The invisible door he’d opened between us seemed to close at that, but I wasn’t quite ready to let him go, sat up even straighter and asked the only other question that came to mind: “Well, what’s Storyville?”
“What?” he said quickly in a manner which I would later recognize as a sly little maneuver on his part: asking you to repeat yourself to provide him with a few more seconds of thinking and excusing time.
“Storyville,” I repeated carefully. “Storyville Gothic Splendor.”
“Good God,” he murmured, then shot me this pained little look in the half-light. “You really wanta know?”
Well, I certainly did now and nodded quickly, making him sigh again, hugely, then explain: “Well, Storyville was the name of a famous—infamous—red-light district, in New Orleans, at the turn of the century.”
“A what?”
“A—how-would-you-say-it? A district frequented by, ah—prostitutes.”
“Oh,” I said, as it was suddenly perfectly clear.
Gabe lifted a finger to his lips. “Tell no one,” he said. “Especially your mother.”
This seemed like a perfectly reasonable request and I nodded again, a little too eagerly, I guess, as he paused a moment to clarify his instructions. “Well, I wouldn’t be so quick about—you know—keeping things from your mother. I mean, you hardly know me. I might be this raging pedophile for all you know.”
I didn’t know what a pedophile was, so I just nodded again, though he seemed satisfied and started to the door, when I interrupted one more time. “Well, what’s Gothic?” I asked, then added quickly, so not to hurt his feelings, “I just fell asleep when you were explaining to Mama. Just tell it shorter this time. I don’t pick up things real quick like Simon and Missy. I’m kind of—slow.”
He looked at me with even more interest then. “You mean the dyslexia?” he asked.
That’s exactly what I meant, though I was shocked he even knew I had it. I mean, it wasn’t something we went shouting from the rooftops, that I was dumb as a post, even if that dumbness had a fancy neurological name: Primary Moderate Dyslexia. But there was nothing accusing about him when he asked, no hint of condescension, so I nodded quickly, my assent making him stand there a moment, no longer afraid of Mama, but all teacher now, rocking back and forth on his toes, trying to think of a good answer.
“Gothic, Gothic,” he murmured, then finally inhaled this great breath, said: “Well, Clay, the clearest illustration that comes just immediately to mind is standing right here before you: a thirty-eight-year-old man creeping around his late brother’s sagging old mansion in a pair of satin pajamas, trying to convince his Baptist widow that the tulle and tassels she’s draped around her feather bed looks like something out of ‘Hansel and Gretel,’ because if she finds out he compared it to a whorehouse, she won’t let him sleep with her tonight. That, son,” he concluded with a sly little smile, “is Storyville Gothic Splendor.”
I nodded as if I’d understood every word, and he lifted his finger to his lips again, repeated: “Tell no one.” Then, in a final aside: “And listen, Clay, don’t worry about the dyslexia. I’m ordering your records Monday from the school board, see what I can do about getting you punted from that piece-of-shit Varying Exceptionalities portable to the Gifted class where you belong. ’Kay?”
I just stared at that, wondered how the heck he even knew about the special-ed portable at Lincoln Park, and furthermore, how in God’s name did he ever in a million years think a doofus like me would ever be placed with Kenneth and the other Masters of the Universe in the Gifted program inside?
He must have seen the doubt on my face, for he met my eye, told me in this solemn, righteous little voice: “Clay, just because you’re a right-brain thinker doesn’t mean you’re slow, or stupid. It just means you’re different, and there’s nothing wrong with being different,” he assured me with a level eye that I took to be an unspoken acknowledgment of his own strange differences. “Different is a welcome change of pace. Different is good.”
He turned to leave on that strange, dramatic note, though one last point must have occurred to him, for he paused at the door, his finger raised like a wise old prophet. “Albert Einstein,” he informed me gravely, “was dyslexic.”
Now, I didn’t know Albert Einstein from Adam’s house cat back then, but such was the ringing authority in his voice that I nodded again, said something like “Cool,” then let him go without argument, just lay there in the darkness of a cold Christmas morning without an inkling in the world that a very important threshold had just been crossed in my life. That I had just heard the opening volley of what Missy would later call The Gabe Revolution.
CHAPTER NINE
Missy used the term to describe the wild and nutty way he swept into Lincoln Park, upending the history department and pretty much transforming the whole school, a revolution that never would have come about if me and Kenneth hadn’t have been lazing around the school office that day Mr. Nair got in his wreck; if we hadn’t jumped at the chance to get Gabe a job and save his marriage.
Because the fact of the matter is, there at first, Gabe’s position as resident stepfather was on mighty shaky ground, no one taking any bets he’d last through the holidays, much less till spring. He and Mama just got into too many fights, most of them connected to the godless Yankee ways he’d picked up in New York that Mama was just frantically afraid he’d contaminate her children with, like a bad case of smallpox, leaving us morally pockmarked, scarred for life.
The early signs of trouble were on Christmas Eve, with the f-word, and the Storyville thing, though the real battle lines were drawn that first Sunday when Gabe wouldn’t go to church with the rest of us, but stayed home to work on his magnum opus, he called it, the book on the Civil War he’d left upstairs in the old apartment a dozen years before. I never even knew it was up there, seldom visited the creaking old rooms above the garage that we’d never used for anything but storage, a final resting place for spare plywood and pool supplies and broken lamps, the only sign of life a teeming colony of banana spiders who’d draped the walls and windows in ghostly webs.
By their handiwork, it looked more like a suite in the Haunted Mansion at Disney World than a servants’ quarters (which is what it was in Old Man Thurmon’s day), though Gabe seemed fascinated by the place from the very beginning. On his first Saturday home, he offered me and Kenneth the princely sum of twenty dollars apiece to help him clean it out, hauling load after load of junk to the garage below, till we finally unearthed the nasty old furniture that was buried beneath the rubble: a rickety old desk and chair, and in the corner under the window, a narrow, lumpy little bed.