The Schooling of Claybird Catts

by Janis Owens

  “Then how could he do it?” I asked, and Mama just sighed.

  “He stumbled into it, Clay, like most people do. Just stumbled into stupidity. Ask him sometime. He’ll tell you.”

  But I still didn’t care to hear Gabe’s side of the matter, was more focused on Mama, asking her with a small intensity: “Which did you love?” Because that’s the thing that bothered me the most: the possibility that she’d loved Gabe all those years, and pined away for him, just put up with Daddy because he was rich and available, and they had children, and it was the Right Thing to Do.

  But Mama didn’t seem to understand the seriousness of the question. “Which did I love?” she repeated with a thread of her only daughter’s razor tongue. “Well, what d’you want me to do here, Clay? Flip a coin?”

  Now, I am becoming less and less a fan of the rampant sarcasm that has infested our family, and just looked at her levelly, so long that she backed down, told me in a tired little voice: “Clay, listen: I loved them both. I loved them all: Miss Cissie and Mr. Simon and Candace and Michael and Gabe. You want a division? Everything on that side of the fence, I feared. Everything on this side, I loved. Does that answer your question?”

  I had opened my mouth to tell her maybe, for in her usual Mama-way, she’d answered everything and answered nothing—but before I could speak, Grannie came out on the porch and started calling us to supper. She must not have been able to see us in the darkness under the tree, for she just stood there at the rail in her apron and hollered: “My-ra! Clay-ton! Supper’s ready!” as if we were fieldhands, and she, the plantation-house cook.

  Such was the authority in her trebly old voice that I started to my feet in an instant, though I had one more question for Mama before we went in, the heart of the matter, you might say, the reason I’d been living with my aunt, polishing tile, for nine months.

  “People say, he ain’t my father,” I told her in a small, hesitant voice, though Mama didn’t look as pained as she did curious.

  “Who? Michael?”

  When I nodded, she made a face of great weariness. “Well, Claybird,” she said as she came to her feet, “as you grow older, you’ll come to find that, generally speaking, people don’t know shit.”

  I have never been a fan of profanity in women in general and my mother in particular, and couldn’t help a little squelch of annoyance that made her look even more tired as she straightened up and met my eye, told me plainly: “Michael is your father. He’s the one who fed you, changed your diapers, put a roof over your head. He loved you more than he loved me, Clay, and that’s saying a lot.” She let this remarkable statement sink in a moment, then added, “Gabriel—he loves you, too—he’d have given you his eyes, he still would. But I picked Michael, I had to, I loved him so much. There was never a choice for me as long as he was alive. You understand?”

  It was the thing I’d been waiting to hear for nine months, confirmation of what I really knew in my heart: that no matter who I looked like, or whatever the arrangement of my genetic code or DNA ladder, Daddy was my father, the best thing, that wouldn’t be taken from me.

  I can’t tell you what a relief it was, overwhelming, almost exhausting, making me take a deep breath, the same kind I’d taken when I’d finally gotten my first run the other night down at the old ballfield. I was about to say something else (thank you, I think), but Grannie had started in on her hollering again, her voice echoing over the Hill, “My-ra? Clay? The biscuits are gitting cold!”

  We started toward the porch then, Mama taking my arm after a few steps, and when Grannie caught sight of us in the yard below, her face lost its impatience just like that, replaced by the same smug, satisfied expression she’d had when I’d burst into tears that afternoon.

  Crossing her arms majestically on her chest, she lifted her chin at me, said: “Look at thet youngun, Myra, six-foot-one if he’s an inch. He’s grown up on us this year. He’s all grown up.”

  And you know, I think she might be right. I mean, I haven’t arrived at any great destinations yet, haven’t come to the end of any wondrous journeys, but I’ve finally quit riding passively along, pulled by my mother’s steam. I’ve finally gotten out on my own little legs and started to walk.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  SATURDAY NIGHT, LATE

  It’s late, after midnight, and I’ve had such a strange and fast week that I really should close it down right now, wait till Sunday night so I can tape in the privacy of Grannie’s back porch. But now that I’m back in my own little bunk bed out here in the woods, with the swoosh of the old pines and the ghostly creaking of the stairs, I have this sudden urge to tie it all up, get it down fresh while it’s still on my mind.

  It’s funny how quickly it’s all turned around, because as of Tuesday morning, I thought my life had come to an end when Kenneth left for his grandmother’s a month earlier than usual, with an abruptness that left me kind of numb. I was just sitting there at Aunt Candace’s, munching a Pop-Tart and watching a rerun of the X-Men, mulling over my conversation with Mama and enjoying a rare morning of leisure, when he called out of the blue, not from his trailer in Sinclair, but the Atlanta airport, of all places.

  Apparently, Uncle Lou had snagged a couple of discount tickets to New York that were only good for the month of May, and at precisely eleven o’clock the night before, Miss Susan had decided to go ahead and use them. Before Kenneth could so much as take a shower or tell me good-bye, he had to go streaking over to Jacksonville in the middle of the night, had flown out at six that morning, was at that moment standing at a pay phone, waiting for a connector flight to New York.

  He didn’t seem particularly apologetic for abandoning me so abruptly, his voice high and fast and excited, raised over the noise of the airport to provide me with a brief, glowing travelogue of his summer plans: “We’re flying into JFK at twelve-oh-five, staying at Grandma’s till Kemp and Keith come up in July. Then Uncle Lou’s picking us all up, taking us to Atlantic City for a week, says I’m tall enough now that he can sneak me in a casino—oh, and he’s taking us to see the Mets, too, already has the tickets. I can’t remember who they’re playing, but it’s gonna be good—”

  On and on he went, painting the picture of the perfect New York summer, which didn’t do me much good, stranded here in hot, humid old Florida. When his flight was announced, he shouted good-bye and hung up, left me sitting there with the dead phone in my hand, overcome by this sagging weight of dread, wondering what in the world I’d do all summer by myself, stranded in town with Aunt Candace. I mean, you could only scrub the dirtiest bathroom an hour a day at the most. What would I do with the other twenty-three? Watch cartoons? Read War and Peace?

  It was a question that was partially answered a couple of hours later when Mrs. Munden (the dean at the high school) called, looking for Aunt Candace. When I told her she was at work, she regretfully informed me that they’d sent home notices the day before that I’d have to attend summer school to make up for failing both Latin and algebra, and my first thought was: Poor Mama. Since my official address is still out in the woods, she’d be walking down to the mailbox any day now, may receive the little blue notice of failure the same day she finds out that despite a lifetime of vigilance, in Sim’s case, True Love Didn’t Wait.

  I thought about picking up the phone and giving her a little advance warning, but Gabe had come home from the hospital the day before and might answer on the upstairs extension. I’d have to hang up on him, and knowing Gabe, he’d realize it was me and might flip out or something, burst open his stitches. So I just moped around the house all day waiting for Aunt Candace to come home, wondering what she’d do if I didn’t pass summer school and out and out failed ninth grade? Shoot me? Send me to Christian school? Go ahead and begin prepayments on a cell at Raiford and spare the taxpayers of Florida the time and expense? When the phone rang at six, I leapt on it, wanting to get it over with, spill it out, but it wasn’t Aunt Candace. It was Mama.

  “Hey, baby,” sh
e said in her slow, easygoing old Louisiana drawl. “Whatchu doing?”

  Well, I figured I was busted then; that she’d gotten the notice in the mail that afternoon and was about to lay into me, tell me what a disappointment I was, how I was driving her to an early grave. I rubbed my eyes and prepared for the worst, though she approached the subject with her usual mincing sidestep, not mentioning the notice at all, just asking how baseball was going; if I’d made any hits the night before (she’d missed my game to stay home and nurse Gabe).

  I made the most disinterested replies, was bracing myself for a bad moment when she finally got around to the business at hand. “Well, baby,” she said, “me and Missy were talking while ago, and we were thinking that maybe it was time you came home.”

  I was still so flipped out about failing ninth grade that I didn’t really grasp what she was offering, didn’t know if she was inviting me home to chastise me, or tutor me or what, and tried to hedge a little.

  “I cain’t this week,” I told her. “I’m baby-sitting Ryan. How about Saturday?”

  “Saturday’s your uncle’s party,” she answered smoothly, as if this were common knowledge, though I had no idea what she was talking about.

  “What party?”

  “Well, he’s turning forty, you know, and Missy, she wants to throw him a surprise party—nothing too big, just family, and a few people from church. She ordered him an ice-cream cake in Tallahassee and we’ve got to go pick it up, but you could ride out with Curtis if you want—Lori’s coming over early to help decorate. He can help you with your stuff.”

  It was beginning to dawn on me that Mama was not only inviting me to a birthday party, but actually asking me to move back home in her backwards kind of way, embroidering her offer with a lot of unnecessary detail to make it less threatening. I was kind of caught off guard, and for a moment didn’t answer, then heard myself murmur in a small voice: “I don’t have a present.”

  “That’s all right,” she said easily, lobbing the ball back in my court. “Missy ordered him a book. I’m sure she’ll let you contribute.”

  Again, I paused, trying to dredge the depth of my subconscious to see if I was ready for this, when she added in this desperate, kind of pathetic tag: “Cissie’s frying shrimp” (which everyone knew was my favorite food in the world).

  Still, I didn’t answer, just stood there, not meaning to be obstinate, but mainly just waiting for her to say something about that damn notice of failure that she’d probably brought in from the mailbox that afternoon. I gave her a good five, then ten seconds, finally asked: “Well, d’you think Gabe’ll mind? Me being there?”

  Mama just laughed a dry little Mama-laugh, as if I’d said something very clever. “Oh, baby, I don’t think so. I think he’ll be thrilled.”

  There was something so sincere, so genuine, in the way she said it that I suddenly realized that the door was truly open, and have to admit that I immediately put two and two together, as in: Gabe + Clayton = Clayton possibly moving up to the tenth grade next year with the rest of his classmates, even the snotty ones in Gifted who thought he was mentally retarded. But I was too proud to admit that to Mama, told her I needed to discuss it with Aunt Candace before I made any definite plans.

  She agreed, and just like that, my boring old summer of scrubbing showers and eating frozen pizza was replaced with a whole different scenario: living at home in the woods, waking leisurely at nine, and eating biscuits every morning, pork chops every night. That thought alone was enough to make me call Aunt Candace at work the moment I hung up, interrupt her in the middle of a staff meeting to tell her that Mama had called, had asked me to move back home.

  And though Aunt Candace worked hard to sound very cool and nonchalant about the whole thing, I could detect a note of gigantic relief in her voice. I don’t think it was vindictive, just that she much preferred being my loving old aunt when I was a hairless little boy. With the onset of puberty, I think I was becoming a little too Sims for her taste, though she’d never say anything like that to my face, of course. She just brought it down to practical matters like she always did, told me to go through my stuff and see what I’d outgrown, decide what to take and what to leave behind, and that’s exactly what I did: spent the rest of the week baby-sitting Ryan in the afternoon and sorting through my stuff at night.

  By Saturday, my worldly possessions were reduced to a brown grocery bag full of the few clothes I hadn’t outgrown and a tape recorder and shoe box full of miniature tapes that I spent the afternoon putting in order, meticulously numbering and labeling them with my crabbed little handwriting (Night Daddy Died, 9th Birthday, and even: Gabe).

  Lori came by at five and picked up Aunt Candace, and since Uncle Ed was away on a reserve weekend, I was left by myself, waiting for the clock to tick down to seven. At six-thirty, I went out and sat on the stoop to wait for Curtis, who showed up late as usual, then had to stop for gas on the way out of town like he always did (because he was too poor to put in more than a few bucks at a time). By the time we made it out to the house, it was almost dark, the sky milk gray from an early-evening rain, the woods so dim that the motion detectors went off in front of us, bringing the sagging old oak and palmetto into sudden, luminous light.

  Though I tried to keep up a brave front, I couldn’t help but feel a little jitter of nervousness as Curtis hurled down the drive at his usual breakneck speed, jerking to an unexpected halt when we came upon a figure standing there in the twilight, holding up a hand for us to stop. It was Sim, I saw that instantly, though in the dim light of the trees, he really could have passed for Daddy’s ghost, standing there in pressed khakis and a Nike golf shirt, for all the world like a PGA pro from Augusta National, magically transported to the heat and palmetto bugs of a West Florida oak hammock.

  With his usual efficiency, he was taking on two jobs at once, parking us away from Mama’s roses while he paused to chat with half a dozen of the old men from Gabe’s Sunday-school class who adored Sim for the same reason they’d adored Daddy (because he was rich and polite and got a kick out of their grumpy old-men ways, never called them on anything the way Gabe did, but pretty much let them go their merry way). They had encircled him in a happy little crowd, were teasing him about his golf shirt and his Rolex, when Missy came out on the porch with the harassed look of the hostess and began silently waving us in, pointing at her watch to indicate that the moment of surprise was soon upon us. It took a little herding to get the old men moving in the direction of the house, me and Curtis and Sim bringing up the rear, though Sim didn’t so much as acknowledge me, just walked alongside Curtis, talking fishing.

  I took this as a deliberate snub and dropped a few steps so I could walk along by myself, the front yard still damp from the rain, lush and colorful as ever, smelling of wet leaves and mulch. I noticed that Mama’s roses were in bloom, vibrant little dots of red and white and pink against the gray-green shadow of the woods, though I paid them little mind, my eyes on the dimly lit house that loomed before me, surprised by its sheer size. I thought that childhood homes were supposed to shrink as you got older, but our haunted old mansion seemed larger than I remembered, the windows and chimneys tall and intricate and strangely opulent in the half-light.

  Even the porch steps seemed high and steep, the front door enormous, ten feet tall, at least, Missy halting the old men there and making them pass inside one at a time like kindergartners going to lunch, with many whispered reminders that Gabe was right upstairs, to BE QUIET. Sim held the door for them, making light of Missy’s bossiness by whispering everyone along with many accompanying cackles of laughter, and apparently, he simply hadn’t recognized me in the darkness under the trees. For when I made my way into the circle of the porch light, he blinked at me in genuine surprise.

  “Claybird?” he murmured. “I didn’t even—gaw, you’re getting big!”

  This last was in a voice of great exasperation, for it’s always been a sore point with Sim, how that after years of towering over
me and Missy, he’s now in danger of becoming the runt of the litter. I mean, he’s tall enough, an inch or so under six feet, taller by far than Daddy or Gabe or any of the other Catts men, but just a couple of inches more than Mama or Missy, which really eats at him (God knows why; it’s not like they hand out a million when you reach six feet).

  I was amazed he’d spoken to me at all, and paused there in the door and tried like heck to think of some way to apologize for bringing on the Wrath of the Grandmother, but it was hard to do, with the old men shuffling down the hallway, talking among themselves, Missy still hissing for all of us to be quiet.

  I finally just gave him a little nod of greeting and followed the old men inside, which was kind of a strange experience after a year’s absence, like stepping into another world, the house beautiful but dim, unearthly in its ghostly perfection. Gabe’s old description (Storyville Gothic Splendor) seemed particularly apt, for there was truly a turn-of-the-century New Orleans air about the place, the wood floors shining, the high-ceilinged old rooms lit indirectly with recessed lamps and brocaded lampshades and a two dozen candles that filled the air with the mild, wafting scent of beeswax.

  The living room was already filled with family and church people who lifted their hands in silent greeting when they saw me, daresome to utter so much as a hey, with Missy stationed at the stereo, strict as a schoolmarm, waiting for a sign from on high to start the music. I just followed Curtis to the French doors and stood there at the edge of the room, taking in the flickering candles, the carved mantels, the marble pool, and the phoenix palms that Mama had wrapped in dozens of strands of tiny fairy lights.

  The effect was strangely Florida and strangely magical, and I smiled when I remembered how worried I had been when Gabe came home, convinced that Mama was too boring to snag the Mystery Genius. Now, waiting there by the door, just able to peek around the corner to the dining room, where the white-linened table was piled high with all manner of silver platters and sugared cakes and a huge centerpiece of oak-leaf hydrangeas, I wondered how stupid could you get, thought: No wonder Gabe came back. It was a wonder he ever left at all.