The Schooling of Claybird Catts

by Janis Owens

  Once Sim had stationed the old men under the stairs that Gabe would soon be coming down, he backed to the French doors and squeezed in between me and Curtis, glancing aside in the hush and whispering “How’s that nose?” in a small, amused voice.

  I knew then that all was well between us, that he’d forgiven me for outing him and his woman, and can’t tell you how happy I was, though I played it cool, just wiggled the bridge, said: “Not broken.”

  “Well, it shouldn’t be,” he whispered. “Hell, I think you hit yourself—”

  He was cut off by Missy, who sent a particularly potent hiss in our direction, then jerked her head up the stairs, where sure enough, movement could be detected, a small, quarrelsome voice that a year ago I might have mistaken for Daddy, though by now, I knew it was Gabe, being talked downstairs by Mama.

  At first, I thought he knew we were there and just didn’t want to come down, but as they slowly made their way around the corner to the landing, it was obvious that he didn’t have a clue we were there, all his attention on Mama, fussing at her for taking the stairs too quickly. It was a strange sensation, seeing them together for the first time in many months. With their cropped hair and their bickering, they looked more like brother and sister than husband and wife, Gabe still in convalescence, dressed like a grumpy old millionaire in a sleek new paisley robe-and-pajama set that was too big for him and dragged the floor.

  It made his progress down the stairs slow and profane, with a whisper of the f-word every now and again, till Missy punched the power button on the stereo, filling the room with a sharp, loud snippet of music. Even then, he didn’t seem to notice that his living room was crowded with maybe three dozen well-wishers, all standing around in the dim splendor of the candlelight, punch glasses in hand, making ready for a toast. He just turned to Mama, told her in a clear, irritated voice: “You run tell Missy I ain’t sitting down here listening to her nigger music, I don’t care what kind of cake she bought me.”

  It was so perfect that at first I thought it was intentional—that Gabe had somehow detected our presence and was making one of his hilarious, audacious cracks. But at the answering roar of laughter, he started, then looked up with a face of enormous surprise and horror, the surprise that his living room was full of people, the horror at the old men, who wagged crooked fingers at him, called, “Now, whut was thet I heard?”—overjoyed at catching him in a moment of weakness, using the Dreaded Word.

  For a second there, I thought they’d gone too far; that he was about to flip them off and go back to bed. But his sense of the absurd quickly returned, making him call down something that I couldn’t make out over the laughter (“Kiss my ass,” I think). The old men replied in kind, with another roar of laughter and more catcalls, and Gabe had gripped Mama’s arm and was about to continue his descent, when he caught a glimpse of me at the door, the grin wiped from his face in an instant, replaced by the same fixed stare he’d given me the first time he saw me, standing at my father’s coffin.

  I didn’t react, didn’t wave or smile, just returned his gaze evenly, a small part of me wondering what had happened to my rage, my disappointment, my storming resentment. I mean, one day it was there, pulsating and alive, the next, it wasn’t exactly gone, but it was negotiable. It wasn’t something I was scared of anymore, but like reading and writing, something I knew to be a troublesome, but necessary part of life. Uncle Gabe and dyslexia, two strange, incomprehensible gifts that I first denied, then despaired of, then finally, finally, accepted, and so became a man.

  He was so fixed on me that Mama had to give him a nudge to get him moving again, down the stairs to the living room, where he was engulfed with many hugs and handshakes, the old men ribbing him over his fancy new robe, Aunt Candace wading through them to give him a kiss, Missy’s voice ringing out, joyous and needling, calling that she got him! She got him!

  I watched from a distance, not feeling up to any face-to-face conversation, just drifting along the edges of the crowd and eventually settling in the kitchen, where I spent most of the evening eating plate after plate of everything in the house: fried shrimp and candied pecans and chicken pot pie (homemade and wonderful) that I found in the refrigerator wrapped in aluminum foil. Even when Sondra and Rachel Cole unexpectedly dropped by to wish Gabe happy birthday, I stayed where I was, watching Rachel circulate with a detached appreciation, noting that she had grown taller and leaner over the last year, had lost a lot of her puppy fat, not that it did me much good.

  For she didn’t so much as acknowledge me other than a wary glance in my direction when they first walked in, as if I were a slobbering puppy that might run her panty hose if I got too close. So I left her alone, just stood there in the door of the kitchen, noted that Sister Sondra was looking pretty smart and stylish herself in a ruffled black party dress (knee-length, and boy did she have some legs) and high heels and enough makeup to sink the Titanic. She was obviously there to check up on Sim, and soon had him cornered by the French doors, genuinely glad to see him, talking to him with a lot of laughter and animation, though Sim seemed kind of nervous and shifty, clearly a Man with a Secret.

  The sad thing was that he and Sondra really were close, maybe not lover close, but best-friend close (they’d dated for almost four years; she sat on the family pew at Daddy’s funeral). You could tell that it was killing him to have to play her for such a fool; whenever me or Grannie came within ten feet of him, he’d cast us these horrified little glances, afraid we’d blow his cover, though he had no reason to worry about me. I was tight as a clam, I’d learned my lesson.

  Grannie, on the other hand, was probably the reason Sondra was there, now that I think of it. Hanging out in the kitchen this morning cleaning shrimp, agonizing over Simon’s inalienable right to choose, she’d probably started reflecting on how she had a few choices of her own to make, had picked up the phone and called Mrs. Cole and invited the girls to the party. (“Oh, surely, Sim’ll be there, he’ll looove to see Sondra. No, he ain’t leaving for Tallahassee till August. Meanwhile, it’s work, work, work—you know old Sim. Sweet as he can be, bought me a couch, brand- new—”)

  As soon as she laid eyes on Sondra, she made a point of hugging her warmly and putting her old Grannie-mojo on her, telling her how pretty she was, and sweet, and how nice her hair looked, and had she lost some weight? Sondra was soon eating out of her hand, no longer so intent on Sim, but just standing there, punch glass in hand, smiling at Grannie with a misty-eyed affection that reminded me of the way the girls in our class used to gaze at Gabe.

  Even Rachel softened up before the night was over, made her way to the kitchen and spoke to me over her shoulder while she poured herself a glass of punch.

  “Missy says you’re doing summer school,” she said.

  There was no particular contempt or accusation in the question, for one of Rachel’s more endearing traits is that she isn’t the sharpest pencil in the pack herself, no stranger to blue envelopes and bad news on the school front. So I couldn’t take offense, told her: “Yeah. That’s what I hear.”

  “What’d you fail?” she asked, turning and standing beside me against the counter.

  “Algebra,” I told her. “And Latin.”

  She nodded easily, as if failing such things was a universal scourge, something every teenager on earth had to endure, recommended I switch to German for my foreign-language requirement. “Mr. Drysdale’s a piece of cake,” she confided, “and Mr. Neeley is such a bore, or so I hear. I’d never have taken Latin myself—too stinking hard—at least for me. Maybe not to you brains in Gifted.”

  Well, you can see why I’ve loved her so long, and probably always will, till I’m a middle-aged old turd like Gabriel, still following her around town like a lovesick puppy. I was tempted to tell her so, right there in Mama’s kitchen over a plate of fried shrimp, but was finally old enough to know that some things are probably better left unsaid.

  I just told her I’d consider it, was standing there working on my (may
be) fourth plate of shrimp when she added from out of the blue: “I hear you got a girlfriend up in Waycross.”

  This was news to me, and I looked at her curiously. “Who told you that?”

  She dipped her head to the living room. “Missy,” she said, and I almost smiled, thinking the old redhead was getting as wily as her grannie when it came to dropping hints and innuendo, creating family myth. But I didn’t feel up to playing the game and told her I didn’t have a girlfriend anywhere, had just gone out a couple of times with a friend of Sim’s.

  Rachel seemed intrigued by my honesty. “What’s her name?” she asked, the first sign of actual interest I’d ever had from any girl, much less a goddess like Rachel.

  “Keri.”

  When I didn’t offer any more details, she picked up one of the shrimp from my plate and nibbled it in this electrifyingly intimate gesture, offered casually: “I hear Sim’s got a girl up there, too.”

  So that’s what our cozy little chat was about: a fact-gathering mission for Sondra. I could just see them in the car before they got out, Sondra putting on a fresh coat of lipstick, telling Rachel over her shoulder: “I’ll work on Sim, and if he doesn’t crack, you corner Clay.”

  If that was indeed the plan, she was disappointed, for I just shrugged. “You’ll have to ask Sim about thet.”

  She looked stupefied at my lack of cooperation, stared at me in this stunned amazement, as if she were thinking: Who is this Man of Steel? What happened to the roly-poly little boy in the husky jeans who used to follow me around Lincoln Park, used to write my misspelled name on all his notebooks: Rahel, Rakel, Raccel? Who once offered me five dollars to sit next to him at lunch. (Kenneth’s idea, I might add. We were eight at the time, and desperate.)

  But when all was said and done, she didn’t seem any more attracted to the New Clay than she was to the Old One, and left me alone to continue my solitary assault on the shrimp till it was time for everyone to gather in the living room for the birthday song and the presents and the cutting of the ice-cream cake. I was too full to be tempted by the big old Baskin-Robbins creation, just stood there on the fringes while Gabe opened his presents, most of them gag gifts (boxes of prunes and Depends undergarments), though Missy’s was the real thing, a biography on Martin Luther King that had cost a pretty penny.

  Gabe seemed genuinely grateful and thanked us formally, in turn, though old Brother Kin couldn’t resist a little snort of contempt that Gabe couldn’t resist challenging, making a point of holding the cover up to him, calling: “Hey, Jack? You want this when I’m done?”

  Brother Kin just looked away and muttered shtt, making everyone laugh but Gabe, who was by gosh not very amused by that kind of thing, just eyed him levelly, like the eye of the Lord on a malevolent child. But for once in his life, he let it pass, and aside from that little unpleasantness, the night drifted on without conflict, Simon more relaxed after Sondra left, still kind of tired looking and melancholy, but that was the price you paid for the Silence; a lesson that in this family, you’d think he would have learned by now.

  Since most of the partiers were over seventy, Missy had planned to wind it up early, but even after the candles were snuffed and the cake reduced to crumbs, the old men hung on tenaciously, ignoring Missy’s hints and taking their conversation out on the pool deck, where they cornered Gabe in some sort of political argument, their voices rising and falling outside, showing no signs of slacking off. Missy finally gave it up at eleven and took Grannie home, and I brought in my bag of clothes and tapes and recorder, and last but not least, my Busch Gardens picture that I replaced with a kiss in its old place of honor on my bedside table.

  Once it was in place, I went back downstairs to tell everyone good night, found the house mostly empty, Mama wandering in her bare feet, making sure all the candles were snuffed out, about to turn in herself. She paused long enough to ask if I wanted anything special for breakfast, and with no hesitation at all, I ordered everything I could think of: biscuits and gravy and Jimmy Dean sausage and scrambled eggs and grits and not the instant kind, either, but the old-timey ones that took twenty minutes and required a close eye to make sure the pot didn’t scorch.

  Mama didn’t seem to find my order too extravagant, just kissed me on the cheek and told me she was glad to have me home, then headed up to bed, leaving me to wander around on my own, the house still tousled from the party, not as shiningly perfect as it was when I arrived, but quiet and genteel-shabby, as comfortable as an old shoe. It was late by then, and I was heading upstairs to bed when I passed by the French doors and saw that Gabe was still out on the deck, cornered by his entourage of old boys, looking a lot like Daddy, the older he got. It wasn’t just his new thinness or his gray hair, either, but something in the way he sat there slumped in his lawn chair, listening to the old geezers and their loud, strident tones, no longer so controlling and know-it-all, but the same way Daddy used to go through life: patient and accepting and mildly amused.

  So maybe I wasn’t the only one who was growing up around here, and on a whim I opened the door and stuck my head out and told them good night. The old men all turned and answered with a lot of gusto, not showing any sign of giving it up anytime soon, a small look of commiseration passing between me and Gabe when I met his eye, told him: “Good night, Uncle Gabe.”

  He didn’t look at all offended or hurt at the title, but maybe as relieved as me, just lifting a hand in silent reply as the old men quickly rejoined their argument, their muted voices following me up the stairs to the second story that was quiet as a tomb. I looked around awhile, opened a few drawers and nosed around the closet, found everything pretty much as I’d left it.

  When I finished my nosing around, I climbed up on the top bunk, thinking I’d go right to sleep, but I couldn’t, of course. I was too wired, too full of shrimp and caffeine, wisps of the past few weeks returning to me in odd little flashes: Sim’s howl of rage when he saw the blood on Grannie’s couch; Missy’s shouts at the fence when I hit that first pop (“Drop the bat!”); Gabe rattling the wall of the laundry room with his old liberal glory (“No, Mama, you don’t do anything! It’s up to Sim! He chooses! He CHOOSES! HE CHOOSES!”)

  Lying there in my snug little bed, I couldn’t help but wonder what old Uncle Gabe would think of his boundless generosity after he met Kendra at the springs at the reunion next month, and she refused to swim because the place was full of niggers. I could just hear her saying it in that snotty, south Georgia twang, openly, without shame, and also see Gabe’s face: the outrage! The horror! A neo-Nazi! A Klansman! Stealing our precious son!

  The more I thought of it, the funnier it got, making me sit up straighter and laugh and laugh, till I happened to catch a glimpse of myself in the dark old windowpane across the bed, an image so startling that it made me go silent and sit there a moment, spellbound.

  Mama must have heard my laughter, for she came to the door and hesitantly knocked, then opened it a crack, her face curious. “Claybird?” she asked. “Are you all right?”

  I just nodded, told her I was fine, and after a moment, she quietly closed the door, leaving me alone in the half-light, still staring at my reflection in the dark old windowpane, hoping to see it again: that brief, startling image of my father. But the magic of the moment had passed just that quickly, making me lose my humor, and along with it, that impudent, gap-toothed Michael-smile. I even tried smiling again, but it was no good. I was just a big fool sitting up in bed grinning at himself in the moonlight.

  Daddy was gone, no more to be seen, though the memory of that brief, poignant flash was strong in the room, so strong that for the very first time, it occurred to me that maybe my father wasn’t a ghost after all. Maybe the best part of him—his optimism, his humor, his sheer good nature—continued to reside in the old house he had so painstakingly redeemed by dint of hard work and constant faith. Not in his own flesh, but in his children’s, in their persistence and their courage, their continuing forgiveness in the face of All Betraya
ls, Great and Small, which struck me as funny—ironic, Gabe would say. For I’d spent the better part of a year searching high and low for him. I’d heard stories, I’d told stories, I’d tried baseball and spite, ironing and oral history, but when all was said and done, my father had never left me at all; had never been any further gone than the closest mirror, if I’d have only thought to look.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There are a few people I’d like to personally thank for helping bring this book to fruition: my husband and daughters foremost, for putting up with a writer in the house and providing a never-ending source of material. I’d also like to thank Connie May Fowler, the patron of Florida lit., for her early and continual support of my work and (if that weren’t enough) for introducing me to our wonderful agent, Joy Harris. Also, thanks to David and June Cussen, who started this ball rolling in the first place and remain Clayton’s literary godparents, and Marjorie Braman, who caught the Catts vision on her first reading and made my great leap to New York a smooth transition. Last but not least, I’d like to thank my daughter Isabel and her fellow students at Einstein-Montessori—dyslexics all—who have a little trouble with phonemic sequencing, but otherwise look out at the world with a clear and unwavering eye. You guys are my heroes and I’d have never gotten inside old Claybird’s head without you.

  About the Author

  JANIS OWENS was born in Marianna, Florida, in 1960, the last child and only daughter of an Assembly of God preacher who later became a salesman for the Independent Life Insurance Company. As a child, she lived in Louisiana and Mississippi, but her heart and her literary roots can be traced to west Florida, to the old mill neighborhood where her mother was raised, which the old-timers call Magnolia Hill. A graduate of the University of Florida, Ms. Owens lives in rural north Florida with her husband and three daughters.