by James Villas
“Wish I could sleep as soundly as Tyler,” he said, rubbing lotion on his hairless legs.
“He’s been under lots of pressure promoting his new book—which I’ll give you to read when I’m finished. That’s one reason I wanted him to fly down and relax for a few days.” Her expression became more pensive. “Lord, I do worry about him, and…Do you think Tyler looks well?”
Edmund wiped his hands on a towel, then touched her arm. “Now how would I know, since I’ve just met him? But I do find him very attractive and dignified and think maybe you’re being too much of a protective mother.”
“Maybe you’re right, but sometimes it’s so hard for me to realize that my boy’s getting old, and how hard he must work, and…I think he looks tired.”
Edmund squeezed her arm. “I guess we all expect our children to remain young and energetic forever, just the way we ourselves once thought we’d stay young forever. But, you know, Miss Ella, there’s lots to be said about leaving youth behind and enjoying the golden years.”
“Like what?” she objected, snapping her head around.
He smiled, which always deepened the crevices on either side of his nose and made his eyes more puffy. “Like sitting with a mature Southern belle on a warm beach and having a meaningful conversation.”
“Oh, get on with you, Edmund,” she drawled, pretending to blush.
“I’m not just trying to flatter you, my dear, and you must know you’re still a very lively and attractive woman.”
“Why, I know nothing of the sort,” she said, eating up every word he was saying. “But thank you all the same, dear.”
For a while longer, she continued to worry out loud about Tyler, never realizing just how exhausted her son really was and that he would not only doze in his room most of the afternoon but, once he’d dutifully nursed a cognac in the lounge after dinner, knock off nine solid hours of sleep that night.
As a result, by the time he and his mother were ready to make their excursion to Charleston the following morning, Tyler felt the most rested he’d been in weeks and was actually looking forward to the drive. Ella, on the other hand, had never been more nervous and frightened as she tried to imagine how the day would go and whether, after all, she would have the courage to carry out a decision that might finally clear her conscience but could possibly prove devastating to her son and their rare relationship. Tossing and turning during the night, she’d resolved more than once to forget about the plan, let well enough alone, and simply enjoy the nostalgic visit while showing Tyler around the town he’d never really had much chance to know and appreciate. But the more she fought the moral dilemma, the more she knew she had no alternative if she was ever to fulfill this vital obligation to her son and find peace within herself while there was still a little time left. And even more wrenching was the sincere need, the strange compulsion to pay her respects to the memory of a love that, no matter how guileless and far-removed and painful, had never ceased to play a disguised but critical role in her emotional character.
Over Tyler’s protests, Ella got behind the wheel of the car with the excuse that she could probably still make the drive to Charleston almost blindfolded. And, sure enough, as she barreled down U.S. 17 past Murrells Inlet and Litchfield Beach and Pawleys Island toward the old rice port of Georgetown, it was as if time had stood still for the past century. Signs on either side of the road pointed to Wedgefield, Arcadia, Hopsewee, Fairfield, and other famed but deteriorated antebellum plantations hidden along the Waccamaw, Sampit, and Great Pee Dee rivers where slavery once produced half the country’s supply of “Carolina gold” and made possible a lavish society of wealthy rice planters that, virtually overnight, became extinct forever. Crossing the broad Pee Dee at Georgetown, where he’d crabbed and collected oysters in tidal creeks as a youngster when the family made short expeditions down from Myrtle, Tyler immediately recognized the thick, sweet scent of pine sap that filled the air of this diminished burgh that had boasted such glory at one time, and when they entered the Cape Romain Wildlife Refuge, brimming with giant long-leaf pines, moss-draped oaks, inky swamps, and exotic brown pelicans, Ella was so overwhelmed by vivid memories of the isolated region that she barely noticed two elderly black women crouched in front of a lean-to display on the side of the road, coiling, in the old tradition, sweet-grass baskets and place mats with metal spoon handles.
“Let’s stop,” Tyler announced, prompting his mother to slam on brakes, then slowly back the car up.
“Oh, honey, we can buy those by the dozens at the City Market in Charleston,” she said as they approached the stand.
“No mo,” one of the women uttered passively, overhearing the comment and not bothering to look up from her stitching.
“What do you mean?” Ella asked as Tyler reached for a mat hanging on the stand and began inspecting it.
“No mo basket ladies at da market. No ma’am. Dey gone.”
Ella now noticed that the woman had hardly a tooth left in her mouth. “Gone where?”
“Dead.”
“But there’ve always been basket ladies at the Charleston market.”
“No mo, ma’am. An’ we ’bout da only ones lef’ up here.”
“Why, I can’t believe that.”
“These mats are exquisite,” Tyler said to his mother, running his fingers over the tight, smooth surface of the one in his hand.
“How much?” Ella asked the woman.
“Ten fo da small, twelve fo da big.”
“Why, that’s highway robbery,” she hooted. “We used to buy those mats for a dollar apiece.”
“Dat’s da price, ma’am. Da grass, it’s scarce as hen’s teeth dees days.”
“Well, I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“Dat’s da price, ma’am.”
“Oh, Mama, stop quibbling,” Tyler whispered, taking bills from his money clip to pay for two of the mats. “This is not 1950, and you just don’t find this type of craftsmanship today.”
Back in the car, Ella was still ranting. “The nerve! I’ll bet you fifty dollars spot cash the market in Charleston still has plenty of basket ladies selling mats for half that price. You know the problem, of course. They catch a few gullible Yankee tourists driving through here to Florida who don’t know any better, then think they can charge anything they like.”
Tyler laughed as he watched his mother fuming at the wheel, the dark spots on the backs of her hands accentuated by sunlight coming through the window. “That’s absurd, Mama. I hate to guess what handmade mats like these would cost outside the area, even if you could find them.”
“We’re not outside the area. That’s the point.”
Just as they were skirting Bulls Bay, she heard a faint ringing from the satchel at Tyler’s feet.
“Lord, don’t tell me you have one of those confounded portable phones like Little Earl uses.”
“Couldn’t get along without it,” he said, reaching quickly into the bag. “Hi. I thought it might be you. Well, at the moment, Mama’s driving like a maniac through no man’s land on our way down to Charleston. Fine, much better. Here, say hello to Mama. It’s Barry, calling from Chicago.” He tried to give her the cell phone, but she refused to take a hand off the wheel.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Not on the highway.”
“At least say hello,” he insisted, holding the phone in front of her mouth.
“Hi, honey. Your boyfriend here is driving me crazy, and I don’t approve of these new contraptions.”
“No, she hasn’t changed one iota,” he continued with Barry. “How are things in the Windy City? That’s too bad, but you sort of expected it, didn’t you? Yeah, he called shortly before I left, and we had a long talk. I’ll explain to you later. Don’t worry. Same here.”
“Well, that sounded very mysterious,” Ella commented when he clicked the phone off. “Worry about what?”
“I’ll tell you about it later,” he said curtly, opening a map and studying it carefully. “I remember Awen
daw. Didn’t we once go there to eat fried oysters?”
She didn’t respond, her mind suddenly seized by just the mention of the town’s name and the memory of a weekend oyster roast she once attended there at a ramshackle clapboard cottage with Earl and lots of other local and out-of-town young people while Jonathan Green was overseas. It was an early, hot fall evening, she remembered, and there was music on a radio or Victrola, and everybody was drinking and dancing outside on a rickety deck overlooking a pit down in the sand where oysters and corn were being cooked under wet burlap. At one point, Ella had been slow dancing with a smashed, handsome feller from Columbia named Randy when he persuaded her to wander with him down toward the bay to look for sea turtles somebody had mentioned. At first, it seemed like a harmless ramble, but when they eventually reached a small tract of sea oats near the bay, Randy put an arm around her waist and, with no warning, pulled her close to him and proceeded to kiss her passionately. Caught totally off guard, she wasn’t even able to resist till he, not satisfied with the kiss, began to try to fondle a breast.
“Stop it, Randy!” she said playfully, pushing him back.
“Oh, come on, honey, let’s have a little fun,” he coaxed, grabbing her again more forcefully. “Nobody’s watching.”
“I said no, Randy,” she exclaimed loudly. “We don’t act like that down here. What’s come over you?”
“What’s wrong with a little fun, Ella?” he persisted, wrestling with her till they lost their balance and tumbled to the sand.
“Randy, stop it this minute! Stop this right now,” she screamed as he pinned her down and tried to kiss her again and run a hand up under her flimsy cotton blouse. “You’re drunk!”
“Oh, I know you wanna play around as much as I do,” he said, his breath reeking of liquor. “I could tell up there, sugar.”
When Ella next felt his hand creeping up one leg under her skirt, she again bellowed “Stop it!” over and over and began to sob uncontrollably, unable to break his hold or budge under his heavy body.
Then, as abruptly as the drunken assault had started, she felt his weight lifted and heard a dull thud and another voice roar “Bastard!”
It was Earl, and by the time she could focus on the two tussling and jump up, Earl had slammed the other boy again so fiercely in the face with his fist that blood was already streaming from the edge of his mouth. Randy tried to fight back, but he was no match for Earl, who continued to pummel him and yell “Goddamn bastard!” till Ella finally reached for his flailing arms and begged, “That’s enough, Earl! Stop, Earl! You’re gonna kill him!”
“Had enough, buddy? Had enough?” Earl howled as Randy pulled himself up unsteadily, touched his mouth, and looked at the blood on his fingers. “You ever touch this little lady again—you ever get near her—and you won’t have a face left. Got it?”
Trembling, Ella walked slowly on Earl’s arm back to the party and never saw Randy again. Earl didn’t ask why she’d gone with him down near the bay in the first place, and not till some years later did she finally try to explain the awkward episode. Nor did Ella ever ask how Earl had known where the other two had gone and happened to show up when he did.
“Yeah, I think it was some sort of diner in or near Awendaw,” Tyler was saying. “Remember?”
Ella continued to stare blankly at the highway, as if hypnotized.
“Remember?” he repeated, now glancing over at her suspiciously and touching her arm. “Did you hear me, Mama?”
“Oh, sorry, honey,” she finally reacted. “Guess I was daydreaming. What were you saying?”
“Aren’t you getting a little tired of driving? Maybe you should let me take over.”
“Oh, stop babying me, honey. I’m doing just fine. And, besides, we’ll be in Charleston before long, and you wouldn’t know one street from the next.”
Chapter 18
THE YELLOW PINE
The air was now sultry as Ella drove through Mt. Pleasant, and when they crossed the Cooper River on the Grace Memorial Bridge and caught a first glimpse of Charleston’s low skyline pierced by innumerable church spires and steeples, Tyler commented how the historic town resembled an antebellum water-color come to life in pastel shades.
“‘It was many and many a year ago,/ In a kingdom by the sea…’,” Ella began reciting wistfully.
“That’s Poe. ‘Annabel Lee,’” he exclaimed in utter surprise. “How do you know ‘Annabel Lee’? It’s one of my favorite poems.”
“You don’t remember when I used to quote it to you as a young child? I’m not totally illiterate, you know. Every youngster of my generation who grew up in Charleston had to memorize that poem. ‘I was a child and she was a child,/ In this kingdom by the sea….’ You know this was the place he was describing.”
“Who told you that?”
“Oh, honey, every Charlestonian learns that Poe spent time on Sullivan’s Island when he was in the military, and that that’s the kingdom in his poem.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he declared in even more astonishment. “I taught ‘Annabel Lee’ and always just took for granted the kingdom was purely imaginary.”
“Shows how much you know with your fancy PhD. Maybe my recitations rubbed off on you, after all. ‘But we loved with a love that was more than a love….’” She hesitated again, her expression changing as her eyes caught another quick glimpse of the harbor speckled with small shrimp boats, and she seemed to be trapped once more in some obscure memory. “Yes, it’s a very beautiful poem, and this really is a kingdom by the sea.”
“Mama, I do believe you’re a hopeless romantic.”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“You and Daddy must have had some wild times here back in the old days.”
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call them wild, but, yes, we did have some wonderful times—us and all our friends. You can’t imagine. Nothing like the slovenly, revolting things young people do today to entertain themselves. You see, we had refinement and manners in those days, and we cared about tradition, and family, and the way we dressed, and a bad war that had to be won. Not easy times, mind you, and we never knew who the next boy would be who wouldn’t ever come home again from overseas. But we still managed somehow to have decent fun. We threw big barbecues and oyster roasts out on the islands, and we all participated in social benefits for the war effort, and we hunted ducks, and we danced—Lord, did we dance. It seemed like we never stopped dancing—at beach pavilions, and clubs, and hotel ballrooms, and grand homes—anyplace there was a band or piano or radio or record player. Nothing like this crazy, disgusting disco stuff they call dancing today. No, no. We did swing, and the shag, and the tango, and lots of romantic cheek-to-cheek slow dancing, and maybe the reason we drank and danced so much was to forget about what was happening in the world…. But yes, sir, those were wonderful times, and I think about them a lot today.”
During her dreamy discourse, Tyler just sat and stared at his mother in awe, and when she had finished, all he could say was, “I wish I could have been part of that generation, Mama.”
“Well, to a small extent, you were,” she said ambiguously, “and I think some of our values rubbed off on you.”
Leaving the bridge, Ella saw the turnoff for East Bay Street, but since this main artery had been transformed into a busy thruway skirting almost the entire east side of the peninsula, she cut off on Charlotte Street, admitted she was a little confused, and, pulling over in exasperation, told Tyler he’d better drive while she checked the small map in her pocketbook. Then, once they’d reached Meeting Street and she recognized the Charleston Museum and, across the street, the splendid Federal-style Joseph Manigault Mansion with its ornamental gatehouse, she began to feel at home in the city.
“I thought you remembered your way around so well,” he kidded, cruising slowly down the street past more historic houses and a few modern hotels and shops and noticing the distinct aroma of jasmine in the air.
“Just hush and drive where I t
ell you,” she snapped. “Some of these commercial places that have popped up on this street are a disgrace. But it’s all coming back to me. Stay on Market till we get to Tradd.”
The farther down the lower peninsula they drove, the more Ella seemed to remember every street and landmark and opulent mansion, some of the houses with Colonial clapboard sidings and pitched roofs, others in the Georgian style with flattened white columns and box chimneys, and a few boasting elaborate wooden Italianate balustrades, graceful verandas, and highly ornamental wrought-iron gates and fences. Tucked into narrow alleys off cobblestone lanes were exquisite gardens with old magnolias, wisteria trellises, flowering azaleas and camellias, and camphor bushes, and when Tyler turned onto Tradd and Ella spotted the large Federal-style home with iron balconies where she was born and raised, she let out an audible gasp.
“Lord have mercy, just look at how those rich Northerners restored and fixed the place up,” she said almost sadly after directing Tyler to stop in the middle of the quiet, tree-lined street. “I told your Uncle Vance and Aunt Sally we should never have sold that house after Missy died, but they had their mind set on living in Atlanta, and, to be frank, my dear brother never really appreciated this town’s unique history and charm—and Sally, coming from Sumpter, of all places, certainly never did. Anyway, I think they just saw a fast buck in selling the place, and, at the time, your daddy and I were in no financial position to put up much of an argument.”
She sat staring pensively at the house a few moments longer, then asked, “You don’t remember visiting Granny here, do you?”