Playing With Matches

by Carolyn Wall

  “From Izzie Thorne’s.”

  “Tha’s right. Ollie Green used to go and sit in your mama’s parlor, try to save her soul. But she backtalked him awful.”

  Like me, I think.

  “She was a handful, a grown woman puttin’ the Reverend in his place. I remember him saying, ‘Jerusha, the lights were on, and the corks were poppin’, and I couldn’t change a thing.’ ”

  I watch Auntie’s face.

  “Gents would park in her dooryard and pay their dues. But you know how that was.”

  I do. I did. In my mother, men found a beautiful face and an itch to be taken. Her hair was like silk; her breasts and thighs were north of voluptuous.

  “Times were still hard,” Auntie says. “But—oh, my—piano music flowed out of that house. It wasn’t long before she birthed you. On the kitchen table.”

  “So as not to ruin the silk sheets on the bed,” I said.

  “You came into the world the color of a sweet peach, squalling and damp as a three-day rain.”

  I half smile. I love that someone has a sweet memory of me.

  “Shortly, she brought you here in a basket; you know that too.”

  “Yes. So she could get on with swilling gin and jitterbugging till dawn. And you’re sure you never knew my daddy.”

  “I never did.”

  “He could’ve been traveling through, or a guard or a convict released from the prison. A parolee. Anybody.”

  “Yes. I don’t think Clarice even knew, how she could have known.”

  “All right.”

  “So then here you were, this third Clarice—long-legged and willful. We called you Clea. Me and Cunny, we wanted so bad for you to stay clear of that house.”

  But I couldn’t. How I wish I had.

  She says softly, “And then one day, you leveled that place to a bed of ash.”

  It’s the first time I’ve heard anyone say it out loud.

  I can tell that Auntie likes Thomas, which feels like a betrayal. He’s sitting at the table with Harry in his lap, and he’s holding a waffle that Harry is buttering but not eating. Shookie pours coffee for herself and Thomas.

  She and Bitsy are down early too, in case there’s something to see. In the event I throw dinner plates or slam Thomas against the wall. Miss Shookie, after all, needs fuel for the fires of her gossip. Meanwhile, there’s no sign, no aura around her—nothing to signify regret at her outburst last night.

  We are a full kitchen.

  Auntie says, “Luz, think you and Bitsy can make us a spice cake this morning? Recipe’s right here, pans under the sink. Use waxed paper to line them. Shookie can show you how to beat the frosting.”

  Luz is excited. From the doorway, she watches as I get ready to leave. I’m wearing black pants and the short-sleeved white blouse I arrived here in. I’ve cleaned the mud from my sandals, but this afternoon I must buy plain tennis shoes so my toes don’t show when I go to the Farm. With some embarrassment, Wheezer has asked if I’ll wear socks with my sandals. I’ve used the least-scented soap in Auntie’s bathroom. I have my folder of the inmates’ stories, and notebooks and pencils from the trunk of the Honda, which we are taking today, before the storm.

  “Mom,” Luz whispers from her place next to me. “I’ve also been thinking—do you think I could learn about Call?”

  “Marie-Luz.” I stroke her hair. It’s pulled back in four barrettes we found on the floor of the car. I kiss her cheek. “All things are possible.”

  40

  Raoul comes in with a bounce. He and Willie G, big Wesley, little Frank, and Horse take the same seats.

  “You read our stuff?” Raoul asks. I bet, when he was in school, he chewed gum and cut up. He glances over his shoulder at the back wall that’s right there, and grins wide and brilliant and toothy at me. Two of the many sides of Raoul Sanchez.

  “I did, and they were wonderful. I’ve written on each one—what I especially liked, what I suggested. Today we’re going to expand the way we think about ourselves.”

  They’ve settled quickly and are so quiet. Maybe they’re already wearying of this. “Let’s talk about the masks we wear.”

  I wait for some dumb burglary comment, but no one says anything.

  “Every day, each one of us is many people. We love, fear, hate. It’s like changing hats. We put on a different mask to deal with each specific thing.”

  “Or person?” says Willie G.

  I recall Wheezer’s warning. Am I getting too personal? How the hell do you teach a decent writing class without getting up close?

  “That’s right.” I come around and set my butt against the table. “Think about the time before you came here. You were sons, brothers, fathers, lovers. Maybe you had a job, went to school, made plans. You were sick or well, religious, patriotic. For all those things—” I look up and out at the strip of dark sky. “For each of those things, you wore a different mask. You wore one when you heard ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ another when somebody gave you a rash of trouble. Imagine they were real masks you put on and took off. Each one showed who you were in that moment.”

  Raoul snorts. “Willie’s got him a hangover mask. Musta been something he drank.”

  “Shut up,” Willie G. says. “I’ll put a permanent mask on you, flavor of the month. So now we’re in here—”

  “Yes,” I say. “Especially in here. You still wear masks, and you change them constantly.”

  They are silent. I know this is true. I was a master at covering up. I witness the shifts in their horsing around, see it in their writing. Shookie was on the mark—they shine one another on. Today I’m giving them a tool with which to do it.

  “How d’you know anything about us?” Frank says. “How you know we do this?”

  “Because we all wear them. We’re human and complex. We can’t help it. I doubt that anyone ever achieved singleness—great leaders, maybe. Zen masters. Jesus Christ.”

  “They wasn’t human,” Willie G. says, and at the looks on the faces of his prison brothers, he amends, “I mean—they had special powers.”

  “Did they?”

  Willie G. says lightly, “You think we’re human, Miz Ryder? You sure we ain’t monsters?”

  I shake my head slowly. “You’re not monsters.”

  “Shit,” Frank says. “Some days I’m so fuckin’ many people, I can’t count ’em. An’ Horse, here—he was a man of business. He wore one mask when he dealt with customers—”

  “And another when he talked to vendors or his banker,” I say, helping him along. “But Horse was other things too. Today I want you to write a short paragraph for each of four masks you wear—or wore.”

  “When we was outside?”

  “Or inside, yes.” I hand them paper and pencils. “And you’re to name each mask—each persona you take on.”

  “What you mean, name it?” Wesley says.

  “Well … when I hear someone sing ‘America the Beautiful,’ my eyes tear up. My heart beats like crazy. I’m so red, white, and blue, if I were to look in a mirror, I’d see stars where my eyes are, stripes for the rest. An eagle poised above my head. Hokey, maybe, but that’s part of who I am. And I’d call that mask … Summer.”

  “For the Fourth of July,” Raoul says, like he’s figured out the theory of relativity.

  I smile. “Maybe. But I could have called it Hot Dogs or Freedom or Mary Lou. It was mine to choose. You are to identify your masks and name them.”

  “Four of them goddamn things,” Wesley says.

  “Yes.”

  Their fingers cramp, and they begin to write. I think I hear thunder, but it could be cell doors rolling shut. Beyond the little window, lightning flashes.

  I walk among the short aisles, look over their shoulders, put my finger on a page. “Strong word,” I say. “Great start. I like that—keep going.”

  I read a little here and there. Only Horse hunkers down, covering his paper with his arm.

  Willie G. writes that he wants to go hom
e. He misses his sisters, his dead brother, his mom and her cooking. He calls that mask William. He wears another entirely when he thinks of an old love. Still another is the man who rode here on the bus, guilty, watchful, stripped of dignity. He calls that man Done.

  Wesley calls one of his Ax.

  Sweet Jesus.

  “Hey, this jus’ between us?” Wesley asks. “Or does the man read it too?” The guards, warden, the district attorney.

  “Only me,” I say.

  He writes that, just now, a cold sausage patty is in his pocket. He stole it from the kitchen where he does the heavy cleaning. He sleeps afternoons. Every night at ten o’clock, he dresses and goes back to scrub the grills, the vent hoods. He mops the floor. Sometimes there’s an extra pork chop that he cabbages onto. He’s always hungry. Mama’s growing boy. Maybe he chows down later on this contraband, or trades two chops and four stamps for a cup of hooch—if he brings the container. He calls it Good Times.

  And on it goes.

  They write for an hour, and I don’t interrupt. When Horse and Frank put down their pencils, I call time. I can’t afford to let them get restless.

  They spend another hour reading and listening and mumbling about more ways to say things, but they lack yesterday’s enthusiasm, more like they’re watching me, waiting for answers to which no one’s asked a question. I bob my head and smile, but I feel them sliding from me. As if they’re slipping into a dark hole.

  Have I done something wrong? Have they heard about my mother, that she came here and serviced the guards, and would I?

  I move on. “Sometimes I’m asked which of these masks is the real me. The real you.”

  They wait.

  “And I always answer—we’re every one. It takes these four—and four times four more—to make up who we are.”

  They don’t ask me if that’s bad or good.

  “It is what it is. You’re complex people, and that gives you a lot to write about.”

  I drop my notebook and pen on the table. Frank jumps as though I’ve fired a shot. “Okay, gentlemen, what’s going on? What’s on your minds? You’re way too quiet.”

  I walk the floor.

  Raoul shifts in his seat.

  Willie G. stretches out an orange leg, inspects his state-issue boot.

  Wesley says, “This your last day, teacher.”

  Is he threatening me? Or is it something else? It’s my plan to be back unless I’m in a cell myself. If I say that, Wheezer will think it too personal.

  I recall Miss Shookie saying, “They get what they need.” Ain’t no man goin’ without very long. If he be down on his luck and in need of thangs, he find a way … a ice-cream bar on a hot day.

  A prayer is in order: Lord, keep me on my toes.

  Frank with the big teeth says, “We know what’s comin’. We been through it before. Only this time it’s big.”

  “What is it—that’s coming?”

  “Storm,” Raoul says. “Bad one, we got a feelin’. You around, you’ll see what kinda masks we wear then. Hurricane come, it’s the same ol’ ‘Yes, boss, no, boss,’ but we’re all chained together ’cause they can’t take a chance. Can’t have the place fallin’ down and us offenders running wild. We know this much: ’Round here, you sure as hell gotta know how to swim.”

  “The Farm is going to flood,” I say.

  “Lookit you,” big Wesley says. His voice is so much deeper than the others’. “You a baby. You don’t know shit.”

  I give him a long, sad look. “Wesley,” I say, “I know shit.”

  His brows rise fractionally.

  Frank scrunches up his face. “Ol’ Greta’s gonna go bad for me. I ain’t as big as some of these guys. They don’t take care of me, I’m done for.”

  “Keep talking,” I tell them. “In fact, on another piece of paper—” I hand them out quickly. “Write it down, all of it. Tell me what you expect with this hurricane.”

  They seem better about this, up and anxious. They write and write. But the guard has stepped inside the door, and they won’t read.

  I don’t blame them.

  Our time is up.

  41

  Wheezer has chosen to stay awhile at the prison. I walk home.

  Uncle and Auntie are not back yet. Miss Shookie is parked in front of the TV, studying the weather, watching the swirling blues and reds of the satellite hurricane as it plows into the Mississippi coast. Incredibly, she has Thomas spreading mayonnaise on bread, making her a baloney-and-cheese sandwich, pouring her a glass of iced tea. He and Harry have, in fact, laid plates and knives and forks around, expecting God knows how many of us for lunch.

  More thunder rolls, heavy bellies of sound.

  Shookie has given Harry a half-dozen sets of bright-colored beads to play with. He is wrapping them around his rabbit and himself. I say hopefully, “Harry, did you think to tell Miss Shookie thank you?”

  Harry looks at me. He looks at her. He says nothing but holds his brightly Mardi-Gras’d rabbit to his chest.

  Luz is talking enough for both of them, supervising Bitsy as she ices the cake. I have never seen Bitsy do anything like this. Luz has already told her father about the collapse of our house, our night in the hot motel room, another in the car. A shame, because I would have liked to comment that with all their fancy computers and weather watching, no one predicted that such a little storm might have such a great impact on Lilac Lane. But they didn’t know, either, that our house was unfinished, bolts loose, floors still buckled. Maybe I also wanted to wield a few innuendos about the vicious power of Thomas’s love life.

  Not in front of the kids. A line spoken, I assume, between separating parents the world over.

  “I’m running in to the Family Dollar,” I say, and add stiffly, “If they get back with the plywood, Thomas, you’ll help nail it up?”

  Thomas says, Of course.

  It looks the same, just older—floors cracked, the register updated. The merchandise is the same kind of stuff, plus cell phones and earbuds, twelve kinds of shampoo. I throw my plastic bags into the car and drive to the far end of our road, park, and get out. I head back into the woods, once more toward Finn’s place. Today, it’s easier to find in this strange half-light. Somehow, the clearing even looks smaller than it did yesterday. Why isn’t Finn out here with an ax, defending his space?

  “Finn?”

  I knock on the door.

  “Finn!”

  “Go away,” he growls—someone growls—from inside the house. The dog barks.

  “It’s me, Clea. Finn, is that you?”

  “Aw, Christ.”

  “Can I come in?”

  No answer. I try the knob. The door opens. The dog snarls. With the windows covered, it’s very dark inside. I can hear the wind humming through the trees and the high tangled kudzu and under the windowsill.

  When I step into the house, I feel as though I’m bridging a great gap. Two parts of my life are coming together.

  Sister Anne Benefactor would say, It is what it is.

  “Crissake, Clea, get on outa here and leave me alone.”

  “I—wanted to see you. It’s been a long time.”

  I hear Finn breathing in the near dark, but there’s light from the doorway, not much to see by. He heaves a great sigh and turns toward me. “You’ve always been pigheaded. Why couldn’t you leave it alone?”

  My eyes are on Finn, on the pink and puckered far side of his face.

  “Well,” he says. “Shit.”

  I take a step closer, lifting a hand that’s separated from my body. “Oh, Finn.”

  “Clea, don’t you for one second get weepy. I got me this cabin, and a good dog, and I grow radishes and poke salad, and you can just go back the way you came and act like you never—”

  “Shut up,” I say. “Unless you’re going to tell me what happened.”

  “I didn’t ask you here. I don’t like folks snooping around.”

  “But—”

  “My daddy passed on, d
own at the prison.”

  I lick my top lip. “I’m sorry.”

  “Guess I shoulda stayed in the tree.”

  Bad joke. “Tell me the goddamned truth, here and now.”

  There’s a narrow bed, and crates with things stacked in them. A table, one chair. “I burnt down your mama’s house,” he says.

  “You did not.”

  “You asked for the truth; what you want me to say?”

  My throat has closed up. My breath whistles.

  “You didn’t set that fire, Clea. Shit, you were just a kid.”

  “Like you weren’t.”

  “I came in that night—”

  “You came in?”

  He looks at me with his one good eye. The other’s half closed and empty, the skin tight and terrible from his forehead, slanting back to his ear. Scars pull his mouth up and back on the left.

  “I went there a lot,” he says.

  I am stunned. “You went to see her—”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, God, Finn.”

  “I was a normal kid. Then.” His right shoulder shrugs. “She—showed me things.”

  “I—”

  “She smoked all the time. I told her those things were bad for her, but she didn’t listen. She didn’t listen to anybody. I was upstairs, puttin’ my pants on, and when I came down she was sitting in the middle of the floor. You were asleep on the porch, holding the damn thing. Anyway, I picked it up, took the last couple puffs.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. Then I dropped it on the floor in the front room, by the curtain, and I watched it take off, and I went to the porch and pulled you outa there.”

  “Where did you take me?”

  “Down by the river.”

  I am without breath or blood, a cardboard flatness of myself.

  His voice comes through a tunnel. “I tried to go back for her, but the ceiling came down, and the smoke … I couldn’t get through. I could see she was already gone. Then I ran off.”