The woman stood. Nannie reached for her hand, shook it gently, and steered the visitor by the elbow to the front door. As soon as the woman had left, I raced into the room. “What was that? What did she want?”
Now Nannie sank into her best chair. “Her name is Mrs. Rag-land. She grew up out on Pea Ridge Road. She must be close to ninety. I’ve heard of her all my life. I never thought I’d meet her.”
“What did she want? Why did she come?” I asked.
Nannie smiled and pulled me into her lap. “To give me a present.” She whispered in my ear, “She’s a rainmaker. The last one in the county. She came to offer me the gift.”
“Oh, Nannie, that’s wonderful. Isn’t it? You can do it. Can’t you?”
“Yes, Lamb. I might be able to. But I couldn’t stand up to that kind of responsibility. What if I made a mistake and our weather patterns turned out all sixes and sevens? She’ll find somebody else. But I thanked her for thinking of me. It was an honor.” She held me tight.
When Pappy was in town, he came to see Nannie every afternoon. They would visit in her bedroom, the only place she received family members with the exception of the front gallery. In good weather she and Pappy would sit in rocking chairs and watch people go by, remarking if anyone had a new car, its color, make, year, and how much it cost.
The living room was reserved for unexpected guests. Nannie considered it too cold and uninviting, and too large for an intimate get-together. Her room was just the opposite: fifteen by fifteen feet with two large windows overlooking the backyard and a big oak tree. It faced west so the afternoon sunlight streamed in, turning the white walls a soft yellow, sometimes burnt orange. A concrete sidewalk led from the back door beyond the property line to a small gingerbread-trimmed house, part of which had been the kitchen of the Big Place.
Nannie’s screen door had a checkerboard metal guard covering the lower half of it. I liked its perfect squares and the simple scrollwork across the top. Rowan Oak had one just like it. Nannie and Pappy may have purchased these “screen savers” at the same place. Her house was under construction in 1930 while his was being repaired and restored. The kitchen sinks in both houses were also identical: white porcelain with double drains on each side of the basin, separate hot and cold taps with “H” and “C” marked in black on the porcelain knobs.
The furnishings were sparse but comfortable: a single bed with a wrought-iron bedstead facing the windows and a night table beside it with a brass crook-necked lamp within easy reach.* A wooden bookcase with glass doors stood against the north wall and was filled with books that she loved: signed first editions of William’s and John’s works, a set of Rex Stout mysteries, and Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim. She had a marble-topped oak dresser with a gilt-framed mirror hanging above it. We all knew that the upper left-hand drawer held her “secret treasures,” mementos of the people she loved. There was a postcard that Dean had sent her from Boy Scout camp in Waterford, Mississippi, asking her to bring him his baseball glove; a red rock shaped like a heart that Jimmy had found; a delicate lace handkerchief monogrammed with Nannie’s initials that Auntee had given her; a nickel I once picked up off the street and slipped into her pocket. Years later, in December 1950, soon after Pappy had returned from Stockholm, she would open the left-hand drawer to find a Nobel Prize medallion nestled in a velvet-lined case.
The right-hand drawer held her fans, at least fifteen beautiful ones that folded out to reveal hand-painted scenes on silk or parchment and staves of carved ivory, some inlaid with pearl. They came from all over the world. Everyone knew that the one gift that never failed to please Nannie was yet another folding fan. In warm weather she used them every day, opening them with a flick of her wrist, snapping them shut with a crack, gesturing regally.
Her bedroom had two rocking chairs and it had a small wooden chest that was just right for me to sit on. One wall was lined with her paintings, including three of her sons in profile, each done when the boys were seven. In winter it was the warmest room in the house due in part to its western exposure and because it was located directly over the coal-burning furnace, which she stoked daily. Yet the real warmth radiated from Nannie. This was her nest, her favorite place. There was no painting of Dean.
In support of the war effort we saved tin foil by stripping it off chewing gum wrappers and mashing it into balls (though none of us were allowed to chew gum in the house). We also saved bits and pieces of string that Nannie wound into large balls. Nannie and Auntee were rarely without their knitting needles, making socks and sweaters to send to the troops.
At forty-four, Jack was determined to reenlist in the army. Initially rejected for being too old, he managed through his FBI connections to get a wartime commission as a captain in Military Intelligence. It was supposed to be a desk job, but he wrangled a combat assignment just in time for the invasion of Sicily.
Pappy was jealous of Jack’s WWII commission, I think, though he said nothing. He tried to enlist in the navy but was rejected because of his age. So he volunteered for the civil air patrol as an “air raid warden.” He put on his official armband every night and patrolled the neighborhood. A blackout was in effect. Any sliver of light could provide a beacon for German or Japanese bombers. The fear of invasion in 1942 and ’43 was very real.
Sometimes Pappy allowed me to accompany him on patrol. We began by inspecting Miss Kate Baker’s* house, next to Rowan Oak. The night Pappy spotted a bit of light escaping beneath the shade of a window, he knocked. We waited. Miss Kate was not surprised to see us at her door. This happened once a week. She smiled when Pappy dutifully warned her that he saw light at the window. She went to close the shade while he gave instructions from outside. Miss Kate winked at me and said she was glad we had stopped by. Wouldn’t we stay for cake and coffee? No, no, Pappy replied. We had rounds to make. I shrugged, wishing I could have some cake, yet intensely pleased with myself for serving my country.
War news was a standard feature at the movies. During the summer months Nannie and Auntee took me to the picture show almost every night at Oxford’s Lyric Theatre. We would cheerfully watch the same movie three times in a row, or at least I did. Theater owner Bob Williams was mayor of Oxford and Auntee’s son-in-law. He let Nannie and Auntee in for free, but I had to buy a ticket, which cost ten cents. Nannie paid. Nannie and Auntee would seat me between them to keep me from fidgeting. They knitted the whole time, needles clacking in the flickering light. One unforgettable night, a newsreel about the invasion of Sicily came on. Nannie abruptly jumped up and shouted, “That’s my Jackie! Bob, run it back!” I looked, and sure enough there was my uncle Jack in army uniform, a .45 pistol in his hand, wading ashore with the invading troops. My cousin-in-law Bob—who not only owned the Lyric but ran the ticket booth, made the popcorn, and served as projectionist—dutifully rewound the film by hand, turning the reels so that “my Jackie” walked backward in slow motion to the landing craft, then at great speed invaded Sicily over and over again. Clack, clack, clack went Nannie and Auntee’s knitting needles, keeping time with the troops and somehow never missing a beat or dropping a stitch. By the third or fourth invasion the audience was on their feet clapping and cheering “That’s our Jackie!” until finally Nannie had seen enough. As we walked home that night, I felt completely safe and secure. Jack had saved Sicily from the Nazis and Pappy would save us from the Japanese.
Everyone was a patriot in those days. Pappy and Aunt Estelle put in a “Victory Garden” at Rowan Oak—a kitchen garden on the east lawn with tomatoes, okra, and string beans, and a much larger one next to Chrissie Price’s cabin with corn, squash, potatoes, black-eyed peas, and butter beans. Neighbors—including professors at Ole Miss—volunteered to hoe and weed. At harvest time they returned to pick the vegetables. Aunt Estelle and Chrissie began canning. They bought mason jars by the case. The snapping, shelling, peeling, and paring went on every day. Steam from boiling pots of water fogged the kitchen. Jellies and jams, pear chutney, and quince preserves were Jill
and Estelle’s specialties. I liked the feel of a sharp kitchen knife that had been in use so long that the wooden handle was worn down in the middle of the shaft. I could peel tomatoes like an old hand, but my forte was tasting the jelly.
In January 1945, Wese, Jimmy, and I were living in Memphis. I volunteered to lead my third-grade class in a “save dimes and win the war” campaign. I was relentless in persuading first and second graders, and all the third graders smaller than I, to contribute a portion of their lunch money to me for Uncle Sam. My class won the citywide contest and I was chosen to make a sixty-second speech on WREC Radio. Standing on a little platform in front of the school, wearing my favorite Friday dress and speaking into a microphone, I addressed Memphis and vicinity in my best FDR imitation: “My fellow Americans, our dimes will give us victory overseas.”
As soon as school let out for the summer, Wese and I went to Oxford for several weeks. During that time I practically lived at Rowan Oak with Pappy’s daughter Jill and his step-granddaughter, Vicki. Jill’s favorite book that summer was Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural. She was bent on scaring Vicki and me senseless, and we were willing victims. Each night she would read horror stories out loud: “The Monkey’s Paw” and “Rats in the Walls.” When she tired of reading, we begged for more. (Years later I discovered that Pappy’s classic horror story, “A Rose for Emily,” was included in Great Tales. For some reason we did not read that one.)
Before going to sleep every night, Vicki and I chanted a stanza that we’d found on the frontispiece of Great Tales.
From Ghoulies and Ghosties
And Long-Legged Beasties
And Things that go Bump in the Night,
Good Lord deliver us!
JIMMY MEADOW JOINED the navy in the spring of 1945 and reported to basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Waukegan, Illinois. For once, he was not fired but instead was hired—by Uncle Sam. Wese and I joined him in Waukegan. From early June until V-J Day in August 1945, the three of us lived in a single room on the third floor of a Victorian house owned by a Swedish family. It was located on a cul-de-sac bordering a small park with swings and slides, and picnic tables under big old trees. In the center was a small gazebo where an all-female band played sing-along war tunes every Saturday night.
Our small living quarters and close space were not as bad as they might have been. The nightmares brought on by Great Tales of Terror made sleeping in the same room with anybody, even Jimmy, a relief. We had an ice chest and a hot plate. I lived on Cheerios, baked beans, and peanut butter sandwiches. Each evening we rode a bus downtown and met Jimmy at a USO center for supper. The food was good, plentiful, and free.
Jimmy was sober all summer, and I had a wonderful time, culminating with the delirium of V-J Day. Jimmy borrowed a car and drove us into Chicago. Wese and I stayed with friends in a fourth-floor hotel room, where we watched the mob below cheering and celebrating the victory over Japan in Chicago’s Loop. The next day, Wese took me to breakfast at a diner. We ordered eggs over easy. I ate four. The twelve-hour train ride back to Memphis was happy chaos, with soldiers and sailors laughing, singing, dancing in the aisles, toasting the victory.
Wese and I arrived in Memphis after midnight. Wese somehow got us into a taxi full of people going to the Peabody. I sat on a sailor’s lap. When we walked into the lobby, we saw that every chair and couch was occupied by sleeping men in uniform. There were no vacancies. I sensed Wese’s nervousness and exhaustion and her obvious relief when we heard a bellboy say, “Paging the lady with the little girl with braids … paging the lady …” He led us upstairs to the mezzanine where one large couch was empty. We curled up together and slept till dawn.
*On the night she died, in 1960 at age eighty-nine, a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover was found on the bedside table.
*It’s an old southern tradition for children to call close adult family friends “Miss” or “Mister” with their given names as a sign of familiarity and respect.
FROM 1945 TO 1947, WESE, JIMMY, AND I LIVED IN OXFORD with Jimmy’s mother, Letitia. “You may call me T,” was how she introduced herself to me, forming the letter with her hands.
My bedroom was the back room of the main house with a doorway that opened into our apartment. It was sparsely furnished with an old wrought-iron bed and a dresser with a mirror and stool. Hanging over the mantel of the coal-burning fireplace was a picture of “Lo, the Poor Indian” leaning dolefully on his lance. He was the last thing I saw every night for three years.
As I would later discover, T was something of a legend in Oxford. She dressed for her role as one of the town characters: shapeless housedresses in pastel colors, matching “scuffies” (bedroom slippers), and “hair bobs,” as she called the pink, blue, or pale green narrow strips of plastic—shower curtain material—with which she tied her abundant white tresses. Each night after playing the piano for an hour or so, she would retire with a bottle of Geritol and the latest issue of the Upper Room to her walk-in closet lit by a naked lightbulb dangling on a cord.
She and her husband, J. T. Meadow, lived two blocks from Nannie’s house on South Lamar. I was taught to call J.T. “Little Father.” He was vice president of the Bank of Oxford, a quiet-spoken, gentle man of small stature. He and T were staunch Presbyterians, so when I was old enough I was enrolled in a catechism class: a children’s study group led by a Sunday school teacher named Mrs. Gathright, who challenged us to memorize the Shorter Catechism before Easter, when we would become members of the church. We met once a week after school at Mrs. Gathright’s house. Armed with a near-photographic (trash-bin) memory and a competitive streak, I became an ardent catechism reciter: What-is-God?-A-spirit-infinite-eternal-unchangeable-in-His-Being-wisdom-power-holiness-justice-and-truth, I think. With not a clue what the words meant I could repeat them faster than anyone. As soon as the afternoon’s lesson was over, Mrs. Gathright would serve a chocolaty dessert with whipped cream topped by cherries and nuts. I did not miss a class.*
Jimmy once told me the story of his mother’s having caught him at age eight sneaking a puff of his father’s cigar. She wrapped him in a sheet, put a tinsel Christmas wreath around his head, sat him in a chair in their front yard in broad daylight, and made him smoke a cigar until he threw up. As a child I found the story weird and didn’t react one way or the other, but now I see that he may have been trying to explain his problems with alcohol, not to mention women.
T did all she could to protect us from Jimmy’s abuse. One night I awakened to the sight of her rushing through the French doors like an avenging angel, her long white hair streaming down the back of her pink flannel nightgown. She was barefoot and brandishing a poker. She stood over Jimmy, who was passed out on the floor, saying in a voice from hell, “If you hit Louise again, I’ll kill you.”
In addition to being our protector, T made the best chow-chow I’ve ever eaten.
A few times when Jimmy was drunk we went to stay with Mama and Papa Hale in the country while we waited for Wese to heal, physically and emotionally. It could take weeks, or it might take months. And then she would go back to him—or he would come pick her up, with me in tow. The abuse was never physical with me, but the psychological assaults have affected me for a lifetime. Jimmy planted the seed of doubt. What was I worth as a human being? Half of my world, the Faulkners and the Hales, said I was wonderful, while the other half relentlessly told me (“that goddamned Faulkner brat”) how much I lacked. The first time I heard the song “Anything You Can Do” from Annie Get Your Gun, I couldn’t get it out of my head and sang a duet with myself:
Anything you can do I can do better
I can do anything better than you.
We moved thirteen times in twelve years. I lived in Oxford, Clarksdale, Memphis, Little Rock, and Chicago. Frequently we relocated from one house to another in the same town. I was never told why but, of course, knew instinctively that Jimmy had been fired because of alcoholism. Many times I was unaware that we were moving
until I came home from school and my bed was gone.
Other times, I had plenty of warning. I would be awakened by drunken brawls in the night, screams and shouts of profanity, the crash of broken glass. I would rush out of my room in my nightgown to be confronted by my mother’s beautiful, battered face. In the morning I would be packed and sitting on our front steps ready to go when Pappy drove up. Sometimes Wese left with me, but most of the time she stayed behind to close down the house. The guilt I felt at leaving her would come later, when I was older.
Like all children, I was adaptable. I did not know it then, but I was learning how to “compartmentalize” my life. When we moved to Little Rock, where Jimmy was night editor at the Arkansas Gazette, I liked it fine. His work schedule suited our strange little family perfectly because shortly after I came home from school, Jimmy had to go to work. We were together only on weekends.
While we were in Little Rock, Billy Graham’s “Crusade for Christ” came to town. Jimmy was assigned to cover the Crusade. Though raised a Presbyterian, he was now a staunch skeptic. He attended two or three Graham services. The story he filed was a scathing critique. After it appeared in the Saturday Gazette, we were awakened early Sunday morning by what sounded like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir belting out “Onward Christian Soldiers” in front of our duplex. We peered out through the venetian blinds and saw the yard filled with fifty or sixty cross-bearing Christians. With the final “going on before,” their leader—not Graham, I was sorry to see—began to pray long and loud for our poor lost souls. Jimmy told us to dress quickly and get going through the back door to a neighbor’s house to wait out the holy storm.
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