by Janis Owens
So back to town we came, Michael smelling like a girl from the lotion, me feeling like one after Cassie’s two-second surgery, and Ira, undaunted by it all, chattering like a magpie.
To tell you the truth, it was so strange, cigarette burns and a strong reaction to an unseen back, that at the time, I didn’t pay much attention to Michael’s story. However, I was diverted enough from my own troubles to sneak to the window and press my ear to the fan and see what the larger community’s verdict would be, but found only Mama and Daddy there on the porch.
She was crying, Mama was, low, bone-wracking sobs that Daddy was trying to comfort, but she had a stuffy shake to her voice like she’d been crying for hours and planned to cry hours more before all was said and done. “Why does God allow it?” she kept asking. But Daddy was only repetitive, saying gently, over and over, “Hush sugar, the State’ll take care of it. You done what you could. Hush—”
But she would not be soothed and waited on the porch with a handkerchief balled in her fist till the gray car with the state tags pulled up around eleven the next morning, and then and only then, would she go inside.
I was in the backyard with Ira at the time, nailing shingles on the treehouse, somewhat recovered from the weekend tragedy (Cassie’s words, not Ira’s back, which only perplexed me), still sad and listless and damned, but trying to make a go of it, when Mrs. Sims interrupted our work, coming to the back door and calling Ira inside, then depositing Myra on the porch steps.
From my perch in the tree I could see that even that late in the morning, she was still in her gown, a pale blue one, polished batiste, the kind old grannies wore, except she didn’t look very grannie-like in it, she looked—I couldn’t have told you how she looked. All I could have said was that it was just her, Myra Sims, my good friend Ira’s spoiled little sister, sitting there on the back porch steps with her knees to her chest, not looking like herself, but not looking grannie-like either, despite the gown. Then finally I realized the difference: it was her hair. It was unbraided for once, unraveling in tiny krimps below her elbows, and for the first time, I saw it in the direct sun and noted that it wasn’t brown at all, it was red. Deep auburn, the color of something—I couldn’t have told you that, either, as I set my hammer down and dropped to the ground, inching to the fence, afraid I’d scare her, for she had not seen me, not yet.
“Hey,” I finally called when I was within speaking distance. She was startled at first, but quickly calm when she saw it was only me, not at all embarrassed at being seen outside in her gown, only smiling a very kind, very sweet smile, saying, “Hey Gabrielle.”
I don’t know why she called me that, no one ever called me anything but Gabe, and she stretched it out to three syllables, so it sounded like Gay-bree-elle.
Well, what can I say? I was charmed and crept closer, leaning on the fence with studied nonchalance, casting about for an opener and coming up with something tried and true, asking her what was up at school.
But she didn’t have a chance to answer, her mother was suddenly at the door, calling her inside in a harsh, frightened voice, and to my great teeth-gnashing despair, it was the last time I saw her for many weeks. Apparently, Mama’s call to the public health nurse had embroiled the Sims in a child abuse investigation, and though we could see no actual results in terms of a healthier-looking Ira, Mr. Sims now hated our guts and refused to let either of his children leave the house. It was a cruel, calculated move, one the public health authorities did not challenge, though on the rare occasions we saw Ira, he was horribly emaciated, his eyes sunk deep in his head, but his smile still jaunty, as if spending twenty-four hours a day under the same eight-hundred-square-foot roof was all a matter of routine course.
As for Myra, I could only catch infrequent, unanswered glimpses of her till August finally crept by and September was upon us, when we could walk to school together while the Old Man was out of sight—nursing a hangover or at work unloading luggage at the bus station. I found if I timed it just right, I could usually manage to walk more or less at her side, careful to maintain a casual discretion, for until now, the other boys had been as foolish as I in overlooking her charm, and I wasn’t too eager for the competition since they were growing more experienced by the week at the hands of Cassie Lea while I remained as untouched as a nun.
Not that we talked as we strolled along. That had been strictly forbidden by the Old Man, and Myra and Ira were nothing if not obedient, but just being there at her side was enough. In fact, after Cassie’s hard words, a passive, voiceless girl with red hair and a sweet curved face was my idea of The Perfect Woman, and by Halloween, I was almost sick with love. Drunk with it. Eaten alive. Every morning at five o’clock sharp, I’d wake suddenly in the silent chill of the old frame house and lie perfectly still, my eyes following every tick of the clock till it would finally ring at seven, when I’d jump up and dress and whip through breakfast so I could be on the porch by seven-thirty, casually falling into step with Ira and his sister, saying “hey” very pleasantly, politely ignoring their inability to reply. I’d accept Ira’s skeletal grin and Myra’s shy, downcast eyes without missing a step, knowing in my heart that if she’d been allowed to speak, she’d have lifted her sweet face and said: “Hey, Gay-bree-elle.”
But she couldn’t and wouldn’t till sometime after Christmas, Christmas of ’61 or 2, when my mother had finally had enough. For six months she’d waited on the State to do its duty, then, being the consummate guerrilla fighter she is, abruptly shifted tactics. And though she never changed her opinion of either of the adult Sims, referring to them privately as “that woman what lives next door” and “that thang she lets lay up over there,” to the casual observer she became their very best friend in the world. “Bent over backwards” is one way of putting it. “Held her mouth right” is another.
It was the box that did it.
On Christmas Eve, she’d seen Old Man Sims come home with a box, a large, obviously present box, and throughout our Christmas Eve feast, Mama had repeatedly expressed a heartfelt desire that box enclose a gift for poor Ira.
Well, she should have known better, and sure enough, bright and early Christmas morning, Old Man Sims was out on Lafayette, pushing Myra around on a brand-new, fire-engine-red two-wheeler while Ira sat on the curb and stared. I joined him there, trying to be happy for her, though the idea of walking to school with a grinning, silent Ira while Myra flashed by on a red bike was a powerful burden to bear, and I abandoned my walkie-talkies and Mad magazines to take to my bed with a stomachache from sheer angst.
Mama took to her own bed later in the day after she went out to throw the torn wrapping paper and finished bows into the burn barrel and saw Ira across the fence in his backyard, playing with the big box Myra’s bike had come in. She watched him in silence, shaking her head, probably again reflecting on the nature of God, but when he saw her watching him, Ira jumped up and broke his five-month forced silence to point proudly at the box. “Look a-here what I got me for Christmas, Sister Catts,” he said without a shred of irony. “Got it bran’ new. Come from Sears.”
And poor Mama, it almost unhinged her mind. She was country Baptist, the kind that celebrated Christmas with a vengeance bordering on insanity, selling her soul on credit to the Dollar Store and Western Auto to make sure her children had a tree and a turkey and a few wrapped presents. And there Ira stood, so very proud of his box.
Well, Old Man Sims had his way that Christmas, but every dog has his day, they say, and after a few more tears on the porch over why God let things like this happen, Mama proved her skill as a minister’s daughter who’d learned to live with more than one congregation of fickle Baptists.
The next morning she was out in the yard before breakfast, cutting back her roses, her hair tied up prettily in a bandana, and the moment Mr. Sims showed his face on the porch, she called over gaily, “Why, good morning, Mister Sims. Thet was a mighty pretty bicycle you got your girl Myra. Just where did you get it, I was wanting to know. M
y boy Michael’s been a-wanting one.”
The Old Man knew everyone on Magnolia Hill hated him for what he’d done to Ira and had paused a moment in stunned amazement, then ducked by, ignoring her in a flat snub that deterred Mama not in the least. She was a Baptist with a mission, and every morning or afternoon when she knew Mr. Sims would be coming or going would make it her business to be on the porch or in the yard, a smile fixed on her small, pretty face, her voice smooth as silk. Sometimes it was the routine (“Why it’s coming up a cloud, I do believe—”), sometimes, blatant flattery (“Yessir, that baby a yours, thet Myra, she’s just pretty as she can be—”), and by Easter, tensions had eased to the point that Ira was once again a fixture at our table, much as before, consuming rice and potatoes like a machine, and since he’d seen his back, Daddy never told him to hush anymore, no matter how much he talked.
And though Myra never again walked to school at my side, she was again allowed outdoors, and in the six-month exile, she seemed to have blossomed from a faint childhood prettiness to the very early signs of a serious, head-turning beauty. Suddenly, every boy on the block was Ira’s best friend, and the Sims’ front porch—where Myra would sometimes sit and watch the sunset—a popular hangout. And though Myra herself seldom spoke, we could have cared less; she was the queen and we were her slaves, and if she’d have told us to eat dirt, we’d have been knocking on Mama’s kitchen door, asking to borrow spoons.
Among ourselves, we frequently discussed whom she favored, but it was Jack Krane, a skinny boy new to Magnolia Hill by way of Tuscaloosa who considered himself a fair hand with the ladies, who pressed the question. After a night of kissing Cassie during a missionary film, he was brazen enough to ask it right out loud, right in front of everyone. The rest of us froze, but Myra only continued to kick her heels on the edge of the porch, her eyes on the mauve sky, consciously or unconsciously ignoring this bit of confrontation.
But old Ira, he was there too and, not being anyone’s fool, could see his newfound popularity had more than a little to do with his sister and, being the natural survivor he was, began playing it up, making the most of it. Drawing his dirty feet under him, he answered Jack in a playful, sing-song voice, his eyes cutting aside to Myra’s downcast face.
“Naw, Jack,” he said, “she doan love you.”
Jack, of course, tried to argue, but Ira’s voice was still light, making a game of it for the entertainment of all his dear new friends. “She doan love no Alabama boys.”
Still, Myra’s face was averted, and Ira began making his way across the porch on tiptoe, teasing her slyly. “Myra doan love no brown-haired boys. She doan love no baseball-playing boys.”
Well, that cut just about everyone but me and Benny, a redhead, and Albert, a black-haired third cousin of mine, and I could feel my heart beating in my neck as Ira continued his little dance over to his sister.
“Naw, Myra likes her boys sweet. She like sissy-boys, dontchu, Myra?”
She still gave no indication she’d heard a word he’d said, but I was thanking God fast and furiously for my light hair, my reputation as an athletic non-starter, even my Truman Capote leanings, when Ira finally clinched it with a toe prod to Myra’s leg and a wink.
“Myra doan like boys at all, she likes angels, dontchu, sweetpea? Writes their name all over the closet.”
Well, it was me. Undoubtedly, unexpectedly me, beating out a dozen faster, taller boys: boys who’d kissed a girl who wore a two-piece, boys who’d done more than kiss her, if you believed their talk, and my face was suddenly as red as a beet. But Myra’s was even redder, almost scarlet as she looked up and met my eye in one panicked flash, and there was no doubt at all Ira was telling the truth. Singing it, in fact, as he pranced around the porch: “Myra and Ga-habe, sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G—”
The other boys joined in with relish, trying to vent the pain of rejection by dishing out a little humiliation, and though I made a face of great disgust and told them what idiots they were, it was the sweetest little tune I’d ever heard in my life. After a few swings at her brother, Myra retreated inside, and the other boys wandered off to join a late baseball game at the corner, but I had plans of my own right there on Lafayette and retired to the backyard with all the infinite patience of a hundred-and-thirty-pound spider.
I knew she’d be out, she had to be out (they had an outhouse, remember), and just before full dark descended, my perseverance paid off when the back door opened and she went down the path. I stationed myself at the fence so I could face her on her return trip and tell her not to worry, that I loved her too, but my eagerness seemed to scare her off, and she ignored me completely, hurrying up the steps without a word and closing the back door firmly behind her.
I was disappointed, of course, but not crushed, deciding Myra was not only beautiful, but a lady of rare refinement, and the next morning, a Saturday in late January, the air crisp and Florida-cold, I tried a gentler approach, reading with my back against the old sweetgum tree, creating what I hoped was an air of friendly indifference. The book in my hands was my all-time favorite, Gone with the Wind, and I hoped she noted the size, for I’d read it twice already and was to Reconstruction the third time around, an accomplishment that stunned and amazed my family to the degree that rumor of my superior intellect was circulating nightly through the porch grapevine.
But again, she passed by without a word, and I was afraid my strategy had erred on the side of subtlety, when she paused on the bottom step and, after a moment, turned, and in a thin, country voice, asked, “Gabrielle? Whatchu readin’ there?”
With a yawn and a small stretch, I laid the book against my chest. “Gone with the Wind,” I said; then, slyly, “It’s to the good part now. Scarlett’s back at Tara. In a minute she’s gone shoot this Yankee in the face.” I paused, then threw out the real kicker as if in afterthought, “I remember from the last time.”
It took a moment for the implication of this enormous revelation to sink in. Then Myra’s eyes widened. “You read it before? That big ole thang?”
“Oh sure,” I said with modest deprecation; then after a moment, “Well, actually I read it twict”.
I could tell by her look of blank amazement that the matter of my good sense would never be an issue between us; that I’d nailed that one down for good, and after a moment, she murmured, “What in the world’s it about?”
“The Civil War,” I replied with oily confidence, as this was another area of my expertise, but she only retained that blank stare and asked without shame, “What’s thet?”
“The Civil War?” I asked incredulously, for around our house it was a subject only slightly less revered than the Resurrection, and when I determined her ignorance was genuine, I sought to rectify the matter with a two-hour sermon on the Gospel according to Margaret Mitchell.
“All this,” I began, waving my arms to encompass the orange-sand yards, the thin rusted wire of the fence, “use to be plantations. White people lived here growing cotton and whatall, and the niggers were our slaves. They did the work while people like us had barbecues and dainces and things.”
I daresay it was as pretty a little fiction as was ever conceived on the hard ridge of survival known as Magnolia Hill, but Myra was charmed by it all and never tired of hearing of life way down yonder in the land of cotton. All winter long and into another azure summer, the mimosa scenting the air sweetly, like light powder, we’d sit across the pig wire fence, sometimes eating cookies I sneaked from Mama’s kitchen or reading aloud, but usually just talking. Me doing most of it, occasionally standing to emphasize a point or draw maps in the dirt, and when I’d exhausted the Cause, I expanded to tell her of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, finding her a good listener, her eyes quiet and distant, the color of dark, still water.
Now I was a born historian, but I think it was during these evening lectures in my backyard in the summer of ‘62 that the seeds were sown for my life’s work as a revisionist, for I was still deathly in love
and felt no compunction at all in reorganizing the facts a little when it suited me. Napoleon, I told her, was short, blonde and stocky, and while I left Scarlett pretty much intact, Rhett became the golden blonde and Ashley took on the black hair and the mustache. Myra never questioned me, never, for my hard-headed obsessions seemed to have overwhelmed her, and it was only when autumn had come around again, the warm smell of burning leaves softening the sharp evening chill, that I grew confident enough of my disciple to let her lead the play a little more.
Well, she was beautiful, she was priceless, she was the heart of my heart, but she was still just a girl, and I found her taste ran to the childishly mundane, mostly hopscotch and house. But I was man enough to go along with it, and late one afternoon, it must have still been autumn as the cold had not yet driven us indoors, I set about designing her a truly tremendous hopscotch board in the dirt under the old sweetgum by pointing over the fence with a stick. What had begun as a spur-of-the-moment idea had stretched into an afternoon project, since either my directions were faulty, or Myra’s grasp of geometry inadequate, and no matter how carefully I told her to draw a circle, a cir-cle, Myra, a circle, she’d eagerly scratch out a rectangle or a square, then look at me expectantly. Tedious, it was, but I never lost my temper, for as I have said, I can be a regular fountainhead of patience when it suits me, and finally, the noon sun long gone, the cold shadows of early twilight upon us, she was finished, her knees red from the sand, her hair unraveling from its tight braid, but there at her feet, a truly remarkable eighteen-square hopscotch board.
“Now, go and getchure rock,” I told her, my elbows on the fence, my pointer stick tapping the yard. “Make sure it’s flat. A roundun’ll roll.”