Full Cry

by Rita Mae Brown

  She had had fourteen years with a boy of uncommon good humor and generosity. Little Ray loved animals, loved sleeping with kitties, loved falling down in the kennels as the hounds swarmed over him, licking him. He gurgled to the horses even when he was in his mother’s arms. He kissed their soft noses and laughed if they blew air out of their nostrils. He held her hand when they walked, even into his fourteenth year. He kissed his father without embarrassment. He hugged his friends, boys and girls, without thinking twice about it. His path was physical, touching, connecting through flesh. He showed his love by touching your arm, smoothing a hound’s head, patting a horse’s hindquarters. Like all happy people, Little Ray was a magnet to others, as well as animals.

  She loved him even when he committed the childhood sins we all commit—telling that first lie, stealing a candy bar from Roger’s Corner, doing someone else’s homework. Ray always polished off his homework in record time. When he erred, she’d discipline him, and Big Ray would back her up. Then, when the first flush of puberty showed on her son’s cheeks, father and son drew much closer. The minutiae of masculinity is best taught by a loving father, which Big Ray was.

  He showed his son the difference between a regular tie knot and a Prince of Wales. He instructed his son in the duties and courtesies due women. Given that they lived in central Virginia, of course, this process had really begun when the boy was a toddler.

  Southern men, especially Virginians, adhere to a strict code concerning the ladies. Doesn’t mean they can’t keep a harem busy, but the proper tokens and forms must be observed.

  Both parents worried about sex. Young Ray hadn’t quite gotten to that yet; his voice was only beginning to crack when he was killed. But she and her husband wondered what would happen because he was so affectionate and loving. They worried that he’d be misunderstood, and they worried that he wouldn’t understand himself. Learning about sex, love, lust, and friendship with the opposite sex takes restraint, compassion, and a wealth of common sense. There’s not one of us who doesn’t learn a few of those lessons the hard way. They prayed the hard way wouldn’t mean a baby born out of wedlock.

  One of the great things about her husband was that they could talk about anything, anything, even their affairs, if it came down to that. Usually it didn’t, but on those occasions when it did, they evidenced a rare understanding of each other. They agreed if their son fathered a child before he was ready to be married, they would take care of it and make young Ray fully aware that he must provide financial assistance to the mother if she wouldn’t give him the child. Big Ray summed it up, “You play, you pay.”

  When Little Ray’s flapping T-shirt tail got caught in the tractor PTO, the power transfer axle, choking the life out of him in seconds, he had never slept with a woman. That haunted Sister. She wished he had known the richness, the power, even the fear of that connection. He died a virgin. His death caused slashing grief among his classmates and friends, among the members of the hunt club. The hounds, his horses, his beloved cats, all mourned him as deeply as his parents. Their mute suffering tore out Sister’s heart. For three months after his son’s death Big Ray couldn’t go past Tijuana, young Ray’s favorite hunter, without bursting into tears.

  On Little Ray’s forty-fourth birthday, gunmetal gray clouds swung down from the mountains. Athena brazenly sat in front of the stable in the big pin oak, Bitsy on the branch beneath her. The two owls made crackling cackling sounds at each other. Sister noticed them when she looked out the kennel window.

  Sister remembered odd bits of information. When Ray was born, she flipped through history date books, delighted to find that Julius Caesar had beaten Kingjuba II in 46 B.C., J. E. B. Stuart had been born on that day in 1833. As Stuart remains the beau ideal of the cavalryman to this day, February 6 seemed a good omen.

  Sister had reached the point in her life when she was able to thank God that she had fourteen years with her remarkable son. She’d learned, in her own quiet way, to trust the good Lord. It had been her son’s time.

  Shaker dripped in water tracks from his rubber boots as he stepped into the kennel office. “Dragon can go Saturday.”

  “Good.”

  They’d exhausted the Westminster Dog Show as a topic. The show had ended Tuesday, but being hound people, they had to discuss it in minute detail for days running. And there was a ripe disagreement about who won, who was reserve, et cetera. Needless to say, a hound did not win Best in Show.

  “Boss, I know this is Ray Jr.”s birthday. Anything I can do for you?“

  “Shaker, you’re good to think of me. No. Just the fact that you remembered makes it a better day. I was lucky to have him.”

  “He was lucky to have you.”

  Later, when she arrived back at the house, she found a huge bouquet from Gray. The card simply read, “Love is eternal.”

  That brought tears to her eyes.

  The biggest surprise of the day was when she took a break from chores for four o’clock tea. A new Lexus SUV pulled into the driveway, disgorging Ronnie, Xavier, and Clay.

  They stamped in the mudroom door just as they had as boys. Ronnie carried champagne, Clay a hamper basket of treats, and Xavier gingerly held an arrangement of white long-stem roses interspersed with lavender.

  They burst through the door, calling, “Hi, Mom.”

  Each one kissed her, gave her his present, then plopped at the kitchen table.

  She poured the champagne, put out sandwiches, whatever she had. They sat down as they did when they would follow behind Ray Jr., like so many railroad cars hitched to his engine.

  After she cried a bit and wiped her eyes, they sat, remembering, laughing, eating.

  Ronnie wistfully glanced around the country kitchen. “Where does the time go? Wasn’t it Francois Villain who wrote, ”Where o where are the snows of yesteryear?“ It was the 1400s when he wrote that.”

  “The snows of yesteryear are right here,” Clay, not being poetic, replied.

  “Are you going to give us a lecture about evaporation and condensation and how there might be a molecule that once belonged to George Washington in that glass of champagne?” Ronnie rolled his eyes.

  “Molecule belonged to Francois Villain.” X winked. “From France.”

  “Clever, these insurance agents are clever. Hey, I remember when you were dying, and I mean dying, in Algebra I. Rayray bailed you out.”

  X turned beet red. “No need to bore Sister with that story, Clay.”

  “Ah-ha!” Clay put his sandwich on his plate, thumbprint on the bread. “X sat in front, Rayray behind. Passed him the answers to the tests.”

  Sister feigned shock. “X!”

  “Makes you wonder about having him as your insurance agent, doesn’t it?” Ronnie giggled.

  “If it has a dollar sign in front of it, X is Einstein,” Clay said, a hint of sharpness in his voice.

  “If it has a dollar sign in front of it, Dee does the work. Give me credit, I married a woman smarter than myself.”

  “Not hard to do.” Ronnie laughed.

  “I could be really ugly right now.” X dismissed him with a wave of his hand.

  “I’ll be ugly for you, Ronnie, since we know you aren’t going to marry for love, why don’t you woo some rich old widow? Think of the good you could then do for the hunt club?” Clay nodded in Sister’s direction.

  “Yeah, Ronnie, you could always lash it to a pencil.” X laughed, then realized he was sitting with Sister. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize to me, I’ve said worse; you just never heard it. And you all used to say the grossest things when you were kids.” She put her hand on her stomach. “Makes that show Jackass, look tame.”

  “You’ve watched that?” X was amazed.

  “I’m trying to keep current with popular culture.”

  “Hardly culture.” Ronnie sighed.

  “A phase, grossness. Girls do it, too,” Clay said. “But since girls don’t make movies, for the most part, or shall I say movies are m
ade for teenage boys, we don’t see it. Bet you were gross, too, Sister.”

  Sister replied, “You forget how much older I am than you all. It was strict when I grew up. I could have matriculated to West Point and felt right at home, course they didn’t take girls then, but I thought about things gross and otherwise. Didn’t show it.”

  “Ever wonder where Ray would have gone to school?” X asked.

  “Sure.” She drank some champagne. “Princeton or Stanford. But you know, he was leaning toward the fine arts, driving his father crazy. I don’t know, maybe he would have gone somewhere else. What do you all think?”

  “Bowdoin,” Clay said. “He would have loved Maine.”

  “Colorado State,” Ronnie pitched in. “I think he would have gone west, but wound up in veterinary medicine or something like that. And he was a good athlete. He would have played football. Bet you.”

  X shook his head. “Princeton. He would have followed his father to Princeton. And he would have played football there, baseball, too. Maybe lacrosse. Do they have lacrosse at Princeton?”

  “Even if they do, if you want to play lacrosse, you go to Virginia, Maryland, or Johns Hopkins.” Clay spoke with certainty.

  “Johns Hopkins is a good school,” Sister said thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t have minded that, and it’s closer than Princeton or Stanford.” She paused. “What a joy to have you all here.”

  “We never forget you.” Ronnie smiled.

  They always remembered Ray Jr.“s birthday in one fashion or another. They remembered his death day, too, each calling Sister to tell her he was thinking of her. Tedi and Betty always called or dropped by as well.

  The boys, for Sister thought of them as “the boys,” grew louder, more raucous. They argued about the NBA, dismissed the Super Bowl, which had just been played. They looked forward to baseball season. They talked horses, fixtures, other people in the hunt field.

  “Think Crawford will cough up enough for you to hire someone else, really?” Clay asked.

  “Urn… if we make this a club effort, I think he’ll contribute more than his share,” Sister replied judiciously. “But if anyone pressures him, he’ll get angry and I won’t blame him. He’s hit up all the time.”

  “True.” Clay sipped the coffee that Sister had made to accompany the champagne and sandwiches. “You make the best coffee. Wish I could teach Izzy how you do it.”

  “Patience and good beans.” She laughed.

  “You know that brass coffee maker Crawford has in his tack room? That thing cost over five thousand dollars. Imported from Italy.” Ronnie relayed this with amazement.

  “Does his coffee taste any better than Sister’s?” X’s eyebrows, some gray in them now, rose.

  “No,” Ronnie answered firmly. “No one makes coffee as good as Sister.”

  “Ronnie, back to the subject of your marriage.” Sister surprised them all by this. “You don’t even have to marry some rich old broad to make me happy. I want to see you happy, and I know, if you’ll relax and let us love you, you’ll find the right man.”

  A silence followed.

  X chuckled. “As long as it’s not me.”

  “For Crissakes, X, you’re so fat, even if I loved you and wanted you, I couldn’t find it, you know?”

  They roared, even X.

  “Ronnie needs someone. We all need someone.” Clay dabbed his mouth with the napkin. “But I don’t think we have any other gay men in the club. Or at least, that we know about.”

  “We don’t,” Ronnie answered grimly.

  “Well, Ron, you can’t have someone in your life who isn’t a fox-hunter.” Sister was firm. “We’ll keep our eyes open at other hunts.”

  “Guys, I can do this on my own.”

  “You’ve done a piss-poor job of it so far.” X snorted. “I can count on the fingers of one hand the affairs I know you’ve had. Not counting one-night stands.”

  “Do we have to get into this?”

  “I’m fascinated.” Sister’s eyes sparkled.

  “Yeah, we do. If Rayray were alive, he’d be right here with us, pushing you on.” Clay drained his champagne glass.

  With four of them on a bottle, there was little left, even though Sister drank lightly. She got up, pulled a bottle out of the fridge, and handed it to X, who opened it. She always kept a bottle of champagne, a bottle of white wine, and a six-pack of beer in the fridge for guests.

  “Okay, okay,” Ronnie ‘fessed up. “My walks on the wild side were furtive and unsatisfying. It’s a different day now. You all know who and what I am. I gave up hiding and lying. Maybe I will find a good man.”

  “A good man who rides hard,” X corrected him.

  “A hard man who rides good,” Sister mischievously added.

  They laughed.

  After the boys killed the second bottle, they readied to leave. Wives waited. It was Friday night, and both X and Clay faced social obligations. Ronnie had a church vestry meeting, and then he’d join X and Dee at a small dinner the Vajays planned.

  As they gathered their coats, Sister nonchalantly said to all, “Fellas, I’m no spring chicken, so I’ve been doing research about human growth hormone. What do you think about my asking Dalton Hill to bring me some from Canada? I can’t get it here. I want to try it.”

  “I wouldn’t mind either,” Ronnie chimed in, “but you look great. You don’t have to take anything.”

  “The Wall Street Journal carried an article about it June 2003, I think.” X’s brows furrowed. “I’m interested in it myself.”

  “Supposed to help you with muscle, lean muscle,” Sister said.

  “Don’t talk to Dalton Hill.” Clay held up his hands. “He is so goddamned fussy. He’s the last person to talk to about something like that.”

  “Well, he is a doctor, and he is Canadian. He can get it up there,” she insisted.

  “Not him. Really. Let me think about it.” Clay smiled. “It’s like everything else in the world. If there’s a market for it, then there’s a way.”

  “A huge market, I’d think.” Ronnie clearly had no idea what was going on or why Sister was throwing out a baited hook.

  She had done her research about HGH. If she could get it, she would. That wasn’t her purpose though, and she wondered if she was right to do this. Too late now.

  “Clay, you think Dalton is ‘prissy,” for lack of a better word? You think he’d be offended?“

  “He’d go off about stuff being illegal in the United States. But maybe you could get a referral from him and fly to Toronto.” Clay’s voice kept even. “That’s better than risking, well, you know.”

  “I’ve read where you can buy it online, out of the county, but online.”

  “You can,” Clay spoke again, a bit more volume, “but you don’t know what that is. How do you know it wasn’t harvested from monkey glands? You don’t want that. How do you know it wasn’t taken from the pituitary gland of someone who died of AIDS? Come on, now, if you’re determined to do this, you have to be careful. You have to find medical-grade HGH. None of this online stuff. You’re much too valuable to us.”

  “I’m so glad I brought this up. I’ve been a little embarrassed to bring it up with Tedi or Betty.”

  “Well, Tedi could buy the entire laboratory,” Ronnie interjected. “She’d take it if she knew about it. Even if she already looks like a million bucks.”

  “Never tell a billionaire she looks like a million bucks.” Clay punched Ronnie.

  “Now, now, Tedi doesn’t have a billion dollars,” Sister gently chided him.

  “Triple digit millions,” Clay said, pulling on his coat.

  “More power to her.” X bore no one the least amount of envy.

  “Clay, instead of Wake Forest, you should have gone to Columbia or New York University, one of those northern schools full of rich kids,” Ronnie teased him.

  “Damn straight. Yankees taught me the value of money by keeping it all to themselves. But, hey, I learned a lot at Wake. I’ll be
a Deacon until I die.”

  “Actually, Clay, I think your father taught you the value of money,” Sister gently inserted this observation.